Expel

  “What?” I’m dying here.

  “She thinks you may have manipulated the situation a bit, to get even with your mother for remarrying Tad.” He hits the airbrakes with his free hand. “I set her straight.”

  “How pray tell? By way of the truth?” I totally didn’t manipulate the situation but since the situation arose, I’m rather glad to detract from any farce that includes the glorification of Taddy dearest—especially since it involves yet another sacred union between him and my mother.

  “Yes.” Gage hypnotizes me with his ironclad gaze. “I told her I’m madly in love with you. And, if one day you would honor me by deciding to stand by my side for the rest of our lives, then, yes, we should very much celebrate that fact.”

  “Aw,” I jump up on the balls of my feet and glide a wet kiss off his lips.

  “That, and I told her about the Fem.”

  I smack him in the chest as we head into second.

  ***

  Marshall radiates a quiet repose. He bleeds most of the hour with a dry routine, espousing numbers, letters, and formulas as though he were reading a recipe from the back of a box, not his usual engaging demeanor. During the final ten minutes, he stares blank and wide in my direction as though he were looking through me, but the explosion of lust emanating from his being suggests he is rather focused on my person.

  He hands a couple of students a stack of graded papers to pass out and takes a seat on the corner of his desk, openly pillaging me with a come hither look in his eye.

  Chloe raises her hand, clears her throat to get his attention.

  “Hands down.” He doesn’t bother breaking contact with me to reprimand her, doesn’t blink, just takes me in, absorbs every nuance. I can feel something shifting, crackling down on a molecular level. He’s calling me, encoding himself into my genetic design, grafting his soul onto mine. A strange pull takes over and I want to suction to him like a magnet. I seal my fingers over the rim of my desk and hang on, try to stop myself from doing something foolish like falling on my knees before him, begging him to take me in front of the entire class and Gage.

  Ellis swivels in his seat. “I’m, like, really tripping out right now,” he gives a low guttural laugh. His eyes shine glassy pink.

  I try to revert my energy to Ellis, his perfectly straight nose, his small bowtie lips, but I snap back to Marshall and gasp. Marshall has become a full glorious breath in an oxygen-deprived world. This spell—this bondage he’s placed me in is far too strong to ignore, and nothing in me wants to ignore anything about Marshall right now. Oddly, it doesn’t feel like I’m being controlled, it feels genuine and right.

  I can feel Gage shifting from behind—the tension rising like mercury in the desert. “You have five fucking seconds to knock this shit off.” He booms over to Marshall.

  The entire class takes in a collective gasp and turns towards Gage, but I can’t pry my eyes off Marshall. I’m so close to giving in, going over and drinking down a warm pool of kisses straight from his mouth.

  Marshall’s lips curl into me. His chin dips into his chest while he molds my body with his eyes.

  Gage spikes out of his seat, bullets to the front of the class. He picks up the metal stool Marshall usually lounges on and launches it out the back window at superhuman speeds—nearly decapitating the entire third row in the process.

  A growl of thunder rolls into the classroom, accompanied with a hurricane level wind.

  Gage clocks Marshall onto the floor and the two of them roll around like tigers, nothing but fists, a tangle of legs moving so fast I can’t tell which is which.

  Ellis and a couple of other guys struggle to pull them apart.

  Marshall pats his lip with the back of his hand and examines the crimson stain on his flesh before staggering to his feet.

  “Your stay here,” Marshall seethes into Gage, “has just been markedly reduced.”

  The bell rings.

  “Take him directly to principal Rice. Inform her of the attack and let her know we’ll need the windows boarded up at once.” Marshall waves them off as they speed Gage out the door.

  “He’s going to kill Gage because he loves you,” Chloe whispers the words in my ear like a necrotic poem. “The only thing better than me never having Gage is you never having him. All’s well that ends well,” she drips like a song.

  I’m probably going to kill Chloe—and Logan is already dead.

  Marshall and I will be the last ones standing.

  Dear God.

  What if that was the plan all along.

  Chapter 72

  Oblivion Express

  Marshall darts a look in my direction and I find myself walking mechanically beside him down the hall.

  “I demand an explanation,” my voice hits a baritone that’s unrecognizable, the walls wobble and quiver until they resize themselves, white and vacant.

  I give a hard blink before realizing we’re continuing our fervent gait while tucked neatly away in the Transfer.

  “Holy crap!”

  “Language,” he barks, continuing his stride until we hit a corridor with a blue tint.

  “What the hell just happened back there?”

  “You mean the indescribable feelings of pleasure you just experienced for yours truly?” His lips curve with the hint of a maniacal smile.

  “Yes,” I grip him by the shirt and cease us in our tracks. “Did you put a spell on me?”

  “I don’t consort to witchcraft, it’s the devil’s way of dealing. I am a holy being, I assure you, through and through.” He caresses my cheek with the back of his hand. “I merely called forth your feelings for me—demanded they surface and magnify themselves for us both to witness. It was a thing of beauty, Skyla,” he says it breathless. “It was a roll call of your deepest desires and now I know there is a place in your heart for me no matter how insistent you are to deny it—no matter how hard you try to bury it.”

  He takes up my hand and walks us into the Count body containment facility brimming with human fishbowls as if the oral exchange never took place. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to get into a debate with Marshall over my feelings for him, especially not while I’m at his mercy locked in the Transfer.

  I try not to look at the floating limbs, the dead faces staring back at me from inside those tubes, the hands pressed against the glass as if begging for a way out.

  He speeds us quickly towards the rear, where, hanging on a lone metal pole is a navy dress with what looks like upholstery tacks trimming the bottom and the top. It’s a short dress—very short dress, as in you-will-share-your-underwear-super-short-hoochie-mama, run of the mill slut attire. I flip it around to reveal a giant bow which I surmise will sit squarely over my bottom. My fingers inspect the metal rivets, run over them in anticipation of what they might mean.

  “You’ll trap him in this?” I pet the gown that will inevitably hem Logan onto my person like a garment.

  “Appealing to you—isn’t it.” It sounds almost accusatory.

  “Yes, getting my friend back means everything to me.”

  “Friend?” Marshall balks. “It’s me, Skyla. You never need to depreciate your true feelings about people around me.”

  “Can you appreciate how I’m feeling about you right now?” I seethe. “I didn’t care for that stunt you pulled back in class and don’t try to turn it around and say it had anything to do with my feelings. You know darn well it was a setup to piss off Gage.”

  “Infuriating Jock Strap was a perk.” A simple smile adorns his face as he folds his hands before him.

  “Are you going to kill Gage?” There it is, my biggest fear. He’s already done it to Logan.

  “Logan died at the hands of another. I assure you my payment for the spirit sword incident was usurped that night. I sent the wolves, Skyla, but it was too late.”

  “So you’re not through with him.” I finger the gown. “You want me to bring him back so you can kill him again.”

  “Nonsense. Why do for myse
lf what I could have you do for me?”

  “Very funny.” If pissing me off is Marshall’s goal he’s achieving it masterfully.

  “That’s precisely what I was experiencing less than an hour ago.” Marshall is making it clear he can read my mind down here. “Forty minutes straight, he copulated with you—nothing but a fornicating bonanza right there in my presence.”

  “Logan?”

  “The genital support you harbor by your side at all times.”

  “Gage?” My mouth falls open. “You were listening in on his thoughts?”

  “He was brutalizing me with fantasies of sexual savagery with my future wife!” He cuts the air with his tongue.

  I grab a hold of Marshall by the shirt and pull him in. A fine pleasant wave washes through me, fulfils the longing I had when he was holding me steady in his unwavering trance.

  “Maybe I will love you one day, but today you drifted us away from that horizon ever so slightly. Each time you’re cruel to Gage—to Logan, you drive me further and further away from you. And maybe I will lose my mind and marry you but I will be Gage’s wife before I ever will yours. You keep your threats and your bully-like ways the hell away from the people I love.”

  I speed out of the room and head out into the bowels of the Transfer.

  I’m going to see Logan—tell him all systems are go.

  I’m killing him next week at prom.

  ***

  I walk the cobbled streets outside of the Transfer with all eyes roving over me as if I were a billboard. I manage to keep a safe distance from the long departed souls that descend in my direction, and I can’t help but shake the feeling I’m about to be pounced from behind. Maybe leaving Marshall in such a huff wasn’t the greatest idea. It never seems to be a stroke of brilliance to have Marshall pissed at me, even if I am perennially ticked off at him. He means well, he’s just a brute beast when it comes to any hope of attaining my love.

  I pause before taking another step and take in the majesty of the tall wrought iron fence stretching its arms out to heaven as if begging God for mercy.

  Marshall loves me. It dawns on me for the very first time. I saw it in his ferocity when he induced Gage into a fit of wrath.

  I take a breath at the thought. A vibration of laughter runs through me. All this time, I thought I was a pawn, a chess piece Marshall tinkered with to position at his leisure, to place in peril at his amusement, someone to exploit sexually if given the opportunity—but it’s real. It’s always been real.

  A pale illumination dances on the periphery of the building. I turn quickly and gasp anticipating the worse, but there’s nothing. The crowd continues to swell around me. I pick up speed and bolt to the oversized porch.

  Skyla.

  My name whispers from the outskirts of the ghostly assembly. A tuft of burnt coral hair rises from behind a group of women in ragged hoop skirts, their entire person clear as cellophane. From behind the fence he stares back at me, same bloodied clown that appeared in the mirror.

  “Shit!” I struggle to open the door. The knobs twist loose but the door doesn’t give. It’s jammed or locked or broken.

  The crowd filters onto the porch and bodies press against me every bit as real as anyone on Paragon pretends to be. Long dead hands prod my ribs, touch my hair, a strange electrical current surges through me as one of the women lays her cheek next to mine.

  I let out a scream and kick into the door. It rumbles and creaks as I release my aggression over it. The crowd gasps. A woman sticks her nose to mine, and I bat her away, her skin a strange shade of grey as rows of papery wrinkles enwreathe her eyes.

  The crowd parts swift as the Red Sea as the clown Fem moves between them.

  “No,” I whisper, rattling the handle, pressing and pulling, begging it to open.

  “Excuse me?” His voice elongates unnaturally, eats away at my eardrums, corrosive as battery acid. I give a quick glance over my shoulder.

  He’s here.

  My breathing grows erratic, pulsates out of control along with my racing heart.

  He’s going to touch me. I can’t do this. I pound into the door—kick at it until the wood groans and cracks from under the pressure.

  A hand glides over my shoulder, pale with dirty fingernails. The putrid stench of death spikes through my nostrils.

  I crash into the seam of the door with my shoulder.

  “I can set you free,” it vocalizes in a strange manner, like an animal that was trained to mimic the words without fully understanding the meaning behind them.

  “Marshall,” I bleat out in a panic. The door gives beneath the weight of my body, and I burst into the cool unwelcoming arms of the dungeon-like mansion. I slam the door shut behind me like a reflex, yank over a cumbersome end table with carved cherubs at the base and use it to seal off the entry. A steady series of knocks erupt from the other side.

  An echoing laughter, dark and sinister comes from the elongated hall before me. The flickering candles expose a pale shadow, the Fem appears locked in a death grimace as he staggers towards me.

  “Logan!” I scream, running down the hall. The heavy rhythm of the piano strums through the walls. My feet vibrate with the hard ragtime music until I hit the bloated door just outside his room. “Logan!” It comes out like a cat on fire as I pound, and kick, and rattle the knob.

  The clown Fem progresses in my direction. He strums his fingers against the wall, whispers something melodic in a language I don’t recognize.

  “Logan,” I press my back to the door and watch frozen with fear as the clown reaches up to his forehead, runs his fingers down over his nose—his neck, causing his flesh to part like a zipper. His head splits in two, sags to the side like a Halloween costume revealing new flesh, the color of life underneath. A shock of inky dark hair, arrogant eyes reveal someone hauntingly familiar—Demetri.

  The door opens up and I fall backwards into Logan’s waiting arms.

  He slams the door shut and locks it.

  Logan wraps his arms around me, holds me for hours, days, weeks. I press my face into his chest and don’t let go. Logan is a fortress. I can feel his affection washing over me in warm satisfying waves.

  “He won’t hurt you, Skyla,” he gives it all in one hot whisper. “I will never let him.”

  “I wish there were a way to get rid of him, destroy him.”

  “There is,” Logan cradles my cheeks in his hand and presses a kiss to my forehead. “And that’s what we’ll do.”

  Chapter 73

  Torment in the Transfer

  Logan suggests we take a walk.

  We head outside the same way I came in. Although this time it’s uneventful in nature, no sign of Demetri the cowardly clown, and we draw no interest from the throngs of people walking arm in arm, rushing around like an army of hungry ants.

  “My Mom thinks I’m engaged,” I say, studying the fat low hanging moon. The purple night sky illuminates in pink and iridescent blues, so reminiscent of the Soulennium it must all be related somehow, but how and why?

  “Are you engaged?” He asks, hushed, as if he were on the verge of making a grand discovery.

  “Maybe,” I shrug into it. I’d hate to deny anything about Gage, even if we’re not at that point yet.

  I tell him about the Fem that’s been following me, the strange sight of it unzipping itself, revealing Demetri underneath.

  “It’s symbolic. They want you to fear him most.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Fems, Sectors, your mother. It could be anybody.” Logan wraps an arm around my waist as we head off the cobbled path. We take off towards a large lake, black as oil with a set of peaceful waterfalls that release into it at the far end. “Does this look familiar?” He tilts into me. The moon kisses him with its lavender beams, accentuates his perfectly carved features and blesses that hint of a smile Logan always saves for me. “Three falls. Marsh to the left.”

  “Oh my, God,” I breathe. “It’s a replica of the Falls of Virtue
.”

  “That’s right.”

  We sit on a mound of soft grass, blades as thick as fingers. Logan pulls me in and we watch the water shed into the thirsty mouth of the lake, steady as tears. The ground beneath us rises and falls as if the hill we were sitting on was the furry back of some mythological creature, ready to rouse from hibernation. “It’s OK.” Logan rubs his hand up and down my arm.

  “I think Marshall’s in love with me,” I say it weak.

  “You’re just now figuring this out?” He pulls a wry smile.

  “He’s totally convinced we’re going to marry. There’s no doubt in him, he just accepts it like it were the truth.”

  Logan inches his head back at the thought.

  “I had this dream,” he shakes his head.

  “I think I know.”

  “You too?”

  “I had a vision with Gage,” I take a breath. “And with Marshall.”

  “Of me?” His eyes glint in the light. He tucks his chin and tries to hide the smile that wants to erupt in victory. “You were so beautiful.”

  I had never seen the way I looked in any of those visions.

  “You saw it through a different perspective,” I whisper.

  “I saw it through my eyes,” he holds my gaze strong as steel. “You were walking towards me.”

  “You think it’s a prophecy?”

  “I know it.”

  “It’s probably like the one Gage had.” I stop shy of saying it was taken out of context. Saying those words out loud would be rebuking the idea of me ever marrying Gage and that’s one idea I’ll never shoot down. I don’t care how many orators or prophetic visions try to get in my way. Gage and I are going to have our forever. It’s coming. I can feel it.

  Logan rattles my hand playfully, gives a halfhearted smile letting me know he heard everything.

  “I’m going to get you back, Skyla.” His chest expands with assurance. “I know something else, something that makes dying and living in this hellhole worth every painful minute.”