Evanescent - By Addison Moore Page 0,44

done that before. As far as I know, he doesn’t party.”

“Sounds like some female persuasion was involved.” He shrugs. “Who the hell cares if Flanders gets laid?”

“Me, that’s who. Ask around. See if it was Grayson.”

He scoffs at the thought. Fletch would give his right nut to bag Evans.

“This is about my sister, isn’t it?” He squints as the sweat trickles from his forehead.

“It’s always about your sister,” I say, taking off toward campus. The morning sun shines over Asterion, blinding me momentarily. Makes me wonder if I’ve been blinded in bigger ways all along.

“Where you going?” Fletch calls out.

“I’ve got a meeting.”

An unscheduled meeting with Demetri Edinger to be exact, and I’m coming with questions.

Not that I expect answers.

He never gives anything voluntarily.

I hope to God Laken is wrong about everything, or I will never forgive myself for not believing her.

By the time I hit the base of the hill and end up in the marbled halls of the English building, the north wind pushes in a surge of boiling clouds with a breeze so chilly, your bones want to shiver for weeks.

I walk casually past Edinger’s room just in case someone’s in there other than his wicked ass, and low and behold there’s a blonde seated at a desk scribbling something in a notebook. It’s Hattie.

Strange.

It’s Saturday. Who the hell sits in class and does work on a weekend? Sure the homework load at Ephemeral is to capacity, but that’s what libraries are for—or the dorms.

Laken really freaked out on her last night. Maybe she was upset, and her way of dealing with it is hitting the books? But in class?

“Wesley.” Edinger stains the doorframe like a shadow. “I sensed you were here.” He bleeds a slow spreading smile. “Are you going to pace the halls or come inside?”

I nod and head over.

Sensed you were here. I always knew he had a lot in common with canines—bitches to be exact.

Inside, Hattie swipes her desk clean before standing.

Her dark eyes linger over me an inordinate amount of time before she walks slowly out of the room.

Strange. Not even a hello, not that I offered one.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Edinger folds his hands across his chest like he’s ready for a casket.

“I want to know if Laken Anderson is really Laken Stewart.”

He needles me with a penetrative stare as if reading my thoughts from three feet away.

“What is this?” He shakes his head dismissively. “Your girlfriend having an identity crisis? What does this have to do with me?” He tucks his chin and glares as if I’m wasting his time, and I hope to God that’s all this is.

“I’m telling you”—my voice shakes with anger—“if I find out you’re fucking with me in ways I could never imagine, I swear on all that is holy, I will find a way to take down your wicked ass and cover the streets with your blood. Oh, that’s right. You don’t have any.”

“Refrain from cursing in my presence.” His body solidifies as if I’ve enraged him on some level, that wicked grin immovable as concrete.

I’m out of here.

“Wesley?”

I pause without giving him the privilege of looking back.

“If I were you,” he starts in slow, “I would choose my words with a little more caution. If I were tampering with you, in ways you could never imagine, then your creativity is, for a better word, lacking. Think outside the proverbial box. You’re a smart young man—good genes. I would venture to say, the best.”

I glance back and glare at him a moment.

Somewhere, lost in that transitive babble, lays the answer to all my questions.

“Per usual, you’re full of shit,” I say, heading out the door and out of the English building.

Demetri Edinger, usually is.

The clouds press in low, denying us any evidence that the sun had ever shown over Ephemeral. My mind replays Laken’s cryptic beliefs on a loop. A tight knot seizes in the pit of my stomach at the thought of Laken and her crazy alternate reality ever being right.

I’m Wesley Paxton. My mother is an administrator here on campus, and my father runs the legal arm of Althorpe in New York.

Then it hits me. Laken has probably been feeding Fletch this bullshit by the bowlful. No wonder he’s having nightmares.

A swell of relief swims through me.

That’s all it is. That’s all it could ever be.

Hattie flies to the forefront of my mind like a rattle of doubt. Laken said she wasn’t human. Then what the hell is she?