I place my lips over the raven-haired boy beneath me and breathe for him until he sputters to life under the careful administration of my love.
A roar erupts from behind. I look back in time to see a tornado of fire. A pillar of licking tongues disguised in a pleasant orange light migrates in this direction.
It takes a moment for me to realize there’s a body lodged in the furnace—a face I love and adore—Marshall.
I run over and stop shy of his burning eminence.
“I can guide you and no more.” His voice sounds, hollow, stiff, like shouting into a fishbowl.
“They’re all injured.” I point back to Logan and Gage—Ellis, too.
“Rip this region open,” he thunders. “First, the belly of your enemy, then the illusion of the sky.” His lips curve with a devious smile.
“This is no time for riddles! Just tell me what to do.” I no sooner get the words out then notice the wall of Jericho erecting itself on the horizon. The dull glow of Counts at least a hundred strong—all of them so ripe for the picking I can hardly stand it.
I run back and arm myself with the crossbow and quiver. Logan sits next to Gage, wincing with his hand on his chest.
“You guys OK?” I scream into them as the rain glazes over their skin like an anointing.
Logan gives a weak thumbs-up, and Gage offers a brief nod, but it’s clear they’re both hurting. I dash back to Marshall and perfect my aim at the barrage of flesh on the hilltop next to ours, untied as an army of ants.
“Soak the soil with their blood,” Marshall orders.
A familiar face strides quick in my direction. Cooper Flanders.
“Skyla!” His teeth flash a brilliant white as he pants his way over. His golden hair bobs up and down as he jogs into me. A black apparatus sits stretched over his back, looks like a missile launcher. He nods over at the crowd in the distance and smiles as if we were going to take them down, side by side.
“Where’s your friend?” He usually pairs himself with some guy named Flynn.
“He’s feeling a little blue.” He pulls his cheek to the side. “Countenance.”
“He’s a Count?” I rack my brain until I reach the vague memory of knowing this. “Why does he fight for Celestra?”
“For me. For our friend, Laken.” He fires the cannon strapped to his chest at the mob sweeping over the field like locusts and half of them are leveled in a plume of soot.
“Laken?” I’d congratulate him on the slaughter of our enemy, but I’ve got a brief interrogation I’d like to subject him to.
He studies me a moment. “Yes.”
“Her sister and mother are in the tunnels. I’m trying to free them, all of them.”
Cooper swallows hard. “Laken would thank you if she could.”
“Is she here?” If her friends are here, maybe she’s floating around the ethereal plane somewhere. I’d love to meet her. I swear there’s something familiar about her, outside of the fact I’ve seen her in Wesley’s morbid fantasies.
Cooper looks perplexed as if the answer were far more complicated than a simple yes or no. It’s as if I had opened an entire library of questions, but a blue swarm infiltrates the vicinity, and now there was only time for actions, instinct and survival.
The mob screams forward. An arrow slices by and grazes his ear, causing the side of his face to explode with a giant claw mark.
He plucks a bastardized dart gun out of his pocket and hands it to me.
I fire in quick succession until the human wall starts to crumble. The opalescent mass disbands as quick as they came. I see Chloe and Holden in the distance as they aim their steely weapons in my direction.
A heated whisper grazes against my temple and sends a line of fire clear past my ear. I lift my hand to my head and glance at it as the rain washes fresh blood from my fingers.
I look up in time to see Chloe slapping Holden with a victory pat.
He freaking scalped me. Damn near killed me.
Cooper fires another shot with the hellish bomb blaster hoisted over his shoulder and the Counts blow back like dust.
The dark belly of a pregnant cloud quakes overhead as if taunting me. Marshall said rip open the belly of the enemy, then the illusion of the sky…
I pluck an arrow from my quiver and fire a shot straight up into the nebulous reserve. Nothing changes, no crash of light, no thunderous boom to let me know the region is over, just my feet pressed into the ethereal plane as rain begins to bleed from the sky. It’s as if God himself is affronted by my constant stream of impoverished efforts.
A shadow flies overhead—a bird with long dark wings, svelte as a sparrow. She unzips the sky with her talons—stretches her body along the stratosphere. A black worm comes in and swallows up all of the color, the light, until it spits us out onto the salted beaches of Paragon.
I take in the rush of crashing waves, the damp sand beneath my bare flesh as Gage lies over me naked and bleeding.
***
Here we are, back at the Cove as a wave washes over the two of us causing Gage to seize before toppling off to the side.
“You’re hurt,” I say, touching the dark hole just over his stomach.
He hands me my bikini and struggles to reach for his shorts. We throw on our clothes in haste.
“Let’s find Logan and Ellis and get you to the hospital,” I say.
We pull ourselves off the shoreline, fighting the current that labors to drag us out to sea.
Gage cups a handful of water and blasts it over his wound. The blood has ceased to flow, leaving behind a dark gelatinous hole.
“What hit you?” I ask as we maneuver our way through a thicket of palms just this side of the base camp for Logan’s party.
“I don’t know—shrapnel maybe,” he says, pointing over to Logan and Ellis huddled under a hemlock. It looks as if they’re strategizing—praying.
I bolt over to inspect the damage.
“Hey.” I rub my hand over Logan’s back and he takes a quick breath. “How are you guys feeling?”
“Like I just walked into a land mine.” Ellis gives a stern look. “Oh, that’s right. I did.”
“I’m fine.” Logan wraps an arm around me gives a heavy glance at Gage. “You?”
“I’ll live.” Gage and Logan exchange rigid stares filled with lethal implications. It’s clear that animosity left from the war has bled into real life or maybe it was the other way around to begin with.
Chloe comes up from behind, a sharpened pocketknife dangling from her fingers. She carves a neat line down the inside of her forearm, safe from any major veins and squeezes a thick seam of blood to the surface. She smears her efforts over Gage’s wound so quick it’s a blur to witness.
“You OK?” Her eyes widen as she takes him in, like she might be moved to get on her knees and worship at a moment’s notice—already she’s given a blood sacrifice.
“I’m more than fine.” He touches his fingers to his bloodied chest.
“You won’t bleed anymore. You’ll be healed in minutes.” She looks up at him solemn. “I took the region so you could get out. I did it for you, Gage.”
A thin rail of panic surges through me. Chloe plus Gage equals a faction victory for the enemy. I don’t like the math. Not only that, but my efforts at ripping the belly of the enemy open were for not. Marshall told me what to do and yet I couldn’t deliver.
“You didn’t have to do it for me.” Gage cinches his jaw. “I don’t fight for the Counts, Chloe.”
“Maybe you should,” she says. “Isn’t being on the winning team what you’re all about?” Her eyes glitter like onyx stones. “You know we’re going to win, Gage. You told me so yourself.” She cocks a quick smile in my direction before melting back into the crowd.
Gage told Chloe the Counts would win—that they would win the fucking war and somehow he omitted that piece of information from our conversations?
“You said that?” I can hardly choke out the words. This is a fresh level of b
etrayal, one I wasn’t ready for nor ever would be.
His dimples blink on and off as he considers this. “She said they would win and I said it looked like they might.”
A part of me dies when I hear those words. If Gage—the one who professes to love me—doesn’t believe I’m capable of victory for my people, then I’m pretty much screwed. To top it all off, I’m not sure I would have said anything different.
“We just need a strategy.” Ellis goes over and sits by the fire and we join him. His shoulder is scratched up, but from here it looks like nothing more than a topical abrasion. “What’s your goal?”
“I don’t know.” I give a huff of frustration. “To get to Ahava, I guess.”
“We need organization,” Logan interjects. “Skyla, your job will be to find out exactly what the orders are for the region. Gage, you protect her by nailing any Counts that try to get in her way. Ellis—” His cheek rides high on one side with agitation. “Do whatever Skyla tells you, but commit to the cause. You can’t freak out over what your dad might think or everything will go to shit and you’ll wind up dead.”
“You want me to kill Counts.” Ellis deadpans. The crackling fire ignites his features in an array of sunset hues.
“Injure them,” Logan suggests, “kill only if necessary. There’s a faction meeting in a couple days at Arson Kragger’s house. You’re on the line for a tribunal if you’re not careful. Just be an open resource for Skyla and try not to get yourself slaughtered in the process.”
Ellis nods while staring into the fire. “We’re going to find out if they got permission to close the treble.” Ellis pins me with his serious eyes. “You need to watch your back.”
I look over at Gage, who thinks winning the war is out of my league, not to mention the fact he confided it to Chloe. That alone qualifies him for the dubious boyfriend of the year award.
“I’ll be careful,” I say it low.
Especially around Gage.
Chapter 74
Games Children Play
Logan’s birthday wears on. The sky rolls out its star-filled splendor as if God himself orchestrated the astronomical wonder in honor of Logan.
Four sets of bonfires rage in close proximity, entertaining us with their low demonic whispers, their sparks of affection, as the heat kisses our skin.
The roll call of bitchiness is present and accounted for, plus Ethan, and Holden hiding behind Pierce like a mask. I should shove him into the flames for tearing a line through my scalp.
Brielle and Drake snuggle up at the foot of the fire, leaving Emily oddly indifferent. I’ll never understand that love triangle, square if you count Ethan. Honest to God, I think Brielle and Drake have a bona fide open relationship. The kind my mother once accused me of having with Gage—which is laughable. And right about now, I doubt I have any kind of relationship with him at all. If we do, we built it on sand—Gage saw to it himself. If he wants me—wants us—it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up on the bedrock of truth and loyalty. I swear on my father’s grave, one more piece of bullshit springs up that I’m either not aware of, or another one of his half-truths, and I’m going to break some Levatio balls.
Who am I kidding? I’m not going to break Gage’s anything. He’s done enough damage for the both of us by breaking my heart.
“Let’s play a game,” Lexy says, looking up at Logan as if she just propositioned him. She’s either hopped up on lust or she’s been drinking from Ellis’s “special” cooler. Either way, I don’t appreciate the way she’s feather-dusting Logan with her boobs—licking his hair occasionally like she’s some freaking feline.
“Truth or Dare?” Ellis suggests.
“No.” I’m quick to douse that spark. “That never ends well.” Nor does it bode well for me since I seem to have a pronounced allergy to the truth. Besides, my neck is still feeling the not so fantastic effects of Wesley’s non-affection, and with my luck I’ll get a dare that requires both bodily strength and agility because I never choose truth.
“Spin the bottle.” Lexy purrs into the birthday boy like a cat in heat. It’s obvious her vagina is on fire and she’s looking for him to extinguish the flames.
Logan lifts his cheek as if he were trying to stop from grinning, and I want to go over there and smack him until I realize it’s me he’s leering at. I give a private smile over to him since I find any leering in my direction completely acceptable.
“Spin the bottle? What is this? Seventh grade?” Brielle rolls her eyes. Obviously Brielle doesn’t want to be barraged by the sight of Emily jabbing her tongue down the baby-maker’s throat. She has a look on her face that suggests Drake is exclusively her sperm dispenser, and that’s the way it’s going to stay—at least for tonight.
“I don’t know.” Holden is quick to put in his two cents, which also happens to be the sum total of his IQ. “We’ll be seniors next year. We should do something stupid like that.” Holden does six stupid things before breakfast.
“You just graduated.” Nat swats him across the stomach.
Ha! Holden has switched bodies so many times he doesn’t know who the hell he is half the time.
I touch my hand to my head and my hair is matted where he tried to lodge that arrow. I glare over at him. I’m not done with Holden Kragger and something tells me he’s not done with me either.
“He’s right.” Chloe lifts her chin to the flames. Her hair catches the light and glows a spectrum of amber and gold. “It’s our senior year. This is it, the big one.” She slits her eyes over to Gage’s crotch when she says “the big one” and I suck in a quick breath at the audacity. “Then it all ends,” she whispers, “and everyone goes their separate ways.”
“We’ll always have Paragon.” Ellis picks up a stick and stokes the fire. “Half of us will probably never leave.”
“I’ll be off the island before the ink dries on my diploma,” Lexy garbles it out with an alcohol inspired drawl. “Michelle’s coming with me. We’re going to fashion school.” She looks around trying to spot her partner in designer crime. “We’re so leaving.”
My lips pinch shut in the event I feel the spontaneous urge to fill her in on a few demented details, like the fact Michelle has abruptly left without her.
“I’m not leaving.” Logan loses his gaze in the growing inferno.
“You always said you’d go to Host.” Lexy leans her scantily clad chest in his direction.
“Where’s Host?” I’m quick to divert Logan’s eyes away from said sex kitten. And wait—wasn’t I wearing a Host sweatshirt in the vitriolic video Demetri gave Logan and I a private screening of?
“It’s a neighboring island with a private university.” Ellis tosses a dry leaf into the flames and it explodes into ashes. “Most kids from Paragon go there.”
“There’s a satellite school here on the island.” Logan relaxes his hands behind his neck. “I’ll probably do the online thing for a while. I already know I’m going to run the bowling alley.”
“Or let it run you.” Lexy trails a finger brazenly down his chest and he catches it before she hits pay dirt.
“So back to the game.” Chloe produces a long-necked bottle from behind her back and for a second I think it’s a root beer bottle, which would almost be serendipitous since it’s Logan’s birthday. I’d hate to think there was even the remote possibility of gifting him a matching dimple on the other side. “We should have rules.” She slits a quick glance in my direction.
Yeah, like whoever gets a hold of that bottle next is obligated to break it in half and go after Chloe—Holden, too, strictly for entertainment purposes. It could be a new party game called slash the asshole.
“First rule—no tongues,” I announce. I might be moved to cut a few out should they venture in Gage or Logan’s direction. “And no siblings. That’s sick.” Since two of the six males are quasi related, and dumbasses to boot, I felt it necessary to point this out.
“Tongue is fine.” Chloe motions for Lexy to crawl on over since we’
re basically already gender segregated. “Girls first.” Chloe gives the bottle a good spin and it dances and bobs as it twirls round and round. I can practically feel her trying to subject it to her witchcraft and get it to land on her sorry ass. Then, to my horror, Chloe’s black magic yields her the advantage and she smiles wide as the bottle extends its neck in her direction.
Emily snaps up the bottle and hands it over to the boys. Ellis gives it a twist and the amber glass unleashes in a wild spiral.
Honest to God if that thing lands on Gage, I will seriously suspect foul play. There is no freaking way—the odds are totally against it, I mean… It stops just shy of Gage and points at Holden’s foot. Ha! I bet his kisses taste like feet, too.
Holden hops up and offers Chloe a hand, which by the way, she’s totally reluctant to accept. Looks like this whole idea isn’t looking so good right now. Chloe is famous for her bad ideas, like killing my father and sending me to Demetri’s tunnel of terror.
Brielle ribs me as they pucker. “I’m still planning a take down.”
“Good luck with that.” I’ve been outsmarted, out witted, and out played. Chloe is virtually indestructible. I’m betting not even my mother in the sky could hold her down and make her cry celestial uncle.
A flash of lighting comes from nowhere and startles me to attention as if my mother had heard and begged to differ.
Chloe and Holden indulge in a serious suckfest—teeth are being inventoried, tonsils assessed for infection. It wouldn’t be all that brutal to watch if it weren’t for the fact Nat still believes the boy up there impaling Chloe with his slippery member is really the ex-love of her life, Pierce. And clearly, Chloe has no regard for my rules because her tongue has meandered down his throat and straight into his bowels in front of the entire lot of us.
Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5) Page 12
