The world around us darkens a notch. The lights are already out in my heart. Wes is right. I can’t have Skyla ever again. Once she knows the truth, her love for me will buoy past her people. The truth has damned us. It’s better we suffer a short while than give up forever. Not to mention the fact Skyla’s love for Dudley will place her in an impossible situation. Hell, we’re already in one. No, if Skyla doesn’t hate me already, then she needs to. No matter what happens, I need to turn her affection as far away from me as possible. It’s the only way she’ll hold her own. She won’t win—but that’s not the point. I could never ask her to deny her people.
This pain, this newfound ache will be mine to bear. Even in eternity I won’t forgive myself for what I’ve done. I did love Skyla’s people as my own. Still do. And I’ll admit to myself that I love Dudley. There. I said it. I do. The thought of sealing his fate in such a barbaric way makes me want to find a better solution to this hellish dilemma. Perhaps that’s what I should do—devote my days to finding a better way, any other damn solution will do.
Demetri steps out into the night, joining us in the smothering mist, his smile widening as he takes us both in.
“My sons. We have it all.” He looks to me. “I promise you the world and all your heart desires. And just as your brother has had his heart restored, I promise you the same. You will have Skyla again. And you will be whole. The Fems are forever in your debt. The world will taste our victory.”
He’s just listed off so many nightmares I don’t know which one to fixate on first.
“I have to go.” I take off, evaporating before I ever reenter that haunted house of his.
“Where to?” Wes shouts.
“There’s someone I need to talk to.”
My body appears fully formed in front of the exact door I had envisioned, and I give a swift knock. The victory was empty and shallow. Simply a means to an end.
I have lost all control.
I stepped out of my mind a long time ago.
I’m here to lay down what’s left of my sanity.
I’m giving up the fight.
Logan
I swing the door open and find him there, unshaven, slightly disheveled, completely out of his fucking mind.
“Gage Oliver, I never knew you.”
His eyes close a moment as he scratches the back of his neck. “Can I come inside?”
“If I say no, will you kill me?” I swing the door wider and invite him in with a wave of my hand. “The funerals run all next week. But then, you probably won’t show for those. It’s poor couth to mourn the ones you slaughtered. Skyla says it was point-blank to the head. Nice to know you believe in humane execution.”
“I didn’t want to kill them.”
“And I don’t want to hear it.” My entire body wrenches as I slam the door behind us. “Hell, if you want to—spill it.”
“I can’t tell you why I did it.” Gage heads deep inside and leans against the kitchen counter, facing me with that heavy-hearted face he’s worn as a badge for so long. I’m familiar with all of his moods and temperaments. Not once did I ever believe he was capable of murdering innocent people in cold blood then feeding them to mutants. His lips jerk as if he’s holding back a flood of emotions. “Have you seen her?”
“Yes, I’ve seen her.” It comes out incredulous. “You destroyed her. She’s devastated. You wrecked the woman you swore to love and protect.”
His chest bucks hard as tears stream down his cheeks. Gage nods as if accepting this, wipes his face clean as if denying the tears.
“They teach you that in Heartless 101 over at Edinger U? Ignore your feelings, they’ll only kill you in the end. Kill or be killed. That’s your new motto, right?”
He gives a long blink. “Not true.”
“Then what’s the truth, Gage?”
He studies me a moment as if wagering whether or not I can take it. “I love Skyla.” He swallows hard. “But this isn’t our time.” His lips pull down hard. “It’s come and gone.”
“Is this the part where you try to hand her to me like a baton? Because we’ve gone down this road before and I’m done with it.”
Skyla was never meant to be his, but I don’t have it in me to gut him like a fish. I should, but I can’t seem to do it. He’s still Gage. The boy who became my brother. The one I still love as such. He always will be.
But who the hell have we become to him? Whatever happened to all that I’m going to love your people bullshit?
I launch at him, knot his shirt into my fist, and pull him to me, nose to nose. “Why the hell are you fighting so hard?” I grit it through my teeth. None of this makes sense on paper, and he knows it. He’s keeping something from me—a much darker truth he doesn’t trust me with.
He pushes my hand from his chest and sinks against the counter once again. Gage stares me down for an inordinate amount of time. It’s clear I’m not getting my answer. Not now, maybe not ever.
He nods to the television, his eyes never straying from mine. “You mind if I hang out and watch TV?” Gage is clawing for normalcy, for a sliver of who we used to be, and my heart breaks. I’m gutted, destroyed as effectively as my people. But I can’t deny him. Not this, not now.
“Sure.” I nod as I stare into this new version of my nephew. “You know I’m always going to love you. I’m always going to be there for you. I know who you really are—the deepest part. The nexus of your soul—the part that Demetri or Candace can never penetrate. I know who you are deep down, and I will never stop believing in you. This mask, this puppet you’ve become—I see right through it. You are parading around under the guise of wickedness for your boys, and strangely I feel like you’re doing it for Skyla, too. But if you can hear me, really hear me, know that I will spend my life, my afterlife, fighting to get you back. I will pull you from this dark sea they have plunged you in. I will rescue you no matter what the cost. I’m doing it for you. For me. For Skyla. The three of us have a bond. Our souls are seared over one another forever. Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
“Ecclesiastes 4:12.” He holds out a hand and I slap it, pulling him into a hard embrace. Gage and I lose it. A watershed of tears, of sorrow and relief.
“The storm may be upon us, but we will arrive safely to the other side.”
He pulls back. “You really think so?” The muscles in his jaw pop as if girding himself for the answer.
“I know so.”
A flood of relief washes over him as he takes a deep breath. “You wouldn’t happen to have a beer to go with that movie, would you?”
“I’ve got a six pack with our names on it.”
We settle in front of the television and watch the stupidest shit. Ellis swings by and joins us. He lights one up, and neither of us stops him. And when he passes it our way, we don’t refuse it either.
I think we need it to take the edge off, to say fuck you to the present. To mellow us the hell out.
If I close my eyes, it’s easy to pretend the three of us are back at Emma and Barron’s, back before Skyla graced us with her presence on the island. If I could go back and talk to those boys, I don’t even know what I would say. You can’t change the past. That much I know is true.
You can never go back.
But I’ll be damned if I don’t try to mold the future into the way it should be. And I will.
I will make the future my beautiful, beautiful bitch.
Fate has left me no choice.
Wesley
Spending every day with Laken, with a victory for the Barricade under my belt, is far more than I could have dreamed merely a year ago.
“Come here, beautiful.” I pull Laken over me in our bed, my arms encircling her body tight like a seat belt. Laken let me know that she’s not thinking about her relationship with Cooper until after the holidays. But I’ve got a lock on her heart. She’s demonstrated that to me night after night. Sorry, Coop. You don’t win the war
for Laken’s heart. Not now, not then. At least that’s what I’d like to believe. It’s easy to believe your own lies when there’s no one there to contest them—another entirely when there’s Laken in the balance.
Laken nuzzles into me. “I can’t believe Charlie and Eli turn three months this week. Three months! Where did the time go?” The moonlight washing over her reveals the tears in her eyes.
“Are you ready for another one?”
Laken tips her head back and laughs, her full breasts bouncing softly between us. “You are insane, Wesley.”
“I’ve heard worse.” I give her thigh a quick pinch. Eli cries from down the hall, loud and piercing. I always hold my breath and count the seconds it takes Kresley to retrieve him. She’s a good mother. Doting and loving, something I wasn’t quite expecting. She worships that child, and it’s refreshing compared to the attention poor Tobie receives from her mother. But Laken. She’s the prize, and both Charlie and I have her. The crying stops cold, and I take another breath.
“I was thinking”—Laken shifts uncomfortably, and I stop breathing once again—“relax, Wes. I’m not going anywhere.” Her affect falls like maybe she is, or has emotionally. Cooper has been relentless in his pursuit of her. And ever since the night of our greatest victory, she’s been stirring for him. She doesn’t need to say it, I can feel it and so can he. The slow turning of Laken’s heart has begun, and I’ll do anything to keep her heading in my direction. “What I was going to say is, I think Tobie should be in pre-school come next September. That gives us less than a year to—”
“Shop for a home on Paragon.” A grin spreads wide on my face as I finish the thought. “I’m all in. We’ll live behind the gates.”
“I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.” She takes a bite out of my bottom lip and wraps her legs around me.
Laken is a wild tigress beneath the sheets, the initiator, the instigator, the one who takes control and calls the shots, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
But I can feel us growing apart. No more Mr. Nice Guy. The Fems are on top. Laken must stay with me for her own protection. We’re family now. We always have been, and I don’t intend to sever that bond.
Laken pulls back and cradles my face in her palm. “I love you, Wesley.” Her brows furrow as if she were begging me to believe it. And I try, I really, really try.
Laken kisses me deeply. The hint of sorrow and regret emits from her, and I can’t deny it. I’ll have to fight harder. I’ll have to slit the throat of anyone who tries to come between us. I’m sorry, Coop. I never meant for this to turn fatal.
I’ve killed far more people for less offenses. I would watch the world burn for Laken.
The sun will never set on the two of us again.
Laken loves me.
Thank God it’s the truth.
6
Ever After
Skyla
* * *
The day my boys turned one I reveled in the milestone, ached for the newborns who had grown up so very quickly but embraced my precious family, blooming and prospering right where we were planted. This year my rambunctious angels turn two. Where has the time gone? I wonder if every year thereafter will skip by with such velocity. I would do anything to hold onto them, hold onto who we were. We were so very precious. If I could freeze time forever, I would. It wouldn’t be this day, though. It would never be anywhere near this day, my twenty-second birthday—which also happens to fall on Thanksgiving this year. It’s fitting, of course. I’m thankful for the boys. Nathan is officially two today, and Barron will have to wait until after midnight to enjoy his birthday right along with his father. Gage and I always loved celebrating our birthdays together. Or at least I thought. Everything I thought I knew turned out to be one cruel illusion. Everything I once thought was unbreakable is breakable. Everything I was sure about I’m suddenly so very unsure.
Downstairs Mia and Melissa worked tirelessly to festoon the house and yard with choo-choo train themed decorations. The boys’ obsession with that giant blue train with a face knows no bounds. Mom said she’d help me take them to Seattle in a few weeks, and we can all ride a real train together.
Thanksgiving is more or less taking a back seat to the boys’ birthday party. The feast, of course, has still been carefully curated by Em and my mother. Emily refuses to cook anything with a face, so the turkey itself was left to Mom to destroy. She’s pretty much got a lock on that department.
As for me, I’ve been in another world entirely. I would have let this day slide by with a whimper if my family didn’t pick up the slack. I haven’t been to a grocery store in weeks. The farthest I’ve traveled is from my bedroom to the kitchen.
The last few weeks, I haven’t exactly been taking the boys out to explore the world beyond the borders of our bedroom. So I look forward to getting back into the swing of life even if it means putting on a mask and offering the world the illusion of sanity on my part. In my defense, it’s been raining furiously with no signs of letting up. It’s been raining in my bedroom as well—tears all day, all night, furiously with no signs of letting up. My world had fractured. The before and after. Originally, the before and after had concerned Gage and his death—his miraculous resurrection. But this new trauma far exceeds the former by a long shot.
He hasn’t called. I haven’t called. Emma takes the boys once a week to the library, and Gage goes with them. This is the new us. The new normal. Nothing is the same. Nothing is normal.
“Skyla!” My mother catches me by the arm as I hit the bottom of the stairs. “The guests are here.” She shakes her head at me, her hair a vibrant shade of red, her eyes bright and lively. Tad is still under suspension as far as Raven’s Eye is concerned, but Demetri offered him work as an underling at the mansion. He’s Demetri’s new handyman at the estate and is apparently hauling in just as much as he was with the government—twice as much as he was with Althorpe. But that’s not the real reason my mother glistens like a river stone with the sun shining its warmth over her. Dominique Winters is lying low these days. It turns out, the slash of the blade I inflicted wasn’t fatal. But she’s taken a leave of absence from the Paragon social scene to heal from her unsightly wounds, thus freeing up Demetri to spend more time with my mother. Not to mention the fact my mother frequently accompanies Tad to work and hangs out with her boyfriend all day while her husband does all the grunt work. It’s quite the setup.
Dominique has dropped that nonsensical claim she had with the Justice Alliance concerning the treatment of her daughter last year when she was arrested by the feds during one of their shakedowns. It’s safe to say Dominique is rethinking her stance on me and what I’m capable of. No. Putting the white-hot spotlight of my mother’s attention over her family would not be the wisest move. Dominique is thinking twice, and so should everyone else in bed with the Barricade.
“Good, I’m glad that people are here,” I say, glancing to the family room. “Is he here?” I ask lower than a whisper, and Mom shakes her head.
“Emma and Barron are out back. They said he’s on his way.” Her lids hang low as she places a comforting arm over my shoulder. My mother is apprised of the fact Gage has crossed one serious fucking line. “It’s time to forgive and move on, Skyla. You have boys to raise together. You told me yourself the two of you could work side by side if you needed to. You were going to leave Faction business at the door, remember?”
That was before the stone, before the false promise of peace. Before almost all of Noster was slaughtered. Before I had a mass exodus of followers and hacked the Sectors off at the knees.
“I know.”
“It’s your birthday. Put on a smile for the boys as least. And be thankful I didn’t burn the turkey!” she chirps as she takes off.
I spot Marshall and head on over, braving the odd mix of friends and family. I begged my mother to keep it small, just family, but now that Mia has wedded—and bedded quite liberally and loudly—Gabriel Armistead, they’ve invited a few of their fr
iends as well as Gabe’s witch of a mother and his bitch of a sister. Carson—his skanky aforementioned sister whom I love to hate, invited her psychotic bestie, Carly Foster, who in turn invited her boyfriend, a demonic member of the Winters clan, Cash. And along with Cash, Carly has brought Lucas, the son she shares with Brody. Aside from that, it’s just a clusterfuck of people I hardly know. Thankfully, a majority of the guests are out back along with the guests of honor. Brielle bought a bounce house with all the blood money Demetri threw at her, and the kids don’t understand the concept of leaving its premises. We’ll have to toss their gifts in when it’s time to open them.
“Ms. Messenger,” Marshall greets me with a curt nod. He’s impeccably dressed per usual, although he is peculiarly comely this afternoon, that face blessed by the Master Himself, those spark plugs for eyes. His testosterone-based cologne is slightly overpowering but mingles well with the thick scent of turkey permeating the air. Marshall has a come-hitherness about him that cannot be denied and today he is resplendent in every sexual way.
“Happy birthday, beautiful.” He blesses both my cheeks with a kiss. He’s very European when it comes to garnering all the lip action he can afford. “You’re having thoughts,” he says as he pulls me in for a hard embrace. Marshall lands a brazen kiss over my lips, chaste and quick, but those orgasmic vibratronics never disappoint.