The hag opens a door in the back and shoves Skyla inside. A man, clad in black, enters the room. I disintegrate long before he could ever hope to see me and appear in the tiny holding cell where they’ve trapped Skyla.
I offer a forlorn smile as she huddles on the floor. From the tiny window, I can see them pouring a dark crimson solution into a metal tub that I can only guess is Betadine.
“They’re sanitizing it.” I meant to think it but it flew from my lips in lieu of hello.
“Gage!” She spikes up and locks her limbs around me in a death grip. I run my lips over her temple and close my eyes for a moment, wishing us both into my bedroom, but the scenery doesn’t change. Binding spirit. Skyla’s not going anywhere tonight unless they release her.
“Logan is on his way,” I whisper. I have no doubt that Nevermore went back to get him.
“Can’t you just zap me out of here?” Her forehead wrinkles as she pants into me. “I’ll believe it and everything.” She nods furtively, as if all it took was a little faith and determination.
I offer an apologetic smile. “It doesn’t work like that.” I pull out my keychain with the nine-way tools and use the pliers to cut her plastic cuffs off.
“So you can never be contained? No one can ever trap a Levatio?” Skyla is as desperate for answers as she is to get out of this hellhole. That’s what I want to be for her, an answer, a savior, something far more intimate if she’ll let me.
“Not true,” I say it softly, trying not to exacerbate her panic. “All they have to do is touch me—think of me—and I can be bound.”
Skyla touches my cheek as she struggles for words.
The door rattles to life. A plume of auburn hair rises above the window.
I need to go. If they see me, I can’t help you. I promise I’ll be right back.
She tightens her arms around me in defeat as I settle a kiss over the top of her head.
The room loses all color as the grayscale world of disorganized molecules takes over and the night sky appears up above.
I’ve landed right back on the beach, smack in front of a very naked Spencer Jameson.
21
Logan
Pushing Through
The long string of bonfires glow against the grey night like a series of miniature suns—too wonderful for the sky above Paragon to ever comprehend.
Pushing through—I don’t know what the hell the “me from the future” was talking about.
I shake my head, confused by the concept. Whatever it was seemed important, especially that last line about fighting for her—like I would ever stop. Why would I even bother to say those words? It unnerved me, pissed me off, to hear it like a threat. Skyla is mine, and Gage is just a front. I have to believe it, or I’ll going fucking insane.
A pair of long, golden legs run in this direction and a swell of relief washes over me once I realize they’re attached to the most beautiful girl in the world—Skyla.
“Hey!” I call out as I head over to meet her.
Skyla dive-bombs me, and I pull her in by the cheeks, kissing her mouth, drinking her down as if she were wine from the Garden of Eden. She curves her body into mine, and darts her tongue in and out of my mouth in a display of desolate passion. The people, the fire, the sound of the crashing waves—they melt away to another realm, one far less important than the one our love resides in.
I pull back and take her in—Skyla, in all her inordinate beauty.
She gasps for air as the panic returns to her face.
“You are not going to believe what just happened.” Her lips tremble with fear—a hum rails through her as if it were coming from her bones.
“Skyla, I know.” I hold on to her shoulders as she writhes with fear. “What you’re experiencing is called a Treble. It means this reality is temporary, and things will be changed back to the way they were before you left.”
“No!” Her body enters into a mean shiver. “Drake and Brielle are there, and I don’t know where they are.” Her teeth begin to chatter. Her entire person quivers with an intense vibration.
“Tell me something about where you are so I can find it.” I’m as panicked as she is but don’t want to show it.
“I’m underground. It’s…we drove along a bumpy road, and there was a forest.” I’ve just described all of Paragon. “Don’t you have some underground detection kit or something? It’s a facility. It has a steel table like the one in the morgue. Do something!” Skyla’s torso starts in on a slow gyration, and I secure my arms over her. “Call the police,” she cries as her flesh begins to evaporate. “Don’t let me go, Logan. I don’t want to die.”
My heart splinters. I can’t stand to see her this afraid, so I do the only thing I know—love her. I land my lips over hers, hard and greedy. Her body churns into mine, and I hook on even tighter. Skyla and I share an explosive kiss that flashes a bright visual of our future. That quick glimpse of what lies ahead was a perfect blend of ecstasy and grief. I push in harder with a viral intensity and it dawns on me that I might actually push through.
I burrow my tongue so deep inside her, I begin to disappear right along with Skyla.
Gage
I’ve never been to the Transfer before. It’s one of those rumored places that doesn’t exist on earth. It’s the fabled plane of Counts and Fems, their very own dimension, relegated for wickedness. My father once told me it could be anyplace, appear anywhere. Wherever the hell it is, I’m here trapped within its questionable fortitude and gravity.
After Spencer Jameson thrust her buck-naked body over my mine, I spontaneously evaporated in Skyla’s direction. Odd, but I’m grateful. Not that I’ll be thanking Spencer anytime soon.
I spot Logan and Skyla racing down a long, white corridor.
“Come on,” he coaxes her.
“Logan!” she screams. “We can’t just leave. Drake and Brielle are here, too.”
“I’m sensing.” Logan runs his hands over the doors and walls as he moves past them.
“Over here,” I shout.
“Gage!” Skyla swells with relief at the sight of me. Our new arrangement runs through my mind and excites me on an unnatural level.
The metal door to their left pulsates as if it’s about to bust open.
“Bree? Drake?” Skyla shouts into the seam. “We’ll get you out.”
“Back up.” Logan bears down on the doorknob until it molds to his hand, and the metal door opens as quiet as a whisper. Drake and Brielle tumble out, panting for air, looking more than slightly sexually disheveled, and I’d bet good money we interrupted an inter-dimensional hookup.
“I know the way.” Drake bolts down the hall, and we follow him over to a shaft in the ceiling. “That’s it.” He points up a good ten to twelve feet.
I don’t practice my gifts too often. I’ve stranded myself a time or two by not bothering to strengthen my teleporting abilities, but something tells me that in just a few minutes, I’m going to kick my own ass for sucking at levitating.
I hold my arms out for balance and put in my full concentration. My feet lift off the ground, soft as a feather, and to my surprise, I rise a good two feet off the floor. My body jerks unrepentantly as I crash back to the ground and my ankle twists at the base.
“Shit,” I hiss, trying to suck up the pain.
I look up at Skyla, and she offers a hypnotic smile that could have me floating ten feet off the ground without the use of my Levatio bloodlines. I need her for this. Skyla is a fuel, a pure motivator that can have me orbiting the moon in a minute with her gaze covering me like a blanket. I’m feeling pretty damn lucky that I’ll get to spend a heck of a lot of time with her once I get us out of this hellhole.
I close my eyes for a minute and focus on that vision of us at Rockaway—the wind in her hair, her lips raking over my body, her tongue lashing me like she was putting out a fire.
I rise into the air, steady and light, all the way to the ceiling.
I glance down in time to catch Drake p
assing out in a puddle at Brielle’s feet. Logan scoops him up and hands him to me. So much for ladies first, although in Drake’s case, I understand the exception.
“Thank you.” The voice of an old lady echoes in triplicate.
“It’s her,” Skyla whispers.
“Get them out of here,” Logan barks up at me.
An army of men in black infiltrates the area. It takes less than five seconds for Skyla and Logan to get snatched up by the goth squad. He puts up a fight until the unholy soldier gives Logan’s neck a squeeze, and his body goes limp in an instant.
“Logan!” Skyla tries to reach for him as she’s whisked away, and so is he.
***
After pulling Brielle to safety, I run back toward the morgue-like prep room. I steady myself outside the door and peer in. Skyla is splayed out in one of the stainless tubs with her arms and legs secured with chains.
“This really sucks.” She glares at the troll wielding a scalpel over her. “So what’s your name?”
She’s making small talk—stalling. Where the hell is Logan?
“Whatever you’d like to call me,” answers the putrid woman with a face that looks piecemealed from a dozen different corpses. There’s something about her voice. It’s unnatural the way it holds a note—the way it echoes in triplicate without reason.
“I’ll call you Hateful,” Skyla yells over at her. “You can’t have any good in you to do something like this.”
Shit.
Do not incite the maniac who thought it was a good idea to kidnap you in the first place.
A cold chill runs up my spine as I set in on a full-blown panic.
Feisty was cute about five minutes ago, but not when your body is up for hostage negotiations. I want to make eye contact with Skyla, but she’s not looking in this direction.
“I prefer Ezrina.” The hag quivers out her name like the rattle of a snake. “And what is it you think I’m doing?” She turns her back toward Skyla while sorting through a bevy of archaic-looking medical supplies.
“Getting ready to take my blood.”
“One point for you.” Ezrina doesn’t sound too amused by Skyla’s vocal exercise.
Skyla kicks and bucks, trying to loosen the chains.
“I can’t stand the sight of blood,” she cries in a fit of desperation.
“Then I’ll gouge your eyes out first.” She touches two vials together like she were making a toast.
“No. No, thanks.” Skyla wiggles as if her bra were on fire.
“Relax, will you?” Ezrina hisses. “You Celestras are always so edgy.”
I pick up a long metal instrument off the counter that promises to do some serious cranial damage.
Skyla spots me from over Ezrina’s shoulder, and her eyes expand to the size of footballs.
I come in slowly from behind and ride the metal bar high over the sea hag’s body.
A hard grunt escapes me as I pierce the rod through her rotted flesh.
Ezrina looks down at the artful bloom racing across her chest and falls to the ground. Her body buzzes, it twitches and pulsates like she’s having a seizure. She points up at Skyla just as a trail of blood leaks from her nose, and her body goes limp.
I twist through the chains Skyla’s strapped to as if they were Styrofoam and remove her from the bondage.
“You killed her!” She beams as if it were long overdue and hard won. “You were fantastic.”
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t stay dead, so let’s hurry.”
“What do you mean she doesn’t stay dead?” She jumps up rubbing her wrists.
“We have two hours.” At least that’s the non-life expectancy of a Fem when you kill them. Not sure she’s a Fem—more like an other. “I’ll go get Logan.” I appear in the room that houses my long-lost uncle and untie him from the chair they have him strapped to. We rush down the hall to find Skyla wielding a spinning corkscrew at one of Ezrina’s minions, and she lunges at him, implanting the mixer into his gut. He cries out in pain, stumbling backward. Before we can think to intervene, Skyla thumps him over the head with a tray full of tools.
“Nice work.” Logan admires her method of execution from above as blood pools at our feet.
Skyla looks up at me with a tiny twinge of pride. “How long does he stay dead?”
Judging by the fact that he looks every bit human? “Forever,” I say.
“I thought you said it was a two-hour thing?”
“Not this one.” I swipe my palms over my jeans. “Let’s go.”
Logan speeds us over to the hole in the ceiling and insists on helping Skyla out of the Transfer himself.
I get it. Sometimes, you don’t want another guy to be the hero. You want to do it all by your lonesome. I shoot him a look as I help him up.
But sometimes, you can’t do it all on your own. Sometimes, you need a little help from the one you’d like it from least.
We emerge back on Paragon soil, the forest surrounding us with its familiar scents and shadows.
“I let them in on your little secret,” I say, nodding over at Drake and Brielle seated in the back of the minivan.
The hole to the Transfer seals itself away as if it never existed, and a spray of blue fog infiltrates the area.
Skyla nods over at me and mouths a thank you.
I pull her in with a tight grip around her waist. I just need to feel her safe in my arms one more time.
I don’t care what Logan thinks.
This time it’s all for me.
22
Logan
It’s Only the Beginning
The night draws to a close as Skyla and I end the chaotic evening in the butterfly room, safe from the world, from the powers and principalities that lurk in the narrowest of spaces.
Skyla pulls off her jacket, nice and slow, lets it melt from her shoulders like she’s trying to seduce me. Her T-shirt is so tight I can make out the lace pattern of her bra.
I take a seat on the floor, and admire Skyla from below as if she were a goddess. Her gold hair falls in waves. Her lips are as red as cherries. She’s still out of breath from our trek over the roofline to get here in the first place.
She rolls her head back and moans with exhaustion, but in my delirium, I’d like to believe those deep guttural groans were a simple act of wanting.
Her body descends to meet mine like a lap dancer who knows her way around the male anatomy. But this is Skyla, and she’s inadvertently sexy-as-hell. Her cleavage pushes forward as she lands before me with a cute little moan escaping from her throat.
“So how does it feel being an angel?” I pick up her hand, pulling her closer.
“Exhausting.” She says it sultry, inviting. “It won’t always be like this will it?”
“It might be if you don’t put on that pendant.” I pull my lips in a line, anticipating what might come next.
Her cheeks bloom a bright shade of pink as she glances down at our conjoined hands.
I’m sorry. I don’t have it anymore. Her eyes meet mine for brief moment, too embarrassed to linger. I accidentally gave it back to Chloe.
And there it is. I let out a breath.
It’s not your fault, Skyla. I should have been upfront with you right from the beginning instead of leaking information to you on a need-to-know basis.
“Should we go back and get it?” She looks hopeful.
“You’ve returned it.” I look out at the wall sprayed with butterflies and lose myself in the beauty for a second. “It may not help you now. Besides, now that she knows we’re after it, Chloe will want to secure it.”
She leans in and bites down on her lip with apprehension. “Do you forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” I pull gently at her fingers. “Skyla, I want to tell you everything. Chloe was a Celestra, too.”
“Really?” Something ignites in her as if all the jealousy she had toward Chloe evaporated with those few simple words.
“Really”—I nod—“I had to break
it off with her, but she didn’t want me to.” I leave out the part about me being played—that Chloe likes to end things on her own terms.
“What do you mean had to?”
“Two Celestra make a very big bull’s-eye.” And there is no bigger truth.
“Oh.” Her eyes widen as if she doesn’t like where this might be leading.
“Two Celestra dating are too stupid to live.” I bear into her, trying to make light of it, but the words are gospel and should drive home the point I’m trying to make in the worst way possible.
“Excuse me?”
“You and I—” My lungs expand and I can’t bring myself to let go of this breath. These last few words will put a nail in the casket of our budding relationship. “We can’t see each other anymore—not publicly.”
A pulse of silence goes by as she takes me in and gauges how serious I am.
“So we’ll date in private.” Her features soften. Her eyes widen as if she were afraid I would deny her.
“It’s not that simple. We need to take it a step further.” Here it goes. This is the knife I’ll remember forever that tore open the belly of our love as I yield her to another. “You need to have a boyfriend. A real person who everyone thinks—believes—you’re with.”
There’s a stillness in the room. Even the butterflies with their colored tissue wings, have leaned in to witness the absurdity.
“Who in their right mind is going to agree to that?”
“Gage.” It compresses from me like the greatest defeat.
“Gage?” she whispers. “His prediction—it’s probably a fake marriage.”
“Let’s hope.” But a part of me knows it’s not.
“So when does this start?”
Never, I want to say, but don’t. I examine her for a moment as a swell of jealousy spreads through my body, viral and toxic. A mild dislike brews in me for my nephew, and I’m caught off guard by this.