“Try.” Ezrina shuffles toward the metal bathtub and begins to fill it with a blue solution from a hose off the floor.
“She’s not too big on complete sentences,” I whisper as we watch her gather her instruments of torture.
Pearl hobbles in close, her gaze drifts from me to Laken.
“I be okay?” she asks, vulnerable and afraid.
I don’t know what to tell her. She might die in a few minutes if things go very wrong and if history is in the mood to repeat itself, things will go very wrong.
Laken steps in and offers Pearl an all-encompassing embrace. She rubs her back and rocks her for a moment as if she were comforting a child.
“If Cooper trusts Ezrina, then so do I.” Laken pulls back with her arms still around the Spectator like they were old friends. “As soon as we get word about your restoration, we’ll be back to pick you up. You won’t be alone in the world. I promise.”
Tears stream from the malformed girl as she strains to look up at Laken. Her entire person shivers with hope, and it makes me feel like shit because deep inside I don’t anticipate things ending well.
“Let’s go.” I pull Laken into me and lead her out of the room. “I’ll check on you in the morning, Pearl,” I say as we walk toward the exit. I look right into her innocent eyes. “You’re in good hands.”
“Cooper?” Ezrina tucks her chin and glowers at me as if she might carve up my head with a paring knife for the fun of it.
I stop shy of the doorway, and she limps on over.
“Per the Countenance, the Spectators must die.”
I give the slightest hint of a nod.
“I have a way,” Ezrina looks slightly more than proud of her extermination method, whatever it might be. “All of them dead.” She heads back toward Pearl as I guide Laken out of the defunct laboratory, quick as possible.
“Don’t start with that one,” I shout as we take off.
Pearl lets out a howl of either pain or approval as we sail toward the exit.
All of them dead.
I give a hard blink. The thought of committing murder on a mass scale doesn’t sit well with me. I won’t do it. Wes and the Counts have another thing coming. I’ve got a gut feeling there will be blood on my hands, only it won’t have anything to do with the Spectators.
We step out of the lab and into the dull, still night, perpetually illuminated by a lavender-blue sky. I point out the mansion in the distance—tall and boxy with an undeniable prowess. Its large wrought iron gates swing open like wings.
“Creepy.” Laken hugs my right arm as we move along the cobbled streets. A crowd barrels in this direction, all of them chattering a million miles an hour—women with their old fashioned hairstyles, their odd dresses that hang to the floor with expansive hoopskirts, bustles up top that accentuate their assets. A man with a handlebar mustache escorts two women with their arms hooked at the elbows.
“They look straight out of the eighteenth century,” Laken gasps. “Are they?”
“No clue.” I pull her to the side as they approach, but one of the women makes it a point to walk right through Laken.
“Oh my, God!” A bubbling laugh escapes her. “Did that just happen?”
“That just happened.” I tighten my grip around her waist, and she relaxes into me with her soft curves. “They like to mess with us. They’re not hospitable to guests.”
“You said there were waterfalls. Can we see those?” Laken looks as enthused and happy to be here as a kid at an amusement park. I can’t say I blame her. The Transfer has all the qualities of a haunted theme park and then some. It’s one hell of a ride, that’s for sure.
“This way.” I lead us down a darkened path that takes us straight through a forest. The trees bend unnaturally, nothing you’d find in nature with their corrugated leaves, their charred trunks and branches. Everything needs a little TLC, a miracle, to even hope to survive.
The hills knot up on the horizon, and we crest the top and take a seat in the shaggy pasture.
“It looks amazing in a morbid sort of way.” She leans in and sighs.
The waterfalls can hardly afford a trickle. The lake below is more than slightly dehydrated.
“I don’t know what this world is about—why the residents seem to prefer the fashion sense of yesterday, or even why and how Ezrina ended up here. But I do know that for whatever reason, for whatever purpose, someone wanted my family to have access to this place. I don’t believe in coincidences, Laken. We’re both here for a very specific reason.”
I pull her back onto the lawn with me. Our eyes lock for a moment, and the air thickens between us with possibilities. Laken lies down, and I pull myself gently over her, positioning my neck where she could draw from it with ease.
“Go ahead,” I encourage. “Take whatever you need from me. I want you to have it.”
“Coop.” Laken reaches up and traces my lips, my eyes with her fingertips. “You’re amazing, you know that?” The words come out in a broken whisper.
“I think you have it backward. If anyone is amazing, it’s you. Thank you for trusting me.”
Her fingers trace down to my neck, stroking me with all of the affection she can afford.
“I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for all you’ve done—that you’re about to do.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
Her fingers curl around the back of my neck and she sinks me down to her lips.
Just love me, Laken. That’s all I would ever want in return.
But she doesn’t hear it.
Wesley
Cooper Flanders’ truck sits parked in front of Melville all night long and into the early hours of the morning. By the time I shower and dress and head out to check on it again, I find it missing.
The sun crests over the library in the distance only to meet up with a layer of rust-colored clouds. The air holds the scent of pines and unearthed soil as a few restless bodies sprint by, sacrificing sleep for fitness.
My phone reads seven-thirty. I’m not sure if Coop’s ever crashed at Melville before, but when I scanned the house for him at two a.m., I sure as hell couldn’t find him.
My messages sit empty. I texted Laken last night, and she didn’t answer. I thought maybe we could talk a little. I wanted to share just enough about the Tenebrous Woods to prepare her for the journey, but she never texted back.
Are you up for breakfast? I hit send. In the back of my mind, I can’t help but wonder if she was with Coop last night.
I shake the thought away.
Coop probably got lucky and landed a very inebriated Grayson Evans in a marathon fuck-fest that rendered him too jacked up to drive.
My phone buzzes softly in my hand—it’s a text from Laken, and I’m flooded with relief.
Oops sorry! Just saw your message a second ago. I’m headed to the mall with Carter. Shopping for something HOT to knock you off your feet next week. xoxo
Nice. And she ended it with hugs and kisses, so already I feel better.
Something HOT to knock you off your feet. I give a little laugh. Laken could knock me off my feet in a winter coat and a paper bag over her head. That girl is a dangerous combination of cute and downright sexy.
Have fun. I shoot it over to her.
“Paxton!”
I turn to find Fletcher jogging along the road with beads of sweat tracking down his temples. He pulls up beside me panting like he’s just run a miracle mile, clearly out of shape and breath.
“Suicide mission before breakfast?” I’m only half-teasing. Fletch hasn’t seen the inside of a gym since as long as I can remember.
“Such is life, dude.” He touches his fingers to the ground before huffing and puffing himself to an upright position. “I had this weird dream last night.” He plucks a water bottle from his sweats and proceeds to down it.
I predict instant stomach cramps in his future but don’t say a word. Fletch is better suited as a mathlete than an athlete, that’s for sure.
>
“Did you dream you passed gas in the forest and you didn’t hear a sound? Sort of makes you question your existence, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, right.” His features harden as if this were serious. “It was intense. It was you and me and we were drinking—knocking back beers, vodka, moonshine—you name it, we tormented our livers with it.”
“Sounds like a typical weekend.” At least it did before things got serious between Laken and me. I’ve taken a turn for the sober since we’ve been together. No more reckless partying for me, all alcohol related tendencies have left the building after that first kiss we shared. Laken inebriates me with her kisses, intoxicates me with those velum-colored eyes.
“There was nothing typical about it.” His features darken. “We went out and swam in this black sea, some kind of lake—and started goofing off. You went under first, and I tried to lug your sorry ass to shore, but got sucked under. Dude, I could feel my clothes taking on weight—I never came back up. Water filled my lungs, and I had this incredible peace.” He glances toward campus. “Then I saw Edinger’s face.” He shakes his head. “So fucking weird. We were dead just like that.”
My heart thumps just once. Fletch startled me with his stupid dream, but I don’t want to show it.
Laken and her strange line of thinking come to mind. She mentioned that Fletch and I drowned in a lake.
“It’s weird like you, dude.” I sock him in the arm like it’s no big deal. “Speaking of weird, Flanders crashed at Melville last night.”
“Why’s that weird?” He loses his attention to a group of girls jogging on the opposite side of the road.
“Just is. He’s never done that before. As far as I know, he doesn’t party.”
“Sounds like some female persuasion was involved.” He shrugs. “Who the hell cares if Flanders gets laid?”
“Me, that’s who. Ask around. See if it was Grayson.”
He scoffs at the thought. Fletch would give his right nut to bag Evans.
“This is about my sister, isn’t it?” He squints as the sweat trickles from his forehead.
“It’s always about your sister,” I say, taking off toward campus. The morning sun shines over Asterion, blinding me momentarily. Makes me wonder if I’ve been blinded in bigger ways all along.
“Where you going?” Fletch calls out.
“I’ve got a meeting.”
An unscheduled meeting with Demetri Edinger to be exact, and I’m coming with questions.
Not that I expect answers.
He never gives anything voluntarily.
I hope to God Laken is wrong about everything, or I will never forgive myself for not believing her.
By the time I hit the base of the hill and end up in the marbled halls of the English building, the north wind pushes in a surge of boiling clouds with a breeze so chilly, your bones want to shiver for weeks.
I walk casually past Edinger’s room just in case someone’s in there other than his wicked ass, and low and behold there’s a blonde seated at a desk scribbling something in a notebook. It’s Hattie.
Strange.
It’s Saturday. Who the hell sits in class and does work on a weekend? Sure the homework load at Ephemeral is to capacity, but that’s what libraries are for—or the dorms.
Laken really freaked out on her last night. Maybe she was upset, and her way of dealing with it is hitting the books? But in class?
“Wesley.” Edinger stains the doorframe like a shadow. “I sensed you were here.” He bleeds a slow spreading smile. “Are you going to pace the halls or come inside?”
I nod and head over.
Sensed you were here. I always knew he had a lot in common with canines—bitches to be exact.
Inside, Hattie swipes her desk clean before standing.
Her dark eyes linger over me an inordinate amount of time before she walks slowly out of the room.
Strange. Not even a hello, not that I offered one.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Edinger folds his hands across his chest like he’s ready for a casket.
“I want to know if Laken Anderson is really Laken Stewart.”
He needles me with a penetrative stare as if reading my thoughts from three feet away.
“What is this?” He shakes his head dismissively. “Your girlfriend having an identity crisis? What does this have to do with me?” He tucks his chin and glares as if I’m wasting his time, and I hope to God that’s all this is.
“I’m telling you”—my voice shakes with anger—“if I find out you’re fucking with me in ways I could never imagine, I swear on all that is holy, I will find a way to take down your wicked ass and cover the streets with your blood. Oh, that’s right. You don’t have any.”
“Refrain from cursing in my presence.” His body solidifies as if I’ve enraged him on some level, that wicked grin immovable as concrete.
I’m out of here.
“Wesley?”
I pause without giving him the privilege of looking back.
“If I were you,” he starts in slow, “I would choose my words with a little more caution. If I were tampering with you, in ways you could never imagine, then your creativity is, for a better word, lacking. Think outside the proverbial box. You’re a smart young man—good genes. I would venture to say, the best.”
I glance back and glare at him a moment.
Somewhere, lost in that transitive babble, lays the answer to all my questions.
“Per usual, you’re full of shit,” I say, heading out the door and out of the English building.
Demetri Edinger, usually is.
The clouds press in low, denying us any evidence that the sun had ever shown over Ephemeral. My mind replays Laken’s cryptic beliefs on a loop. A tight knot seizes in the pit of my stomach at the thought of Laken and her crazy alternate reality ever being right.
I’m Wesley Paxton. My mother is an administrator here on campus, and my father runs the legal arm of Althorpe in New York.
Then it hits me. Laken has probably been feeding Fletch this bullshit by the bowlful. No wonder he’s having nightmares.
A swell of relief swims through me.
That’s all it is. That’s all it could ever be.
Hattie flies to the forefront of my mind like a rattle of doubt. Laken said she wasn’t human. Then what the hell is she? My stomach sours a moment. Maybe that explains why she was hanging out with my least favorite Fem on a Saturday morning.
I try to push the thought out of my mind. The last thing I need is to get sucked into Laken’s delusions and drag down the rest of the student body with me.
“Hey, Wes.” A couple of guys pop up on either side of me and begin walking me to the back of the building at a quickened pace.
“What’s going on?” The one to my right is built like a door, blond, and I swear I know him from somewhere. But the one on my left—his black hair, that all-too-familiar face, startles me. It let’s me know something’s not right. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I was having a nightmare. He looks spot on, exactly like me.
“We thought we’d formally introduce ourselves,” the blond dude says as they launch me into the thorny bushes.
“Shit,” I hiss, plucking my sweatshirt free from the teeth of the overgrown shrubbery. “What the fuck?” They might be ripe for a fight, but right about now, so am I. The blond winces, he narrows in on me with an intense level of hatred, then it hits me. Every muscle in my body freezes. I know him.
“You’re the Elysian.” Skyla’s Elysian.
“Logan Oliver.” He ticks his head back as if things were suddenly casual, as if he and his buddy, that happens to wear my face, didn’t just travel two years into the past to pay me a visit. “My nephew here has been dying to meet you. His fist is looking forward to bonding with your lips—you know—those things you use to hurt Skyla with?”
My clone steps forward. “Gage Oliver,” he says, examining me. “I’d tell you to memorize my face because you’ll be seeing a lot
of it, but it looks like you’ve one-upped me and put it on like a mask.” He pulls his fist back before digging his knuckles into my jaw. My teeth bite over my tongue, and a squirt of blood runs down my throat.
Shit.
I let out a hard groan as I fall back into the spiked bushes. My sweatshirt gets caught, and my arms lock, wide open, exposing myself to his viral assault.
Gage pummels me to a level of pain that can only be described as the other side of nirvana. This is no amateur hour beating. This is an old school ass kicking from a muscle-milk guzzler who knows a thing or two about weak points and inflicting near-death experiences.
Can’t lift my head. Each one of my ribs feels severely fractured as my legs buckle beneath me, and I slip to the ground. The sweatshirt I was wearing still hangs high in the branches on the thorns that pinned it.
“Skyla sends you her love.” He shouts from above as a shoe bullets through my stomach. He takes a step forward and repeats the effort into my skull, and the world mercifully fades to nothing.
6
Dearly Departed
Laken
The dove grey afternoon drones on. Coop calls me to meet him at the clearing just shy of Diamond Peak, and I don’t hesitate making my way over.
An autumn rainbow of yellow and crimson blesses the maples as they yield their leaves to Mother Earth. It breaks up the steel grey skies that stretch out overhead like a yawn. It’s majestic out here with the dew of fall settling over the landscape. I’ve never seen hillsides so rich with color, so seemingly alive while experiencing their death.
A pair of arms circle my waist. “Sorry, I’m late.” Coop sears the words into my ear like a hot summer night and my skin catches fire. “Ezrina’s ready to share the results.”
“Are you kidding?” My heart stops at what this might mean. I hope to God that poor girl lived, that’s she’s perfectly resurrected and not in some far more unfortunate state. “I hope it’s good news,” I heave the words out in a sudden panic. “If it’s not, I’ll feel horrible, Coop. Not to mention we’ll be screwed.” A resurrection for Pearl could save the entire Spectator race, namely the Tobias family.