Ephemeral (The Countenance)

by Addison Moore

  “Prove it.” I fire it off like a dare.

  His lips curve with devilish intent. “I will.”

  47

  Dig Down Deep

  Friday night, the football stadium at Ephemeral Academy gleams under the supervision of a million sparkling lights. The papery fog gives off a blinding reflection, causing a whiteout on the field and in the world in general.

  I don’t notice the other players, the other team. I keep an eye on Cooper, watch as he runs and tackles with expert ease. He’s a celebrity among the throngs, he stands out like a divine being among a ragtag group of mortals inferior to him in every way.

  During halftime, while the band plays music that sounds like the orchestral section of a theatre tuning up, Wes comes over and offers a quick kiss. His spiced cologne takes over my senses and sparks a thread of excitement through me. His black hair shines with a bluish cast under the harsh stadium lights. His face bleaches out to nothing, leaving the emeralds of his eyes lit up, the outline of a seductive smile tracing on his lips.

  Having Wes back in my life is bliss. We may not be in Kansas anymore, but our love can thrive in any universe at anytime. Trying to suppress love like ours would be like separating water molecules in hopes to dry out the sea—an impossibility too great to fathom

  “You’re a rock star out there.” He sears the words across my cheek. “You’re doing great.”

  “Please.” I flatten my hands against his jacket. “I’m at least four steps behind everyone else at any given time.”

  “Were there other people out there with you?” He encircles my waist and pulls me in. “I didn’t notice.” He bumps his nose into mine.

  Wesley’s shoulders span out hard and wide like someone shoved a baseball bat in his jacket. He’s naturally built like a linebacker. If anyone could give Cooper a challenge on the field, it would be Wes.

  Kresley walks by, shines her I-hate-you lasers right at me. She’s wrapped snug in a suede coat with fur running up the lapel that sprouts wide at the collar. Kresley is the wolf with a dead sheep slung over her shoulders, looking for comfort in the blood of others.

  Wes turns slightly, makes a face as he dips back down and bumps into my forehead. “She giving you problems?”

  “Nope. I can take anything she dishes out as long as I’m with you.”

  Kresley doesn’t realize the war for Wesley Parker’s affection is long over. She thinks we’re both firmly planted on his heart as though it were a checkerboard, each her own queen ready to slaughter when the move is right.

  He interlaces our fingers. “There’s a party at Melville later—across from Henderson. It’s where we corral the football players.” He darts a glance out at the field. I’d like to corral Flanders’s ass—shove him into the armpit of the forest and see how he holds up under a few hungry Spectators.

  A breath gets caught in my throat.

  He dots my lips with a kiss. “If you want, I can show you some of my sketches. We can hang out—I can try to jog your memory.” He rocks me gently like we’re dancing right here on the field. His attempt to keep me far from Cooper is more than working.

  Kresley backtracks and openly gives me the finger.

  “I’d love to,” I say, ignoring Kresley and her special salute to our love.

  Wes turns around and shoots a pissed off look in her direction.

  Hope I don’t have any of her crap lying around. Probably should have mined the place for incriminating evidence before asking Laken over.

  “Of course, I have to change after the game though,” I offer him the out.

  “Perfect.” Wes is pleasantly surprised.

  “Laken.” A girl’s voice echoes like a song from the bleachers, abnormally loud but calm, as if it were siphoned through a speaker.

  “Who was that?” I squint into the crowd looking for a familiar face, a hand waving in my direction but nothing.

  “Who was what?” He turns into the stands.

  “I thought I heard someone call me.” Just hearing that haunted voice ignites a powerhouse headache in me. Pain crackles through my skull with the ferocity of lightning.

  “Figures.” He grazes over my lips. “They all want to see you move.”

  “Right,” I say, trying to ignore the pain. I wrap my arms around him and look over his shoulder into the stands.

  Two identical girls with smooth blond hair, wave in a nonstop spasm. They have pleasant open faces. Their necks are wrapped with matching plaid scarves. They wear short white sweaters over full skirts. Without warning, they morph into gaunt emaciated versions of themselves—dark hollow circles where smiling eyes had been only seconds before, long, straight hair, balding in patches.

  A scream gets locked in my throat as they disappear like vapors.

  “You okay?” Wes pulls away. His face grows ashen as though he had experienced every emotion right along with me. “Laken?” He tries to shake me loose from the visual.

  “I’m fine.” I jolt as if awakening from a very bad dream. “Can’t wait ‘til tonight.” I pant into the words, still rocked from the horror of the sight.

  I take a step away from Wes to collect my thoughts in private.

  Something is very freaking wrong.

  I’m starting to wish I had a pair of ruby slippers on hand. I’d like nothing better than to click my heels together and take us both back home to Kansas.

  After the game, as the football team runs loose off the field, I make a mad sprint over to Cooper and offer a spontaneous embrace in a crowd nine deep. I didn’t mean to lunge at him, but he pulled me in with that smile, and gravity and my budding affection for him took over.

  His arms wrap tight around me as he takes in the scent of my hair at the neck.

  I pull back, still shaken at the odd sight from the bleachers.

  I saw those demons—those girls again, I say, still holding his hands loose at the fingers.

  His head snaps over to the crowd. Where?

  They’re gone.

  “They’ll be back.” The words stream out as he scans the bleachers. You going to Melville? Cooper looks nervous in a sweet boyish way as though he were asking for my hand at the dance.

  I pull away as the crowd disperses around us.

  “For a little while. I’m meeting with Wes.” I tick my head like it’s no big deal, not wanting to get into the romantic implications of what might be happening later. “Why? Is there something you want to share?”

  “Nope.” He pushes back his head with the slight look of disappointment. He wipes his forehead before dunking his helmet back on. Cooper looks fierce with the black metallic armor, Asterion’s gilded horns painted bright on the sides. “I guess I thought it’d be nice if we hung out—at ‘the dance.’” He gives a sly smile.

  My mouth opens with surprise, and I close it again.

  It’s strange having people listen in on your thoughts. Having all of your darkest soul whispers turned into a frequency with the volume turned all the way up. I don’t think I could ever get used to it. I’m not sure I want to.

  “Hey, girl!” Carter pushes herself up on my shoulders and a shower of curls rake over my eyes.

  “What’s going on?”

  “You guys coming tomorrow night? I so want to go to Kettles, but I’ll totally be freaked out if it’s just Jackson and me. The last thing I need is some horror movie death scene playing out. I’ll be looking for the guy with a chainsaw all night.” She tightens her grip on my shoulders. “I totally need you to protect me.”

  “We wouldn’t want you to miss out on a good time.” Cooper gives a dry smile.

  Wes appears and wraps an arm around my waist. “Who’s missing out on a good time?” He spears daggers at Coop.

  “Me.” Carter jabs herself in the chest. “One of you needs to bring Laken to Kettles tomorrow night.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Wes pulls back a grimace. “I can go, but it’ll be late.”

  “Like how late?” Carter stops bopping in place, as if things ju
st got serious. Apparently, beach sex is on the line if I don’t make a cameo to ward off chainsaw-wielding maniacs. Although, I think Carter has it backward. I seem to be a magnet for freaky situations. And I’m more than sure lunatics with chainsaws would be welcome compared to the demonic oddities I attract.

  “Like ten-thirty late. Sorry.” Wes slides out the apology.

  “I can pinch hit,” Cooper offers with the hint of a wicked grin.

  “I’m sure you can.” Wes growls. The hard line of his jaw ignites as the fog puffs around him like steam.

  I think it’s time to put Wesley at ease with a little subliminal reassurance.

  I run my hand along his thigh until I interlace our fingers. His warm hand squeezes over mine as his thumb traces out absentminded circles of affection.

  Cooper and I are just friends, I start. I would hope Wes knows that. In fact, we’re less than friends. I’ll probably have to bring a crossword puzzle to stop from falling into the fire out of boredom.

  I look up at Wes to see if he’s buying it.

  “Go ahead.” Wes shrugs. “Maybe the two of you can work on some of those brain exercises—crossword puzzles.” The long comma on the side of his face depresses with approval.

  I give an impish grin.

  “Come on,” Wes whispers, “I’ll walk you to Austen.”

  We walk through a thick crowd of bodies, and I glance back at Coop who’s already crossing the threshold into the gym.

  A swell of people filter in between us like a New York sidewalk. There is so much life at Ephemeral—ironic since most of the subhuman populace here probably started off dead to begin with.

  I spot Jen all by herself at the concession stand, gazing out with no real focus other than her misery.

  “She heard about your brother,” I say, nodding in her direction. “She wants to have it out with him, but he keeps deflecting her calls. Maybe you should tell him to grow a pair and talk to her before she swan dives off a cliff.”

  Wes shakes his head. “He’s a coward.” He gives a look of dismay. “You want to go and hang out with her for a while? She looks like she could use the company.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “Trust me, the last time Jen and I wallowed in her misery, a whole slew of petty offenses occurred. Besides, I have a feeling she’s got a homicide or two lined up for later.” No sooner do the words speed out of me then Mars crops up next to her. “There,” I say, satisfied, “she has a friend.” Who, by the way, has freed me from feeling like an ass for the rest of the night.

  Wes and I trek hand in hand all the way to Austen House. With both housemothers at the game, I don’t hesitate leading him straight to my room. It’s strange living this way, with Jen, of all people, as the closest form of parental supervision. On second thought, Jen might be stricter than my own mother in general. If my mother hadn’t drank away her evenings, she might have reinforced a few rules herself. I can’t help but wonder how Lacey is fairing. Come to think of it, I wonder if my mother has yet to notice that I’m missing. Save for the stacks of dishes piling in the sink, if it wasn’t for Lacey informing her, I doubt she’d miss me at all.

  The door to my room sits ajar. I push it open expecting to find Flynn or Carter, but they’re both still on the field as far as I know.

  The drawers are opened—all of them empty. I bolt to the closet. Everything’s gone save for one uniform on my side.

  “Shit.” I seethe. Jen and her juvenile revenge tactics cost me an entire designer wardrobe. Then it hits me. Casper’s clothes were here, too.

  “Who do you think did this?” Wes grits his teeth. The thick cords on either side of his neck protrude with anger. Wes wants to feel every emotion with me, live life as one body, two souls just like we used to.

  “Jax Easton and whoever she could get to help her. And why not steal all our clothes? She stole Blaine.” I fill Wes in on the custom alterations Jen pulled off earlier in the week, the ice sculpture she left in her bed.

  “Looks like a shopping spree is in the cards for you.” Wes groans before giving into a little laugh.

  Marky blinks through my mind.

  “I was thinking about going anyway,” I whisper, trying to push Coop out of my thoughts.

  Wes is amazing against the backdrop of the bare closet walls.

  A large etching toward the back of the closet catches my attention. It looks like a shadow, a curtain of gossamer, but upon closer inspection it morphs into figures, and I jump at the sight. It’s a black and white image grafted over the wall of Cooper and me hugging on the field, his face buried in my neck, my eyes closed, my face locked in a moment of ecstasy.

  “I guess I won’t be changing.” I pull Wes out of the closet as if it were on fire and blind myself to every thought beating down my conscience. The image wallpapers my mind, replicates itself infinitely like a lurid mental echo of Cooper and me lost in an embrace. It sears into my subconscious like a thousand forlorn lovers begging to be remembered.

  I whisk us into the hall and down the stairs in the event there’s more photographic carnage pocking the walls of my bedroom.

  “I think we should go to Melville.” My heart pounds erratic. “I should tell Jen in person.”

  “I agree.”

  Jen isn’t the only one I want to fill in on a few things.

  48

  Any Way You Want It

  Melville House pulsates from the backbeat of the bass. A live band plays in the commons room and blares deep guttural groans right through the walls. It rattles my bones, my thoracic cavity. The hard notes jackhammer through my skull and enliven every injury I have ever received since birth.

  “I think I see her.” I point to a blond flame near the back.

  “Meet you at door in ten?” Wes shouts.

  I give a nod and head in her direction only it’s not Jen. I was right—it’s Coop. I don’t bother with niceties or think twice that I might interrupt the conversation a tall redhead is desperately trying to engage him in. I just push him through the kitchen door, straight into a dark service pantry and shut us inside the small cloistered space. Just enough light emits through the seam in the door for me to make out his face, the outline of his body as he presses up against me.

  The scent of mint lingers to him. His sweatshirt gives the hint of soft cologne. I like that Cooper doesn’t bathe in a toxic flurry of manly scented aftershave. Everything about him is understated. That’s the best part about Coop.

  “There’s another picture of us in my closet—on the freaking wall.” I hiss. “Who the hell is the spiritual bastard running around with an infrared camera? And why do I suddenly feel like the haunted paparazzi is after me?”

  “No clue,” he whispers seductively, eyeing me as if he’s disinterested in the conversation at hand. “But I do have other information.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the fact I had Fletcher and Jen’s DNA tested when I scored the mother load of plasma left from the blood drive.”

  “And?”

  “Fletch is your brother.”

  I wrap my arms around him tight and bury my face in his chest. It feels good to know this, empowering.

  “He’s also a Count, not as pure you.” He pulls back and dips his gaze into me. “Jen also turned out to be a good contender as a sibling. Looks like you have two of the real deal floating around right here on campus. And like Fletch, she’s a Count of a lower caliber.”

  “Jen?” I’m baffled by the idea Jen is related to me on any level. “How is that possible?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know how, it just is.”

  “I feel like I’m slipping further into this world every day, Coop. I’m afraid one day I’ll wake up and forget all about Laken Stewart.”

  “Not possible.” Cooper traces out my features with his luminous orbs. He looks spellbound, lost in the rapture of my presence. “I won’t let you forget.”

  I like it like this. He smooths his thumbs over the high ridge of my cheek—imagines u
s on a bed with me lying on top of his partially undressed body.

  “I saw that,” I say it quiet, embarrassed.

  His expression dims. “Sorry.” He holds his hands out like a thief.

  “I’d better go,” I say, not moving a muscle.

  “Okay.” He lets his gaze linger—sets me ablaze with his heavily lidded eyes—that magnetic pull that refuses to let go.

  “Wes is waiting,” I say breathless.

  “Is he?” Copper leans in like a dare, crushes his chest up against mine in the process.

  I can feel the heat of his skin radiating out like a sauna as I sway closer to his lips.

  It’s happening. It’s going to happen. He closes his eyes and dives in.

  I burst through the pantry and out into the jostling crowd, like escaping a burning building. Something tells me I’d better spend time with Wes while he can still stomach the sight of me.

  “Laken, wait.” Cooper catches up and takes a hold of my hand, low and impossible for roving eyes to notice. I can find out who’s responsible for those pictures. He offers an apologetic smile. I have a way. It might take some time, but I’ll get the answer.

  Really? I’m filled with relief. Thank you.

  Cooper has become a safe haven in this wild storm—a refuge from the tornado that’s swept me up and landed me on this psychotic brick road, a different universe entirely.

  Kresley and Jax come up beside us with Grayson hot on their heels. She’s wearing nothing but a low cut T-shirt and heels, her black lace boy shorts visible for all to bear witness.

  I pull my fingers free from Coop in the event Kresley’s observational skills decide to kick in. If I had to guess who was behind this misery in my life, if the choices were reduced to someone mortal, prone to dying once and getting it right, I’d put every Anderson dollar on Kresley.

  “So, what do you think of what I’m not wearing?” Grayson says it sultry, pressing her hands into Cooper’s chest. Grayson looks stunning. She smolders sexuality with those catlike eyes, full lips you could stamp out perfect kisses with. “It was Truth or Dare gone bad.” She chortles, wiggling her bottom. “Or good. What do you think?”