Evelyn

Chapter 26: Maximus

"Mama, Papa?" Evelyn cradled the phone against her ear as she spoke to her parents. After everything that had happened, it was no surprise she wanted to catch them up.

She sat on our bed, leaning against the headboard, legs crossed. Every once in a while she would reach for the hairtie on her wrist and snap it against her skin. The action made me grimace but by now I knew it was her nervous habit.

In hushed whispers, with the occasional voice break, she told them everything that had happened since she came to North Wind. Her new friends, the rogues, the shifting... and her newfound brother. Each time she spoke I sensed the nervous breaths she took.

I could hear gasps ring out across the phone line as I watched from the bedroom doorway.

"Evelyn... I- I could have never imagined this... I- had we only known..." her mother's voice broke through the line.

I watched salty tears pour down Evelyn's face and moved to wipe them when I realized I needed to stand back for a few minutes. This moment was hers and hers alone.

"Oh Mama," Evelyn cried, "it's okay. It's all okay. I'm so grateful you and Papa raised me. So so grateful. I just wish you could meet him, Mama. He and I are so alike in such little ways..."

I stepped away from the doorway, and headed down the hall to a guest room. Tinges of anxiety crept under my skin like ice, but I mentally batted them away.

Gently knocking on the door, an older women's voice called "come in."

I turned the bronze knob and stepped into the room, coming face to face with a woman I had only days before in a prison cell.

Fran.

"Evelyn's asleep now," I whispered into the hallway as I gently closed the door behind me.

"Good, it's time we finally get the answers we are both looking for," Eli whispered back.

We both knew we had to question Fran immediately about Evelyn but decided it was best not to get her involved. After the toll of the last 24 hours, she was certainly not up to the task of meeting the woman who was an endless case of possibilities and could easily be implicated in the Oak Family's death.

We crept down the hall stealthily, working our way downstairs, and to the silver door that was becoming all too familiar.

Unlocking it, we crept down the rickety stairs, across the cement, and toward Fran's cell.

"You found her... you found her didn't you Eli?" the women's voice cracked out into the silence as we approached.

Stepping in front of her cell, we could see the evident tears pouring down the woman's face. 

"Yes Franny, yes I found her," Eli cried back.

The air suddenly felt thick with emotion, as if a misty cloud had settled between us. The lines of who was a friend or foe suddenly seemed blurred. The women no doubt cared about the Oaks children and yet so many questions lay unanswered. Questions that would determine exactly what she was.

"Francesca," I spoke, my voice cutting through the emotion like a sharp knife.

She turned to me and glared, but there was a new softness in her expression that when we had previously spoken to her had been absent.

"What?" she asked, drawing the word out to lace it with menace.

"Francesca why was Evelyn-"

"-Estelle," Eli corrected, reminding me the women before me knew nothing about who my mate was except for her baby self.

"Why was Estelle, left with the Smiths?" I asked the woman.