“What?”
“Nothing, it’s just that she and your dad passed away on the very same day.”
“What?” I gasp just a little bit louder this time. “Why haven’t you ever mentioned this before?”
“It’s not that big a deal.” She pats her hands in the air trying to calm me down. “Coincidences happen all the time. It just so happened to be one of the things that pulled Tad and me together.”
“There are no coincidences in our world, Mother.” I can smell Candace Messenger a mile away.
“Anyway, it’s just strange that Melissa wants to dress like that. You would think the idea would make her sick.”
I glance over at Melissa just as she and Mia head upstairs.
“Maybe she’s moved past it, and this is her way of proving it?”
Just like I’m going to prove Stella’s death was no coincidence.
***
West Paragon High buzzes in the afternoon haze as the grey veil that cloaks us from above brightens intermittently. These perennial clouds have a way of emasculating the sun. They refuse to let it bloom. They hold its beams hostage and cut off its beauty depriving us of the strength and vigor it longs to afford.
Logan and Gage sit by my side, out on the senior lawn. They radiate their beams over me, but my resistance to choose one over the other clouds the air, leaves us in an uncomfortable, smothering haze.
“I can’t get the girls to change their minds,” I say. I’ve just filled them in on Chloe’s macabre plan to snatch Kate from her grave next week in time for homecoming.
“I’ll let my dad know.” Gage shakes his head while glaring over at Chloe and her team of dutiful followers, which eerily includes Giselle at the moment. “It’s not happening. We’ll beef up security.”
Logan ticks his head toward their demonic circle. “Are you getting anywhere with Giselle?”
Logan has been riding me hard to get that pendant back in any way possible. Maybe that’s how he sees us being together? But in actuality it would only keep one of us safe. God knows I don’t want Logan to die or to be permanently taken by the Counts because of me. Or maybe if I gain the overseer status, I’ll get some kind of a protection shield as a bonus? I can be a no-fly zone for the Counts and Fems the world over. Yet another question to ask my oh-so-accessible mother.
“No,” I sigh. “And I can’t believe my only option is Isis and her hot stone hocus pocus.”
“Do it,” Gage encourages. “Giselle is open to anything. She told me so herself.”
I glance over at her standing in a defiant manner with her Goth-inspired outfit, her dark chocolate lipstick. The sooner we can get to Chloe’s secret, the sooner Giselle can drop the Emerson act.
“OK, I’ll set something up with Isis as soon as possible. I swear that woman practically lives at my house. I would never want another woman pawing all over my husband like that.”
Logan and Gage tilt into me because that’s sort of what’s been happening with the three of us in a roundabout way this entire last year.
“OK, I get it,” I let out a breath. “As soon as I talk to my mother I should have answers for the two of you.” I look over at them with their barely-there smiles. There’s an inherent contentedness about them as if each were confident I were going to choose them.
“Host opened up online registration.” Gage touches my foot with his. “Come over one night, and we’ll do it together.”
“Are you going?” I ask Logan.
“If that’s where you’ll be.” He looks past me as if he didn’t really mean it, as if the idea in general were weighing him down.
“What’s with the long face?” I can’t help but feel like there’s some big secret here, vibrating under the surface, demanding to burst into our lives in the worst way possible.
“Ellis wanted to go to Host.” He shrugs. “I think I need to get into the Transfer, and figure out what’s going on.”
Marshall said he’d let me in on Halloween, but I don’t dare tell them. Neither of them cares very much for “Dudley” these days.
“I’m sure we’ll know something soon.” Like in just a few nights.
“Skyla.” Logan dips his chin because he so knows I’ve got something up my sleeve. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this.”
“Got it.” I shoot a look to Gage. Logan seems to be taking care of lots of things lately.
“Anyway”—Logan clears his throat—“things are going to change for us soon. All of us.” He washes a glance from me to Gage. “Just know that whatever happens, I’m always going to care about you guys. I want both of you to be happy.”
Gage mock socks him in the arm. “I want you to be happy, too, man.”
“I will be.” Logan pushes it out through his grief.
The bell rings, and the entire student body moves in swarms.
“Hey, Logan.” Chloe towers above us with her bloated book bag by her side. “Ready for lit?”
“Yup.” He jumps to his feet. “I’ll catch you guys later.” He takes off with Chloe, and my blood starts to boil.
“You think that’s some game he’s playing?” Gage asks as he helps me up. “Hang out with Chloe to drive you insane?”
“I don’t know.”
But if it is, it’s so working.
***
The wind whips relentlessly during cheer. It feels as though a hurricane is coming, as if the wind were trying to warn us of the impending tempest already in our midst.
Chloe works us with heartless rigor. You would think we were prepping for the Super Bowl, not some game against North Washington High.
Ms. Richards blows the whistle, and I fall onto the lawn just shy of Giselle.
“Go along with whatever she tells you,” she whispers before rising and heading toward the bitch squad.
“OK, guys.” Chloe waves us over.
“I’ve got a game plan all worked out.” She darts a quick glance to Giselle and nods.
This is going to be good. Giselle said she was determined to find out what Bree meant by Skyla will never see it coming. I have a feeling she’s been let in on Chloe’s deep, dark, sure-to-land-us-all-in-a-government-detention-center secret.
“Homecoming is two weeks away,” Chloe bleats it out as if we were innocently going to dish on our choice of couture. “I want to discuss our plan of action, so we can mull it over. I don’t want us to fuck anything up because we didn’t have enough time to sit on the details.” She blinks a dissatisfied smile because she most assuredly knows we are going to somehow fuck this up. “We’ll meet at the cemetery the Thursday before the game at ten.” Chloe gives it as a command. “Emily, you bring your dad’s van. We’ll send Kate home with you for the night.”
“Got it.” Em nods into the insanity.
“Brielle, you and Emerson are going to keep watch. Nat” —she turns into her—“you can stay home because I know how hard this is for you.”
“No, I want to be a part of this,” Nat is quick to protest. “Kate would want me to.”
Really?
“OK.” Chloe takes up her hand. “You’re to case the cemetery this week and see if we can manually manipulate the security cameras.”
“Done.” Nat is gung ho on pulling off Kate’s big casket reprisal.
“Skyla, Lex, and I will do the honor of exhuming the body.”
“With all the rain we’ve been having?” I throw it out there. “All that wet earth will be like concrete to move.”
“You’re right, Skyla.” Chloe pitches her voice to emphasize her sarcastic superpowers. “Lucky for us she’s in the mausoleum.”
That’s great!
“We’ll never get in.” I sigh. “Dr. Oliver locks that thing down like Fort freaking Knox.”
“Oh, Skyla”—Chloe rolls her eyes—“I’m so sick of you and your excuses.” Chloe gives a private smile. “Kate’s body is in an outward facing wall.”
Outward facing wall? What was her mother thinking? Outward facing walls have senio
r prank written all over them. I take a breath to say something—to stick up for Kate who can’t be here to try to ram some logic down her supposed friend’s throats, but Giselle catches my attention and shakes her head.
Shit.
“Everyone on board?” Chloe glances around as her minions nod in agreement.
“Skyla? Are you in?”
A moment thumps by. The thought of dragging Kate out of her eternal resting place so we can leave our indelible mark at West nauseates me.
I glance over at Giselle.
“Yeah, I’m in.” After all, I won’t be the one having to stop this fiasco from happening—Dr. Oliver will.
“Good.” Chloe glares at me for a moment. “Now that we have that out of the way, I think we should focus on this weekend. Mr. Edinger is having a huge party Saturday night. Since Ellis is gone, I vote we go there.”
Oh, so now she’s going to tell us where to spend Halloween?
“We’re a team, Skyla,” she seethes into me as if she heard my internal rant. “This is our last year to bond as sisters. We should spend all the time we can together.”
Right. Why do I smell a dead corpse at every turn?
Michelle’s eyes glaze over. “I hear he gives hundred dollar bills instead of candy,” she quips.
The group explodes in a tizzy.
“Figures,” I snip to Brielle. “Demetri needs to pay people to come to his parties.”
“Watch it,” she scolds. “Mr. E just popped the question. Looks like I’m getting me a new daddy.” She wiggles her feet.
“He proposed?” I gag the words out. The thought of Demetri marrying anyone has sacrilegious written all over it.
“Yeah, but don’t say anything. I think they’re announcing it Halloween night.”
“On the night we celebrate horror and depravity?” How apropos.
Wow. This is going to be the worst Halloween ever for Mom. Maybe she can hone her projectile vomiting skills in Demetri’s direction? And maybe she can get Beau to strategically launch a bodily function assault all at the same time?
“So who’s it going to be, Skyla?” Brielle rolls onto her back and stretches her arms up over her head. “You make any decisions yet?
“What’s this?” Chloe straightens, delighted to listen in on our private conversation. “Choosing between the many loves in your life?”
“That’s right,” Brielle volunteers. “She’s going to choose between the three. They sort of want answers.”
“Nobody wants answers.” I shoot Brielle a look. Actually everybody wants answers, namely me, but that’s beside the point.
“Who’s this third guy?” Nat fumes as if she suspects Pierce of throwing his hat into the ring.
“It’s Dudley.” Michelle touches her finger to the rose of horror dangling from her neck. “She wants every available male at her beck and call. All Skyla thinks about is herself.”
“That’s not true,” I refute Michelle’s delusional theory.
“Then who’s it going to be?” Lexy asks. Collectively the group moves in like a pack of wolves ready for the kill.
“It’s none of your business. This is private.” I glance to Brielle who so rudely unprivatized this without my permission.
“I’ve got dibs on Logan,” Lex shouts.
“I call Dudley.” Michelle pushes her chest out as if she were already trying to seduce him.
“Gage,” Chloe says transfixed on something behind me.
“Right,” I snort. “As if he would ever want anything to do with you.”
“Chloe?” A familiar male voice booms from behind, and I turn to find the dark-haired Oliver standing with his helmet tucked under his arm. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
My stomach lurches as Chloe glides up and speeds toward the bleachers with him.
There goes that theory.
***
After cheer, no sooner do I hit the parking lot than the asphalt starts to dissolve beneath my feet. Tenebrous swallows me whole like falling into the belly of an evil, sinister, beast. Logan pulls me in before I can say hello and feathers me with kisses all the way up my neck.
“God, I miss you,” he pants as though he ran like hell to get here.
“I just saw you on the field. And, by the way, I hate to admit it, but it makes me crazy insane to see you talking to other girls—Lexy in particular.” I especially hate the way she wants to claim him.
“Lex, huh?” He pulls his cheek to the side, and his dimple flexes.
“You’re enjoying this aren’t you?” I give him a light swat over the arm just as Ingram, the human light bulb, comes upon us.
“Elysian, tell your assignment to assume the position.” He glances down at his glow-in-the-dark notebook without so much as a hello.
“Assume the position?” I balk. “That’s disgusting,” I hiss as I walk past him. “One day someone is going to tell you to ‘assume the position,’ and it won’t be near as friendly an experience as I’m about to have.”
“Skyla,” Logan groans.
“I can’t help it. That man is an asshat. No wonder Ezrina went batshit.”
Logan leads me over to the tree of choice, and I just gaze at his beautiful face while waiting for Wesley the moron to arrive.
Voices emanate from the bushes, and I spot Wes talking to a sandy-haired blonde who looks more than vaguely familiar.
“That’s Ingram,” Wes says to the girl before looking to the overgrown glow stick. “Do you have her ready?”
“Don’t I always?” Ingram motions the two of them in my direction. “Come. She’s a spitfire this evening.”
Wes gives a little laugh. “Is she ever anything else?”
The girl is all but hiding behind Wes for protection. As if. Little does she know she’s cowering behind the very thing she should fear—a Count with an attitude.
“Don’t worry,” he whispers to her. “She’s not that bad.”
Ingram bows in my direction a moment. “The Elysian has secured her to the post. Your withdrawal is ready for the taking.”
They make their way over, and I smirk at the two of them.
“You’ve brought a guest. How nice,” I tease. “Is it show and tell at the haunted academy today? Let me guess. Two bites are better than one?” I take in the girl one more time. God, she looks familiar. She’s probably some skank from East, or maybe I knew her back in L.A.? Then it hits me, smack in the face like a semi. Oh my God! It’s Laken!
“That would be, Skyla.” Wes nuzzles into her a moment. “The guy standing off to the side is her Elysian, Logan. He’s good and pissed, and rearing for a fight, twenty-four seven. Excuse me for a minute while I go over and fill him in on how much I appreciated our unexpected meeting a few weeks back.”
Wes heads over to Logan, good and pissed, but I could care less. I need to talk to Laken, and I need to do it now. Her little sister is somewhere down here, and I just have to let her know that we’re on the same team.
I make big eyes at her, nodding like crazy as if she should know what this means.
“Me?” She points to her chest.
I close my eyes a moment before looking over at Ingram. He’s got his nose buried in his clipboard, so this is a prime time to have a little chat with Laken, here.
She strays over, slowly at first before she closes in.
“I know, you,” it comes out just this side of a whisper. “You’re Laken Stewart. I tried to save you when you were in the Transfer.”
Her face contorts with shock. She straightens, stiff as a statue, and, for a moment, I think I broke her.
“Laken.” Wes jogs over. “Everything’s straightened out. I’ll take Skyla, and you’ll have Logan.” He gives a tired blink. “I can’t stand to watch,” he moans. “I can’t stand the thought of you touching someone else.” He pulls her hair back with a tenderness reserved for those desperately looking to get rid of a hard-on. He’s such an ass. “Ingram, help Laken.”
Laken looks over at me and offers a sec
retive nod before heading over to Logan.
I wonder if she remembers me. But then how could she. She was dead as a doornail when we met last.
Wes comes in and locks his lips over my neck. I’m not really dry. I’ll just take a quick gulp to top off.
Showing off your favorite juice bar, huh? I tease. I’ve got news for you, buddy. There are far more interesting ways to impress a girl, and none of them have her sucking off another guy’s neck. Are you even aware of how drop-dead gorgeous Logan is? Seriously, Wes, if this is the best you can do to land a girl—you’ve got no game.
“And I’m done.” Wes pulls back. His dimples pinch right along with his lips, and my heart sinks because I’d swear on my life this is Gage. “Your boyfriends’ shot over to Ephemeral and introduced me to the bottom of their shoes.”
“Sounds like a good time was had by all.” Why in the hell hadn’t I thought to pay a visit to his overpriced boarding school and kick a little Count ass?
Wes leans in. His features soften, and he’s wearing that same sweet look in his eyes that Gage does.
“Skyla,” he whispers, “why the hell was one of them wearing my face?”
I open my mouth to say something, but Ingram steps into our huddle, and Wes takes off to collect Laken. They walk into the woods without so much as a thank you—typical Counts.
Logan makes his way over and wraps his arms around my waist.
“I suppose you enjoyed that.” I dust my fingers over his neck. Odd, I don’t think she took anything.
“Not I.” Logan holds out his hands like a criminal. “Are you OK?”
“Wes didn’t chug anything, either. I guess it was, take-your-girlfriend-to-the-slaughterhouse day.” I pull Logan in close to me and stare up at him dreamily.
A rustle in the bushes gets our attention—some guy staggers from the woods looking disoriented.
“Wait,” I whisper. “He looks totally familiar, too.” I bounce on my feet. “Cooper!” I run over and give him a bone-shattering hug.
“Elysian!” Ingram harps, sounding a lot like Tad in the process. “Remove her at once.”
“Sorry, man.” Logan nods into Cooper. “Skyla needs to head back to Paragon. We’ll see you around, Coop.” Logan places his hands over my shoulders with a look of sadness locked in his eyes.
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