Expel

by Addison Moore

  “Skyla, tell me everything from the beginning.” Dr. Oliver adjusts himself in the seat as we maneuver out onto the main highway. “You were at the bowling alley,” he motions for me to continue.

  “We were behind the bowling alley, we were having an argument,” God, I hate reliving that night.

  “Who was having an argument?” His hair flashes a brilliant pearl color as a streetlight combs over him.

  “Gage and Logan, then I stepped in. Logan’s been doing some shady stuff on his light drives.” I really don’t want to get into the fact I had Logan’s Celestra powers revoked by way of my otherworldly familial connections which, in turn, caused Logan to retrieve me from my dreams to help him move from one dimension to another. And, I’m not entirely sure if Dr. O is aware of the fact Logan has a supervising spirit on payroll. “So, this car started up and charged us. Logan pushed me out of the way, and he and Gage were struck several times.”

  “That much I know.” He depresses into a frown. “Who was driving?”

  “Nobody was driving, at least not from what I can tell. But anyway—I totally think it was Chloe. So, then, as I’m freaking out over the two of them lying on the ground I hear this voice, and it’s Logan,” I tell him about the old me and the Transfer and how Ezrina said she’d take care of the rest.

  “Thank heavens. I had no idea what would become of him after Arson Kragger retrieved his body from the morgue.”

  “Arson Kragger?” He’s the wicked father of the Kragger crew, two of which are no longer with us.

  “It’s nothing unusual. He picks up Count corpses quite regularly. I’ve been dealing with him since I started the mortuary. But back to Logan, how are we going to find him?” He looks visibly upset, well, mostly angry in a bizarre relieved sort of way.

  “I don’t know,” I rack my brain for some kind of temporal answer, “but I ended up at the base of Devil’s Peak when I came back.”

  “Devil’s Peak,” he abruptly pulls to the side of the road and brings the car to a forceful stop. A pair of headlights pull in from behind—I recognize the minivan as belonging to Mom and Tad.

  “Thank you, Skyla.” He pats my knee. “Thank you for saving my brother and for saving my son.”

  “I didn’t save Gage,” I sweep the floor with remorse. He’s still unable to open his eyes—move or breathe on his own.

  “You woke him. If we can get Logan today, we’ll have the three of you back in the span of twenty-four hours. Now that would be a miracle.” He offers a repressed smile. “I’m headed to look for Logan. Don’t worry about the police. Emma and I won’t be pressing charges. I’m sure Gage will give a statement when he’s able, should the state decide to proceed.”

  I open the door and step out into the saline night baptized with fresh mist from the ocean.

  “If you find him, please call me.”

  “Of course.” He looks down and his eyes widen with horror. “Good Lord, what happened to your hand?” He leans over and examines it.

  “Stinging Nettle.”

  “I’ll be by later to bring you something for that.”

  “Thank you.” I shut the door and hop into the minivan with Mom and Tad.

  “What the hell was that about?” Tad erupts as I secure my seatbelt.

  “There was some news of Logan, and he needed to tend to it.” It’s true.

  “Judas Priest,” Tad throws a hand into the air as he glides back onto the road. “You hear that, Lizbeth? That trauma center they shipped him off to probably phoned to let him know that the poor guy kicked the bucket.”

  “Tad.” Mom spikes in agitation.

  “He just dropped your kid off on the side of the road. He practically booted her out of a moving vehicle. Read between the lines, Lizbeth. This is an e-mer-gency.” He turns in his seat, momentarily swerving into oncoming traffic. “And you,” he pokes a finger in my direction. “Never, ever, leave the scene of a crime. You got that? You don’t clip a bunch of people on a night you aren’t even supposed to be out of the house and then go off on a two-week vacay with God knows who.” He resettles his grip over the wheel before turning to my mother. “She’s probably got another boy-toy tucked away someplace she keeps handy for these breaks from reality she’s prone to taking.”

  “Skyla was not on a vacation, and there is no one for her but Gage,” Mom defends me with a tone I’m not used to hearing her invoke in Tad’s presence—for sure not aimed at him. “Skyla, explain yourself. I want the truth.”

  Yeah right, the truth. “Um, so, I was stuck in some whitewashed prison with a witch, and I couldn’t get out for two weeks.” Almost the truth, nevertheless it was all I could come up with since I’m emotionally spent.

  “See that?” Tad slashes the air with his hand. “Fairytales. Witches and warlocks, ooh, I’m scared,” he wiggles his fingers. “Is it working on you yet, Lizbeth? Have you crapped your pants with worry? Because she sure spins a good yarn, I’ll give her that.” He pounds the dash to annunciate his point.

  Mom sags into her seat as we pull into the station.

  I’m betting there’s a certain detective Edinger just waiting to interrogate me.

  The only one crapping her pants around here is me.

  ***

  “Skyla,” Demetri Edinger, the Fem who killed my father gives a sideways smile that looks evil in every way. “So nice to see you’re safe.” He pulls his lips further into an unconvincing smile. “I hear you have a tendency to run away, but I want to assure you that there is nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I’m not afraid,” I openly glare at him. “I’ll never fear you, Demetri.”

  “Skyla Laurel Messenger,” Mom’s eyes bulge the size of eggs.

  When the time comes to name my children I’ll have to remember that the middle name is only to be invoked as a curse—a moniker-inspired expletive, if you will. I’ll be sure to search high and low for a power name with maximum I’m-so-pissed-off-at-you-right-now impact. For sure nothing pansy like Laurel. The soft syllables alone betray the injustice in Mom’s tone. I never take that name seriously. It sounds like a song, makes me want to play with unicorns and bake cupcakes.

  “Forgive her, detective. She has no regard for authority whatsoever,” Tad is quick to kiss the ass of the man who’s trying to steal his wife. “She’s a loose cannon. Odd things fly out of her mouth without warning. It’s an aftereffect from the recreational pharmaceuticals she dabbles in from time to time.” He says it with authority as if there were medical evidence to support his theory.

  The only thing that could possibly be an aftereffect of recreational pharmaceuticals is my mother’s marriage to him. That would explain everything. One day Mom is going to sober up and start using again from the sheer horror of what she’s managed to legally chain herself to.

  Demetri leads us to a back room. He sits before me like a shadowed wall and asks an endless list of questions which I answer to the best of my ability without ever actually eluding to the truth. Sometimes you have to tell people what you want them to believe and nothing more. I’m sure the word lying would fit nicely in there somewhere, but I’m more interested in making my way back to Gage sans an extended stay in the psychiatric unit than gab on about time travel and Ezrina, although, ironically, Demetri would believe me.

  “Where did you sleep, Skyla?” Demetri sounds bored, fatigued from dispensing the inquisition.

  “I slept in the woods and ate berries.” I thrash him with all of the hatred I can muster. I’ve already killed him in my mind at least six different times while I’ve been seated. I imagine his head exploding over the walls like a giant pumpkin—detonating like a powerhouse—nothing but orange, stringy guts dangling from the ceiling.

  “You don’t look malnourished.” He blinks a dull smile.

  “I found a goat by a large flat stone in the middle of a clearing, you know the one,” I say, accusingly. I watch as he flinches, enjoy the rhythm of his irritation. “I sacrificed it for my hunger. Stripped it of its flesh an
d put it over a fire,” I envision myself doing that to Demetri. “It satisfied me.” Come to think of it, his head is the size of a pumpkin. If he was my father, I’d clearly be malformed. Sometimes nature knows best and doesn’t allow people like him to procreate. But, then again, it has its genetic hiccups—look what happened with Tad. And obviously Mom’s incessant drug abuse has confused her into procreating with him.

  “Skyla, that’s disgusting,” Mom shivers from the goat visual, but secretly I think she picked up on the fact I accidentally imagined her procreating with her nuptial mishap.

  “Relax, Lizbeth, she’s lying,” Tad informs. “It’s her favorite hobby.”

  A strangled tension crops up between the two of them. You could light a match, and the room would explode from the animosity between Tad and my mother.

  Demetri reaches over and picks up my mother’s hand.

  “You know, Lizbeth.” He bears into her eyes with those dishonest orbs. “Under these kinds of circumstances being there for your child emotionally is the most important thing and that’s what you’re doing. That’s what you always do because you are an exceptional mother.”

  And he is exceptional bullshitter.

  I look over to Tad who’s busy staring down Demetri.

  This isn’t going to end well.

  This Fem is going to steal my mother right from under Tad’s nose if he doesn’t step up his game.

  And, for once, I think I’m rooting for Tad—just barely.

  “See you soon, Skyla,” Demetri rises.

  “For what?”

  “Community service,” he inhales, expanding his chest wide as a brick house.

  Oh that’s right, the pot bust consequence.

  He nods. “We’re going to restore my grandfather’s estate to its former glory.”

  I stare into him curiously. How can a Fem have any sort of family history?

  I wonder.

  Chapter 7

  Family Time

  The windows of the Landon house are adorned with pink and red hearts. I burst through the door, leaving Mom and Tad to finish the little talk they started after we left the station and continue in a heated manner as they walk up the driveway. It was like a broken record with Mom defending my behavior, Tad condemning me, and the two of them ignoring the fact I was right there in the vehicle able bodied and listening.

  As if the fighting behind me weren’t bad enough, I can hear Mia and Melissa going at it full steam in the family room.

  “What is going on?” I spring up on them just as they move into each other’s faces.

  “Stay out of this, Skyla,” Melissa snaps.

  OK, so really, I sort of expected to be tackled with hugs and perhaps for them to tell me how much they missed me like they did the last time I disappeared. Heck, I’d even settle for a where the hell have you been, but nothing.

  “The next time I catch you with anything that belongs to me, I will slingshot your ass across the Pacific!” Melissa stabs a finger into Mia’s chest.

  What the heck is this about? Just as I’m about to ask, Holden waltzes in the room and jars me into vocal paralysis—only it’s not Holden, it’s Ethan. I hope.

  “Hello,” I say, following him into the kitchen.

  He grunts while retrieving a soda from the fridge.

  “You the runaway?” He cracks it open and takes a swig.

  God, he even acts like Holden.

  “I guess that would be me.” I lean in secretively, “I know what happened to you.”

  He sets the can down hard onto the counter and drills into me with those strange Holden eyes. Funny because I never knew Holden before when he was actually himself, and now that Ethan is back in his right body, I still see Holden.

  “We’ll talk later.” His voice is softer, his shoulders not stretched back taut like a jackass looking for fight. Maybe this new incarnation of Ethan really is the new and improved version.

  “For sure,” I say.

  “Let go,” Melissa snaps. I turn in time to catch my sisters in a tug of war over a silver purse. Mom steps in and snatches it from both their clutches.

  “That’s enough,” she shouts. “I’m sick and tired of all this fighting. I’ve had it with the two of you.”

  I’ve never seen Mom so dislodged from her sanity before.

  Melissa snatches the bag from Mom’s fingers.

  “I believe this is mine, Lizbitch,” she barks the malformed moniker in my mother’s face.

  “Take it back!” Mia screams.

  Tad lets out a whistle that makes Sprinkles the rat dog run for cover beneath the dining room table. He claps his hands over his head three times and calls for Drake.

  “Family meeting,” he makes a series of circles in the air with his finger before pointing over to the couch. “All of you, and I mean now!”

  Mia and Melissa sit on opposing couches. Drake sails down and high fives me before sitting at the bar as if I had merely stepped out for a shift at the bowling alley.

  “I said here,” Tad barks, and Drake comes over between Ethan and me. “A lot of stuff has happened to this family as of late. Ethan, you’ve proved yourself a changed young man, I appreciate the effort. Drake, you and Brielle…” He throws his hand into the air without finishing the thought. “Mia and Melissa, for God’s sake, you used to get along better than sisters, and now look at you! Fighting over boys? Who cares about boys?” Tad chokes out the words.

  It’s about that stupid Armistead kid, I can smell him a mile away. If he’s anything like his sister, he’s a bad freaking seed.

  “Skyla’s back,” he continues, “and before she’s formally charged with yet another homicide, a few things are going to change around here. For one, your mother and I will be around the house a little more often because we no longer have to babysit that linebacker your sister tried to force feed her Michelins.”

  “Skyla did not run anybody over,” Mom screeches out, exasperated. “And would you please stop referring to Gage as that linebacker? We were at the hospital to show our support for the Olivers. Thank God, Gage is going to be all right.”

  “He needs me there,” I interject. “The doctor said I was like some miracle drug.” It takes everything in me not to bolt out the door. I noticed that freaking Mustang is parked high on the driveway. I suppose Tad wanted the monument of Chloe’s psychotic behavior for the cash value after all.

  “Oh, you’ve got a side effect on people.” Tad glares at me. “I think what this family needs is some serious alone time together.”

  Alone?

  “Your mother and I propose we take some time just the,” Tad conducts a not so silent headcount, “seven of us.”

  “We should go to New York,” Mia beams.

  “We should go to Paris,” Melissa glowers over at her. “You always think so small.”

  “You’re right,” Mia snipes. “I was thinking really small when I took on your dumb last name. Mom, I’m changing my name back.”

  “Whoa,” Mom fans her arms out like a referee. “Nobody is going to New York or Paris, or changing their names. We are all keeping our own identities and staying put. You can’t just flip it on and off like a light switch. You’re a Landon, Mia.”

  I knew she’d regret it.

  “So, are we going to Seattle?” I ask. Honestly, I just need for them to pinpoint a venue so I can properly plan my escape. There is no way in hell I’m leaving Gage even for a minute. No locale on the planet is lucrative enough to drag me away.

  “Nope,” Tad twists. “We’re staying right here on Paragon.”

  “It’s a stay-cation,” Mom offers a placid smile that springs up as quick as it dies down.

  “Great.” This is so freaking stupid, but I don’t dare call them out on it. I think in all of their absurdity they actually stumbled onto something that borders on brilliant.

  “That’s right,” Tad nods, rather proud of the not so big reveal. “We’ll be enjoying the great outdoors right here on the island.”

&nbs
p; “Camping?” Mia crawls up on the couch as though Tad just unleashed a venomous snake into the room. “I don’t do camping.”

  “You do now,” Tad informs her. “Next weekend.”

  “That’s Valentine’s Day,” Melissa is quick to snip. “The school has a dance.”

  “OK, we’ll fit it in the following weekend. Consider yourselves warned,” Tad squawks.

  There’s a knock at the door that rattles through the house, abrasive as gunfire.

  “We’re a damn family, and it’s about time we start acting like one,” Tad storms off towards the entry. “Skyla, it’s for you.”

  Chapter 8

  Arrive Alive

  I prattle down the hall expecting to see Brielle, Dr. Oliver, or even Chloe’s menacing mug, but this—Logan’s beautiful face is unimaginably the best thing I could have ever hoped for.

  “Logan!” I jump into his arms and let him twirl me as he takes in my scent, kisses my neck, my cheeks, the spontaneous shower of tears on my face. The misty night air dusts a circle of approval over our shoulders, cool as a damp towel. His blonde hair glints under the silver dollar moon. His sharp features trap light and shadow with their perfection, spelling out the fact he’s a modern day Adonis. “You’re back, you’re really back.”

  “Come in,” Mom urges, pulling us inside by the elbow.

  “My dad wanted me to give you this,” Logan hands me a tube of white ointment.

  “Perfect, thank you.” I give him a puzzled look. Dr. Oliver is Logan’s uncle, well, technically his brother, but for practical purposes he’s not.

  “I was thinking about taking Skyla out,” he nods into Mom. “You know, hang out, catch up.”

  Mom and Tad just stand there stupefied by this viral—alert, and very much alive-looking Logan.

  “So what happened?” Tad washes over him with suspicion. “I thought you were at death’s door, you look perfectly fine.” His voice drags as though he were somehow implying that the Oliver’s had purposefully deceived him about Logan’s condition.

  “Ship shape.” Logan taps his chest. “Just needed a tune up. Hey, they ever catch the bastard that ran me over?” He needles into Tad trying to maintain his sarcasm.