A stunted silence clamps down over us, and even little Barron seems to turn and look up at his mother.
Candace starts in on a slow clap, eating away the false tranquility with her vigorous approval. “Bravo”—she cheers her daughter on—“bravissimo! Dear child, I could not find more pleasure or pride in you at the moment.” Candace beams as she steps in close to her daughter. “I’ve a gift for you and the boys. It seems you left this at my home, and I’d relish you to have it.” A stone appears in her hand as she holds it up for Skyla to see—smooth, dark onyx no bigger than her palm. My stomach clenches. I know for a fact it’s the same stone Skyla mentioned that sealed Gage’s fate in something as arbitrary as a number.
A single tear rolls down Skyla’s cheek, falling to the rock, and the stone glows a haunting shade of butterfly blue.
“There,” Skyla whispers, taking it from her mother’s hand, holding the stone out for Gage to see. “You come to this number”—her voice hitches as silent tears rain down—“and then you are no more.”
“Yes,” Gage says it with a marked finality, a bead of acceptance, the undertone of resentment. But his eyes—they’re still fixed on that stone.
My heart turns to granite. Gage has minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or very few years—I’m pretty certain it’s not decades. My body begs to peer over and see which way the numerals fall, but my feet have screwed themselves to the ground.
The rain starts in, and both Emma and Lizbeth run inside with the boys. Barron is slow to leave, glaring at me as if he somehow knew what this ominous truth meant. Dudley gives a solemn nod before heading toward the woods. The goodbyes that Candace and Nathan offer fall on deaf ears. But Skyla and Gage are still locked in a death stare that might end in more limbs being strewn around the property—namely that of my nephew’s.
Nathan pulls me into a partial embrace before he takes off. “We have a lot to talk about—Skyla, strategy, the government boots that are about to land on Paragon. It won’t be easy, Logan. Skyla needs you more than ever.”
Candace tugs him away. “She doesn’t need anyone. She is most certainly her mother’s daughter.” Her voice lingers in the air as they dissipate in the night.
Gage and Skyla remain locked in their misery, her anger, his grief. This is a moment I shouldn’t be privy to—one I should swiftly walk away from but can’t. I can’t leave these people I desperately love, alone, each in their hour of need.
The rain hammers over us with its needle-like wrath before letting up just enough for us to catch our next breath. Paragon is weeping, flooding the planes with her outrageous grief.
Gage takes a step toward her, his angst written in those demanding dark brows. He tries to take up Skyla’s hands, but she coolly pulls them back.
“This is not where we end.” His voice is strong, yet wavering through the storm. I can tell he’s a moment from losing it.
“This is where we begin—as adversaries.” Skyla nods into her words, her jaw set in defiance as the rain slicks her hair to her back. “This is the nexus of our unraveling. No matter what Demetri has convinced you of—all arrows will forever point to this night as the moment we became what perhaps you knew we would be all along—enemies.”
Gage closes his eyes as she eviscerates him with the most damning words of all. He looks to me with hurt, with anger locked in his stare before striding past the two of us toward Demetri’s palatial estate.
I catch Marshall dissipating into the woods now that his dirty deed for the day is done. “Figures—Dudley was the one to lead you to this misery.”
“Dudley?” She shoves me in the chest, incredulous, as the rain picks up pace again. “Marshall is the only one willing to tell me the truth!”
“When it’s convenient for him.” A ripe anger boils in me toward the slimy Sector.
“Maybe I should just fast forward and marry Marshall, and I wouldn’t be party to this misery!” she rages in my face as the rain pummels us with its fury.
“That’s one shit parade I’m not sticking around for.”
“The hell you’re not!” Her hands pummel against my chest once again. “I blame you for getting me into this mess to begin with. You’re the one who withheld things from me! You’re the one who tried protecting me with your fucking lies! You’re the one who promised to love me forever!”
“And I will!” I roar back. “I sacrificed us to keep you safe!” The wind mixes with the driving rain, and it’s all we can do to stand upright, to keep from dropping to the ground and staying there.
“Then love me like you mean it!” She crushes her body to mine. “You can’t leave me. You can never leave. I demand you be here when I draw my last breath.” She lets out a pained cry into my chest, rattling my bones with her agony. “It was always supposed to be you and me.” I’m not sure if she’s espousing some hard truth from Candace or slashing at Gage with the sword of what we once had, but this isn’t the time to claim her. She and Gage will fix this. Once she sees there was no other way—that she will have Gage right here on this planet for the rest of her life, things will change. It will be the balm that heals the wound from this blow. A small eternity stretches by as the rain lightens its fury.
Skyla pulls back and sets her shoulders to the house, to where her boys sit waiting.
I want to tell her that I’m here for her, that Gage is not the monster she thinks he is.
“He is exactly the monster we dreaded.” Skyla doesn’t take her gaze from those haunted windows lit up peach in the night.
She heard me. We’re not touching flesh, and she heard. Skyla’s powers have manifested in a whole new level.
“That’s right, Logan. I’m stronger, leaner, meaner than ever before.” Her dead gaze remains staunch at the home her husband, her lover, her seeming enemy just entombed himself in. “Make no mistake about it, Logan. He is the enemy.”
My heart wrenches just hearing her say those words—knowing what I know—knowing what she doesn’t.
Those precious baby boys run through my mind—her marriage to a man we both deeply care about takes center stage in my heart. “What do you want to do?”
“Forget about Wesley and the Counts. I’m taking down Gage.”
“I thought we were a team?”
She cuts her gaze to mine, a fresh fire brewing in her eyes.
“Not anymore.”
Skyla heads toward the house, and I watch her long, confident strides, the weight of her grief resting on her shoulders, heavy as the world.
Destiny is reshaping all that was, redefining battle lines, molding new enemies out of old companions. Destiny is having its way with us. We are ragdolls in a tempest, lost in its dominating sway. We are helpless in our cry for power, losing control of all that we thought we knew, all that we were. Here we are askew, Gage donning the cloak of the enemy, Skyla carving herself out to be the exact replica of a woman she once despised—her mother, and me with my lifeless body, my unbeating heart still pining for the girl I love, still aching for the boy I call a brother. We had come so far and gone absolutely nowhere. There has to be a way to turn this around, to say screw you to the powers that be, and right this ship. There has to be a way—there has to be an answer.
“Hey!” a sharp voice calls from behind, and I turn to find a familiar effigy staring back at me—my own.
“What do you want?” I lack the enthusiasm I once might have had upon seeing another version of myself.
He comes over and lands an arm over my shoulders, leading me toward the woods, toward the glimmer of a porthole shining and warbling in the night like a wrinkle in the fabric of the island.
“I have the answers you seek.”
“Are you from the future?” I squint at this seemingly older, wiser version of myself.
He sheds a quiet laugh. That long line Skyla embedded into my face dips in for a moment. “That I am.”
“Good.” I slap my hand over his back. “Because you, my friend, are not leaving until you tell me exactly wha
t I need to know.”
A grimace comes and goes on this version of myself. “Not happening.”
“It’s happening. And make it rosy, sweetheart.”
A dark laugh rattles through him as we enter the opening in time. My bones flex and quiver, my head pounds with a heartbeat of its own as we step into a cavernous room with a sky for its ceiling, floors made of glass, the stars at our feet—the moon down below is but a whisper above a spinning blue marble—it’s so far down it seems improbable that life could exist there at all.
“Where the hell are we?”
“Look up.”
My eyes are slow to rise as I take in the dry and arid space. A golden throne holds a meaner, leaner version of the boy I grew up with, the boy I call brother. Gage sits on his magnificent throne with angels carved into each of the breathtaking armrests. Precious stones of every color and shape adorn the periphery.
Gage is fierce, his eyes set with a determination I have never seen before. His head bows back as he lets out a ferocious roar, and a dagger of fire plumes from his mouth, robing the room in a scalding heat.
“There you have it,” this future version of me says. “Gage Oliver will set the world on fire and not in any good way.”
My stomach boils at the sight. This will not happen. I refuse to believe it. But the horror that stands before me contests that wishful thinking.
“What can I do to stop it?”
“You can’t.” He sets his gaze on Gage and glowers. “I can.”
“Skyla isn’t looking for a teammate.”
“Neither am I.”
Gage twists and writhes until his skin is exchanged for scales, his head elongating, morphing until he becomes the serpent of his father’s dreams. Skyla insisted that Gage was a monster, and I was quick to defend him.
I take a step toward the throne as the dragon elevates from his seat, his webbed wings propelling him to the night sky.
This cannot be. Both Skyla and I will fight to stop it. This thing, this monster, Gage himself would never want anything to do with this horrific destiny.
The dragon ceases all movement, focusing those midnight glowing eyes on mine. He lets out a ferocious roar that rivals the last, and a tornado of flames rain down, baptizing me with fire—my flesh, my bones, my very existence reduced to ashes, my temporal being returning to dust.
Our sky has fallen, the harvest of our people—of our very souls had come, and we are not saved.
We might have been doomed from the start, but we are not going along for the ride.
I groan as my conscience begins to fade.
I need to fight for Skyla, for our people—for Gage.
The room envelops in a fit of flames as if that were the final straw. My bones and my flesh reconstitute themselves as I flex my way through the porthole and fall face-first onto sopping wet Paragon soil.
My lids struggle to open. My mind claws to stay awake.
It’s over now.
And yet the horrible undoing of Gage Oliver has just begun.
The Way We Were
WESLEY
“Some party,” I say to Demetri as we wave Skyla and the boys off, fuming as she may be. “Gage left for Dudley’s place—odd, don’t you think?”
Demetri chuckles at the idea. “It’s a temporary separation, I’m guessing, but, then again, I have what I want. There’s no need for any further poisoning of his mind by the likes of her.” He leads us back to the rear of the property, nodding a polite good night to the last of the party stragglers.
“I’m taking off.” I take a breath toward the woods, knowing full well I’ll be striding into the Paragon evergreens and coming out the other side in Cider Plains. I’m an expert at “light driving” as Chloe calls it. I’ve got a standing date, and I don’t plan on breaking it, ever.
“Come, let me see you off.” The rain sizzles around us, but neither Demetri nor I are affected by its precipitation. It’s a perk of being a Fem—you can have just about anything, but the things you really crave—the woman you love, your rightful claim to the throne. But I don’t feel too singled out in that capacity. It’s the same for Demetri with Lizbeth, with the Fems as a whole, wishing they had what the Sectors seemed to achieve so easily. It will be the same with Gage once he loses Skyla—he, however, will achieve the throne, and I can’t say I’m happy for him. It should be me. He doesn’t want, nor deserve, that kind of power, those kinds of accolades.
I don’t bother looking to Demetri upon having the thought. He already knows how I feel, and I’m well aware of his harsh opinion on the matter. This is where we agree to disagree.
We come upon a body lying in the field. Logan Oliver lies prostrate, with his hair wild, his clothes singed and smoking.
“What should we do?” I roll him over with my foot, and he remains dead as a doornail, not that he wasn’t to begin with.
“Leave him be. I’ll summons his keeper. I’ve a few words to share with Sector Dudley as it were.”
“All right, Pops.” I eye the woods where the tendrils of fog curl like fingers attempting to lure me in. “This is where we part ways. I’ll catch you on the flip side. Good work with Gage.”
“Your brother’s journey is far from over.”
“I’m sure you have it all mapped out.” I lack the enthusiasm to cheer him on, but I do care about Gage, and I’m damn glad he’s slowly coming to his senses.
A siren wails in the distance, the blades of a helicopter roar to life overhead.
“What’s this?” I glance to my father without moving.
“It seems those inspectors found themselves in the mouth of a hungry Viden.” He scowls at me a moment before nodding to the chopper rotating above us. “They’ve come to look for their own.”
“Good.” I glance around at the silent woods as if they were guilty of the death of those people as much as the Spectators were. “I want them here. I want the government’s long nose in everything. Our people are covered. It’s time to clue the rest of the world in on the fact there are strangers living among us—aliens, devils, angels, take your fucking pick. I want them all gone.” I take a step toward the forest, and Demetri pulls me back.
“Be careful what you wish for, son. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” He sheds a black smile. “I didn’t inspire the phrase for nothing.”
I take back my elbow with an aggressive yank. “Careful who you call fool, old man. I still qualify as an angel—so, what does that make you?”
I stride into the woods, demanding that all traces of my temper, any trace of anger I might have for the man who bore me melt away as I walk right through Paragon and back onto sweet Kansas soil.
The night air is electric, glowing in lavenders and neon blue just beyond the old barn. The lake shines bright like a nickel caught in the sun, and there she is, Laken Stewart swinging her feet off the dock before jumping up and running over, so very glad to see me.
“There you are!” She wraps her loving arms around my neck, and I take a moment to bury my face in her hair, taking in her familiar scent, the feel of her soft body against mine. “For a minute, I thought you stood me up.”
“Never.” I pepper her face with kisses like I used to do when we were together—like I’ve done each night since I’ve revisited this precious time in our lives, and my desperation grows like a plague. I scoop her up and carry her under the willow that sits near the water. “How was your day?” I land us on the ground with Laken square over my lap, my hard-on blooming, begging for a bite of something it will never get to taste, at least not yet, not in this carnation.
“Empty without you.” Her finger outlines my features as she lays the sweetest gaze upon me. We were special, holy, and right—Laken and I.
“I wish you would always feel that way,” I whisper.
“I will. There’s nothing anyone can ever do to change that.” She seems so convinced of it I almost want to cry. “The lake is so pretty, and it’s warm!” She bounces with a youthful enthusiasm. “Shoul
d we go for a swim?”
“Not tonight.” In a week’s time, I’ll drown in that lake right along with her brother. Demetri has already set the wheels of my misfortune into play. Laken and I will meet up again at Ephemeral, and the rest details the end of us. Only this moment, this night is the purest, the sweetest memory of who we once were. That’s why I chose it. That’s why I love to relive it. I tried going back to Ephemeral, setting myself straight so that when Laken arrived, I’d be better prepared, but there’s a binding spirit around any version of myself in that horrific past. I’m impenetrable, a deadly force that cannot be reckoned with.
“Then what do you think we should do?” Her eyes enliven with lust for me as her hands run up my shirt. “You are so strong, you know that?”
I wish I were strong enough to tell her who I really was, and how desperately I wish I could turn back time, make her understand right from the beginning that the Counts are our people, that she only ever belongs with me. But, in truth, it was her wedding to Coop that sponsored my first trip here. I couldn’t sleep knowing he was defiling the woman who was destined to be my wife, the love of my life. So I came back, and we’ve had an amazing night ever since.
“We should do this.” I lean in and steal a kiss. “And this.” I take a bite out of her lower lip and pull it out slowly. Laken tastes like fresh, sweet strawberries, always has, and it’s a pleasure to revisit this. “And this.” I bow a kiss to her neck and graze gently against her with my teeth until she purrs beneath me.
“I think we should switch up the roster a bit.” Her fingers fumble for the button on my jeans, and I’m caught off guard for a moment.
“Whoa.” I catch her hand before she hits pay dirt. Laken is growing more aggressive, more sexual than ever as if my repeat visits are whetting her appetite for the things her body craves. “We’ll get there someday.” I’m not sure if I just looked into her denim eyes and spilled my very first lie. I’m hoping I didn’t. Getting to that magical place with Laken is still a dream of mine. “But, for now, I’ll take all of the kisses you’re willing to gift me.”
The Serpentine Butterfly Page 75
