Ephemeral (The Countenance) (37 page)

My tongue and teeth enter into a foreplay routine with his flesh. I try with everything in me to pretend that its Wes I’m here with, but Cooper has stained his effigy behind my eyelids. I can’t stop seeing him, I don’t want to. By some natural inclination, my entire being wants to bless him with my body.

Cooper expels a series of groans under the weight my persistence. His skin transforms from sweet to rust, then gives way to a salty trickle.

“Laken,” he whispers into my hair. His hot breath sears over me in short bursts of lust.

I take in several hard gulps then drag my lips over the incision to dull the pain.

He pulls me up by the chin and breathes into my lips, inflamed with a desolate passion. He hedges in with his mouth, eager to meet with mine.

Cooper, no
. I say unable to move. If he starts—if he initiates just one kiss, it will take us places I can’t afford to go. Already I know I couldn’t stop. If Cooper lights the fuse, I’ll detonate right along with him.

I’m falling in love with you
,
Laken Stewart
, he says, gazing into me with great intensity.

“I heard you,” I gasp.

He gives a startled blink as though he had forgotten all about the nature of our experiment.

“Thank you.” I press my lips into his cheek with a platonic show of gratitude.
We’re going to find out what happened to your mom, Coop. And I’m going to prove to you I’m not insane. The Counts will never see us coming.

We’re a team, Laken
. He envelops me in his arms as he says it.

We’re a team
.

37

If the Shoe Fits

Cooper gives me a ride back to Austen House. I hold his hand on the drive home, and he tells me telepathically all about his mother, what she was like, the special things she used to do for him and Marky on holidays, their birthdays. He gives a quick kiss just below my knuckles before I get out of his truck.

I made it pretty clear the safety of his manhood was at stake if he planned on making a habit of gracing me with his lips. Mostly I was teasing, but still, my relationship with Wesley is the most important thing in the world to me. What I need is to find a girlfriend for Cooper—one that won’t mind the occasion or two that I’ll have to borrow her boyfriend to drain his neck.

“Why are you glowing?” Jen scowls as I pass through the door. A lit candle sits on the edge of her desk enlivening the dorm with the thick scent of cinnamon.

“I’m not glowing.” A flood of heat rises to my cheeks. “I just ran up the hill to get here.”

“Shut up. I can tell you were with Wesley. That stupid grin is a dead giveaway.”

Crap.

I make a concerted effort to flatten my affect.

What the hell am I doing, grinning and glowing? I might have to slap myself for morphing into a full-blown idiot. This is damn serious. I need to figure out what Wes is trying to hide so I can get out of this demonic den of body snatchers, and drinking another boy’s blood is the only logical solution.

“You’re in a good mood,” I say, changing the subject.

She doesn’t bother moving. Instead she maintains a locked position with her head resting on her arm, her hair splayed all over the desk like jagged shards of glass.

“Blaine says we need to cool it.” She moans.

“Cool what?” They get any cooler, he’s going to have to castrate himself just to make it through the next phase of their relationship.

“Cool,
us
.” She picks up her head a notch, exposing the bright red blotches patching her face. She’s been crying.

“Oh, Jen,” I go over and offer a hug.

The scent of honeysuckle clings to her—makes me miss Mom who wore a gardenia perfume, thick and smothering.

I feel something for Jen, for sure a sisterly bond. I touch my cheek to hers as she sobs into me, soft and steady like the silent bleating of a lamb.

If Wesley hadn’t opened his big mouth about how fulfilling it was—what a release it was to be with someone—I wouldn’t be in this situation.
She raises her head. “I can’t even see straight.”

I’d ask why not, but I already know.

I head upstairs, lost in the idea that Wesley shared his sex life with Blaine and inadvertently stuck a fork in his brother’s relationship. A heavy feeling comes over me because it just so happens the person Wes
released
himself with was Kresley.

I try to open the door to my bedroom, but it’s stuck. I give another swift push, but for sure something’s blocking the way.

Perfect.

Jen, in her infinite state of mourning, probably trashed the place before securing her post as gatekeeper, and now she’s successfully barricaded us from our room.

I give a short series of pounds and shoves before something heavy slides over enough for me slink my way inside and turn on the light.

A tangle of limbs greets me from my bed, legs in the air, feet protruding in my direction, flexing back and forth—it takes a good ten seconds of wild-eyed staring for me to piece together that my mattress is being heavily defiled by none other than Carter and Flynn.

“Holy shit!” I hiss, flicking on and off the lights like a siren. “Off, right now!” I scream, but they press onward undaunted by the spasm of electricity or my verbal assault. They’re like dogs that don’t have the wherewithal to understand it’s not appropriate to fornicate in mixed company.

I swipe a soda can off Jen’s desk, shake it up real good before cracking it open and hosing them down.

Carter falls off the bed, laughing hysterically and exposing parts of herself I haven’t even seen on my own freaking body. Thankfully, and rather unfortunately, Flynn snatches my pillow and covers his manhood.

“Out.” I close my eyes. I have papers to write and math equations to sift through that I don’t even believe a scientific calculator can decipher, and now, I’ll forever have the image of Flynn Masterson’s ass, which looked like he managed to get an extra pair of feet to grow out of, ingrained in my questionably functional mind. It’s all a bit more than my tired, rewired brain can handle at the moment.

Carter jumps into a pair of jeans and pulls on a T-shirt.

“You get a date for Saturday?” A smile bounces on her lips as if it were completely acceptable to carry on a conversation from earlier when I had no clue what her girl parts looked like.

“You’re still going with Jackson?” I’m a bit surprised by this, but truthfully, I was just with another guy myself for completely legitimate reasons. “I’m taking Wes,” I say, defiantly. Maybe by Saturday, I can have him convinced that I have my false memory restored. Wes can rival any passion that Cooper may have had tonight. Clearly Cooper’s affection for me was misplaced because I was grafting my tongue over his neck. Any red-blooded boy would have been aroused, let alone declared his love for me in the event I might have been moved to travel south of the border—well, except Coop. He doesn’t strike me as the say-anything-to-get-a-blowjob type. Coop could get women to drop to their knees in the freezer section of the grocery store if he wanted.

I glance over at Flynn as he rummages for his clothes.

There was something genuine about Coop tonight, like he might really be falling in love with me. But everyone knows you can’t possibly fall in love with someone in such a short time—that’s what infatuation and lust are for, not true love. True love is what Wes and I have.

“Bring whoever.” Carter waves over at Flynn before heading into the hall.

“Whoever?” I mock, shutting the door behind her.

I take a seat at the desk and flip open my laptop, completely ignoring the fact Flynn just scooped up his jeans and strolled into the bathroom butt naked. The pipes twist with a squeak, and I can see he’s completely making himself at home now—taking a nice hot shower in an effort to sterilize himself. I’ll have to burn all the towels once he’s through.

My cell goes off. It’s a text from Wes.

Everything go OK with the Dr?

I text back.
Better than OK
.
It looks like my memory is on its way back.

I hate lying, but in a way it’s true. I’m remembering my past with a startling clarity. Just today I was reminded how I used to bake with Lacey, how I used to help her pick outfits for picture day.

Wes texts again.
I knew you’d come back to me.

I stare at his text for an unreasonably long period of time. The entire existence of our relationship weighs on the balance of those words.

It’s starting to feel like I never left. XOXO
I glide my fingers over my phone and hit send.

Flynn emerges from the bathroom wearing nothing but jeans, his shirt wrapped around his neck like a towel. He sits over on my bed and plucks his socks off the floor as water beads down the curve of his back.

“Found something I want to show you.” The words rumble out of him.

“Are we back to that again?” I stare at Flynn in hopes there’s something legitimate behind his claim. Instead, I get the nagging feeling that’s his go-to line—after all, it worked once tonight.

He drops to his knees and fishes for something underneath my bed. The entire while he’s gliding and writhing, I can’t help but envision his bare ass right through his jeans. It’s like seeing his hairy self, unlocked my infrared superpowers and now I see dead people’s asses—assuming, of course, Flynn was once dead.   

Flynn extracts his arm, emerging victorious with a black leather wedge in his right hand.

I’m less than impressed with his triumphant find.

“Not mine,” I say. It looks vaguely familiar, reminds me the ones my mother used to wear at the diner, and I clap my hand over my mouth. “Oh my God, Casper!”

“Exactly.” He pulls it toward him and examines it. His features soften as he takes it in, rubs his thumb soft over the heel as if it were Casper herself. “So it is hers.”

“I saw her wearing them the day she disappeared.” My chest heaves as I say it. “Where’d you find this?”

“The woods.” He takes an unsteady breath.

Knew it.

“What are you going to do?” A thousand insane ideas fight for my attention. Call Wes, call Coop, her parents, the police, the FBI—NASA.

“You’re the only one who believed her.” He grazes me with his tired eyes. “Everyone else thought she was a loon.”

“How many people knew?” God, if she hadn’t given me the advice to stop telling everyone I could about Kansas, I’d probably be in the same position.

“She told anyone who would listen, her teachers, friends, the guy at the store bagging groceries. She called the police once, but my parents accused her of having an overactive imagination, of hating them, and, eventually she stopped making it sound like she was being held at gunpoint.” He slouches heavily into the shoe. “She had everything a person could want. It was hard to believe the things she was saying.” His face crumbles as if right now, at this moment, he had chosen to believe, and it was too late. “You think she’s dead?” He maintains a fixed gaze on her footwear as though he might break if he looked anywhere else.

“I don’t know. But it sounds like she finally found the answers she was looking for and someone wanted to make sure she didn’t share them.” There’s no way I’m telling him about my run-ins with the Spectators and Fems, that, yes, deep inside I believe there’s more than a good chance she’s been digested and is dissolving on the planet in the form of vomit or excrement. But maybe they’ve taken her and they’re keeping her alive? That’s what Coop believes happened to his mother.

A wild thought bolts through me.

“You said you were mostly Deorsum, but what about Casper?” I ask.

Flynn looks at me a profoundly long time.

His gaze drifts to the wall in front of us.

If it’s the answer I’m hoping for, then Casper just might be alive.

38

Blood