“We’re a team,” I acquiesce. I’ll always give in to Gage with those kisses. “Now let’s go find Ellis.”
We head out into the spacious family room. The creepy dragonhead is still mounted to the wall with strange glowing eyes. I turn towards the dining room and take in the large stretched canvas that depicts the faction war with Marshall acting as an overlord.
“Do you mind if I check out that painting again?” I whisper.
“No, go ahead, I’ll go track down Ellis.”
Gage and I part ways as I head over to the expansive artwork. Emily’s attention to detail is impeccable. Marshall looks divine, a sight to behold, and someone to be feared. I have a feeling I should fear him far more than I do.
“She added something new,” Logan shoulders up to me.
I take in a breath, unsure of whether or not I should bolt.
“I’m OK with it, Skyla. I know you did what you thought was right.” The scar on his face depresses unnaturally.
“I wouldn’t have done it if you weren’t locked in secrets. You forced me not to trust you,” I swallow hard, scanning the vicinity for Gage.
“Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I told the truth. If it would really change anything or if everything would turn out the way it was supposed to anyhow.” He sinks his gaze to the floor. “I still have the same goal—knock the Counts off their pedestal and put Celestra back where it belongs.”
My eyes drag over him with a newfound heartache. Logan no longer fights for our love. That was the supposed goal from the beginning. We were never too hell-bent on the factions, or too overly concerned with who was going to rule the Nephilim kingdom— for sure, we weren’t up to speed on Sectors and the plans they’ve had for us, well, me from the beginning. I guess I don’t need Logan’s wayward love, but a part of me wants it—thirsts for it.
I turn to go and he swoops in front of me.
“The war is important, but it’s not all that matters to me.” His hand glides over the fullness of my hair, careful not to touch me. His gentle grazing sends a shiver through my spine, makes me feel alive in the most splendid way. “I know how it ends,” he puts it out there in a broken whisper. He presses his lips to the back of my hand as a seam of tears lines his lashes. “Do me a favor. Save something for me in here,” he taps lightly over my chest.
“I don’t think I could ever really hate you.” My lips quiver. I bite down on them to stave off the burgeoning tears. “I’m just shocked at where we’ve landed—at who you’ve become.” I turn to go then revert my attention back to him. “If I could get you to tell me just one thing,” I pause trying to temper my words, “I would really like to know—if you love me like you say you do, why not just tell me the truth. Why the secrets, Logan? People don’t keep secrets from the ones they love.”
He burns into me with those fiery golden lamps, presses out a dull smile.
“They do,” he sags into his words, “they keep secrets from the ones they love if they know they’re going to cause anguish.” His face smoothes out as though this were the case. “If the truth was unbearable and painful, dangerous, even deadly, why would I tell you? Why put you through unnecessary pain? The future is going to play out whether or not you know in advance what happens. Sometimes, Skyla, the best way to love someone is to protect them from the truth.”
Gage pops up with Ellis by his side.
Logan cuts through Gage with a look of malice—you could fry an egg on his searing anger. He excuses himself before taking off. I watch as he glides out the door, down the porch. The rain obscures him, disorients his frame as he dashes towards his truck.
Logan is protecting me. He knows the horrible future, and he will never tell.
Well, I’ll be damned.
And I just might be.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Gage in a Cage
Ellis ditches us almost immediately as we set foot on Paragon past.
It’s a hazy night, the kind I’ve grown accustomed to with the fog bleeding out its splendor, wrapping its long tendrils around me, offering a damp cool hug.
“Remember—save some for me!” I shout after him. Ellis is less than thrilled about having to divide his spoils.
“Let’s go,” Gage is amped to be back. Technically he’s already here somewhere, trying to stop me from killing Chloe, along with old Gage who we’re planning to deliberately avoid.
“Here he comes,” I pull Gage down behind Ellis’ monster truck. We watch as he and Logan make their way inside the raucous party.
I know this night better than any other in my life, and oddly, I was the only person who wasn’t present when it originally occurred.
“What a trip,” Gage huffs as he watches himself strut by. “Look at all that attitude.”
“Never mind that. Let’s steal your truck.” We ditch across the street, and Gage pulls me into the house like it’s no big deal.
He pats around the table in the entry for the keys.
“You sure I came in the house to get the keys?” he asks.
“Yes, I watched you do it.”
“Maybe they’re in the kitchen.”
We dart in without turning on the light and bump into Emma.
Her hands rise to her chest in surprise.
“I was just getting a snack,” she flicks on the light and examines me.
Shit!
“Who’s this?” She narrows in on me with suspicion, as though she already senses she doesn’t care for me.
“A friend. She needs a lift home. I’ll be right back.”
Gage spins around and his eyes bug out as we dart for the door.
“That went well,” I say, climbing into the truck. “What time do you have?”
He turns the engine. The time on the clock reads 11:20.
“We’d better hurry. She takes off at 11:34.”
Gage races us down the dark roads of Paragon at breakneck speeds until we finally pull up in front of future Landon manor. Chloe is notably absent from the vicinity.
“We missed her again.” But the clock only reads 11:32.
“Check it out.” He points out the back.
Next door, high up on Brielle’s driveway, sits Chloe’s car. Two figures squirm in a strip of moonlight before Chloe hops in the driver’s seat. She lowers her window, shouting something to Brielle before backing out of the driveway and taking off in the other direction.
“That was close.” My chest heaves from the stress of it all.
Gage opens his door and jumps out of the car.
“Where you going?”
“I’m going to ask Brielle what she wanted.”
“I’m coming with you,” I swing open the door.
“No, she doesn’t know you. You’ll leave an impression. I’ll be right back. Sit tight.”
Gage takes off up the street, and shouts for Brielle.
It’s freaky out here at night, in the dark—alone.
A car glides by and pauses just shy of the truck, so I can’t see who it is.
Crap.
I should call Gage on his cell to get back here, but with my luck, I’ll call old Gage, and all unholy hell will break loose, so I just sit there and quiver in fear.
A face pops up causing my hand to flatten over the horn, unsettle the night with a loud searing honk.
A nice looking gentleman with a pale face and dark eyes waves a small metal shield across the window. He motions for me to roll it down.
Gage pops up by his side—I breathe a sigh of relief.
I hop outside, surprised to find a patrol car and hear the words stolen vehicle come from the officer’s mouth.
“Shit!” I hiss.
Gage picks up my hand as the policeman continues to question him about the vehicle that was called in as stolen.
“I think it’s just a mix up,” Gage shrugs as though he were an expert liar. “I have the same truck and I guess the key worked—must be a fluke.”
The officer gives an unconvincing nod.
Gage closes his eyes and opens them disappointed.
I can’t teleport. I don’t know why.
“Double shit!” I whisper. “We’ll have to explain to old Gage.”
“Excuse me, Miss? We’re having a conversation here” He shines his flashlight over my face, temporarily blinding me.
Leave, Skyla. Go to the present, and bring Logan back. It looks like I’m going to need bail.
“I can do this on my own.”
The officer’s mouth gapes as though I’ve just offended him.
You’re not eighteen, and Logan looks thirty. They’ll release me in his custody.
“What if he won’t come?”
“Is something wrong here?” The officer comes flat out and addresses my irrational verbal outbursts.
“I’m sorry, my girlfriend is just nervous. She makes no sense when she gets like this.”
I tug at his hand.
The officer nods as though he’s intimately familiar with the situation.
Go—leave right now. Hitch a ride back with Brielle, and get Ellis. You need to leave through the treble and just to be safe, come back that way.
I lean up on the balls of my feet and kiss Gage full on the mouth. A desperate kiss that says I’m sorry, and I love you all in one.
“OK, Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to step aside, or you’ll both be headed down for questioning.”
I turn around and take off towards Brielle’s house.
By the time I hit the top of the driveway, I hear the patrol car speed away with no sign of Gage anywhere.
This entire night is turning into one big pile of shit.
Chapter Sixty
Hello, My Name Is...
“Brielle!” I shout just as she’s about to climb into her jeep. “Hi!” I smile, out of breath.
“Do I know you?” She looks simultaneously perplexed and amused.
“No, actually, you don’t. But I was just with Gage, and he sort of had to run—it was an emergency. Um, he said you can give me a ride back to the party.”
“Sure. Hop in. It’s not like you’re a homicidal killer or something.” She laughs motioning me inside.
We drive down the street in uncomfortable silence.
“So what did Chloe want?” I can’t help it. The curiosity is killing me.
“You know Chloe?”
“Oh, yeah, we’re old friends.”
She studies me with renewed interest.
“She was just giving me the rundown on something.”
“Something or someone?” I ask.
“You, too? It’s like she’s lost her mind.”
“I know right. So what’d she say?”
“Something about a girl who’s moving to Paragon in like a year. Weird, right? I think she’s on something.”
“Oh, right, totally weird. She said the same thing to me.” I knew it! “I think she said her name was…Nyla?” I look over to see if she’s taking the bait.
“Skyler, I think.”
“That’s it.”
“She’s been talking about her for weeks.” She casts a long glance in my direction before losing herself in the road straight ahead.
“If she asked you to befriend this Skyler girl weeks ago, what was she telling you tonight?”
“She shoved a bunch of cash at me. You know, make sure I wouldn’t forget. Not a bad way to jog my memory. A thousand bones goes a long way.”
A thousand dollars to be my friend.
“Right, she offered the same to me, but I couldn’t pull it off.”
“You go to East?”
I nod.
“So,” she starts in slow, “have you noticed how Chloe’s gone insane ever since…” She lets her sentence hang unfinished.
“Oh, right, ever since Emerson died.”
“That Kragger chick from East?” Her head pushes back a notch. “I don’t even think Chloe liked her. No, the thing with Logan.” She ticks her head at me as if I should know.
“Oh, right, that,” I play along.
“So, did Chloe tell you about what happened, or did Emerson before she died? Chloe was counting her lucky stars when Emerson kicked the bucket. Who knew she had a fatal ticker?”
God—she knows! She knows Chloe’s secret, and I won’t have to mess with Emerson tonight or any night if she tells me right now.
We pull into the gates of the Paragon Estates, and Brielle chats with the guard a second. We’ll be at Ellis’ in minutes.
“I can’t believe Chloe told you what she did.” I laugh a little, dipping my gaze into my lap as though I held all of the cards.
“Are you kidding? Chloe gave me the lame ass version because she needed to vent. I just know she said she was in trouble. There was only one person I thought she trusted with that—and that was Logan, but then, I guess he was with her.”
He was with her? Logan knows? Holy shit! I’m going to strangle him until he tells me her big bad secret.
“Logan,” I say his name and huff a laugh as though the thought of him involved is absurd.
“I know, right? He’s like this model law abiding goody-goody. Hey,” she leans in and inspects me for the first time, “you mind spilling? I won’t tell, I swear.” She holds up three fingers as a testament.
“I would, but Chloe would kill me.” I give a wry smile as we pull into Ellis’ driveway. It’s at this very moment in the black woods behind Ellis’ sprawling estate that I’m doing that very thing to her.
“Mmm,” she shrugs, “you think they’ll ever get caught?”
Brielle snatches at the door and swings it open. A blast of icy vapors race inside.
“Nope. I’m taking this one to the grave.” I wish. “Hey, Brielle, do you really like Chloe?”
She squints into the night.
“Does anyone ever really like Chloe? I like Logan more.” She shrugs.
“Have you ever asked Logan to tell you?”
“I did, but he won’t. He did say they should be shot for what they did.” She smirks. “Like that’ll ever happen. People like Chloe Bishop and Logan Oliver get away with everything.”
Chapter Sixty-One
Give It Up
Ellis comes at me, brandishing two identical cellophane bags. He hands one over before we duck behind the house.
“Where’s Gage?”
“Jail. I have to go back and get Logan to bail him out.”
“Nice work, Messenger.”
“Hey, you don’t happen to know any of Chloe’s deep dark secrets do you?” I should evaluate everyone at this point.
“No, why?” The whites of his eyes expand into the night.
“Me neither,” I say, dejected as I drive us back to Paragon present.
***
Emily’s party is still going strong. It’s so strange to see all of the same bodies that, just moments before were spilling out of Ellis’ house.
Ellis follows a group of girls from East into the kitchen without so much as a thank you. Figures.
I decide to scope out the premises on the off chance Logan decided to come back.
Two female voices escalate from the hall, and I duck my head in to see what the commotion is all about.
It’s Chloe and Michelle, barking at each other—nose-to-nose.
“If you didn’t feel the need to control everything, he’d still be with me,” Michelle snaps. I’m pretty sure she’s talking about Marshall, but, then again, it could be Logan.
“He doesn’t want you. No one ever does.” Chloe struts down the hall in the other direction.
Michelle turns her head into the wall and throws her arm up over her face.
She’s crying.
I walk over and place my hand against her shoulder at the risk of getting it bitten off.
“Hey, don’t believe those things she says about you,” I whisper. “Lots of guys like you.”
She cuts a hard glare in my direction.
“Hands off.” She recovers from her dismal mood rather quickly.
> “Why do you let Chloe talk to you like that?” I take a step back. “You’re Michelle freaking Miller. When I stepped onto Paragon, there was no one to fear like you. You were a power bitch. And now look at you, crying in the corner because of some lie Chloe fed you.”
“You’re right,” she steps into me, “I am a power bitch. And I think it’s high time I let Chloe in on our secret. She doesn’t rule anything. She steals. That’s all she’s ever done.”
She throws her shoulders back and begins to stride down the hall after her.
“Michelle? I really think you should take the necklace off.”
“Dudley asked me to wear it as long as I loved him.” She fingers the dark rose with great sadness.
“Maybe if he sees you without it, he might start having feelings for you again. You know, it’ll hurt his ego that you don’t want him anymore, and he’ll try to get you back. That’s how guys work. They want you more when they know they can’t have you.”
“I’d believe it if it wasn’t coming from you. Nice try. And by the way, he’s just using you. He’ll come back to me.” She pulls the rose up on one side with a harsh swish. “Because when someone really loves you, they can’t live without you.”
She darts down the hall. I’m not sure Michelle and I will ever be besties, but if I can turn her against Chloe, that might be enough.
I stagger out of the dark hall, feeling sluggish, both emotionally and physically exhausted.
I pull out my phone and text Logan, to please pick me up.
“Skyla’s next!” Brielle drags me into the living room. She sits me in front of Emily with her freaky third eyeball staring out like some physical anomaly.
Emily takes up both my hands and closes her eyes, the real ones.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, offering a welcome distraction—most likely Logan telling me to hitch a ride on my broomstick.
Emily blinks back to reality. Her eyes gaze towards the night with the blank stare of an old haunted doll.
“You’re going to jail,” she says, matter of fact.
I am—like really, to get Gage.
“You’re good.”
“Aren’t you freaked out or anything?” She marvels.
Vex (Celestra Series Book 5) Page 28