I look to Logan and Gage, but neither of them affords a clue.
“The topic today is bonds.” Marshall leans into the class as if he were bowing to the concept. “Bonds are all about attraction.” Marshall zeroes in on yours truly, and a warm sensation rises through me like a heat wave. “They’re formed by electrostatic reactions of opposite charges—opposites attract, Ms. Messenger.” He drills into me as if that were the point entirely. Of course, Marshall and I are opposites, and if I chose him it would most definitely create a scholastic outcry. “Each bond is different, there are strong bonds and weak bonds. Say, for instance if Mr. Oliver—Logan, to be clear—were to bond with Ms. Messenger at an intimate level.” He smears a tiny grin at Logan, and I can feel the blade of the guillotine ready to fall. “Let’s, for the fun of it, suggest that Logan, here, has a secret he’s harboring from Ms. Messenger. That would incredibly weaken the bond between them whether Ms. Messenger was apprised of the situation or not. Their bond would then be considered a dipole force because of its weak polarity. Now, let’s say the other Oliver, Gage, has no secret.”
I glance over at my fine-dimpled friend, and he pushes out a dry smile.
“For the sake of argument, let’s say, Gage has formed a secret-free bond with Ms. Messenger. They of course would create a much stronger union than our dear friend, Logan. The stronger bond would be referred to as a covalent, or ionic bond. Either way, Gage Oliver would be the more suitable, stable bond with which Skyla could carry on the state of her future atoms.” He offers a simple smile before reverting back to the board and jotting down hellish formulas that contain both numbers and letters.
“What the heck was that about?” I whisper to Logan. Does Marshall know Logan has a secret?
Logan glowers over at the smartass Sector, and this pleases me on some level. In a small way, I feel like Logan is being called out on his strange behavior. Although, I seriously doubt Marshall is suddenly team Gage. The only team Marshall is on is the one he’s the star of.
The hour bleeds by like a slow suicide from a thousand paperclip punctures. If I knew chemistry had the potential to be lethally boring, I would have opted to throw caution to the wind and not turn in my homework in two classes. Although, trig is totally overrated, so I don’t feel bad in the least about that. And, plus, with chemistry, Logan, Gage, and I can have all these fun study groups at their house, and we could watch movies and eat pizza all night. Of course I’ll have to spend the night—take a dip in the hot tub…
I glance over to Gage who doesn’t mind at all gloating over his peculiar celestial endorsement. I wouldn’t gloat if I were him. Marshall, more often than not, has a reversal maneuver that could flatten over Gage like a semi. In fact, I’m betting a total annihilation of both Logan and Gage from the playing field of my heart is at hand.
The bell rings, and I waste no time calling Marshall out on his manipulative ways.
“I bet you think that was funny,” I say, leaning over his desk.
“No, love, that was education. You see, with something dry like chemistry you need to make it memorable, relevant.” He nods past my shoulder, and Logan pops up beside me.
“You’re right, Dudley,” Logan spews. “I do have a secret. I’ve got a picture of you nailed to my closet that I use as a dartboard.”
“Of course, you have a picture of me. You strive to be me in every capacity.” He raises his brows over at him, not amused in the least.
“Not in every capacity.” Logan cinches his backpack over his shoulder. “Not when you dissolve to nothing right before my eyes and cease to exist. That’ll be pretty exciting, don’t you think?”
Marshall glances over at Logan with a wry smile.
“Yes, Skyla,” Marshall says it bored, sarcastic. “Fetch me the protective hedge your hedonistic ex-boyfriend gave away like some cheap carnival prize—emphasis on the ex and the boy. I’ll have you know it took me months to align the stone to perfection. The metalwork took years.”
I glance from Logan to Marshall. Something’s not right. I can’t quite peg it, but for sure something is off.
“I’ll see you guys later.” I start to walk toward the exit, toward a gorgeous smiling secret-free, Gage.
“Skyla?” Marshall calls. “How’s the bird?”
I open my mouth to say something and hold up my bandaged finger instead.
“Maybe it doesn’t like the food?” I shrug.
“Make no mistake about it,” he says, filing his papers into his briefcase, “there’s very little that bird likes.”
I turn back and find Chloe walking slowly past Gage, drooling as she struts on by. But Gage glares at her, decapitating her over and over for all of this misery.
Chloe belongs in a cage. She’s a vulture, a natural predator of all that is holy and right. And she just so happens to own the one thing that can save my favorite Sector.
Now how to get her to gift it to me…
***
After cheer, I make a quick dash home before heading to the bowling alley. I shower and change into jeans and my favorite West T-shirt, all the while enduring dirty looks from the ball of white feathers trapped in my room. Figures. Marshall would go through all the trouble of bringing my bird back to life only to have it hate me. I trample back down the stairs like thunder on my way out the door.
Tad grumbles something about the noise, and I choose to ignore it. Thank God I have a life, or I’d be relegated to listening to him complain about the most disgusting things. Like, for instance, the earwax he lamented on and on about this morning at breakfast. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, he proceeded with a little show and tell, displaying what my mother referred to as a “potato.” The last thing I want to bear witness to as I shovel eggs in my mouth is Tad and his less than hygienic farming endeavors.
“Hey.” Mom snags me as I’m about to fly out the door. “Can you wait for me? I’d love to come,” she says, plucking the baby out of his sling and pulling down his pants.
“To the bowling alley?”
“To Demetri’s. Did you forget?”
“Conveniently.”
“Well, you have to go, or he’ll be forced to report you as incomplete, and the judge will give you twice as much time.”
“Just great.” I shoot a quick text to Logan, letting him know I’ll be a little late. “Are you ready to go?”
Beau lets out a few uncomfortable grunts, and his tiny face pinches up, red as a turnip.
“What’s this, Mr. Genius?” Mom holds him in the air and wiggles him. “Do you have to eliminate your bowels?” She rubs her nose in his belly until he coos just like Snowball, and I give a satisfied smile. I haven’t exactly confessed to Mom and Tad yet about my new pet. Not that it’s a big deal. It’s in my room, and I’m the one who feeds it—my blood, but that’s beside the point.
“I’m not so sure it’s such a great idea to be calling him ‘Mr. Genius,’” I say. “It sounds sarcastic. That’s what soon-to-be ex-wives call their husbands. He’s going to grow up thinking it’s perfectly normal for people to make fun of him, only he won’t know he’s being made fun of.”
“Nonsense, Skyla.” She walks toward the bathroom. “Go on ahead. I’ll catch up later. Tell Demetri I’ve got a bun in the oven for him—buckwheat!”
I bet she’s got a bun in the oven for him—his. Maybe that will be the next tidbit of news delivered by way of potluck. Or worse, Demetri implanted her with his demonic seed without her knowing. Demetri impregnating my mother is something akin to a demonic possession. Hell, I’d welcome a demonic possession rather than have his disfigured DNA rising in her belly. In fact, I’d much rather watch Mom’s head twist off like a top than harbor Demetri’s demented genetics as a relative.
No, that would be a disaster.
Come to think of it, most things on Paragon are.
***
I drive through miles of slicked roadways as milkshake-colored streams roar down the side of the streets. The moon wanes high up above, full
and waxy, so brilliant it demands my attention.
Demetri’s overgrown haunted castle is lit up with a cheery glow. A series of pumpkins line the steps leading up to the McMansion, and I can’t help but think it makes the mausoleum look a bit homey. I bet those pumpkins are my mother’s touch. She’s already put one out in front of our house. She loves to decorate for fall, turning the entire downstairs into a tribute to all things spooky.
“Knock, knock,” I say as I head inside. It’s no use being polite. Once you kill my father, I’m through with niceties.
“Skyla!” Demetri glances past me, and his affect flattens when he sees the closed door.
“She’ll be here,” I say, moving past him. “So what did you think of the war? I bet you think the Counts will win.” A small part of me believes this, too. I may have made it to the sword of the Master, but my mother, herself, put an end to that good time before anything of significance could ever happen.
“Well done. I think you were impeccable.”
“You can stop kissing my ass.” I avert my eyes. “It’s not like my mother is here to witness it. Or wait, maybe you’re taping this, so you can play it all back later. Oh look, Lizbeth, I tried to be nice, but your daughter is just such a little bitch she wouldn’t have it.” I stick my finger down my throat and gag.
“I’m a created being, Skyla. I’m a Fem. I have the role to protect and to serve the Countenance. My goal is to help them prosper. This isn’t personal.”
“This isn’t personal?” I balk. I take him in with his dark suit, the wicked grin he wears like an accessory. I snatch a tall lead vase off the side table in the entry and smash it against the door with all my Celestra power. The crystal dissolves to shards so small it looks like powder, snow that will cut you and leave you bleeding. “When my mother gets here, you can tell her I made this mess. Tell her I said I hope it hurts crawling over to you because you were the one who sawed my family in half.”
“I never wanted to hurt Celestra.” He takes a step forward. His eyes reduce to slits. “This is my cup.”
“Well thanks a hell of a lot for forcing the rest of us to drink it. And by the way, I find this ‘I never wanted to hurt Celestra’ stuff total bullshit. You destroyed the Messenger family in the event you forgot. And speaking of bullshit, why in the hell did you do an about face and try to help me in that final region? Wait, don’t answer, I already know. Because you were hoping to God if you made amends with me, if I somehow bowed to you with gratitude, it would be the magic portal that led to the inside of my mother’s pants.” I hawk a serious ball of spit in his face, long and gangly, the kind that makes you want to puke just thinking about it. “You’re despicable.”
I head toward the long, narrow hall that leads into his haunted basement where I’m sure an entire maze of freaky shit awaits, and suddenly I’m feeling pretty bad about not letting Logan and Gage come along for the psychotic ride—and Nev who I forgot.
“Skyla.” The sound of his voice reverberates through the walls, uncomfortably loud, completely unnatural. “There are things you don’t know. I have plans for Celestra,” he shouts just as the doorbell chimes soft in the background. I can hear the door open and the bubbling laughter of my mother’s voice. I bet he zapped that vase back to perfection before he ever let her in. He’s fake that way, pretending to be whole when he’s really irrevocably broken.
Downstairs, the basement smells dank with a layer of pine-scented cleaning solution as if it were trying to mask some nefarious smell—probably an entire roomful of Celestra corpses. I wouldn’t put anything past Mr. I-never-wanted-to-hurt-Celestra. Plans for Celestra. I shake my head. I’m sure he’s got a cell in those tunnels for each and every one of us.
I pass through the room that once held miniature representations of Chloe and her family. I make my way into the room with a small-scaled version of the entire island with houses propped up on it like some demonic Christmas village. I speed through the long, narrow hall and hit the movie theater where Logan and I watched a horrific scene unfolding, Gage and me moving into a new home with no Logan in sight.
I open the door and note a bluish light filling the room, so I walk deeper into the blackened hall. It’s dark inside this narrow walkway with just a glimmer of light spraying from inside the theater. This is a penetrative darkness, one you could cut with a knife. The scent of popcorn lies thick in the air, and the hush of the carpet softens my footsteps. I peer around the walled partition to find a girl sitting alone in the center of the aisle. Her smooth black hair catches the light, and I recognize those sharp features, that permanent scowl—Chloe.
“What’s cookin’, bitch?” I plop down beside her, already aggressively pumped from my verbal exchange with Demetri. How much worse can this night get?
“You’re in a good mood.” She tilts her bucket of over-popped kernels in my direction, and I swipe a handful.
“I’m always in a good mood around you, Chloe. You bring out the best in me.” And apparently the liar.
She swallows hard with her eyes transfixed on the screen.
“This is my future, Skyla.” Her eyes stretch wide as if realizing this for the very first time.
A spray of grey and muted brown spots appear, then nothing but an arid darkness. It plays on a loop as if the reel were broken.
“Looks like the inside of a casket to me.” I shovel in a few kernels of popcorn, considering my theory. “Don’t get me excited, Chloe. I was really trying to nurse my bad mood.”
Chloe moves with the speed of a ninja and snatches at my arm, digging her nails in so hard that I’m positive I’m going to leave with puncture wounds.
“I need to see my future, Skyla,” she seethes as if I had personally screwed with the shitty footage of days not passed.
I shake my arm loose.
“If you want to get down and dirty tonight in the fight of the century, with just you and me to enjoy the view, then I’m all in.” I brace myself for an attack. I’ll pluck her eyes out first since I’ve already perfected the move several times. “Come on, Chloe.” I try and bait her. “You know you want to. After all, you have the home turf advantage.”
She huffs a laugh. “Not likely. The damn beast won’t say a word about what happens to me. It’s like a bomb goes off after prom, and I disappear just like that.”
“You mean I wait all the way until June to kill you? So not fair.”
“Do you kill me, Skyla?” She looks past me as if this were a possibility because we both so know it is.
“God, I hope so. Were you in pain? I hope I carved my initials on your chest right before I lit the match. Don’t think for a minute I forgot that you’re ultimately responsible for the death of my father. Just because you’re Demetri’s puppet master doesn’t mean you can’t share the blame.”
“He won’t do as I say.” She’s still staring off in a strangulating gaze at the side of the theater, her eyes widening in the dark, expansive as unknowable caves. “I demanded he take me to the future, and he outright refused.” She trembles with anger as the words spew from her lips. “And then he shows me this bullshit?” She shakes her head at the silver screen.
A wild idea flies through my brain.
“You know, Chloe, during the faction war it was me who Demetri was helping, not you.”
A fire brews in her eyes. Her entire person illuminates with rage in only the way that Chloe Bishop can.
“Why don’t I ask him for you?” I taunt. “I bet he’d pop that haunted DVD in right this second if I asked real nice. I bet we’d witness every single one of your Gage-free days, right down to your final hours when you call his name, and he refuses to answer.”
A sting ignites across my cheek as she releases an open-palmed slap, but I revel in it. I revel in the fact Chloe is eating a shit burger right now and having one hell of a time trying to digest it.
“I’ll tell you your life story in a single breath,” I volunteer, still nursing the side of my face. “You continue to make my life mi
serable until I find a way to hack through that chain you’ve welded on your neck. I’ve already put great thought into how I’m going to kill you the second time around. I’m going to crumble up a thousand pictures of Gage and me, happy in every single one, and I’m going to shove them so far down your throat you’ll choke to death. That’s right. You think you can hurt people in order to force them to love you, but the truth is nobody can stand you because we all see you for what you are. You’re a monster, Chloe. You suffer the worst disfigurement known to man. You have no heart.”
The room warbles, it shifts and moves in silver waves, fluid as mercury with the implications just as lethal.
Chloe latches onto me, pushing her fingers into my flesh so deep she’s become a part of me, and we fall through the inter-dimensional trapdoor, with fire and brimstone rising all around us.
I’m headed straight for hell, and I’m taking Chloe Bishop with me.
14
In the Arms of the Enemy
Chloe and I sail downward through a funnel of fire, the walls ablaze with a heat so searing I can feel the burn on my face, my bare arms sting as we enter into a never ending free fall. Chloe pulls me in and locks her arms and legs around me. I know what she’s doing—getting ready to use me as a cushion to break her fall.
We grunt and kick, fighting like hell with neither of us willing to let go of the other. It’s a wrestling match that spans dimension, time continuums, gravity.
A navy film of darkness expands at our feet as we continue to plummet like stones. Branches blink in and out of focus, gnarled and twisted, charred from the sheer horror of what they’re forced to witness. With a crash, our bodies land in a thicket of trees. Dead evergreens with pallid tendrils break our fall as Chloe and I slice down the sides of the pines until I grab onto one and jump the rest of the length to the ground, soft as a whisper.
“Shit,” she grunts, landing flat on her face. Honest to God, I half expect her nose to be molded to the side of her face from the sheer heft of her fall.