“Goodnight, all. Gage, you need your rest.” She gives a wink before slipping out of the room.
What’s this breathing room business? Gage doesn’t skip a beat as he glares into Logan. The ridge of stitches jumps from his face like the serrated edge of a knife as he clenches his jaw. They’re already swelling, forming red welts that bump along his cheek.
“Take it easy.” Logan’s voice is filled with his own frustration. “I just meant give her a break to figure things out.”
Tell him not to worry about me, I say it to Logan.
“She says she can’t stand the sight of you.” Logan forces a half-smile and I suddenly feel the urge to sock him. “Not really. She doesn’t want you to worry about her—she can’t talk.”
Thanks to my mother everything needs to be translated via Logan for the night.
I touch the back of my hand to Gage’s forehead. Dr. Oliver loaded him up with painkillers and antibiotics, and yet he’s still burning up.
Tell him he can take my blood and he’ll be healed by morning, I nod into Logan.
“She wants to heal you,” Logan gives a circular nod into Gage. “You should do this. Take my blood in the least.”
No. Gage flat lines. I’ll be fine. I can handle a scar or two.
You would have thought we were offering a fresh case of smallpox.
I glance up at Logan. Tell him I think he’ll look hot with scars but he doesn’t need to have them. I’d love to do this for him.
Logan frowns his displeasure. “She says you’ll make a great Frankenstein for Halloween. She admires your dedication to the costume.” Logan winks over at me and I can tell that’s as far as he’s willing to go.
Fine. I’ll tell him myself, I say, touching my fingers to his hair ever so gently, as his date to the Kragger’s party. Please tell him, of course I’ll be his date tomorrow night. I bite down on my lip considering this for a moment. On second thought, I think we should steer clear of one another.
“She said she’d be your date tomorrow night, then changed her mind.” Logan spreads a mile wide smile.
Logan!
“What? That’s what you said.” He grins into his mischief.
I shake my head over at Gage.
Logan gives a long blink of dissatisfaction. “Does this have to do with the Kraggers?”
Exactly. I give Gage’s hand a squeeze. I need to buddy up to Morley and Arson—get on their good side and fast. I’ll have to figure out a way to please every Count on this island to get them to reverse that order or I’m as good as gone.
Logan leans in. He grazes over me with a delicate stare as though he were adoring me in this panicked state, as if what I had said was in some way cute and endearing.
What? I blink into him. I’ll be hanging with my new BFF Ellis Harrison. I might need to hit his stash just to kiss the right amount of Kragger ass. This isn’t going to be easy, you know.
Gage groans not needing to hear my asinine plan to know he doesn’t approve. If it has to do with the Kraggers, there’s no way in hell I’m letting you go through with it.
“I agree.” Logan shakes his head, still dimpling over at me as if he were falling in love with me all over again “You won’t need the Kraggers. We’ll find a way to keep the treble. And we’ll take down the Counts together like we planned right from the beginning. We built our relationship on the foundation of their destruction and we’re so close to having everything we’ve ever wanted. We’re going to win this, Skyla—you and me.”
The tension boils around Logan’s brazen words. Gage is slacked jawed at his open attempt to usurp our relationship—ironic because Gage has clouded the waters with his less-than-chaste behavior right from the beginning.
Skyla, Gage leans in on his elbow, retracting from Logan’s grip. It kills me that you don’t trust me.
I look up at Logan not sure what to do with Gage at the moment.
His left dimple depresses. Let me come to the butterfly room tomorrow night after we leave the Kraggers. He jostles my hand. We can have our own party.
I give a weak nod. We’ll get this whole mess straightened out. I think.
I offer Gage a gentle kiss on the forehead and let Logan walk me downstairs.
We sit on the porch and swallow the fog as it presses into us with its cottony billows.
“You still worried about trusting him?” Logan plucks a reed from out of the border garden and twists it between his fingers. Logan has the capability to make every action, every sentence an act of sheer nobility.
I clutch at his bare arm. I’m sure he’ll have good excuse. Really, I’m not too worried about it. I’ll be gone in a month anyway. If not then, whenever my mother decides, she’s not overturning Ezrina and Nev’s ruling. It’s going to be me and you, Logan, either way.
So I guess its Gage who’ll be left alone. My heart breaks just thinking about it.
Logan wraps his arms around me and we watch the film of precipitation swirl over the yard. I stare into the mist a good long while until I start to see shapes and faces form in a velum state. Ladies in long dresses with hoop skirts, men in top hats, all of them dancing, twirling at a frenetic pace.
Do you see that? I ask.
“See what?” He strains his gaze out in the distance.
I pick up his hand and interlace our fingers as the Transfer transplants move among us.
Holy shit, Logan tightens his grip. They’re everywhere.
Chapter 87
Milking It
In the morning, I’m barely able to rouse myself out of bed. I suppose I should be thankful Ezrina didn’t feel the need for a conjugal visit last night or I might have slept well past evening. I’ve made it clear to Logan to include me in any nocturnal wanderings that he endures on my behalf. As it stands, it’s eleven-thirty in the morning, and this being Paragon, it looks more like evening anyway.
Tonight is the big Kragger get-together where they fatten up innocent island folk for their next altar sacrifice, only we all know who that will be, and I’ll be damned if I’m going down without a fight.
I stagger over to the mirror and take myself in. Great. I already look remarkably disheveled and insane. It’s not that big a stretch from me to Ezrina, really.
I guess technically she can screw the rules of our covenant and take over my person any time she pleases. She’s rogue that way. I should probably forewarn Gage of the possibility, but I’m guessing he’ll pick up on the bait and switch sooner than later.
I glance back at my reflection and try to memorize my features, my downturned lips, eyes clear as glass. I’m pretty certain once I’m a permanent resident of the Transfer, I won’t be caught dead gazing at myself in the mirror. I’m not sure who’ll have it worse, me in the Transfer or Ezrina in the tunnels. Oddly, I think Nev and Ezrina will find the baby-making suite in Demetri’s tower nothing short of paradise after what they’ve been through. One man’s hell is another man’s Eden. Blood for sex doesn’t sound like such a bad deal right about now.
I head downstairs to find Mia and Melissa taking lunch orders for their now joint business effort—the M & M café.
I quickly peruse the breakfast menu.
“Two eggs over easy, toast, and give me six sausages,” I say, throwing all artery clogging caution to the wind.
Mia slinks over with her neatly styled bob. She’s been frying the hell out of her hair with the flat iron so you can actually smell it when she gets in close but I’ll admit it does looks great on her.
“I had the weirdest dream last night,” she whispers as Melissa gets on with my order. “It was about Dad. You ever dream about him?”
“Sort of.” It’s the only logical answer. It’s not like I can call all the light drives I’ve been on “dreams,” but they qualify on some level I’m sure. “What was the dream about?”
“He said he was coming and that I should get ready to meet him. He said he missed me.” Her brows furrow as she sniffs back tears.
I lean in and hug Mia an extra-long time. He
came to her in a dream and this sweetens the day without even trying.
“I love you,” I whisper. “If Daddy were to come to Paragon, would you want to see him?”
She blinks into me. “Of course.” It comes out sharp, charged with confusion. “But he’s not, Skyla.” She sighs into the window as the fog presses in.
On the other side of the glass I can see the face, the hands, the tall ornate hat of a woman—her entire being is married with the mist. She covers her mouth with her fingers as if to feign surprise.
This whole island is insane. Even the fog holds its wicked secrets.
“Dead people don’t come back.” Mia flicks a dishtowel over her shoulder and heads to assist Melissa with my order.
“What was that about?” Mom settles next to me at the bar while nursing the baby.
I glance over at her bare nipple, the baby suckling off her like he belonged there.
“Oh my freaking God!” I jump out the chair so fast the barstool shoots back like a missile and nearly takes out the TV.
The baby seizes and starts in on a full-blown howl.
“Oh for God’s sake, Skyla,” Mom snaps. “You act like I have a cockroach crawling on my shirt.” She stands and tries to soothe the screaming infant by clicking her tongue like a chicken on fire.
“If you had a cockroach crawling on your shirt, I’d be less concerned.” I step in and examine the extra nipple taped to my mother’s bare breast.
There are so many things wrong with this picture I don’t even know where to begin. First, the fact my mother has meticulously adhered a large, rather vulgar-looking rubber teat to her person is proof positive we have treaded well into raging lunatic territory. Second, the fact she feels comfortable walking around bare-chested outside the confines of her shower is more than a little unnerving, regardless of the fact her blouse is merely unbuttoned to her belly.
“It’s this new product called ‘Milk from Mommy,’” she whispers as the baby nestles into her breast again. “You attach this apparatus to your person and wear this over your shoulder.” She exposes a thin plastic pouch the kind Dr. Oliver keeps blood in like sane people, only this little baggie is chock full of milk, and presumably not my mother’s. “My body heat keeps it at the right temperature while he nurses and we get to connect on an intimate level. We’re forming a real mother, son bond.”
“That is so freaking sick!” Melissa gags at the sight.
“So you just keep refilling it with formula?” Drake surprises me as he pipes up from behind. He’s got his arms folded and his eyes glued to Mom’s triple nipple.
“God, no.” Mom shudders as though he had suggested beer as a viable option. “This is one hundred percent human breast milk. I found a provider from a gal I met at the clinic. She’s right here on the island so I simply drive over each day and pick up a fresh supply.”
“You’re milking people?” Mia whimpers in horror.
I’m betting right about now she wishes she were dead just like Dad.
Baby Beau looks up as if he wanted an answer to this himself.
“She has a machine that milks her.” Mom shoves the baby’s face back into her chest, and he indulges on the rather frightful contraption.
I wonder what level of child abuse this qualifies as and if just witnessing this carnal act carried out on an unsuspecting minor somehow makes us all accessories? God, I bet we’re all going to fry in hell for this.
“Have you seen my belt?” Tad wanders in clutching at his pants, surprisingly blasé about the entire scene until he catches sight of the spectacle and his trousers sail to the ground forming a chino puddle.
“Holy shit,” I whisper. It was bad enough having to witness my mother’s wares and now Tad has joined in on the fun, blinding us all with his tighty whities.
“What the hell is going on, Lizbeth?” he bellows with his pants down.
Mom makes bug eyes at him and points hard at his clothing malfunction as if Tad alone had the power to permanently scar us with the manifestation of his hairy legs. She doesn’t have a clue at the outrageous level of improper behavior she herself is breeding. The Landon house has bad form written all over it today.
At this point I’m not sure which barbaric display of overexposure is worse.
“I’m breastfeeding.” She shields her hand over the baby’s eyes until Tad covers up his skivvies.
“Jumping Joseph and Mary!” Tad stomps over to my mother and gawks at the indecency she’s propagating under the guise of nutritional bonding. “Crap on a crap cracker. You’re going to get us arrested!”
“Oh, get over it,” she snipes. “Everyone knows breastfed babies grow up to be better-adjusted adults.”
“Not this one,” he fires back. “I’m betting the day little Beau Geste here discovers this morsel of indecency lurking in his past, he’ll be looking to pump some lead into a couple of elderly next-door neighbors. Guess who’ll be sleeping in a casket then, Lizbeth?”
He’s got her there.
“The great thing about it is”—Mom walks over to the couch as if Tad hadn’t just threatened her with caskets and bullets—“any of you can try it.”
“I’ll pass,” I say, blinking a smile at Melissa as she sets down my food.
Tad takes a seat at the table and flips open his laptop, probably hoping to distract himself from the warped fantasy fleshing out around him with something more based in reality, like videos of talking cats.
“Tad?” Mom calls out, hopeful he’ll succumb to her lunacy. Swear to God if Tad starts breastfeeding, I’ll arrange for some bullets and caskets myself, better yet, I’ll avoid the felony and become a permanent resident at Marshall’s palace of perversion way the hay before graduation.
“Never mind that,” he snaps, shaking his head into his laptop, “we just bounced three checks, one of which was the mortgage.” He spikes up and points accusingly into the monitor. “Look at this, Lizbeth. Someone hijacked two thousand dollars cash out of our checking account last Thursday. We need to get down to the bank and let them know someone fraudulently accessed our funds.”
Mom remains suspiciously quiet. “Do you girls have your dresses pick out for the big dinner tonight?”
Did Lizbeth Landon just change the subject on a dime? Me thinks she’s guilty two thousand times over.
“Did you hear me?” Tad balks. “Two grand just evaporated into thin air and now we’re up the wazoo in bank fees!”
“You’re upsetting the baby,” she hisses. Her face twitches unnaturally, never a good sign. “I needed that money so I simply withdrew it from our account. I had no idea I needed ‘permission.’” Her auburn hair shakes out around her face.
“You needed the money?” He extends his arms to the sides as if she had the power to electrocute him with her words. “How about consulting with a little thing called our checkbook to familiarize yourself with the balance? And what exactly did you do with the mortgage, the car, and your friendly neighborhood psychiatrist payment?”
Gah! They’re still paying Dr. Booth?
“It’s for the baby—breast milk doesn’t come cheap.” She returns her attention to the infant currently motorboating in her bosom.
“Milk?” Tad’s face turns into a giant raspberry. “We’ve got an entire gallon of cow juice in the fridge! Skyla, pull out the milk and show your mother.”
I choose to ignore his plea for camaraderie although I’m totally siding with Tad.
“It’s for an entire month’s supply,” she shoots back, like that makes things better. “I’ll try to get a price break next time, since he’s really taken to it.”
Tad seizes. He completely stops breathing before zipping out of the room at speeds that defy the laws of physics. Who knew that verbalizing the family’s financial destitution was such an efficient way to make Tad leave the room? Or maybe it was simply my mother’s virally insane third boob.
“That went well,” Melissa quips. “You do realize that the rest of this family needs to eat, right???
? She takes a jab at Mom in her father’s absence.
“She’s just trying to take care of the baby that your brother abandoned,” Mia fires back.
“Yeah?” Melissa postures with her hands over her hips. “Well, you can kiss any new back-to-school clothes good-bye because that lady just exchanged them for a couple of boobs!”
“Mom!” Mia staggers at the thought of having to wear clothing from yesteryear for yet another season.
“Girls,” Mom calls out, rubbing her head at the temple. “I’ll have enough money to get you both new clothes. I’ll take you to the mall in a week or two.”
They squeal and dance in a circle at the prospect of a shopping spree.
I lean into Mom full with suspicion. If she doesn’t have enough to cover her mortgage maybe we’ll be living at the mall? Or in the least Mom will turn into one of those crafty mothers who make you invert store tags on clothes so you can eventually return them.
“Where are you getting this money?” I’m almost afraid to ask.
“I’m getting a loan from a friend. He offered to do me the favor anytime I needed.” She cuts a steely glance up at me before petting the baby like he were made of porcelain.
I’ll bet I know exactly who this friend is.
We all know how useless his favors turn out to be.
Chapter 88
Carousing with the Counts
The sky lights up a smooth shade of ash with no rain in sight for the evening, just the ghosts from Ezrina’s underworld submerging us in their mist.
I pick up Logan and Gage in the Mustang and drive us down to the east end of the island.
The melancholy orb of the moon lingers high above, glaring down at us, severe as a blister.
“Strange night,” I muse as we pull down the long secluded road that Logan navigates me toward.
Gage sat in the back so Logan could give directions. His swelling has gone down significantly, leaving him with that slightly “Frankensteined effect” from the bevy of stitches Dr. O had to map out, but what a freaking hot Frankenstein he is. Actually both Logan and Gage took my breath away in their dark suits, their metallic-toned ties, and cutting good looks. I can’t help but feel lucky to have both Oliver boys in my life. I know it can’t go on like this forever, and thanks to Ezrina and the Counts, I won’t have to worry about that too much longer.