“Yeah, well.” He glances down at his less-than-hygienic accouterments. “I sort went on a grave-robbing expedition, you’ll have to excuse me. But you look very nice, yourself.”
“Grave robbing, huh? Well, you chose the right night.” God, I hope Chloe doesn’t have him doing her dirty work, then again, she did mention Kate was in the mausoleum.
“I’m not sure it’s ever a good night for that.” He glances in the distance with a look of concern sweeping across his face.
“Did you heal OK?” I examine him further before averting my eyes. “Of course, you healed, you’re a Celestra. We always heal. So who do you think won the war? I mean my mother’s—”
“What war?” he whispers.
“What
war
?” Dear God, he’s got more in common with Logan than I thought. “Coop, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
“All right, here we go.” He nods into me and swallows hard. “Skyla, I just met you in the Tenebrous Woods. I’m time traveling from two years ago in the past.” His forehead wrinkles with concern. “Is the country going to war?”
“No.” I shake my head. I had no idea the Coop asking me to dance was such a blank slate. “It’s a faction war.” I shake my head. “And I guess the reason you don’t remember me is because we haven’t technically crossed paths yet. I don’t know if I should get into it. Just know you kicked some ass—and your friend, Flynn, was OK for a while, too.”
He lowers his chin. “I don’t know if I’d call Flynn a friend.”
“You did, so I guess things must improve. What’s going on?” I glance around. Who knows what other oddities might be lurking around Demetri’s Halloween haunt. “What brings you to Paragon?”
“Primarily, you. Laken and I want answers. You seemed to know us. Laken said you tried to save her. Can you tell us anything else about that? Do you know how she got into the Transfer?”
“No. Just what I told her. I was being held against my will and forced to work with Ezrina. Marshall—the Sector that was with me, he let me know I was in another time. Nothing made sense. But I saw Laken, and something in me wanted to save her. It was my job to load her into the tank, and before I did, I tried to give her CPR. Stupid, right? I mean she had already been dead for who knows how long, and there I was trying to play the part of some Celestra superhero.”
His brows knit as he considers this. “Maybe that’s why.”
“Maybe that’s why, what?”
“Laken has her memory. They were unable to wipe it out completely. She remembers everything. I have a feeling it’s because of you. I don’t think what you did was stupid, Skyla. I think you saved her.”
A scream drills into the night—it lances through the music and rides over the laughter in the crowd, but no one pays it much attention because tonight is a night when blood-curdling screams are venerated.
Coop freezes.
“That’s Laken.” He bulldozes through the crowd and takes off toward the woods at the back of the estate.
I chase him as far as the lawn before my heels start to sink into the tender soil.
“Coop, wait!” I shout, but he meets up with a longhaired girl at the base of the forest and spins her into a kiss. The fog settles over them, and they turn into murky shadows before evaporating completely.
“Skyla?” Gage comes running out from the darkness. “Some chick just slapped the hell out of me.” He touches his hand to his cheek dumbfounded.
“Oh! I bet Laken thought you were Wesley. You’re a dead ringer.”
“That would explain the strange conversation.” Gage wraps his arms around my waist again and settles his cobalt eyes over mine. “Now where were we?”
“I believe it’s my turn.” Logan crops up, pulling Gage back by the shoulder.
The music switches gears to something way upbeat, and Logan makes a face.
“Oh, come on!” I try to pull him out onto the dance floor, but he doesn’t budge.
“Just my luck,” he laments. “I’ll catch the next slow dance.”
“Come on, Logan,” Gage teases. “Skyla, here, wants to see you bust a move.” He whips out his phone. “I’ll tape it, and we can play it back for the team.”
Logan shakes his head. “You wish.” He pulls me in and takes up my hand.
You mind if I take a rain check? Maybe a private dance later, say in the butterfly room? The bowling alley needs me—three more people just called in sick.
“I’ll go with you,” I whisper. I don’t know why I felt the need to whisper since there’s only Gage in the vicinity, and this isn’t exactly a top-secret conversation.
“I get it.” Gage holds up his arms. “I’ll get lost.”
“No, wait—” Before I can properly protest, he’s drifting through the crowd.
“You’d better find him.” Logan brushes his fingers over the top of my brow with a look of resolute sadness. “I should have closed the damn place tonight. It’s dead, anyway.”
“I’ll remind you of that next year.” I push him in by the small of his back and sway us to a rhythm all our own.
Logan’s eyes widen before he frees a tiny smile. “I don’t want to think about next year. I’m enjoying this moment, right now.” That destitute sadness comes over him again. “I thought we held something big, Skyla. I thought we’d last forever.”
My stomach pinches at the use of the word “forever.” That’s sort of Gage’s self-proclaimed buzzword. I slip my hands down over the back of his jeans and into his pockets.
“We get happily ever after, remember?” I bump my forehead to his and pull back. It’s almost as if Logan doesn’t remember a thing, and it scares me to death.
“Yeah.” He looks down and fills his lungs to capacity. “I gotta go.” His lips twitch as if he’s fighting a smile. “Do you think I could steal a quick kiss?”
“You bet. I hear if you kiss someone on Halloween night it means something spectacular is about to happen.”
“Really?” He ticks his head back a notch, slightly amused.
“No, not really. I totally just made that up, but wouldn’t it be great if it were true?” I give a soft laugh, raking my fingernails lightly over his back.
“Oh, I think it’s true.” Logan twirls me until we land further from the party, the fog acts as a privacy screen just for the two of us. Something in Logan wakes up, and he’s brimming with that sexy grin again. “We’re on our way to something spectacular, Skyla. I can feel it. I just have no damn idea how we’ll get there.”
I put my finger to his lips. Logan is getting ready to veer off the cliffside again, and I don’t want him to.
“This is real. Right here”—I pick up his hand and kiss it—“right now.”
“I want you to kiss me, Skyla.”
I lean in and land a peck on his lips. My biggest fear is I end up in a marathon make out session with each one of them tonight.
“Like you mean it.” Logan’s longitudinal dimple inverts. It’s the earmark of all of the suffering we’ve been through, the aching lust that had to be denied, the deception, the outright public denial we exhibited just so we could survive. Logan and I were rising like a kite, the long tail of the past glittering behind us like an indelible trail of where we once were and how we came to survive.
“I’ll kiss you like I mean it.” I crash my lips over his, and every blissful emotion detonates. The stars, the sun and moon, we outshine their glory—the banner over the two of us is eternal love. We have happily ever after in our grasp, we just need to reach out and clasp onto it—
He pulls back abruptly. “I’d better go.” He dots my forehead with a kiss. “Thank you for that. I know you don’t want have a ‘marathon make out session’ with each one of us tonight.” He gives a playful wink. “And if you do”—he holds up his hands like it’s a stick up—“turnabout’s fair play.”
“
Logan
.” I swat him over the stomach.
“I’m going to ditch out the back gate. Why don’t you head inside and find that morose nephew of mine. Tell him to stop moping around like he’s got a communicable disease.”
“Got it.” I pinch his hand as our fingers lose their grasp and watch as he melts into the dismal fog. “I’ll always be your zombie girlfriend!” I shout after him.
“And I’ll…”—he holds out his hands considering it for a moment—“always be your dead boyfriend.”
A bubbling laugh rides through me as I head inside to find Gage.
Marathon kissing session. I huff a laugh at the idea.
Although, I did kiss Marshall earlier, and, God knows, I just kissed Logan.
Two down—one to go.
The clouds erupt in a roiling boil, regurgitating and pulling back into themselves in rounded, fluid movements. Paragon quivers, waiting for the rain to give, but the sky holds back its affection demanding that the soil, the rocky crags that make up her borders cry out for its attention. There was a ransom to be paid before the weather would release to a climax. A wicked wind brewed from the south—foreign and heated, it held the slight scent that I had never bore witness too, it left the aftertaste of sorrow and destruction eroding my palate, and I knew—I knew right then, every word Marshall spoke tonight was true.
My life had already changed. I just didn’t know how. I had become a blind man groping in the dark, feeling my way to a destiny that would certainly bring me grief.
Once Logan leaves, I make my way back inside Demetri’s supernatural social dysfunction and swim through a sea of bodies while keeping an eye out for Gage.
A bell goes off in the main hall to my left, so I head over to find out what the ruckus is about.
I take in an ever-expanding breath as I spot not one, not two, or even
twenty
—but an entire plethora of Marshall’s seventeenth-century slutty sweethearts.
Gah!
They’ve all migrated over to the Fem’s haunted ball. God forbid Marshall lost his harem due to the fact he was tied up quite literally, by the Chloe lookalike running amuck in his bedroom. Damn Bishops.
“May I have your attention, please!” Demetri floats up into the air, and, for a moment, I feel like passing out at the sight of his brazen act of levitation. Doesn’t he realize this is a rather
human
environment? Someone should pull him to the side and let him in on the fact his dime store illusions aren’t welcome on planet Earth, not even on Halloween night.
A light kiss lands on my cheek, and I jump right out of my skin half expecting a clown Fem to attack, but it’s not a clown Fem, it’s my sweet boyfriend Gage.
I take his arms and wrap them around my waist like a seatbelt.
“Did Logan take off?”
“Yup.” I wrinkle my nose. “It’s up to you to make this a Halloween to remember.”
“It’s on.” His dimples dig in, deep as oil wells. Gage rubs his warm hands up and down my back as Demetri beats a glass to death with a knife.
“Attention.” The room quiets down to acknowledge the unholy host. “Brothers and sisters of the night, welcome.”
The room erupts with cheers as if he actually said something of value, such as
I’m about to tie a noose around my neck and hang myself for all to witness.
But I’m not that lucky.
“This lovely lady…” He pulls Darlene up next to him, and only then do I realize they’ve hoisted themselves onto the piano.
I glance over at Mom with her top hanging low on one side, the baby happily suckling away, and I cringe because I know what’s coming next.
“Darla Marie Johnson Nee Paul,” Demetri gets down on one knee.
“God”—I whisper to Gage—“it sounds like he just cast a spell.” And knowing Demetri, he did. Although, to be honest, I think the only thing he’s casting is bullshit aimed right at my mother.
Giselle waddles over to us in her ridiculous slutty mermaid attire and claps quietly—thrilled she didn’t miss the romantic proclamation.
Demetri pulls out a crimson velvet box, although from here it sort of looks like a giant blood clot.
“Darla dear, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Mom’s face bleeds out all color. The smile she was so desperately trying to manufacture has turned into a ghastly grimace.
Darla lets out an obscene series of whoops, stomping up and down on the piano like she trying to kill a cockroach. If she moves her feet a few inches to her left she will. Although Demetri, much like a cockroach, is near impossible to extinguish.
My heart breaks for Mom.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, speeding across the room.
Mom snaps out of her stupor as soon as she sees me coming. I can tell by the look on her face she doesn’t want me to say a single word.
Demetri jumps in our midst before I can open my mouth.
“Mr. Edinger is getting married, Skyla,” Mom’s eyes gloss over, wet and wild, never a good combination. “Isn’t that exciting?” She grits it through her teeth.
“Mr. Edinger?” Demetri scoffs with that I’m-going-to-drive-you-insane-with-jealousy smirk on his face. He so knows what he’s doing. In an attempt to take himself off the market, he’s somehow managed to up his value with my mother. Maybe he’s not such a dime store magician after all? More like a grade-A con.
“Congratulations, Darla.” Mom briefly ignores the lying Fem and his juvenile scare tactics. Everyone with half a brain realizes the only woman he’s after is my poor, unfortunate mother.
“Oh, hon!” Darla holds out her sparkler—momentarily blinding everyone in the vicinity. “You’ll have to do up our wedding. I bet that party store of yours has a whole shitload of good stuff to make my big day shine.”
“
Oh
.” Mom nods with that false sense of congratulatory joy plastered on her face. “You’ll shine, Darla. You’ll shine just like pyrite.”
Pyrite? That’s fool’s gold. Mom just took Darla down a notch, and Darla doesn’t even realize it.
“Brielle!” Darla screeches before taking off to share the bad news.
“So a wedding, huh?” I sneer at the snake hiding out in vampire garb. Demetri gives both snakes and vampires a bad name.
A pair of warm arms encircle me from behind, followed by the clean scent of Gage’s cologne.
“Perhaps a wedding of your own is not far off in the future?” Demetri nods into me.
Mom makes a face. “Skyla and Gage are, unfortunately, ‘just friends.’” Mom bites the air with her words. “Marriage isn’t meant for everyone. Some people should just do without it.”