Evangeline Blackwood and the Lost Letter - draco malfoy

four.

Evan got dressed that morning as if it were any other day.

It was Saturday, so no classes and no pharmacy shift. But she didn't get to sleep in because she was due to meet the divorce lawyer at 9 am at his office downtown.

She awoke at 6, took a shower, and got dressed in a smart outfit: a thrifted plaid blazer, a tan turtleneck sweater, a pair of straight legged black jeans, and thick heeled boots. She felt powerful, pulling her hair into a ponytail and pulling out the little hairs on the side of her face that accented her wispy bangs.

She tucked her diamond engagement ring into her purse before heading out, planning to return it to Damien after the meeting. It made her happy thinking of how it would feel to relinquish the piece of jewelry to him. She was letting go of his claim on her.

It was a dull winter day in northern Kentucky. The sky was an icy grey and the trees were barren and lifeless. The highway was scattered with piles of snow on the median and white flakes were actively falling from the sky above. She listened to the radio, stared ahead at the road, and glared at drivers in lifted pickup trucks when they rode her ass, even though she was going ten over the speed limit of 70.

The world felt cold that day. Evan, on the other hand, felt exceptionally mundane. She was not ecstatic about her impending divorce, but acceptant. The drivers on the Kentucky state highway were having perfectly normal days, perfectly normal lives, and Evan was no exception. Until she arrived downtown, parallel parked, and made an unavoidable mistake: she stepped out of her car.

She did not have any inkling that she was being followed. For the first time in three weeks, it wasn't Draco. She strolled down the downtown streets, her eyes and chin lifted and her shoulders back, confident and strong. She was hyping herself up for a meeting that she would never get to attend.

She rounded a corner and stood at the walkway, waiting for the little white man to appear on the screen so that she could cross. The lawyer's office was in sight, big gold letters reading "Walker & Wood, Attorneys at Law." Evan's mind was present but elsewhere and she didn't notice the strange man until he was standing right next to her.

He was awfully close to her. There were sometimes strange people in Louisville, as she knew well. He was taller than her with oily black hair slicked back from a defined forehead, just barely visible underneath his black hood. His long coat reached to his ankles and he was staring at Evan from her left.

Evan did not engage. She simply pretended that the man was not there. When the crosswalk allowed her to continue on, she started forward, trailing several steps behind a blonde business woman who had been waiting to cross as well. As soon as Evan took a step forward, though, the man seized her by the arm and at this touch, she fainted.

At least, it felt like she had fainted. Everything started to spin wildly around her and there were flashing colors streaking in circles across her vision as if she was stuck inside of a kelidoscope. She could feel her stomach churning and she was screaming. She was sure that she was not actually experiencing this sensation, as it was not possible. She continued to scream wildly, not even having enough time to process these events before it was over and she reached firm ground again.

Evangeline was suddenly standing in an all white, sterile room. She was in shock. She didn't know what to say, what to think. How did she get here? She saw several faces around her including a woman dressed in a long, lime green robe and five or six men wearing black.

She didn't have time to ask where the fuck she was or to even look around for the man who had grabbed her on the street. She had just enough time to completely panic, losing her breath and fighting for reasonable explanation.