“I’m done.” Ben audibly pushes away from his wife and stomps across his living room. “Evie, leave her alone! Nora, you don’t have to date Garret.”
“I didn’t need your permission,” I call back. “But thanks. Evelyn… No thanks. No to Toby, no to the guy with boogers, no to the guy with the roundhouse. No, no, no. I don’t want a man. I want my dog, my chocolate, and some peace and quiet.”
“You’re annoying,” she huffs.
“Pot, meet kettle. Goodnight, Evelyn. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Come to breakfast.”
“I’d rather n—”
“Awesome! We’ll see you at six. We have to be up and out early for training, so don’t be late.”
“I hate you.”
Finally, I hear her smile. “We love you too. See you at breakfast. Enjoy that Mars bar.”
I bring it up and take a hefty bite. “Will do. Goodnight.”
“Nora!” she shouts before I can hang up. She knows me so well.
I bring the phone back to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Love you.”
I sigh and hate the odd slide of guilt that moves through my stomach. I was once the reason my best friends broke up. I was once the cause of all of Evie’s tears.
“Nora…”
“Love you too. Goodnight.”
As soon as she hangs up, I toss my phone across the couch and try to put as much distance between it and me as I can.
Evelyn Kincaid was once the scariest person I knew. She terrified me in high school, and claimed the boy I considered my best friend. She was obnoxious, and it would be a lie if I said I never wished for her to be hit by a bus on her way to school.
She was always so loud. Always so demanding. And she had my best friend following her with his eyes everywhere she went.
It’s not like I wanted him for myself. Not romantically. But he was still my friend.
My only friend.
And when she was around, he wasn’t mine anymore. He was hers, and she constantly shattered the glass that locked out the shitty world and all its noise. I like seclusion, I like quiet. I like being alone – completely alone, or alone with Ben – but as soon as she entered a room, he was no longer a part of my quiet world.
He was in hers, and hers was scary.
Well… that was before I knew what true terror meant.
Evie is still loud, and Ben is still hers – completely, and forever. But my world has been given a new perspective. High school girls no longer scare me, loud women no longer bother me.
When you’ve watched your big sister’s brutal execution, only a foot away from your face, so close that you wear her blood on your clothes, you learn to ignore the little things in life.
Evie Kincaid no longer terrifies me. Boys no longer intimidate me. Sanctioned fighting in an octagon no longer overwhelms me.
It’s all so silly when compared to the nightmares that wake me most nights.
My sister’s murderers are no longer living. My enemies are no longer free. I have nothing to worry about except for the attacks that my own subconscious slams down on me.
And to fight those, I need my monthly visits with my therapist. I need Galileo, my three-year-old Great Dane mutt. I need the security system my friends installed in my apartment and the halls that flow through this building, and on special occasions, I need the frozen candy bars I keep in my freezer.
Tonight I get one because I walked through the dark on my way home. I had Galileo with me every step, and I had Evie in my ear – the woman may be a pain in my ass, but she was my protector while I passed through the shadows.
Only to find that I seem to have a new neighbor, who has dropped so many plates in the ten minutes I’ve been home that I wonder how many meals they make between loads in the dishwasher. And knowing someone will be sleeping in such close proximity to me is almost enough to tempt me to the freezer for a second chocolate bar.
I’ve had no fourth-level neighbors for months. I should have caught their pending arrival already, I should have been notified. But no, because I was preparing for dinner with Toby, and paying more attention to Evie and her evil plans to marry me off, now that I’m approaching spinster-aunt status.
“Aw, fuck!”
I jump in my place on the couch at a man’s deep voice.