“I love you,” I whisper.
“I love you, too.” She wraps her arms around my waist safely away from my skin. It makes me wonder why she didn’t dip under my sweater like she usually does. It’s cold out, certainly my skin would warm her hands.
Yesterday I trusted her like God himself, and now her every move is suspect.
“Laken—” I brush my cheek against hers. Her skin is so soft, it makes her feel impractically young, as if in some way she’s too naïve, too sweet and innocent to carry out such a malfeasance against my heart. I look over at her. My entire person is filled with an inexplicable sorrow as if innately I know the truth will certainly not set me free.
“What’s going on with you and Coop?” The words ooze from me like a bloodlet. “Why were you with him last night?” I stop shy of asking what they were doing, if she wanted it. An image of their bodies locked together pops through my mind, and I try to shake it away. I’m sure my darkest nightmares will show me a replay regardless if I want it or not.
The water whispers against the shore and fills the silence left in the wake of my question. Cooper is a disease that broke out over our relationship. He’s tearing up the fabric of who we are, shredding us to pieces, and I didn’t even know it.
Laken takes in a breath as if I’ve caught her off guard, and for a moment I wonder if Coop had filled her in on what happened after all.
Her cheeks darken in this dim light. I can tell she’s flustered by the way her fingers have spastically twined themselves around a loose thread on her sweater.
“Okay.” She swallows hard.
Tears glimmer in her eyes, and my heart drops. Shit. She’s not even going to deny it. I don’t know why I thought both she and Coop were going to try to pull off the world’s best snow job. I don’t know why I thought I was worth a lie or two—that the safekeeping of our so-called relationship was somehow worth the trouble.
“Are you ready to hear this?” She shoots the words out like daggers, and a ball of acid rips through my insides. The last thing I expected was Laken to be pissed at me.
“Yes,” I say it low, trying to defuse the situation.
“You never believe a damn thing I say,” she snaps. Her head ticks to the side as if she were readying for a showdown. If a shouting match is what she’s hoping for, she’ll be sorely disappointed. Not one part of me feels like fighting with Laken tonight or ever.
“What do you want me to believe?” I say it calm, sedate, and it only seems to piss her off more.
She takes a breath and holds it before bouncing to her left and gaping at me incredulously.
“Are we in Kansas again?” I shake my head. “Is that what this is about?” I can feel my blood pressure spike out of nowhere. I try to deny myself the right to an argument, but my emotions want to duke it out all the way back to her fictitious town.
“Forget it. You think I’m stupid.” She tries to get up, and I gently pull her back. I wrap my arms around Laken until she molds into me, and her perfume swims around me in laps.
“I don’t think you’re stupid, Laken. I never said that. I would never even think it.”
“You think I fell from a tree.”
“You did.”
“Look.” She lets out a sigh. “I don’t know what Coop told you or how you even found out I went over there.” She lies back in the sand and looks up at me with her eyes wide, her lips slightly downturned. “I’m going to tell you something else, and I’m pretty sure you won’t believe me.”
“Try me.” Because God knows I want to believe her more than I believe I’ll take my next breath.
“Okay.” She swallows hard, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
The moist slick reflects the moonlight and illuminates her features. Laken’s beauty outshines the moon and the lake. She’s a marvel that I plan on spending my entire life sketching. I dream of transposing her image to canvas in both oil and acrylic, charcoal and pastel. I’m hoping to surprise her with a stipple drawing of herself for Christmas. But I don’t know if she’ll want me around if I don’t buy into her fairytale musings.
Laken gets up on her elbows and gives an exasperated sigh as if she’s sorry she has to deal with me.
“You know who Hattie Tobias is, right?” She nods throwing me completely off track.
“What?” Did she just change the subject?
She averts her eyes as if she expected nothing less than ignorance on my part.
“She’s my new roommate. She’s been here for weeks.” A half-moon dimple presses into her cheek as she glares at me with disappointment.
Funny—Hattie said that Laken hadn’t slept in her dorm for weeks.
“Anyway”—she shakes her head—“I think there’s something very wrong with her. Like in a not human kind of way.”
My heart thumps. Laken was worried and didn’t bring me her concerns.
“She’s just weird,” she continues. “I can’t explain it. It’s almost as if I just know.” She sits up. “So I told Coop. He said he’d look into it as long as I collected some DNA, so I did.” She glances down a moment. “When you left last night, I went downstairs to sleep with Jen and bumped into Coop. That’s when I told him I had what he needed. He said his dad was home, and he could run the tests that night. I probably should have just let him take the samples, but Jen wasn’t in her room, and I was freaked out about being in the basement alone, so I asked if I could go with him.”
“So what were the test results?” I don’t know if I’m playing along or genuinely inquiring. At this point it feels like both.
“His dad said it was more complicated than he thought, and he might not know for days.”
I nod into her, waiting for her to finish. Laken didn’t come home last night. I’ll know she’s lying if she says she did.
“I fell asleep at his house, Wes.” She brings the sleeves of her jacket up over her mouth and sniffs away the tears. “I know you probably hate me.” She shakes her head. “But I have to know if Hattie Tobias is something I should fear…if they sent her.”
A chill runs through me. She still believes in “them.” She’s on a loop with her story, a hamster wheel of deception spun out from her own imagination, and she can’t find her way off the contraption.
“You don’t believe me.” She closes her eyes in defeat. Laken lowers her head until her hair sweeps down over her features like a curtain. She wants to let me into her world, and I’ve put up my own shield of disbelief. And why the hell does Flanders believe her, anyway? Obviously to land her in his bed. I’m not going to call her out on the private blood draws. I’m not ready to go there yet.
“I believe you, Laken. I believe you were terrified of Hattie, for whatever reason. I believe that Coop told you he could help you get to the bottom of this. Have you done this before? Spent the night at Cooper’s house?”
She shakes her head a little too aggressively.
“So you’ve been sleeping in the room with Hattie all along?”
“I’ve been with Jen.” Her eyes dart over the water when she says it. “Wes, I swear I love you. I want our relationship. I want us.” She takes up both my hands and shakes her head. “Please, Wes, really hear what I’m saying.” Her voice trembles as she draws herself to her knees. “You are my everything.” Laken pierces me with a primal intensity. “Let me in. Let me love you completely.”
Our eyes lock as if we were enemies at a standstill.
“Do you believe you’re Laken Stewart?”
A moment of silence slices by as deep as the ocean.
“Yes.” She doesn’t bother to deny it.
Shit. My eyes close involuntarily. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
“Do you think you could still love me like this?” she whispers. “Broken?”
I pull her in and topple us down to the soft blanket, my face buried in her hair.
“I’ll always love you, Laken. You can never change that. No matter what happens.”
She finds my lips with hers, and I cave
. I press in with a heated kiss that only moments before I was afraid we would never experience again. My body pulsates like one giant heartbeat as I massage my tongue over hers—I roam her mouth like it were its own universe that I’m greedy to explore. I want to believe everything Laken tells me—but I’m not sure I can.
Laken sighs as if she heard me.
And I’m sure she did.
8
Love is a Battlefield
Laken
After a mouthwatering session of kisses down at Charity Lake, Wes and I return to Austen House where he insists on walking me to Jen’s haunted abode.
It would figure—right after I convinced him that I’ve been sleeping in Jen’s room this whole time, he most likely wants proof. So much for having a trusting relationship, although, in Wesley’s defense, it was me who lied.
We walk down into Austen’s bowels, through a cinderblock hallway, before landing in the housemother’s quarters.
How Jen can stand being holed up in this twisted lair is beyond me. I’m terrified being upstairs by myself where it’s opulent and scented with designer perfume, and here she is in a hovel, with the smell of mold thick in the air.
I give a gentle knock. “Are you decent?”
“Since when do you care?” Her voice carries through the wood, muffled, as I step inside and find her brushing her teeth. The room is oversized and boxy with the walls painted the dull brown of a paper bag.
Here it is, the split second I have to convince her to help me. If ever Jen was going to be a true sister to me—this was when I needed her most.
“Jen?” I sharpen my gaze until she ceases her rather violent scouring session. Here it goes. I need to hone in on those sisterly vibes and make it clear that my ass is on the line. I widen my eyes, round as wall clocks, and clear my throat. My relationship with Wes might very well end within a thirty-second time span if she inadvertently rats me out. “I want you to look Wes in the eye and tell him where I’ve spent the night these past three weeks.”
Jen holds out a finger. She spits in the sink and wipes her mouth with a towel.
“Austen House,” she says, making her way to the bed. Her long flannel gown, with its delicate print of cornflowers, reminds me of something my mother would wear. “Ask me something a little more challenging next time.”
Wes catches my gaze in the mirror. I can tell he’s not satisfied.
“Let’s just drop this, Laken.” He presses a kiss against my cheek.
“No,” I say. “Jen, where in Austen House have I been sleeping?”
Jen washes those pale eyes over me as if I’ve just done something heinous.
“Right here with me. We’ve slept toes to nose, and I’m ready to call HAZMAT over your lack of hygiene. Anything else?” She plucks a magazine from off the floor and leafs through the glossy pages.
Holy shit. I step away from Wes. I do believe Jenevieve Anderson just told her very first lie—and it was to protect me, her sister.
She scowls at us. “Would you guys mind holding off on the interrogation? I’m beyond exhausted. By the way, Wes, your brother is an ass in the truest form.”
Add cursing to her shortlist of brand new personality traits she’s developed this evening.
“I’d better go.” Wes presses out a humble smile.
I walk him back to the dank hall, and the lights dim before coming up full strength again.
“It’s like this whole place is haunted,” I whisper. “Hey”—I bite my lip and look up at him with all of the faux curiosity I can muster—“where did you think I was this whole time? You didn’t think I was secretly shacking up with Cooper or something?” I try to look aghast at the concept.
“I don’t know what I thought.” Wes lowers his gaze. He’s so consummately gorgeous, my dark knight, my best friend, and here I am feeding him barefaced lies. “Grayson was filling my head with a bunch of bullshit, and I must have been in the mood because I was taking it in as fast as she gave it.”
“Figures it was Grayson.” I shake my head. “I can’t wait until I graduate. Until we can move in together, until I can stop being your wife in spirit and take on the actual role.” I run my finger down his chest. “I love you so much, Wes. I would never want to hurt you.” I mean every single word.
Wes pulls me in tight and his chest pumps as if he’s shedding silent tears.
“I would never want to hurt you either, Laken.” He leans back and looks me right in the eye. “You’re my everything. I never want to lose you. I want to share the whole world with you—I want to share a lifetime—forever.”
I latch onto Wes, and we hold each other a very long time.
We’re going to love each other forever.
I just hope we’re together while doing so.
Once Wes takes off, I head back into the room with Jen to thank her for the spontaneous performance.
“I’m going to nominate you for an Oscar,” I say, slipping beside her on the bed.
“What the hell was that about?” She sits up, looking genuinely concerned but far more pissed.
“Well…” I shrug. “I can’t.” My voice cracks. The damn is going to burst if I let it, so I just press my lips together.
“Oh, Laken.” She scoots in and hitches a loose hair behind my ear. “You’ve been seeing Cooper again behind Wesley’s back, haven’t you?”
Just hearing Jen verbalize it makes it sound a million times worse than I thought it was.
“I’m vile. I’m filth,” I whisper. It feels good to confess it. “I’m—garbage.”
“No, sweetie!” Jen pulls me in and encapsulates me with a heartfelt embrace. I heave into her chest as tears dislodge that feel like they were years in the making. “You’re human, that’s all. Well, as human as we can get. You’re confused. Cooper is nice, and good looking, and strong—and he’s got great abs’ for God’s sake.”
“You’ve seen his abs?” I pull back to examine her.
“Yes, he struts around the gym with his shirt off like he’s allergic to cotton. He’s kind of hard not to notice. And Wes”—she takes up my hand—“Wes is your stronghold. You’ve been secretly in love with him for as long as I can remember.”
I glance down at the eyelet comforter. I’ll be the last person to tell Jen that just about all her memories of me are fresh on the scene—a total work of fiction by some evil mastermind. Nor will I be informing her that I have another sister named Jen in some alternate reality even though, oddly, Dr. Flanders was able to prove that this one, right here, is genetically related to me.
“You have to follow your heart, Laken.” She gives my hand a squeeze.
“And what if my heart doesn’t know what it wants?”
“It will.” She assures. Just like my heart knows it wants Blaine.
I groan inwardly at her silent proclamation.
Sometimes we don’t know what’s good for us.
Which one is good for me—Wes or Coop?
My heart says both. And I have a feeling, just like Jen, my heart is about to lead me down a path of total destruction.
The next day, in the desperate hours of the evening while Wes and I try to entertain ourselves in the library, I get a text from Coop.
Wes points to my phone spinning on the marble counter.
I’m so freaking stupid I left it out in plain sight, after I took off my jacket.
I boldly hold it out in front of the two of us as if I have nothing to hide. Even though Coop and me went through an entire litany of things that we need to do in order to protect our plan, cell phones and their myriad of uses were never even an afterthought.
Results are in.
Shit.
I glance up at Wes. “I guess it’s time. We’ll know if Hattie is a human or a Fem in just a few minutes.”
I text him back. What is it?
Come over. I can pick you up.
Wes frowns as he peers at Coop’s prompt reply.
“Can we go?” Maybe if I include Wes, I can win back his tru
st.
He looks around at the dead zone we’re stuck in for the next few hours.
“I’ll get one of the guys from the back to cover our shift.” He pulls his cheek to the side and his dimple flexes. “Do you need to warn Coop that I’m coming?”
“Why would I need to warn him? Are you planning an assault?” I tease with more hostility than necessary. “I’ll call Flynn and have him meet us there. He’ll want to know this, too.”
“Flynn?” His dark brows pitch with surprise.
“Yes, you don’t think I’ve been running around alone with Coop this whole time do you? Flynn’s been in on this since the beginning. Why do you think he’s been so nice to her?”
Wes opens his mouth then closes it while looking over my shoulder.
I turn to find Hattie staring me down with her dead eyes, that soulless expression that says, I eat mortals for breakfast.
Wes gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I’ll get someone, so we can take off.”
I wait until he moves to the back before texting Coop.
Got a ride. See you soon. I’d fill him in that I’m bringing company, but with my luck Wes will see my “warning.”
I step over to Hattie. The gloves are off—I’m through with the niceties.
“What do you want?” I snip.
“Where’s my friend?”
“Monsters like you have friends?” I hold back a laugh at the thought. I don’t need some simple blood test to confirm what I already know is true. The Hattie Tobias that stands before me is no more human than a potted houseplant.
That sterile look in her eyes dissipates, and I swear she just flickered an emotion—pain.
“Flynn,” she says his name and nothing else.
“I’m ready to roll.” Wes wraps an arm around my waist, and we head out the door.
It’s time to prove that Hattie the Fake is nothing but a lying Fem. And, once Wes sees I’m right about this, he’ll see I’m right about everything else.
I hope.
Cooper
The wind blows the autumn leaves around the front yard, creating a red and orange tornado. The branches of the maple scrape against the window like an animal trying to claw its way inside.