Connor's P.O.V.

I had been trying very hard to fit in with this new group of people but it was hard... you know?

Melissa was antsy and unsocial. She was only happy when Evelyn was home.

Rebecca, my red-headed goddess, loved attention and loved getting it from me, but when Will came back from wherever he went with Evelyn she stopped caring about me.

Keith was more social and would talk to me when I was all he had. But he didn't give a damn about me either, and once Will came home I was shunted to the side for him.

In fact Keith and Rebecca seemed to spend a lot of time arguing over who got Will's attention. Evelyn would have to mediate sometimes, but that was just her screaming: "Oh My God! I Don't Care! Who had him last?" and then whoever had him last didn't get him at that point. If Will could, though, I noticed that he picked Keith over Rebecca 7 times out of 10.

Will was basically the same as Keith, actually. He was social, he would talk to me, but if anyone else was around, he'd choose them over me too.

No one in their group was overtly mean to me, but I could tell that they were a solid group and I was the outsider.

Evelyn didn't like any of us, and she was very vocal about it. But she liked Melissa best. She just did her best not to show it.

From the stories, Brendan's theories were confirmed. Steve preferred Evelyn, and no one else. But he was getting ready to hibernate, just like Evelyn was. So I hadn't met him yet. The only one who had met him was Melissa and she refused to talk about him. Just as she never wanted to talk about Ottawa.

Evelyn said it was because he was busy, but he never came over prior to getting ready to hibernate either. None of them had ever seen her with anyone, which just made me more curious. But Evelyn never answered questions about him.

I learned the gist of the Ottawa trip. That Evelyn had gotten the call to go get me and my brother-in-law. That Rebecca and the gang had convinced Melissa to betray Evelyn, to kill her and take control of her house and her business. Both were very highly coveted apparently. But somehow the tables were turned on Melissa, somehow she broke her leg, somehow she met Steve and then I stole their car, Steve had to get them back to Toronto. On the way back they had somehow informed the Drifters of her missing car, which was how they knew to look for me, and now here we are.

That was where the theories came in. Rebecca reckoned that Steve interrupted Melissa as she was about to kill Evelyn. Steve being the brute that he was had obviously overpowered Melissa and broken her leg in the process. Will assumed that Evelyn had overpowered Melissa from the get-go. Evelyn was wily and more than her fair share of scrappy in a fight, and that when Steve found out what Melissa had tried to do he snapped her leg out of spite. And considering what I knew Evelyn was like I was inclined to believe that theory.

But neither woman would talk about that trip. Would never go into detail. So it was all a big mystery too.

Seriously, why did Evelyn like mystery so much?

When Evelyn and Will come back from their latest trip outside, even despite the cast I was up and walking towards her.

"Hey, hey, Evelyn..."

I tried to talk to her but she ignored me in favour for whatever it was the two of them had brought back today, which looked like big bags filled with spoiled and apparently boxes of books, DVDs and video games. She was in the process of getting everything into the kitchen, where we would get to pick apart the stuff she had gotten for us, and then we'd help her put away the things that were just generally for the house. At that moment, she was more interested in unloading and unpacking than she was in speaking, but I knew if I waited she'd eventually acknowledge me.

Melissa was always less impatient.

"What did you end up getting? Did you find my movies?"

"In the box on the table," Evelyn cried already heading back towards the door that lead to the garage.

The door to the basement began to shake as someone banged on the door. Probably Rebecca looking to be set free. There were no shouts, and they usually knew better than to bang on the door, Evelyn was usually pretty timely when it came to opening that door. And luckily that was what she did, the second she came back from the garage. Even with a box in her arms, Evelyn walked over to the door. She had to perch the box precariously on one lifted leg and then used the spare arm to unlock the door.

The second it was open Rebecca banged out into the open, taking in big huge gulping breaths of fresh air like she had been suffocating. We all knew she wasn't, the house had amazing circulation for you know... an apocalypse.

Evelyn looked far from impressed but nodded her thanks to Keith who came out of the basement after Rebecca as he took the box from her arms. As soon as he had it Evelyn left to go to the garage again, either for more supplies or to lock it up for the night.

I couldn't help but keep my eyes on Rebecca as she seemed to float on through the house. She first threw herself at Will like she usually did, she covered him in kisses that he didn't seem to want. Then she turned her attention onto the boxes.

"Where is the makeup, she said she was going to hit the mall today!"

"We hit the Pier 1 and the Homesense, you know for everything else you asked for," Will told her and Rebecca scowled at him.

"You knew I wanted you guys to run into Sephora."

"I'm not getting makeup when I don't know what looks good on your skin tones or brand preferences," Evelyn said appearing in the doorway with what I assumed was the last box. "I did however, manage to find you those wooden words you want to mount to the wall, all the pillows you were looking for, and a set of curtains to match the bed spread you picked."

Rebecca sniffed at her and hit her with a small thank you before she shot Evelyn a coy glance and said: "Well... maybe I should come with you next time. I can remind you to go out to the mall."

"When hell freezes."

We all turned to Evelyn, surprised. She wasn't usually that direct unless unhappy, though to be fair a lot of what Rebecca did upset Evelyn. I got the feeling that Evelyn felt that Rebecca—and everything to do with her—was essentially pointless. Which was why, when I got my cast off, I was going to work really hard to find something that Rebecca was good at to make her useful.

"That's rude," Rebecca snapped. All eyes went to her. Oh dear another argument with Evelyn, this wasn't going to go well. Mainly because all Rebecca ever did was scream and cry and complain that Evelyn was out to get her, and all Evelyn would do was roll her eyes and hit her with calm facts or cool sarcasm.

"Yes, yes, I'm rude, I'm always rude," she said with a roll of her eyes. Ha. Called it. "But I can promise you that if I were to leave with you to go out on a supply run only one of us would come back."

One of Evelyn's pointed, vicious grins widened on her face as she stared Rebecca down. When all of us could only stand and stare at Evelyn in shocked silence she turned that same smile onto Melissa and me.

"In other news, I've been told by the kind doctor, that I am to bring you two back to the compound for a check-up. One or both of you might be getting your casts off."

"Oh please dear god let it be me!" Melissa cried. I said nothing though I was actually quite excited about being able to walk normally once more. To be able to go out with Evelyn on her supply runs. I'll be useful again.

"Well it better happen soon, we're running out of time."

It wasn't the first time that she had said something like that. But whenever anyone asked her about it she wouldn't clarify.

"Okay, I have had enough of your cryptic nonsense!" Melissa thundered.

All of us sucked in our breaths, we couldn't help it. Though Melissa was the only one who could really talk to Evelyn like that without repercussions, we also knew Melissa was the only one who could get a straight answer out of Evelyn.

"What the hell are you talking about? We can't be running out of time, it's not like it can be the end of the world... twice."

"It's going to snow soon," Evelyn whispered. But that wasn't an answer.

"Okay, so? Winter is coming. It's Canada, we always get winter."

Evelyn made a face but she wasn't about to let any of us ask her why she was so afraid of snow. Instead she started moving away from us. "Please put everything away, I'm going to go look at the list."

Evelyn left us there with the boxes on the kitchen table and took the heavy silence that accompanied her presence away with her. Everything was always much lighter when she was gone.

It was something that she and Brandon used to have in common. But I figured that was the price both of them paid to have the weight of all our well-beings on her shoulders.

I definitely wouldn't want the responsibility.