Ephemeral

  “How about this?” Marky comes up from behind.

  “That’s great!” I straighten. I don’t even process whatever it is she’s holding, just revert my attention back to the display of scarves and pull out a long green one the exact color of Wesley’s eyes. I should lose myself in it. Go blind trying to absorb its pigment, swallow it to keep from engaging in conversations about girls in their underwear—to keep my flesh from lusting after another guy in general.

  Shit. This is all going freaking south. Another second, and I would have been lost in a lip lock with a guy who, by the way, is not my boyfriend. I hate the effect Cooper has on me. I should run screaming all the way back to campus.

  “I’m going to try these on.” Marky points toward the dressing room before disappearing behind an orange curtain.

  Coop comes up from behind and presses his body against me.

  “I can’t kiss you,” I whisper.

  “You want to,” he says. It comes out like a poem.

  I spin around and take him in. Perfect Cooper, dangerous Cooper, very much off limits Cooper—someone I can never have.

  His chest heaves, his breathing grows erratic, and for one fleeting moment I think he’s going to throw caution to the wind and cover my mouth with his. Every part of me aches for him to do it. It’s the one and only cheer my body willingly participates in.

  “What would you do if I kissed you?” He says it breathless as though it were about to transpire.

  I shake my head in protest. “Can’t happen.”

  His cheek pinches on the side as he holds me steady with his metallic gaze. “I’d bet what little money I have that it happens in the very near future. That you’ll want it—demand it.”

  “You flatter yourself unnecessarily.” I shake my head at his ludicrous assumption. Clearly Cooper Flanders doesn’t lack ego or balls.

  “Maybe.” The pretentious smile glides off his face. “Maybe I’d rather flatter myself unnecessarily than think about you with Wes,” he whispers it so low it comes out a dirty confession. That seems to be the bridge that connects Cooper and I, brick after brick of unimaginable truths, tarnished and dirty, too embarrassing to say out loud in public.

  I let the scarf drop to the floor and run my fingers through the thick waves in the back of his hair. My insides loosen, and an unnatural thump pulsates through my chest as I retract my hand from out of the fire.

  “I’m sorry.” I look down in disbelief. “Coop, I’m so sorry,” I struggle for the right words. “I’m not trying to lead you on, I swear.”

  Marky jumps out of the dressing room and I give a thumbs up to a bright pink sweater that makes her eyes pop like black buttons on a teddy bear.

  “I would never in a million years want to hurt Marky,” I whisper. I don’t know what spurred that odd spontaneous confession. It’s not Marky’s affections I’m trying to deflect. I turn to face him fully, take in the boyish way about him that lingers below his inflated self-confidence. “You have to believe me when I say you’re special. I really do feel something for you—but I have Wes.” There it is, the dagger in which I carve out his heart. “We’re still a team, right? You’re the only one who believes me, Coop. I can’t lose you.”

  Cooper takes in a breath and picks up my hand. He massages his thumb over my knuckles as if he were funneling all of his energy there, so the hurt won’t show in his eyes—bleed through in his words.

  “I do believe you, Laken. I believe everything you say to me.”

  I sag with relief. There is no better way to love me than with those very words. Perhaps that’s why Cooper has harnessed the ability to eclipse Wes in the race for my heart without even trying.

  Coop takes a breath—hides the beginnings of a smile that lets me know he heard.

  My eyes widen at the thing of horror my mind has become—a voyeuristic gossip of malicious intent, a drunkard reeling around the street while espousing palace secrets.

  The dimple below his eye defines its teardrop shape as he squeezes my hand.

  “You didn’t hear me, did you?” His eyes round out.

  “No.” I blink back in surprise.

  He lets his cheeks rise and fall. “Looks like it’s time for another infusion.”

  50

  Injustice for All

  By the time I get home from my shopping spree with Cooper and Marky, Jen has already assembled a wardrobe library from a few of her girlfriends from Trinity U.

  “Mom offered to take us shopping tomorrow,” she snaps, still obviously pissed at the world for existing.

  “Perfect.” Grayson blinks through my mind. “Actually, I was invited to go to the movie screening tomorrow night. Power Position, starring Grayson’s boobs.”

  “I heard she’s on screen for like ten seconds.” Jen casts a look of disgust at the ceiling.

  “Ten seconds affords a lot of flesh to be discovered.” Maybe I can artfully distract Coop with a text just as she takes up the screen with her mammoth cleavage. Then again, I am going with Wes, and maybe Cooper falling in love with Grayson wouldn’t be such a bad idea. It just feels like one. I mean I have someone else, certainly he’s entitled to the same. I can’t seriously want him to pine for me while I have a life with Wes. But something inside me does want that. It very much demands that he aches for me and stays the hell away from Grayson Double E Evans.

  I hate that part of me.

  “Wes stopped by.” Jen takes a seat at the desk, her face blank as a doll’s. “He left something for you on the desk.”

  My heart thumps.

  “You tell him where I went?” Stupid, stupid me mentioned in passing this morning I was heading out with Cooper to the mall.

  “Just that you went shopping.” She inventories the makeup cluttering her desk. “Are you seeing Cooper behind Wesley’s back?”

  “No! God, no. Cooper and Wes are good friends. I was just helping his little sister pick some clothes out for picture day. You know”—I sigh with effort—“she doesn’t have a mom.”

  “So you’re volunteering?” Jen gags on the words like the concept borders on something immoral.

  “Yes, I’m volunteering. She needed some sisterly advice, and I’m more than willing to give it.”

  Speaking of sisters, it’s strange seeing Jen in this new light as a real blood and flesh member of my questionable family. What does it mean for the original Jen? I certainly don’t love her any less. And God—what about Lacey?

  “Cooper needs to find himself a girlfriend, so she can fill that sisterly role.” Jen huffs at the idea of me volunteering for the position. “You have a boyfriend, Laken—one who left the most ridiculously romantic gift for you while you were playing house with some other guy. Get it together, or Wes will find someone who’ll pay him the one hundred percent of attention he deserves.”

  A long olive branch lies over my desk. I pick it up and examine its bristled leaves. It’s like awakening from a dream, like swallowing a fantasy and having it be real. Each sage-colored leaf is peppered with a heartfelt I love you.

  Guilt coats me from the inside heavy as tar.

  Jen is right. There’s no way Wes is going to tolerate me dividing my relationship on any level with Cooper for very long.

  I twirl the blessed branch—roll the stem between my fingers and watch it spin into an infinite blur of Wesley’s perfect love for me. But it’s my love for him that drives me to Cooper in the first place. Cooper and I are going to dismantle the Counts’ ability to kidnap another soul, stop them from washing clean every precious memory from a person’s existence. They stole Wes from me once, and now they’re trying to shove this new version down my throat. Cooper’s mother—Casper—I smell the Counts at every turn.

  I pause and touch my fingers to the tiny silver leaves. Wes touched each one with his heart for me.

  “The Autumn Sacrament is next week.” Jen sweeps a brush through her hair, pale as milk in this unforgiving light.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s h
ow Austen House kicks off the school year. It’s a bonding thing. Of course, Jax will be there.” She rakes through her hair a few more times. “I think I’ll hold out my ultimate revenge until then.”

  “And what about Blaine?”

  “For him, I have something special planned.”

  “I hope pain is involved.” Somehow I doubt this. For him she’s probably mapped out a picnic. “Sometimes pain is necessary,” I say, heading into the bathroom and pulling a metal nail file from out of the drawer.

  I open my mouth and run my tongue along the outer ridge of my teeth before landing soft over my canines.

  I’m about to do something for love, and I’m pretty damn sure it’s going to hurt like hell.

  Late in the evening, Cooper offers to drive the four of us out to Kettles. The midnight blues of a tail-end autumn sky glow from above. There’s no rain in sight, just an icy wind capable of turning the soil into arctic tundra.

  “The beach won’t be so bad,” Coop says, maneuvering out onto the highway. “The dunes act as a windbreak, and I brought blankets.” He glances in the rearview mirror at Carter and Jackson, a basketball player whose head touches the roof of Coop’s double cab truck. He’s quiet in general and has a sweet spirit. It’s heartbreaking knowing Carter is going to eat him for breakfast. But for now they’re so wrapped up in one another, giggling and moaning, he’s hardly aware of his surroundings, let alone the fact he’s on the cusp of a relationship blowout.

  I reach over and lay my hand over Coop’s.

  Sharpened my fangs for you. I bite down over my lips to reveal my newly chiseled features thanks to my date with the nail file.

  “Nice work.” He looks mildly perplexed by my efforts. “You didn’t need to do that.”

  The sizzle of a zipper emits from the back, and I’m afraid to turn around—afraid I’ll expose myself to unnecessary flesh from either Carter or Jackson or God forbid any forensic evidence they’re about to spew forth.

  Leave it to Carter to get it on in front of an audience—twice.

  Coop pulls into the parking lot, and the two of them scamper out so fast it’s like the race to the tree on Christmas morning.

  Coop and I grab the blankets and head over to the dunes. The salty ocean livens the air. The eelgrass lends its dank stench as an afterthought to the breeze, polluting the atmosphere with its offensive odor. A thick mist baptizes us, kisses my lips with a layer of salty brine.

  “So weird,” I say, trying to ignore the punishing wind.

  “What’s that?” Cooper holds my gaze longer than necessary as if our eyes were having an entirely different conversation.

  “Just that you were the first person I remember seeing.” It was him I saw in the forest that day. It was Coop who saved me.

  Cooper pauses, taking in the black expanse of the ocean with its smooth white tide rolling high over the sand like a lover. It caresses her tan skin, covers her like a sheath with its foaming affection. It pulls back as it races into the sea, sucks her in as if it’s trying to take her with him.

  “Whoever brought you here must have wanted it that way.” He wraps an arm around my waist and leads us to a valley in the sand, equipped with a fire pit.

  “Sounds like a wise move on their part.” I place my hand over his shoulders, take in his features washed a pale blue from the moonlight. It feels natural like this. Like we’ve done this a thousand times, just the two of us. “I don’t know who put me in that forest. I don’t know what I’m doing here. But at the end of the day, I’m glad I got to know you. I’m glad they put you in my life.” Hell, I’m more than a little grateful. Without Cooper this entire psychotic experience would be just that—psychotic.

  “I’m glad, too,” he says it without a smile, and without affect, as though having me in his life were as serious as death itself.

  Cooper starts a fire while I spread out the blankets. In every way it feels like a date. I bat the idea away because Wes will be here in less than two hours, and I refuse to entertain the idea of dating anyone but him.

  I have no clue where Carter and Jackson ended up. So much for me protecting her from an impending chainsaw massacre. Between the battering wind and the roar of the ocean, there’s no chance of hearing their wild piercing screams on the off chance they should get dismembered.

  “Maybe the powers that be didn’t plan for us to meet.” I get back to the topic of Coop and I. “Maybe it was just a coincidence.” I pat a seat next to me as he falls onto the blanket.

  He bumps his shoulder playfully into mine. “Are we back to coincidences?” His eyes light up like crystal flames. The fire accentuates his sharp features, and my cheeks fill with heat at the thought of being near him like this.

  “You’re right,” I say. “They don’t exist. Someone wanted you in the forest that day. Unless of course you spend all your free time scouring for zombies.”

  “Nope.” He ticks his head. “Spectator patrol called—said I had a pick up.” He gives a little laugh as if he were teasing.

  “Spectator patrol? That must be who did this. They must have known I was there. There was no pick up. You killed him.”

  He shakes his head. “It doesn’t work that way. They’re usually never dead when I get there. If I can’t bring them back alive, I have to kill them. It’s not really a challenge. They’re slow, disorganized in general—like Wes,” he quips.

  “Very funny.” I rock into him. “So you killed it. That’s why it evaporated?”

  “That’s why it evaporated.”

  “You weren’t kidding when you said they were biodegradable.” I glance over at Coop in this new light. “So you’re like a bounty hunter—a zombie bounty hunter. How do you get them back?”

  “Dart gun—Count issued.”

  “The bastardized Ruger.” I blink at the thought. “I almost killed Jones with one of those poisoned arrows. What’s the deal with the gun?”

  “Paralyzes them long enough for me to get them to the Transfer. I put them in the holding tank, and I don’t know what they do to them after. I have no idea where they’re being holed up to begin with.”

  “How do you get into the Transfer, Coop?”

  He turns his gaze toward the fire. “It involves, strength, speed and a whole lot of faith.”

  He doesn’t add anything to it. I’m not sure what I was expecting, for sure not a roadmap.

  “So, who called to report the Spectator the day I arrived?” Why do I get the feeling Coop is evading the question. “Obviously they’re the mastermind of this posthumous matchmaking.”

  Cooper shakes his head with certainty and stokes the fire before falling back on his elbows. “Doubtful.” He licks his lips quick as an afterthought, drinks me down as the purple hues from the flames dance over my skin. “It was Wes.”

  “Wes?” I mouth his name. “How did Wes know about the Spectator? God—did he know I was in the forest?”

  “Wes always seems to know. He’s got Spectator radar.” Coop averts his eyes. It’s obvious he thinks Wes is a joke or a threat.

  “Do you think Wes did this?” I flick a finger between the two of us.

  “No.” It depresses out of him. “I thought maybe at first, then I realized he was into you. Why would he want to push you in my direction? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “But he called you about the Spectator. What the hell is that about?”

  “He’s a major player in the Counts’ secret circle. Wes knows things none of the regular drones are privy to. As for me, I guess if you had to label his role, he’d be my boss.”

  “Boss?” This new version of Wesley is multilayered, so far and so deep that stripping an onion with my teeth would be an easier and a more appealing task. There may never be enough tomorrows to get to the core, to figure out this new unimproved rendition once and for all. “How did you get involved in this mess?”

  “Spectator patrol? My dad passed the baton—my grandfather did it before him. The story goes, my grandfather had captured a few of them
and was conducting experiments. Soon as the Counts got wind, they freaked out, thought he might expose their dirty little secret to the world and offered him incentives to keep his mouth shut.”

  “Such as?”

  “Free rides—any school any family member. My grandfather had them build the psychiatric institute, even got them to name it after him.”

  “Nice work.” An iced breeze snakes between the two of us and I scoot in closer to Coop. “So you can go to any school.” My heart sinks into the pit of my stomach at the thought of losing Cooper to some nebulous university. “Are you going to Trinity?”

  “I don’t know.” He wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me in, rubbing his hand up and down my arm to warm me. “Where do you want to go?”

  “I want to go home.” I burrow my face in his neck for a moment before using his shoulder as a pillow.

  He presses his lips against the top of my head, breathes into my hair, warm and soft. “I want to be wherever you are, Laken.”

  I glance out at the dark unknowable water, the white gloss of a wave barreling toward shore. It detonates in a spectacular crash, pounds the sand with its carnal fury.

  Cooper pulls me in with a dark gaze. I can feel his lust for me, his palpable desire to lay the memory of Wesley Parker to rest once and for all, bury him in the sand right here between us.

  “You ready?” There’s a gleam in his eye as if he’s been counting down the minutes.

  A strangled silence crops up and enunciates the snap of the fire, the rush of the ocean. I have to remind myself I’m doing this to save Wes and me—to save those poor Celestra souls who are being held against their will. I need Wes to tell me things he wouldn’t dare say out loud in hopes of finding a solution to all this madness.

  “I’m ready.” I pick up his hands, and my heart pounds erratically. It rivals the surf in both fervor and intensity. Everything in me is far too willing to love on Cooper’s neck—begging me to move my efforts elsewhere, his teeth, his lips—feast off the hot of his mouth until we’re both delirious from the effort, but I won’t. I can never do that.