“I would love to counsel the two of you.” Isis and Tad continue to nurture their budding adultery. “I don’t have an office, but—”
“You can come to my place.” Tad is lightning quick with the offer. And what’s this “my place” business? He’s sure in a hurry to scratch my mother off the deed to the house.
“I can’t wait!” She giggles into him as if he had just asked her to prom. “Hey?” She sighs, plucking a bottle of suntan oil out of her bag and waves it at Tad. “Would you mind getting my back?” A sting of laughter bubbles out. It’s like she can’t go three words without cackling like a hyena.
“Hold this.” Tad shoves his hotdog pyramid in my direction and takes off with Dr. Kiss-Your-Marriage-Good-bye Edinger.
“She seems nice.” Mom isn’t the slightest bit worried that Tad is busy molesting her baby-smooth skin at this very moment—and holy freaking shit! Her bowling balls are barely covered with a bright pink nipple suit that could double as eye patches.
“That girl is a true angel.” Demetri glosses over me with a rancid smile.
Something tells me she’s nothing but a skanky snake. I have a feeling Tad and Lizbeth Landon are going to need more than a marriage counselor when she’s through with them—more along the lines of a divorce attorney.
It looks like all of the pieces are falling into place for my least favorite Fem. Too bad for him I won’t let them stay there. I’m going to move heaven and Earth to make sure things don’t work out for Demetri.
In fact, I plan on giving him hell long before he ever gets there.
Chapter 17
The Gods of Sunday
Demetri’s estate boils under the white-hot spotlight that the planets revolve around like an overt act of worship. The fiery orb makes a rare appearance for Demetri’s ode to summer, but I know it’s just another lame party trick he’s pulled out of his enchanted ass. Manipulating the weather is simply the sleight of hand he’s resorted to in order to further his efforts with my mother. After all, it was the synthetic rise in mercury he organized that got her to strip down to her skivvies.
Today is all about the Fems. I watch as they walk on their manufactured sunshine and work their black magic, trying to tear my family apart.
Brielle and Drake finally show, sans baby Beau, who thankfully averted a third degree burn, in this, his second week of life. Considering he’s already survived fourteen days with Drake and Brielle as his primary caregivers, I think the kid is off to a damn lucky start.
“You look fantastic,” I say, hugging Bree.
“Are you kidding? I still can’t fit into my jeans. And I have all this extra skin on my stomach. I’m going to need a tummy tuck or a body transplant. I’m disgusting. And hello?” She plucks at her copper hair. “I’m freaking balding at seventeen. Don’t have kids, Skyla. It’s so not worth it.”
I watch as Gage takes off his shirt across the pool and stretches like a bear into the sky. My stomach cycles at the sight of him. Just knowing he was mine, that it all felt so perfect, so right, kills me on a primal level. What I wouldn’t give to have it all back, for it to have all been real.
“I’m not having kids,” I whisper, taking off my T-shirt, exposing a very barely there, I hope-you-die-of-blue-balls-Gage-Oliver white bikini top. It’s see-through when it’s wet. I made sure of it just before I put it on. Then again Gage probably isn’t going to die of blue balls. I’m sure Chloe will see to that. Just the thought nauseates the hell out of me.
“Hey.” Brielle throws a hot arm over my shoulder. “You OK? You and Gage still fighting? I heard you tell him off at prom.”
“Yup, still fighting.” Only now it’s a little more genuine. “He turned out to be a real ass. Why didn’t you warn me about him?”
“What are you talking about?” She pulls out a yellow bin of margarine the size of a small bucket and proceeds to scoop a pile of yellow goo with her fingers. “Gage Oliver is one of the most down-to-earth, nicest guys on the face of this planet. In fact, Drake could learn a thing or two from him.” She takes a seat on a lounge chair and slathers her thighs with the milky yellow gloss.
“Yeah,” I balk, “like how to be absolutely full of shit at any given time.” By the way, I totally think Drake, much like Gage, has already mastered that.
“Skyla!” Brielle stops midflight from smearing the goop onto her chest. “What the hell?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“Look at this crap.” She gives her thighs a good greasy pinch. “Sumo wrestlers have a better ass than I do.”
“Oh, stop.” I dip my finger in the bucket.
“Messenger!” Ellis shouts from the giant sprawling lawn. He’s waving at me from behind Gage and his perfect rippling abs, his black hair shines reflectively under the alien sun—those sweet lips press out a smile in my direction, and I melt faster than the butter in between Brielle’s cleavage. It’s going to be hell living on the same island with him—just being on the same rock floating through space is far too close for comfort. I’ll have to face the fact he broke my heart, and now I’m going to die because living in this new world with a fake Gage Oliver is worse than being a permanent resident of the Celestra tunnels, worse than any torment Ezrina could ever dole out in the Transfer.
“Looks like a football game’s about to break out,” Drake says, heading over, and I follow.
Logan and Chloe, Gage the traitor, Emily, Nat and Pierce. Gah! Pierce! That’s impossible. He’s supposed to be doing loads of time in juvy this summer. This was going to be a Holden-free, three-month vacay for me. I’m so sick of Holden and his revolving door bodies. It’s getting difficult to keep track of how much I hate him with each new incarnation.
“What’s up, sis?” Holden crosses his arms over his chest.
“Aren’t you supposed to be paying my debt to society?” I snark. He really is serving an undeserved sentence dressed up in Pierce’s unlucky flesh. It’s not my fault the legal system is corrupt and unjust.
“Got a weekend pass. Thanks for the new digs, by the way.” He holds out his arms for me to observe his cut physique.
“It’s your brother,” I say disgusted. “He’s staying dead, by the way.” Those crazy Kraggers can get a little demanding when they lose their birthday suit.
“Sounds like I owe you.”
I pause just shy of heading over to Logan. “What did you say?”
“I owe you.” He gives a light sock to my shoulder. “I’m back in the game, and I’m not talking this one,” he says, tossing the football into the air.
“OK!” Chloe claps her way to the center as if she’s in charge. “Logan and I are team captains. Logan, go first.” I bet she barks out orders to Gage in bed. Just the thought makes me want to nail them both in the head with some pigskin. And I just might.
“Skyla.” Logan gives a sly smile.
Before I can head over, Chloe yelps out for Gage, and he happily complies. OK, not so happily, but all this pissed off energy he’s funneling in Chloe’s direction is probably just a ruse.
I lean over and give Logan a quick kiss on the cheek.
“What was that for?” There’s a look of longing in his eyes as though he wanted it to linger right here on the field in front of East and West.
“It’s because I really do love you, Logan.” It comes out sad, honest.
Logan and Chloe call out names until two even rows of less than a dozen people square off.
Ellis calls for everyone to get into position—Ellis, who isn’t even on the football team at West. I’m betting he developed a sudden interest in the sport as soon as girls in bikinis became involved at an intimate level.
“Skyla, you’re a wide receiver.” Logan motions me over to where Ellis is stooped, so I fall in line next to him and mimic his position. I know less than zero about football. Cheering for West has taught me squat about the game in general. It so damn foggy when they play, it’s impossible to see what’s going on. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. What better excuse tha
n a violent game of pig ball to kick some serious Chloe and Gage ass? Now the real dilemma is—whose face to grind into the dirt first.
The players line up and Logan keeps shouting incoherent things I can’t decipher.
I expect nothing short of an exceptional performance, Marshall sneers from the sidelines. He’s the only one I can hear without him touching me. I suppose it has something to do with his Sector status. Your earthly mother is cheering you on. Do refrain from tearing your competitor’s limb from limb. I’d join in on the fun myself, but it would be incredibly inappropriate to fondle your flesh and sack you right here in full-public view.
I look back and frown at the content of his inner monologue.
I’ll save the sacking for later, he continues. We can mimic the plays of our conjugal union in the privacy of my backyard. We can roll around on the lawn like animals and invent our own naughty games—Naked Leap Frog—Marshall May I—Hide the Peak—Red Light, Green Light District—Obstacle Intercourse—Hot Lava—Capture the Sector—Skyla Says—the possibilities are endless. Our throbbing loins will reap the victory. The entire scenario is, as you would say—made of win.
I motion for him to knock it off. Marshall and his hypersexual taunting is going to throw me off the only game that counts—the one in which I accidentally on purpose castrate Gage Oliver. He and his baby blues are going down. There is not one ounce of mercy left for him in my little black heart.
Gage looks over at me, his eyes glazed with lust. There’s a sly smile on his face that suggests he might be planning a physical take down of his own. It really does beg the question, who’s the hunter and who’s the prey.
“Down,” Logan shouts, “on two.”
Bodies break like balls on a pool table, running every which way. Gage eyes me with the hint of a lascivious smile. His arrogance—his audacity to linger his gaze in my direction aggravates me to no end.
I charge at him with an unnatural fury, dissention rising in my bones, my blood. I knock into his chest, and he falls back voluntarily as his dimples taunt me with their blessed perfection. This is what he wanted; this is precisely what he hoped would happen, me sitting on his chest, panting like some foolish schoolgirl.
“Feel better?” He squints into me.
“I’ll never feel better, Gage. I hope that makes you happy.”
Gage Oliver lays out the trap, and I fall in every single time. I wanted to be his wife, his sex slave, and now, all I want is to see him lying at the bottom of a freshly dug grave—the open mouth of the earth ready to swallow him whole as payment for the bruise he laid over our so-called love.
The play stops, and everyone gets back into position a little farther down the field.
“Skyla, get up,” Ellis shouts. “You’re not tackling. You’re a receiver. Run after the ball next time.”
I go to push off, and Gage secures me by the wrist. Gage glows against the dark luster of the grass, as his eyes reflect the sky. They radiate an undying affection that one might mistake as genuine—so heartbreakingly right.
“Let go,” I whisper.
He releases his hold and presses out a dull smile. “I’m in love with you, Skyla Messenger. You hold my entire world in your heart.”
A strangled moment passes. For a second, it’s just the two of us alone in the universe, all sight and sound dissipates as the world erodes under the guise of his questionable affection.
“Bullshit.” I spit it in his face and jog back over to the lineup.
“Focus, Messenger!” Ellis reprimands as I fall in next to him.
Geez, he’s like the female version of Bishop the Cheer Monster.
“Two,” Logan shouts.
I don’t pay attention to the ball or the direction Ellis tries to herd me. Instead, I go after Chloe this time, land on her back, and push her face down in a bald patch of mud—the moist soil of Paragon ready to suck her in.
“You bitch!” She comes up, gulping for air, and spins me around so fast, all I see is the sky rotating, the skirts of the evergreens shifting position. Chloe’s dirty face is locked in a snarl. She lifts me a foot off the ground and slams me to Earth with a bionic aggression.
My head hits so hard it makes the world vibrate. Chloe’s features repeat themselves in triplicate as her mouth swims over me in an expletive-riddled tirade.
Skyla, Marshall calls my name low and deep like a demon.
“Skyla.” Gage pushes Chloe off and straddles me—the look of worry rife on his beautiful face.
The sky collapses on itself. It rolls up like a scroll, and a darkness so dense you can take a bite out of swallows up the world and all of those in it.
“Help.” The word swims from me slow and lethargic.
“Skyla,” Gage shouts, his voice reverberating off my skin. “Stay with me.”
But I don’t.
Chapter 18
Black Hole
“I’m with you.” Logan moans into my ear as we sail down Demetri’s demonic rabbit hole on the way to the Celestra tunnels.
I wrap my legs around him—coil my arms around his waist so tight I fear for the safety of his bones.
An ever-growing darkness, one long, cloying night robes itself around our bodies, pressing in on us until we’re barely able to breathe.
Logan pushes my head into his neck, cradles the back of my skull like a catcher’s mitt, hoping to soften the blow upon impact.
Logan and I free-fall into nothing, lighter than air. It hardly feels like we’re moving, then with an abrupt force, gravity pulls us down like the descent of a very steep roller coaster. We’ve become lead—a comet barreling toward Earth, wishing to burn before ever hitting the surface. This is too far, too fast. Nothing could survive the fall. I hope Logan and I are launched right into Paradise, far away from Demetri and the Counts, away from Gage and my broken heart. It would all end, and I could smile again with Logan by my side for the rest of eternity.
Logan twists over me as we smack into the floor. A brilliant pain surges through my body from the violent impact. The darkness continues to linger, thick as a blanket dipped in oil. This strange night has become a person, a thing. It caresses our flesh, blows through our hair, taunts us, and reassures us it is in every way alive.
Logan lets out a hard groan.
“Are you OK?” I pat the ground of this demented forest like a blind man until he takes up my hand and helps me to my feet.
“Hurt my elbow. I’ll be fine.”
A sickly light approaches in our direction.
“Welcome to the Tenebrous Woods.” Ingram slathers the greeting with sarcasm.
“I can’t do this, Skyla.” Logan pulls me in and whispers. “I can’t live with myself knowing I’m in some way responsible.”
I drop to my knees, run the pads of my hands down over his stomach, his legs, and clamp onto the bottom of his jeans.
“I beg of you with everything in me, don’t leave me, Logan. I will never forgive you if you do.”
“Stand.” Ingram clicks his heels together, and I do as I’m told. “Your proper name was invoked.” He tilts his head toward Logan. “Carry out the punishment,” he instructs before referring to his lucent clipboard.
“Go out with me tomorrow night.” In this dim light, I can make out Logan giving the curve of a smile.
“Do I have to?” I stretch each word out with disdain in an effort to put on the best show possible for the deluded demon in our midst.
“Try again.” Ingram doesn’t bother looking up. “Seconds remain.”
“Kiss my shoe.” Logan closes his eyes with an immediate sense of remorse.
“Kiss your shoe?” It’s difficult to gauge how pissed I should be. Obviously, Logan and I will have to go over a strategy of what types of punishments I might find acceptable.
I get back on my knees and press my palms to the ground, bringing my lips to the tip of his sneaker. I would much rather be bent in this humiliating position forever then have to get up and face what comes next. I would worshi
p at Logan’s feet months at a time, if he could get me out of the stronghold the Counts have me in.
Logan helps me up and we follow Ingram down the disorganized maze of these twisted back woods, each strange looking tree cloaked in pitch.
That will never happen again, Logan assures.
Don’t ever say you’ll leave, I say. I don’t care what they have you do.
I won’t leave, he says, resigned to the fact. I promise I’ll die before I do that.
A choir of screams, an entire series of muffled groans, and a sea of horrific cries fill my ears. A palpable fear penetrates the atmosphere. It soaks in my bones and settles there. I don’t think the horror of this place will ever dissipate from my memory. I want to drink this madness down and take it with me to Paragon so I can do something about it—get the bastards who ever thought it was a good idea to hole up Celestra like cattle.
The chambers open up to the left, each one emitting a dull glow. A man lounges in one. He looks emaciated, depleted of both the will to live and strength. A few women linger in the next, then an entire wall of individual cells. But it’s the little girl I look for. Her spirit haunts me even though she’s locked in this nightmare along with her mother. Since I’ve made it my new mission to save these souls, I’d like to start with hers.
Ingram stops abruptly and points to an illuminated chamber that stands empty save for a large wooden beam. Twin chains hang from it about five feet apart with a rope dripping down between them like some necrotic promise.
I glance around looking for a way to break free from this lamp-lit Levatio. Vines line the forest floor, thick as snakes, which means making a run for it could pose a problem of the broken neck variety. I glance back and give a depleted smile at Logan. We’ll have to think of a plan another time.
“The Elysian will do the honors.” He glances down at the lights dancing on his clipboard.
Logan takes me over to the primitive-looking contraption and secures my wrists, then stretches my arms out in the shape of a cross and ties the rope loose around my waist.