Cursed (The Brookehaven Vampires #4) (66 page)

Carter was heading out behind Oliver. He needed a ride to get Oliver’s car from the bar since it had been left there the previous night. He gave me a forced smile before leaving.

I assumed Oliver would be taking my car to work after that. That was fine. I just wished he
had spoken to me before he left, just so I would know he was okay, even though I knew he wasn’t, but pretending would’ve given me some peace of mind.

I curled back up on the couch. I tried to go back to sleep just so I could block out the world for a little while longer, but it didn’t work. I needed to pee and my stomach was growling.

I was scrounging for something decent to eat when Carter returned.

“Will you take me to the store?” I asked. “We have
no food.”

“Sure,” he said.

He waited by the door with Oliver’s keys in his hands, fiddling with them, while I hurried to change out of my jammies. I ran a brush through my hair before putting it back up into a ponytail.

“‘K, I’m ready,” I said as I snatched my purse and cellphone from the kitchen bar.

He forced a weak excuse for a smile, then we headed down to the Challenger.

As he drove me to the store, he said, “I know you’re angry with Kiera, Laney, but she does have a lot going on.”

I took a steadying breath before responding. “This may be a bit harsh to hear,” I said and turned to look at the face of my boyfriend, “but she treats you like crap.” His eyes flicked to mine for a quick moment. “You should be her top priority,” I continued. “She should drop everything if you need her.”

“But that’s just it, I don’t need her. We don’t work that way,” he argued.

“That’s kind of sad.”

“I love her, and I don’t doubt she loves me. We just don’t work like you and Oliver.”

I eyed him for a moment. “You deserve to be treated better.”

“Once all this wedding business is over, things will be better,” he said.

“Sure,” I said, the disbelief obvious in my tone.

“
What?” he questioned, turning to look at me after he’d pulled the Challenger into a spot at the grocery store.

“She’s just going to find something else to obsess over, Carter.” It was still super weird to be addressing the body of my boyfriend by Carter’s name. “This is always how she’ll be.”

“Laney, it’s fine. Kiera and I are fine like this.” He smiled at me, with my boyfriend’s mouth, no less, trying to reassure me that what he was saying was true.

I
didn’t believe him. Kiera’s priorities were out of whack, and I feared they always would be.

We
didn’t speak of Kiera and her messed up priorities again. He followed me through the store while pushing a shopping cart, and we actually didn’t speak at all.

Once we were back at home, I made spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad. It was a lot of food for just me, and Carter made a snide comment about me torturing him with one of his favorites. I ignored him while I plopped myself down on the couch with my plate of food. He said nothing more and ate some salad and drank a bottle of blood while we watched
some stupid show he’d put on.

I waited up, tried too anyway. I dozed off a few times, but for the most part, I stayed up until it was time for Oliver’s shift to be over. He
was in such a bad place when he left, I was hoping we could talk, and that maybe I could reassure him. Even if I was unable to reassure myself.

But when thirty minutes turned into forty-five, I began to worry. I texted him, asking if he was on his way home yet. I waited a few minutes, growing more and more worried as I did so. Then I tried calling him. He didn’t answer.

“Do you ever have to work this late?” I asked Carter.

He checked his phone, trying to see the time through the busted screen. “No,” he said, sitting up straight, obviously concerned.

“I’ve texted him and tried calling. He’s not answering.”

“You wait here, I’ll run over there and check on him.” He stood, ready to head out.

“You are not leaving me here alone!” I protested.

We were in the Challenger a moment later, heading to Shakes.

As we rolled into the parking lot, chills crawled up my spine and goose bumps covered my entire body. All of the lights were out in the diner, and my car was sitting, all alone, in the employee section of the parking lot.

“Call Felix,”
Carter said. I was already dialing before the words were out of his mouth.

Felix answered on the first ring. “He’s missing,” I said. I thought I was going to vomit. Tears were already stinging my eyes.

“What do you mean ‘he’s missing’?” Felix’s voice boomed back in my ear.

“My car is here, at Shakes, but he’s not. I’ve tried calling and texting him. He’s not responding.”

I couldn’t help it, I started crying. Oliver’s hand rubbed my back to comfort me, but my mind was already imagining all of the horrible scenarios.

“Oliver wouldn’t just take off,” I said
, but it wasn’t all that calm, and kind of mixed with tears and snot. “Even as upset as he was, he wouldn’t just take off. Something happened to him.”

Silence on the other end.

“Don’t you have cameras and vampires all over town?” I was yelling now. The longer we took to find out what happened to him, the worse it would be. I just knew it!

“I will meet you at the college,” he said, and he ended the call.

While Laney was distracted trying to call my cell again, I did a quick onceover of the parking lot at Shakes, just to make sure my body wasn’t lying dead or dying somewhere. I
didn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t missed something. I hoped there was nothing to miss.

I floored the Challenger as we headed toward the school. The excitement of the car had long worn off. Probably by day two of pretending to be Oliver.

Felix and Amber were both waiting for us near the parking lot when we arrived. Laney was out of the car before I could even put it into park. I hurried after her.

Felix and Amber led us through the dark halls of the school to the English department, where we quickly descended the steps to the passageway below. We took a left into the hall that led to our
paranormal studies class, but we stopped halfway there at the door to the surveillance room.

There were two vampires monitoring the many screens displayed on the wall
of the room. Felix and the other vamps nodded in acknowledgment as we entered the room. The two vamps went back to their duty, and Felix utilized one of the screens off to the side. He pulled up footage from earlier in the night.

We watched the footage from when Oliver arrived at Shakes and parked Laney’s car in the parking lot. We then watched as he headed to the
back door and disappeared. We watched the scene from a different angle which showed my body entering the back of the diner for work. Nothing weird happened. Felix then fast forwarded the footage one angle at a time until the lights went out at the diner.

After looking over the surveillance footage from the first angle, I threw Felix a mental message. “She’s on the verge of breaking, maybe she shouldn’t be here. Just in case.”

Felix glanced from me to Laney who had her face just about pressed to the screen. She was visibly shaking. Felix gave me a quick nod, and then he glanced to Ambrose who was just beside me.

A minute later, Ambrose said, “Delaney, dear, let’s get you a cup of tea and let the boys take care of this. They will let us know when they find something.” Ambrose gently
took Laney by the arms and guided her out of the room.

Laney was quietly hiccup-sobbing at
this point, and the other vamps were starting to eye us curiously.

It probably would’ve been better if Felix followed them and knocked Laney out once she was in Ambrose’s place. But he didn’t, and we returned our attention to the screen
when they were gone.

We watched the black and white footage from several more angles before we found the right one.

“There,” I said, pointing to the screen. The angle wasn’t perfect, but I could see that it was me, well, Oliver in my body.

He was taking out the trash on his way to Laney’s car before heading home. It was something I often did. He tossed the bags of trash, and then someone stepped out from the darkness beside the dumpster, startling the me on the screen. That Carter stumbled back but caught himself before he fell. There was a small moment where it seemed that the me on the screen and whoever stepped out of the shadows were talking, but then another figure jerked the Carter on the video out of the screen’s view, and he was gone. It made me jump.

The original figure looked right at the camera and Felix paused it.

“Who is that?” I asked,
peering closer.

“His brother,” Felix
said in my mind so the others wouldn’t hear.

Oh, shit.

I felt terrible, and not just physically. I
was a complete ass the previous night, to everyone. But it was the way Laney had looked at me after they’d picked us up at the police station, and the fact I’d left her unprotected at the bar, that’s what was weighing the heaviest.

Well, t
here was that, and the fact I couldn’t actually touch my girlfriend. I couldn’t tell her that I loved her. I’d done so once, and it had felt so wrong to have Carter’s voice say those words when it was me that had meant them. I needed to say it so badly, but I think I needed to hear it even more. I needed to know that if this nightmare became permanent, she would choose me, no matter whose body I was in.

On my break, I sat outside on a curb behind the diner. I stared at my phone. Actually, it was Carter’s phone. I wanted to call her. I needed to hear her voice. But I also needed so much more than that, and I couldn’t have it. Not in this body.

Five days, that’s how long I had been playing Carter’s part. It was five days too long.

Being familiar with the paranormal world,
and knowing that enchanters had evil ways, I knew Amber was right. I knew if this lasted much longer, it would last forever. Eventually, our minds would settle into their new bodies, and the two would become one. I didn’t know this for sure, of course, but as senseless as it was, it made sense.

In the end, I
didn’t call her, but I did stare at her number in Carter’s phone and the picture attached to it for my entire thirty minute break. The picture had been taken before we were a couple—before I had returned to her. Or rather, before she had returned to me.

Had they never taken her from me, this
wouldn’t be happening…

She looked so much younger in the photo. So innocent.
I figured the picture had probably been taken when they were in high school, together… I knew I shouldn’t let it, but it bothered me that Carter and so many others had gotten the chance to know her then. Had she never been taken from me, from Brookehaven, she would have memories of me, not them. It was selfish, yes, but she was meant to be mine. Always.

It was time for me to go back to work. Back to Carter’s miserable job. I probably should’ve eaten something. Carter’s stomach was rumbling, something my actual stomach no longer did. Instead, my real body just craved what it needed, letting my brain know it was time to eat.

Yet, even though Carter’s stomach rumbled, the thought of food was not appealing. This may have been due to my mental anguish—the fact that I missed my girlfriend and my life.

There was also a high
probability I had a terrible hangover.

Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. The dishes and bent silverware called.

Hours later, my head was itching from the stitches and my socks were soaking wet as I hauled two large bags of garbage out to the trash at the end of my shift. I was preoccupied with my thoughts and desperately wanting to scratch where Carter’s head was healing, so I totally missed the fact I was in danger.

My brother stepped out of the shadows as I tossed the bags into the dumpster. He said hello, greeting me in that creepy way
he’d adopted.

I was so startled, I about fell on my ass.

“I believe you and I have some things to talk about,” Oscar said.

“I don’t think we do,” I said, taking a step back.

“Oh, we do,” he said, that disturbing grin of his appearing.

The next thing I knew, I was in the trunk of a car. I was gagged, my hands were bound
, and my head was aching, which meant I’d been knocked unconscious. I imagined, with all of this head trauma, Carter was bound to have some sort of mental issue. Eventually.

I took a deep breath, reminding myself to focus. I needed to get my head in the game.

I’d made a mistake when Oscar paid Laney his most recent visit. Without thinking, I admitted the childhood photo of us was mine. I couldn’t believe I’d done it. I was pretty sure my mistake had alerted Oscar to the fact I was not who I claimed to be. Meaning, Oscar knew I was Carter.

If this was true, it meant Oscar was, in fact, a part of whatever was going on.