“It’s me, Gage,” I whisper.
She springs up and flies into my arms. Skyla folds into me, her face slicked with tears, and I rub my cheek against hers, assuring her it’s going to be okay.
“I can’t stay,” I whisper, brushing my lips over the top of her hair. “They’ll check on you every fifteen minutes.” I pull back and take her in. Even in this dim light, with her tear-covered face, she’s so amazingly beautiful. Skyla Messenger is a work of art that could make the Mona Lisa look like a preschooler threw it together.
That vision from Rockaway blows through me like a summer storm, and I try to shake it off before I get carried away.
“Logan wants you to try and fall asleep. He can visit you there in your dreams.” Logan is the anti hard-on. Just thinking of them together effectively douses any carnal desire in me.
“He can?” Her brows knit in confusion. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He was saving it.” I pull her in close. I don’t want to let go—not now, not ever. A shadow covers the door. “They’re coming.” I wipe the tears from her face and offer a reserved smile. “Goodnight.” I push my lips to her forehead and dissolve to nothing.
***
A pale bloom of fog greets me. I make it about a quarter of a mile from the hospital before fully materializing just off the main highway.
I pat my jeans—no cell phone, no wallet, no change.
“Great.” Looks like it’s a nice early morning walk for me. I’d hitchhike, but there’s not a headlight to be found.
“Nevermore.” I call for him out of boredom more than necessity.
It takes a few minutes for him to land on my shoulder. We plod along for a good stretch of highway before I decide to find someplace to nod off and recharge my batteries. Oddly enough, the beach to my left is Rockaway, so I head in that direction. It’s weird how I haven’t been here in years, and now here I am, twice in one week. Kind of a coincidence that I could only get as far as this before my teleportation skills decided to give me the middle finger.
I wander my way under a giant coral tree and lie beneath it. I can see the stars shining up through its smooth grey branches. They look like the shapely limbs of a women—Skyla’s arms ready to hold me.
The fiery red trumpets that adorn the tree are turned up toward heaven as if they were about to signal something monumental, life changing.
Something big is about to happen on Paragon—to Skyla—in my life. Everything in me knows this to be true. I don’t know what, but I can feel it coming as sure as the next wave is about to break over the shore. I just pray it’s not Skyla who’s about to break—that someway, somehow her heart feels that special connection to mine.
As for Logan, I hope he finds someone, too. Just not Skyla. Please God, don’t let it be Skyla.
I close my eyes and fall into a vat of strange dreams. A mysterious stranger comes to the island and becomes the new thorn in my side. A wickedness, thick as smoke, covers Paragon. It stretches its jaws and tries to swallow Skyla whole. A war erupts, but not here—somewhere new, a desolate place with snakelike rivers. Logan, Skyla, and me are gathered in a strange arid place. A white stallion charges in our direction. The rider is swift and skilled, a woman with her face shielded by a cloak. She holds out a sickle, large and looming with its serrated razor-like teeth. She trots over to the three of us and holds out the belly of the blade—slicing our heads off as she rides away laughing.
My eyes bolt open, and I take in a breath.
The rider on the white horse—it was death—and death looked a hell of a lot like Chloe Bishop.
20
Logan
See You in My Dreams
Emma swears that melatonin knocks her out before she hits the sheets, so I pop one in my mouth and get to bed. I pull off my T-shirt and lay it over my eyes, hoping for the best. I don’t make it a regular practice to open my dreamscape to others—hell, I don’t hang out there myself. It’s worse than a viral hangover in the morning. I’ve been known to puke my guts up for hours just wishing my intestines would hurl out of my body and get it over with.
The bed trembles. The mattress loosens beneath me as I melt through the sheets. It’s always the falling sensation that clues me in on the fact I’m about to drift into dreamland, literally.
A blank canvas awaits. I stretch out the sky the color of her eyes. I mold the earth into a grassy hillside with blades as thick as fingers. A sparkling lake roars to life at my command, serene and beautiful. The scenery alone beckons me to stay for hours. I raise the sun high over head. A makeshift fiery orb affords heat and light like the real deal, but better, because this one we can actually see. In this universe, I’m nothing short of a god. But I’m far from the creator himself, and with the questionable DNA mapped out inside me I could never hope to be.
Skyla appears from nowhere.
“Logan!” She jumps up on my waist, and I spin her, kiss her lips until I’m dizzy, and we fall to the soft rolling lawn.
“Comfortable?” I wipe the tears from her eyes—kiss away the ones that bloom in the corners with my lips.
“Yes.” She snuggles into me as we lay on the sheer slope.
“You’re going to be fine,” I assure her. I’ll break in and free her myself if I have to.
“Did Gage say so? Why didn’t I think of that? I should have made Gage tell me everything about my future.”
“It’s not right of him to do that.” I run my fingers through her hair over and over, stroking her like some exotic creature. I don’t want her to think too deeply about Gage or his predictions, especially not if they involve her and a wedding ring.
It’s too hard to hold up the wall here. At any moment, my thoughts could release like a torrent, spilling Gage and his obsessive brand of love all over the damn place.
“I’m desperate.” She pulls in close and fills in the space between us with her soft, delicate curves.
I press in a quick kiss. “You don’t need to be. Take in the Master’s peace. He wants this anxiety, give it to him.” It’s the one thing that’s kept me from going insane in both this life and the one I had before it—never did bother to hold onto the anxiety that life kept shoveling my way. I’ve always had peace up until I met Skyla—until I found out I couldn’t protect her.
She rolls over and looks up at me, innocent as a dove. “I don’t know how to send it.”
I reach up, and a deflated balloon appears between my fingers.
“What’s that?”
“Your anti-stress agent.” I give a little smile. “Imagine all of your stress filling up this balloon. Come on.” I nudge her shoulder.
Skyla gives a long blink before staring intently at the limp latex in my hand.
The balloon begins to swell. She leans up on her elbows, amazed as it augments to the size of a lavender watermelon. I tie it off and let go. We watch as it sails into the sky until it turns into a tiny purple dot, innocuous as confetti.
“There it goes.” I mock shoot it with my fingers as it touches the stars and dissipates to nothing.
“It’s done.” She shivers. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me.”
“Right. Thanks,” she shouts up at the sky. Skyla interlaces our fingers and spoons into me as we lie on the grass. There’s so much more I don’t understand. So many more balloons to fill in this lifetime. I wonder how he has time to hear them all or if they accumulate around him until he’s overwhelmed. I imagine I’ll get to ask him myself one day. He’ll show me a pile of decimated latex, and I’ll get to thank him all over.
Skyla’s right. There are so many balloons we’ve yet to fill.
I tighten my grip over her.
As long as we’re together, we can survive anything.
Gage drifts through my mind like a ghost.
Can we survive Gage?
I wonder.
***
The next day, I’m about as useful as a sack of shit on fire. Somehow, I’ve managed to avoid puking my guts up
but slept until daylight had long since passed, and it’s dark outside my window again.
Gage barges in. He clip-clops those boat feet of his over until it sounds like a hammer is cracking over my skull.
“Great news.” He sits on the edge of my bed. “Thought you might like to know, Skyla’s out of the hospital.”
I push up on my elbows, and my insides rip with pain. “She okay?”
“She’s fine. She texted twice saying she was heading to Nat’s tonight. You up for it?”
“Where’s my phone?”
He flips it onto the mattress, and I see that all of his info came from reading my texts.
“You left it downstairs.” He bears into me with a slightly ticked-off expression. “You want me to wait for you?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
***
Natalie Coleman’s parents live on beachfront property in one of the more exclusive areas of Paragon. For the last two years, Nat has hosted what’s become the end of summer bonfire, open to both East and West.
Gage and I park at the public beach because the parking is non-existent up by Nat’s house. It looks like most of the party is migrating in this direction, anyway.
A couple of guys from the team call out to us, and I pat Gage on the shoulder, shoving him in their direction.
“I’ll be back in a minute. I need to take a walk, straighten out my stomach—get my bearings after pulling an all-nighter.” That’s the truth, in partial. My head is a mess just thinking of all the danger that lies ahead for Skyla—the idiots in the car that tried to ram us, the morons that stole her blood sample. It’s becoming clear that the Counts have given the green light for every creature of wickedness to wreak havoc in her life.
I drift away from the crowd. The fog and smoke intermingle and create a layer of confusion over the shoreline, making Paragon look like the most polluted island on the planet.
“Logan.” A male voice booms from the forest that hedges along the beach.
I take a few cautious steps in that direction.
Can’t see shit. It’s too dark in the thicket to make anyone out.
It’s probably Ellis with a few spare girls he’s looking to unload. Or maybe he needs me to do a condom run. Wouldn’t be the first time.
A man with broad shoulders presses against the cedars like a shadow. His eyes glint in this dim light a strange, glowing yellow. His features look more than familiar—the hair, the clothes—crap—I know them all.
It’s me.
“Don’t freak out.” The stranger with my face steps out of the woods. “I’m pretty sure you expected this on some level.” He gives an apprehensive grin. “I should know—I’m you.”
“I was sort of hoping for my—our—father,” I whisper in the event that it’s a Fem who’s decided to don my face like a Halloween mask. It’s an older version of me, leaner, more refined. “Are you my supervising spirit?”
“No.” He glances back and makes a face. “The spirit chooses to remain anonymous,” he says with slight annoyance. “I’m you, Logan, from the not-too-distant future.” He steps in and scrutinizes me. “You have to help Skyla. She’ll be coming to you in a Treble tonight—the Treble is a gift. You’ll have less than five minutes when she arrives.”
“Then what?”
“You’ll have to push through to help her.”
“Push through what?”
“You’ll figure it out. Just don’t let go of her until you get there.” He takes a careful step back into the woods. “Don’t you ever stop fighting for her.” He delivers the words like a threat before evaporating to nothing.
Gage
I don’t hang out with the guys any longer than I have to. I start in on a walk of my own, only Logan is the last person I want to bump into—it’s Skyla I’m hoping for.
A series of small bonfires burn up and down the beach. Some idiot from East loaded one up with paper, causing a white tornado of smoke to rise in the sky like a pillar.
I spot Michelle, Lexy, and Emily huddled with a bunch of people from East. Nat and Pierce are in a serious liplock. It looks painful, like a war is taking place in their mouths. That’s not at all what it was like with Skyla. Her kisses were pure and sweet with just the right amount of hunger and passion. I wonder how long it’ll be until we experience that again, how many Long Logan days I’ll have to wait until she blesses me with those honeyed lips, those sugared kisses.
“Wait up!” A voice calls from behind. It’s Logan.
“You find her?” I’m pretty sure the only thing Logan was bellyaching for was Skyla.
“Not yet. She’s probably on her way.” He leans over his knees like he might be sick.
“You okay, man?” I pat him on the back as we take a seat in the sand.
“Not really.” He winces in pain. “I just had the strangest run-in.”
“Michelle after you again?”
“No, it wasn’t a girl.” He stares off into the ocean, distracted by whatever just happened. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it.” He rubs his eyes with fatigue. “You know—a thought came to me tonight.” Logan looks out at the waterline as it wafts in and out of the fog. “Skyla and me, we’re not going to be safe. I’m putting her in more danger than she’s already in.”
A surge of hope spears through me, and I feel horrible for wanting it—for wanting Skyla on a silver platter. Then a stone settles in my chest, hot as a coal. The only way I could truly have her is if she wanted me on her own. Logan could never gift her to me even if he tried.
“Two Celestra.” I nod into his line of thinking. “But she’s got the protective hedge, so it’ll all work out.” It always does for Logan.
“She doesn’t have it. She hasn’t admitted it, but she’s not wearing it, and I’m pretty sure there was no way she could have taken it from the past, anyway.”
Shit.
“So what are you saying?” I examine him under the frail moonlight. Logan looks battered, beaten, and this rattles me.
“I’m saying”—he lets out a heavy breath and his chest struggles to expand as if the weight of the world were resting on his shoulders—“I can’t be with Skyla anymore. Not publicly anyway.”
Crap—all of this drama because he needs to carry out a relationship with her in private. I shake my head. Not what I thought he would say by a long shot. In my twisted version, he shoves her in my direction for safekeeping, and she accidently—and most genuinely—falls in love with me. The end.
“I’d die protecting her,” I whisper. “You know that, right?”
“I know.” He taps his fist over my shoulder. “But I’m not asking you to die. I’m asking you to date her.”
Every muscle in my body seizes. Did he say date her? Maybe he said hate her?
“Take her out.” His brows pitch. “Spend time with her at West. I need people—demons, things that are not of this world—to think that you’re a couple. Do whatever the hell you have to, just make it look genuine.” He turns his face to the wind. “Make it known that you’re together—that I’m the last person she’s interested in.”
“Did she agree to this?” My mind races a million miles an hour, not sure of what to make of his convenient matchmaking.
“She will. I’ll bring it up at some point tonight.” His features harden to steel. Logan takes a breath and looks over at me as if the fate of the universe rode on this single endeavor. “This needs to be real.”
“Trust me.” A dull laugh gets buried in my chest. “Everything about it will be believable.”
I let out a lungful of air that’s been pent up in my body for years and stare off at the black horizon with the mystery this night unfolded still fresh in my mind.
One thing is for sure. Every ounce of affection I pour out for Skyla will be a genuine token straight from my heart.
This is it.
This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for.
***
The dark sky is heavily masked with a layer of haze that paint
s the island a perennial shade of grey. Logan makes his way back to the crowd in search of Skyla.
My heart breaks for him. I know this hurts like hell. He’s a hero, even if she doesn’t see it that way at first. Logan is willing to sacrifice everything to protect her from the Counts, including any future they might have had together.
A fake relationship. I shake my head. What if that’s what the visions were trying to tell me all along? That I’m nothing more than a stand-in for Logan while he and Skyla have some closet bond that brings them even closer. And what about the wedding? I swear she loved me in those visions—especially that one. It guts me to think I was just an understudy meant to deceive the world. No real love for Gage Oliver. I’m just someone to help pull the wool over everyone’s eyes while she steals kisses with Logan in the dark.
An unholy scream rips from the sky. It saws from above, and I stand to meet it.
Nev lands hard on my shoulder.
“It’s Skyla, isn’t it?” I touch my hand to his feathers. “You did good, buddy. Take me to her.”
The sky, the sand, and the waves warble in and out of existence as I dematerialize. A stale, cold room forms around me with white glossy walls. Stainless tubs like those at the morgue line the center.
“Can you let my friends go?” A frightened girl shouts from the other side of the room.
A body moves in the large stainless bathtub. This is no morgue, and that’s no corpse—its Skyla.
“Shut up!” a woman—a thing—shouts back. She look curious, like a troll or a thousand-year-old hag with wild, flaming hair, her body bent and disfigured as she slumps over a series of beakers. “I hate the sound of your voice.”
“What’s wrong with my voice?” Skyla sounds indignant at the slight.
That’s my girl—nice and feisty.
I hurdle a cart of medical equipment, stealth like a ninja.
“Silence!” The old woman howls, her voice crashes through the room like a cymbal, reverberating for far too long for it to ever be natural. “You’re going to love it here.”
Ethereal Knights Page 20