Burn

  “Peace is a powerful tool.” Mr. Haver picks up my hand and cups it between the both of his before walking over to small crowd.

  “Peace is an impotent weapon,” I say quietly once he’s gone.

  Dr. Oliver and Emma migrate over to an older gentleman standing near the door.

  “You don’t like peace?” Gage gives a dry smile.

  “I don’t like death.” A thought comes to me. “We should fight death with death.”

  Logan steps over and steadies his eyes on me. “And who’s going to kill them?”

  I give a placid smile. “I am.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Struggle

  After the faction meeting, Logan drives us back to their house. He asked if I wanted to come hang out for a while, and, of course, I said yes.

  In the kitchen Dr. Oliver examines my pupils, my pulse, heart rate.

  “You’re extremely anemic. It would be irresponsible to extract any more blood for the next several months.”

  An unexpected sense of relief washes over me. The feeling catches me off guard. Isn’t the entire point of donating dangerous amounts of blood, to bring Chloe back, and introduce her to Marshall?

  Her diary runs through my mind in snippets. So she has a prickly personality—who doesn’t? Anyway, I’m totally relieved.

  “She doesn’t have her powers anymore,” Logan points out.

  “Mm hmm,” Dr. Oliver throws his stethoscope into his black leather bag. “She’s depleted at the moment. Celestra strength lies in the concentration of hemoglobin, and since she’s in short supply, she’ll need to wait for the bone marrow to generate a fresh inventory. In time, all will return.”

  “How long?” I pull down my sleeves, almost afraid to ask.

  “Could be weeks, but they’ll trickle back slowly. I wouldn’t recommend time travel unless you’re with Logan. You might only have enough to get you one way.” He pats the top of my head. “You’ll be fine.” He says a brief goodnight and heads upstairs.

  “I’m not going to be fine.” I look from Logan to Gage. “If a Fem comes after me I’m dust.”

  “Ask Mr. Dudley for some kind of protective hedge.” Logan looks serious, and this alarms me.

  “I’m not asking Dudley. The only way he’ll protect me is if I gift myself to him.”

  “No.” Gage helps me up and pulls me in. “I’ll protect you.”

  “You’re not always with her. They’ll wait until she’s alone,” Logan glares over at him.

  “Then she won’t be alone.”

  They bear into one another with something just this side of hatred until finally Logan gives.

  “I’m going to bed. Goodnight Skyla.”

  He leaves the room and takes my heart with him.

  ***

  Gage and I head out to the pool. The Jacuzzi is bubbling and sweating into the night so we take our shoes off and roll up our jeans while sitting on the edge. It feels good to have my flesh immersed in a bath of scalding water. It reflects perfectly how Logan scalded my heart.

  A blank darkness has settled over Paragon, the light blue glow from deep inside the pool only seems to amplify this.

  “I talked to Logan.” Gage scoots in until our thighs are touching and drapes an arm around my shoulder. “I know you’re hurting. I’m sorry.”

  It takes everything in me not to sob into him. Hurting would be the tip of this necrotic iceberg, if only hurting were as simple and minimal as it sounds. It’s more like I’m regurgitating—eating up the flesh that was our relationship and vomiting it out over and over in one long emotional cycle.

  “I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to do the noble thing and step down, too.” He nods into the pool.

  I take a deep breath and ready myself for it. I’ve lost Logan, my powers, in a sense the Chloe who I thought knew, and now Gage.

  “But I’m not going to.” He pushes into me gently. “I’m going to be with you at school and when we’re out, and I meant what I said in the kitchen. I want to protect you.”

  “Thank you.” I wrap my arms around him and give a tight squeeze. “I can’t do this by myself. And I love having you around. It would kill me if you shut me out.”

  “I’d never shut you out.” He picks up his class ring dangling from the silver chain around my neck and fingers it before placing it gently back down. “I don’t want to scare you, but I really feel like you are my girlfriend—always have been.”

  I pick up the ring and swivel it in between my fingers while darting a glance up towards Logan’s window.

  “I am your girlfriend.” I can’t bring myself to add, and I always will be because my throat seems to have solidified with grief. Instead, I lean up and offer a tender kiss that says it so much better.

  Gage rubs up against my leg under water and we just sit listening to an owl vibrate through the night with a string of magnetic calls. I never want this peaceful moment—this melancholy magic covered in the shadow of day, to end.

  “I read Chloe’s diary,” I whisper. “Part of it.”

  “Oh.”

  “Did you find Chloe attractive?” Maybe he was just using me as an excuse.

  “Chloe was gorgeous—it was hard not to look at her.”

  A spike of heat explodes all over me. I’d rather not hear how gorgeous she was from Gage, but I guess I asked. “So why didn’t you go out with her?”

  “I went out with her.” He relaxes back onto his hands. “Just as friends. It never went anywhere.”

  “Just friends.” I parrot his words, catching his gaze. “She said you rejected her because you were waiting for someone.”

  His mouth opens then closes. “I was.” His lips press together. “I was waiting for you.”

  Silence cuts through our conversation as obtrusive as thunder.

  “Do you regret waiting for me?”

  “Why would I regret it?” He reaches over and circles my waist. “You’re better than Chloe, better than anyone in every way. I knew that before I met you.”

  “But how did you know that? Was it a vision?” I’m dying to know if it was the same kind of thing I experienced with Marshall.

  “Yes. A whole series of them, sometimes I would dream about you,” He examines me for a moment. “Clean dreams, I promise. OK some dreams were a little racy, but that was after you moved here.” He gives a tiny grin.

  “So your gift of knowing works that way? In snippets?”

  “Snippets is a good way to put it. I don’t know everything.”

  “Am I going to kill the Counts responsible for the Celestra deaths?” My blood boils just thinking about the way they tortured my father, and equally that the faction leaders think it’s fine to sit back and let this continue to happen. You don’t look at cancer and hope it goes away. You cut it out.

  “You are,” he whispers. “You’ll kill many.”

  My stomach explodes in a hot ball of acid.

  “Will you come with me?” I ask.

  “I’ll always be with you.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Down and Dirty

  Monday morning, the fog floats around the student parking lot, thick as a cemetery teeming with ghosts. I wonder about Holden as I get out of the car—what havoc he’s waiting to inflict on me next, and what it’s going to take to get him out of my life completely. That’s when I see them.

  Logan and Lexy. Even their names are nauseatingly cute together. He holds her backpack as she climbs out of his truck. She pinches down her miniskirt from just above her crotch and laughs into him.

  “Disgusting,” I mouth the word.

  “What?” Gage turns in time to catch the show, and lets out a sigh. “You know it’s all an act.”

  “Yeah, so were we,” I say under my breath.

  We make our way to the English building in slow easy strides. I’ve managed to trade my bulky white scarf for a thin metallic grey one that Brielle lent me. The scar still whips across my neck like a thick seam of flesh, looks like it??
?s never going to heal.

  Without warning my head plunges backwards. A cold hand has me by the hair and gives s few wild yanks before letting go.

  “Hey!” Gage barks as he pulls me over to him.

  I spin around to see Michelle’s swollen, blotchy face. It’s evident she’s been crying—her makeup is wrecked, and she looks beyond exhausted. She looks exactly how I feel.

  Before I can figure out how to respond, she shoves Gage aside and strikes me across the face with an open-palmed slap. The sound echoes through the quad with a deafening finality.

  “You bitch,” is all I can manage before she takes off towards the parking lot. I don’t care if she is having Marshall’s baby. I don’t care if she’s having twelve angelic beings at once. What the hell gives her the right to assault me whenever she’s in the mood?

  Logan and Lexy walk past me. She’s got her hand over his shoulder. Logan’s features darken with anger at the scene he just witnessed.

  It hurts more to see them together—touching. Michelle could peel the skin right off of me, and it wouldn’t hurt half as bad as losing Logan.

  ***

  I’m fixated on the blackboard behind Marshall. I can’t focus in on the lecture or the manic examples he strings out fervently every few seconds. All of this crap with Michelle, and of course the spike Logan drove to my heart is just killing me. Gage reaches forward and traces slow relaxing circles onto my back with his fingers. I can feel his sympathy, but it’s drenched in an agony of his own. I’m sure I’ve made him doubt my feelings for him, while I openly ache for Logan.

  What’s the matter? Marshall asks, after giving the class an assignment.

  I can still hear him, I marvel.

  Of course you can hear me, but why can I hear you? He looks perplexed by this.

  Crap.

  I lost too much blood. Everything is gone. I’m practically less than human. I’m anemic—one step in the grave, all because I wanted to help Chloe. Something in me wanted to blame her. It’s as though I’ve been looking for an excuse to pin all of the problems in the world right on her dead shoulders. He dumped me. The swollen river of my heart has finally crested and I want to blabber everything to, of all people, Marshall.

  He’s touching you. He looks rather smitten, and wait…oh yes, he’s fornicating mentally as we speak.

  Really? Right now? I turn around and look accusingly at Gage.

  It’s the male species, Skyla, you have no idea what you’re up against. Marshall smolders in my direction.

  I have some idea. I picture Logan and Lexy together, her face crammed up against his and it enrages me.

  So it’s the other Oliver. I can torment him if you like. He offers.

  No thanks, but you can torment Lexy. Do you have any other demonic necklaces you’d like to dole out? I’d love to sick an entire legion of Fems on her. And by the way she knows how to bind them, or so she claims. It’s the only reason he’s letting her drool all over him.

  Marshall leans against his desk and squints into me as though he’s considering this.

  Is it possible to bind a Fem? I ask.

  It can be done. He slouches a bit as his features darken.

  What’s wrong?

  Bad memory. His eyes glaze over momentarily. He turns his head as though distracted. Well then, He shoots a predatory smile in my direction. Just had a rather disturbing glimpse into your future.

  I don’t like disturbing.

  Rain pounds against the wall of windows in the back of the room as though a mass of lunatics were beating their fists to get inside.

  Michelle has taken to bitch slapping me on a regular basis, I’ve lost all my strength, my speed—the Fems could take me if they wanted. Perhaps that’s what Marshall knows? If he were to tell me, I could prepare myself—do something to outsmart the situation.

  Will you tell me? I’m so desperate to know I feel as though I could break.

  You know how to get the information. His head dips down into his chest as he bores into me.

  The bell rings. I gather my things and head out into the hall with Gage.

  “You know what? I left my History book in the car.” I look at the ground when I say it.

  “No problem, I’ll run out and get it.” Gage trots down the hall and makes his way down the stairs.

  I step back inside to an empty classroom. Marshall turns around just in time to see me bolt in his direction. I crash my lips into his. Marshall goes off like a radiant bliss-filled grenade, exploding through me with that intense pleasurable sensation.

  A picture emerges. I’m with Gage, holding a short silver spear. The blade is covered in blood, and I wipe it down with my finger.

  I pull away and stagger back.

  “When will this happen?”

  “Sooner than later,” he says rather soberly.

  “Whose blood was on the knife?”

  “Whose blood do you want it to be?” There’s a challenge in his eyes.

  Instinctually, I want to say Lexy’s.

  “The Counts.”

  “Which Counts?” There’s a slight curve to his lips.

  “The ones who killed my father.”

  “It won’t be.” His tone sharpens. “The blood on the knife was your own.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Animal Attraction

  I hate Lexy Bakova. I repeat it like a mantra as I sit at the kitchen counter next to Drake just before dinner.

  The strong scent of garlic offensively clots up the air—once again, Mom is abusing the food chain.

  Mom and Tad have called us together for another spectacular family meeting. No doubt, to inform us of their procreating schedule or go over graphs they’ve charted of which positions are the least useful in their impotent endeavors. Or perhaps, it’s the big reveal and they’ll expose us to Mom’s swelling uterus, Tad’s microscopic balls. Nothing surprises me anymore.

  “Ta-da!” Tad whisks something from out of a baseball cap and places it into Melissa’s lap.

  Both Mia and Melissa break out into a wild fit of joy.

  “Oh my God! It’s so cute!” Melissa howls.

  Drake and I swoop over to check it out.

  I gasp at the sight of it. It’s a rail thin looking rat-thing and I can clearly see its ribcage. Maybe those weren’t cries of joy. Maybe they’re scared shitless.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “It’s a pocket puppy.” Tad’s shoulders pull back with pride.

  “I think he means a purse puppy,” Mom corrects.

  “Does it have rickets?” There’s not an ounce of sarcasm coming from Drake.

  “It needs food,” I offer. Sympathy is building within me for the badly neglected creature. Obviously Tad picked it up off the side of the road because he’s too cheap to drop a grand on a ball of purebred fuzz, and, for once, I’m glad he’s cheap. I reach over and stroke its back. The thin skin moves as I pet it. Its brown frightened eyes dilate with fear as they stare back at me.

  “What’s the occasion?” I seriously doubt Tad’s good intentions.

  “I thought this would be a great way for the family to start grasping the kind of responsibility a baby brings into the house.” There’s something mocking in his tone. I can’t put my finger on it, but I can tell it’s there.

  “So essentially you’re readying us for an extremely malnourished child,” Drake quips.

  “Or maybe they’re warning us it won’t look human.” These are Tad’s genes we’re talking about. I think my mother should voluntarily pull her ovaries out of the simian polluted gene pool while there’s still time. Messing with nature like this is bound to have its side effects. She’s in very real danger of spawning an anthropoid.

  “I won’t be disrespected like that, Skyla.” Tad’s nostrils flare as he says it.

  “Drake started it.” Lame, but true.

  “Both of you upstairs.” Tad flicks a finger to the ceiling in annoyance.

  “But I’m hungry.” And I’m willing to subje
ct myself to Mom’s garlic gruel to prove it.

  “Now!” His voice explodes in an unexpected fit of anger.

  “Tad,” my mother chides softly in the background.

  I race Drake up the stairwell and he motions me into his room.

  “What?”

  “Brielle’s coming over.” He swipes a pair of his jeans up off the floor and sniffs at the ass. “She says you’ve got a hole in your ceiling where you shuttle guys in all night long.”

  Crap.

  “Bring her to my room about eleven, or I’ll tell the sperminator downstairs, and he’ll have both the hole in your closet and the one between your legs on lockdown by the weekend.” He gives a greasy smile.

  “Real nice.” I leave the room. The butterfly room is being turned into a portal for Drake and Brielle’s sexcapades.

  The house is officially part brothel, part infertility clinic.

  A riot of wild yapping erupts from downstairs.

  Add animal shelter to the list.

  ***

  Gage suggests we ditch all our classes and hang out for the day.

  “Where should we go?” I’m thrilled at the thought of not having to lay eyes on Lexy another minute. I’m so sick of hearing her coo Logan’s name during cheer like a song she butchers for an hour straight. Not to mention the mind-numbing hatred I’m starting to feel for Michelle.

  “How about I surprise you?” He leans in with a careful kiss.

  A warm rush cycles through my stomach. I like this romantic yet naughty side of Gage.

  A part of me feels awful, like I’m cheating on Logan. Ironic, since when I was with Logan I didn’t think twice about kissing Gage—twisted, I know.

  We drive down the road, the opposite direction of school. Fog drifts by in a series of elongated strips. It’s as though Paragon is unveiling itself to us, removing its mysterious layers one at a time like the unraveling of a mummy. It’s the revelation I wait for. The aftermath of what it means.