Gage walks into West as though he belonged there, as though his name were still on the roster somewhere.
We wait for Logan after fourth outside his classroom, and Gage pulls him by the elbow into an alcove to have a talk with him. He’s good and pissed at Logan for not even offering to get us out of this nightmare. So, it’s only natural when Logan struts out of the conversation as though it were irrelevant, that Gage starts to pummel him against the lockers—igniting the halls with the percussion sound he creates with Logan’s body.
The corridor fills in. People drain from other buildings to witness the carnage, and about a thousand cell phones record the event.
Marshall stomps into the hall, barking at them to cease and desist. He’s so archaic. Do people even say cease and desist anymore? He lunges forward as though he’s going to intercede before squinting into the parties at play.
Gage thrashes Logan over and over, then Logan returns the favor, and the beat goes on, uninterrupted by the so-called authority figure among us.
“Stop them!” I scream at Marshall.
I was hoping for a little bloodletting. Barbaric as it might be, this is all rather neat and clean. First world fistfights seem to lack the uncouth vulgarity they pretend to hunger.
Another teacher, a real one, steps into the hall, and Marshall intervenes as if he were doing so all along.
“Nice save,” of your own ass, I want to add.
Gage comes over, patting an already fat lip and kisses me above the ear.
“I gotta go. I’ll pick you up for your driver’s test.”
“Thank you,” I mouth the words as he takes off down the hall.
Logan takes off towards the administrative building in the other direction.
And then there were none, Marshall gloats at the impotent victory. Come, he motions for me to follow him into his classroom.
The air inside is warm and congested. I look over at my seat and the one behind it, the one Gage used to fill pre-Chloe. Now, it seems impossible to even remember those bliss-filled days.
“I was having a conversation with one of my cohorts,” Marshall starts. “Do you wish to know what it was regarding?” A fresh rage brews beneath the surface.
“I don’t think so,” I stammer the words.
“I was discussing the matter of your punishment regarding that blade you stuck in my side. Nearly cut out a kidney—imagine my reaction when my suspicions were confirmed, that you were not the perpetrator after all.”
I open my mouth stupefied, and not a word comes out. Not that I could say anything to rectify this situation. Besides, if I do incriminate myself, my vocal cords will probably be in one of Ezrina’s pickle jars by morning.
“This limited world view,” he twirls his hand near his temple, “is the partial price I pay for being here. I’m doing this all for you. Do you realize this?”
“I never asked.”
“Which Oliver is mine for the taking? Name him, or I eliminate the possibility of error and choose them both.”
“Logan,” it speeds out of me. A hot searing stone plunges deep in my intestines. It twists my bowels into knots until it feels as though I might explode, splatter across the classroom.
I did it. I pulled the pin on the grenade that is Marshall and left Logan standing at ground zero.
“Well, then,” he looks up forcefully from his lashes, “you’ve spared the one your heart desires. I’ll paw at the pretty one, like a lion with a mouse, before I stagger him with a harsh blow. Enjoy the show, Love. This one’s for you.”
I turn to leave the room. I’m so frightened for Logan, a part of me wants to find him and warn him.
“Oh, and, Skyla?”
“Yes?”
“Good luck on your driver’s test.”
***
After school Gage takes me to the DMV. He lets me use his truck while he sits inside reading roadmaps for the next hour straight.
It probably would have been a good idea to actually drive the truck, any truck, to familiarize myself with its foreign mechanisms before getting behind the wheel on this, the most sacred driving event of my vehicular history, but I didn’t. So, when the hour is over and I return the pasty-faced gentlemen, who looks unmoved by the fact I’ve just fishtailed, and jackknifed, and flipped an illegal u-turn on a two lane highway that blocked traffic in both directions for miles in the pouring rain—the fact he says those two magic words, you pass, astounds me.
“You passed!” Gage picks me up and spins me once I tell him the good news. “We need to celebrate. Dinner?”
I nod, numb from shock. “My house though, I need to feed the masses.” Mom texted during the test to let me know she wouldn’t be back tonight. The preceptor didn’t look too kindly on me when I tried to text back in the middle of a lane change.
“I was worried there for a second,” Gage pulls me in by the waist. “I couldn’t remember if you ever drove my truck, and with this downpour, I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to see the road. It’s a miracle.”
“Yeah, a real miracle.”
Marshall’s not so angelic face pops in my mind. I have a feeling I know just who to thank.
***
Holden bitches and moans about the pizza I brought home for dinner while pawing two girls from East that I’ve never seen before.
“You know what sucks?” Brielle announces with a mouth full of food while sitting on Drake’s lap. “I get to taste this crap twice when I puke it up later.”
“Sick!” Melissa throws down her slice. “I’m not hungry.”
“Me neither,” Mia chimes in. “Maybe we should go out later to that build your own ice cream place?” She leans into me as though it were the best idea in the world.
“I thought you just said you weren’t hungry?”
“You don’t need to be hungry for ice cream,” Melissa comes to her defense. “Besides, the storm is letting up. We should totally celebrate your newfound freedom.”
“I don’t have a car.”
They both gag on the reality they’re not going anywhere tonight and head upstairs.
Holden whispers something to the groupies swooning at his side, and they take off down the hall. I can hear the door to his room open and shut.
“Why are your skanks making themselves at home?” I shoot him a look.
“Because I’ve got somewhere to go, Sis. And guess who’s going to take me?”
***
Surprisingly, I don’t have to beg and promise Gage that I won’t lose him. Instead, he comes willingly with Holden and me on our light drive.
Holden lands us at East again, springtime.
I take Gage, and we head into the parking lot to find my next favorite stoner.
She cuts a dirty look as we head in her direction. Emerson is ready to electrocute anyone with all that hatred she stifles in those big beautiful eyes.
“Back so fast?” Emerson holds her hand up over her eyes to block out the sun.
“I can’t get your stuff,” I say. “I got caught for possession, and now I have to go to court.”
“Yeah, right,” her hair tousles over her shoulders, stiff as thick black wires.
Gage leans in and looks into her with great sadness.
“You don’t know me,” his voice is low, deep in his chest. “My girlfriend is in trouble. She really needs your help. If you give her the information she’s looking for, I can give you a pass to the bowling alley—bowl free for a year.” He pulls something out of his wallet and hands it to her.
“Cool.” She examines it, but doesn’t take it. “Meet me at the bowling alley at five. We’ll test it out together. If it works, you get your info.”
The bell rings, and she gets up and dusts off the back of her jeans.
“I guess I’ll see you there,” she starts to walk away.
“Hey, what’s the date?” Gage shouts after her.
“You people and dates—it’s the sixteenth of April.” She bounces into her stride. “Get a calendar.”
>
“You’re a genius,” I marvel at his handiwork. “We’ll meet her at the bowling alley.”
“She won’t be there,” he says, watching as she shrinks in the distance.
“Why not?”
“She’ll be dead.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Toxic
Gage and I sit on the outer fringes of East Paragon High until the school day lets out, then follow Emerson down the street to the coffee shop that her parents own.
“That’s where they found her,” Gage whispers as we duck behind the building.
A barrage of black clouds float in, insult the unblemished sky with their presence.
“Shit,” Gage hisses, pulling me back into the juniper bushes. It’s Chloe.
I twist to get a better view from the foliage. She stands by the dumpster, wrapping something in a plastic shopping bag before hurling it inside. She kneels to the ground and spreads her palms in the dirt, washes her hands in Paragon’s soil as though it had the power to cleanse.
What the hell? Gage tries to decode her bizarre ritual.
She disappears around the other side of the building leaving nothing but a set of psychotic fingerprints in her wake.
We give it a good few minutes before Gage pulls an all out dumpster dive and retrieves the plastic bag.
“What is it?” I ask as we hightail it back to the bushes. I hope it’s nothing stupid like a banana peel or a receipt from her latest latte. But, then again, neither of those require a bag, nor would they inspire you to take a dirt bath after disposing of them.
“Gopher poison,” he turns the package around, “only one ingredient—strychnine.”
“Emerson didn’t die of a botched transfusion,” I hold my breath at the thought, “Chloe killed her.”
“Chloe’s days of threatening you are numbered.” Gage presses out a hopeful smile and pulls me into a kiss. “We’ve got her. We just need to figure out a way to prove it.”
He leads me down a back stairwell over to a dusty window that peers into the basement. A towel and a hypodermic needle sit on a small table inside while bodies mill around towards the back.
“Let’s go,” Holden slams through the metal door to our left. “Right now! Come on.”
He’s hopped up on his latest infusion—feeling like the king of the world.
I look over at Gage, “Do you think?”
“Hope not.”
***
It’s safe to say that when Holden sends the girls from East packing in multiples, the fact that he’s not feeling well is an understatement. The prospect of him ingesting Chloe’s toxic blood seems highly probable.
“He’ll go into renal failure, his liver is probably doing flip-flops, he’ll vomit blood in an hour,” I say to Gage. The Internet is a great place to do all your one-stop horror shopping on the realities of just about anything.
Gage clears my history in the event Tad decides to have my computer confiscated once he declares the house a crime scene.
“Crap,” I can’t even gloat over the fact I’ve finally got dirt on Chloe because Holden is in his room offing Ethan Landon for a second time.
Gage and I race downstairs.
“Holden?”
Gage pounds on his door and heads inside.
Trash is piled knee high in all four corners. An array of clothes twists along the ground like one long colorful fabric snake. Holden lies on the bed, eating pistachio nuts rather calm and sedate, tossing the shells onto the floor when he’s through.
“What?”
“Are you feeling OK?” I’m afraid to step inside. It’s a hygienic nightmare in here with all the dirty laundry, empty cans, and smattering of food wrappers. Hazmat units are going to force their way inside one day, and I’ll know why.
“Never better.” He opens his laptop, ignoring the two of us.
Gage and I step back out into the hall.
“He’s still an ass,” I shrug as we close the door.
“Some things never change.” Gage presses me against the wall with a kiss. “I promised my mom and dad that I’d watch a movie with them tonight. They still haven’t recovered from the fact I was M.I.A. due to my inadvertent jail stint. Wanna come?” There’s a longing in his voice I haven’t heard in a while, like he misses me even though I’m standing right here in his arms.
“I’d love to, but I have a feeling I should hold down the fort. Will you come back after?”
“You couldn’t keep me away.”
***
Just before bed, I head downstairs to turn off the lights and, well, to check and see if Holden is still pumping air through Ethan’s lungs. Apparently the girls from East have made a reprisal because there’s a dangerous amount of giggling coming from inside. I don’t even want to know what antics warrant that much laughter, I just back away from the door in disgust.
Mia and Melissa’s dog swishes around my feet in a tizzy.
“What is it boy?” I bend over to pat him on the head, but he bolts to the entry and back again. He probably wants to go to the bathroom. I’ve seen Mia let him out a million times, so I don’t hesitate opening the front door. And, to my horror, he bolts down the driveway and up the street.
Shit!
I take off into the clear dark night while a bitter wind blows clouds off the island after weeks of nonstop rain. My socks saturate with ice water as I squish into the mud that’s been draining down our street thick as pudding.
“Sprinkles!” I bleat out a nervous laugh as I come upon him sniffing in the ivy, just as I’m about to grab him, he takes off another ten feet up the street. We repeat the scene until I crest the hill well past the house.
“Sprinkles!” I scream, irritated and to the point.
He continues to elude and ignore me. Instead, he darts up another fifty feet to a dark bump on the sidewalk and begins fornicating at a frenetic pace.
Crap. I’m going to have to snatch him up in the middle of his procreating frenzy. I can’t think of anything more disgusting.
I pull off my sweatshirt in an effort to take him by force, crouching over his gyrating body for the kill. I’m wearing nothing but my bra underneath, and the icy night air gives a quick introduction by way of flash freezing my skin.
“Hello, Skyla.”
I look up.
Next to the stalwart pine stands Demetri draped in a long black trench coat.
I jump back. His teeth glow off and on as he interrupts a smile to pull at the leash in his hand. The bump below Mia’s dog unfurls itself into a rather deformed looking creature, dark as a shadow. It turns to look at me with six pairs of glowing eyes.
“Shit!” I snatch up Sprinkles and leap backwards, landing in a puddle halfway up my shins.
“He’s friendly towards strangers,” he scratches the beast just shy of its neck, and all three heads twist for affection.
“Oh, my God,” I breathe the words. It’s Cerberus—it’s real. Demetri probably had the poor dog surgically altered if that’s even possible. He’s that twisted.
I step out of the puddle, forcing my legs to drag me back towards the house.
“What’s the matter, Skyla? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Demetri straightens—proud of the fact he’s managed to freak me out with his mutilated mutt. He snaps his fingers three times fast, and the creature goes rabid in a fit of angry snaps and growls as it lunges in my direction. His palm flattens in the air, and all motion ceases. “You know why I had to kill your father, don’t you?”
I shake my head, sidestepping my way down the street.
“So I could bring you here where you belong, to fulfill the destiny of my people.”
“I don’t die, and you don’t get my blood.” Actually, I have no idea if what I’ve just said is factual. I’m basing it all on the prophecies of my seventeen-year-old boyfriend who probably wanted to get into my pants in the first place.
Of course, I’ll have to die eventually, and I did regenerate Chloe, who will probably take over the entire
Nephilim kingdom, so, most likely, I’ve already altered the destiny of his people, but I don’t bother bringing this to his attention. Instead, I try and make a mad dash for home.
He keeps pace with me as I trot down the hill on my tiptoes while suffocating a horny dog in my favorite West Paragon sweatshirt that happens to bear the effigy of his freaky looking canine.
“Aren’t you the least bit curious as to your role?” Demetri’s voice drums through the night.
My ankle turns in a pothole, and I fall to my knees. I bounce up as if I were on springs, sending a searing hot pain up my leg.
“You’re the perfect adversary, Skyla!” He shouts after me as I begin to gain some serious downhill momentum. “With three near perfect Celestra—switching sides—trying to kill each other—who needs to fight a war?”
Gage pulls into my driveway, pausing at the bottom.
“Gage!” I trip over a branch and nosedive in a river of muck at the base of the sidewalk. Sprinkles wrangles free, darting up to the house and in through the front door as if this entire nightmare never even happened. Damn dog.
I turn my face up towards Demetri. His clothes, his entire person begins to fade into the night, his dog dissolves in an instant with a loud clap. I can hear his laughter—it echoes unnaturally long after he’s gone.
Humans don’t do that. They don’t disappear.
Demetri Edinger is no freaking human, and I have a feeling he never has been.
He’s a Fem—and his little dog, too.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Punishment
I spend the night with Gage wrapped around me, tired and shaken after we logged some serious hours exchanging bizarre theories. Gage and I are pretty sure Demetri was telling the truth about his strategy to divide and conquer the three most powerful Celestra alive, and he’s done a stellar job at achieving his goal.
My door flies wide open.
“Yup, he’s here, too,” Tad shouts into the hall. “The roll call of debauchery is complete. Maybe we should run a brothel, Lizbeth? It might be the one business venture we’d be successful at.”
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