Evanescent - By Addison Moore Page 0,93

she’s interested in observing is misery.

“Things are going great, not that it’s any of your business.” I scan the room for signs of Fletch or Blaine, hell I’d take Edinger at this point to get away from Kres.

“It’s not my business? I thought we were friends, Wes.” She leans in. “You know me. If I know for a fact one of my friends is getting hurt then I make it my business to protect them.”

“I don’t need your protection.” I spot Blaine by the entry and start to head over.

Kres yanks me back by the sleeve and shoves her phone in my face—it’s a picture of Laken and Coop locked at the lips, her leg is hiked up in the back like she’s enjoying the hell out of it.

My body solidifies. My insides grind.

“That was tonight,” she says, pointing out the date on the facebook update.

“Marky Flanders,” I say, reading the name above the post. Shit. I take the phone from her and examine Laken in her cheer uniform, Coop in his football garb. The update reads, the perfect couple.

My heart turns to lead, my blood to concrete.

Cooper Flanders is going to die, and I’m going to make sure it looks like an unfortunate accident.

Happy Halloween, Coop.

It’s going to be your last.

11

Monsters and Demons

Laken

The wind whistles and howls as fractured cackles echo throughout campus at this late hour. I run up the hill and crest over the ridge just south of the giant boulders that sit in a clearing.

I send a quick text to Coop. Where are you?

Right behind you.

I spin on my heels to find his expansive shoulder span, his happy-to-see-me grin.

“Coop!” I jump up and hug him as if we had been separated for generations—as if death had interceded, and we were being reunited after an entire lifetime apart.

“It’s okay. I got you. You did good.” He presses a kiss in my neck and nuzzles into me a moment. It’s sweet like this with Coop, safe. No pretenses, no lies—not a single secret lingers between us. “Wes knows,” he whispers. His features soften as if he were sorry to convey the news.

“Knows what?” An explosion of panic fills me, and I’m not sure why.

“That you’ve been taking blood from me. He knows you can read his mind—I guess he’s known for a while.” He steadies his eyes over me. “It’s a long story.”

Shit.

“Excuse me?” An impatient voice calls from behind.

We turn to find Hattie in her Ephemeral cheer uniform, looking more than a little disgusted by our bold show of affection.

“We’re just friends.” I spit it out so fast it sounds like the excuse it is. “Special friends.”

Hattie gives a coy smile.

“I found my special friend tonight.” That wicked gleam returns to her eyes, and for a moment my stomach pinches at the thought of not trusting her again.

“If it’s Kresley or Grayson I might have to educate you on what a true friend is,” I say only partially kidding. Those girls qualify as the training grounds for the future bitches of America and not much else.

“I’m talking about, Flynn.” She shakes her head, and her ponytail coils in a single ringlet in the back. “He asked me to find you. He said he needed to talk to the both of you but not to tell anyone else.”

“Hattie!” I rush over to her.

“Where is he?” Coop darts a glance into the forest in a fit of frustration. “Is he all right?”

She shrinks a little as if she knows he’s anything but all right.

“God—he’s not dead is he?”

“I don’t think he’s dead.” Hattie inverts her perfect bowtie lips as if she wasn’t entirely telling the truth.

“Shit.” Cooper stamps it out because we’re both thinking the same thing.

What Flynn might be going through is a lot more complicated than death.

“Can you take us to him?” I ask, trying to restrain myself from freaking out.

“Oh yes.” She heads in the direction of the woods. “He’s got new friends and everything.”

Coop and I exchange looks.

Sleepy Hollow comes upon us with its long nefarious arms. The violet sky acts as a dramatic backdrop to the necrotic skeletal maples, the bare-naked birch trees with their network of fingerlike protrusions.

Coop plucks a flashlight out of his jeans and illuminates a path as Hattie runs us deeper into the woods.

He interlaces our fingers and pulls me in.

What if this is a trap? I ask, trying to keep up with him. How well do we know Hattie? And who the hell is she if she’s not a