The Shadow Stealer (Silver Moon Saga Book 3) (4 page)

Hopefully it wouldn’t involve Rafe murdering Evan the moment the blond stepped foot inside my house.

Chapter Five

An hour later I was curled up in bed, flipping through one of Chloe’s fashion magazines, when I heard Dad’s car pull up into the driveway. Rafe had left shortly after agreeing to see Alex and Evan, even though I’d been sorely tempted to ask him to stay until Dad showed up. After being kidnapped, I didn’t enjoy being home alone, and now that I’d found out about Collins, I was really jumping at every little noise.

But Rafe had looked exhausted, so I let him go. Tomorrow was going to be a long day and we all needed as much rest as we could get. Despite what Rafe said, I knew he missed Evan. You can’t grow up with someone, share everything with that person and then bam, one day part ways without even saying goodbye. Not when you felt emotions as strongly as Rafe did. He could pretend he didn’t care, which is what he’d been doing for the past two months, but he wasn’t fooling me. I knew Rafe. I knew how much he wanted to see his best friend again.

I listened to Dad climb the stairs and called out a greeting as he paused in my doorway.

“Hey, sweetheart. How was work?” he asked.

“It sucked,” I said without skipping a beat. “But I went out to eat with Rafe, Phil, and Kain, so at least the entire night wasn’t ruined.”

“Phil and Kain came to visit again?” Dad had met the two shortly after the disaster in New York City. As far as he knew, they were old friends of Rafe’s from when Rafe used to live in the city. Dad liked them, and, bizarrely, Kain and my dad got along. Like, really got along. They watched football together, and there was even one time when they went bowling with Dad’s friends from the lodge. And Philip and I stayed home, watching TV. Wasn’t that weird? It was weird to me, but I seemed to be the only one who thought it was, so I shut up and let them have their male bonding time. I still thought my boyfriend should be the one going bowling with Dad (okay, no, that would be strange, too), but what did I know?

“Yep, they’re here. Guess Manhattan is too boring compared to upstate New York,” I cracked weakly, hugging one of my pillows to my chest. I hated lying to Dad, but what was I supposed to say?
“Oh, they’re here to make sure no one tries to kill me because of this strange power that’s inside of me, and they’re also keeping an eye on my still-recovering boyfriend?”

Dad knew Rafe had been injured, though. Things had been so crazy after I’d been kidnapped, and I still don’t know how we managed to pull off the lie of the century. It helped that Evan had used manipulation magic on Dad and Chloe to make them think I was stuck home with a cold while they visited Vermont without me. At least then I hadn’t had to come up with a cover story explaining my sudden absence. I’d spent a few days in the hospital, completely drained after healing Alexandra and refusing to leave Rafe’s side, but the doctors took forever to release him, so eventually I’d had to head back home without him. Not alone, though. Philip and Kain had come with me, spending the nights in my house until Dad and Chloe returned after New Year’s. Dad had been pretty shocked to find me with not one but two guys, and strangers at that, but Kain had smoothed things over with a little bit of subtle magic. That was something he still felt guilty about, especially now that he’d grown close with Dad, but we didn’t have any other choice. Then again, once we’d told Dad Rafe had been involved in a car accident, any reservations he’d been feeling had flown out the window. Lying sucked, but we had to tell him
something
to explain Rafe’s injuries.

“And how’s Rafe doing?” Dad asked, stepping into my room. He sat down on the edge of my bed, my mattress sinking under his weight. I put aside my magazine and crawled over so I could sit next to him. “Is he feeling better?”

Even though Dad was super overprotective of me, he still had a soft spot for Rafe. I think it was partly due to the fact that Rafe was an orphan, and partly because he saw how happy I was with Rafe. Dad knew Rafe treated me right, which to him was the most important thing a guy dating one of his daughters could do.

Well, that and keeping his hands to himself,
I thought dryly. God forbid we gave Dad a reason to pull out those kitchen knives, right?

“He’s…coping,” I said in response to Dad’s question. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something. Can I have everyone over tomorrow?”

“And who is everyone?”

“Rafe,” I said. “Obviously. Phil and Kain. And then Evan and this other girl… You haven’t met her yet.” And neither had I, not officially, anyway, but I kept that to myself. “She used to be Evan’s girlfriend, but they’ve been having problems.” Problems. As if it were something simple, instead of, you know, Evan betraying me and Rafe to bring Alexandra out of her coma. “I was hoping if the six of us got together, we could work through some of our issues.”
And try not to bring the house down in the process.
I winced, thinking about how each individual I was inviting had a problem with someone else in the group. Alexandra blamed Philip for the death of her brother, Evan and Kain couldn’t stand one another, and the last time Rafe had seen Evan, he’d promised to kill him.
Tomorrow is either going to be a horrible mess or a dangerous disaster. Should be fun!

Dad hesitated, and for a moment I feared he was going to say no. “I’m going to the office tomorrow to catch up on some work, and normally I’d say no, but…” His eyes searched my face, and I wondered what he was looking for. “Next month you’re going to be seventeen, nearly an adult, and I guess it’s time I started treating you like one.” Dad leaned forward, his brows narrowing slightly. “I won’t come home from the office and find a booze-filled party and orgy going on, right, Gabi?”

“Just an orgy,” I quipped, grinning when he made a face. “Come on, Dad, you know us. You can trust me.”

Serious, he said, “I do trust you. You’ve always been good. Your sister, on the other hand…” Dad spread his hands helplessly. “She
has
gotten better, though.”

“I know. It sucks. When she was bad, I could get away with a lot more.”

“
Gabi
.”

Laughing, I threw my arms around him and hugged him tightly. “Thanks, Dad. What you said means a lot to me. Sorry if I don’t always show it.”

“You’re welcome.” Dad patted me on the shoulder before standing up. “I hope this helps Rafe. He’s a good kid, and I hate to see him sad.”

“You and me both,” I murmured. “You and me both…”

***

I waited until Dad retired to his bedroom before reaching for my phone. After typing out a text, I paused, my finger hovering over the send button. I frowned. This wasn’t the sort of message someone should casually send via text. Screwing up my courage—although I didn’t know
what,
exactly, I was so nervous about—I deleted the text and hit the call button instead.

Half a ring later, Evan picked up. “What’s the matter? Did something happen to Rafe?”

I was taken aback by the frantic tone of his voice. “What? No! Why—”

“Why would I think that? Oh, maybe because I haven’t heard from either of you in two months.”

“Excuse me,” I snapped. “
You’re
the one who’s been avoiding
us
!”

“No I haven’t! I just figured Rafe needed some time to cool down, and I was giving him his space until he came around.”

Came around?
I resisted the urge to smack myself in the forehead. Two seconds into this conversation and I suddenly remembered why talking to Evan was always such a chore. “Okay, first of all, that’s called
avoiding
him. Second of all, what about
me
? I told you I forgave you for the crap you pulled, but you’re not talking to me, either!”

“Yeaaaaaah.” Evan extended the word, making it seven syllables long. “The thing is, I was afraid to call you. What if Rafe was with you and saw my name come up on your screen?”

I stretched out in bed, trying to find a more comfortable position as I readjusted my pillows. “And what, you were afraid he was going to jump into my phone and magically transport to wherever you were and kill you? God, Evan! I never knew you were such a coward!”

Silence. I knew he was still there because I could hear him breathing, but when he didn’t answer, I realized I’d hurt his feelings. “Look—”

“You’re right,” Evan said. “I
am
a coward, all right? I screwed everything up with everyone, and now I won’t even try to fix things because I don’t know what I’ll do if they tell me to go to hell.”

“Really?” I wished I could see him in person so I could shoot him a fierce scowl. Or punch him. Maybe both. He deserved both! “Since when do you give up that easily, Evan? You risked everything to bring Alex back, and now you’re going to curl up into a ball and die?”
Holy crap, what the hell was wrong with everyone?

Over the line I heard a car honking, and I wondered where Evan was. Had he gone back to Manhattan? Hell, he could be in California with his parents for all I knew. I doubted that, though. There was no way he’d put an entire country between him and Alexandra, even if she wasn’t speaking to him at the moment.

When Evan spoke again, his voice was so quiet I had to strain to hear him. “I don’t know what to do.”

He sounded so pathetic, so heartbroken, that I felt a sharp ache of pity deep in my chest. Gripping my phone tighter, I asked, “Are you still in New York? The state, I mean, not the city.”

Evan laughed bitterly. “Yeah, still here. Don’t know why, since I’ve managed to piss off everyone in the state.”

“Can you make it to my house tomorrow?”

“Why?” he asked warily.

“Because I’m having everyone over so we can talk.” I paused, wondering if I should tell him about Rafe now or wait for him to see him in person tomorrow. Then I remembered how panicked he’d sounded at the beginning of the call, when he thought something had happened to Rafe. Evan deserved to know the truth. “The thing is, Rafe hasn’t been himself since that day. He’s still in pain from Nina’s spell, and—oh crap. You don’t know about the thing with his parents, do you?”

“What thing?” Evan demanded. I filled him in on what Charles and I had discovered, pausing a few times as Evan let loose a string of curses. “No wonder he hasn’t been himself! That’s a huge bombshell. Those bastards—if Rafe needs any help killing them, I’m there.”

I opened my mouth to mention Collins, but then closed it. Right now that was just a theory, something that was just between me and Rafe. Tomorrow we could explore it further with everyone else, but tonight the focus of this phone call was convincing Evan to join us.

“And you said he’s still in pain from the spell?” Evan continued.

“Yeah. He won’t let me see the injury, but depending on how he moves—like diving for a ball, for example—it’ll start acting up. It must’ve been bothering him today. He made a few errors at practice, and then he snapped at Kain.”

“Ugh, Kain. That was probably his fault, for being a pretentious asshole.”

“Evan…” I began warningly.

“Nope, not going to take that back,” he answered cheerfully. “Is he going to be there tomorrow?”

“Yep.” I waited for Evan to refuse to come over.

He sighed, long and loudly, like he was the one who was suffering. “Damn. What a great person I am, still agreeing to come over. Kain at your house, and Rafe probably killing me the moment he sees me. Someone should give me a medal for this.”

“Rafe isn’t going to kill you,” I said sourly, even though I’d worried about the same thing. “He knows I’d be in big trouble with Dad if I had to explain a sudden bloodstain on the carpet.”

“Haha. So glad you’re more concerned about your carpet than my well-being.”

“The carpet doesn’t annoy me like you do.” I paused. “Hey, Evan?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for doing this. For helping Rafe.”

“He
is
my best friend, Gabi. I’d do anything for him.” I could almost picture the sad smile Evan was probably wearing as he spoke. “I’ll never forgive myself for what I did to the two of you, and I don’t expect him to, either, but if I can help him somehow? I’ll do it. I’ll be there tomorrow. Promise. No more hiding from you guys.”

“Good,” I said, “because Alex is coming, too.” After our heart-to-heart, Rafe had called Alexandra back, putting her on speaker phone so I could talk to her as well. It had been a little awkward in the beginning, talking to someone I didn’t know, but had unintentionally saved with my crazy powers, but when Rafe had gone quiet, I’d realized it was up to me to explain to her what was going on. “We can have one giant love fest, where everyone stops hating one another and we work together to help Rafe. Sound good?”

“I—”

Whoa. I think for the first time in his life, Evan had been struck speechless. I
might
have smiled evilly as I listened to him sputter incoherently for a full minute.

“Does she know?” he finally managed to say.

“What? That you’re going to be here? Yeah. I won’t tell you what she said, because it’s not very nice, but she’s willing to work together with everyone to help Rafe. Just like you.
Right
, Evan?” I sent him a death glare. I wasn’t sure if it worked through phones, though.