Page 38 of Little Wing (Shades of Fairhaven #1)

I watched Kait out of the corner of my eye standing in her kitchen with a cup of tea pressed against her chest. Earl Grey with a splash of cream. Kait’s comfort drink. The look of uncertainty painted across her face was hard to miss as was the palpable silence that spoke volumes.

After the fiasco at Little Wing, I could not bear to return home or anywhere I knew Silas could find me. I kept replaying the memory of Silas pacing back and forth before Mateo downed my attacker. I could hear the growls echoing in my head.

“Get your fucking hands off her!”

Would he have said the same thing if he knew why that man threatened to explode at the sight of me?

I ended up at Kait’s where she offered to let me crash on her couch for as long as I needed.

I wanted so badly to believe that the offering would remain, but I knew that this was my dead-end.

No more running. If one person recognized me, then the rest would follow soon.

Fairhaven wasn’t a large metropolis—word would travel fast that Lotus Evans was indeed Lotus Everett, the sister of Luca Everett who murdered two human women in cold blood .

The minimal change of my name was laughable, even to me. Did I truly think that no one would catch on eventually?

“Lo,” Kait started as she moved from the kitchen to the living room. She set the mug on the coffee table and sat beside me. “I’m sorry, I made tea, but I know you don’t drink that.”

I nodded. “I appreciate the thought, Kait. Thank you for letting me stay here.”

“Of course.” She paused, opening her mouth and closing it a few times before leaning forward. “Do you want to talk about what happened? Silas has been blowing up my phone as well as Reina’s. She’s going to be here tonight so we can support you as best as we can.”

“Oh.”

“Were you hurt?” she asked cautiously.

“No.”

I wasn’t going to bring attention to any of the bruises I could feel forming. They’d heal quickly regardless.

“Silas said—”

“Kait, I must be honest with you. I am trying to find the words but every attempt at piecing this together in my head ends in you despising me, so please…” I finally looked at her before my voice broke. “I just want a few minutes longer with you not looking at me like I’m a monster…”

I knew her eyes would grow wide the moment I said that, and yet I still winced.

We sat in silence until Reina showed up at Kait’s apartment with a bag of takeout and a bat that she was asked to leave at the door. She wasted no time rushing to my side to look me over for any signs of wounds. Aside from what I already felt fading; I assured her that I was fine .

“So, what the fuck happened? Why are you here and not picking up your phone?” Reina asked, taking a seat on the loveseat diagonally opposite from me.

The cushion barely sank beneath her weight as she remained seated on the edge.

“Is anyone going to start talking? Or at least explain why Silas called me ten times both on my cell and at work?”

Oh, Silas…

I bowed my head, bracing myself for the final moments of the tranquility I found in my friends.

The feeling of belonging after years of isolation conditioned by Luca.

I hated him. I hated what he took from me, beyond my life.

I loathed him for being a fool. His fucking narcissism landed him in this shit that clung to me like a leech.

My fists were clenched so tightly that I felt my nails puncture my palms.

Before my friends could say anything else to coax information from me, I inclined my gaze to meet theirs. Reina was still seated on the edge of the loveseat and Kait was seated on the arm of the chair with her arms folded across her chest.

“My name isn’t Evans,” I started. Okay, it was like pulling off a band-aid.

Before long, I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold back.

The dam that kept years of omitted truth would come crumbling down.

“My name is Lotus Everett, and I do not know if that surname sounds familiar to you at all, but… it has haunted me for nearly a hundred years.”

Kait shifted her weight on the arm of the couch and glanced down at Reina whose eyes were as large as saucers. She leaned in further and clutched the coffee table. “Lo, what are you saying?”

“In the Carolinas, nearly a century ago, there was an author who was discovered in a car that had fallen into a lake.” I frowned at the memory, still so clear in my mind.

It played over and over like the headlines that wouldn’t stop playing on TV.

“Upon the recovery of the vehicle from the water, paramedics discovered that she was not the only victim of the accident. In the truck was the body of her daughter, already deceased.”

The room felt like it was spinning. The words were wanting to slip out faster than I had time to process their coherency. I already started; there was no going back.

“When they were recovered and brought in for an autopsy, the mortician discovered that their bodies were completely drained of blood. Their necks were broken and their bodies were covered in punctures that were a perfect match for—”

“Fangs,” Kait finished, slapping her hand on her forehead. “Holy shit—the Wells’ murder on the East Coast.”

“What does that mean?” Reina asked, her voice hiked up an octave. “Somebody fucking tell me or I’m going to lose my shit.”

“You have heard, then?” I asked, pointing my question at the startled woman.

Kait’s expression was frozen in shock. How was she piecing it together?

Was there truth in the information she had, or did she believe the vampiric articles?

After all, there was some truth in Luca’s actions almost costing us all the treaty that changed our lives.

“You’re Lotus Everett…” Kait said, stammering as she got up from the chair. “Lotus, you need to keep talking. You need to explain this…”

That answered my question.

When I didn’t speak up, Kait pulled out her phone and quickly tapped away at her screen before handing it to Reina.

No doubt she pulled up the article with the headline: Ophelia Wells, 84, and daughter murdered by vampire!

After the shocking reveal to many that vampires roamed their lands, the body of the article wasted no time in revealing the name of said murderer .

“Luca Everett?” Reina asked, setting the phone down on the coffee table. “Someone needs to fucking talk. And enough of this cryptic shit!”

“Luca is my brother,” I admitted, his name tasting like poison on my tongue.

The admission resulted in my friends, my family, sinking into the cushion of the loveseat.

While I did expect at least Kait to equip herself with the bat that Reina brought with her, I found some sliver of comfort that they remained seated and with their attention fixed on me. They waited for me to speak, so I did.

I told them everything. I told them who Luca was and how it was because of him that I was there, locked in time as a vampire and with the unfortunate reality of having my blood tied to his for all eternity.

His scent was my scent and if anyone was looking for him, they would eventually come across me.

His actions put a large target on me that I fought to flee from by relocating across the country.

Perhaps it was the last bit of hope I had that made me believe I could truly reinvent myself as a Lotus that was free from sin.

“So, the makeup?” Reina asked, circling her face with her index finger. “Not just a fashion choice?”

“Correct.”

“Man, your brother’s a dick.”

I nodded.

“So, Luca was the one who killed those women?”

I nodded again. “I didn’t know what happened until days later when Luca came home covered in blood. I was locked in with no way of leaving. I couldn’t have done anything to stop it, let alone cause it.”

“What happens now? Why are you hiding? Why aren’t you talking to Silas?” Reina fired off question after question. While it was a lot at once, I was just grateful that our communication did not shut down after my confession.

“Someone recognized me at Little Wing,” I replied. “Many humans have long forgotten, or rather learned to cope, with the loss of Ophelia and her daughter. But the people who hated us the most were… our own.”

“Vampires?” Reina sat, puzzled, and looked up at Kait who nodded slowly along to my retelling. “You’re telling me the people hunting your brother are vampires?”

I could never forget the days, weeks, and even years that followed when people pounded on the door wherever I was staying.

After the crime was committed, Luca spent longer periods away from me.

Yet I did not find solitude as his scent was always traced back to me, leading vampires to believe I was sheltering their enemy.

“This happened while the treaties were being debated. My brother’s stupidity truly put things at risk, until months of debate deemed him a vile exception to what vampires could be.

That violence against humans would be punishable by death, and the council that had signed the treaty vowed to destroy my brother.

It has been so many years since that day, but any time someone pieces the information together about who I am, I fear they will hunt me for the satisfaction of ruining someone Luca created. ”

The memory of young vampires destroying whatever semblance of security I felt remained fresh in my mind.

Refraining from sinking back into that nightmare took more willpower than I often had, which was why Fairhaven was home to me.

No one appeared to know me, or maybe they didn’t care.

I had found family in Reina and Kait. I found home in Silas, too, but I could not think of him, not yet.

Hours since I found myself at Kait’s home, my dear friend finally got up from the loveseat and closed the distance between us, taking a seat beside me before she grabbed my hand.

She didn’t have to say anything because just the feel of her warmth caused my voice to crack.

When my gaze lowered to my lap, my shoulders sagged and rattled as tears began to stream down my face.

I felt another pair of hands settle on my knees as my tears blinded me. Reina was kneeling on the floor with her chin resting in my lap.

“I don’t want to die," I uttered. “I don’t want to die when it’s now that I truly feel alive, even more so than when my blood ran red.”

“You’re not going to die, Lotus,” Kait whispered against my hair. “You stay here as long as you need. No one is getting through these doors.”

Reina finally looked up, her green eyes glossed with tears. “Not unless they want to be beaten with a bat.”

The laugh I choked back turned into more tears that were wiped away by my friends. While the weight I carried crumbled with each comforting stroke, I feared that whatever fronts I had weaved over the last century were a mere thread’s pull away from unraveling.

I could already feel my grip loosening.