I’d chosen to come in here to check on him. Whatever happened to me now would be my own fault.
“I didn’t kill him.” Each word was a snarl. His shirt was unbuttoned up the front, as if he’d been trying to stay cool, but hadn’t had the strength to take it all the way off.
I shook my head. “Why are you still trying to lie to me?”
He snorted at that and I looked at him with shock.
“Something funny?” I snapped.
“Yeah, actually. You caring what happened to Ethan Cole is hilarious. You didn’t even know he existed.”
“That’s not true.”
“Sure. Okay, maybe you actually did care about him. Maybe you liked him, but it was only from a distance. You harbored a crush on him for years that you didn’t want to act on, because it was too big, too scary for you to deal with. Because you were afraid of being rejected or laughed at.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh wait, no. That wasn’t you. That was Ethan himself.” He looked completely disgusted.
“You don’t know anything about him.”
“I wish that were true.”
The heat coming off of him was intense, like roasting in the sun on a summer’s day at the beach. He was too close to me. I held the knife between us, pointed directly at his chest.
“Here’s what I do know for absolute certain.” His jaw was tense. “I didn’t kill him.”
“You’re a liar.”
He glared at me, breathing hard, for a couple long and uncomfortable moments. Then he pulled his sleeves up and showed me his wrists. “This is what he did. This is how he died.”
I was afraid to take my attention off his face, but I did glance down. It was dark in the room but I could still see the faint pink lines over both of his wrists now that they’d been pointed out to me.
He stared down at them. “I was able to heal most of the damage, but it’ll never go away completely. It’ll stay as a reminder.”
Heal most of the damage. Just like he’d healed the knife wound from the other Upyr.
“No.” I was shaking now, worse than before.
He looked pained and his gaze returned to mine. “You might think we’re monsters, and a hell of a lot of us are exactly that, but some of us stick to a code. We only take what’s left behind.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe you.”
“I watched him before it happened. I sensed what he planned to do—we can sense impending death like that. I followed him. I watched. I waited. I couldn’t have stopped him even if I’d wanted to.” His expression twisted into one of anguish. “Nobody else noticed how much pain he was in, but I did. I saw how much he hated himself, hated living. He hid it all from the world. He hid from the world. And he decided to end it. He’d been thinking about it for a long time and he finally did it. His mom was out with his stepfather that night. They didn’t get home till the morning.”
Tears poured down my cheeks now, but I still didn’t loosen my grip on the knife.
“What then?” I choked out. “Tell me what happened then.”
His brow was furrowed deeply, the painful memory of what he’d witnessed played across his face. “Taking a shell so soon after they...” His jaw clenched. “Well, it makes us stronger. I knew I needed to be strong after I escaped. I needed to be able to fight. To act. But—but I took his shell sooner than I should have.”
I inhaled shakily. “What?”
He looked away from me. “We call them echoes. They’re memories that stay inside the shell. When we take over, they become a part of us. Normally it’s not a huge problem. If the spirit’s been gone from the shell for a few hours, or a day, it’s just background noise, like a television being left on in another room. You can ignore it, for the most part.”
“Echoes,” I whispered. “Memories. Mr. Watkinson—or the Upyr using his body—said he remembered his wife dying from cancer.”
“Yeah.”
“So what?” I looked at him with disgust. “You have Ethan’s memories? Great. I guess that helps you blend in all that much better. Makes it easier for you to lie since you don’t have to make it up as you go along.”
A muscle in his cheek twitched and he cast his gaze down at the ground. He scrubbed his hands over his scalp, through his dark hair. It helped to push it out of his eyes. His glare returned to me and nothing remotely friendly remained.
“Pretty much,” he said. “Ethan’s memories, they’re my memories now. And they’re vivid. The sooner you claim the shell, the stronger the echoes are and the more real they feel. It’s not just an annoying distraction anymore. It becomes your reality. And that I took this shell so soon…it complicates things even more.”
“Meaning what?”
“Ethan’s spirit wasn’t gone yet when I took over and healed his body.” He swallowed. “I acted too quickly. Now everything he felt, experienced, saw, thought, was...that’s what I am now. I am Ethan Cole now, fused with him, whether I want that or not.”
“No, you’re not him. Don’t even say that.”
“Don’t worry, it won’t be long. I’ll burn up. This shell will be gone—and Ethan’s memories will be gone, too.” He snorted again and covered his face with his hands. “It will be a relief, actually. I don’t know why I’m even fighting it.”
I was desperately confused. “But you’re not Ethan.”
“I am now.”
He stood there, his skin sending up wisps of smoke, just staring at me for a long time until it made me nervous. More nervous.
“You never knew, did you?” he asked.
“What didn’t I know?”
“There’s a memory...his first day in third grade. That’s when his mom moved to this town to start a new job here. He felt so awkward, so alone, and you—you let him borrow a pencil. He didn’t have one and he was embarrassed to ask the teacher for one.” He laughed. “That was enough. Right there. That moment. A stupid pencil.”
“Wh-what? I don’t remember that.”
“Of course not. But he did. He noticed you, saw you. Liked you. That’s how it began.”
“What began?”
“His feelings for you. They started that day, his first day at school.” His expression grew tense. “But he didn’t know what to do. How to act. It’s inside him, this painful shyness. He can’t get away from it. It crippled him all his life. He could think of the right things to say—brilliant, witty things—but it came out all mixed up when he tried to speak, so he stopped trying. But he never stopped liking you.”
“I liked him, too.” Despite the heat he was giving off, I felt cold. So cold.
“Not the same as how he felt. And it never faded for him.” His brows drew together and he turned toward the wall. “It only grew. It ate at him, this way he felt. And it was all focused on you, Olivia. All of these years, don’t you see?”
“I—I don’t know...”
“I know you don’t know.” He laughed, but it was utterly humorless. “How could you? He never said anything. He never gave any indication that he liked you—that he always liked you. Once, he told a couple of his friends, when they were talking about girls. He told them he liked Olivia Hawthorn. And then they went up to you at that dance in seventh grade and told you...”
The dark, twisting pain on his face confused me so deeply I didn’t know what to do with it. He was talking about the memories that Ethan had had, but it was as if he’d experienced that pain himself.
“Ethan never talked to me again after that dance,” I said.
“He was ashamed. His secret, he kept it safe inside of him and the moment he trusted somebody else with it they made it into a big joke. It nearly destroyed him.” He groaned. “He was so weak, but he was that way about everything in his life, not just when it came to you. He should have done something. Said something. Got mad. Told them that wasn’t cool. Make them see that they’d hurt me by taking how I felt and laughing about it. But they didn’t see. It was no big deal to them. Bu
t it was to—to me.”
“It wasn’t you,” I choked out. “How can you even act like it was? It was Ethan and now he’s gone. Gone forever.”
“No, he’s not,” he mumbled, then swore under his breath. “I took this body too soon, but I didn’t want his mother to see what he’d done. I had to clean everything up so she wouldn’t know. She doesn’t have a clue that her son—”
“Stop it. Just stop it!”
“Soon I’ll stop for good. Promise.” His sharp laugh now sounded pained. “But I want to get this all out first. For you to understand what happened, why I did what I did.”
I rubbed away my tears with my sleeve and glared at him. I wanted to turn and run away, to slam the door shut behind me and never see him again. But I stayed locked in place. I needed to hear what he wanted to tell me.
“I knew the Upyri wanted you, but I didn’t know why,” he said. “And you were right all along. I did follow you from Helen’s party that night. I’d waited outside ever since you got there with Peter, I’d listened to everyone having fun. I’d been keeping an eye on you ever since...” He trailed off.
Ever since he’d stolen Ethan’s body.
He continued. “Still, I didn’t want to get too close to you. It made me hurt inside, knowing you didn’t see me. But then you did and it was like I’d been punched in the gut. That’s the real reason I tried to avoid you the next day. I wanted to go back to how things were. Keep my distance. It was safer that way. I could keep an eye on you, but not up close. Not with you looking into my eyes like that, giving me your full attention. I couldn’t hide anymore, you wouldn’t let me.”
I shook my head. “You keep saying you, like you’re Ethan. But—”
“I am Ethan. I have his memories, his life, his spirit even—everything he was is inside of me. Is me.”
“No, you’re not Ethan. You’re a monster.”
His lips twisted into a half grimace, half smile. “I’m both now. Or, at least until this shell is gone. I don’t know if I’ll keep any of Ethan’s memories or feelings once that happens. I’ve never tried anything like this before. I’ve never gotten...this close.”
“Frank said that you were protecting me. That you were the only thing standing between me and the rest of the Upyri.”
“I was.”
“But why? You’re one of them.”
He shook his head. “Isn’t it obvious by now?”
Frustration welled inside me. “No. It’s not. I still don’t understand any of this. Tell me why you’d protect me when you’re one of them—one of the monsters who wants me dead.”
His expression was pale and haunted. “Because Ethan was in love with you, Olivia. For years. That’s why I’ve done everything I’ve done. It was all for you.” His gaze locked with mine. “Because I’m madly, passionately, desperately in love with you.”
Chapter 16
I stared at him, stunned. “Don’t—please don’t say that.”
“But it’s the truth.” He looked furious now. With me, with himself. “I don’t want it to be this way, but that doesn’t make it go away. It never goes away.”
I wanted to call him a liar again, wanted to hate him even more for saying something like this out loud.
“You need to know something before I’m gone,” he said, finally breaking the silence. “Something I’ve known for a couple days now.”
It took me a moment to find my voice. “What?”
“It’s the reason they want you. The reason why you’re different from other people in this town. Why your shell is so tempting for them.”
I just stared at him, waiting.
“It’s because you died before, even if it was only for a few minutes. When you were young and you got your scar.” He frowned. “A human who dies and is brought back to life is very special. Their bodies are changed forever, they hold a special power, a strength...a kind of magic. You can’t see it, can’t touch it, but it’s there. You came back when others would have stayed dead. You’re—”
“Revenant,” I said, my voice a whisper.
His eyes widened. “How did you know that?”
“Frank.” I swallowed hard. “I know he’s different—revenant—too. He’s been around for a long time. One hundred years ago he was here and he fought against the—” My eyes snapped to his. “You knew. Of course you knew. The journal, you knew it belonged to Frank, didn’t you?”
He just watched me, his jaw tight.
“That’s why you made Bree forget. How you got her to destroy it.”
“Is it gone?” It wasn’t a confession, but it was close enough.
“Yeah. But Bree scanned in some pages first. Enough for me to see a picture of Frank; for me to know that he’s a bit more than what he appears to be.” I exhaled shakily. “So you did that. You made her forget just by looking into her eyes.”
“It’s not quite that simple.” His jaw tensed. “But, yeah. I did. And that’s what clued me in to you being something very different as well.”
“You tried to do the same thing to me that first night. Tried to make me forget what I’d seen. Forget what you did.”
“But you didn’t.” His lips curved. “Not even close. I knew they wanted you in particular for some reason, but that should have been my tip-off right there that you were revenant. I was too stupid to see the truth for a while longer. Until Frank asked you those questions in the bar about whether you’d ever died before. Then it all finally made sense. A revenant’s body is like gold to the Upyri. It gives them strength and power that they’d never get from a regular human.”
I paced to the other side of the room. “Why destroy the journal? If you were trying to help me, why would you do that?”
His gaze grew pained again. “Self preservation. If you’d seen the pictures, read about Frank’s exploits, and I had just introduced you to him as one of my friends, you would have figured it out. Figured out what I was. And I knew you’d hate me for it.”
“And here we are.”
“Here we are.”
I’m madly, passionately, desperately in love with you.
Talk about a phrase that had a habit of echoing. I had to concentrate hard to keep those words out of my head. They weren’t helping me to stay strong. In fact, they were doing just the opposite.
“So a revenant makes a good shell,” I said.
He nodded. “Much harder to kill. And any Upyri inside a revenant shell wouldn’t perish from not—” he hesitated, “—not drinking blood every day. Trust me, that would be a perk. It’s not all that convenient.”
I grimaced at the very idea of anyone drinking blood. “Like when you’re trapped in a locked room.”
“Exactly.”
“So you’ve been drinking blood daily to keep your strength, ever since taking over Ethan’s shell.”
“Yes.”
“How? Why doesn’t anyone report that there are attacks of monsters sinking their fangs into people in town?”
He snorted softly. “No fangs here. Human body, human teeth. Instead, we can influence humans to be still, to not be afraid. And when it’s over we can make them forget it ever happened.”
I shivered, then paced back toward the door. “So how do you get to the blood?”
“A knife.” He glanced at the one I held tightly. “The wound heals quickly after we feed. Helps to camouflage what we’ve done. The human would see that they got a minor scratch from somewhere, but won’t remember where. No harm done.”
“No harm done, huh?” I repeated.
He glared at my mocking tone. “Have humans died from our drinking their blood? Yeah. It can happen if we get too greedy. But for the most part, they never need to know we exist. Except...”
“Except what?” I prompted when he went silent.
“I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but I know it’s going to be big. The others—the ones that are still trapped—they’ll be released. Soon.”
I shivered. “And then what happens?”
“Our Queen...she wants more. She is the strongest of all of us so she broke free first. A few of us were able to follow in her wake, but the others are trapped until she gives them their freedom. She has that kind of power over us. She’s the one who wants your shell. With it she’d be practically invincible. She knows the shell of a revenant is the best place to hide if she wants to avoid ever being trapped again.”
“How does she know that?”
“She saw it happen before.” He looked at me. “With Frank.”
“He’s been alive for over a hundred years.” I had a horrible thought. “Is that—will that happen to me? Will I live that long?”
“No. A revenant shell is immortal only to an Upyr, but a regular shell will age and die like a normal human.”
I felt myself pale. “So that means that Frank is an Upyr, too. Inside a revenant shell.”
Ethan nodded.
I didn’t think I was capable of getting any colder, but I managed it anyway. My shiver turned into a full-on shudder.
It made sense, though. And I had a very strong inclination that’s exactly what was going on before Ethan confirmed it. Frank was an Upyr who’d been lurking around town since the others had been trapped a century ago.
“He saved me,” I said. “The other day, Frank stopped that big Upyr when you were unconscious.”
“Frank’s my friend, he always has been. He knows why I’ve been”—he grimaced—”acting so strangely. He gets what I’ve been going through. He doesn’t like it, thinks it’s distracted me from the real plan, but he gets it.”
I figured the distraction he was talking about were his so-called feelings toward me that I hadn’t been able to fully process yet. “What’s the real plan?”
“We need to trap the queen again. Permanently, this time. She’s been driven half-insane over the last century. The rest of us were in a kind of stasis, but she was awake the whole time. Planning her revenge.”