Evanescent (36 page)

“
Flynn
,” Cooper says it like a
revelation.

“Flynn?” I’m not feeling confident in his
candidate for the
new formula
especially after witnessing
the unfortunate demise of her last victim, firsthand.

“Can you house these two in that haunted
mansion outside until we see if it works?” He inquires of the
tight-lipped witch.

“Do.” She motions for the lot of us to
disappear.

Honestly, it just feels as if she’s too
despondent to carry out a complete sentence.

Coop and I lead them out of the complicated
maze of glossy halls, out into the night and into the haunted
mansion where a woman dressed in a full hoopskirt welcomes them
with open arms. It’s dim inside with the faint sound of the piano
playing from another room.

“You’ll be safe here,” I assure them. “We’ll
be back as soon as we get Flynn. I know you’re in good hands with
Ezrina. Even if it takes a while to get the formula right, we’re
anxious for you to have your lives back. Not just because of our
families, it’s because the two of you deserve to be free from the
bondage the Counts imposed on you.”

Coop wraps an arm around my waist. “I
couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Kara opens her mouth with a sense of
despair. Her sad eyes latch onto mine.

I lunge forward and offer her an embrace
that feels like it lasts a lifetime. Kara needed it, and, in a way,
I did too.

Coop and I say our goodbyes and make our way
back into the elongated hall of the lab.

“So what do you want to do now?” I ask. “It
sort of feels like the whole night was a bust.”

“Not really,” he gives a sly smile. “How
about you and I take a little trip? Name anyplace in the world, and
I’ll take you there right now.”

“Is this a part of your Celestra
ability?”

Coop sweeps the ground with his eyes—doesn’t
acknowledge or deny it.

Maybe this is what Wes meant by an ability
the Celestra have that they’re not aware of? I wouldn’t put it past
Coop to have already tapped into it.

“I know exactly where I want to go,” I say
it slow and seductive.

“Where’s that?” He lowers his lids, and my
stomach bites with heat. Cooper Flanders has the hottest bedroom
eyes on the planet, and right about now I’m feeling pretty damn
lucky to be in his line of vision.

“Cider Plains, Kansas,” I say without
hesitating. “Take me to the cemetery, Coop.”

Cooper

A dismal fog greets us among the tombstones
and overgrown weeds. The Cider Plains Cemetery isn’t the most
glamorous place to spend the rest of your coffin-dwelling days,
but, then again, the boarders will never know.

“Who are we looking for?” I could guess, but
I’d rather not.

“Wesley Parker.” His name comes from her
low, out of breath.

It’s just north of midnight with the moon
straddling overhead like a spotlight. Laken looks like an ethereal
goddess whisking through the haze in her cheer uniform, her face
scrubbed clean from the glamour girl look she was sporting
earlier.

“He’s right here.” She kneels at a
headstone, and I come around to get a look.

Wesley Adam Parker, In our Hearts, In God’s
Arms

Laken bows over the plot for a very long
time. I rub my hand over her shoulders and pull her in until I’m
holding her, wiping away the silent tears that fall for a boy who
only ceased to exist emotionally.

“What can I do to make this better?” I’d do
anything to stop this river of pain from ripping her apart.

Laken looks up through muddied lashes with a
new resolve. “Get a shovel.”

A dry laugh pushes through me as I press a
kiss against her cheek.

“I knew we were going there,” I whisper.
“I’ll be right back.”

It takes less than ten minutes to get a
pitchfork and a shovel from the back of the facility without a hint
of high-tech security to worry me.

“You brought one for me?” She hops to her
feet. Her face pleasantly surprised as if I brought her a slice of
pizza.

“Nope—just something to break up the dirt.
You just sit back and enjoy the view. I’ll have this done in
minutes.”

“Minutes?” She balks snatching up the
pitchfork. “I’ll break up the dirt for you. We’re a team,
remember?”

If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was
flirting with me right here over Wesley’s empty grave.

“What do you think we’ll find?” She stabs
the earth with a vengeance as if the soil itself were responsible
for the carnage the Counts turned their lives into.

“A box, no box—don’t have a clue.” I pitch a
few shovels full of dirt and make a nice dent in our grave robbing
endeavor, only we won’t be stealing anything—more like sealing
Laken’s sanity.

“And what if we find him?” She kicks down
the pitchfork and twists it clockwise before plucking it out of the
ground in a fit of frustration.

“Laken,” I say it soft as a breeze, pulling
her close to me. “Whatever we find, it won’t change what we already
know.” I warm her in my arms. “You’re Laken Stewart. The Counts
tried to feed you another reality, another time and place, and you
beat them at their own game. You’re too amazing for them to hold
back.” I press a kiss into her temple and hold it there a good long
while. I don’t want to let go. I’d do anything to move my efforts
south to her lips if she let me.

“At least something good came out of it.”
Laken tightens her grip around my waist and looks up at me through
her lashes. “I met you.”

Our eyes lock, and our breathing streams
around us in a rush of heated fog.

Laken said she didn’t want to be the girl
that ran around kissing two different boys. That she wanted to wait
and finish things off with Wes, but the rest was open-ended.

“Here.” I help her out of the sinking ditch.
“Give me another ten minutes, and I’ll have this done. We’ll have
you back at Austen House before you know it.”

Laken sits on the edge of the withered lawn
and watches as I unearth one of Ephemeral’s finest sons.

“Coop?”

I glance up as the fog blurs her out like a
dream.

“I don’t want to go home just yet. Tomorrow
is Saturday—everyone sleeps in until at least three. I don’t think
anyone will miss me. How about one more day?”

A red blinking light, down the street,
catches my attention.

“There’s a motel at the corner. You can show
me around in the morning if you want. Might spook the crap out of
people, though.” I hold her gaze and don’t let go.

“The motel on the corner sounds perfect.”
She bites down a smile. “But no, I don’t want to show you any other
part of Cider Plains,” she says it quiet, depleted of energy. “I
just miss sleeping in the same room as you. Just knowing you’re
near makes me feel safe—better than safe. You make me feel like I’m
with family, Coop, and I need that.”

My heart soars. Family is exactly how I feel
about Laken and not in the sisterly sense. At least I hope I
haven’t just been relegated to a brotherly status. No, I think she
means something deeper, something far more sacred than a blood bond
could offer—something with lifelong implications that involves
sharing each and every day—mapping out the unknowable future
together.

“I feel the same way, Laken.” We hold our
gaze, neither of us breathes—we just lose ourselves in the beauty
of the moment. And a part of me wonders what exactly might happen
tonight in that motel room.

I sift through the soil like pushing through
a wall of concrete until the shovel thumps against something
hard.

“You did it.” She lies on her stomach and
hangs over the edge of the brimming hole.

Another five minutes stroke by as I pry off
the burial vault. It takes all of my Nephilim strength to push back
the cement casing until finally revealing a casket—deep mahogany
with a high-gloss veneer. Gold plates embellish the edges, and then
it all hits home. Laken was there when they buried him. She saw
someone, who was more than a friend, go into the ground and got
back half the package in an alternate reality.

“This is it,” I say, trying not to choke up
over Wes of all people.

Laken sinks down next to me. The cool of
night wraps itself around me like an ice bath as I wipe the sweat
from my brow.

I reach down and crack it open a few good
inches—no stench as far as I can tell.

“Go ahead, Coop.” Laken grips my shoulder,
digging her nails into my flesh. “Open it all the way. Quick like a
band aid.”

“Quick like a band aid,” I say, yanking back
the lid so hard I nearly throw my shoulder out.

Laken screams and buries her head in my
chest.

“Shit.” I bend back trying to distance
myself from the sight.

The moon sprays down its gentle beams, and
we carefully return our gaze to the boy lying peacefully in the
casket. Wesley lies in state with his hands crossed over his chest,
a dehydrated rose, black as night tucked between his fingers.

“What the hell is going on?” Laken turns to
examine him. “That can’t be Wes.” Her voice quivers, but there’s an
underlying layer of anger ready to supersede any fear that might be
lurking in her.

She leans in and touches his face.

“He feels…” She runs her fingertips over the
outline of his features as if she were loving him, as if she were
about to bend over and give him a heartfelt kiss. “He feels like
rubber.”

I want to tell her that’s because he’s a
corpse, that most of them do because I’ve seen my fair share in
Ezrina’s den of horrors, but something’s not right.

“Did he have a twin?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “Not that I know
of.”

I reach down and touch my finger to the back
of his hand, before picking up on the strange texture of his doughy
flesh. I’ve manhandled a corpse or two, not that I’m proud, but
something is definitely off.

I pinch his fingers between mine and give a
hard squeeze.

“It’s wax,” I say, plucking off three of his
digits like snapping a candy cane.

Laken lets out a tiny scream before
examining the hollow sticks.

“Nice work.” I pitch his falsified fingers
back into the casket.

“Are you serious?” She picks up his hand and
examines the hole in his limb. “They’ve thought of
everything—leaving no casket unturned.” She grabs onto my waist,
and we sway over the supersized ball of wax while Laken tries to
make peace with the fact she mourned over a decoy for the last few
years.

She lets out a ragged breath and takes in
the bizarre sight one last time before slamming the lid shut.

“Let’s get out of here,” she says as we
climb onto the lawn.

I jump up beside her, and she takes one last
glance at the tombstone of the boy she once knew.

“It’s too bad he’s really gone in the truest
sense.” She lets out a breath that buries us in a thicket of
fog.

“I’m sorry, Laken.” I slip my arm around her
waist as we head out of the cemetery on this cool, Halloween night.
I wonder how sorry I really am that Wesley Parker has morphed into
the power hungry Count who takes blood from prisoners as if they
were his personal possessions.

Nope. I’m not too sorry.

I plant a kiss over the top of Laken’s
head.

It’s time to check into the Cider Plains
Motel and hold the girl I love all night long.

Laken says I make her feel safe, like
family—I plan on making her feel those exact things for the rest of
our lives.

A grey-haired gentleman with a goatee and a
beer to keep him company tosses me a key in exchange for thirty
dollars. Laken waits outside, in the off chance he recognizes her.
She says Cider Plains is the size of a thimble and didn’t see the
use in killing any more of its residents. At the rate the Counts
are picking them off, the entire town might be renamed the Cider
Plains Cemetery.

“You know”—she skips ahead, pulling me along
by the hand—“I have an ex-boyfriend I’d like to torment
sometime.”

I give a little laugh as I pause at the door
to our room—number 15.

“You mean, other than the one you just tried
digging up?” I insert the key and freeze.

Shit. Did I just call Wes her ex-boyfriend?
Way to kill a night.

“Sorry, Laken.”

“No, it’s okay.” She presses her hand
against my back. “I know what you meant.”

We step inside, and I latch all three of the
metal chains behind us in an effort to bolt us in for the night.
Laken turns on the lights revealing a dingy room, orange carpets, a
pea green bedspread with a rotary phone tucked on the
nightstand.

I was sort of hoping it was a lights out,
straight to business kind of night, even if the sum total of
business consisted of holding her next to me. Holding Laken all
night long is more than enough—for now.

“We did it.” She beams a killer smile and
crosses her wrists behind my neck. “I got into the tunnels, Coop.
Now, we’re just a few small steps from finding our families.”