Wicked

by Addison Moore

  “Excuse me, but we’re trying to have a private conversation here.” Emily’s nostrils flare when she says it. She’s obviously miffed about the whole Drake and Brielle reunion. Speaking of which, I should totally think of a couple’s name for them, like Dreielle, or Brake.

  “I was just looking for Lexy,” I shout over the music. My gaze drifts outside the window where I find Marshall on his cell. “Oh, and Michelle?” I don’t take my eyes off him. I hope he’s incurring some incredible roaming charge for what he’s about to make me do. I give a quick glance over at Chloe who’s totally hijacking Gage at the moment. I hope she breaks out in hives every time she thinks of him.

  “What?” Michelle barks in my face zipping the rose across her neck like a pendulum.

  Emily leans in. “I realize you have no real friends, but could you leave us the hell alone, we don’t want you here.”

  I stand there stunned by Emily’s harsh words. Do I have any real friends? Can I trust anyone I’ve met while living on Paragon? How do I know I can trust Logan the Count or even Gage for that matter? Marshall wants to me to give him dominion by way of my uterus, and Chloe has already shown her true colors. What if the people that hate me are my truest friends of all?

  I should grab Michelle by what little hair she has left, pull and run. But I don’t want to get the things that I want by hurting people, not even Michelle.

  Instead, I lean in and ask Emily something I’d really like an answer to. “So what’s up with all those freaky pictures?”

  The whites of her eyes flash, her hand reaches up and twists my shirt. Then she does the unimaginable and lifts it effortlessly over my head leaving me in nothing but my bra in front of all the kids from East and West.

  Now, if I had worn my black lace push up, or my peach barely there see through, or even no freaking bra it would have been less embarrassing than the beige orthopedic number I threw on in a hurry this morning.

  An echo of gasps whip across the room.

  I pull down my shirt and push hard into Emily in one easy move. Looks like I get my throw down after all, just not the one stipulated by Marshall.

  A hard knock comes at me from behind, and I fall on my face—it’s Michelle, she did it. She initiated the fight. Oddly I’m filled with relief.

  A familiar looking set of tennis shoes bolt in my direction. I roll onto my back and launch Michelle up near the ceiling before Gage could even hope to save the day. Little does he know that I’m saving the day, and doing multiple public services all at the same time.

  Michelle lands hard on the floor just shy of my face and I pin down both her arms. “Oh, Holden,” I whisper. “You have truly let me down,” I grit the words through my teeth. I can feel Gage trying to pluck me off by the waist, but I’m so close to declaring my affection for Marshall I can’t let him.

  “Keep your hands off Dudley,” I shout, sorely lacking the proper enthusiasm. Marshall steps into the house feigning a look of surprise. He’s so obvious. I want to vomit all over Michelle first, then him.

  Gage moves slightly, and I see the spirit sword flirting with me from beneath his shirt.

  Without offering it any thought, I jump up and yank it free in one clean swipe. I run my finger over the back of the blade and feel it strum through me with a pleasing electrical current. The dull room lights up in a beautiful shade of astral blue as I dart over to a horrified Chloe.

  It would be so easy to try and carve her just like Tad did the Thanksgiving turkey, so laboriously, painfully slow. But there are too many witnesses, and surprisingly even in all this fury, I can see the upside to not being locked in jail. Instead, I snatch at the necklace and give a quick swipe with the blade.

  A clean line of blood erupts.

  “Oh my, God!” Someone screams from behind.

  Shit!

  I think I just decapitated Chloe Bishop in front of God, and country, and a thousand fucking witnesses.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Shatter

  A thin seam of blood quickly soaks Chloe’s sweater. She stares down in horror as her face bleeds out all color.

  It’s safe to say I miscalculated the length of the knife. It’s safe to say I…

  A vacuum fills the room. Every orifice in my body is suctioned so succinctly that having my brain siphoned out of my ears feels like a very real possibility. In a sudden burst, the pressure gives. The windows all blow in simultaneously, and a rush of bloodied bodies explode in riotous screams. The floor moves, first in slow rolling motions then hard sudden jerks. Holden is really going all out, on this, his last night as a disembodied soul.

  Pictures fly off the walls, people, purses, vases—bottles are jagging around the vicinity. The room whips up like a tornado, round and round until there’s just one intense melting pot of color. Then, in a thunderous clap, everything crashes.

  You could say free falling from Brielle’s ceiling was something to behold—a weightless wonder, plunging into the startled world below. I land soft as leaf into Logan’s waiting arms.

  Casting a quick glance around, I spot Ellis tending to an almost decapitated Chloe, so I head on over.

  “Looks like that flying glass really did a number on you.” I give her a hard look.

  She swipes her hand over her injury and looks down at her glossy fingertips.

  “That wasn’t supposed to happen.” She clutches at the pendant around her neck.

  “Sure it could happen.” Logan picks the sword up off the floor and gives it back to me. “She’s a Celestra, pure as you.”

  “Really? I could kill Chloe?” I look over at her as she shrinks with fear.

  Logan places his fingers on my bare arm. You could if she wasn’t wearing that necklace. You’d go to justice alliance. Also prison would be a real possibility because they don’t defend killing within your own faction.

  So what you’re saying is—I could kill you, no problem. I give a wry smile.

  Sirens cut through the music, and the outside world ignites in a riot of patriotic colors.

  “Let’s go.” Gage wraps an arm around me. “Chloe, I’m sure your mom will gladly pick you up from the hospital.”

  Ellis steps up. “I’ll stay with her.”

  It takes everything in me not to scowl at Ellis for being nice to her.

  “I hope you feel better.” I lean over to Chloe and smack my hand flat against her forehead. Press charges, and I’ll cut a little deeper next time. “You feel warm, you’d better get some rest.”

  She reaches up and digs her fingernails into my arm. You’re with Dudley now. Don’t forget it. And Skyla? I hear the Counts would love to have you.

  A bitter breeze slices through the room.

  I let my eyes linger over her as I rise to my feet. I want to remember her this way, feeble and bleeding.

  I walk out the door with Gage and Logan on either side of me. Chloe’s incision looked disappointingly superficial. With my luck she’ll be sealed and healed by morning.

  We come upon Brielle leaning over the rail yakking into the bushes while Drake stands beside her rubbing her back.

  We head down the porch, and I turn to get a look at the house.

  “Well done, Ms. Messenger.” Marshall speeds me away from Logan and Gage over near the edge of the property.

  “So, does Holden get his,” I stop short of saying body, “you know…”

  “Yes, he gets his, you know. I plan on collecting on that kiss momentarily, so give yourself a pep talk, psych yourself out, whatever it is you do to prepare for a touch of my resplendence.”

  At least his ego doesn’t suffer.

  “I can’t give you that kiss.” I glance back at both Logan and Gage openly glaring in our direction. “You forgot Nat and Pierce.”

  “Abject humiliation is hard to come by.” He gives my hand a squeeze and looks up towards the roofline of Brielle’s house.

  “Oh wow.” My mouth falls open.

  Nat and Pierce are both straddling the rain gutter strangulation s
tyle.

  “They’re naked,” Marshall is quick to point out in the event I hadn’t noticed.

  “Rutting on rooftops is sort of their thing.” It’s a reprisal of what they did at West a few weeks back—got Nat suspended for a couple days. Come to think of it, she’s sort of suspended now.

  The entire population of East and West watch as Nat and Pierce writhe in their discomfort. The fire department shines a spotlight in their direction, and everyone stares transfixed as though we were unexpectedly being treated to some X-rated movie.

  “Good work, Marshall,” I pat him on the back. “And Holden the not so friendly ghost?”

  “Already resurrected.”

  “Really?” I bounce on the balls of my feet.

  “Really,” he mocks my enthusiasm. “I’ll be by later tonight to collect your debt. The price of revenge is rather mouthwatering, wouldn’t you say?” He looks past my shoulder into the crowd and gives a wicked grin. “Or shall we do it now?”

  “Tonight,” I breathe out in defeat.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  The Chase

  I see Chloe hedging around the corner of the house and not a sign of Ellis anywhere to be found.

  What’s she doing?

  I step away from the commotion, circling around the crowd until I hit the abandoned side yard. The voices of the mob and rescue crews are quickly doused with the solitude of the forest on this narrow strip of land that leads to the open backfields of Paragon.

  “Chloe?” I finger the spirit sword tucked in my jeans when I say her name.

  I cut her once tonight and watched her bleed with pleasure. I’d love to repeat the effort.

  Something shifts in the distance—a hand pushes out, then the shimmer of hair in the moonlight.

  I pull the dagger out and take off after her.

  Her footsteps quicken, she knows someone’s back here. I can practically hear the self-doubt resonating in her erratic panting. She knows it’s me—she must.

  Chloe laughs as she runs.

  “Catch me if you can,” her voice echoes in the dark.

  She wants this.

  She’s been waiting an entire year to lure me back into the forest—just Chloe and me, and the spirit sword—poetry in motion.

  “Skyla?” It’s Gage. His husky baritone echoes in the night. I hear my name again, overlapping—it’s both of them.

  I head deeper into the forest, away from the comfortable stream of moonlight to create a border of blackness between me and those willing to stop me from attempting to deliver one fatal blow.

  So this is the big reprisal—the do-over ending that attempts to change everything. One of us needs to die tonight, and according to Gage, the odds are in Chloe odds favor.

  I can see her racing ahead of me, traversing branches, extending her legs over tree stumps like a track star. Chloe is exhausting all of her physical resources. I hope she’s perfectly depleted when I knock her to the ground.

  My side starts to cramp up. My shins are on fire. The night air cuts sharp icy jags into my lungs. I’m not up for this marathon sprint. Pierce and his thirst for my iron-rich blood has sapped my strength.

  “Have to catch Chloe,” I mutter.

  We continue on, eclipsing the forest in its entirety, out to the embankment over Narrows’ beach.

  “Skyla!” The voice is distinctly Logan’s—he’s too close.

  I muster every last stitch of energy to keep going—think of my father—how helpless he was when he burned. How Chloe used him to fuel the drive for her narcissistic urge for self-preservation. She barreled ahead at all costs, and now it propels me at super human speeds. Chloe looks like a thimble in the distance, but in less than a minute, I’m upon her, running in the fog-laden trail from the fumes of her undeserving breath.

  The unthinkable happens.

  Chloe stumbles. Her arms flail wild as she does a massive face plant into Paragon’s fertile soil. I land on her back, pinning her down completely. I clutch at the knife with a stranglehold so tight, my fingers impress into the metal.

  Chloe reaches back and knocks me in the side of the face with the force of a tractor. A searing trail of fire shoots through my jaw and up towards my temple.

  She’s going to crush me. She’ll kill me if I let her.

  It’s a brawl of apocalyptic proportions as I try to control her wild limbs. The effort proves futile, so I swipe at her with the knife in earnest.

  I slice through her sweater—her jeans, I get one clean cut into the left of her chin. Welcome to the club, I want to say as the thick seam of blood rises on her cheek. We wrestle and grunt, rolling over one another in turn.

  Chloe overpowers me, rolls me on my back and sits hard on my stomach with a thud. It is an all out struggle for the sword, she won’t quit, and I won’t let go.

  The handle of the knife inverts in my hand from perspiration, pointing the blade right down over my chest.

  “Shit.” I try and buck her off, but she grabs me by the wrist, holds the spirit sword over my heart and ignites it like a flame.

  My elbows lock, my muscles tremble as I try to regain control.

  “You’re going to kill yourself, Skyla,” she spurts it out with laughter. “Did you know this weapon has the power to kill? That even you could die by its blade?”

  It’s not true. I shake my head just barely. She’s trying to scare me, throw me enough to land me in the hospital on a permanent basis.

  “It’s true.” She bites down and studies me. “Shall we count to three?”

  It takes all of my being to hold up that metal spear, but really I’m looking past it, past Chloe—up at the paper lantern sky, wonder ing if I could in fact be on my way to meet my father, my mother—leave this body right here on Paragon tonight.

  Chloe lets out a magnificent roar, buckles my arms and sends the sword plunging towards me.

  A shoe intercepts—Chloe is tackled from above.

  Logan retrieves the knife from several yards away as Gage binds up Chloe with his body.

  I get up on my knees and slap the dirt off my thighs.

  “Enjoy it while you can,” I chide. “That is the only bodily contact you’ll get from him. And you know what? He hates touching you.”

  She looks up at him with heartbreak pouring out of those dark bitter eyes.

  “You can hear him, can’t you?” I ask. “He can’t hide his true feelings when you touch him.”

  Logan steps over to her, unhooks the necklace from the back of her neck and holds it up for me to see.

  I can’t breathe. I’m so stunned I can’t move. In truth, I had forgotten all about his grandmother’s protective hedge.

  It has its own magical charm. A large silver medallion hangs from it. The blue stone in the center shimmers with zeal as though it were celebrating the fact it was no longer around Chloe’s neck.

  Logan comes over, and I pull back my hair, bow into him. The pendant pats gently against my chest as he secures the latch, still warm from Chloe’s body.

  “Thank you,” I say looking up at him.

  It’s done.

  He taps his fingers over the pendant and I place my hand over his.

  I’m safe.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Mia and Me

  Logan takes Chloe to the convenience store down the street to clean up. I was outvoted when I suggested we butcher her into twelve different pieces, bury her flesh in the four corners of the island. I guess Logan and Gage are a bunch of bleeding hearts after all—that, and they’re entirely not sold on the idea of spending the remainder of their time behind bars.

  Gage walks me home through a blanket of darkness, dusted in luminescent fog. I love it like this with Gage—holding hands, safe.

  I pause and fondle the pendant around my neck.

  Gage presses out a smile that sends a hot bite of lust ripping through my insides.

  “I love you,” I say, dazed by his beauty.

  He reaches over and removes the necklace with h
is class ring from around my neck.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t want it to catch, or anything. I want that pendant secure on you. I like the idea of no more exploding Fems.” His dimples dart in and out. He places his ring in the palm of my hand and moves it close to my chest.

  “Can I keep it?” I love his class ring. It’s like having a piece of Gage wherever I go.

  “It’s yours.”

  “You’re mine,” I lick the smile off his face, and we fall into a timeless kiss. The world warps and melts around us, spins until it’s dizzy with jealousy, until it’s just Gage and me and the universe, breathing like one.

  ***

  Gage and I step into the house still alive with the thumps and vibrations from the middle school event of the century.

  Hundreds of baby faced seventh graders float around the house, each one armed with a red plastic cup. I snatch one out of the first hand I see and sniff.

  “Are you freaking insane?” I shout over his squared off glasses. “This is beer!” He stares back sporting a full metal jacket in his mouth.

  I send the cup sailing into the crowd as I storm through the downstairs in search of Mia.