Entropy (The Countenance Trilogy 3) Read online

  “Hi.” She comes across shy and sweet, and it’s hard to believe she belongs to the Bitch Squad. “I’m Giselle—I mean Emerson.” Her face lights up with embarrassment even under this defused light. “Giselle is just some stupid nickname.” She looks down at her waist a moment as if it weren’t that stupid, but she doesn’t want to go there. “Anyway, Skyla is somewhere near the dance floor. You’re not going to be mean to her or anything, are you?” There’s an innocence about her that reminds me a lot of Hattie, as if she, too, were somehow displaced from another time and thrust into modern society.

  “No,” Laken is quick to assure her. “We like Skyla. We just want to ask her a few questions.” Laken squeezes my hand. Why don’t you go look for her? I’ll talk to Giselle. I have a feeling she has more to hide than her name. Something is definitely up.

  “Don’t move.” I press a kiss just shy of her ear. “I’ll scope out the crowd and be right back.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  I leave Laken alone with the mermaid as I make tracks across the expansive lawn. I stop shy of an overgrown fountain with roses encircling it like a wreath. This place screams pretentious to the hilt. There’s no doubt in my mind that a wicked being is behind this just as Laken suspected.

  I glance around at the crowd of demonic costumes, girls exposing far more of their bodies than they ever would on a normal night and guys lining up to drool in droves. Over on the patio of the gargantuan estate is a slightly older crowd than the one on the dance floor. I spot a woman with wild hair, dressed like a cavewoman with a baby papoosed to her back, and next to her an all-too-familiar figure.

  My blood runs cold. My body seizes. This is no wicked Counts’ estate. This very much belongs to a Fem, and the Fem in question is Demetri Fucking Edinger.

  He cuts a look my way, and a black smile curls on his lips. Do what you must, Flanders. Destiny is calling. He wraps his arm around the cavewoman and leads her back to the entry until the mansion swallows them up.

  I head onto the dance floor, weaving in and out of the bodies that congest the area. I spot Logan, Skyla’s Elysian, off to the side as he glares into the crowd and follow his gaze until—bingo. He’s stalking her like prey—like I would if Wesley were dancing with Laken. And, holy shit—Wesley is dancing with…Skyla?

  I thread my way over, never taking my eyes off her until I come up behind them.

  “We are still technically dating,” he says to Skyla, and my stomach bottoms out.

  What the hell?

  “Never for a minute do I feel like we broke up.” She glances down, and now I feel like I’m about to interrupt some private moment, but this is Wes, and I’m still confused as to what he’s doing here.

  “Skyla,” he whispers over her cheek, and it’s about all the bullshit I can handle for one night.

  “Excuse me.” I tap onto his shoulder ready and willing to clock him if I have to. I’m over coddling, Wesley Paxton, Parker, whoever the hell he feels like being tonight.

  Skyla looks at me from around his shoulder, and her face lights up.

  “Coop!” She leaps into my arms, and Wes shakes his head unimpressed at the sight of me, then his features soften, and something about his eyes gives away the fact he’s not Wesley at all. This is some lookalike, a dead ringer on the other side of the country with a kinder, softer spirit.

  “What’s going on, man?” He offers up a quick knuckle bump, so I meet him halfway.

  “Just came by to say hi to Skyla. You mind?” My heart thumps hard several times like some warning that it’s about to peter out. This guy isn’t Wes, and now I really want to know what the hell is going on.

  He nods over to Skyla as the music shifts to yet another slow song.

  “I’m okay with it,” she says, and he gives a depleted smile.

  “I’ll see you in a minute.” He bears into her. You can cut the affection he has for her with a knife. I recognize that pained look of tortured love in his eyes. It’s the same one I hold for Laken.

  “I would love to dance with you, Coop.” Skyla takes up my hand, and we begin to move cautiously.

  I pull him in, and we begin to sway to the music with a nice, platonic clearance between our bodies unlike Gage who practically dry humped me a second ago—not that I was opposed to the idea.

  “Um”—I rattle her hand with mine—“sorry, but this thing is on.”

  “Oh, right.” Crap. Cooper has Celestra blood, so, of course, he can hear me. “You clean up nice, you know that?” She pulls back and runs her eyes over me. Her mouth contorts a little surprised at the amount of Kansas soil I seem to be sporting.

  “Yeah, well”—I glance down—“I sort of went on a grave-robbing expedition, you’ll have to excuse me. But you look very nice, yourself.”

  “Grave robbing, huh? Well, you chose the right night.”

  “I’m not sure it’s ever a good night for that.” I rein in my thoughts in a meager effort to maintain some privacy and shoot a glance in the distance for the Wes lookalike or Laken. Right about now they both have me concerned.

  “Did you heal okay?” She cuts a quick glance to my neck before rolling her eyes. “Of course, you healed, you’re a Celestra. We always heal. So who do you think won the war? I mean my mother’s—”

  “What war?” My heart lurches in my chest, and if this keeps up I’m going to have a full cardiac episode.

  “What war?” Dear God, he’s got more in common with Logan than I thought. “Coop, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”

  “All right, here we go.” I take a deep breath. “Skyla, I just met you in the Tenebrous Woods. I’m time traveling from two years ago in the past.” Just the thought of a war makes me sick. I already feel like I’m in one with Wes. “Is the country going to war?”

  “No.” I had no idea the Coop asking me to dance was such a blank slate. “It’s a faction war.” She shakes her head, emphatic. “And I guess the reason you don’t remember me is because we haven’t technically crossed paths yet. I don’t know if I should get into it. Just know you kicked some ass—and your friend, Flynn, was okay for a while, too.”

  Flynn? I guess he outlives his Spectator state. “I don’t know if I’d call Flynn a friend.”

  “You did, so I guess things must improve. What’s going on?” She cuts a quick glance around as if suddenly on alert. “What brings you to Paragon?”

  “Primarily, you. Laken and I want answers. You seemed to know us. Laken said you tried to save her. Can you tell us anything else about that? Do you know how she got into the Transfer?”

  “No. Just what I told her. I was being held against my will and forced to work with Ezrina. Marshall—the Sector that was with me, he let me know I was in another time. Nothing made sense. But I saw Laken, and something in me wanted to save her. It was my job to load her into the tank, and before I did, I tried to give her CPR. Stupid, right? I mean she had already been dead for who knows how long, and there I was trying to play the part of some Celestra superhero.”

  Laken remembers… “Maybe that’s why.”

  “Maybe that’s why, what?”

  “Laken has her memory. They were unable to wipe it out completely. She remembers everything. I have a feeling it’s because of you. I don’t think what you did was stupid, Skyla. I think you saved her.” My mind reels a million miles an hour. That day Laken and Skyla collided in the transfer was the luckiest day of Laken’s life—or afterlife—and for sure the luckiest day of mine because if Skyla hadn’t inadvertently preserved Laken’s memory, she wouldn’t be trying to solve any mysteries with me, she’d be happily off with Wes tonight doing God knows what just like the Counts had planned. Speaking of Wes—

  A blood curdling scream riots over the crowd, and every hair on my body stands on end.

  My body locks up. My heart stops as if that was the final straw.

  “That’s Laken.” I ditch through the crowd before I ever get a chance to ask Skyla who the hell that Wes lookalike was. I’m far more inter
ested in protecting Laken than I am in digging around in Wesley’s twisted family ties. But that guy looked far too close a second to ever be a remote relative. It was eerie in every way just to look at him.

  “Coop, wait!” Skyla calls out in the distance, but my feet don’t stop moving until I come up on Laken standing alone at the edge of the woods. I pull her into a kiss without hesitating because for the very first time I can say she’s mine, and my heart wants to forget about Paragon and why we’re here and simply bask in the glory of us.

  “He was here.” She pants, her face rife with worry.

  “Who was here?”

  “This guy. He came to talk to that Giselle-Emerson person, and he was wearing Wesley’s face.” She shakes me as if she still hasn’t gotten over the horror. “When I tried to talk to him, he said he didn’t know me. He said he kicked Wesley’s ass and that if Wes isn’t careful, he’ll do it again. And that’s when I screamed. Coop, he looked just like him, you have to believe me.”

  “I do.” My hands warm her back. “I saw him.”

  “I slapped him and told to him stop faking it.” She presses her lips tight and shrugs. “I just freaked out. The girl I was with swore he was her brother.” She shakes her head. “Do you think this is some alternate universe? Do you think we all have doubles right here on Paragon?”

  “No.” I glance back at the crowd. “I think it’s strictly relegated to Wes.” And why the fuck that might be I have no idea.

  “Did you find Skyla?”

  “Yes. I’m not sure I have all the answers, but I have enough for now. Why don’t we head back and regroup. We can visit Paragon another time.”

  “Sounds good.” Laken wraps her arms around me as we head into the black heart of the woods. The pines weave together at their distal points, leaving pinpricks of lavender sky up above. It creates an entire blanket of purple stars against the murky expanse and makes it feel as if we’ve just wandered into some romance novel—hell, it feels like we’re living one. “I love you, Laken.” I drop a kiss just shy of her lips.

  “You missed.” She spins into me, her chest bucking with a silent laugh. “I love you, too, by the way.” She gives a coy smile. The fear in her eyes dissipates as she relaxes into me with both body and soul.

  “I’d better try again.” I melt my lips over hers, and we press in like candles fusing together.

  I love you, Laken Stewart, with all my heart I do.

  Laken nestles her body against mine. I love you, Cooper Flanders, you’re my one and only, now and forever. I can taste the future in our kisses. It’s going to be you and me from this moment on, sort of the way it has been since the beginning. There’s nothing and no one who will ever stand in our way.

  Laken and I are finally together.

  It feels as if my entire life just fell into place.

  That’s because it did.

  Wesley

  I look up at the blank night sky, nothing but one big sheet of slate ready to crash over my head—and think of Laken.

  Where are you?

  I close my eyes—try to focus my energy on where she and Coop might have gone next as the scenery transforms around me.

  My feet land on solid ground, a door with the number 15 emblazoned on the front appears before me.

  A large red sign blinks spastic to my left. Cider Plains Motel.

  I glance out at the area. The old mill with its archaic silos in the distance, the bridle trail to the left of the street—I recognize this place. My head explodes in a photographic seizure as an entire series of still-lifes flash before my eyes. It all comes back to me in snatches. Laken and me in the park holding hands, a poor man’s bouquet of dehydrated maple leaves cleverly hidden behind my back. Fletch and me in an entire montage to childhood—t-ball, running, fishing in a lake that would one day change our destinies.

  My body begins to tremble as I take it all in. A fissure opened in my mind and now a flood, an entirely different existence is filling in the cracks. All of those thoughts that wadded just beneath the surface, those strange dreams that haunted me, those feelings of not quite belonging, all of them explained in an instance.

  I launch my body against the door and begin kicking my way inside.

  “Laken!” My voice echoes through the still of the night like thunder.

  A car alarm goes off in the distance, taking up the slack for the rest of the world. All of creation should scream for the injustice that’s happening here. There isn’t enough rage in the world to convey how I feel.

  I push into the door with my arm and think of Coop defiling her with his body until my Countenance strength kicks in. The door flies open as if it didn’t want the beating to continue.

  The lights are on, but the room sits empty.

  “Laken?” I bolt to the bathroom and throw back the shower curtain.

  They’re gone.

  I stagger back into the room and note the bedding looks rumpled, but nothing that indicates anything serious.

  Maybe there’s still time to tell her she’s right—that I’m going to fight like hell to make sure we stay together.

  I close my eyes and think of her, of where she might be and feel myself slipping away.

  I’m coming, Laken.

  The scenery fills in as a stone-grey night appears around me. Towering evergreens line either side of the road. They drone on in rows like demonic shadows dipped in a fog as thick as the lies I’ve been forced to swallow. A lit sign wafts in and out of existence from across the street, Welcome to Paragon Island.

  Paragon. That’s where Skyla is from.

  I step onto the silent highway and feel the gravitational pull as my body hungers for the girl I love—the girl I’ve always loved.

  “I’m here, Laken,” I whisper. “I can make this all better. I know I can.”

  We’ll navigate this angelic minefield together.

  Wesley Parker is back, and Coop better get the hell out of my way because there’s not a damn thing he can do to stop me.

  The ground pulsates beneath me. My body glides through time and space, landing me in the woods just shy of a couple engaging in a heated kiss, and my heart sinks like a lead weight because I recognize that cheer uniform, that football jersey belongs to Ephemeral. It’s them—Laken and Coop.

  “Laken!” Her name rips from my lungs like a roar, like a cliff side echo, and I suddenly want the world to hear me scream.

  They jump apart, and Laken takes a few steps into me.

  I come up on her, panting, and she backs away like a frightened deer. My heart breaks. Tears blur my vision.

  Cooper swoops in and wraps his arms around her as if he’s trying to shield her from impending doom.

  “Laken,” my voice breaks as I take a step forward. I hold out my hand, and she eyes it like a snake. “Please.” I swallow hard. “I remember everything.” Without hesitating I drop to my knees. “I beg your forgiveness. You were right, Laken.”

  Cooper tries to pull her back, but she gently removes his hand from her body and drops down beside me.

  “Wes?” Her voice trembles as she runs her fingers through my hair. “What do you remember?”

  “I went to Kansas. I went to Cider Plains and saw the body—my body.”

  “It was fake.” She shakes her head. “You were never dead for long.”

  For long. Those words swim in the back of my mind like a haunting refrain.

  “It all came rushing back.” I don’t dare take my eyes off hers. “I remember every single day we spent on that lake—the barn. I remember our first kiss.” I brush my thumb over her cheek because God knows I want to reenact that very moment right now. “I remember the poor man bouquets I showered you with. How you would let me sketch you by the barn, the lake—your bed.” I cut a quick glace to Coop who hasn’t taken his angry stare from me. “Let’s go somewhere we can be alone.”

  I rise to my feet and bring Laken up with me, pulling her body tight to mine.

  “God, I missed you.” I pepper he
r face with heated kisses. Nothing else matters in all of space or time, just Laken and me, and the fact we’ve made our way back to one another.

  “It’s really you, Wes?” Her voice breaks as she runs her beautiful eyes all over my face at once.

  “It’s really me—Wesley Parker.” I pull her hand to my lips and kiss it. “Do you believe me?”

  Laken and I just stare at one another locked at an impasse. Here it is, the moment of truth.

  She gives a slight nod. Her eyes swell with glittering tears.

  “God, I love you.” I step in and land my lips over hers. The entire universe had rearranged itself for precisely this moment. Her lips melt over mine, slow at first then she gives into me, and we collide in a burst of passion. This isn’t anything like one of those kisses we shared last week. Nothing about this is coated in a lie.

  My shoulder gets pulled back from behind, and I spin as a fist lands on my jaw.

  “You’re going to die, Coop.”

  I land my knee in his gut, and he doubles over just as I feed him my knuckles.

  “Wes, stop!” Laken cries out as if I had hit her instead.

  Flanders springs up like a Phoenix like I never even touched him. He lands another blow to my jaw, knocking me off my feet before jumping on top of me, rattling my shirt as if trying to wake me from the dead.

  “You little shit,” he seethes at me. “You think I’m going to let you come here and fuck with Laken? You’re a manipulator, Wes, and you always will be.”

  I summon my Countenance strength and push him the hell off my body.

  “I’m not shitting anyone.” It comes out more depleted than it does a reprimand. “I’m serious, Laken.” Her arms are wrapped around her waist as if she were trying to stave off the shock. “I’m back. We’re back.” I stagger to my feet and stumble over to her. “Come with me—let’s get out of here.”

  Laken shoots a nervous look to Coop, and he shakes his head just barely.

  “I promise I won’t touch you.” I hold my hands up in surrender. I’d surrender every day to Laken if she’d have me again. It’s clear where her heart and loyalties lie. My eyes drag over to Coop. “I just want some time alone with her, man. I’ll bring her right back to Ephemeral. I swear on all nine of my twisted lives.”