"Don't bullshit me." I look Evelyn in the eyes, my voice monotone. It's not my first time ever uttering that sentence.

Her response to that is to throw up on the ground at my feet.

As I help her out the best I can I hear Ray ask the others, "How much did she drink?"

"I- I tried to stop her, Ray, I really did. I'm—"

"What'd she have and how much?" I demand, holding up Eve's hair as she pukes her guts up in the snow.

"D-don't tell him... don't tell him any-anything, Raven!" Evelyn chokes out.

"Oh my God," the guy who isn't Krash mumbles while he covers his face with his hands. "If you think that helped your case, Way, it really fucking didn't!"

"Is someone gonna answer the fucking question?" I ask, no longer even trying to keep the anger from seeping into my voice.

"It wasn't a whole lot," Krash finally says. "But she's tiny and she didn't have anything to eat so, you know, it didn't have to be a lot. We tried to stop her, but she'd get mad."

"Well maybe you didn't try hard enough!" Before anyone can argue or say anything else I go on, glad that no one besides us is in the park. "You three should just go back to wherever the fuck you came from and stay away from Eve, or as you call her, Way. Okay? Just fucking leave right now."

"We really did tr—"

"Just GO!" I cut Raven off. This time no one talks back and all three teenagers trudge back into the woods. Back where they came from. I hope I never see them again.

I can only guess that Eve bumped into them on that day she skipped school, unless this has been going on for a while. Unless she met them before she met Gee, maybe at a school she used to go to? But they were definitely older than her... God, I hope this hasn't been going on for a while. I don't know how Gee would take it.

I take a deep breath before addressing Evelyn, not wanting to yell at her, too. Well, maybe I do want to yell at her a little bit, out of confusion and a desperate need for an explanation, but I won't. "Come on, Eve," I say. I go to pick her up, but she stumbles backwards.

"No! Not coming... I'm n-not coming home."

"We can't just leave you here, Eve," Ray says gently.

She nods wildly. "Yeah, yeah you can. I'll just- I just have to g-go..." She turns around and makes to leave (to go where, I don't know), but I stop her by grabbing her arm. "No! Frank let go of me! Let me go! I-I'm not going home!" she shrieks.

She tries to pull away, but she's weak. I don't let go. "Evelyn you have to come, it's fuckin' freezing out here. We'll get you warmed up, you can have some hot chocolate or something, would you like that?"

"NO! Let go of me, Frank! LET GO! I'M NOT. COMING. HOME!" She puts all her strength into trying to get away, but when she can't she breaks down into heart-wrenching sobs and sinks down onto her knees. "I-I can't go home... I can't..."

Ray and I crouch down in front of her. I resist putting a comforting hand on her shoulder and instead ask carefully, "Why can't you, Eve?"

"B-because I fucked up," she cries. "I- I know I did, so you d-don't even have to t-tell me or yell at me or- or anything. And-and now Gerard probably h-hates me, so I- I can't... I can't go home."

"Hey, no, Evie. He doesn't hate you, he's been worried about you all day. He just wants you to be okay," I insist, but somehow I knew my attempt at comforting her wouldn't work.

"W-well, I- I'm not. I'm not okay, o-k-kay? So- so you c-can just leave now and... and tell him that yourself when you see him."

"We're not leaving unless you're coming with us," Ray says firmly. I nod.

"G-guess we're not leaving." She sits down in the snow and clasps her hands in her lap. She's shivering madly and her teeth are even chattering. I notice that her fingernails are all chipped, but most concerning of all, her lips and even her fingers are purple. That's when I decide she can kick and scream all she wants, I'm getting her out of this damn park.

I scoop her up off the ground and she yells protests, flailing her limbs, but I just tell Ray that we're leaving "right-the-fuck now" and hold on to her tightly. She's incredibly light, but I try and push every thought from my mind other than "get Eve home" and "don't trip and fall in the snow, especially with a kid in your arms."

"Don't- don't take me h-home!" Eve goes on sobbing. "I'M NOT GOING HOME!"

"Fine, fine, Eve. We're not going home!" Ray finally exclaims. I give him a confused look, but it gets the poor girl's attention so I let him go on. "We'll go to my place, okay? Would that be better?"

She nods. "Y-yeah," she sniffs.

Ray then turns to me. "You know Gee would freak out if she showed up at home like this," he mumbles.

"Yeah," I nod. He's right. He wouldn't be able to handle seeing his fourteen year old daughter drunk off God-knows-what. I don't know how I'm even holding it together myself as well as I am. "What are we gonna tell him? He needs to know we found her."

"We'll bring her home first and go from there," he says decidedly.

I don't say anything back. Eve's just fallen asleep on my shoulder.

• • •

When we finally get to Ray's place I lay Eve down on the couch gently and immediately drape a blanket over her, then I take her boots off while Ray goes to find more blankets. I crouch down next to her and take her hands in mine as an attempt to warm them up a bit. I've never seen anything like it, her fingernails are a dark purple, but they're not painted.

When Ray comes back, he's carrying an arm-load of blankets then lays them carefully over the sleeping girl. She's still shivering.

I sigh deeply and run my hands through my hair. "Now what?"

"Well," Ray says with a glance at Evelyn. "We have to let Gee know she's okay."

"But she's not."

"I know."

We finally decide to call Gerard and Mikey and tell them where we are. Ray's right, after all, he needs to know she's alive at least. So, after arguing a bit over who actually has to make the phone call, and then Ray finally volunteering to do it himself, I go back to holding Eve's hand.

He dials the number and has no time to think of what to say when Gee picks up. He paces back and forth as he speaks.

"...We found her...... She was in the park when we found her...... We're at my place now. She's asleep...... Wait— just- just prepare yourself, okay?...... She- um—" He stops speaking abruptly, looks down at his phone, then up at me. "He hung up, but he and Mikey are on their way."

"Great," I say quietly. I'm still holding Evelyn's hands but they've barely gotten any warmer.

• • •

okay so the book is almost done we'll just see how this goes

also if you were wondering, her fingers are purple because of lack of nutrition. it has something to do with poor blood circulation and probably hypothermia too (I'm only going off personal experience here)