Page 83 of Prohibited

“What’s going on?” Malcolm asked in a gruff voice, his arms crossed. Evie looked at him and swallowed. Looked back at Ryan, who was watching her with a look so intense, it nearly withered the flesh on her face.

Evie had to open her mouth a couple of times to get the sound to come out.

“W-Walter Stanley,” she managed to say.

“What about Walter Stanley?” Malcolm said in a dangerous voice.

Ryan stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder, eyes burning. “What happened?”

“Sh-she–” Evie forced herself to swallow. “I don’t know all the details. She said that he shot someone—the bartender, I think. He took her prisoner. I think he– he hurt her.”

“What do you mean?” Malcolm leaned in, his eye practically glowing with anger.

“I don’t know, I don’t know the details.” Thank God for the warm weight of Ryan’s hand on her shoulder, surprising as it was. It was the only thing keeping her together.

The men looked past her at the closed door behind her. “Th-That’s all I know,” she said, managing to keep her voice relatively steady. She swallowed hard. “If you’ll excuse me.”

She made the mistake of glancing at Ryan’s face. His lips were parted, like he wanted to say something but instead he shuffled to the side so she could squeeze her way between the men and out onto the front porch. She let herself out the front door and left the deafening silencebehind. The trill of the cicadas was a comfort as she went down the front steps of the cabin and walked around the house aimlessly, not really sure where she was going. She knew only that she needed to be alone, to reflect. To release the ache that was climbing her throat with long, jagged claws.

She wandered to the woodpile behind the carriage house and sat on a low end of the large stack, folding her arms around her middle and leaning forward. She stared at the turf between her bare toes, at the wet spots that materialized in the dirt as more and more tears dripped down her cheeks. She swiped at them with the back of her wrist, chin trembling.

A numb horror was slowly overtaking her as she swung wildly between trying not to imagine what Walter had done to Saoirse, and being tormented by every possible scenario in graphic detail. She pressed her hands over her face, trying to force her mind to be still.

“Sit there, a fiddleback might get you,” Ryan’s voice said nearby.

Startled, she brought her hands down and then jumped to her feet. She looked behind her at the woodpile and began to swipe at her backside, hoping she hadn’t just invited a nasty bite from a nasty spider. When she looked back at Ryan she was half expecting him to be laughing at her, but his face was solemn, his arms folded.

Evie looked at the ground, feeling heavy. Her whole body felt so heavy. “I’m so sorry,” she said, softly. Her lip started to trembleagain.

Ryan was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Why are you sorry?”

“This is my fault.” Evie swallowed, unable to look at him.

“No,” Ryan began to close the gap between them and then stopped himself. She looked back at him in surprise before she looked away again, vision fogging with tears.

“Yes it is,” she said, more insistently. “Ryan, I need to go back. He’s going to keep– She said he kept asking about me. ‘Where is Evelyn?’ He hurt her because of me.”

She stole a glance at his face and the expression she found there stopped her breath. Ryan looked like he’d been slapped. She averted her eyes, wishing she hadn’t looked at him at all.

“You can’t go back,” he said after a moment, his voice tense and full of things he wasn’t saying. “This wasn’t your fault.”

“All of this is my fault,” she said, frustration unfurling itself inside of her. “I did this. Because I– Because of your brother.” She glanced back at him because she couldn’t help herself.

Ryan looked away then and she suddenly felt ashamed, unworthy to even speak of him. Tommy. She bit her lip, wishing she could take it back.

“He would have liked you,” Ryan said quietly.

She couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d fallen to his knees and declared his undying love to her. A knife twisted in her heart.

She swallowed hard, emboldened by Ryan’s mention of him. “I have to do right by him. By Saoirse. I have to stop Walter from hurting other people.”

“Evelyn,” Ryan said, moving forward, impatient. “He isn’t going to stop now. Not until we’re all dead or he is. There’s no going back.”

Evie twisted her hands together, her right hand catching on her wedding ring. As if seeing it for the first time, she held her shaking hand up and looked at it more closely. The intricate gold work. The huge emerald. The consolation prize she’d received for marrying Linus instead of Etian. It was so absurd now. All so absurd. She couldn’t even remember why she’d ever wanted to marry Linus in the first place.

She yanked it off and hurled it across the turf. Her heart raced and fluttered in her throat, but she turned away, not caring where it landed.

“Not your color,” Ryan said, blithely.

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