Echoes (15 page)

“No, you’re not him. Don’t even say that.”

“Don’t worry, it won’t be long. I’ll burn up. This shell will be gone—and Ethan’s memories will be gone, too.” He snorted again and covered his face with his hands. “It will be a relief, actually. I don’t know why I’m even fighting it.”

I was desperately confused. “But you’re
not
Ethan.”

“I am now.”

He stood there, his skin sending up wisps of smoke, just staring at me for a long time until it made me nervous.
More
nervous.

“You never knew, did you?” he asked.

“What didn’t I know?”

“There’s a memory...his first day in third grade. That’s when his mom moved to this town to start a new job here. He felt so awkward, so alone, and you—you let him borrow a pencil. He didn’t have one and he was embarrassed to ask the teacher for one.” He laughed. “That was enough. Right there. That moment. A stupid pencil.”

“Wh-what? I don’t remember that.”

“Of course not. But
he
did. He noticed you, saw you. Liked you. That’s how it began.”

“What began?”

“His feelings for you. They started that day, his first day at school.” His expression grew tense. “But he didn’t know what to do. How to act. It’s inside him, this painful shyness. He can’t get away from it. It crippled him all his life. He could think of the right things to say—brilliant, witty things—but it came out all mixed up when he tried to speak, so he stopped trying. But he never stopped liking you.”

“I liked him, too.” Despite the heat he was giving off, I felt cold. So cold.

“Not the same as how he felt. And it never faded for him.” His brows drew together and he turned toward the wall. “It only grew. It ate at him, this way he felt. And it was all focused on you, Olivia. All of these years, don’t you see?”

“I—I don’t know...”

“I know you don’t know.” He laughed, but it was utterly humorless. “How could you? He never said anything. He never gave any indication that he liked you—that he
always
liked you. Once, he told a couple of his friends, when they were talking about girls. He told them he liked Olivia Hawthorn. And then they went up to you at that dance in seventh grade and told you...”

The dark, twisting pain on his face confused me so deeply I didn’t know what to do with it. He was talking about the memories that Ethan had had, but it was as if he’d experienced that pain himself.

“Ethan never talked to me again after that dance,” I said.

“He was ashamed. His secret, he kept it safe inside of him and the moment he trusted somebody else with it they made it into a big joke. It nearly destroyed him.” He groaned. “He was so weak, but he was that way about everything in his life, not just when it came to you. He should have done something. Said something. Got mad. Told them that wasn’t cool. Make them see that they’d hurt me by taking how I felt and laughing about it. But they didn’t see. It was no big deal to them. But it was to—to
me
.”

“It
wasn’t
you,” I choked out. “How can you even act like it was? It was Ethan and now he’s gone. Gone forever.”

“No, he’s not,” he mumbled, then swore under his breath. “I took this body too soon, but I didn’t want his mother to see what he’d done. I had to clean everything up so she wouldn’t know. She doesn’t have a clue that her son—”

“Stop it. Just stop it!”

“Soon I’ll stop for good. Promise.” His sharp laugh now sounded pained. “But I want to get this all out first. For you to understand what happened, why I did what I did.”

I rubbed away my tears with my sleeve and glared at him. I wanted to turn and run away, to slam the door shut behind me and never see him again. But I stayed locked in place. I needed to hear what he wanted to tell me.

“I knew the Upyri wanted you, but I didn’t know why,” he said. “And you were right all along. I did follow you from Helen’s party that night. I’d waited outside ever since you got there with Peter, I’d listened to everyone having fun. I’d been keeping an eye on you ever since...” He trailed off.

Ever since he’d stolen Ethan’s body.

He continued. “Still, I didn’t want to get too close to you. It made me hurt inside, knowing you didn’t see me. But then you did and it was like I’d been punched in the gut. That’s the real reason I tried to avoid you the next day. I wanted to go back to how things were. Keep my distance. It was safer that way. I could keep an eye on you, but not up close. Not with you looking into my eyes like that, giving me your full attention. I couldn’t hide anymore, you wouldn’t let me.”

I shook my head. “You keep saying
you
, like you’re Ethan. But—”

“I
am
Ethan. I have his memories, his life, his spirit even—everything he was is inside of me.
Is
me.”

“No, you’re not Ethan. You’re a monster.”

His lips twisted into a half grimace, half smile. “I’m both now. Or, at least until this shell is gone. I don’t know if I’ll keep any of Ethan’s memories or feelings once that happens. I’ve never tried anything like this before. I’ve never gotten...this close.”

“Frank said that you were protecting me. That you were the only thing standing between me and the rest of the Upyri.”

“I was.”

“But why? You’re one of them.”

He shook his head. “Isn’t it obvious by now?”

Frustration welled inside me. “No. It’s not. I still don’t understand any of this. Tell me why you’d protect me when you’re one of them—one of the monsters who wants me dead.”

His expression was pale and haunted. “Because Ethan was in love with you, Olivia. For years. That’s why I’ve done everything I’ve done. It was all for you.” His gaze locked with mine. “Because I’m madly, passionately, desperately in love with you.”

I stared at him, stunned. “Don’t—please don’t say that.”

“But it’s the truth.” He looked furious now. With me, with himself. “I don’t want it to be this way, but that doesn’t make it go away. It never goes away.”

I wanted to call him a liar again, wanted to hate him even more for saying something like this out loud.

“You need to know something before I’m gone,” he said, finally breaking the silence. “Something I’ve known for a couple days now.”

It took me a moment to find my voice. “What?”

“It’s the reason they want you. The reason why you’re different from other people in this town. Why your shell is so tempting for them.”

I just stared at him, waiting.

“It’s because you died before, even if it was only for a few minutes. When you were young and you got your scar.” He frowned. “A human who dies and is brought back to life is very special. Their bodies are changed forever, they hold a special power, a strength...a kind of magic. You can’t see it, can’t touch it, but it’s there. You came back when others would have stayed dead. You’re—”

“Revenant,” I said, my voice a whisper.

His eyes widened. “How did you know that?”

“Frank.” I swallowed hard. “I know he’s different—
revenant
—too. He’s been around for a long time. One hundred years ago he was here and he fought against the—” My eyes snapped to his. “You
knew
. Of course you knew. The journal, you knew it belonged to Frank, didn’t you?”

He just watched me, his jaw tight.

“That’s why you made Bree forget. How you got her to destroy it.”

“Is it gone?” It wasn’t a confession, but it was close enough.

“Yeah. But Bree scanned in some pages first. Enough for me to see a picture of Frank; for me to know that he’s a bit more than what he appears to be.” I exhaled shakily. “So you did that. You made her forget just by looking into her eyes.”

“It’s not quite that simple.” His jaw tensed. “But, yeah. I did. And that’s what clued me in to you being something very different as well.”

“You tried to do the same thing to me that first night. Tried to make me forget what I’d seen. Forget what you did.”

“But you didn’t.” His lips curved. “Not even close. I knew they wanted you in particular for some reason, but that should have been my tip-off right there that you were revenant. I was too stupid to see the truth for a while longer. Until Frank asked you those questions in the bar about whether you’d ever died before. Then it all finally made sense. A revenant’s body is like gold to the Upyri. It gives them strength and power that they’d never get from a regular human.”

I paced to the other side of the room. “Why destroy the journal? If you were trying to help me, why would you do that?”

His gaze grew pained again. “Self preservation. If you’d seen the pictures, read about Frank’s exploits, and I had just introduced you to him as one of my friends, you would have figured it out. Figured out what I was. And I knew you’d hate me for it.”

“And here we are.”

“Here we are.”

I’m madly, passionately, desperately in love with you.

Talk about a phrase that had a habit of echoing. I had to concentrate hard to keep those words out of my head. They weren’t helping me to stay strong. In fact, they were doing just the opposite.

“So a revenant makes a good shell,” I said.

He nodded. “Much harder to kill. And any Upyri inside a revenant shell wouldn’t perish from not—” he hesitated, “—not drinking blood every day. Trust me, that would be a perk. It’s not all that convenient.”

I grimaced at the very idea of anyone drinking blood. “Like when you’re trapped in a locked room.”

“Exactly.”

“So you’ve been drinking blood daily to keep your strength, ever since taking over Ethan’s shell.”

“Yes.”

“How? Why doesn’t anyone report that there are attacks of monsters sinking their fangs into people in town?”

He snorted softly. “No fangs here. Human body, human teeth. Instead, we can influence humans to be still, to not be afraid. And when it’s over we can make them forget it ever happened.”

I shivered, then paced back toward the door. “So how do you get to the blood?”

“A knife.” He glanced at the one I held tightly. “The wound heals quickly after we feed. Helps to camouflage what we’ve done. The human would see that they got a minor scratch from somewhere, but won’t remember where. No harm done.”

“No harm done, huh?” I repeated.

He glared at my mocking tone. “Have humans died from our drinking their blood? Yeah. It can happen if we get too greedy. But for the most part, they never need to know we exist. Except...”

“Except what?” I prompted when he went silent.

“I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but I know it’s going to be big. The others—the ones that are still trapped—they’ll be released. Soon.”

I shivered. “And then what happens?”

“Our Queen...she wants more. She is the strongest of all of us so she broke free first. A few of us were able to follow in her wake, but the others are trapped until she gives them their freedom. She has that kind of power over us. She’s the one who wants your shell. With it she’d be practically invincible. She knows the shell of a revenant is the best place to hide if she wants to avoid ever being trapped again.”

“How does she know that?”

“She saw it happen before.” He looked at me. “With Frank.”

“He’s been alive for over a hundred years.” I had a horrible thought. “Is that—will that happen to me? Will I live that long?”

“No. A revenant shell is immortal only to an Upyr, but a regular shell will age and die like a normal human.”

I felt myself pale. “So that means that Frank is an Upyr, too. Inside a revenant shell.”

Ethan nodded.

I didn’t think I was capable of getting any colder, but I managed it anyway. My shiver turned into a full-on shudder.

It made sense, though. And I had a very strong inclination that’s exactly what was going on before Ethan confirmed it. Frank was an Upyr who’d been lurking around town since the others had been trapped a century ago.

“He saved me,” I said. “The other day, Frank stopped that big Upyr when you were unconscious.”

“Frank’s my friend, he always has been. He knows why I’ve been”—he grimaced—”acting so strangely. He gets what I’ve been going through. He doesn’t like it, thinks it’s distracted me from the real plan, but he gets it.”

I figured the distraction he was talking about were his so-called feelings toward me that I hadn’t been able to fully process yet. “What’s the real plan?”

“We need to trap the queen again. Permanently, this time. She’s been driven half-insane over the last century. The rest of us were in a kind of stasis, but she was awake the whole time. Planning her revenge.”

“You want to trap her? Not kill her?”

He shook his head. “Upyri can’t be killed. It’s thanks to a very old curse, the same one that burned away our original bodies a long time ago—we live forever whether we want to or not. But we can be trapped in that wraith-like state. And...” The silence hung in the air for a long, heavy moment. “It takes a revenant to trap an Upyr. That’s what Frank was able to do the last time. The original Frank.”

I absorbed this shocking new piece of information like a slap. “So if I’m revenant, too, that means I can trap them.”

He nodded. “You can help us stop the queen once and for all.” He shook his head. “Or you can help
Frank
stop her. When I come back, I might be different. I might try to stop you.”

“Where are you—?” I was going to ask him where he was going, but I remembered. The smoke. The heat. The pained edge to every word he spoke. He was in agony right now, bracing himself against the wall so he didn’t crumple into a heap to the floor.

And then he’d be gone. Ethan would be gone.

The monster hiding deep inside of him would still exist, but the boy who’d just told me he was madly, passionately, desperately in love with me…

“I wish it could be different,” he said. “And I’m so sorry for lying to you. I didn’t see any other way.”

My mouth felt dry, so dry. “Why didn’t you attack me earlier? You had the knife. You could have cut me, drank from me...”

“I could have. You have no idea how tempting it was.” His gaze slid over me slowly before returning to my face. “But then I would have proven once and for all that I’m every bit the monster you think I am.”

“If you don’t drink blood right now...you’re gone.”

“There’s no other way this could have ended. I see that now. Go back to Frank. I swear he doesn’t mean you any harm. Help him. He thinks it’s going to happen tonight, so there’s no time to waste.”

My stomach lurched. “Tonight?”

He nodded. “It’s exactly one hundred years from when we were imprisoned. There’s power in a number like that. Enough that the queen can use it to release the others en masse and at full strength. It’s what we’ve been waiting for. What
she’s
been waiting for. And tonight’s the absolute perfect night for something like this. She couldn’t have planned it better if she’d tried.”

“Perfect how?”

He swallowed. “The school. The dance. Frank thinks she’s planning to lead the released wraiths there. At full strength they’ll be able to kill and steal any body they want.”

“The prom,” I whispered with horror.

He nodded. “So go, get out of here. And tell Frank I’m sorry.”

I didn’t speak for a few long, tense moments. The queen—the Upyri queen—wanted to introduce her friends to my friends. Let them have the pick of new bodies. And they’d be strong enough to kill who they wanted instead of waiting for them to die first.

I let out a long, shuddery breath. “Tell Frank you’re sorry yourself.”

His eyes snapped to mine. “What?”

“I said—” I gritted my teeth and forced myself to draw the sharp edge of the knife over my forearm. It hurt like hell. Red blood, dark in the shadowy room, welled up. “Tell him yourself.”

His attention moved to my arm and locked there, but he remained frozen in place.

I walked up to him. “Don’t make me regret this.”

He was breathing hard, his chest moving in and out. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know. But I’m doing it anyway.”

He didn’t have any more resistance in him. I held up my arm, and he grabbed hold of it, tightly, his grip like fire, and he lowered his mouth to it. His lips were a hot caress against my skin as he began to drink my blood. The knife finally fell from my grip and clattered to the ground and Ethan collapsed to his knees in front of me as if he didn’t have the strength to remain standing anymore.

The moment he’d touched his mouth to my arm, the deep, stinging pain from the cut had vanished. Maybe he couldn’t influence me to forget about this, but whatever he was doing didn’t hurt. It felt good.

His high body temperature swiftly began to lower as he drank. The smoke rising from his skin disappeared. Finally, he looked up at me, his dark hair partially obscuring his copper-colored eyes, his expression haunted, like he still didn’t believe I’d let him do this after everything he’d told me.

He finally let go of me and pushed himself back up to his feet. He wasn’t looking in my eyes now. I glanced down at my arm, surprised to see that he’d been telling the truth earlier. It wasn’t a deep cut anymore. It was more like a light scratch that wouldn’t take more than a few days to heal completely.

I wondered how many people noticed scratches like this on themselves, not remembering how they got them in the first place. What would they think if they found out it was because a vampire had drank their blood and then made them forget?

“Thank you,” he said gruffly, his attention on the floor. “Now we need to go and see Frank. There’s no time to waste.”

He brushed past me toward the door, buttoning up the front of his shirt as he went. He came close enough that I could feel the extra warmth still emanating from his body.

I stood there for a moment, still stunned. I’d come here to watch him die, to grill him for answers that would help me figure things out.

He’d kept the truth away from me, going so far as to brainwash Bree so she’d forget about the journal. All to save himself.

And I’d saved him. I wanted to believe I’d done that because I needed his help. That he still had information I needed. That the town needed.

But I knew the truth. I’d done it because I hadn’t wanted to lose him.

After I’d grabbed the backpack from the table, we left the warehouse, and Ethan headed directly for the McGavin. We didn’t speak, only walked. Fast.

Joe and Goliath were outside again and they eyed me as Ethan slipped in through the front doors.

“Everything okay, Olivia?” Joe asked.

I just nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”

Still lying, even now.

I went inside the bar, right on Ethan’s heels.

Frank hadn’t gone anywhere. I wondered what Joe and Goliath had said to him earlier, if anything. It hadn’t been enough to make him leave. But maybe he had nowhere else to go.

Frank watched our approach in the mirror and I didn’t see any surprise fill his gaze at the sight of Ethan.

“Thought so,” he mumbled. “Didn’t think she would’ve really killed you.”

“She told you she killed me?” Ethan asked.

“Yeah. Interesting relationship the two of you have. Teenagers. So adorable I could puke.”

“Thanks for your opinion.”

“You look like you’ve been through hell, kid.”

“Something like that.”

“You wanna fill me in?”

“Not particularly. Let’s just say it’s better now.”

“Same shell. Pale, but breathing. Guess she likes you after all.”

Ethan glanced at me before his attention returned to Frank. “Not convinced about that, but it doesn’t change anything. Tonight’s the night.”

Frank looked at me in the reflection. He hadn’t bothered to turn around and face us. “You okay with all this, little girl?”

My hands were clenched at my sides. “I swear, if you call me little girl one more time I’m going to…to…”