The Serpentine Butterfly

by Addison Moore

  “The twins are doing great,” I say.

  “Of course, they are.” Her eyes widen as if I just affronted her. “I’ve given them the very best mother. Skyla’s neuron matrix is carefully designed to make sure her mothering skills, her need to protect her young, is seven times stronger than that of your average human. It’s a vicious thing to come between Skyla and those boys. Make no mistake—she will be the victor.”

  I glance to Dudley. Not sure if this is what he meant by segue, but it feels right.

  “You know who else loves those boys fiercely?”

  “You,” she says without missing a beat, a slight look of irritation in her eyes because she knows where I’m headed with this. “Did you come to see the stone?” There’s a touch of giddiness in her voice, and now I’m the one who’s irritated.

  “No.”

  She smacks her lips. “I didn’t think so, but, nevertheless, some people do like to be apprised. We receive inquires by the dozens.”

  “We’re not inquiring. Gage wants to stay. He broke faith with the Barricade, and now the heart of the one he loves will turn against him. He had a vision when Barron was born. He’s afraid it might be him.” There, no shitting around, just straight to the point.

  “Barron,” she whispers, looking grieved in the process.

  “So you know?”

  “I know everything, Logan. I even know what you’re about to ask next.” She doesn’t look up from the ground. “Gage Oliver has a destiny. His children each have their own destinies as predicated long ago. The thing is, Demetri has become quite powerful and generous, I might add.” She looks up abruptly. “Adding to his realm—giving out options to those who least deserve it.” She clucks her tongue and waves me off. “I know what you want—Gage with Skyla until they’re old and gray—you, of course, getting to play the part of martyr.”

  “Not true. I’m dead.”

  She glances around. Her eyes enlarge as if this surprised her. “Yes, you are—for the time being. How is the situation with the Steel Barricade?”

  “Dire. They’ve eaten the Videns for breakfast.”

  “And my daughter? Has she begun her so-called retribution?”

  I glance to Dudley before answering. She can’t be serious. “She’s a tad busy,” I say. “And what exactly is she to do for retribution?”

  “She’ll think of something.” Her eyes burrow into mine, sharp as knives. “Or perhaps you will.”

  “Me? My destiny is wrapped up in here somewhere, isn’t it?”

  “Somewhere,” she echoes, her features growing cold.

  “Help, Gage,” I plead. “Help him live for those boys. I’ll sit on the throne of filth and lies, do whatever it is you want me to. I’ll switch allegiances. I’ve already done it once for Skyla. It would be an honor to do it again.”

  “You’re not a Fem.” She softens again. “You’re my special angel.” Her finger curls under my chin, soft as velvet. “You and Skyla together will be—”

  “Miserable without Gage,” I finish for her. “So will those boys. Candace”—I fall to my knees, and Dudley groans and looks away—“I beg of you with all that I am. For your precious daughter’s sake, for those boys, for my sake, help Gage out of this mess, and for the love of all that is holy, protect those children from ever choosing wickedness.”

  Her mouth falls open. She takes a small breath of surprise, her eyes searching me as if I’ve betrayed her in some way. Candace walks to the edge of the lake, her thumb tucked to her lip as if deep in thought before returning.

  “The boys have free will—and are bound with the potential curse should Gage refuse Demetri’s offer. Just the one—of course.” She lifts a finger when making the point. “Gage is being gifted a unique opportunity. Demetri is willing to forgo the original agreement, which is to take the heart of the one Gage loves and turn it against him. He does have all legal authority to do so—but, in this case, he’s offered the position to his own son—that being Gage.” She shrugs. “If Gage decides to take the curse upon himself, wickedness will reign in him. That is not the Gage you know—you will not be miserable because he is gone—you will be miserable because he is still in your midst. Prior to any of this taking place, death will come and free Skyla from her covenant with him. It’s the one mercy I’ll allow. Be gone.”

  Ahava dissipates, and Dudley and I find ourselves back in his cavernous home, staring at one another with nothing productive to say.

  “He’s screwed, isn’t he?” I ask, still trying to wrap my head around the conversation.

  “It would seem.”

  * * *

  I spend the night at White Horse, at the home I once hoped I would share with Skyla, and now more than anything I hope I won’t. It’s funny how you can hope, dream, beg God for something with all your heart, and then once the details shift, it becomes the worst outcome in the world. Well, maybe not the worst, definitely not the best.

  Sleep finds me, throws a cloak of darkness over my head, and kidnaps me into its murky oasis. I fumble from one strange dream to the next before Devil’s Peak forms around me. A familiar blonde with those deep ringlets running down her back catches my eye as she speaks to another girl.

  “Skyla?” I call out to her, and both she and Laken jog over.

  “Logan.” Her arms collapse around me, tight. It feels real, and it’s only then I note the icy air against my skin, the sharp bite of fog choking up my lungs. “We’re so glad you’re here.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. I thought this was your dreamscape.” She shakes her head.

  Laken glances around, unsettled. I can feel the fear rattling her bones like castanets. “It’s Wesley. He’s done this before. Not since Coop, but he has.”

  “What do you think he’s called us for?” Skyla’s voice trembles as she takes in the dark edges of the parking lot, the borders of the lawn that dive down the cliff not quite drawn out. Wes is playing fast and loose with details. It’s amateur hour compared to what I can do. “And why Devil’s Peak?”

  “I know why.” Laken hooks her arm through Skyla’s. “He’s about to summons us the hard way.” Laken isn’t a fan of cliff diving in an effort to see her ex. I’m not either.

  The ground trembles. A dull moan emanates from around us, and suddenly, we’re thrust into a bad sci-fi movie. Devil’s Peak vibrates as a stampede of some sort heads this way. The ground bounces and shakes as if Wesley himself is trying to make a point. The three of us struggle to balance ourselves, holding our arms out, holding each other, so we don’t fall over.

  “Wes?” Laken cries out, but her voice is drowned out by a steady, horrific moan coming from the woods just past the lot. She shakes her head. Her face grows pale as the eye of the moon. “No—please,” she pants, the panic in her rising. “They’re coming. He’s done it again!”

  “He’s done what?” I shout over the thunderous groans. “Who’s coming?”

  Laken looks to the forest and screams, “Run!”

  Skyla and I follow her gaze. Out of the woods, stabbing through the darkness, is an entire army of pale, twisted limbs, shredded clothes, blood everywhere. Hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women stagger from the shadowed evergreens. Their bruised eyes and their chalky skin give away the fact they are no longer among the living.

  They tumble out onto the parking lot, spreading over the lawn like a disease. Their limbs move at an exaggeratingly quickened pace, not your traditional zombie trot.

  Laken takes both Skyla and me by the hand and runs us off Devil’s Peak via the sharp knives of the rocks below.

  We’ll never touch them.

  We never do.

  * * *

  Laken hits the ground running once we hit the Transfer and races straight into Wesley’s nightmare of an abode.

  Skyla and I skid in after her to find Wes sitting in a chair, rocking his baby girl in his arms, innocent and pure like some Norman Rockwell painting.

  “Ezrina!” he says
as loud as possible without shouting.

  As if on cue both, Ezrina and Nev appear looking a bit haggard.

  “Ezrina? Nev?” Skyla is shocked as hell to see them here, as am I.

  “He needs a woman’s touch.” She waves us off. “It’s a temporary situation.”

  “And she looks like Chloe,” Wes is quick to point out. “I’m hoping that might help her bond when Chloe feels the need.”

  Figures. Chloe needs a body double as a mother.

  Laken leans in to get a better look at the baby, and her eyes fill with tears. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” Wes says, hushed and heartfelt, never taking his gaze off Laken. His obsession with her is about as sick as Chloe’s with Gage, although Wes and Laken actually had something once. They could still have something if he hadn’t thrown her into Coop’s arms so long ago.

  “So, Chloe’s really not stepping up, huh?” Skyla touches the baby’s cheek, and the tiny tot begins to fuss as if she still hasn’t figured out the fine art of the scream. With Chloe as her mother, she will more than master the fine art of screaming.

  “Oh!” Skyla touches her hand to her chest as dark pools of liquid grow over her breasts. “My milk just let down at the sight of her. My body seems programmed to respond these days.” She gives a slight shrug. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize.” Wes hands her a towel, which she drapes around her shoulders. “It shows you’re attentive to your children’s needs—a loving mother.” He offers a forlorn look to Laken. “You will be, too, one day.”

  Skyla tips her head in sympathy. “And you’re a good father, Wes. You’re just a lousy leader. Who were those Spectators? Where did you get the bodies?” She sucks in a deep breath. “The Videns!”

  “You’re smart, too.” He motions to the bar. “Can I get anyone a drink?”

  Laken lets out a moan. “We’re not here for your hospitality, Wes. Why pull us into this nightmare? Are those Spectators real? Is that your next move?”

  He pauses from putting the cap back onto the bourbon. “Because I can. Yes. And why not?”

  “Shit.” I walk over to that enormous globe bobbing in a barrel and give it a spin. It’s heavy, mostly onyx, I think. “You can’t have the world.”

  “No.” He takes a quick drink, and his jaw sets from the burn. “That’s my brother’s territory, along with everything else.”

  “You sound bitter.” Laken goes over, her voice wavering as if trying to steady itself. “You don’t need to be.” She’s sweetening her tone, too much saccharin. Wes is a smart boy. He already knows it’s an act.

  “I’m sorry.” He puts down his drink and steps toward her. “I don’t mean to be.” He offers her a sad smile, pained, the very present look of agony stamped over his pompous features. “Gage believes you are the only one in the world who can stop me, Laken.” He gives a slight nod as if it were a reality. “Do you believe this to be true?” The room stills. “Soon, Laken”—he threads his fingers through her hair, and she stiffens—“very soon, I’ll have my kingdom in place. The Steel Barricade is already reveling in its victory. The Spectators are simply a show of force I’ll use if I have to.”

  “Is that what you’re doing?” Skyla heads over and bats his hand from Laken’s hair. “Don’t touch her.”

  Wes gives a depleted smile. “Yes. I was simply sharing what’s to come if things get—complicated.”

  “Does Gage know?”

  He nods. “He’s been briefed. I’m sure he’ll spill the details come morning. He’s probably letting you enjoy your beauty sleep. Such a gentleman.” He shakes his head before taking another sip. “You know all of my moves, Skyla. How fair is that? It’s not, but I still have the upper hand. That counts for something, right? It’s a testament to my fortitude, my greatness.”

  Skyla wraps her arms around Laken as if she were her child but doesn’t say a word because she knows he’s right.

  “Enjoy your victory while you have it,” Skyla says it calm, cold as her mother. “It won’t be yours for long.”

  The moaning picks up right outside the walls, and I look to Skyla and Laken, shaking my head, beckoning them not to move. Within seconds, the room is inundated with the putrid stink, the rotting flesh of the Spectators’, their arms swinging through the air with a primal savagery. A deteriorating arm swings my way, slamming me against the wall with supernatural strength. The decrepit creature presses his nasty face into mine. His dead eyes, laughing the way I’ve only ever seen Demetri’s do. He plunges his mouth to my neck, locking down over my throat with his teeth, and pulls back, ripping my flesh with a searing pain that spreads like a flame through my body. A scream begs to rip from me, but I’m staring at my vocal cords, my larynx dripping from his mouth.

  Wes steps forward and touches Laken gently on the cheek. “Good night, my queen. Sleep tight.”

  I sit up with a start, panting into darkness—back at White Horse—back in the safety of my home—neck intact and all.

  My hand slaps the nightstand for my phone as I send a group text to Skyla and Laken. Everyone okay?

  Laken responds first. I’m fine. Sorry he dragged you into it.

  Then Skyla. I’m fine. There’s only one solution to this madness. Wesley and Demetri must die.

  Laken: They’re not able to—at least not Demetri. And I’m sure Wes is untouchable.

  She’s right. I hit Send.

  Skyla: Then they’ll have to be bound, immobilized, or destroyed.

  Most likely all three, and in that order. The sooner, the better.

  I beg sleep to take me one more time, but she never comes. Instead, my mind reels on how to bind, immobilize, and destroy a Fem.

  Deep down, I wonder if that Fem will be Gage.

  14

  Avenging Angels

  SKYLA

  There are many seasons in life, and, for Gage and me, this is both a season of mind-bending exhaustion and insurmountable joy. This microcosm of our existence is much more precious than any hard-won victory. It is a selfish endeavor, the salvation of our spirits found through the eyes of two cherished, blessed souls. Gage and I have soared to our own private nirvana. We’ve found a harmonious solitude among the chaos that only this sweet hour of life can bring. Nathan and Barron, their cries, their every coo have become our heart song, our lover’s anthem, something wild and beautiful born to us as the tangible representation of our union.

  I slog downstairs with sleep still locked in my eyes. The bassinets were empty when I finally managed to rouse myself, and I find my mother at the table holding one of my precious dark-haired angels, and Gage the other. I never knew my heart could expand so much, that the tendrils of my affection could grow and coil around such tiny precious beings and wrap them in the invisible matrix of my undying love. My heart has jumped outside of my body and split in two. I never knew that love could grow deeper than the sea or higher than the stars, but these two perfect creations have tapped into a part of my soul that I didn’t even know existed.

  Drake, too, is in the family room catching up on his favorite show, Naked and Betrayed, or Naked and Lost on a Group Date, or Renovating Naked, The Naked Cupcake Cook-Off. He seems drawn to shows that feature ass crack as their most important attribute.

  “You were really out.” Mom lifts the baby over her shoulder and gently pats his back in an attempt to burp him. I’m secretly terrified my mother will try to breastfeed the twins while I’m not looking. Gage has forbidden me to let her anywhere near her baby-happy boobs, as if she would stoop to that level of crazy. But I can’t help to note that her blouse is neatly buttoned up. In fact, she’s suspiciously dressed to the nines.

  “Yeah, I was pretty dead.” I give a depleted smile to Wes—gah! I mean Gage! I blink back in horror. “Good morning, Gage.” Crap. I cannot ever make that mistake, not even with my sleep-deprived brain. “Where are you off to?” I ask my mother just as Tad walks into the room, sporting a wrinkled suit, his lime green tie slightly askew.

&nb
sp; “We’re off to see the wizard!” he squawks, and I wonder for a brief moment if I’m trapped in another one of Wesley’s nightmares where Ezrina is his scullery maid and Logan’s neck is being chomped on by zombies. “And the wizard’s name is Mr. Pete Daugherty.”

  “Who’s that?” I take up the baby’s warm body in my hands and turn his precious face toward mine. “I know who this is,” I coo into my son’s tiny, sleepy face. “Mister Barron, that’s who!” Barron wrinkles his nose, and those adorable dimples go off in either side of his cheeks. Both boys have the most beautiful olive skin—or I should say Oliver skin, their dark hair is thicker and glossier with each passing day, and those eyes, those navy baby blues only seem to brighten up as the weeks go by. I’m in love. My heart swells just touching his cotton soft cheek to mine.

  “It’s our attorney.” Mom shrugs as if to apologize. “Logan insisted we get the payout we deserve.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. Logan is family.” I walk over to where Tad is doing his morning monkey-like workout while downing an entire pack of uncooked hot dogs. “And what the heck are you up to?”

  “You can’t look well when you walk into those kinds of places.” He swallows down the food in his mouth with a heroic gulp. “You need to come in smelling like you need some help.”

  “You’re going to need to be dewormed.” I’d snatch the nitrogen stick from his hand but don’t dare expose Barron to it.

  “Skyla is right. Logan is family,” Mom says it stern. “This doesn’t feel right.”

  “What?” Tad chokes it out with a hot dog mashed between his teeth. “She’s married to the other Oliver in the event you hadn’t notice—Demetri’s kid, remember?”

  My blood runs cold at the mention of it. Something about that solid truth coming from Tad and his hot dog riddled mouth makes it a filthy finality. If Tad has accepted this horrible reality—it’s pretty much official.

  “Logan is an Oliver.” Mom charges at him while snapping up her purse. “That clearly makes him family. We love the Olivers!”