“It’s not just a solution—it’s the answer.” I lean against his warm chest, feel the beating of his heart thumping against my body, and close my eyes in an effort to memorize it.
Logan offers a gentle kiss over my temple.
“So what else did she say?” I ask. “I mean, why would she give you the treble unless she wanted to keep you around?”
“She does, but I have no idea for how long. She did mention that I would be judged. I could still be punished.”
Shit.
My mother, my own flesh and blood is holding court over Logan and me for going against the factions and taking matters into our own hands. A Count or two may have paid with their lives, but at the end of the day it didn’t help our cause. They were all resurrected anyway. “I wish we never did those things. The only ones that will have to truly pay are you and me.” And lest I not forget poor Ezrina and Nev get another trial-by-fire from the Caelestis running around with my face.
“What now, Logan?” We’re finished. It all feels so damn final.
“We enjoy every minute while we have it.” He tucks a kiss just under my ear. “Hey? Do you know where we are?”
“The bowling alley,” I say it measured in the event he’s had brain malfunction no thanks to this temporal gift of my mother’s—or the head bashing I recently administered.
“Yeah, but more specifically this lane.”
“This lane?” I look around, hoping it’ll ring a bell. “I’m hearing crickets. Is this lane important?”
God
—what if Logan wants to immortalize the lane I beat the crap out of him in?
“This lane is exactly where we were just about this time last year when we broke things off.”
“Correction—when
you
broke things off.” Now it’s coming back to me, all of the heartache, the horrific pain he inflicted with nothing but that silver sword in his mouth. “You plunged a knife into my heart and killed a very real part of me that night.”
“It’s over now.” Logan buries his face into my neck and takes in my scent. “You know what kills me the most?”
“What’s that?” I look up into those honey-yellow eyes and melt under the supervision of his love. Logan washes over me with affection like a waterfall. It feels safe like this, special.
“Once she calls us to court and she makes her final decision, I’m assuming my treble will be revoked, and I’ll just up and disappear. I may never have the chance to say goodbye.”
“No,” I whisper. “I never want to hear those words from you.”
“Skyla”—his voice trembles as he turns me toward him—“I would die a thousand deaths to have you love me the way you do. Just love me. Love my memory if you have to, that will be more than enough.”
A resolute sadness settles between the two of us. It’s as if I can feel my mother’s presence as she pumps the joy right out of the room.
She wishes I would roll over and leave well enough alone. She so loves the fact she’s completely in control of our destinies. I’m sure she’s laughing it up with her cronies at the destination station saying things like,
you only think you can fuck up your kids—look what I did to mine!
“Loving your memory”—I start in slow—“will never—
ever
be enough. I’ll make damn sure there’s more to you than just some vague recollection. We get to live to a ripe old age, remember?”
He shakes his head. “I am old, Skyla. If you added up my years, I’m ripe for the picking.”
“Not by my standards. Not by anybody’s standards.” I pull him in until my cheek warms to his. “I don’t ever want to lose you, Logan. You’ll come back to me. I know you will.” I press my lips to his for a moment. “And look”—a tiny laugh quivers from me—“I already have you.”
“I’m nothing more than a ghost in the flesh.”
I trace out his lips, those perfect cheekbones, the high ridge of his brow.
“That’s all any of us are, Logan—ghosts in the flesh.”
He locks his fingers over mine and smiles.
Logan—if she takes you, she’s going to have to take me, too.
I say it in private in the event my mother is broadcasting this event to the heavenly hosts the way she did the war.
If you die, I die. It’s as simple as that
.
You have a destiny, Skyla. You need to be here—you need to fulfill it
.
Well then
— I pull back and do my best to deny the smile itching to bloom across my face—
sounds like my mother has a very serious problem
.
No, Skyla. The only one with a very serious problem is you.
Logan dots my nose with the tip of his finger.
We’re in a race against time to get that pendant back where it belongs, and if we don’t, we’ll lose it forever
.
And we’ll lose Marshall forever, too.
I glance up at him.
Why would he place more value on that damn pendant than his own life? I lean hard against his chest and rest my head over his shoulder. I really don’t want to get into a debate over the pendant. I want to save Marshall as much as I do Logan.
Logan gives my hand a squeeze, and I nuzzle into him until I fall asleep safe in his arms—the only place on the planet I want to be.
A long, rolling trail of darkness looms above the morning sky like a ship anchoring in from its final voyage, and we were its silent witnesses at the bottom of this hopeless sea. Paragon thrives in its soot-covered world. The shadowed maples with their branches, already naked, as the November winds pick up their leaves in a whirlwind.
I shower and dress for school. I spent all day yesterday locked in Logan’s arms. He came up to the butterfly room, and we just hung out. Mom convinced herself I have “that bug that’s going around.” Little does she know that bug is death, and it’s Logan who’s plagued with the disease.
“Hey, Snowball.” I poke my finger in the ivory cage and snag it back before the tip gets hacked off. It figures that Marshall would gift me a pissed off bird. “What’s with all the attitude?” I press in close to the small white beauty just as it lets out a horrid screech. “Geez! I seriously doubt you were designed to scream like that. You’re supposed to whir, soft and pretty. You know, say things like ‘who’ over and over.” The tiny creature scuttles to the opposite end of the lone stick balanced across the cage and turns its head around as if it were purposely giving me the cold shoulder. I glance down at the crap-covered bottom. “Oh, I get it. I need to clean your cage. I’ll get some newspaper and have everything nice and sanitary before I take off for school.”
Snowball spins her head slowly in my direction and glares. Swear to God that thing just gave me the stink eye.
Huh.
I shrug it off as another one of Marshall’s natural disasters. Maybe I
will
give the damn thing to Mia.
I head downstairs.
After all, I have much bigger things to deal with right now like trying to figure out a way to bribe both Chloe and my mother into getting what I want out of them. Something tells me that neither of them is willing to accommodate.
Sometimes it sucks to be me.
***
Downstairs the scent of cheap coffee and crap permeates the air.
Chloe stains the kitchen with her wickedness, gawking at something on the table with Mom.
“Well, that explains the smell.” I scowl at her as I make my way to the refrigerator. “Why are we entertaining trolls again?” I pluck out the OJ and migrate over.
“She’s Ethan’s guest,” Mom says it tight-lipped as if she weren’t crazy about the sickle slinger’s presence either. “We’re taste testing coffee for the Gas Lab.” She points down at a dozen different cups of dark, muted liquid. “Would you like to join us?”
I make a face at the bevy of inky solvents staring back at me. The last time Mom and Chloe passed the chalice it was that rocket fuel that cleared their bowels for months.
“No thanks.” I peer at the pyramid-like arrangement of mugs. “Funny, it doesn’t smell like coffee.”
“Oh, it’s instant.” Mom nods into the idiocracy.
“Instant?” I blink up at her as Mia and Melissa glide into the room. “You can’t serve
instant
at a coffee shop. We’ll be laughed off the island.”
Tad barrels over, hitching his thumbs into his belt loops like a displaced farmer.
“We can and we will,” he gruffs. “Chloe, here, just gave us the heads up on a distributor that sells this stuff for .98 a pound.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bargain.” I’m quick to inform before spinning into the demented diva. “And it would figure that all these crappy ideas are coming straight from the crap factory itself—your brain.” I turn to Mom and Tad. “Are you even listening to this? She’s targeting us for a financial meltdown, and you’re falling right into her wicked scheme. Might I remind you it was
my
inheritance you swiped to finance this disaster? Shouldn’t I have some say?”
“Oh, really?” Chloe perks to attention at the revelation. “I guess that would make us partners in this venture. I put up my own savings to help Ethan fund the other half of what he needed.”
“Yup.” Ethan strides over, popping the lid on a soda. “You’re fifty-fifty partners. Isn’t that great?”
“Why would that be great?” It howls from me like a siren, and the baby startles in his playpen, sending Mom bolting to his side.
“Dude.” He knocks me in the arm. “You two like
hate
each other. What better way to make the business thrive than to have you both competing to make it better?”
“You are such a doofus.” I push him all the way to the fridge. “If that is your only business strategy, you’d better be prepared to close your doors faster than you opened them.”
I glance back while Chloe accosts my sisters. God knows what unfortunate plans she secretly has for the two of them.
“And what was this ultimate revenge you kept toting against the girl who eviscerated you?” I smack Ethan in the chest. “Or did you forget that she was the one responsible for your death to begin with?”
“I slept with her.” He ticks his head back a notch as if I should have deduced this a long time ago. “Relax, would you? It’s still playing out. I’m keeping her handy for those cold, lonely nights. She’s basically my sexual servant.”
A deep groan emits from me as if he just socked me in the gut.
“That’s it?” I shake my head in disbelief. “She deserves way worse than that.”
“Yeah, but for someone as rotten as she is, death’s way too easy.”
I suck in a breath because, God almighty, Ethan Landon is right for once.
“She killed my father and Logan,” I whisper. I don’t care that she actually killed my father by proxy, she was the one who demanded Demetri kill him, and, as a Fem, he was bound to comply. My blood runs cold as ice. Did I just excuse Demetri, the demon of darkness, from setting my father ablaze like some birthday candle? I shake the thought away and continue, “
And
she slit Gage’s throat. She’s a recipe for disaster, Ethan. She’s going to make sure you, me, and that coffee shop slash oxygen tank explosion in the making, go up in flames.” Just like Dad. “And what’s with the ridiculous blank canvases hanging from the walls?” I smack him over the stomach for being so blatantly stupid.
“It was her idea. The customers can see what they want.”
“Figures. You know what they’re going to see?
Nothing
. Just like you will when you look in the register.” I glare over at her, hamming it up with my sisters like she’s their new best friend. “The only thing Chloe sees is Gage.”
Ethan lets out a raucous belch before making his way over to his satanic sweetheart.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.” He turns and gives me a wink as he leads her to his bedroom. Really, I’m beginning to think the only one being tormented in that sick bed of perversion is Ethan. I’m sure Chloe has her Gage goggles on while screwing him into oblivion. She’s that demented.
I speed over to Mia and Melissa huddled near the cups of muck.
“What’s with all this fraternizing with the enemy?” It takes everything in me to keep from dumping the wannabe coffee all over their heads. My sisters need to wake up and smell the instant sewage the enemy is trying to shove down their throats, so they can focus on the fresh brewed truth.
“What enemy?” Melissa chirps, slightly annoyed with my question. “Chloe?”
“Yes, Chloe. Always Chloe.”
Mia clicks her tongue. Her face does its best impression of mine. “Gee, Skyla, it’s as if you’re forgetting the rules of the game.
You’re
the enemy, remember? And if you don’t want us fraternizing, I suppose you’ll have to move out.”
“I’m not your enemy, Mia. Don’t you ever say that.”
“Yes, you are,” it speeds out of her. “I took an oath and everything. I’m officially a member of the Countenance.”
Shit.
I can feel the blood draining from my face as I grow lightheaded.
“Halloween,” I whisper. I was supposed to stop them from unifying themselves with the celestial vermin, but life threw me a curveball. “Mia,” I grab ahold of her by the shoulders and try to rattle some sense into her. “You need to get out of that. You need to denounce it today. Dad is going die all over again.”
“Skyla!” Mom barks from across the room. “Hands off.”
I drop my arms and take in Mia’s shaken features. She cringes away from me as if I had just tried to behead her.
“Mia”—tears blur my vision—“I can’t lose you. I can’t lose either of you.”
Melissa glares at me with a viral hatred I have never seen in her before. It’s too late. Chloe has already seeped into their veins like poison.
I speed out of the room and smack right into a body at the end of the long, dark hall—Chloe.
“What’s all this blubbering about?” She pushes me back a good foot. “You’ve already lost your sisters.” She gleams with evil delight. “Your inheritance is sunk into
my
business, Skyla. You’re my bitch. You work for me.” Her lips twitch with satisfaction.
“I’ll always have Gage.” Those words alone are far more effective than a punch in the gut. And will I? Or is this some cheap lip service to hurt Chloe with?