“Dominic?” I ask the petite secretary filing her nails. She picks up the phone, but I don’t wait for her permission. Instead, adrenaline propels me—cheers me on to complete this very first mission on the war against the Counts.
I burst into the back room and find a heavyset man reclined at his desk, staring off at the television mounted on the wall.
“Dominic Savedra?” I ask a little too loud.
“Yes.” He sits up at attention, spreading his fingers flat across the desk.
“Are you a Count?” I ask stupidly.
Gage doesn’t hesitate. He plunges his knife in through Dominic Savedra’s hand, deep and settled, the way Holden pinned me in the forest. The blue illumination from the dagger quickens through the man’s body. And with that, he slumps over onto his desk.
It was the first Count causality in the civil war evoked in my name, and it was Gage who killed for me.
44
Love Like Ours
Venice, Geneva, Cape Town, Taipei, Prague, Tonga, Perth, Dublin, New York City, Cleveland, we hit them all in just one night. There were five more cities we couldn’t get to. Five regional leaders who get to see tomorrow because Gage and I were staring down the barrel of first period.
In the morning, Gage picks me up, and we head out to school without saying two words. There’s a strangled tension between us as though we were both somehow hoping it were all a bad blood-soaked dream.
A dauntless charcoal cloud stretches across the breadth and width of Paragon.
At school—we move around stiff as robots. It’s not until second period that I realize for the first time how much bloodshed we are suddenly responsible for—stunned that I let Gage kill for me. It was Gage who wanted the blood on his hands and he did it for me.
It all feels surreal, too heavy to process correctly. I want to run to Dr. Booth and tell him what a mess I’ve made of everything—how I’ve dragged Gage in, yet again.
“Ms. Messenger, can I see you a moment?” Marshall asks with a forced smile. He instructs the students to go over their homework before leading me out into the hall and securing the door behind him.
“Do you love your limbs?” There’s a great intensity in him I haven’t seen before.
“Yes,” I manage to squeak out.
“Do you love your life?” His eyes sweep up and down over my person.
“Yes,” my voice is hoarse from being up all night.
“You’re covered in blood and have no alliance with me whatsoever.”
“I think I need you.” I let my gaze fall to the floor. I’ve done something huge, something horrible, and now I’m going to pay for it. Maybe Logan was right, maybe there was too much to lose going off halfcocked and massacring almost a dozen Counts.
He lifts my chin with his finger. “You’ve proven yourself a noble warrior, Skyla.” He produces a dry smile.
“I changed the future,” I say. “The vision never happened.” All it took was for me to bat Gage’s hand away from the butterfly. It never animated and floated up to the ceiling in a trail of sapphire glory.
“Believe what you like. Are you interested in knowing what the payment for stealing my dagger is?”
“What?” I’m sure it has something to do with spending the rest of my days in Sectorville.
“Why don’t I show you?” He pulls me in by the face and indulges in a wild, uninhibited kiss as I try halfheartedly to push him away.
A picture emerges of Mia and Melissa laughing in a crowded room. Mia jumps from off a table and falls into Tad’s waiting arms, Melissa does the same. My mother lingers beside them, with Drake and Brielle at their sides.
Table diving? That’s what’s going to happen?
I pull away breathless.
“I don’t get it.” I struggle to read his expression. “Is it because I wasn’t there—in the vision? Is that what it was about?”
“You’ll know when the time comes. Just rest assured it creates a barrier between the lot of you—an impenetrable chasm.”
“I’m going to die.” My hand comes up to my throat. Marshall is going to remove me from the planet because I stole his dagger. “The chasm is death, isn’t it?”
He drills into me with his stare, unwavering—hard as nails. “It will feel like death. Most certainly.”
***
After cheer, Gage gives me a ride to my routine mental exam.
Dr. Booth nurses his coffee, cradles it with both hands, never taking his eyes off me.
“So Logan left you.” He reiterates after my lengthy explanation of how it all went down—Marshall with his foresight into the future, by way of his tongue.
I don’t nod, or blink—just wait for something profound to come from his lips letting me know this will all work itself out. I want to hear him say that maybe Logan is the love of my life, and that in the end, somehow, it will be OK.
“Fate seems to favor Gage.” He indulges in a quick sip. “He knows you’ll marry.” He shrugs as if to say there is nothing here to mourn, move on, be done with it. Dr. Booth is a Levatio, he shares the gift of knowing—he understands the finality of it all. “And the body count?” He asks as an afterthought.
“I’d rather not say.” I lack the proper enthusiasm to own up to the carnage I’m responsible for.
His head tilts as he stares pensively at me. “You will pay for this Skyla. I’m sorry.”
“Everyone has to pay for what they’ve done, that’s why I did it.”
Dr. Booth considers this, while pinching at his chin. “Slow steps—you don’t run into a war.” He folds his hands and pushes out a complacent smile. “You might find the thick of the battle a little too long, a little too painful. Better to assess that now before there’s no turning back.” His eyes rove all over my face as if memorizing it one last time. “There’s no turning back now, is there?”
I shake my head.
No turning back.
***
That night, I curl up with Chloe’s diary while waiting for Gage in the butterfly room.
October 11th,
It kills me to see Gage in the quad, Gage on the field, Gage in my biology class, and have to pretend that I’m in love with Logan. I thought by now he’d go insane. I thought maybe because he knows I’m going to die he’d have pity on me and maybe spare one heartfelt kiss. I can’t stand to see his face in the halls at school.
Maybe that’s what’s going to do me in? Maybe I’ll die of a broken heart.
October 13th,
I let Logan in through the butterfly room and lured him into my bed. I know for a fact that he and Gage talk about me because Logan mentioned he doesn’t keep anything from Gage. He said he’s his brother in every way. So, brilliant me, attacked him. Logan was defenseless to my womanly wiles. He was easier to take down than I could have ever imagined.
Invisible idiot visited again. Hi you!
Idiot? Gee thanks.
My stomach turns at the thought of Chloe with Logan—using him like that. Although a selfish part of me feels relieved she didn’t love him. I wish she didn’t love Gage so damn much either.
***
Gage shows up in the butterfly room near midnight. I’m beyond exhausted, so when he snatches a butterfly off the wall, and it takes flight in a quiet blue spiral up to the ceiling I don’t have the energy to try to change it. Instead, I find a strange comfort in the very secure nature of not being able to alter the future.
“We were destined to kill those men,” I speak it softy to him. I think the two of us are going to need Dr. Booth’s services for years, psychotherapy, and at least a dozen shock treatments to get over the trauma of ending near a dozen lives. Not to mention we don’t know what the fallout will be, but we do know it’s coming—consequences that will strike like lightning. This is the storm of our own making. It’s going to touch down in our lives and inevitably burn something to the ground—we just have no idea what that might be.
“Come here.” He pulls me over. I wrap myself around hi
m completely with my arms and legs around his person as though he were a tree trunk.
I start in with slow measured kisses, then, something inside me gives. It submerges me in the knowledge that Gage will marry me one day. It’s a slow build up that pushes me forward in a lust filled haste—Gage, who waited for me, who took me to the Counts to avenge Celestra blood, who ultimately killed for me.
His breathing becomes erratic as he gently lays me down on the floor. I shred the buttons off my blouse in an effort to tear it open—lift his shirt up over his head to feel his bare flesh against mine. It feels magical like this with Gage. Like it was always meant to be.
The overhead latch to the butterfly room bursts open and the hard thump of tennis shoes lands just shy of our heads.
“Whoa!” A voice shouts from above.
Freaking Ellis.
I pluck Gage’s T-shirt from off the floor and hold it over my bra. For a dreadful second, I thought it might be Logan—believed it with all of my heart. I think I wanted it to be.
“What?” I hiss perturbed.
“Counts had an emergency faction meeting tonight.”
“Are they coming after me?” Everything in me loosens with fear.
“They’re coming after all of you.”
***
The next morning before school, I sneak in a few more entries from Chloe’s diary.
October 15th,
Went to Emerson’s grave. I bought a dozen white roses with the money I took from Mom’s purse and placed them in a vase buried in the ground. I like it out there in the cemetery. It’s peaceful, so quiet.
I tried to imagine how I might look in one of those long wooden boxes Dr. Oliver has on display. Logan gave me the grand tour today. He kept making jokes about how the bodies are laid in that steel bathtub and that if people knew what they did to you in one of those, they’d rethink this whole dying thing, but I didn’t laugh. It took everything in me not to run out of there screaming.
I ran my fingers across Emerson’s name carved into the cold black granite until my fingers went numb. If I wasn’t so chicken shit I’d go back in time and tell her I was sorry, but I’m not sure I really am.
October 16th,
Holden was a total asshole on the phone today. What else is new?
Anyway, at school, Gage didn’t even look remotely pissed during fourth period, so I invited Logan over for a repeat performance. When we were done, I asked Logan if he talked to Gage about us. He got all weird on me and started asking questions, wondering if I was with him just to make Gage jealous or something. I never did say Logan was stupid. Of course, I denied it. Besides, who wouldn’t want to be with the second hottest guy at West? Plus, it pisses Lexy and Michelle off. Just watching them squirm makes it all worthwhile.
***
A storm rages outside the hallowed halls of West Paragon High. The electricity flutters in rhythm, as the thunder rattles throughout the science building like a thousand angry skeletons. Logan sent me a text asking me to meet him under the stairwell at 1:20.
I get a hall pass and leave without telling Gage where I’m headed. After our heated hormonal exchange last night, I know it would break his heart even if it were a purely platonic meeting, which I’m almost sure it will be. But a small aching part of me is hoping for something more—I’m beginning to hate that part of me.
I don’t see Logan. He’s a no show again, just like the other night.
The door to the janitorial supply closet is open, and I hear a whisper. I lean in to check it out.
I’m yanked in violently and shoved to the back, knocking over a shelf of cleaning supplies in the process.
I turn around in time to see the back of a man in a dull green jumpsuit securing a metal chain between the doorknob and a nail pegged to the wall.
He turns and looks down at me with a strange blank expression.
It’s the boy from the party—Holden.
“You’re not real,” I breathe out the words in a panic.
“I’m very real.” He knocks over a row of paint cans and flips over a tray of tools as the room explodes in a wild cacophony of bangs and whimpers. “I’m so fucking real!” He screams, pulling at his arm right below the shoulder and twisting violently until a circle of liquid darkens the fabric. He yanks off his arm and starts wielding it around like a baseball bat, forcing me to whittle myself in the corner.
I’m so frightened I can’t breathe. My muscles do their best rendition of rigor mortis, and my brain is completely unable to come up with a plan. Fems die then disappear. How do I get rid of a ghost?
“What do you want?” I shout over his disruptive, one-armed tantrum.
“What do I want?” He thrashes his bludgeoned limb to the floor and charges at me. “I want my life back!” He explodes the words over me in one hot putrid breath.
I couldn’t save my father no matter how hard I tried. Maybe it was somehow ordained for me to kill Holden that night? I can’t do this, and everything in me knows it as fact. So I do the only thing I can do. Lie.
“I’ll do it. I know a Sector.” My breathing quickens. “I can time travel…”
“I know a Sector, I can time travel,” he mimics, making me sound like a whiny toddler.
“Make shit happen!” His voice booms louder than any human voice possible. He reaches up and grips his face until the flesh rips right off in a slow viscous pull. All that remains, is a wash of blood over muscle—his eyes stare back at me bulging and round as the tissue around his lips pull into a clown-like grimace.
I retch at the sight. The stench sends a fresh rise of vomit shooting up the back of my throat.
The room starts in on a violent rattle, causing a few stray cans to fall from the shelving unit behind us.
A loud pop explodes overhead and the lights go out.
Shit!
My skin starts to pulsate as though one hundred hands have clamped over me at once.
“Having fun yet?” Holden emits a deep guttural laugh as a hand crawls up the back of my shirt.
I want to die. I’ve never been sure of anything, like I am of this. I’d rather have Pierce with his neatly covered flesh sucking the lifeblood out of me than have anything to do with his brother the bloody ghost.
A scream gets locked in my throat.
I can’t think straight. His fingers cinch up my hair. I scream for real this time until it feels like the world could shatter from the sound of it.
A wild panic seizes me as I snatch at the counter. I grab a hold of a small metal cylinder and start thrashing him with it as he struggles to fully seize me.
The door thumps in jags. It opens in one energized burst. I look up at a figure lost in the shadows.
A wild spasm takes place beneath me as Holden bucks and writhes. His fingers claw at me—run right through my chest as he begins to evaporate, slow as smoke.
It’s Logan.
He lifts me into his arms and takes me underneath the stairwell.
“It was Holden,” I say out of breath.
“Are you OK?” He pants.
“I think so.”
I take in his clean scent—try to memorize the flex of his muscle as I run my hand over it, solid, like skin over steel.
“I didn’t get your text last night,” he says. “Left my phone in the car. I’m sorry. Gage told me what happened.” He studies me a moment with intense anguish.
“Gage was there.” I try to shrug it off like it’s no big deal.
“I’ll be there next time and every other time after that.”
“Why?” Really, I want an answer.
He brushes the stray hair away from my eyes.
“Because I’m the one who will always love you, even if I can never have you.”
45
Rebel, Rebel
Friday morning, I head downstairs overwhelmed by the fact I’m the root of pain for dozens of people in the world. Those Counts we killed had families, and just knowing Brielle, Nat and Ellis—I can tell that not all Counts
are out to get me. The fact that some or all of those Counts might have had children makes me seriously question my actions. Logan was right I should have thought things through. Logan is always right and somehow this more than slightly pisses me off.
“Ready for the field trip?” My mother swipes a dishtowel into a glass, then holds it up to the light.
“Oh right.” The away game is tonight. After fifth, we’re all getting shuttled to the ferry and heading to the mainland.
Drake comes in and sits at the bar looking rather morose over the fact he won’t be joining me.
Tad rattles his paper. It’s become his way of getting our attention just before something moronic flies from his mouth. Normal people would clear their throats, but then again Tad is not normal so it makes perfect sense. Also, he apparently never got the memo that newspapers have gone the way of the VCR. I’m sure the news he’s reading is as stale as his breath.
“The football team going?” He peppers his voice with concern as though the football team going to a football game is cause for alarm.
“It’s a football game, so it sort of makes sense.” I pull the milk from the fridge and set it on the counter.
Drake’s back vibrates as he gives a silent laugh.
“Skyla,” my mother groans. “Does everything that comes from your lips have to be drenched with such sarcasm? We’re starting to feel attacked.” She locks her fists high on her hips.
She’s feeling attacked? I’m feeling attacked. Of course, I can’t voice that, or I’ll get shipped away to an all girls prison, or the psych ward, or the graveyard—all of the above in quick succession.
“I’m concerned, Skyla.” Tad ambles over next to Mom with his arms crossed tight. They both wear the same irrevocably pissed expressions.
“What’s there to be concerned about? We’ll be back Saturday.”
“The school has you all checking into the same hotel,” he says, laced with suspicion, as if suddenly I’m responsible for travel arrangements.
Celestra Series Books 1-3 Page 57
