Gargoyle: A Reawakening (Briarcliff Series, #2) (20 page)

“
Neither am I,” Chance
added almost as an afterthought.

“
Well, you both should be,”
Colton, said with a smug tone.

“
Why?” Chance asked,
scratching his belly.

“
Waa!
” Colton yelled out, slicing the
air with his hands and kicking out his foot. “These are lethal.
They should be registered as weapons,” he boasted, as he sliced the
air a few more times with his hands.

“
Yeah
um…okay,” Barnaby said simply to placate Colton. He was hoping
there was a collection of guns hidden away in here somewhere.
Colton could use his hands and feet as lethal weapons. Barnaby
wanted a
fucking’ Uzi
.

COMPLICATION

SATURDAY * 10:55 PM

The overwhelming amount of
books in the room spanned from the floor to the ceiling in cases
lining the walls. In the corner, a wrought iron spiral staircase
wound up to a second level balcony, which housed even more books. A
wooden ladder hooked to brass rails with wheels on the bottom
reached the second level. It reminded Evie of the one at the
coffeehouse except this was much larger and of course fancier. A
huge brass telescope was perched on a tripod at far end of the
balcony that pointed into the middle of a plate glass and iron
doomed ceiling. Dark clouds blotted out most of the moon with the
exception of the eerie blue slipping out the sides. The color made
the room have a strange dream like quality, and was another
reminder of the time she had spent with
him
. She wished she knew where he
was and was debating whether to slip out and look for him when a
loud,
“Waa
,”
split the air. She rolled her eyes and tried her best to ignore
Colton while he “
Practiced his mad
skillz
.” She even resorted to biting her
lip to stop herself from groaning out loud. It made her sick to
think she had even considered sleeping with him and for her first
time no less…
gross
… a little bit of puke slid up her throat. Now he was gobbing
about how cool he was. She turned away and rolled her eyes
again.
Conceited dick
.

“
Where did all the people
go?” Chance blurted out from across the room.

“
They left Chance,
remember?” Evie said, leaning forward to brace her hands on top of
the desk.

“
Nah,” he said shaking his
head. “You said some came inside…where are they?”

“
Oh right,” she said
absently. She had been so preoccupied she had completely forgotten
about the ten or so people she saw pushing through the front door.
“I don’t know.”

Chance opened up the door and peeked out
into the foyer. He looked up at the massive chandelier that was
swinging slightly making the chain rattle. Listening, he cocked his
head to the side and could swear he heard footsteps coming down the
stairs but when he looked over to the stairwell nothing was there.
Quickly he shut the door again and shivered.

Barnaby adjusted his glasses on his face.
“Are we really to only ones left?”

Evie noticed he left out
the…
OH SHIT! Are we really the only ones
left?
She felt the same; with one small
exception—if Adriane was still here… she was glad she was here
too.

“
Dude—do you see anyone
else?” Colton said and pushed off the wall, sending the ladder
sliding down the length of bookcases.

Evie watched Barnaby shake
his head and mumble something under his breath—she could swear it
was
dumbass.
She
agreed wholeheartedly.

***

It was quiet as a tomb
with the exception of a “
Waa
” being screamed in the air from
Colton’s lame ass. Evie needed to do something to occupy herself so
she walked over, pulled a few books down, and then carried them a
safe distance away from Colton and put them on the desk. There were
several on the history of Briarcliff Manor and the surrounding
area. Most dated back to the early eighteen hundreds. There were
some that didn’t even have copyrights so she had no idea how old
those might be. She had no idea there was so much history on the
place. On a normal day, she would have enjoyed reading up on it
all, but at the moment, she couldn’t even appreciate any of it. She
was too worried about Adriane. She wanted to go and look for him,
but wasn’t sure going out alone in the dark would be the wisest
move on her part and she didn’t think any of the guys would be in
too big of a hurry to help her either. So instead, she simply kept
her mouth shut and kept looking for anything that might be useful,
which was hard considering she had no idea what she was looking
for. She was going on a hunch. In the movies, people always looked
in books to find the answers, so maybe it would work for her
too.

“
You find anything?”
Barnaby asked, walking up beside her and shoving his hands in his
pockets.

She glanced up at him and couldn’t help but
smile. His glasses were fogged up. “Can you see?”

Barnaby exhaled. “Hold on,” he said, pulling
his glasses off and then lifted his shirt to wipe the lenses
off.

Evie’s eyes drifted down reflexively. She
blinked a few times. “Wow,” she mouthed staring. Not only was
Barnaby pretty cute and strong, but he had one of those sexy
stomachs too. The kind you see in the magazine ads with the cut
hips dipping down into the tops of jeans. She cleared her throat.
“Hey Barnaby, how good can you see without your glasses?”

“
I can’t see shit,” he
breathed sounding frustrated. “Why?”

“
Oh, just wondering.”
Somehow, she managed to tear her eyes away from his magazine ad
stomach and lifted her eyes to his face thinking that would be
safer. Turns out, she should have probably just stared at the
ground. His dark hair was curling crazily around his head. He
looked really sweet and cute at the same time. His long lashes cast
down on his cheeks. It was a crime for a guy to have lashes that
long. She leaned forward, suddenly wondering what color his eyes
were.

Barnaby put his glasses back on and let out
an awkward laugh.

Evie jerked back away and
lifted one of the books off the desk; flipping the pages back and
forth like she found something really interesting, trying to cover
her gawking moment.

“
So have you found anything
on um…?” he said, leaning forward. Gargoyles?” he
whispered.

The warmth of his breath wafted against her
face, making her shiver. It wasn’t like how she felt with Adriane,
but it was still a bit…unsettling. “Um, no, not yet,” she said and
then took a step backward. He was too close. An awkward silence
followed.

She shifted on her feet,
and glanced up at him. And then instantly regretted it. He was
giving her a look, she wasn’t sure what kind of a look it was
either but it kind of reminded her of a little puppy dog. One she
might of accidentally kicked. “
Ohmigod!
I can’t believe I
forgot.”

“
What?” he
asked.

“
What did your mom say, I
mean you were going to tell me earlier remember, before…?” she
asked, hoping against hope his expression would snap back to
normal. It did.

Barnaby ran his hand through his hair making
his curls stick up even more. “You mean before that big ass thing
swooped in front of us.”

“
I know, what was that?”
She shivered, remembering their near brush with death.

“
You saw it too?” He
laughed shakily. “I thought my ass was seeing things, but then
again I have been seeing a lot of weird shit since we got on this
mountain.”

“
I know, I mean, I don’t
really know, before when Adriane told me to run, I couldn’t see
what I was running from.”

“
Adriane?” he asked clearly
confused. “Oh right,” he said. “So that was the guy you were with
by the, ah…trees,” he asked, suddenly feeling like a loser for
knowing even that much, but couldn’t help himself.

“
Yeah, he is um, the guy…I
was hanging with,” she finished stupidly, lying, not wanting to say
anything more.

“
So what is his deal? I
mean where did he come from, and the other two guys, the ones with
Heather and Moriah? Who were they?”

Evie shook her head. “I don’t know. Who?”
she asked not knowing what he was talking about.

“
Oh so you didn’t see
them…” He left his statement open ended, his brows creasing
together.

“
Nah…wait
what? Was there
something
to see?” She didn’t worry about being too close
this time. She stepped forward and turned her head, giving him her
ear so he could tell her quietly. She couldn’t believe she was even
interested in what Heather had been doing—but Moriah? What was that
all about?

Barnaby laughed, shaking his head and leaned
down cupping his hand to her ear. “Yeah, Heather was all over this
guy. Actually, he um, looked a lot like the um…the guy you were
with, too.”

Evie leaned away, her face
blank. “Ah, I did see Heather talking to some guy over by the
drinks.”
It couldn’t have been Adriane,
could it
? She suddenly felt
sick.

“
Hey, that is where Colton
and I saw her, before that thing came creeping out from the
bushes.”

“
What thing?”

“
The dog I was telling you
all about. At least I think it was a dog.” He shook his head. “I am
not kidding Evie. That thing was nasty, and huge. I have never seen
anything like it except in the movies. It totally reminded me of
CUJO, except bigger and uglier.”

“
You sure it wasn’t
Heather?” Evie laughed out thinking about the name she dubbed
Heather from the coffee house.

Barnaby shook his head, completely
straight-faced. “I am not kidding Evie. I saw it and no… it was not
Heather,” he said in all seriousness.

“
I was only kidding,” she
muttered, feeling stupid and rude suddenly.

“
Yeah, I know. Sorry. I am
not trying to be a dick. It just freaked me out really
bad.”

“
Yeah, I get it.” She waved
him off. Even though, to be honest, she had seen some pretty weird
shit lately and she was taking it all in stride, unless of course
she was going to lose it at some random moment and have a break
down. She hoped not.

Suddenly she remembered
tighty whities. “
Ohmigod
, I saw some guy, he was
freaked and said there was a mad dog out there. Do you think it was
the same thing you saw?”

“
Probably,” he agreed.
“Where did he go?”

“
Oh, tighty whities?” she
said, not missing the weird look he was giving her. “Oh…” she
remembered he didn’t get what she was saying. “ He was only wearing
his underwear and one sock,” she explained.
“No way,” he laughed out. “Really?” he asked.

“
Yeah…”
She lifted her brows. “It was
pret-tay
crazy.” She noticed he had
that weird look on his face again, like he was going to ask her
something, and she didn’t want to know what the something might
be.

“
Aren’t we gonna try to get
out of here?” he asked suddenly.

“
Yeah, of course,” she
hedged and then changed the subject. She didn’t want to leave until
she found Adriane. “What were you going to tell me about
Moriah?”

“
Hey, all I know is Colton
saw her practically sitting on some dudes lap.”

“
What?” Her mouth dropped
open. “No Way!”

“
Yes way. Colton told
Kingston and his ass took off.”

“
What? What
happened?”

“
I have
no idea. We split. Then we saw Heather and she was going
Zombie
on some dudes
face,” he said stressing the “z’” while lifting his
brows.

“
Nooo,
” she said, her mouth dropping
open.

“
Yeeess
,” he said nodding. “Then
Cujo’s twin showed and we ran.”

“
Wow,” she mouthed, shaking
her head. “Moriah…” Now that was unbelievable. Of course she wasn’t
shocked about Heather…well, she was shocked but in a different way.
What guy would want to hook up with that bitch?