Life After the Undead (Completed)

PART 9: A Thief's Consequences .6

Jack's P.O.V

Once Evelyn was done kicking the shit out of the poor kid, we dragged him out into the streets, tied up his hands and then threw him into the back of my truck. Evelyn helped Melissa up into the truck, because Melissa would not allow me to help her and then we all drove over to where her jeep was waiting. There was a crowd of Drifters waiting to see the infamous Evelyn Duncan, who seemingly only cared about her jeep.

She got out before I even parked, rushing up to the jeep that was still against the tree that it had crashed into. There wasn't much damage done to it, expect that the hood was kind of crumped and the front grill and bumper had been morphed into the shape of the tree.

"Oh! My poor baby!" she sobbed throwing her arms over it like she was trying to give it a hug. "What did that big meanie do to you?!"

I watched as Melissa got out of the truck, having been abandoned by Evelyn. I didn't bother to offer her a hand I knew she'd decline.

She had a homemade splint on her leg and on the drive over I had asked her what happened to her. Both her and Evelyn exchanged a charged look before Evelyn eventually told me that Melissa had had an accident.

Things had changed between Melissa and Evelyn, their relationship seemed cooler and more distant and as a result Melissa seemed less confident and cocky.

"Do you think she realizes the car can't talk back?" I asked her and Melissa shot me a weird look and muttered something like "You should hear her talk to Steve," which was a strange comment to make but I said nothing about it.

I looked her up and down before leaning in and whispering: "Do you want to tell me what happened between you and her? Or to your leg?"

The withering glare I got from Melissa was enough to shut me up. I turned back to Evelyn to watch her pull out her keys and unlock her car. She immediately went about checking for everything and taking an inventory.

"Weapons are all here, but he ate the food. The greedy, greedy bastard. That was three days worth of food, I can't believe he ate all of it," she said. "It is impressive he managed to boost it though. It electrocutes you if try to hotwire it."

"Why do you rig everything to electrocute people?" Melissa grumbled.

Evelyn shrugged. "It's a good deterrent."

"Okay, this is all well and good," I said interrupting the weird thing that was going on between Evelyn and Melissa. "But as you can see your Jeep needs work and a tow, what do you plan to trade for it?"

Without missing a beat, she said: "Well how about Melissa?"

Silence hit our group and even I was shocked by that statement. I had honest to God not been expecting that.

"I wasn't going to ask for Melissa...."

Evelyn cocked an eyebrow at me but I refused to say anything else even if she knew that I was going to ask for Melissa, that I always asked for Melissa. I shot a glance at poor Melissa who had gone beet red just staring at her feet and decided to ride to her defence. At least get me some bonus points before I accepted Evelyn's offer.

"Okay, does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on?"

Evelyn put her hands on her hips and pinned me with a dangerous look that wasn't quite a glare but was definitely pretty frosty. "Either you're taking her or I'm giving you info which would you rather?"

Oh. Oh. A chance to get Evelyn to communicate? Clearly and without lying to me... HELL YES.

"Information obviously, but I'd want more than just the answer to my first question," I shot back.

Evelyn's smile was a cold and calculated one, like I had walked into a trap. "Then I will give you the information you'd like, if it's available for me to give."

Before I could tell her that I wanted answers to all my questions there was a sudden banging from the truck behind me. I left Evelyn and Melissa to argue, as it seemed the two of them would and opened up the truck doors. Immediately I had a pair of feet colliding with my chest. The shock of it knocked me down and the kid we had tied up tried to make a run for it, with a limp and his hands bound, only to run into a wall of Drifter guns with Godrick on the forefront.

The kid stumbled back, tripped up by his own injury, and fell back to the ground. He scrambled back until he ran into my legs and then the kid threw out a Hail Mary.

"You can't do this to me! Evelyn and Steve are looking for me! If you take me, you'll have them breathing down your neck. Do you want that?" he cried.

I stopped and looked up at Godrick who was staring at the kid as if he had two heads. I glanced back to Evelyn who was no longer whispering harshly with Melissa and staring at this kid with surprise on her face. It was refreshing to see surprise on her face. Whatever she had been expecting it was not that.

"You know Evelyn?" I asked.

The kid's eyes slid over all the faces around him, including Evelyn's and said: "Yes, I do," but there was no recognition on his face when he's eyes found Evelyn's.

"Prove it," Godrick snarled and the kid gulped down on something. Probably a witty remark, maybe vomit.

"I have a favour," he said, his hand going to a pocket in his jacket. Beside me Evelyn made some motion, out of the corner of my eye it looked like a wave of her hand. It made no sense to me but Godrick clearly understood because he lunged forward and knocked the boy out again before he could say or do any more.

As soon as his head hit the ground Evelyn was on him, turning all his pockets out until she had found whatever it was she was looking for. She stood up with a simple business card in her hands, a brown stripe across the back and had her name printed in light gold letters on the front.

"Is that what I think it is?" Godrick asked, as Evelyn flipped it over to look at the back.

"Yeah," she said softly.

"What the hell is that?" I asked, but I was ignored.

"Is it his?" Godrick wondered.

"Yeah," Evelyn repeated.

"How the hell did he get it?" Godrick asked and I lost it.

"If you want to get your jeep back in one piece and not have me leave you out here in the middle of nowhere you better start explaining now!"

Evelyn sighed but showed me the card again. "This is a physical embodiment of a favour from me," she explained. "I went out to Ottawa because someone was trading in this card, I found him dead in an alleyway with the dead body of his wife, no card on him."

"He really was dead?" Melissa asked but Evelyn didn't respond.

"So this kid jumped your friend and stole the card from him?" I asked. "I mean that seems the most logical seeing as he has no idea who you are."

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," she said. "Come on, let's get back to the compound, we can start talking in the truck."

Evelyn pocketed the card and walked away ignoring Melissa as she went. I followed after, knowing the first question I was going to ask was what happened between her and Melissa, the second would be how many cards did she have left and the third was when can I meet Steve?

After that I'd just wing it.