Dead Awakenings (7 page)

“What does that mean? You guys keep saying that as if I’m not even here.”

“That’s exactly it.” Luca paused. “Whether or not
you
are here. You. Evaine. All of what made you, you. But most of all, your humanity. That’s what the Forgotten don’t have. They rebirthed without their humanity, or empathy in most cases. It’s what makes us able to do what we do. Which is not to feed on humans and kill them.”

“Then are you so sure about me? I killed that man, didn’t I? And attacked another the first chance I got.”

“Yes, you did. You killed him. But you were a newborn who hadn’t been fed yet and you didn’t know that you could control it. Now you do and next time, you will.”

“So that’s why you have the Forgotten in the cells? They can’t be let out? Ever?”

“They aren’t all here. We have only some of them. The Feeders—”

“Luca.” Nate spoke with a warning tone.

The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Then Luca nodded and turned back to her, letting go of her other wrist. It cooled immediately at the loss of his touch. She rubbed at the spot and wrapped her arms around herself.

His long white hair hung free past his shoulders, and his now ice blue eyes comforted her. Even when he had grabbed her out of the air and thrown her to the wall, she hadn’t been scared of him. Any normal person would’ve been, but she heated up just thinking about it.

Nate cleared his throat. “I’ll meet you outside, Luca.” He left without another word.

Luca stepped back a pace.

“I’ll come for you in a couple of hours.”

Evaine nodded but didn’t speak. She watched him leave the room and then leaned against the yellow wall, rooted to the spot. She tried to hold on to the warmth she’d felt when he touched her. The whole situation was so unreal. She wished that the cameras were just for a reality show
.

She tilted her head until it rested on the concrete wall. She needed to learn to control this rage, if for no other reason than that she had to be able to have a full conversation with someone and get some answers without trying to rip their heads off. After giving up staring at the door she lay down and drifted off to sleep to a vision of Luca’s face.

* * *

“You have feelings for her.” It wasn’t a question.

“I’m concerned for her, that’s all.” Luca walked past Nate without making eye contact.

“Many females have come here and stayed with us in the last seven years, and you’ve never shown concern for any of them.”

Luca stopped, but didn’t answer. Nate saw it. What was it about that girl? These feelings were so different than anything he had felt before. The connection between them was more than the normal chemistry. An electricity. Tangible every time they touched. He wanted her with a frenzy. The mere scent of her hair or touch of her skin was enough to make him lose all willpower.

“There’s something about her. I can’t figure out what it is. I think she might be a telepath, but I’m not sure. And when we—” He didn’t want to discuss it. Not even with Nate, who’d been his best friend and his brother for almost a decade. Nate had saved him, finding him in the sewers and bringing him here and back to his humanity.

“Well, I agree with you, there is something different. She’s having rages, but somehow she’s able to stop them by sheer force of will. I’ve not seen that before.”

Luca bit his tongue to stop from telling Nate that he’d been projecting into Evaine’s head to calm her. He wasn’t sure what kept him from being honest with Nate. But until he figured out what was going on between them, it was better that no one knew.

Nate started to walk away and then stopped. “Be careful. For both of your sakes. You know how fragile newborns are.”

Nate left, but his words lingered. The way she had looked at him when he’d pinned her to the wall intoxicated him. He’d never seen a newborn go from rage to composed so quickly.

He walked to her door. He needed to check on her, make sure she was all right. Not because he had feelings for her. He peered through the glass panel and saw her lying still on her bed. No feelings. Right.

Chapter Seven

Tristan Atwater sat down at his computer and turned it on, a cup of weak coffee in his hand. He blew on the hot cup while his PC booted up. He scanned the desk for a coaster. Dirty clothes, papers, and boxes of all of Evaine’s things from her apartment littered his once immaculate penthouse.

He brought up his homepage and glanced at the clock in the corner. Evaine had been missing for two months, a week, and five days. He only had one hundred and nine new hits today and three new messages. The novelty of the site had worn off. When he had started he’d gotten thousands of hits a day.

He tried not to get his hopes up, opening the e-mails one by one. The e-mails alone were enough to throw him over the edge. The anticipation of opening them, praying they would offer the information he so desperately wanted, and then the let down at seeing nothing but junk. Yet every time he saw that little button flashing, letting him know there was a new message, his hopes soared.

All he had been getting for the last month or so was junk. Sightings in Mexico on a beach. A sighting in Vegas as a stripper, and the best one—she had been abducted and forced to perform in a circus act. How could a person simply disappear and never be heard from or seen again?

Tristan had gone to the police, hired private investigators, gone to the media—nothing had worked. The Web site, with a reward for any leads resulting in her safe return, had been his last option. If she had been kidnapped, surely the money he offered was enough that someone who had seen her or been involved would get a hold of him.

He shut the computer off and rubbed his hands over his face. The stubble on his chin scratched his fingertips. How long had it been since he had shaved? A week? Two?

Yesterday had been his weekly visit to see if the police had found anything new. He hadn’t realized how awful he looked until Det. Naylor mentioned it. In the very ordinary police office, with metal desk, papers and files everywhere, the smell of instant coffee permeating the room. It dawned on him that Det. Naylor had probably seen men like him a hundred times before. Fathers, brothers, boyfriends, husbands—all there for the same reason. They were all trying to make sense of a senselessness disappearance. He knew that the only reason Det. Naylor continued to give him the time of day was because of his money and connections.

There had been no news. “Mr. Atwater,” the detective had said sadly, “it’s been two months. The likelihood that she will be found is less than slim. We’ve had quite a few of these types of cases in the last ten years. Homeless people and college kids go missing. We hear about it a few weeks afterward when someone they worked with or someone who knew them becomes concerned. I am sorry, there really is nothing else we can do. If we have any more leads I’ll call right away.” Naylor had paused for a minute, letting his words sink in. “Mr. Atwater, I don’t mean to pry, but it would seem that you are not doing too well. My suggestion would be that you try to move on. Try to start building a life without her. That’s probably what she’s done.”

The fact that so many college students and the occasional homeless person had been going missing for years was the only new piece of information. But Naylor had been right about the “not doing too well.”

It had been eight days since he’d last shaved. He hadn’t eaten in—what?—over a day at least. He walked into the kitchen, grabbed a piece of bread from the breadbox, and chewed on it absentmindedly. He’d decided to go to the college and see Evaine’s adviser. The idea had come to him in one of his more lucid moments last week.

A cold, wet nose and a slobbery tongue pressed his bare leg.

“Gross, Kale.” He glared down at the large white dog. “All right, we’ll go out. Get your leash.”

The dog bounded off into the bedroom. Tristan finished his bread and walked toward the sink, only to step into the dog’s water bowl. He rolled his eyes. How many times had he done that in the last two months? He still wasn’t used to having the dog here. But he couldn’t leave Kale in Evaine’s tiny studio apartment by himself day in and day out waiting for her to return.

The memory of going over to her little apartment the morning after she hadn’t showed up to dinner with him was a living nightmare in his mind. Every time he replayed it in his head, the horror of her being missing became fresh once more.

A wet leash hit Tristan’s bare foot, bringing him again to the present. “Kale, that is just…Yuck!” He slid his foot out from under the leash, pushed his feet into his flip flops, and grabbed his hoodie. “Let’s hurry today.” He clipped the leash to Kale’s collar.

When Tristan walked into his bathroom thirty minutes later, he took a hard look at himself in the mirror. He definitely needed a shave. His hair was too long to be what his grandmother would call presentable. The circles and bags under his eyes made it look like he hadn’t slept in months. Which meant they weren’t lying.

Absently he ran his fingers through his hair, not really determined to make it do anything. Reaching for his last pair of clean jeans and T-shirt, he realized he needed to get Zolma in to help out. Kale bumped into him as he headed for the door. The weight of the massive animal threw him off balance and sent him crashing into one of the boxes from Evaine’s old apartment.

“Kale!” Tristan yelled as the box toppled to the floor, spilling its contents across the hallway. Tristan stumbled to his knees, his own bag opening and the papers in his hand going flying. “Dang it, Kale!”

The dog sat down with a plop, his tail wagging. “Kale. Bed.” He pointed to the guest room. Kale whined but trotted off, glancing backward as he went. He picked up the overturned box and chucked the contents back inside. Then, grabbing what was left, he shoved the remaining papers into his bag. He really needed Zolma back to help him clean.

* * *

Tristan had been driving about ten minutes when he hit the Bluetooth in his car. “Jannie Merryman.” The phone dialed automatically. It rang once, and then he heard the familiar bite of her raspy voice.

“Wow, you’re not dead yet. I was sure you had finally starved to death. I mean why else would the head of marketing and VP of a fortune five hundred company not call his personal assistant for over three days? Do you have any idea how many calls I’ve had to fend off, meetings to rearrange without you? How many excuses I have had to make? And let me tell you, the excuses aren’t holding anymore.”

He sighed. Had it been three days? “Sorry, Jannie.” He wasn’t. Jannie was the best assistant he’d ever had, but she could get on his nerves. Which explained why he hadn’t been fired yet. No one wanted to deal with her. They’d wait until the last second before daring to call her to find out where he was. When Tristan was absent she was the Kale protecting his palace.

“You sure are. You’ve blown off a dozen meetings this month alone. Missed two fundraisers, canceled a trip home for your grandmother’s birthday, and missed
La Bohme
at the opera house of which you are a member of the board.”

He knew very well that he had missed a lot of things in the last couple of months, but he couldn’t bring himself to go out without Evaine. What if she called and needed him? What if she came back?

“Hellllooooo?”

“I need you to contact Zolma. I need her to clean twice a week, do shopping once a week, and pick up dry cleaning. Today, if possible.”

"Did you hear what I said?"

"I heard."

Jannie paused and then sighed. “Tristan, I can’t cover for you here much longer.”

“I’ll come in Friday. Anything else?”

“Do you have any new leads?”

“Not yet.”

“Then I’ll let you go. I’ll call Zolma and see you on Friday by nine a.m. Don’t be late. Oh, and Tristan? Be sure to shave and shower this time. And at least wear something clean.”

* * *

Tristan grabbed his bag and stepped out of the car. The fine arts building was on the other side of campus. When he arrived at it, he searched for a board with the list of faculty members. Locating the board near an entrance he searched for a Mac. Professor… Professor…Professor…not professor Mac Peters. Taking the stairs two at a time, he climbed to room 212 and knocked.

“I didn’t do it!”

Tristan took that as an invitation to enter. A man, not that much older than Tristan himself, sat hunched over a laptop on a desk. He had a mop of wavy hair that fell into his eyes. Mac faced Tristan. His scruffy beard covered much of his face, and a pair of huge glasses covered the rest.

“Hey,” Mac said, studying Tristan.

“I’m Tristan Atwater.”

“I’m Mac Peters. What can I do for you? You don’t really look like the thespian type.”

“No, I’m not, I’m afraid. Not a theatrical bone in my body, but my fiancé’s a thespian.”

“Oh, great.” He gave a broad smile. “Is she transferring here?”

“She already goes here.”

“Oh, cool. Who is she?”

“Evaine Michaels.”

At the mention of her name, Mac’s face paled.

“Fiancé, huh? I never even knew she was dating someone.”

“We’ve been together since high school. She didn’t want anyone to know about us being engaged till she had finished school.”

Mac turned back to his computer screen. “Well,
mazel tov
then. So where is Evaine? I haven’t seen her around lately.”

“That’s why I’m here. I don’t know where she is. I had hoped that maybe you could tell me something about the other students that have gone missing in the last several years.”

Mac pushed his glasses up his nose and continued typing. “Other students?”

“Yes, I checked into it. Over twenty students have disappeared in the last five years from this college.”

Mac stopped typing and looked up. “I know sometimes students leave the school suddenly, transfer or go home and stuff. But I’ve never heard of someone just disappearing.”