January in Atlantis, Alyssa Day [read any book txt] 📗

At six o’clock, Eva walked into the Copper Cantina for the last time. The first person she spotted was Noel, standing behind the bar yelling at some workers who were cleaning up bits of broken chairs and tables.

Tables too? What the heck happened in here last night?

Never mind. She didn’t want to know.

This was her last night at the Copper Cantina. Her last night of putting up with Noel. Forever. And if he really pissed her off, she had a backup plan in her pocket.

He caught sight of her and threw his hands in the air. “Where the hell were you? My bar was getting trashed—”

“Your daddy’s bar,” she interrupted. “You just work here.”

Noel’s mouth fell open. The he started sputtering, and she laughed. How had she never realized before how much he looked like a frog with his balding head, bulging eyes, and jowly cheeks? She had been afraid of this pitiful excuse for a human being?

Ha.

Not anymore. Imminent death apparently made one unafraid of any petty annoyances like slime ball managers.

“You’re fired!” he shouted.

She marched right up to the bar and held out her hand. “Fine. I didn’t want to work tonight anyway. Hand over my week’s pay and I’m out of here.”

Noel sneered at her. “If you think I’m giving you one cent, you’re out of your mind, you worthless piece of trash.”

Eva leaned on the bar and gave him a flat stare. “Oh, I think you will pay me. Or I’m going to pick up the phone and call your wife and tell her all about your roaming hands.”

The guys cleaning up the bar stopped even pretending to work and stood gaping at the spectacle. Noel turned a particularly virulent shade of purple, but he tried to bluff his way out of it. “Like she would believe a worthless loser like you.”

“I guess you can take your chances. Of course, from what Missy has to say, there’ve been enough incidents in the past that Mrs. Noel might believe me a lot more than you think.” She smiled, showing all her teeth and enjoying every second of this. Probably she should be more worried that Monkey or the other Dark Angels would come back, but Scott had mentioned time and time again that one of the rules was they could never go back to a place after law enforcement came after them there.

Was she taking a risk to believe that was still true? Would Snake’s desperate obsession with her force Monkey to keep searching and probably come back here tonight? Probably, but what the heck. Maybe it would be better to confront them tonight and get it over with, her suddenly fatalistic mind told her.

She returned her attention to her sorry excuse for a boss, but he was still gaping at her.

Noel opened his mouth, but nothing except strangled noises came out. He finally got himself under control, reached under the bar, grabbed an envelope, and slapped it into her outstretched hand. “Fine. But Missy called in sick, and when she called, she told me she was sure you’d be happy to pick up the slack since she did the same for you when you had the flu.”

Eva closed her eyes and mentally groaned. It was true. Missy had picked up the slack, and she’d brought a tureen of homemade chicken noodle soup to Eva’s little apartment too. If Eva walked out now, Noel was likely to fire Missy out of petty spite, and Eva knew Missy needed the job. She and Bryce were saving up to buy a house so they could start a family. Eva wouldn’t have her friend get hurt on her account.

“All right,” she snapped, clearly surprising Noel. “I’ll do it. But this is my last night. You pay me in advance for the hours, and I take all tips home with me. You don’t put your slimy hands on any of them.”

One of Noel’s nasty habits was to try to make them hand over their tips so he could “fairly distribute them.” What it really meant, they’d all discovered, was that he was stealing a percentage of their money.

Unfortunately, it was one of those things that she’d had to let slide because jobs in Early were few and far between unless you wanted to go work in the copper mine. And, of course, Eva couldn’t easily find cash-paying businesses these days.

“Fine.” Noel opened the cash register to get some more cash and thrust it at Eva. “Satisfied? I’m only letting you stay because I have nobody else and it’s a Saturday night,” he told her, always determined to get the final word.

She just shrugged. She didn’t care about Noel’s petty tactics or his final words either. She was trying to figure out what her own final words would be.

Probably: “Scott! Please don’t shove that ceremonial dagger into my heart!”

The fact that she could still muster up some humor, even dark, dark humor, was oddly reassuring. It meant she must have some hope.

Her thoughts went to Flynn. Yes. She did have hope.

What a dangerous thing.

Eva put her money in her pocket and then set to work. Broken chairs or no broken chairs, the cantina was going to fill up. It was Saturday night, after all. She spent a relatively peaceful two or three hours pouring drinks and chatting with customers. Anytime she caught Noel looking at her, she bared her teeth at him, and he hurriedly looked away. Okay, so it might be a petty kind of revenge, but the important thing was she’d stood up for herself.

She’d faced down a bully, and it had felt fantastic. Almost like she was beginning to remember the real Eva—the Eva she’d been before Scott destroyed her life.

On the other hand, now he was about to destroy her life in an entirely different way.

No. No, she wasn’t going to let him. She was going to help rescue those girls, and she’d trust herself and Flynn and his odd group of allies to get themselves and the girls away from anything that an actual demon might have in mind for them.

She shuddered at the thought and then went back to pouring draft beers for Noel’s wife’s cousin Becky, who’d come in to help.

Becky leaned in. “I hear you let Noel have what’s what,” she said, grinning.

“Finally,” Eva said. “I hope it doesn’t cause you any trouble.”

“Nah. My cousin only puts up with him because his daddy’s really, really rich and Noel’s the only child. One day he’s going to inherit everything, and Tina likes the idea of having some money for a change. But she’s not above taking a broom to him once in a while when he gets out of hand.”

Eva took a moment to enjoy the visual of some sturdy country woman going after Noel with a broom, and she caught herself smiling. “As a matter of fact, there’s something I’d like to tell you. This is