Through Glass: Episode Four Read Free Page A

about saving him, about
keeping him alive; about finding something that was a little of
both—both man and Tar. Something I didn’t think existed, that I
didn’t want to exist.
    Not at all.
    And not in Cohen.
    “ But if he has been gone
for weeks… he’s gone, Travis. You said so yourself.” My mind
struggled to flow around the words, the images blocking thoughts as
I wrestled the mental picture that was slowly growing inside of me.
The desperation and the panic that was still taking hold and
growing.
    “ Yes.”
    I had already accepted him as dead. I
had already mourned and cried and held onto him, but for some
reason—thinking of his eyes always full of so much expression,
dimmed into that of a monster… a monster that Travis obviously had
other plans for than what I had originally thought.
    Pain seized through my chest as if I
had been shot again. I might have been.
    “ But if we find him—”
Travis began, his voice suddenly rising in an excitement that only
cut through me, “if we know which one he is—if we find him, then
maybe we can find out what Abran has done to those people. If they
are monsters—”
    “ You mean you want to
experiment on Cohen,” I finally interrupted him, my words clipped
in shock and pain.
    “ No.”
    “ Just the way they wanted
to experiment on me.” I could feel the panic, the temper coming
back and it scared me.
    “ Not the same
way—”
    “ Exactly the same way! You
want to open him up and see how he ticks—”
    “ No, Alexis!” he
interrupted me with a snap, the anger in his voice jolting through
me. The muscles in his jaw flexed as he looked at me with the same
hard look as before, the childish gleam that I had seen in him all
but gone now, leaving only my older, powerful brother.
    I didn’t want this. I didn’t want this
for Cohen, for the image of what he was in my mind, in my heart. I
wanted him, but he wasn’t there anymore.
    “ I will not do that to
him,” Travis said, his voice almost a whisper as he tried to calm
the angry panic I was sure he could see move through me.
    “ Then what, Travis? You
want to manicure his talons… his…” My breath caught as I said it,
an iron vice closing over my heart as I felt the burn behind my
eyes, the burn I wanted so hard to ignore, the tears that I wanted
to pretend I could no longer shed.
    I knew it wasn’t that easy,
though.
    It couldn’t be.
    Just saying the words had let a tiny
part of me out; the part that still clung to that final image of
Cohen, the part that still remembered his kiss, the warmth of his
hands…
    Without thinking about it, I lifted my
arm, the sleeve of the over-large, leather jacket rolling back to
reveal the ink pen drawing I had spent so many years tracing. The
drawing that brought back so many memories of his smile.
    I could still see him, but now I saw
something more. I saw golden claws where charcoal-stained fingers
used to be, and slick, black skin covered with razor sharp feathers
instead of the scruff that had so taken my heart.
    I didn’t see Cohen anymore.
    I saw a monster.
    “ He’s gone,” I said, trying
to keep the break out of my voice and failing.
    “ And yet, you saw Sarah,”
Travis whispered, his voice soft as he tiptoed around my heart
break. “You saw those men walk and talk and interact before you
revealed what they really are. You saw hope.”
    My head snapped up to look at him at
those words, my wrist still frozen before me as I tried to process
what had been said.
    “ I need to find him, Lex.
He may be the only person who can help us figure out the extent of
what Abran has done. Of what the Tar really are. And what Abran is
planning. Will you help me?”
    I could only nod.

Chapter Two
     
    An old department store was not the
place I would have thought to search when Travis had announced we
needed to look for food. I would have gone right to a grocery
store, someplace where they actually sold food and not an endless
array of dusty clothing that I would