Tremble (8 page)

His expression lightens. He folds his hands and considers this while looking around at the wal s like he’s seeing them for the very first time.

“You’re going to kil him, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he gives a slow nod.

“It’s like…” I grapple for words, “he’s taking this whole boyfriend thing too far.” OK, so maybe I am too, but it’s al Logan’s fault. I never wanted to do this to begin with. If I don’t suck face with Gage on a regular basis, he’s practical y threatened to hook up with Carly, or Michel e, or some other hot girl I’m not even aware of yet.

Logan reaches over and tugs me onto his lap. His head rests on my shoulder as he combs his fingers through my hair.

“I heard El is gave you flowers.”

“Yeah, but I lost them.”

“Gage is writing you a poem. I found it scrawled in his chicken scratch on his desk.” He sounds decidedly hurt.

“A poem?” I almost want to say because he saw mine, back in my old room, but Logan would freak if he knew I was time traveling. Or light dr…

You’re time traveling? He asks.

“Shit,” I whisper. I hate when I forget he can hear me.

Just the once. I say, trying to wash the time with Chloe out of my mind.

Where? He inspects the back of my hand for the pale spots that appear each time I cross dimensions.

L.A. to see my dad. I tried to change things, but he still died…

Sorry.

He brushes the loose hair from off my face and bounces a kiss off my forehead. I meet his lips and wrap my arms around his waist. We don’t talk about Gage anymore.

Chapter Seventeen

Fake

I wouldn’t say I was cheating.

It’s not my fault I can hear El is thinking—struggling to solve problem after problem on our Algebra Two quiz. It’s not my fault El is wore shorts and his bare legs are pul ed back brushed up against mine. I blame Gage, real y.

Gage drops his pen and leans over to get it. I catch him giving a disapproving glance at my handy footwork before sitting upright in his seat again. I offered him the job first, so I don’t want to hear him squawking about it later. Besides, it’s a total coincidence that El is is working out for me this way. What’s a little flirting? It’s not like Logan’s going to mind. He practical y has me whored out to Gage anyway.

Besides, I’m stil miffed over that whole naked thing—so miffed I haven’t shared two words with Gage this morning.

I rearrange the numbers on the last two problems. Actual y I’m fairly certain I’ve corrected them, and it wil be El is who gets them wrong. Then the bel rings.

“Nice work,” Gage says as we hand in our papers.

“Best test I ever took.” El is pats me on the back before heading out the door. It’s like he thinks I’m cheating on Gage with him now.

“So did Logan knock you around?” I ask Gage as we head out of class.

“You lie to him and tel him I have pictures?”

“I guess that’s a yes. And no I didn’t lie. Do you have pictures?” We make our way into the sea of bodies bobbing up and down in the hal .

His Adam’s apple rises and fal s dramatical y.

“You…” I start, stil reaching for something intel igible to say.

“I don’t—didn’t.” He holds up a hand. “I was tempted.” We hit an even stride on the stairs. I see Briel e heading in the opposite direction, but she’s gone before I can say anything.

“Why’d you take my clothes off?” I try to keep it to a whisper, but a few heads spin around in front of us.

“You puked al over them. And in my truck—thanks for asking.”

“Oh, gross. Sorry.” I hadn’t even thought of that.

“Yeah, wel .” We walk outside and pause in a dappled patch of sunlight. The sun’s won its constant struggle and broken through a dark thicket of clouds. Mom mentioned this morning that a storm was about to push through Paragon.

“You remember anything from that ride home?” He asks.

Ride home…I draw a blank.

“Sort of,” I lie.

Gage leans in. The weight of his stare assures me it was something monumental.

“Did I take my own clothes off?” Did I just say that out loud?

“No. But you wanted to.”

A hand slaps him on his shoulder, startles me. It’s Logan. He walks by as though nothing happened. Not even a hel o. I don’t know how much longer I can do this. Something has to give. I can’t survive like this, like I’m nothing to him—less visible than air.

“After practice, you wanna go on an adventure with me?” Gage asks.

In the distance I see Logan, his broad shoulders pul ed back as he chats with a group of girls. Scary loners have a certain attraction about them.

“Wil you teach me some of your gifts someday?” It’s the knowing I’m after, teleportation too.

“Sure.” Gage would teach me to run a nuclear facility if I asked him to.

“I’m in.”

***

If I knew Gage’s adventure involved a wetsuit and snorkeling off the rocky shore of some hidden beach on the south end of the island, I probably would have said no. I didn’t bother hiding behind his truck when I pul ed on the rubber second skin. After al , he’s seen me in less than my bra and underwear.

Fleecy white foam laps over our feet as we make our way into the icy water.

“I got you.” He steadies me with his hand. A swel comes up, and we’re waist deep within a moment’s notice.

I let out a scream.

“It’s freezing!” My teeth start to chatter uncontrol ably like the windup toys you see at Hal oween.

“Pee in your suit.”

“What? No.” He did not just say that.

“Whatever.” He hands me a mask and snorkel. “Spit in your mask so it doesn’t fog up.”

“Gross,” I say, as I fol ow Captain Disgusting’s orders.

I put it on just like he showed me. I’ve snorkeled before when I was ten or something. My dad had a way of pul ing me out of my comfort zone and making me try new things. I don’t miss that part of him. It was like he would hone in on my fears and take me right to them, make me face them until they were crushed beneath my feet.

Gage and I swim out a good fifty feet. The ocean’s calmer out here, clearer, prettier.

I didn’t think we’d see much because of the blackened sky. The dense, dark clouds have worn an ominous shade of grey al day, but I can make out an entire school of tiny fish and loose floating leaves of seaweed as wide as the palm of my hand. There’s an inherent beauty about the ocean. It’s something shockingly simple yet so tremendous in magnitude it belittles you in the scope of its universe. I wish I could live here, swim in the sea day after day. Maybe this wil be our thing, Gage and I.

A pepper of rain dots the surface. Gage pul s away and dives down towards the bottom. It’s the starfish he’s after. Its lavender glow makes it suspect, and he wants to feel it, bring it to me so I can touch it.

My body rises without my permission, and I pop up to the surface. My mask flips off and my snorkel with it. I’m hit with a massive amount of force, and I get sucked further out by an errant wave neither of us saw coming.

I claw and struggle to reach the surface. Rain comes down like hatchets as I try to take in a lungful of air. I’m sucked back under, tumbling over and over again like the spin cycle of a washing machine. I can’t breathe. A jungle of seaweed coils itself around me like a thousand leather leashes. I’m tangled—thrashing—can’t see…which way is up?

My lungs give. I open my mouth with the eerie knowledge this wil be my final breath—one fil ed with salt and water—I’l slowly black out and die.

A hand clasps over my shoulder. It’s him! It’s the boy from the bleachers, the party—the dream.

He gives a friendly smile before pressing his lips to mine. I inhale deeply, take everything he’s wil ing to give me, greedy and quick. His chest presses against mine as his legs wrap around my body.

It’s the most erotic breath I’ve ever taken.

Chapter Eighteen

Just Breathe

Sharp tempered pelts tap across my flesh in even time. My lids flutter open, and I see the sky shrouded in black boiling clouds expending its endless tears as a torrential liquid fury comes down on top of me.

“Skyla!” Gage shouts slapping me, jostling me by the shoulders.

I cough and sputter, struggling to rise to my elbows.

“Let’s get out of here.” It gurgles out from me.

I can see the angry ocean churning up in a bil owy wash as water rises high up on the shore. It’s so dark out. I wonder how long we’ve been gone.

Gage scoops me in his arms and starts running across the sand dunes, over the grassy knol , and back into the parking lot.

I climb in his truck, weak as paper.

“I’m taking you to the hospital.” He buckles me in. He appears next to me and roars the engine to life.

“No, I hate hospitals. I won’t get out of the car.” I wipe my nose with the back of my hand and see a thin line of blood glossing across it. I pul down the mirror on the sunshade. There’s a slight cut on the top of my lip that looks swol en.

The kiss. It al comes back to me.

“How’d I get back on shore?”

“I found you passed out. You don’t remember?” The tires skid out as he picks up speed. It’s raining so hard the headlights reflect off the water, and I know for a fact he can’t see shit.

“Slow down. Are you trying to put me in the hospital?”

“OK relax.” He slows down to a crawl. “You were with me, then you got sucked under.”

“You let go.”

“I swear, if I thought for a minute…” His hands fly up in frustration.

“Just hold the wheel.” I slide my fingers up over his and help him steer us back into the proper lane. “I have to tel you something. A few weeks back I had this dream… I was swimming with Chloe. It was about some guy kissing me underwater. Then the other night at the game, he was there. He cal ed my name, and it was…” I try to remember if it was even him or my imagination.

“And?” His eyes ignite in curiosity as he grips the wheel with both hands. There’s a tension in his voice leading me to believe he doesn’t like where this is going.

“I saw him again at Carson’s party.”

His lips pul into a line.

“Shit,” he moans.

“So just now, I was tangled in seaweed. He was there again.”

“Then what?” He looks resolved to what I’m about to tel him.

“He kissed me.”

***

“You’re going to live.” Dr. Oliver pul s his mini flashlight away from my left eye. Purple spots appear everywhere, and I try to blink them away.

Logan helps me down from off the kitchen counter as his Aunt Emma drapes a heated bath towel over my shoulders. It carries the distinct scent of lavender. I dissolve under its warmth like a good dream you remember in the morning.

“I put it in the dryer for you,” she smiles. Her hair is pul ed back in a tight glossy bun. She doesn’t have any makeup on. The skin around her eyes is thin as rice paper, an entire roadmap of frail blue and purple veins spider across her eyelids. She gives a gentle smile. “You want me to cal your mother?”

“No, that’s OK. I sent a text on the way home and let her know everything’s fine.” Technical y, I said I was studying with Gage. She would never have agreed to let me snorkel in the rain.

Logan leads me upstairs. It feels weird knowing his aunt and uncle are aware of the fact we’re headed to his room, only we aren’t. We detour into Gage’s room instead.

He’s fresh from the shower, comfy in sweats and a t-shirt. Same huge room as Logan’s with a shelving unit eating up an entire wal —half as many books.

I’m so exhausted. I don’t think twice before crawling onto his bed. Logan and Gage sit on either side of me and stare down with their inquisitiveness. Gage had already briefed Logan about the mystery man as soon as we arrived at the house.

“Stay away from him next time you see him,” Logan warns.

“Who is he? A Fem?” I pul up on my elbows.

“Too helpful.” He shakes his head. “He found you in the ocean? Too knowledgeable to be a Count. Sounds like he could be a Sector.”

“Sector,” I whisper. Sectors are confusing as hel . They’ve been known to take bribes from the Countenance. They sick the Fems on you to do their dirty work. “What does a Sector want with me?”

“I don’t have a clue.”

“If they’re the overlords of the angel armies, aren’t they benevolent or something?”

“Some are good, some wicked. I doubt you have a good one on your hands.” Logan assures me.

“He looked so nice,” I say, a little out of breath.

“Yeah, wel ,” Gage and Logan exchange glances. “They tend to masquerade as angels of light.”

“I don’t think you should go anywhere without Gage.” He looks mournful at the thought. “Or me if you have to,” Logan says.

“You?” A rush of adrenaline surges through me.

“Yes.”

“I thought you were off limits. You know, to keep me out of danger.” I shift in his direction.

“You’re already in danger.”

Chapter Nineteen

Hel o

I’ve never felt a more comfortable bed then when I final y sink into my own. My ankles feel as though they’ve been twisted, cracked off at the base and glued back on. My neck is kil ing me. I can’t ful y turn my head to the left.

I managed to omit the finer details of my injuries to Dr. Oliver, like the fact I think a partial paralysis seems almost inevitable which reminds me to never go along with Gage and his insane ideas again. Diving during a storm? Who am I kidding, Gage could take me diving in quick sand, and I’d probably go. I’m a victim of those watery blue eyes and the way he smiles without moving his lips.

A soft glow emanates through my closed lids. My eyes launch open. Reflexively, I part my lips to scream, but a hand clamps over my mouth.

It’s him—the boy from the water. Floating—hovering over my bed. His skin is eerily translucent. I can see the frame of my canopy right through his back. A strange incandescent light radiates from him, il uminating him from the inside like a jack o’ lantern. He gives a spectacular smile, and his teeth pierce the dark like a detonating burst of sunshine. It hurts my eyes just to look at him.

“I won’t harm you.”

I’m in the prime position to kick him in the bal s, but somehow I already know it’s useless. Strength, running, none of it wil help me now. If I threw myself out the window, I’m sure he’d appear next to me on the ground.