“I don’t need a party,” Giselle hisses. “You can get to know me here. Ask me anything you want. I love to share. I’m very generous with what I know.”
“I’m sure.” Chloe incites a challenge with her eyes. It spells out I’ll kill you all over again.
A whistle goes off and Ms. Richards calls us into position.
We get up and dust the loose blades off our legs.
Chloe walks by Giselle and knocks into her shoulder, hard like a threat.
Whatever it is that Emerson knew is still lurking in that brain of hers. All we need is for Giselle to tap into it and let the corrosive knowledge flow like a fountain.
Senior year—the first thing that’s going down is Chloe.
Chapter 107
Light My Fire
That evening, in keeping with tradition, Natalie Coleman has opened the beachfront property of her parent’s estate and is hosting an end-of-summer bonfire that spans both East and West.
The bonfire blazes up to heaven. It cuts through the mist with its tower of auburn flames. At least five smaller fires burn around it like a wreath. They send their metallic embers effortlessly into the night sky, appearing and disappearing like a series of flickering illusions.
I find Ellis over by the smallest one, alone, nestled in the sand. The hood of his sweatshirt is pulled low over his face and he looks a little too morose for his usual happy-go-lucky, suck-the-life-out-of-you self.
“Hey, you.” I lie down beside him and use his thigh as a pillow. Every muscle in my body is sorry I ever signed up for cheer.
“Where are the gladiators?” He mumbles.
“The who?” I glance up and notice his bottom lip is severely swollen and split on one side.
“That’s right,” he says, patting his injury. “Your boyfriends kicked some ass.”
“Sorry.” I bite down a smile. “I never asked them to do that. I swear.”
“I know.” A plume of fog escapes his nostrils. “Are you mad at me?”
“Surprisingly no.” The smoky mist opens up overhead and I see the stars in all their splendor. “New Moon’s tomorrow night.” I dig my feet into the cool sand. “So what’s the verdict? Am I taking a permanent vacation? Or do I get to live another day and go to some more of your killer parties.”
A devious smile buds on his lips. “My dad says he couldn’t get rid of you if he tried. Between my Mom’s threats and Kragger senior pledging his undying gratitude—he says you’re pure as gold.”
“Really?” I jump up and hug Ellis a real long time. I’m going to get my treble back—everything is going to work out in the end, I can feel it. “Funny your dad said that,” I muse, lying back over his legs. “My dad says the same thing. I’m pure as gold.”
A high-pitched scream saws its way over. I look up to find Brielle as the supplier of the ear-piercing infraction.
She skids into my leg like she’s sliding into home, kicking up a sandstorm in the process.
Drake lands on top of her and starts in on baby number two, right here in front of Ellis and me.
“I think he’s pecking her to death.” Ellis spits the sand out of his mouth as he says it.
“Should we intervene?”
“That’s how she wants to die.”
I wonder if I’d want to die that way. With Gage loving me with his kisses. An image of Logan wrestling me, pinning me to the ground with a fit of lust, interrupts the thought. Figures. I can’t get one good fantasy going because they keep intermingling. I have a feeling I’ll be subject to three-way nightmares for the rest of my natural life. Not that Ellis helped in that department.
“Dude, that’s so cool.” Ellis pops his bare leg beneath me. “I just effing read your mind!”
“Yeah, well, when you bite your fake girlfriend’s neck like it’s a piece of juicy fruit, that’s what you get. It’s a bloody perk,” I say it nonchalant as if I didn’t mind at all that he held me over the precipice of death while lumping me into a hotbed of erotica with Chloe of all people.
A flock of girls from East cackle past us.
He glides up from beneath me. “Excuse me. I’ve got some minds to read.”
“Don’t move,” Logan instructs. He takes Ellis’s spot and provides a much leaner, meaner, thigh for me to relax my head over.
“Word from the Faction Council is the New Moon take down is a no-go.” Logan’s teeth illuminate in the dark like white flames.
“Ellis just told me. Best news I’ve ever heard. Now all we have to do is figure out how to get the rest of our people the hell out of there—permanently.” Little Lacey burns through my mind and a pang of grief sears itself over my heart.
Logan strokes his fingers through my hair, making tiny circles near my scalp. I can feel his affection for me in his touch. Something’s reverted in Logan. He’s been different all summer, but lately, it’s as if Gage wasn’t even in the picture anymore.
Speaking of Gage, I pan the vicinity and catch a glimpse of him in the dark end of the parking lot and a breath gets caught in my throat.
I prop myself up on my elbows and take in the offense full measure.
Chloe’s figure moves like a shadow, lithe and supple as a snake. He’s openly talking to Chloe and a fire line of anger rips through me. Chloe shifts and I can see Giselle standing there, looking good and pissed.
All of the rage I held just seconds before, releases. For a minute I didn’t trust him. I vacillated and I hate that.
“What do you think is going on over there?” I ask quiet with a hint of shame.
“Don’t know. Don’t care.” Logan tosses a pebble as the water rises over the shore in a rush of foaming aggression. Brielle squeals every now and again from underneath Drake, letting us know she’s still breathing. “Do you remember the bonfire last year? How we spent it in the Transfer?”
“That’s right.” For a moment I get lost in the memory and forget all about Gage and Chloe’s parking lot conference. Maybe they’re teaching Giselle all about deception. Chloe is the master. “How’d I get that treble?” That was the night I came back to the bonfire after magically procuring a treble and Logan went back to the Transfer with me. It was insanity. It’s a wonder I didn’t swim back to the contiguous forty-eight and demand homeland security quarantine the island.
“Let’s just say a supervising spirit owed me a favor or two.”
I re-adjust to get a better look at him.
“You had a supervising spirit way back then?”
“Nope, but that’s the good thing about supervising spirits. They sort of own the time continuum.”
“Did you change things?”
“Only one thing.” He sweeps his fingers down the side of my cheek, soft as a whisper. “You weren’t alone. I never want you to be alone. I always want you to have someone loving you.”
Sadness blossoms like a flower under the warm supervision of Logan’s morbid sunlight.
“Don’t talk like that.” The horrible nightmare I had the last time my body was grinding from Marshall’s toxins floats through my mind and I shake it loose. I couldn’t live without Logan in my world. It would be too much asking me to try.
“What’s up?” Gage falls in the sand beside us. His tall frame, his broad shoulders glow against the backdrop of a deep navy sky.
I don’t say anything at first—still skeptical of what he and Chloe might have been discussing.
“What’s up with you?” I ask, hoping he’ll volunteer the information.
He opens his mouth to say something then looks up behind me.
“You’re about to find out,” he whispers.
Chloe and Giselle head over along with the rest of the bitch squad. So unnerving. I know I wanted Giselle to fit in, but not with them. I’ll have to reprogram her to keep away from the mean girls lest she becomes one. Now that would be a freaking nightmare. It wouldn’t be the first time a resurrection backfired on me.
“Can I talk to you a minute?” Chloe glowers at me.
“No.” I burrow my neck into Logan’s leg and fold my arms over my chest like a defiant child.
“I’ll go with you.” Giselle offers, pulling me up by the hand. Gage told me you two were having trouble—her dimples go off sympathetically—that you didn’t quite trust him.
We follow Chloe over to a low growing palm. Its sharp fronds ripple like a petrified flag in the wind.
“So look,” Chloe huffs. “Before you came to Paragon, Gage said he’d keep an eye on you. Not much happened beyond that.” She glances past my shoulder at him with a look that could cut his throat. “I still want him, Skyla.” Instant tears glitter in her eyes. “I wish he wanted me.” The confession escapes her lips with less than a whisper. “It’s not over. Everything is far from over.” She chokes the words out before heading back to the parking lot.
“What was that about?” I ask Giselle, stunned by the spontaneous confession.
“Gage wanted her to say it to your face.” The moonlight casts a pale blue shadow over her dark hair. “He wanted her to admit she was wrong—that he wasn’t purposefully a well-placed boyfriend, whatever that means.”
I take a breath at the thought. Chloe Bishop might bow in the right direction if a knife is held to her back, but for damn sure she comes up fighting. Gage tried to douse a grease fire with water, only to fuel her hatred, and he inadvertently sparked a dozen new infernos around us in the process. Now, I fear for his safety as much as I do for mine.
Gage comes over and Giselle pulls a disappearing act by heading toward the shore.
He wraps his arms around my waist easy and soft.
“Hey.” He glances down a moment.
“Hey, yourself.” I can’t be mad at Gage for trying to get Chloe to admit to her wicked ways. He pulls me behind an overgrown Juniper and we indulge in the shelter of privacy.
“I want you to know something.” I press my ear into his chest and listen to the deep percussion of his heart. The soothing cadence penetrates my skull, invites me to stay awhile—hypnotizes me with its thumping rhythm. “I love you, Gage.” I look up and take in his big beautiful eyes—his dark lashes hovering in perfect symmetry. “I trust you with my life.”
A sigh depresses out of him as if he were holding his breath all summer to hear me say those words, to confirm the fact I still believed in him—in us.
I push up and graze my lips soft against his. Gage holds back, savoring the moment before offering a quick peck that makes me ache for more. There’s something powerfully seductive about Gage—his hair, his face, the body of Apollo. Gage is mythological creature unto himself.
I’m going to love you every day until I die, Skyla, and that will never be enough.
He lays both hands over my cheeks and gently pulls me in. His kisses start in slow, then build into something hotter than the fires that blaze around us. He lets his tongue roll over mine, lets it speak to me in our own private language of love. This was the preface, the appetizer for all of our days—this primal love so thirsty, so hungry for that final quenching touch. We kiss for weeks, for seasons, exploring in fine detail the hot expanse of one another’s mouths. These were desperate hours, kisses of deliverance, kisses of forgiveness. Each carnal yearning pricked just a little bit deeper. Deep inside, we both know these simple kisses could never be enough. Gage and I needed a banquet, a feast of our flesh to ever hope to be satisfied. Everything in me command—demanded it. This was a fire that could never be extinguished, with Gage as the eternal flame.
A disturbance in the periphery catches my attention.
“Knock, knock.”
I jump back to find Logan standing there with his arms folded low—a ticked-off look on his face to let us know how he feels about our exchange.
“Sorry.” He crimps a smile. “But I was hoping to interrupt.”
“What’s up?” Gage growls it out. He isn’t impressed with Logan’s need to cut the power supply to our electric lip-lock.
“I’ve been thinking about something for a while now—I think maybe tonight’s the night to get it out.” Logan cuts a hard look to Gage. “Skyla”—he loses steam as he says it—“you’re so beautiful.” He comes over and picks up both my hands. “The minute I saw you…” He tilts his head back and his Adam’s apple rises and falls. “I fell in love with you.”
A sad smile pulls across his lips and ignites a twinge of fear in the pit of my stomach. I’m afraid of whatever insanity might escape his lips. What if he’s going to leave Paragon? Or sequester himself in the tunnels? Or something else entirely batshit that I can’t even imagine right now.
“What’s going on?” I tug at him with urgency even though I might not ever want to hear what comes next.
“Do you remember that night at the bowling alley?” The stars surrender their pale eminence over Logan like a blessing. “The night I told you I thought we shouldn’t be together for a while?”
Worst night of my life. How could I forget?
“Worst night of my life, too.” He lets go of my hands and steps in closer to Gage. “I know I said I wanted you two to have your moment, to be together until the end of the war.” He takes a breath. “But I’m done with that.” He reverts to me. “I want you back, Skyla. I’m not waiting another month or year for the damn war to end. I’m through with what the Counts think.”
Gage huffs a laugh. “So just like that?” His brows hood over his eyes with dismay. “You think you’re going to turn our relationship off like a faucet? She’ll just run back to you because you said so?”
Logan gives a long blink. “No—I don’t. But what I do expect”—his voice bites through the air—“is for you stay the fuck away from my girlfriend.” He gives a hard push into Gage’s chest.
It was an entire year in the making, that powerhouse shove. It said I’m sick of you in so many different ways.
“So now what?” Gage taunts with amusement at the thought of Logan spiking a flag into my heart. “Am I supposed to step aside—watch you make your move because you own her?”
“No.” Logan drops his voice to a lower octave. “I don’t own Skyla and neither do you. I thought maybe…” He swallows hard. “If she had any feelings left for me, this might be a good time to reignite them before things go too far with the two of you.”
“Too bad.” Gage bullets out the words. “Things have already gone too far.”
Logan winces as if he were sucker-punched. A muscle flexes in his jaw that ignites when he’s angry.
“I don’t believe you,” Logan rasps. “Skyla and I have shared moments that would make you puke all over your fresh-pressed Levis.”
A spear of hurt cuts across Gage.
“I swear,” he says to Logan just above a whisper, “I’m not going to lie down like a good little bitch and watch you slither your way into her heart. You had your chance and you blew it.” He glares into him. “Just like you blow everything else in your life.”
Logan glares into him with a deadly intent. “Sounds like my life interests you.” He leans in. “I bet you wish you were me.” Logan gravels it out, his mouth rising on the sides. He’s taunting him, shoving him around emotionally, because he doesn’t want to be the one to initiate the first swing. “Deep inside, you know you’ll never have what Skyla and I share. Why don’t you go hook up with Chloe? Everyone here knows you want to. You could do her in the parking lot—write a poem about it after.”
Expletives thunder from the two of them before Gage knocks into Logan with one hard shove after another. They collapse in a tangle of limbs just shy of the fire, grunting and kicking. Gage knees Logan in the balls with one bionic thrust, just as a crowd amasses, cheering them on for the hell of it.
“Enough!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “I’ve already made my decision,” I shout in a fury.
Gage stares up wild-eyed with anticipation while Logan tries to deny his physical suffering for a moment to focus in on my words. The imagery of the two of them like this, with the look of hurt and desperation brimming on their faces,
etches itself over my heart. I never want to forget the pain I’ve caused, the pain I’m about to.
They both wear a slight veiled look of hurt just beneath the surface as if neither of them truly believes I would ever choose them.
“I choose…”
Chapter 108
Baby of Mine
“So who did you choose?” Brielle gapes at me with those lily pad eyes of hers as I recant the details of last night’s events. She slept over, well, technically in Drake’s room. Giselle crashed at the Kraggers’ where, apparently, she has a master suite complete with spa.
I plop down on the mattress next to her and give a hard exhale as I stare up at the canopy.
“I chose no one.”
“What do you mean you chose no one?” She scoots back so fast her head hits the wall. “You belong with Logan and Gage. They’re like your soul mates or something.”
“Are you even listening to yourself? No one has two soul mates.” Three, if you count, Marshall, but I’m not even going there right now. “That’s the problem. I can’t have both Logan and Gage. I mean it was OK while Logan was trying to protect me. Then I fell in love with Gage and things changed.”
“So, be with Gage.” She shrugs as if the problem were solved. “He’s a god. If you don’t sink your hooks into him, Chloe will. By the way, sorry that whole revenge against Chloe campaign sort of nosedived into nothing. But I’m still on it.”
“No big deal. No one could ever really hurt Chloe like Gage can. And by the way, news flash, Chloe could care less that I have any part of me hooked into him. She’s going to keep burrowing herself into his life. That’ll never end. I can already tell the lives of my unborn children are at stake.”
“Then, duh? Go with Logan! He’s hotter than a firefighter in July.” She fans herself at the thought.
“I know.” I sigh. Logan’s hot looks are totally disrupting the situation, although I’d still love him even if he looked like Ezrina, like he did me. “What about you?” I ask changing the subject. “Do you really want Drake after all he’s put you through?”
Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5) Page 33
