Curling up in the blankets, she inhaled the scent permeating the sheets and her borrowed clothes. It was a delicious, spicy man-smell that made her toes curl.
She was fast asleep the next instant.
18
Cool as a Cucumber
Eva woke up at eight o’clock. She hadn’t had close to enough sleep, yet she felt strangely well rested. Her first thoughts were anxious, however. Why hadn’t anyone woken her up? Why hadn’t they left yet? Wasn’t anyone concerned about the Hunter coming after them?
Sitting up in bed, she clenched her fingers around the blankets and stared at the unfamiliar space. She told herself that the demons knew what they were doing, and if there was cause for concern, they would have woken her.
Then again, maybe not. She really hoped they’d come up with a plan by now, but something told her that was too much to ask.
Ash’s room was bare except for a dresser, a desk, and an upside-down milk crate that served as a nightstand. The speaker she’d lent him sat on top of the dresser, and there were a few items of black clothing discarded on the floor. The sheets were gray. One pillow.
A good night’s sleep was supposed to make everything better, and she could feel the truth in that. Yes, all of this still seemed impossible, but she wasn’t on the verge of a panic attack anymore, and the things that had felt so insurmountable last night were a little less daunting now.
Leaning over, she reached out and hauled her backpack into her lap, pulling her phone out of the front pocket. When the screen lit up, she swore loudly.
It had to be a record-setting number of missed calls. Most were from her dad, and a few were from her mom. She opened her texts and saw another gazillion unread messages there, and then cursed again when she remembered that she’d put her phone on silent last night before Mist showed up. Her dad’s call had been an unpleasant interruption after that amazing sex with Ash, and she’d slapped that sucker on silent so she’d never have to put the words “dad” and “sex” together in a sentence again.
Frowning, she suddenly recalled the subject of her dad’s call. At the time, he’d seemed irrational, but now it seemed eerily coincidental that he’d called and told her she was in danger right before Mist had shown up. But what would herdadknow about any of this?
She needed to get up and make sure the demons had a proper game plan, but she couldn’t ignore her dad’s urgent messages, so she called him back.
“Nice one, Dad,” she grumbled when it went through to voicemail. All those missed calls, and he wasn’t even there when she finally got back to him.
She called her mom next. The phone rang only a few times before Jacqui picked up.
“Eva, honey! I’ve been trying to reach you all night.”
“Yeah, I left my phone on silent. Sorry about that.”
“Are you okay?”
“Um.” She didn’t know where to begin.
“What happened?”
“Well... a lot.”
“Honey, I need to tell you something.”
“Yeah, Mom. Me too.” She decided there was no way she was going through all this madness without telling her mom. “It’s about Ash.”
“Oh, good, because I wanted to tell you something about him too.”
“Last night, I— Wait, what do you want to tell me?”
“This is going to sound crazy.”
“Trust me, it won’t be as crazy as what I’ve seen.”
“Remember what you saw at that club shooting? Well, I’m not sure you hallucinated after all.”
“What? Why?”
“I think your boyfriend... I really don’t want to scare you, but I think your boyfriend might actually be— He might not—”
