“You didn’t give me a chance to say the same thing,” I shrill as I come at him, the blade plunging in the air between us as he swiftly moves out of the way once again.
His hands fall over mine as he struggles to bind my wrists, but I’ve got a death grip on the blade and I’ll dive into that fiery pit in Tenebrous before I let go.
A hard grunt comes from him as he tries to ease it from my finger. “Let go, Skyla,” he barks as the rain picks up once again.
“You lied to me!” I riot in his face as we continue to struggle. “You said you loved me!”
“I do love you!” he shouts the words so loud over my mouth, my head snaps back an inch. “I fucking love you, Skyla, or I wouldn’t be the monster I am today.” There’s a fierceness in his eyes, a rage I’m unfamiliar with. “You have no idea what I’m doing, and I don’t expect you to.” He plucks the sword out of my hand and hikes it into the air out of my reach.
“Shit.” I stare up at it in horror. He could kill me. Gage could kill me and take it all. Celestra, the Factions, it was all so easy for the Barricade, for the Fems.
I struggle to climb him, clawing and grunting, but he jerks me away and my feet fall back to the earth. Here I am, all but human, no thanks to the fact I bedded him nightly. How easy I made it all for him.
And then I go low. My hand clamps over his crotch with such ferocity there’s not a man on Earth that can’t feel the devastation I’m inflicting.
Gage roars with such aggression I’m certain that I’ve just signed my death warrant. He slips his leg under my feet, knocking me to the ground in an instant. My face falls to the mud with a slap, my mouth filled with a muddy Paragon milkshake. My hands press over the earth, sinking into the muck and mire as I use the last of my strength to buoy myself back to my feet. I fall over Gage, landing us both to the ground, knocking the sword right out of his hand. My arm slaps over it as Gage does his best to land me onto my back—somehow, somewhere midair I slash the air between us, and the blade slices through his neck, the flesh I’ve kissed a thousand times, the precious skin I’ve traced out with my tongue, and a deluge of crimson showers over me, dousing my chest, my hands with the blood of the one I love. Gage falls to his knees, nodding up at me as he tips over, facedown as Paragon sucks him into a watery grave, and I leave him there. He won’t die. He can’t. There’s no stopping the monster he’s become.
It takes everything in me to stagger toward the edge of the woods, and I stop. My head drops to my knees as I let out a ferocious cry. There is no debate. I run back and pull Gage from the muddy pit, turn him over, and let the rain wash him anew. The clean slit in his throat bleeds profusely. Blood he doesn’t really need. His eyes flutter open, his lips twitch a smile as I bow down and land a chaste kiss over his lips.
I still love you, Gage. I’m so very sorry that I still love you.
I turn to leave, and his hand hooks into the back of my belt. Gage pulls me over him and wraps his arms around me. Water pools in those blue eyes I’ve been mesmerized by from the moment they first glanced my way. Gage holds me tight, warms me with his quivering body.
Help your people, Skyla. They need you. You don’t need me. You will never need me again. This is hurting you. I know that. But this has killed me, the only true part of me that can die. He gives me a firm shove, and I slip back into the slimy waters. It was an ugly confession on his part, and both of us know it will never be true.
I crawl on all fours until I come upon Coop, and he helps me to my feet. I work alongside both Cooper and Logan until we contain all the Spectators we can. An entire swarm of first responders have created a triage unit at the front of the house. It’s just minutes before they find us, find out who we are and what we’re capable of. Not even I understood that fully until tonight.
Marshall and Delphinius help transport the Spectators to Tenebrous.
Ingram is incensed. “We can’t hold them. They’ll roam free, Skyla. There is no prison that can subdue these creatures,” he wails into the tenebrous night that gives this haunted place its moniker.
Tenebrous holds the tenuous scent of rotting flesh, of constant ash and burning, of hell. I look to Marshall and Delphinius.
“I’ll need an electric fence.”
Marshall wipes his brow. His flesh is caked in dirt, his clothes in tatters, and it breaks my heart to see him like this. His love for my people shone brighter than the sun tonight, and I will never forget the lines he crossed to help us.
“No, Skyla.” Marshall looks defeated, and that alone frightens me more than anything. “That fence had the power to hold them for a moment. You have no choice but to give them Tenebrous.”
“No.” Gage has taken everything from me tonight. Tenebrous is mine. “There’s a place a couple miles from here. It’s a portal to another realm. The heat will incapacitate them.”
“They will assimilate to the heat.” Marshall’s lips curl to the side. “I know the location well enough. Perhaps there is a hedge I can utilize.”
Logan gives my hand a tug, and I hadn’t even noticed he was holding it. “Let’s do it.”
Marshall and Delphinius help herd the masses, hoping to tire them out from the long trek over. The stench of rot fills our nostrils, putrid and sour, the heat, hotter than an oven.
“Stay back,” Marshall orders, Logan, Coop, and me to wait by the woods while he and Delphinius land the mass of moving barbarians to the plateau of blackened earth that surrounds the crater a few miles out. We watch with morbid fascination as lava spews into the air, screams of terror shooting into the sky right along with it. Marshall and Delphinius hold their hands to heaven and shout a melodic prayer. It sounds hauntingly lovely, a command and a plea at the very same time. A burst of light flashes, then disappears as quick as it came, then another and another like a succession of fireworks going off in the sky. A sizzling of electrical currents rattles through the air. A flash of lightning comes to life, and it lingers. Another flash appears, then another, braiding themselves together before forming a ring that runs like a racehorse around the circumference of that infernal landscape. Tenebrous illuminates a cool shade of lavender, so beautiful, so stunning with its interlaced fence of fire, I memorize it so I can gaze upon its beauty later.
Coop and Logan break out into a weak applause. Their bloodied faces tell the story of how hard they fought, of how exhausted they are. Logan’s shirt is dark in one corner, and I work my fingers over the buttons to reveal a bullet hole just below his arm.
“You’re hurt,” I cry out as if it were a betrayal, second of the night.
Coop takes an unsteady step forward to examine it and collapses over him as Logan and I do our best to hold him up.
Instinctually, I close my eyes and will us to Paragon, to the hospital where the two of them belong, but my powers are impotent, my muscles shaking as if mocking me for the effort.
“Marshall!” I shrill, and just like that, we’re in the emergency room, every last inch of it already flooded with bodies. The night is about to get a hell of a lot longer.
My God, how I hate this place but, right about now, I could kiss the floor.
* * *
The stark hallways of the emergency room are lined with bodies writhing over gurneys, blood on the floors, the walls, the ceiling as I stagger my way through it. Both Logan and Coop are prepped for surgery—Logan to repair his left shoulder, and Coop to hopefully stop the internal bleeding. Brody shattered the bones in his forearm. He’s already wearing a cast when I find him. Ellis has a head wound, gauze wrapped around his skull like a halo with blood seeping by his temple. Giselle has an arm in a sling lying over her chest. She’s hyperventilating, and Ellis is kind enough to hold a bag over her mouth. She’ll be fine. Emma and Barron are already fawning over her. Half of Mia’s wedding guests have flesh wounds, all of them will live—thankfully. Revelyn Booth broke six ribs while singlehandedly rescuing a half dozen girls that belonged to Paragon’s cheer squad. One rib per cheerleader. But I’ve gravitated to
the surgery prep room once again, back to Logan and Coop.
Logan pulls me to him. His hair is matted with blood on the side, and his eyes are bright red from fatigue and most likely straining his powers all night. “Stay strong, Skyla. You look dazed. Is your hip all right?”
“Yes.” The lie comes from me catatonic. My hip is on fire. I might as well have dipped my leg into that furnace that sits in the middle of that mosh pit we landed the Spectators in.
“Okay.” Logan nods to Coop in the next bed. “Tell Barron Skyla needs him.”
“No,” I roar before he can pull out his phone.
Logan meets with my gaze, hard yet understanding. “Fine. Get Ezrina.”
Coop hikes up on his elbows and winces. “Is Ezrina okay?”
Logan shakes his head as if he wasn’t sure. “She killed at least a dozen on her own.”
“Spectators?” I marvel as if coming to.
“The Barricade.” Logan winces. “Skyla, they ate Noster for breakfast.” His voice breaks as tears fill his eyes, but his face—Logan is as frustrated as I am.
There’s a knock over the door as Brody, Ellis, and Marshall head on in.
Brody looks to Marshall as if asking permission. In his somber state, Brody looks every bit like Chloe. Lord knows I’ve seen that sour expression on her face more than once.
“What is it?” I try to take a step back, but Logan wraps his bad arm around my waist pinning me to the bed with him.
Marshall steps in, his suit still in tatters, his face covered with grime causing his blood red eyes to siren at us unnaturally. “It is done, Skyla.”
“The war is official,” Ellis says it stoic, so painfully lucid it alarms me. Ellis is a lot of things. Lucid is never one of them.
“We’ve lost Noster in great numbers.” Brody covers his face with his hand, squinting into his palm as he bucks.
“My God.” I break free from Logan’s grasp as I step numbly to the center of the room. I look to Marshall and nod. “And?” There’s more, I can feel it. The madness ricocheting through my heart demands to have it all laid out before me. “Celestra has lost its standing, hasn’t it?” I push the words past the painful knot in my throat. A part of me refuses to believe it, and yet, the truth sits over my neck like a milestone.
Marshall drops his gaze to the floor. No words. They are not needed. I press past the three of them, careen into the hall as Logan calls my name. A rush of nurses head into the room behind me, clotting the sound of his voice as I make my way to the dark gaping mouth of the exit.
Outside, the rain has ceased. The fog licks the ground, snaking through the streets and gutters. It is business as usual here on planet Earth. But my world, the Factions, we have fractured. Broken. Irreparable damage has been done. This blunder of mine will go down in the annals of Nephilim history. A silly girl gave her heart to a boy and lost an entire kingdom. What’s right is wrong. What’s up is down. I cannot trust the ground beneath me. I walk farther, faster than my body allows, floundering through the byways and highways. I have become unhinged, unmoored, floating away from the firmament I should have never let go of to begin with.
Life unspools like a dream as my feet sink into damp Rockaway sand, black as my lover’s heart. Waves crash over the shoreline, slapping down one horrific punishment after another as I wade my way into the icy water.
A strange snorting sound pulls me out of this dreamlike state. Neighing. Adrenaline surges through me once again, my body straightens. I’m all right angles as the sound turns up in volume. Slowly, I spin on my heels, and a bite of shock envelops me.
“There you are,” I whisper low, afraid the little demon will bolt from my reality.
It’s her. Sitting high on that white freckled beast with her small hands wrapped viciously around its silver mane, her miniature face looks vaguely familiar—I really can see my own features in hers, those blonde flyaway curls that might as well be my own is my so-called sister, Rory.
The horse bucks and whinnies beneath her, thrashing its neck from side to side, and she slides off his side landing over the sand with a thump.
“Can you help me? My horse is chok—”
I launch myself over her like a linebacker, tackling her to the ground as she squirms and squeals beneath me.
“Shut up!” I riot in her face. We wrestle as minutes bleed by. Her unnatural strength wins out over my weakened state until finally that blonde head of curls springs forth, knocking her forehead into mine with such violent force an explosion of pain vibrates through me. My vision blurs, a rush pumps through me, so fantastically sublime I almost allow myself to succumb to the heavy tug of sleep pulling me under. But the boys buoy to the forefront of my mind—my Faction, my people—and I ignite back to life, effectively pinning her to the ground, her fragile arms splayed out, partially buried in the sand. A butterfly on a wax board.
“There.” Her voice warms to something far more mature than her miniature frame dictates. Her eyes close as her body shifts beneath me changing shape, changing size until I’m holding down a mirror version of myself, my mother, Mia. Her eyes blink open, two milky opals shining iridescent under the frail light of the moon.
“Who are you?” I marvel, my hands still holding her down with all the human strength I can muster.
“I told you.” The sound of my own voice comes back to me. “I was our parents’ first child. Father loves me.” She pushes me off her with no effort at all, and I take an inadvertent seat in the sand. “I lived and died in our mother’s womb. The span of my earthly existence—twenty weeks. They tried again and out you came, roaring like a rock star ready to turn this spinning marble on its ear.” Her face reddens, and her eyes fill with tears.
“Why didn’t you come to me sooner? Why are you here now?” None of this makes sense. “Why have you haunted me all these months? Did it bring you some sick sense of joy?”
“Yes.” Her voice cuts through the night like the snapping of a branch. “It brought me pleasure to see you suffer. I could have done this, Skyla. Logan would have been mine. I would never have been swayed by something as ridiculous as dimples.” She averts her eyes, and something in me warms toward her. In this minute span of time that I’ve known her, she comes off as a perfect combination of my mother and me. A little Candace Messenger, a pinch of Skyla. Creepy as Candace, frustrated as Skyla. That just might be Rory in a nutshell.
“I want to like you”—I moan up at the starless sky—“but you chose a terrible night for introductions. I’ve lost my—”
“Standing. Yes, I realize this.” Her eyes graze over me with a prickling of hostility. “You lost more than you know.”
I meet with her gaze, unsure if I should probe her.
“Our mother doesn’t share every little morsel with you, my sister. She never will.” There’s a stabbing truth in her caustic tone, and I believe this with all of my being.
“Who will tell me the truth?” I lift my chin with a dare.
“Not I, Skyla.” She shakes her head just enough. “I learned a long time ago that you do not get in our mother’s way.” She crawls over and lands an arm around my shoulders, her face just inches from mine. “The Barricade and the Fems rejoice this night. They will celebrate with dancing, feasting, losing themselves in the revelry.” A tear rolls down her face as she looks to the angry sea.
“I don’t accept this outcome.” It comes from me lower than a whisper. “Nothing is finite. My people and I will rally. We were hit below the belt, but we won’t let this stop us.”
“You don’t have people anymore, Skyla.” My mother’s voice resonates from behind, and we turn to find her body, her hair radiating a soft glow that enchants the world around us. And now here we are, in triplicate. A trio of trouble. “Not many people,” she continues. “Almost none at all. There’s been a mass exodus. The Retribution League was drained. The Barricade soars. People are fearing for their very lives, and they have chosen the safety that your so-called husband and his wicked brother have promi
sed them. The Barricade has grown in number and you, my dear, have fallen. And in doing so, you’ve threatened my very existence. Every Sector in the universe is hot with rage. We are incensed, but we are not surprised. We are disappointed, but we are not defeated. The end is not yet. Rise, my daughter. Rise.”
Rory helps me to my feet, and my mother steps over to the two of us. Her hand quickens hot and aggressive over my cheek first before striking my sister with the other.
“Skyla, regroup, realign yourself. Deny that Fem you chose to side with, and I will restore your powers. You will have my full backing, along with the Sectors. I will aid in restoring your people’s faith in you once again before your seat can ever hope to be recovered.” She glowers over at the girl by my side, our mirror image. We are an unnerving sight even to ourselves. “And you, Aurora. You couldn’t leave well enough alone. You weren’t meant for the planet.”
“I was meant for the planet.” Her chest bucks. “It was your standards I didn’t meet.”
“You were a bodily malfunction—of your own. I could no more hurt my own child than I could my own life. The Master doesn’t allow for it. When will you ever comprehend that? I never rejected you. Your purpose was complete when He called you home. But your obsession with your sister knows no ends. She is not your replacement, Rory. She is not your better. She simply is. Sometimes in life, you simply have to accept the circumstances.”
“She says my father loves her.” I shrug. “Why would you keep my sister from me?”
“Skyla.” Candace winces. “These are matters of the afterlife. None of this is for you to bear on Earth. Don’t trust her, Skyla.” She inches threateningly toward the girl next to me. “She is cunning as she is quick—as bitter as she is dead.” Candace takes up my hands, those luminescent eyes of hers radiating love into mine, hot as a funeral pyre. “You will live and die by what you know to be true, what is right, what is just to your people, Skyla. The heart is a fickle beast who moves like shifting shadows, who turns whichever way the winds of lust will take it. Once you realize this, and you will one day very soon, you will make the right choices. The tide will turn. You will come to be who you truly are—you will leap into your destiny, full flight.” Her attention shifts to Rory. “Be gone, child.” She lifts a finger, and my sister is quick to bury her mouth in my ear.