Toxic Part One (Celestra Series Book 7) (41 page)

He jumps up and cleans his blade against the soft trunk of a maple with two easy swipes.

The creature sizzles. Its ragged clothes engulf in flames quick as a grassfire before extinguishing in a ball of smoke.

“What’s happening?” I pant.

“Don’t you know?” He replaces the knife in his back pocket. The hard line of his jaw pops as he suppresses a smile. “They’re biodegradable.” A rumble of laughter trembles out of him. He comes over and cradles the side of my face with his open palm, observes me as though he were a doctor. “You okay?” A stream of light falls over him, amplifying the fact he’s alarmingly handsome: tall with sandy hair and eyes the color of a lifeless sky.

“I’m fine.” I want to say. I don’t know where the hell I am, but I think there are more pressing matters than my lack of topographical orientation. “What was that?”

His brows knit together. He leans in to inspect me, skeptical that I even had to ask.

“What’s your name?” he asks, wiping the dirt off his jeans.

“Laken Stewart.” I grab him by the arm—feel his warm flesh come to life beneath my fingers. “Where am I?” I’ve never been a hundred miles from where I was born. Hell, I’ve never left Kansas. For sure, I’ve never seen a forest this dense, let alone barreled through it with my life on the line.

“Ephemeral.” He dips into me with his gaze. “Connecticut,” he adds with a touch of sarcasm.

“Oh, my God,” I whisper in fright. “I think I’m lost.” I touch my fingers to my temple as an explosion of pain rips through me.

“Laken!”

In the distance a woman shouts my name.

“Looks like you’ve just been found.” He offers a reserved smile and holds my gaze a little longer than necessary before turning away.

There’s something intoxicating about this stranger, this earthly savior of mine, and a part of me wants to discover everything about him.

“Wait.” I catch him by the elbow. “What was that thing?”

He doesn’t say a word, just gazes at me perplexed and sorrowful.

“Laken?” The female voice spikes with agitation.

“I’d better go.” He takes a full step back. “Nice to meet you.”

“You saved me,” I say. He walks off into the fog until he disappears like an apparition. “Hey—what’s your name?” I shout after him, but he’s already vanished.

“Laken?” A raven-haired woman dressed in a power suit and heels snatches me by the wrist. “You need to keep out of the woods.” The words stream out of her like a death rattle. “Do you understand?” Her hair is slicked back in a knot, reflecting blue highlights as she moves. Her face is unearthly pale, her skin thin as paper, and I can see a track of blue veins around her eyes.

“Who are you?” I pull my hand back.

“It’s me, Laken—Ms. Paxton.” She offers a short-lived smile. “You need to get back to campus.” Her chest rises violently as she struggles to catch her breath. “Never venture outside of the academy.”

She guides me out of the oppressive forest onto a red brick path that rolls out toward a monolithic series of ivy-covered buildings. The landscape opens up in a fog-kissed world. Relief as wide as the ocean fills me as I escape those woods. I glance back into the curtain of darkness—the evergreens stand tall as a mountain, black as iron, and a shiver of fear grips me.

“Your uncle requested you meet up with your brother tonight.”

“My brother?” Fletcher died over a year ago, along with Wes, the only boy I ever loved. They drank their way into oblivion before taking a fatal swim in the lake.

“Yes, your brother.” It strangles out of her. “Do you think this is funny?”

“No.” I rub my arms. “I—”

She shoves a yellow student card at me. “You dropped this on your little jaunt in the woods.”

Laken Anderson—right face, wrong name. Issue date September 4
^th
. Junior, Ephemeral Academy.

“Ephemeral.” I test the word out on my tongue. I stare at the student card, confused as to what it might mean.

“You’re a resident in Austen House.” Her lips twist with pride as if she procured the living quarters for me herself. “I realize how overwhelming your first day must be. Your sister is the dorm mother. She’s been waiting to orient you all afternoon.”

“My sister?” I have two. Jen is studying abroad her second year of college, and Lacey. The epicenter of Lacey’s world is plundering all my free time to help plan for her epic tenth birthday party. I love Lacey. I couldn’t love her more if I had her myself.

“Jen—your sister, Jen.” Ms. Paxton nods in frustration. Her eyes widen with horror as she circles over me with an epiphany. “I have to go.” She darts down the road in the opposite direction.

“Wait!” I call out as she evaporates in the evening shadows.

I don’t have a brother anymore.

I don’t have an uncle.

My mother is a drunk, and my sister, Jen, left the country first chance she got. I’m from Cider Plains, Kansas. I live in a dilapidated bungalow that belonged to my grandmother, which is haunted by her pissed-off ghost and the curse she bestowed upon us before she hung herself from the rafters.

My last name is Stewart, not Anderson. After I shot through the windshield, a tall radiant being declared it was not my time. He placed a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt over my face and submerged me back onto the planet.

I know for a fact I died on July 13
^th
_,
the day before my cheating boyfriend’s seventeenth birthday. According to this I.D., two calendar months have dissolved without my knowledge. Here I am—same body, different name.

All I really want to know is what the hell is going on.  

2

Remember

It was easy to find Austen House. Every one of these haunted establishments has its moniker framed right out front in large gilded letters. I step through the dark glossy door and land before a pretty blonde situated in the entry behind a vast mahogany desk. She turns to the side, laughing into her cell, completely unaware of my presence.

I take in the sights—try to decipher the murmurs of the girls seated on a sofa in the distance. The interior drips with chandeliers, brass posts on the stairwell, cloistered walls paneled in dark wood with a heavy gloss veneer.

The blonde wraps her finger around her hair like a habit. She hoists one leg up on the desk, exposing a sable riding boot with three gold buckles running down the side. They look expensive, soft as butter, and I resist the urge to touch them and confirm my theory. A paisley silk scarf in bold blues and reds is wrapped tight around her neck like a noose. It gives her a polished touch I’ve never seen on anyone outside of a magazine. She twirls her milky hair, giggles into the receiver while expertly ignoring my presence. It makes me question whether or not I’m really here, if I had become invisible at some point between the forest and the entry. 

“Hello?” I try to control my panting, still out of breath from the long walk over. “Um, I’m looking for my sister, Jen.” I feel ridiculous even saying it. Unless I’ve just materialized on a cruise ship, sailing the Mediterranean, I doubt a family reunion is in the works. Jen is safely tucked away on a semester at sea, sipping margaritas and testing out her broken Spanglish on unsuspecting crewmen.

A waterfall of platinum hair falls over her left eye, so straight and glossy you could see your reflection in it if you wanted.

“I have to go.” She sighs into the phone and gives her seat a hard swivel.

“You can finish. Really, it’s okay, I’ll just—”

“Shut up, Laken.” Her hair vibrates like guitar strings plucked by skillful fingers. I could lose myself staring into the hair of this stranger who somehow knows my name.

I sway on my feet still dizzy from appearing in the forest from out of thin air.

“Late as usual.” She gets up and motions for me to follow.

I’m pretty sure I should be insulted—that this banter should register on some intimate familial level, but it doesn’t. Although, oddly, her frustration with me feels genuine, like she’s known me for years and this is her automatic response when she sees me.

I’ve never seen anyone like her before who holds such razor-sharp beauty in real life. It’s jarring and makes me want to run to a mirror and catalog all of my flaws as though each one were an evil trait all their own.

“Hey, um…” A breath gets caught in my throat. “How did you know my name?”

She turns to inspect me and gives a disbelieving blink. “Look, I’m a little pissed right now. I couldn’t get the classes I wanted, and I only have one with Blaine. Turns out Trinity U is a nightmare to navigate—so I’m not up for your twisted bullshit.” She moves on ahead. “And would you hurry? I want to leave already.” She leads us down the dark paneled entry with molded wood patterned like a chocolate bar.

A trail of perfume bleeds behind her, sweet honeysuckle with a touch of ginger. I take it in, solid as a memory. It makes me trust her, makes me want to follow her just about anywhere to inhale the familiar scent of a warm spring day on the plains.

She’s wearing a short-cabled dress that stops mid-thigh. It looks provocative with her boots well past her knees. My own wardrobe is comprised mainly of jeans and sweatshirts, and most all of those are hand-me-downs, the rest are thrift store treasures. I glance down at the inky corduroys I’m wearing, the black pointed shoes on my feet. I have no recollection of these, and it alarms me.

“So, what’s your name?” I ask. Should I feel the need to abuse it, I’ll need to know it.

She pauses to gawk at me with an incredulous look. “
Jenevieve
.” It rolls harsh off her tongue and she bears her teeth as she says it. “Look, I don’t know what the heck you’re up to, or if you’re just trying to make me throw you off the balcony, but since it’s your first day, I’m going to tell you kindly to knock this shit off.” She pauses just shy of an enormous staircase, taking me in with her stone blue eyes. “Where the hell were you—and why do you have a forest growing out of your ear?” She plucks a sprig of pine needles from my hair. “I talked to Jones. He wants to get together with the three of us, Saturday.”

“Jones?” If she hadn’t referenced him as a male, I would have assumed we were blocking out a precious chunk of weekend to scan the carpet for the residue of all things illegal. 

“I’ll drive,” she says, leading me up the vast sweeping stairwell. As we near the top, it affords me an eagle-eye view of the facility—a large room sits below along with a roaring fireplace the size of a single-car garage. A smattering of girls sit nestled with their laptops on L shaped couches. One of them convulses into her keyboard with an intensity that borders on intimacy. It looks sexual the way she strokes the keys, biting down a secretive smile.

Upstairs, Austen House is dark, heavily lined with navy embossed wallpaper that presses out in repetitive rows of paisley and diamonds. My mind warps the images until all I see are faces, devilish grimaces staring back at me, each one locked in a silent scream.

“Fletcher almost killed me the last time we drove together.” She flips her hair over her shoulder like a white silk scarf. “Fair warning, don’t get in a moving vehicle with him at the helm.”

“Fletcher?” Dear God. This is some warped dream—nightmare—easily this is a nightmare because it started out with a hostile corpse. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Jenevieve turned around and took a bite right out of my neck.

“Yes, Fletcher.” She looks simultaneously surprised and horrified at my ability to maintain stupid. “Our
brother
.” She’s so expressly pissed it looks as if she’s about to swallow her tongue. “Jones wanted me to tell you to find Fletch tonight and, you know, meet people so you won’t be such a loner—or do stupid things like you did at Rycroft.”

“Fletcher’s our brother?” That happens to be my brother’s name, or at least it was while he was living. And Jenevieve is my sister’s formal name, although, this imposter is clearly the wrong Jen. My sister has dark hair and electric blue eyes. We hardly look related unlike this faux relative who stands before me befuddled. In fact, nuJen and I share the same nose, the same pale eyes, maybe even look more like sisters than the one I share a genetic bond with, sans the supermodel jackpot I’ve yet to cash in on.

“Our brother…” I pause, still not over the fact she knew Fletcher’s name. I don’t know what’s going on, but I have a feeling I’m about to meet yet another Stewart family knockoff.