Behind my shoulder, the game room illuminates a thin seam of light from beneath the door. No sign of Logan or Gage, but I sense them nearby and this makes me feel safe.
“Are you coming?” She shouts from the bottom.
I clutch the rose in my hand and head on down. Chloe may have her intentions, but I certainly have mine.
A series of exposed light bulbs run across the ceiling of the cavernous space that seems to run the entire length and width of the house. Then I see them—racks and racks of canvasses that take up most of the space in the interim. Running against one wall is a cluttered counter filled with tubes of paint, plastic cups with brushes sprouting from the tops. The thick scent of linseed oil clots up the air.
“So who’s the artist?” I ask, examining the vast display.
“Em.” She looks at me with a dare in her eyes, as if she’s already in on the fact that these aren’t just paintings. “Aren’t they amazing?” She doesn’t take her eyes off me. It’s like she’s trying to hypnotize me, sway me to do her bidding with her enveloping magnetic stare.
“Why are you with Gage?” I ask point blank.
“Because he’s rightfully mine.”
My jaw goes slack from the sheer audacity.
“You don’t own people.” I walk over to a group of canvasses laid out to dry on a rack marked touch and die.
More battle scenes. I’m mesmerized. One is of a group of bloodied men lying in a pile, one of a horse that looks as though it sparkles. Foot soldiers trekking on a mountain with angels intermixed—so strange. But it’s the last one that stops me in my tracks, it makes me take in a sharp breath and forget to let it go.
It’s a girl. Huge angel wings, a dirty shade of blue, expand across the canvas. Long flowing hair painted pale shimmering gold. A radiating light, so bright emanates from behind her, I wonder if it’s an explosion—looks almost nuclear. But it’s her profile that loosens me. I recognize her so completely.
I’m the girl.
It’s me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Kill Zone
“Emily did these?” I go over to the one painted in my likeness and wave my hand over the girl in the picture fully expecting her to wake up and speak to me.
“She has a gift.” Chloe sounds bored as though it means nothing.
“What kind of gift is this? Is she one of us?”
“She’s something.” Chloe comes up besides me, and stares down at her work. “I thought you might like these.”
“Shit,” I pant as I walk along and take in the brutal scenes one after another—nothing but blood and carnage—outright butchery. One with a dry riverbed, it looks calm. Everything in it lost in shades of sepia—another one with my effigy. There’s a marked wound on my left shoulder blade just above the wing. “This is going to happen,” I say to myself.
“Yeah, well, I’d really love to sit around and go over Emily’s psychotic finger paints, but I have a party to get back to.”
I spear her with a look. Doesn’t she realize it’s me in the picture? I have a hard time believing Chloe has no idea what these paintings mean.
“I’ve got news for you, Chloe. Party’s over for you and Gage.” I take a step towards her.
She huffs a laugh. “Oh, Skyla. You have no idea how to keep a guy, or a secret to yourself.”
Before I can register what’s happening I’m flying backwards into a stack of upright canvases as tall as my father. I land hard and take them all down with me accidentally dislodging the rose from my hand in the process.
“It looks to me, Skyla, you’re the one without Gage.” She stands over me with her feet set in defiance, a mocking smile teeters on her lips.
I sweep her feet out from under her just the way Logan taught me, and she lands hard on her side.
“You bitch.” She crawls over to a giant blue bucket and tosses it in my direction, nailing me right in the nose—milky water sloshes all over my clothes and shoes.
I let out a sharp moan.
Before I can recover, I feel something slither down off the top of my head and run my hand over it to find a slick of bright red gloss adhering to my fingers.
Chloe stands above me squeezing the life out of a large tube of paint.
“Death made me faster, stronger. I’ve been meaning to thank you for making things so perfectly easy,” she grits her teeth, expressing the remaining contents from the tube.
I knock her over like a bowling pin and smear the thick glob of paint off my fingers and onto her face.
“You should be dead,” I struggle to snatch her by the wrists while scanning the area for the pendant. My eyes sweep the floor until I snag on it, crouching like spider over by the stairs. I inch over on my knees, dragging Chloe with me as she writhes and bites the hand I wear courtesy of her own spare parts.
“Go ahead,” I grunt through the pain. “Chew it off, I never did like that arm anyway.”
I let go of her briefly and dive onto the rose, embedding it into the palm of my hand as I slap down on top of it.
A horrible burning pain erupts over my back. I scrape the rose along the concrete and shove it in my mouth for safekeeping.
I’m going to kill Chloe. I’m going to skin her and paint a beautiful picture with a brush soaked in her blood.
I roll her off my back only to see her pinching a rusted out razor with blood rising on the sides.
Shit!
I struggle to take it from her. Arms flail, the ceiling and the floor make repeated revolutions, with me on top of Chloe, Chloe on top of me. Bottles of solvent rain down on us like gasoline. Chloe presses the razor into my neck ready to reopen the wound that’s barely managed to heal.
A burst of rattling noises explode from the top of the stairs. This quiet strangulating hatred we’ve engrossed ourselves in so completely is now disrupted with the rustle of bodies, our names being called out of turn.
Chloe’s head jerks toward the stairwell as bodies thunder down the stairs. She’s blocking my view, cutting off my air supply as she sits with her knees on top of my chest. The razor twitches over my face, splits open the left side of my cheek in a quick clean slice.
She pushes her face into mine. “That’s from Logan.”
A pair of arms appear over her and attempt to pluck her off.
“Let go of me!” She shrieks bouncing hard on my chest as she struggles.
The sheer heft of Chloe’s weight propels the rose to shoot out of my mouth. She plunges her hand over my face in an effort to stand—sending the rose to the back of my throat.
And it happens.
This is one of those seismic moments.
I absorb the fact that Gage is standing over me offering his hand, that Logan is rattling Chloe against the wall—Ellis and his dirty grey sneakers tapping down the stairs. The three of them look on in horror as I try to strangle myself, writhing on the floor gagging from my efforts.
Chloe did it.
She made me swallow the rose.
Oh fuck.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Dark Rose
Chloe ambles up the stairs leaving patchy fingerprints of paint on the creamy white walls. It looks like a trail of blood—I wish it were.
Gage hoists me up in a sudden burst.
“Are you choking?”
“I swallowed,” I bring my hands up around my neck, “Michelle’s demonic rose.”
Ellis pulls in closer as if he expects to see something.
“I’m going to dream Fems,” it comes out a broken whisper.
“Can you breathe OK?” Logan takes off his t-shirt and presses it against the cut on my face.
“Yes.” I shake my head in disbelief at what this might mean. “This place is loaded with paintings,” I tell him. “Can you and Ellis take pictures with your phones?”
Logan drags Ellis off without hesitating.
“Let’s get you to my dad.” Gage gently wipes my face with the back of his hand as though he were wiping away tears.
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“I can’t. You have to take me to Marshall’s. It’s that rose of a thousand nightmares he gave her, and right now it’s making itself at home in my stomach.”
His eyes close briefly, and he shakes his head just enough to let me know he’s against the idea. “Are you sure?”
“I need to be there now,” I say pleading. “Teleport me.”
Gage pulls me in, and I wait for everything to fade away and the room to transform, but nothing changes.
“Looks like it’s not going to happen,” he says looking around the vicinity.
“What’s not going to happen?”
“I can’t take you. There’s a binding spirit here.” He appraises the room in this new light. “Come on, we’ll see if we can do this outside.”
***
Gage and I appear right outside Marshall’s door, and I explode over it with my fists until the porch light cuts through the night in one volatile clap.
“What the hell’s going on?” Gage asks trying to calm me.
“The rose, it’s a training ground for Fems. It gives you night terrors and all kinds of terrible things.” And apparently really bad hair days for a long time to come.
The door swings open and Marshall stands there bare-chested with nothing but a pair of boxers on, looking as though he’s opening his eyes to the world for the very first time.
“What is it?” He squints into me. “Dear God. Get in here.” He swiftly shuts the door on Gage.
Gage opens the door and strides on in.
“I need to talk to you,” I say.
Marshall looks over at Gage. “Go home and get some rest. I’ll handle things from here.” He walks over and picks up a pair of jeans lying at the base of the stairs and jumps into them. There’s a shirt hanging from the chandelier in the entry, and I don’t even want to know why Marshall has his clothes lying strewn about in odd places.
Gage walks over and whispers in my ear. “I’m going to pick up my car and drive back.” He walks out the door and lets it slam like a gunshot.
“Looks like both your boy toys have a disdain for me. I’ll settle the score come finals.” He swipes his hand over the top of my head and sniffs at the red gloss on his fingertips.
“It’s paint,” I offer.
“That slick running down the side of your face is not.” His eyes flicker with questions.
I grab him by the shoulders and pull him in.
“I swallowed the rose you gave Michelle.” The words draw out in a haunting refrain. I can feel the warmth of his skin, the electric current he emits strums through me—soothing and pleasurable.
His eyes remain fixed on mine—his entire person frozen and unmovable.
I’ve never seen Marshall without his shirt on. Everything about him is perfect, every muscle defined and at attention. His lips twist as he takes a breath.
“Did you try to extricate it?” His affect doesn’t change. He remains staunchly fixated, unmoved by what I’ve just told him.
“Extricate it?” That’s probably like an exorcism, or a fish hook he sends down my throat to yank it out, or a—
“Vomit.”
I jump back.
“No.” I rise my hands up to my ears. “I can’t stand throwing up. I’d rather die than throw up.”
“You might have to.” He comes towards me with a determined gait.
“What are you doing?” I back up cautiously until I hit the wall. A shiver of pain explodes between my shoulder blades. I let out a groan as I slip further into the room and away from Marshall.
“I’m going to help you.” He wags a finger in the air.
“No!” I point over at his stupid finger and its vomitous insinuation. “You do not have my permission to help me.”
“I’m afraid I don’t need your permission love. You have something boiling in your stomach acids that’s extremely valuable to me.”
I duck behind the sofa as Marshall flexes his knees and elbows as though he’s ready to attack.
“Marshall!” I drag myself carefully over to the next sofa.
A smile blooms on his face. He hops onto the couch and bounces across the cushions.
I linger a moment, watching him a good two feet taller perched up like a god. I would do anything to get this rose out of me, to stop Chloe from threatening Gage into her life, to not vomit all over Marshall’s soft leather sofas.
“Take me, bind me, I’ll be your wife.” The words speed out of me in a frenzy.
A smile slides up the side of his cheek, and he hops down from the couch with a thump. “We’ll negotiate terms later. It doesn’t change the fact I need that rose back.”
And with that he sparks a well-orchestrated chase—me with my arms flailing in every direction, Marshall with his uproarious barks of laughter—the slow circular dance that ensues around the piano—the backwards shuffle that pins me so perfectly against the window.
I can feel the cool of the night emanating through my sweater, something cold, something wet, and for the first time I realize my back is raw from bleeding no thanks to Chloe and her razor happy hands.
I let out a short-lived breath as Marshall presses into me. He picks up my hands and spreads my arms high over my head.
“You’re going to thank me in the morning.”
“I bet you’ve already used that line tonight.”
A tremor of laughter gets caught in his chest. His features glimmer with the slightest hint of perspiration, and I’m vexed by his rugged good looks.
“You only think you know me,” he rasps.
Marshall swoops me up in his arms and charges us to the kitchen. He doubles me over the sink and inserts his middle finger down my throat so far until I’m retching and kicking, and trying to gurgle out a scream.
“Don’t fight it, Skyla,” he demands as he probes over and over—but nothing.
It takes a full five minutes of Marshall poking at my uvula before he calmly extricates his hand and pumps it full of soap.
“It’s not going to work,” he says, lathering himself in a frenzy.
“What’s going to happen?”
“Do you scare easily?” He switches off the faucet and wipes his hands.
“Yes,” I can hardly squeeze the word from my vocal chords.
“Well, then, you won’t like the next few days.”
“You mean,” I look down briefly.
“That’s right. It’ll all come out in the end. Make sure you flush twice—you don’t want vitriol like that getting locked in the pipes. You’ll be subject to house terrors, and that’s a bit more complicated to deal with.”
I head to the refrigerator and ransack it for anything potentially capable of inducing a quick bout of incontinence.
“Logic dictates correctly,” he starts, “but you’re failing to realize that it could prolong your misery. If you don’t mind me saying, it’s best things bind naturally to ensure a safe arrival.” He gives a long tired blink. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a guest that needs tending to.”
I slam the fridge shut and stomp over to him.
“I very much do mind.” I slap my hands flat against his chest to push him away, but don’t. Instead, I relax into his soothing rhythm, let him wash over me in flowing waves of determined bliss. I glide my hands over his bare chest, smooth as velvet. “I’m not going home Marshall.” A tight knot locks down my vocal chords. “Tell her to go,” I whisper.
“So it’s true. You’ll be my wife?” A hint of delight plays on his lips.
I take in a deep exhausting breath.
“Hey.” A soft voice drifts from the kitchen entry. Gage strides in with his brows drawn together. “Everything all right?” He looks at Marshall good and pissed.
“Take her home.” Marshall places my hands back down at my sides. “If you need me,” he plucks my cell out of my jeans and speeds into it with his thumb, “call.” He hands the phone over, before settling his fiery eyes back on me. Be mine, Skyla.
“No,” I give a fearful whisper
.
“You’ll regret this.” It comes out sharp—threatening.
I already do.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A Stitch in Time
Gage drives us to his house, where I find myself seated in the kitchen with a weary looking Dr. Oliver examining me from above.
“Identical to Logan’s,” he muses, pulling a strand of invisible filament between his fingers. “I’ve been apprised of the situation with Chloe. I want to sincerely apologize for the part I played in creating this nightmare for you.”
“No, please, never apologize. You’ve been nothing but kind.” It kills me to hear the strain in his voice. If anything I’m the burden.
Emma walks over and surveys the damage.
“I’m sorry about Thanksgiving, too,” I add.
“I had a feeling dinner was a long shot,” Emma quips.
“Sorry,” I whisper again. Of course, Emma hates me. In fact, once I do marry Gage, she’ll probably never look forward to sharing a single meal with us.
I tell them about cutting a deal with Holden’s ghost. “So you think we could get a—” I don’t dare say the word, body. Instead, I look around the room for signs of my least favorite apparition. “You know, recreate the Chloe thing only with someone else?”
“Mmm,” he shakes his head. “I’m afraid I can’t help you with that one. I’m stepping down from the resurrection business. Not for me.” He starts in on the stitches. I can feel the tugging and pulling. It hurts so bad you’d think he was pouring battery acid all over it. Where the hell is Marshall when you really need his feel good vibrations?
Gage takes up my hand and kneels besides me—Gage who actually offered to gift himself to me tonight. I sniff back tears. Now look at us. I’m being sewn back together by a mortician while a herd of rabid Fems wait patiently for me to fall asleep, so they can scare the crap out of me for practice—practice. I could have been raking my body against Gage right now if I had only listened to Logan and not gone down there with Chloe. I roll my eyes at the thought.
I squeeze Gage by the hand until Dr. Oliver gives one last snip and hands me a mirror.