Chapter 36

Sebastian

In the middle of the night, I’m awoken by screams emanating from another part of the house. I sit up in bed so fast that I immediately become dizzy. The terrifying screams, however, don’t stop.

I pop out of bed and bolt down the hall in the direction of the ear-piercing noise, my heart racing, my legs burning.

I swing open the bedroom door to find Evelyn still asleep in her bed, but she’s thrashing around wildly. Not knowing what to do, I grab her and pull her up into a sitting position.

“Evelyn!” I yell at her, trying to wake her as she continues to flail. “It’s just a dream, wake up!”

Her eyes pop open so wide I’m afraid they’ll end up rolling back into her head. She stops screaming, breathing heavily and immediately begins to cry.

“Sebastian?” She asks between her tears, disbelief, and confusion warped around her hurt. I wipe a tear away, push some hair behind her ears, and pull her close to me.

“Shh,” I whisper, stroking her hair as her tears come faster. “Just breathe, Princess.”

“It was horrible!” She whisper-yells into my bare shoulder. “He had no eyes! No face at all!”

I don’t push for further information, mainly because it already sounds like a nightmare I wouldn’t want to see. I wipe at her forehead, covered in sweat and her hair clinging to her skin.

“He told me he’d help me find my mom. But he was so tall and pale! He chased me around the hotel, demanding I come back!”

It’s hard to hear this. I muse over the thought that maybe the nightmare might be of old traumas from her childhood, but refuse to say anything to her about it.

“It was all a dream; it’s all okay,” I try to get her to hear me, but I know part of her mind is still lost in that nightmare somewhere.

We sit in mostly silence for a few minutes, Evelyn still crying into me with fat tears hitting my bare skin. “Ava’s never going to forgive me,” she tells me as she sniffles.

“Yes, she will,” I promise. But I don’t know if that’s true. I can’t even get her to talk to me longer than one argument.

She shakes her head against my skin, her voice strained. “Others are going to find out about us. They’re going to hate us, make us feel ostracized, the outcasts.”

I kiss the top of her head, pulling her even closer. “Not if I have any say they won’t,” I tell her.

“You can’t know that,” she replies tearfully.

I snort, picking her chin up to look me in the eye. “And you can’t know that they’ll be angry or even hate us. Come on, Princess. You gotta just believe me this one time.”

Her face seems to scrunch up further, and I search her face for what could have caused this reaction. “What, what happened?”

She shakes her head, sniffing and rolling her eyes. “It’s just…the nickname.”

“Princess?” I question.

“Feels like a secret now, too. I feel protected and safe. And it…” She looks away from me.

“What?”

“I really need that right now,” she says as she wipes under her eyes, giving me just a hint at her sad smile.

A fatal crack sounds in my mind, making it feel as though someone’s taken a baseball bat to my body. Her pain is so abhorrently bad that it’s slipping into the nooks and crannies of my skin.

I shush Evelyn for a little longer, holding her to keep her safe and help her fall back to sleep.

Once she finally cries herself to sleep, I lay her back down on her pillow, sneaking out to avoid detection from anyone else in the house.

I lie back in my bed after, staring at the ceiling as I soak in the words Evelyn shared with me. Believing that the world will judge us for having human feelings, that we’ll have to spend all the time together making sure we explain the truth to people so they spew hate.

Can I really protect her? Can I really give her what she needs to keep her safe?

I don’t know.

The next morning, I gather what I need for the surprise. Evelyn comes down looking absolutely dead, but she still makes herself a bowl of cereal and eats it in silence.

“Good morning, kids!” Madelyn sings as she joins us in the kitchen. “What are we doing on this lovely day off?”

I shrug, taking another drink of coffee. “Want to show my ‘little sis’ my favorite place.”

Evelyn raises an eyebrow at me, the exhaustion fighting against the curiosity. “I thought that was Lake Davey?” She questions.

Shaking my head and even winking at her, I tell her she’ll have to wait. “You’ll see.”

She has no idea what’s the come.

And that is proven to me when we pull up outside the building, confusion rising on her face. “What is this?”

“Why don’t you find out?”

Cautiously, Evelyn follows me up the stairs and into the building, her head moving in a thousand different directions as she tries to take in everything surrounding her. I can’t help but think of how I’d done the same the first time I entered this place.

“What do you think?” I taunt, waggling my eyebrows to amuse her.

“It’s…big.”

I laugh, not knowing what else to expect from Evelyn. As usual, she’s just herself.

“I have a race coming up during Christmas, and I’m a bit behind on practicing,” I tell her as we head for the changing rooms. “So, I figured you could see where else I spent a lot of time.”

“Not just Underground Raceways?” She asks.

“That’s more for hardcore race junkies who want to operate a bit outside the rules.”

Her fascination with each piece of information is evident. “Why am I coming with you to the changing rooms then?”

“Because we’re going to ride in a two-seater.”

That’s the ticket. Evelyn freezes in place, and a knowing look crosses her face.

“What if we crash?”

“It’s just me on the track. No one else will be here today.” I’d made sure of that.

“But I’ve never been in a car before.”

“Would you stop making excuses and just say yes already?” I cross my arms and pout, which, to my surprise, makes Evelyn smile.

“Go in the changing room, tell the woman at the desk that you’re riding with me. She’ll be able to help you.”

I wave to the door that’ll take her into the women’s room. “I’ll meet you back out here in ten minutes.”

This is going to be exceptionally amusing.

Evelyn

It takes some getting used to, but Sebastian sits in the front of the car while I take up the rear. He explains over the radio headset how to drive the car, change gears, and how hard and soft it is to hit the gas pedal.

It’s interesting, to say the least, trying to figure out how the whole car works. He even insists I drive the car myself, which I do cautiously. But slow and steady wins the race as they say.

“Look at you go, Princess!” He cheers into the headset as I finish my first lap. I feel so excited and free that I don’t stop, taking the car around for another lap.

It feels like so long since I’ve been so free, and I even close my eyes for a few seconds and breathe in the air whizzing past me.

Freedom, letting loose, and forgetting who I truly am in this world. It feels so fucking good.

Later, Sebastian buys us food, clearly proud of himself for his plans. “Seems to me like someone’s feeling better.”

I roll my eyes and shake my head, taking a bite out of a french fry. “No idea what you mean.”

“Oh, okay, if you say so.”

I stare at Sebastian as I process what I want to ask him next. It’s been buzzing in my head for hours now. I fear I might upset him again.

“Can I ask?” I start slowly. “If you want to race, why bother with school?”

“Because Gregory would disown me if I dropped out?” He questions me like it’s so obvious, but it’s still shocking to hear.

“He still believes you’ll take over the company?”

“He continues to suggest I quit racing so that I can take life ‘seriously.’” He uses air quotes. “When he doesn’t realize I want to race seriously.”

I lean forward in my seat. “And you don’t push him?”

“The man is deadest in his ways, Princess. I can’t remember the last time he seemed to listen to a damn word I say.” He rolls his eyes, but I know it’s not directed at me.

Do I really know everything about Sebastian? In the months since we met, none of this has been clear to me. And the worst part is that I don’t know how to comfort him.

I wish I did.