“I may have the knowledge to trip-set a certain scenario to my advantage, but I can’t do it without you.”
“Figures.” I’m not complaining. I think next time we’re there I’ll spend less time disfiguring Carly’s ride and more time in the forest chasing after Chloe and Michelle. I’m dying to know what has Michelle out of her mind with fear and what she was doing all alone.
He glides into the bottom of my driveway.
“Are you going to try to kill me?” I ask opening the door an inch. An icy breeze snakes its way inside inspiring a mean shiver to run through me.
“Maybe.” He huffs a tired laugh and shakes his head. “No. Are you going to try to kill me?”
My stomach cinches as I remember Marshall’s words. I don’t care if he does have the gift of knowing, I’m never going to kill Ellis.
“No.”
He holds up his fist and I bump into it with mine.
“See you tomorrow,” he says flinching as he grabs his abdomen.
“See you tomorrow.”
***
Gage picks me up in the morning.
“I can’t believe you’re driving,” I say, gingerly climbing into his truck.
He lifts his shirt just enough, exposing a thick band of gauze circling his abdomen.
“I survived.” He gives a sly grin.
“You wrestled a lion for like two years. You’ve officially achieved superhero status.”
“Right.” He pulls his cheek up on one side.
It hurts to see Gage doubtful of the things I say, always second guessing our relationship—holding Logan up like some sort of plumb line.
I lean in and kiss him. A sweet, joyful feeling laced with sorrow spears through me. He pulls back and pierces through me with those deep soulful eyes.
“I have something for you.” Originally I was going to read it to him, but the giant mass forming in my throat won’t let me, so I hand it over.
He reads the poem, two or three times.
A genuine smile spreads across his face. Something inside him blooms.
“It’s nice to be back.” He leans over and presses his lips against mine.
***
That night I wait to see Logan.
“Skyla?” My mother calls from the other side of my bedroom door.
It’s after nine, and I have to slide the dresser back to let her in. I want to make it quick because Logan’s on his way up to the butterfly room.
“Yeah?” I leave the lights off and manage to squint into the light for effect.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were sleeping. Some boy named Ellis dropped this off for you.” She hands over a purple gift-wrapped box. “He says it’s a thank you. What did you do?”
I’m speechless. I gingerly take the rectangular shaped box from her. It’s surprisingly heavy.
“I’m helping him out….at school.”
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
“Later,” I say.
“I get it.” She bats her hands at me. “You’re not changing boyfriends again, are you?”
“No. I’m keeping Gage.” And Logan.
“All right. Night,” she says, moving down the hall.
I close the door and carefully slide back the dresser.
I finger the lavender satin ribbon. I’m hoping it’s what I think it is.
***
Logan arrives and helps me up as I attempt to climb into the butterfly room with my not-so-great leg. In this good light I can see his face. His flawless skin shimmers, his sandy hair glows like the sun. He’s back to the way he should be, youthful and flawless.
“Ellis dropped this off,” I say, sitting Indian style across from him.
We stare down at the package with wonder, not breathing as though it holds the secret to a future we could only hope to have.
I pull off the ribbon and peel back the paper until all that’s left is a sturdy silver box. I hedge my fingers around the lid. Just as I’m about to lift it off, Logan presses his hand down softly against it.
He looks at me with a slightly confused expression on his face as though he were feeling both secure and vulnerable.
“I need you to know something,” he starts.
“Before you go on,” I press my hand in the air, “I want to say thank you for risking your life and for coming back. You saved Gage, and you saved me.” I shrug. “Ellis too.”
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“So does this mean you can time travel?”
“Anyplace in particular you want to go?” He gives a seductive smile.
“I guess that’s a yes.” I bite down on my lip. I’d like to go back and change the fact I made my father look like a raging lunatic who murdered three vagrants just hours before he dies in a fiery car crash on the way to the precinct, but I shake the thought away. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to rectify that.
He picks up both my hands without breaking his gaze. His cheek pulls to the side. I’m sorry about your dad.
I give a tiny nod.
I guess I can’t change things like I thought I could, I say.
What about Marshall? He can bring back your father if you choose him. Logan studies my face with a steady look of benevolence.
“I don’t want Marshall. Not now not ever. I don’t think my dad would want that for me either.”
“Skyla.” His ears peak back and turn pink at the tips. A lengthy pause ensues. “I’ve never had anybody in my life that I care so much about. I have my aunt and uncle and Gage, yet I’ve never fully felt a part of their family. But with you I feel whole, like we belong. Now that I have you, I’ll do anything for you. Most of all, I just want to keep you safe, and if it means you being with Gage for now, then so be it.” He clenches his jaw and gives a hard blink. “Sorry I’m getting emotional, I never really do. It’s not like me. You do good things to me, Skyla.” He gives a careful smile. “I love you.”
A breath gets caught in my throat. Logan Oliver loves me. I thought I could feel it, but now I know. He leans in and kisses me—deep expressive kisses that match his powerful amazing words.
“I love you, too.” Gage’s face pops up uninvited in the back of my mind and my stomach turns. I try to shoo it away quick as it came, but I feel more confused than ever.
He taps the box. I stare down at the silver lid one more time.
“This better not be something stupid like a hot pink hammer to wreck Carly’s car in style,” I say.
“It was you! I’m impressed with your determination.” Logan’s face explodes in a wicked grin.
“It’s all that love I have for you. I can’t contain it.” I pick my shoulders up before plucking the lid off the box. There’s a note on top.
Need this back in the morning.
Beneath it lays a leather bound book embossed with the effigy of an angel with a sword in his hand. I pluck it out and scoot in next to Logan. The word Countenance is scrawled across the first page in flowery Victorian script. We thumb through it quickly—nothing but names—thousands upon thousands of names.
“I’ll take this home and go over it with my uncle.” He clutches at it with a death grip.
We stand, and I let him hold me with the book hard against my back. Our lives are going to change forever. We won’t have to hide anymore. We won’t have to live with Fems or deal with Sectors—after that whole faction war thing finishes—if we survive.
I give Logan a long drawn out kiss goodbye. I try to memorize the way it feels to have his chest beating up against mine, the brush of his lips against my skin, my hair.
“I’m going to be pouring over something tonight, too.” I open the tiny secret compartment that houses a small stack of books. I run my hand towards the back, and Chloe’s diary slides out. I brandish the small blue book in the air a moment before circling my free hand around Logan’s waist.
His lips twist as he gently takes it from me.
“What?” I ask tilting into him until our foreheads bump.
“I’m not thrilled with idea of you reading it.” He backs up and examines it with a heavy look of sadness.
“You didn’t seem to mind me reading it when you gave it to me.”
“Changed my mind.” A soft impression of a smile plays on his lips.
“Is it because of you and Chloe? I already know all that.” I stop shy of telling him I was practically there.
“No.” He gives it a subtle shake. “Gage.”
“Gage?” My head backs up a notch.
“He’s not a fan of you reading it either.”
“Really?” I say, plucking the book back out of his hand.
“But you’re going to read it.” He gives a soulful sigh acknowledging this. His eyes twitch with a hint of a smile.
“Of course I’m going to read it. What’s the big deal?” I lean forward and bounce a soft kiss off his lips.
His eyes close briefly as he caresses the back of my neck with his hand. His amber eyes glow in this light—glitter as they dance around my face. “Because Skyla,” He gives a sad knowing smile and a tender kiss before opening the exit, and leaving the butterfly room.
My hand caresses the only page of the diary that opens willingly.
Chloe Jessica Bishop
I run my fingers over her name, the place she warmed with her own hand. The pages of the diary still bound together with a thick milky film. I start chipping away at the glue in layers.
It’s time.
A small yellow piece of paper slips out from the first page I manage to peel back. It’s a note from Chloe.
Dear Skyla,
This changes everything.
Thank you for reading Tremble (Celestra Series Book 2). If you enjoyed this book please consider leaving a review at your point of purchase.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my outrageously wonderful family for putting up with dirty dishes and laundry piles that touch the ceiling. I love you to the moon and back.
BIG thank you to Sarah Freese, Diane S., and Christina Kendler for helping me spit shine until the manuscript gleamed. I will forever appreciate your efforts!
To my wonderful readers, you bless me every day. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of your kindness and support. I love you like family.
To Him who holds the world in the palm of His hands—I owe you everything.
burn
Celestra Series Book 3
Addison Moore
Copyright © 2011 by Addison Moore
Edited by: Sarah Freese
This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.
All Rights Reserved.
Preface
The future wafts in and out of my world like a ghost—like a lumbering beast, begging to be tamed. For so long it sat locked in mystery, surrounding me, fickle as the wind. I see it now for the noose it is, the game that never satisfies, the warrior that always kills.
The past proved to be set in stone, the immovable rock of my existence that cast its shadow into the valley of death. But it is the future’s bright light that draws me in, the blinding rays that pull me forward with bionic, magnetic, force. They row me toward my destiny with indescribable power, to a fate questionably determined—washed in the patina of hope.
1
Chloe’s Diary
Brody the Nitwit,
You so much as turn another page, and I will let Mom, Dad, the Fosters, and the entire population of Paragon in on the fact that Carly left school in April to give birth to your quadruped spawn in New York, where it will be raised as her brother, by her drunk of a stepmother and questionably employed father. If you haven’t scampered already, I’ll make sure your son, whom I shall affectionately refer to as the ‘bastard’, knows what a coward both you and his mother are when the time is right, and trust me, that day will come, ready or not.
-Chloe
I close the covers and clutch the book near my chest. Carly has a baby? Bet Logan doesn’t know that.
I rub my finger against the hard lines of the plain powder blue diary—the pages glued shut long ago by Chloe herself. It’s like holding dynamite—an entire explosion of secrets—the shards refracting into people’s lives.
I pick up the personalized message Chloe left me that slipped out after the first page.
Dear Skyla,
This changes everything.
I must admit, I’m pretty happy with the changes so far. I mean, I don’t know Chloe’s brother at all, he graduated last year, but I know Carly plenty. Carly was the sole reason I was able to channel my hatred into a perfect funnel of angst and kill a Fem. Just the thought of her with Logan sends a rush of heated adrenaline up my spine.
I hop down out of the butterfly room and head over to bed. I cradle the diary as I get under the covers and pull my pillow up behind me. How am I going to read Chloe’s diary—thick as a bible, knowing she wanted Logan as much as I do? I guess my one consolation is the fact she’s dead, for now anyway.
I pull back another page, slow and careful like peeling off skin from a sunburn.
June 26,
Am I supposed to say Dear Diary? I think diaries are stupid. I think diaries belong in a thirteen-year-olds bedroom, tucked under the bed, with a balding one-eyed teddy bear keeping watch.
Let the record show, that this diary was forced upon me because my mother thinks it will help to get my feelings down on paper. I believe the word she used was cathartic. I told her I’d write down my genetic code in Latin, burn my soul onto parchment, like the Shroud of Turin, in exchange for never setting foot in Dr. Booth’s office again. If I never see that man’s face again it will be too soon. Nothing was a bigger waste of time than sitting in his overstuffed chair staring past him out the window for an hour straight.
It wasn’t helping, so I just stopped going. My mom even tried dragging me to the car. So Dr. Booth caved a little and suggested the diary. My mother picked it up on the way home from their private pow-wow, and now here you are, rubbing against my bare knees, a place Ellis would give his left testicle to be.
But I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad I can finally write down how I feel about things, like the love of my life, the friends that stab me in the back at least once a week, the reason I never forgot the way my hands looked that night last spring covered in blood. That last one still gives me nightmares. But I’m about to unlock all the secrets to this shithole, and I won’t have to die like she did. I’ll do anything not to die like that.
June 27,
So the day started with Michelle bitching about Lexy again. Honest to God, if she can’t figure out how to get a guy of her own, I’m going to feed her to the next rabid Fem that lands in front of me. I tried explaining girl code on the way to the mall where I picked up a hot pink two-piece that glows on my body. It’s straight up practically a g-string in the back, but it has this sort of whale tale thing—anyway, Michelle is on hormonal overdrive and I’m about to give her two black eyes to accessorize that horrific mono-kini she stuffed herself into. It makes her ass look twice its size, and her waist cinch abnormally, like you could stick a ring around it. Just looking at her in it, made me feel like I was staring in a fun house mirror. Maybe that’s why Michelle can’t get Logan away from Lexy? Maybe, it’s because she’s got friends like me who tell her she looks great in whatever her goofy sense of fashion dictates for her to wear.
I go back and reread Logan’s name twice. I’m pretty sure she meant someone else, like maybe Ellis? Although, Lexy with anyone is news to me.
So he was there. Of course he was there—it was at his house. I love going behind the gates, especially to the Oliver’s. I love Emma and Barron, Dr. O as I call him. I can’t wait until they’re my in-laws. They already feel like family since I’ve k
nown them forever. Sometimes you just know who you’re going to be with. For me, it’s been the same person my entire life. I’ve grown up with him, hung out at parties and games, swam in the ocean with him brushing up against my skin. I want nothing more than to live out my days, safe, and loved by no one else but Gage.
2
Let’s Dance
Gage needs more time in the morning and asks if I can catch a ride to school with Drake and Brielle. I’d rather be late than have to listen to all the cooing that goes on between the two of them. They’re sickeningly in love and seemingly the perfect couple except for the fact Brielle seems to think it’s totally acceptable to cheat on him whenever the opportunity presents itself. I guess I should feel a little protective over Drake considering he’s my stepbrother, but something inside me can’t accept this new family— this new life without my father, so knowing that Brielle routinely sleeps around doesn’t seem to faze me much.
Brielle parks in the gravel overflow of the student parking lot and shoos Drake out of the car.
“Skyla and me have some serious girl talk to do.” She flutters her hand in the air until he scatters like a pigeon in the direction of the gym.
“What’s up?” I ask getting out of her blood red jeep, dirt high up on the sides. “I bet Drake would wash your car if you wanted him to,” I say adjusting my backpack, taking in a lungful of dewy morning air. Maybe that simple act of kindness on Drake’s part will help Brielle turn the corner and respect him a little bit more.
The evergreens stand tall around the periphery, dark and guarded. This island is rife with secrets. The thick black forest surrounds it like a garrison, the never-ending trail of fog lifts for no one—it attests to the island’s truths like a well-worn testimony.