Ephemeral (The Countenance) (21 page)

I watch as the crimson liquid races into the tube, bubbles up at the top before shading to soot. It looks unnaturally dark, morbid. It makes me wonder if a lab analysis is really necessary to clue him in on the fact that something is wrong with me, even my blood is necrotic.

“It’ll take at least an hour or so once I begin the process. If you’d rather not wait, Cooper can relay the results.”

“I’ll wait.” I don’t hesitate extending my stay.

Dr. Flanders exits with my blood in tow, leaving Cooper to examine me with a renewed curiosity. His ravenous eyes rove freely over my face. The hint of a devious smile outlines his lips.

“Why don’t we study up in my room?”

Cooper’s bedroom is boxy and neat.

Growing up, Fletch always had a mountain of laundry scattered in semi-organized chaos across the floor that he added and subtracted from on a regular basis, not to mention a serious pile of hazardous waste settling around the circumference of his bed. When he died, Mom suggested we burn it. I remember that because it was the first time we laughed since the funeral.

I take a seat on Cooper’s bed, rumpling the navy plaid quilt. He sinks into his seat at the desk and pulls out his lit book, turns to our first reading assignment,
Madame Bovary
.

“I’ve read it.” I shrug, staring up at the ceiling. “Crazy chick looking for love in all the wrong places—offs herself by eating poison. A deadly classic.”

“So you have.” He glides over in his chair and lands by my side.

“Tell me everything you know about, Wes.” I adjust the pillow under my neck and close my eyes like he’s about to tell me a bedtime story. It feels so good like this with my eyes shut, with Cooper watching over me like a guardian angel. All of the fear and loathing that I have toward this new reality slowly melts away. “Tell me about the Counts.”

“I don’t know about Wes specifically. I know there are a lot of Counts running around out there with skills that far exceed their God-given abilities.”

“What kind of abilities?” I open one eye to gauge how serious he is.

“Counts have strength and speed, all angels do, but some of them seem to have harnessed the powers of the other factions as well, including Celestra who have the ability to read minds—time travel.”

“Reading minds? Time travel?” I lean up on my elbows. I’m fascinated by this although I don’t know why. I can’t seem to keep life straight in this time dimension, let alone two, and my own thoughts are enough to drive me insane.

“Yes, read minds.” He pauses at the lure. “Time travel’s the big one they’re after. They’ve been trying to gain powers from the other factions for centuries, attempting to create a super race of Nephilim.”

“Because they want it all. They’re greedy,” I whisper that last part because they have me, and Fletch, and Wes, and, God forbid, Lacey stowed away someplace. “So you said they can read minds?”

“If they touch your skin. Does Wes seem to know what you’re thinking?”

“No.” I shake my head. “There’s no way Wes is reading minds.”

“Do you have any recall of ever doing an initiation ceremony? I mean, even if you are a Count, you may not have done it yet.” He looks concerned as though it were a disease I were about to contract.

“What’s an initiation ceremony?” Why do I get the feeling I’ll be tied to a stack of branches at the foot of that bronze monster they glorify in the quad and set on fire? I balk at the thought, but a part of me can totally envision Jen right there with lighter fluid and matches. I expect nothing less from the lunacy that is Ephemeral.

“The Counts have you take a pledge. I don’t know what else it might entail.”

“Why are you so interested in the Counts? I don’t get it.”

He drops his gaze to the floor before sinking his diamond-cut eyes back into mine. “I heard Marky tell you about my mom. My mom didn’t die, Laken.” He circles over me with a profound sadness. “My mom was having problems. She was seeing this therapist—acting strange, out of character. Then one day she just disappeared.”

“You think she was abducted by the Counts?”

“She left without taking anything.” He gives a solemn nod. “Marky was alone in the kitchen when I came home from school. My mom left behind her cell, her purse—she was wearing house slippers at the time and left one behind. Who takes off on their family without any of their belongings—with only one slipper?”

“You think the Counts would resort to kidnapping?” It comes out lower than a whisper.

“They kidnapped you, didn’t they?”

20

Read My Mind

Cooper and I go over Flaubert’s masterpiece as a palate cleanse from all this batshit talk about the Counts.

“Here,” Cooper says, pulling up the book’s synopsis on his laptop as he scoots into me on the bed, “she was a hopeless romantic. That proved to be a problem.”

I’m sure Madame Bovary had a lot of problems, in fact, if memory serves correct, the entire story was laden with her needy propensity for attention, but right now all I can think about is the fact Cooper Flanders’s arm is raking against mine, hot as a brushfire.

“You used the words
hopeless
and
romantic
together in the same sentence.” I was aiming for sarcasm, but my cheeks fill with heat. “Do you believe in destiny? True love?” I mean it in reference to Wes and me here together again on planet Earth or locked in my imagination, either or. 

Cooper coasts over me with his glacial-clear eyes, a black ring around each cornea. I’ve never seen that on a human before. My neighbor had a Husky with those eyes—hottest-looking dog on the planet.

Cooper gives a little huff of a laugh as if he heard me.

“Yes.” He nods incredulously. “I believe in love.” His demeanor changes, softens. A rise of color touches the apples of his cheeks. “I believe when the time is right, if you’re patient, the right person will walk into your life.” He exhales softly, without breaking our gaze. “Then everything changes.”

“Everything,” I parrot back in a whisper, afraid of what might happen next, afraid I might do something stupid like reach over and brush his lips with mine because I can’t fight the dull ache in my chest that warns me not to.

There’s a knock at the door before it bursts open, exposing a rather shocked-looking Wes.

“Hi.” I bounce off the bed like a spring.

“You don’t waste any time.” Wes knuckle bumps Cooper, but there’s something serious in his tone that lets him know a line is being drawn. Cooper can go here and no further with me, and for sure his bed is beyond the border of Wesley’s guidelines.

“You get a chance to talk to Dr. Flanders?” Wes melts into a smile that sends a massive wave of guilt through me. How could I have thought all those terrible things about him? He’s an angel, in the most literal sense.

Cooper walks us downstairs. “My dad is going to have to see her again,” he says it like an apology.

Wes nails Coop with a hard look. “In your room?”

“Just studying for lit, dude.” Cooper rasps the words out with a twinge of pleasure. His lips twitch into a barely there smile. 

Marky hops off the couch and offers me a tight embrace reminiscent of Lacey in every way. Her hair is damp from a shower, the spongy flesh on her arms still sticky and dewy. I try not to look like a freak as I squeeze my eyes shut in an effort to memorize the feeling of having her little body pressed against mine. In that small moment, I try to pretend she is Lacey, but can’t. There is no surrogate, never can be. Nevertheless, I like Marky just fine on her own.

“I’ll call you and let you know if I figure out the answer to that question.” Cooper digs into me with a knowing look. “Continue our conversation.”

“Oh, yeah, I’d hate to flunk the first quiz in lit over something stupid like that. Thank you.” I let my gaze linger like a threat.

I’m still not sure if either Cooper Flanders or Wesley Paxton is trustworthy. I’m not sure what to believe, but something inside me isn’t willing to give up on either of them.  

Wes helps me into his Range Rover that bleeds the scent of its leather seats like a neurotoxin, and we take off down the dusty winding roads of Heaven.

“Rain’s coming tomorrow,” he says, as he leans into the windshield and squints into the sky. “You wanna run into town and grab a quick bite?” His teeth crest his bottom lip, and I can’t help notice the fine sharp points on his canines. “Or we can pay Charity Lake a visit. Continue our own conversation.” He bears into me with the slight hint of jealousy.

“You don’t care for Cooper,” I say it low and seductive. A part of me likes Wesley locked in an emotional rivalry with Coop—the green-eyed monster rearing its head, all for me.

He looks out at the open road before pulling onto the main highway. His cheeks pull back, no smile. His eyes shine in the night with an ethereal glow I’ve only seen on animals. Wesley’s heart-stopping features contour to perfection in the shadows.

“Coop’s okay.” He rounds his hands over the steering wheel like an afterthought. “He likes you. I can tell.” The muscles in his jaw flex just this side of anger. We drive out another mile or so without saying anything. He pulls off onto a dirt road and the lake shines back like a mirror.

Wes hops out, takes a blanket out of his trunk and a small paper bag.

“Emergency supplies.” He rattles its contents with a naughty grin.

“Are we having an emergency?” I ask as he walks us beneath an overgrown willow and sets out the thick wool blanket. The scent from his cologne pulls me in long before he does.

“My mom insists I keep a bag of candy bars in the car at all times in the event I get stuck or roll off a bridge, you know, all the normal things moms worry about.”

“You could live off a ketchup packet for a week.” I peer in the bag and pull a Snickers bar out. “Looks like you have a very wise mother.”

He falls next to me, waves the bag in the air before tossing it to the ground. Wes pulls me in, traces the outline of my features with his finger, soft as a breath.

I snuggle in close and look up at the dark, brooding sky through the tendrils of the willow. The long branches dangle like dreadlocks, black against the navy velvet. I love it like this with Wes, not a soul around, just the wind, the earth, the sky. I missed these days, and now I have them back again.

I clasp my hand over his and gaze into him. His boyish-sweet looks, his dark hovering brows. I drink them all down like a much needed panacea. Wes was designed to captivate. His soul’s entire purpose is to pull you in, make you want to linger and never ever leave.

“I’ve dreamed about you a thousand times,” he whispers.

“Really?” I find the idea of invading his dreams more than a little intoxicating.

“You’re intoxicating,” he whispers.

I take in a breath and sit up.

“You okay?” He reaches over and places his hand on my thigh.

“Yeah.” I crawl down next to him, wash out all of the thoughts of Cooper and the lunacy he filled my mind with. If Wes has somehow procured the power to read minds, I’m sure as hell going to test this theory.