Page 5 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 2

“We’re not keeping him in the dark.” I recognized Theo’s brash tone. “If he’d so much as looked outside in the past week, he’d have noticed, but he’s been too busy moping.”

I winced. So, they were talking about me, then.

“He’s dealing with a lot,” said the first voice. Lissa.

“We all are,” Theo said sharply. “Nathan’s still missing. I haven’t been able to find a single goddamn trace of the kid, and neither has anybody else I’ve tasked with finding him. More people are disappearing every day, and it’s not just low-ranking ones anymore. Look, if I thought Gabriel could help us right now, I’d ask him, but… I mean, you’ve seen the guy.”

I was rooted to the spot. Very little good ever came from eavesdropping on one’s friends, especially when you were the subject being discussed. Still, I was stuck in place, listening to my loved ones discuss my uselessness.

“But surely if he knew how bad things really are—” Lissa started.

“Then he would punish himself for not helping sooner,” said a third voice, calm and even. Vic, usually taciturn, had joined in. “You know what he’s like. If we told him how many people are going missing, hell, if we told him that it’s bad enough that we’re only leaving the house together, just in case… he’d just blame himself.”

Was that what my friends thought of me? That I was too mired in my own unhappiness to be of any use? A headache began to crawl up to my temples, and I realized I was clenching my jaw. I knew I should leave, that I should keep walking and pretend I’d heard nothing, but I was wracked with the morbid need to know what else they might say.

“We’re not keeping it from him, Lissa,” Theo said. “It’s just… He’s too in his head to even ask right now.”

“Aah,” Pothos meowed loudly from around my neck. The vampires in the room turned toward the doorway, their eyes widening when they saw me.

“Gabe—”

“We were just?—”

I cut Lissa and Theo off with a raised hand. “I’m going out,” I said shortly. “I’m taking Pothos back to Evangeline’s.”

I swept away before any of them could say anything else.

The streets around the manor were usually quiet, but now they were empty. I headed into the city proper, toward Evangeline’s place, and where the streets should have been bustling, I only spotted a few people, moving quickly and looking around nervously. The city of Eldoria was a ghost town. How had this happened in a mere week? Posters of missing persons fluttered in the wind, pasted up on light poles and walls. The windows of the buildings around me were dark, and those that had a few glints of light were mostly obscured by heavy curtains. A curtain twitched as I walked past. People were hiding. At the mouth of an alley, I saw a dropped paper bag of groceries. Produce had rolled out of it left on the ground to mold. Under the drooping shapes of blue-fuzzed oranges, blood stained the pavement.

So, this was what I had been missing. No wonder Vic, Lissa, and Theo had taken to moving around the city together. Fresh curls of anger and shame began to unfurl in the pit of my stomach. My father orchestrated this, and I’d allowed it to happen. I had stood by and let all of this?—

Pothos bonked the flat of his solid little head into my cheek, surprising me out of my brooding. I scratched him between the ears in a way I hoped conveyed gratitude, then picked up the pace. We were almost there.

Our destination was a narrow, shabby brick building, tucked between two larger buildings as though it was in the middle of a game of hide-and-seek it was determined to win. The first floor was a restaurant, and I was oddly relieved to see it was still open, although the blinds were drawn. Even in times of crisis and upheaval, people still wanted spicy noodles—perhaps especially then. The smell of chili and ginger wafted from the restaurant. Next to it was a scuffed blue door. Bracing myself, I knocked.

“Me again, Chanel,” I said. “I’ve brought Pothos home. Do you think you could let me in?”

Somehow, the door gave the impression of glaring.

“Aah,” Pothos said emphatically.

The door swung open. I couldn’t allow myself to get too excited about this. I’d gotten past the front door before, but Chanel had always kept the doors to Evangeline’s apartment and office locked tight. In a particularly rough moment, I considered breaking in, but when a woman implies you’re overbearing and leaves you, breaking into her home seems like a bad way to recover, curse or no.

I climbed the narrow stairs up past the second floor, glancing at the door of Evangeline’s PI office as I went. The frosted glass window was dark. I chewed the inside of my cheek and carried on to the third floor.

“Evangeline?” I called, fervently wishing I would hear her voice even if she told me to go away. It would be proof that she was safe. That she was alive.

There was no reply. However, this time the door to Evangeline’s apartment opened before I even touched the doorknob. Apparently, Pothos had been the key I’d needed all along. If only I’d thought of it sooner, I could’ve checked the apartment for Evangeline’s presence and saved my rugs from being fertilized. I stepped inside slowly, suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to be cautious.

Nothing had been moved since the last time I was here, but it still felt different. It had the musty feeling of a well-loved space that had been empty for a while and wasn’t used to the neglect. A half-drunk mug of coffee had been left in the kitchen and was now growing strange bits of fuzz in a wide range of colors. I followed a raw, earthy smell to the kitchen and covered my nose with my sleeve. Next to the sink, the chestnuts Evangeline and I had gathered were spoiling, the scent of decay leaching into the air. Gingerly, I scraped them into the trash.

Pothos hopped down from my shoulders and began to run around the apartment, pausing occasionally to sniff at something and yowl. He was purring loudly as he ran, and I huffed out a little laugh.

“Well, I’m glad you’re happy, at least.”

My laugh quickly died in my throat. Evangeline wasn’t here. From the state of the place, it was clear she hadn’t been back to her apartment for some time—since she’d begun staying with me for her own safety, I would say. A cold press of fear crushed me. If Evangeline hadn’t come home, where would she have gone? She wouldn’t have gone to Marcus after she had hurt him like that, and I knew there was no way she would’ve gone to her non-magical adoptive parents with the curse hanging so heavily on her. No, she would have come here.

There was no pretending otherwise now. Something horrible must have happened to her. Evangeline was in trouble.

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