The Grave Shadows

22. The Eyes

Colt embraced vivid foliage, blushing, for its prince was on the way home. The Watts Estate was bustling, the lawns mowed, the trees trimmed, the staff rushing around the mansion. Through the commotion, Everett slipped out of the door. Nobody would notice the other Watts boys when Hector returned.

Everett floated to his garage. Every Watts boy had his personal parking bay. Will, the overindulged brat, had three. Luke should own a junkyard to keep the wreckages from the races. The automobiles inside the garages expressed the boys' personalities—Hector: vintage and handsome, Will: expensive and ugly, Simon: sophisticated and shiny, Luke: flashy clown costumes, Everett: black. Everett wondered what David drove. Did Van Gogh even drive?

Everett slid in a custom-made GMC Hector had sent for his eighteenth birthday. Even when Hector was thousands of miles away, the present arrived on time. It was dark and masculine as Everett would like. With a slight touch, the truck grunted through a deep slumber. Everett took in the synthetic odor of wealth, the leather, the shadowy edges, the blackness—his philosophy.

On the driveway, Will threw an arm in the air, stopping the GMC. The snake was back in the mansion and wasted no time to twist around the Watts boys' necks.

"Get out, freak!" was Will's good morning. "Where the hell have you been? I found something about Nikolai Welshman." He pounded on the roof and stepped away from the window.

Everett slid out of the truck. "You're almost thirty, Will. You're too old for this round." He grimaced, wondering why Little Bill Watts remained interested in Cyan. Someone like Will should pursue an elegant goddess like Bill Watts's girlfriend, not Cyan, who was too young for him.

Will snorted. "Nikolai was from an orphanage in Cape Cod, Massachusetts," he said without reacting to Everett's remark. "You're going there."

***

Everett paced in front of his new truck. Its imposing hood, sharp headlights, and customized black grills aggressively drew attention. But the recognition he wanted was somewhere else. He glowered at his cell phone; Cyan neglected to check his messages.

Sulking on the tailgate, Everett thought of Simon's forbidden coffee. As he marched through the admin building's entrance, Cyan slipped in an elevator that would stop on the fourth floor. In this university, female students went in the dean's office for things other than academia. Cyan was too bright for Simon, and yet Everett was uncomfortable with his only friend being near the pretty dean. A rumor suggested Simon's chisel face could break a nun's vow.

Everett slouched in the hallway, and thirty minutes later, Cyan stepped out of the dean's office. Her eyes glittered, and Everett grinned.

"If we weren't friends, I'd report you for being a stalker." Cyan bubbled up, lifting her chin eagerly. She looked fresh and alive as if she had just been born.

"So, people warned you about me, but has anyone said anything to you about the dean?" Everett raised a brow.

"I've been warned about all the Watts boys. But I was in there because the dean wanted to talk about fox hunting. He's a gentleman."

"You're brainwashed." Everett twisted his lips. "He makes you think killing is chivalrous."

"You don't hunt?" Cyan crossed her arms.

"I'm not a gentleman." A corner of Everett's lips rose.

In a student cafeteria, Everett and Cyan sat at a table next to the glass wall. The reddening woods behind a football field gave some texture to the shallow valley. For a moment, Everett wondered why Bill Watts was bound to this land when he could be anywhere. The Watts Prime Branch lived here in Colt—a plain of dirt. They should have been in Washington, D.C. or Atherton, California. Did Bill Watts, like his brats, never have the gut to know the real world?

"Do people stare at you all the time?" Cyan took a sandwich between her hands.

Everett uncapped a bottle of water and glanced over his shoulder. When he turned to the observers, they scampered like foxes to hide their curiosities. The student cafeteria was notorious for unwanted attention. Black Sheep was accustomed to being judged. He saw through people' minds: Everett—the Watts boy, a brat, the money, the power, and the nothing without his father. Only Cyan looked at him differently, although he was unsure of how she read him.

"You should smile." Cyan leaned over the table and giggled. "Is there anyone in your family who is not handsome?"

"Haven't you met Luke?" Everett made a straight face.

Cyan bit into the sandwich. "The Watts boys have the best genes in the world. The entire family tree is hot, they say. You know, a girl in my class has a serious crush on Mr. Watts." She pulled a tab on a can of soda and washed down a lump of awkwardness.

The Watts Clan's perfect genes glamorized the abominable. Beauty showered on Bill Watts's sons and everyone in the entire family tree. Colt and Rosalind blessed them with good genes. The only flaw in their lineage was the lack of female births, and that was the gene-thing, too. The Watts Clan had male-dominated blood, and a female born was a rare phenomenon.

"Well, he won't be the irresistible bachelor for long." Everett cast his gaze on the line of red trees again.

"Mr. Watts and Angelica?" Cyan whimpered. "You're not okay with it?"

"It's not something I can have an opinion on." Everett scoffed.

"She seems nice, though." Cyan put down the sandwich and sipped more soda. "And very beautiful."

"So are you," Everett said, and those words made the world stop.

Cyan turned pink and stiffened as though Everett had hurt her. She scanned the cafeteria where every eye was on Everett. Every word he emitted mattered, the thing he ruined made the town headline, and someone he was with got scrutinized. Cyan had a reason to stay away from him.

"But not as much as me, it seems." Everett gave a bitter laugh, glancing at the curious people around him. The joke eased some tension away. "Do you want to get something to eat later? Something that doesn't look like prison food." He glared at an untouched burger in his tray. "At a nice place in town where the staring is modest," he added. "Will you be done at four today?"

"There's such a place for the Watts boys?" Cyan covered her mouth and coughed out a timid laugh.

Everett choked, although nothing had gone inside his mouth. His naivety could asphyxiate the girl. Would the magic reanimate Cyan from fetal suffocation?

"I'm sorry, but I have a two-hour practice today," Cyan said. "The captain wants me at Rosalind Watts Ranch."

"There's not going to be any competition until December." Everett wrinkled his brows and pursed his lips. "But my lazy kid brother suddenly wants to practice every day."

"Well, I don't want to disappoint the Board. You know how it is." Cyan leaned closer again as Everett sagged on the bench. "But do you like games?"

"Yes," Everett answered without thinking.

Everett had no clue how Cyan saw him, but shealways understood a considerate consolation. Perhaps, all that mattered was thoseblue eyes perceiving his mind.