Table of Contents
Title page
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Acknowledgements
About the Author
toxic
part two
Addison Moore
http://addisonmoorewrites.blogspot.com/
Copyright © 2012 by Addison Moore
addisonmoorewrites.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Addison-Moore/140192649382294
https://twitter.com/Addison_Moore
Cover by Addison Moore Publishing
Editors: Amy Eye, Sarah Oaklief
This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.
Books by Addison Moore
Ethereal
(Celestra Series Book 1)
Tremble
(Celestra Series Book 2)
Burn
(Celestra Series Book 3)
Wicked
(Celestra Series Book 4)
Vex
(Celestra Series Book 5)
Expel
(Celestra Series Book 6)
Toxic Part One
(Celestra Series Book 7)
Toxic Part Two
(Celestra Series Book 7.5)
Ephemeral
(The Countenance 1)
To my children,
thank you for doing the dishes.
Chapter 57
Caught in the Act
They say death comes for you once and no more, and then you dissolve to bones, disintegrate from the memory of the world and cease to exist forever. Yet, here in Elysian Fields—the great chasm, which divides the living and the dead—life feels every bit as natural and familiar as it once did on Earth. This place, this paradise, exposes death as the sham it really is. The stench and sting it wielded like a bully proved nothing but a fraud in the end.
Logan and I lie wrapped in one another’s arms under a vanilla sky in this strange world. Death has invited us over—asked us to stay, to inspect the surroundings, linger for all of eternity if we wanted.
Logan shook loose all of my mother’s bizarre intentions, laid them out in front of me like puzzle pieces that could never fit together, with too many pieces missing to understand the big picture. That’s my mother in a nutshell.
She pulled Logan out of the past and brought him front and center into my life, and I’m starting to think this has more to do with our genetic makeup colliding on a physical level than it does regarding love and all of its impractical concerns.
“I thought the past didn’t change.” I pull my eyes along Logan’s precious face. I wish this moment would stretch out forever, but I can feel it closing in on us, coming to an end like a rubber band ready to retract. “But it changed for you.”
“Your mother changed it,” he says, swallowing his excitement. “She said I made an impression on her and that she wouldn’t let me go to waste, that I wouldn’t have to worry about being lonely again.” Logan holds me with a heavy gaze. “She said her daughter needed me. That we were meant to be together right from the beginning but we were on different paths.”
“That’s me.” I breathe the words like a dream.
“She said our paths would converge, then disperse for a short time.” His expression dims. The light in his soul goes out completely before starting in on an incandescent flicker. “Then we would back. We would find our way together again.” He pants as his lips bloom into a smile. “She said our love would be strong, Skyla—that we had a spiritual covenant.”
I take in a breath and blink back fresh tears, this time they were all for Gage. A slow boiling anger stirs in me.
“She tell you why she shoved another perfectly good Oliver in my direction?” I want to strangle her for breaking my heart, for breaking Gage’s heart—for toying with us like we were kittens. It makes me want to claw her perfect, sparkling eyes out.
“It’s OK, Skyla.” Logan shakes his head. His brow creases as the world starts to wobble like a stiff piece of plastic, bending and flexing violently in the breeze. “Believe me—there is a time for us. And we will love deeply.”
The world snaps into darkness.
Logan and I appear back at the Falls of Virtue in a pool of illuminated water.
“Logan!” I pull him in and hold on tight. I have just as many questions as I do when we started out, only now I’m afraid to ask them. Every good feeling has washed away and the stale air of the planet infiltrates my marrow with a destitute misery.
“I love you, Skyla Messenger,” Logan whispers, brushing his lips against my ear like painting a picture. “It will all work out in the end. I promise.”
“I love you too,” I say and I wonder what he really means by “the end.”
***
Logan drives me home with little fanfare over the conversation that took place at the Falls of Virtue. He slides his truck along the bottom of the driveway and kills the ignition before looking up at the darkened windows.
“Maybe don’t tell Gage just yet about what your mom said.” He whispers it out like the secret it is.
“She wasn’t very clear.” I shake my head at the thought of trying to decipher exactly what was said. “That little girl”—I glance out the window at the dull fog lapping over his windshield in waves—“you think she belonged to us?” It seems so farfetched, so out of reach even in the supernatural order of things.
“God I hope so.” Logan reaches over and picks up my hand. He caresses my fingers over his lips so achingly slow and sweet, brushing them with his heated breath.
My stomach bottoms out at the thought of having a child with Logan one day. I’d much rather have a child with Logan than for him to become a permanent resident of the Elysian Fields.
“So the butterfly room, huh?” He darts a grim look in the direction of the attic. Logan is fully aware that Gage is meeting me up there later tonight.
“The butterfly room,” I whisper as guilt coats me from the inside like
an oil slick.
He taps me on the knee, leans in and offers a chaste kiss to the top of my cheek.
“Nothing changes for us, Skyla.” He needles the point home with a strange intensity. “Whatever your mother decreed, it stands.” Logan always seems to know a little more than he lets on. I’m afraid of what the foundations of that decree might be, so I don’t push it.
Instead, I open the door and let the crisp night air embrace me with its damp tendrils as I slide out of the truck. “Hey, Logan?”
“Yeah?” His golden hair illuminates like a lamp. His chiseled features, his high-cut cheeks catch the moonbeams and make them annunciate all his glory. Logan Oliver redefines the word gorgeous in every way. He should be arrested for housing all that ungodly beauty in just one person.
“What do you think my mother meant by ‘our paths would converge, then disperse for a short time?’”
“I can only guess.” The muscles in his jaw pop as if he has an inkling, but doesn’t want to say. “You’re forgetting my favorite part.” His dimple inverts as he bears a smile. “She said we’d be back. We would find our way together again—that our love would be strong.”
“That we had a spiritual covenant.” I finish the rest of my mother’s sentiment for him. “I guess that’s the plan.”
“It sounds like a good one.”
I blow him a kiss as I make my way up the driveway. All of the possibilities run through my mind. Had Logan and I parted paths already? Is that what Gage was? Some quick detour? If so, I guess that means my days with Gage are numbered. But it doesn’t feel right. Something doesn’t settle well with me.
Logan waits until I’m safely in the house before he roars the truck back to life and takes off down the street. I watch until his taillights disappear and then the rosy glow of the fog after that.
Really there were no clear answers from my mother per usual. She seemed to be a ball of confusion in the atmosphere of our lives, sucking us in one by one, then spitting us out at random. I’m sure whoever gave her the job of high hostess and supreme decision maker—judge no less—is seriously reconsidering his options.
***
I head up to my bedroom, and slide the dresser over the door because I’m expecting company—Gage, my boyfriend. Gage, who I almost willingly flushed out of my life for Logan what with all that happy gas floating around up there. Gage, who may or may not have given Chloe Bishop a ride home tonight.
I pause, staring at my reflection in the mirror an inordinate amount of time. What have I become? I would have lied down for Logan and let him map out the landscape of my body with his mouth if he wanted.
A hot spasm sears me at the thought.
I touch my hand to my head to cool myself. What the hell is happening? This is about Gage and me, right? Logan said he was backing off until after the faction war. That’s why he broke up with me, so that Gage and I could test the waters—see if it went anywhere. Aren’t I going to marry Gage and have a million dark-haired babies with dimples deep as oil wells? And for darn sure not one of them will be sleeping in a casket.
That memory of him holding baby Beau on my bed imprints itself in my mind. Gage is amazing and my heart breaks because I believe Logan is right. It’ll be me and him in the end. I don’t get this and I certainly don’t get my mother.
The distinct sound of laughter emits from the butterfly room, so I sling my purse to the floor and head on over.
God, if that’s Mia or Melissa with their prepubescent boy toy, I’m going to seriously freak the hell out. I’m a bit pissy after realizing I’m still sickly in love with Logan. I can’t stand the dual-edged sword my heart has become. Being in love with two people is impractical and all-around agonizing.
My mother, who has appointed herself as the divining rod of my destiny, has no clue how love is supposed to work. In fact, the only clear thing about my mother is the fact she very much can’t stand me.
More female laughter—followed by a distinctly male voice, beckoning for her to keep it down.
I open the closet and walk near the back.
“Aren’t you afraid Skyla’s going to catch us?” he asks. He sounds older, far too old to have just finished the seventh grade.
“Afraid of Skyla?” A wild cackle breaks out. “I hope she finds us—serves her right,” she coos. “We should put on a show for her.”
Shit. That’s freaking Chloe. Who knows what plaything she’s hauled up there—wait… Isn’t Ethan her playmate of the hour? And doesn’t “said playmate” have his own space under this bawdy freaking roof?
I climb on a small tower of boxes I sometimes use when I don’t feel like hauling my desk chair in and crawl toward the transom.
“I care what Skyla thinks,” he says it resonate and familiar. The register of his voice is far too baritone to be Ethan.
Is that…Gage? That is Gage! Oh God.
I clap my hand over my mouth in horror.
“I owe her a lot,” his words rumble through the wall.
Shit.
“Who knew you had a heart?” Chloe laughs.
“I’m the one with the heart. You’re the one with the hot looks.” It thunders from him low.
My entire body freezes. That can’t be Gage. It only sounds like him. It’s probably a Fem—Demetri or something equally as hideous.
The sound of shuffling emits and I scramble out of the closet and into the bathroom.
I hear Chloe descend and the sound of my dresser sliding to the side. Hopefully, she’ll think I went straight to the bathroom. God knows I’m staying in here until she’s good and gone. The last thing I’m going to give her is the satisfaction of witnessing firsthand some bizarre verbal exchange between me and my soon to be ex-boyfriend.
I give her a full five minutes to exit. There is no way in hell I’d want to have that run in.
I head back into my bedroom, looking for subtle signs that could offer me a clue to whether that was really Gage. At this point anything can incriminate him—his jacket, a shoe. I try to detect the scent of his cologne, but nothing.
It takes me less than three seconds to secure the dresser back over the entry and jump in the closet. I crawl into the butterfly room and am horrified to find Gage sitting there like he’s been there all along, a grin on his face, happy to see me—or laughing at me, either or.
“What the hell just happened?” I land hard on my bottom, dizzy from seeing him at the scene of the crime. The strong scent of body odor lights up the room and the comforter is all rumpled and displaced like it was just heavily used, most likely soiled—by Chloe’s disgusting clothing-deficient body.
“What?” Gage looks genuinely perplexed as if he really didn’t know what the hell I was talking about.
A pair of lace panties lie to his left, and he stretches out his leg causally, covering them in the process. Gage never takes his eyes off me and suddenly it feels as if he’s trying to hide more than Chloe’s underwear.
My body closes in on itself. My limbs go numb and my insides loosen all at the same time. A train could run me over and I wouldn’t feel a thing.
“Get out,” I whisper as my chest palpitates wild with disbelief.
“Get out?” He leans forward to take my hand and I recoil.
“Yes,” I scream. “I said, get out!”
“What?” He squints, his brows hitching up on the sides. Gage has the power to express just about any emotion with those thick lines that hover over his jewel-toned eyes. I find everything about him alarming at the moment, right down to his disturbing good looks. “What’s going on? Did something happen with Logan?”
“Did something happen with Chloe?” I throw it in his face just as easily as he brings up Logan.
“What?” He leans forward and interlaces our fingers just as quickly as I retract them. “Talk to me, Skyla. What’s going on?”
“I heard you. You were in here with her.”
“Swear to God I just got here.” He holds his hands out in distress.
“What a coincidence. She just left,” I hiss.
“Is that why—?” He looks around at the mess and shakes his head. “Wasn’t me, I swear.”
“Then why did it sound like you? I heard him say that he cared about me.” I bump over his features with my gaze, anxious for answers. “Which one of her sex toys would say that?”
Gage doesn’t refute it anymore, just tightens his jaw like he’s ready to explode.
“I was with Logan,” I seethe. “And you know what? He still insists this is my time with you. Looks like you had us both snowed.” A sob heaves through my chest.
Gage holds my stare. He could cut through steel with his hostile aggression.
“I would never cheat on you,” he grits through his teeth.
“Are you throwing something in my face right now?” I can’t figure this out. It’s been a long night and now all I want is to go to bed. “I bet you’ll replay this entire conversation with her later. The two of you can laugh about how stupid Skyla is.” A bright blue wrapper catches my attention and I pick it up and examine it briefly before letting it fall to the ground like a flame. Condom.
“Did you get in a hard situation that you needed to protect Chloe from?” I want to die. I want the floor, the ground—the universe—to swallow me whole. I refuse to live on a planet where Gage Oliver does Chloe Bishop in my freaking butterfly room. I would rather die a thousand fiery deaths than even think it were possible, let alone inhale the rancid odor of their love making at this very moment.
“You’re being played.” He spits it out like rusty nails. “Collect yourself. Light drive back in time and find out exactly who the fuck she slept with because it sure as hell wasn’t me.” His voice rises to an octave I’m not used to hearing. Gage is pumped and looking for a fight. He’s pissed, and right about now, it looks as though his anger is one hundred percent focused on me.
“Maybe I will,” I say, lowering myself through the hole in my closet. I don’t say anything else, just crawl into bed and try to blink my way out of existence by way of sleep, but such a gift eludes me.
Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5) Page 1
