“Why are we rescuing Chloe again?” Gage is more than disgusted with her, I can tell.
“So I don’t get shipped off to prison when Demetri pins her disappearing act on yours truly.” I relax into his chest. “Besides, I’m not finished with Chloe Bishop.”
The ground beneath us wobbles. The air turns a strange arid blue as it slowly disintegrates the scenery of Rockaway Point to nothing.
I know exactly what this means.
Round two of the faction war.
Chapter 50
Bay of Pigs
Earth recedes, and the ethereal plane opens up like a yawn. The sky stretches thin, almost luminescent as though it absorbed the beams from the bulbous lavender moon that hangs low enough to touch.
“This is it,” I pant. “This is where I came the night of the accident.” I pat myself down. “I don’t have the disc.” I examine the flat cracked ground. A forest beckons to our right, but other than that nothing but miles of weary wasteland.
“You won’t need it,” Gage assures. “I’d die before I let anything happen to you.” He takes me by the hand and darts us into the woods. The clearing we evacuated explodes into a violent torrent of color as a cloud of fire incinerates the land.
“Shit!” I clutch onto him like a life raft.
“We need to keep moving.” Gage jogs us deeper into the thicket.
A series of explosions follow us like a warning. Trees ignite one by one like birthday candles. They rain down soot and ashes, filling our lungs with toxic promises.
We land ourselves on a dark hillside as the land begins to tremble. The sound of thousands of hooves trampling in our direction riots through the atmosphere, vibrates over my skin with the intensity of a thousand tiny pinpricks.
Gage scoops me up, levitates us high off the ground just as a carpet of feral hogs, each the size of a small car, rush through the area. Their eyes are red as sirens. Each beast fixates upon me as it passes by. It’s like they know I’m here—as if they were after me, specifically.
Gage holds me close to the beautiful dangling moon as the wild herd bruises the ground with its careless charge.
It’s humbling being suspended like this, arched between life and death. Strangely, it’s in this moment that my love for Gage grows immeasurably. Gage is the eternal lover, rescuer, forgiver, savior. I lean my head into his chest and close my eyes until the sound from below dissipates to nothing.
Gage lands us both soft on the ground, presses a kiss into my forehead to let me know the danger has passed.
A masculine voice howls from behind.
Crawling along a proximal hillside, Ellis lies with his clothes torn, his body awash in blood.
Gage and I race over. His left arm looks dislocated in two places, creating an unnatural stair step with his skin still sheathed over it. My stomach cycles a hot bite of nausea, and I let out a groan at the sight.
I wobble to the ground.
Gage gently pushes my face between my knees and instructs me to take a few deep breaths before heading over to him. “You’ll be alright,” he says, taking off his shirt and wrapping it around Ellis’ neck like a sling. “It’s broken, just like that time you tried doing a wheelie on my dirt bike. Remember?” Gage places the disjointed forearm gently into a makeshift sling, eliciting a powerful groan.
“I’m not going to be much help to you,” Ellis looks over at me with disappointment.
A series of loud popping sounds come from the other side of the hill. Gage speeds over to a shelf of boulders and looks down into the valley, inspects the other side of this mysterious world before coming back.
“They’ve got weapons, machetes, guns that I’ve never seen before with darts flying out of them. There’s a mass of injured bodies. I saw two flat out evaporate.”
“What does that mean?” I pant, scooting into Ellis. Clearly we’re the weaker vessels.
“I think it means they’re dead,” Gage swallows hard at the thought. “Look, there’s got to be some kind of instruction on what to do—how to get out of this place. Why don’t you two get up over to that hedge, take cover in the bushes in case there’s another stampede. I’ll run down the hill and talk to somebody see if I can figure out what the hell is going on.”
Ellis and I move like turtles. Every muscle aches, every step feels lethargic and heavy like walking underwater.
“Something’s wrong,” I say, ready to pass out by the time we hit the overgrown shrub Gage suggested we cower under.
Ellis pulls me in with his free hand, and we crawl into an alcove that faces the meadow below.
“Oh my, God,” I can’t breathe. Bodies in piles, faces masked in agony. A fresh black circle blooms across the vicinity as another explosion goes off.
Ellis and I are perched above the casualties like a bunch of first world spectators watching from the peanut gallery.
I feel horrible. I should be down there fighting with my people.
“There he is,” Ellis tracks Gage with his finger. He’s at least a mile away speaking with a man as tall as a telephone pole, his hair a burnished red that glows in the haze.
A loud clap detonates from behind.
Ellis pulls me to my feet and we race downhill towards Gage. A fire line erupts at our back, the shrub we were nestled in already reduced to cinders.
Gage sprints over at supernatural speeds. “We need to leave.” He doesn’t bother with an explanation, simply takes up my hand and leads us back over the hill from where we came.
“Skyla!” My name howls from a ridge in the distance. I try to stop but Gage doesn’t let go or slow down. I try to tell him to pause for a moment, decrease his speed, but I can’t catch my breath. My fingers dislodge from his grip, and I cease all movement as he and Ellis roll on ahead before trotting to a stop.
It’s Logan—Holden actually, calling my name. He’s on the outer-banks, furthest from the hillside reduced to ashes. He’s holding a crossbow, waving at me with the other arm.
“This is for you!” His voice carries like a warped melody. He draws back the bow and fires a series of flaming arrows into a crowd of victims lying helpless on the ground. Each arrow combusts into a powder keg explosion, powerfully wild—destructive as dynamite.
“No,” I whisper.
Gage clasps his fingers around mine and tugs me along.
“There’s a lake on the other side of the forest,” he pants. “We need to get through it to reach region three.” His chest rises and falls spastic with each word.
“How do we know for sure?” I shout over the bombs going off in the distance. “What if it’s a trap?”
“There’s a man in charge. He says he’s an orator. He knew my name and told me where to go.”
We tread on for miles, exhausted, bone tired—the skin on my face slick from the strange atmosphere, thick as oil.
“I can’t,” I say, too tired to finish the sentence.
“You don’t have to.” Ellis nods in front of us.
The forest gives the illusion of dropping off to nothing. We trek over carefully. A steep narrow trail leads to a beautiful expanse filled with wild flowers that glow in the night, writhe in the breeze like cattails. The air is thinner here, the heavy scent of lavender perfuming the atmosphere. In the center of this fairylike garden lies a shimmering body of water with moonlight dancing across in a river of brilliance.
“Dammit,” Gage stares out at the far end of the lake where four bodies dive into the water one by one.
“That was Nat,” I say. I’d recognize those rusty curls anywhere. “Probably Pierce, and Holden—maybe the fourth was Chloe?”
Gage doesn’t bother analyzing the situation. Instead, he leads us down to the base and shouts for us to jump in.
“Then what?” I scream, trying to keep pace with the two of them.
“Swim to the center,” Gage instructs. “Swim to the bottom. It’s the only way to secure the region.”
We race into the icy waters. Gage takes up my hand as we struggle
to swim down further and further. I open my eyes and try to make sense of this murky world bubbling by—try to make sense of the fact the bottom of the lake holds the key to winning anything.
Ellis tugs on my hand, slits his throat with his finger and floats back to the top.
I can’t do this either.
My lungs burn from the effort. The urge to inhale a lungful of water is outweighing my desire to win the region.
Gage pulls me down deeper, faster. My Celestra strength—it’s gone, fully diminished. Everything in me is weak as paper.
A thousand glowing eyes ignite the murky depths. The feral pigs, the sodden hogs that trampled Ellis, appear. They were here, waiting. This was a trap. Hooves on my back, my head, my legs pinned down heavy as stones.
Can’t breathe.
Must take a breath.
Water fills my mouth.
This secretive underwater world loses its shape, all of its texture.
The color disappears—then so do I.
Chapter 51
Get It on Like That
My chest explodes with the urge to cough, instead, a warm stream of water vomits from my mouth. Gage turns me over, gently pumps his fist into my stomach in an effort to drain more lake water out of my body. I cough and sputter until I’m able to sit up.
“We’re back,” I marvel. Back in the little hut Gage built for us right here on Rockaway Point. An icy breeze pushes overhead, rattles the dried fronds like skeletal remains. “Ellis,” I say, gagging on his name.
Gage puts in a call, nods and says sporadic words that don’t clue me in at all to his condition.
“He says he was dancing, the next thing he knew he fell off a table and broke his arm,” Gage raises his brows.
“Nice move, Mother,” I whisper. “So what happened? Did we win the region?”
“No.” Gage shakes his head. “I left out a few facts.”
“What?” I’m stunned Gage would omit an all-important detail.
“The orator said, once we touched the bottom we’d have to swim through to the other side.”
“We couldn’t have done it,” I shake my head. “It was too deep. I lost my strength.”
“I had mine,” Gage examines me. “Do you think that’s a part of your punishment? Having your powers revoked in the ethereal plane?”
“God, I hope not. If it weren’t for you, I could never have gotten away from that stampede.” I take a deep breath. “Come to think of it—my mother did say something about my punishment for going against the faction council would be doled out in phases during the war. I’ll talk to Marshall and beg for a meeting with my mother.” A thought occurs to me. “You know, when I was in the Transfer, Ezrina said the only way out was to run as fast as I could. I ran full speed into the side of a cliff and ended up the base of Devil’s Peak.”
He leans back onto his hands and considers this a moment.
“We could have done it, Skyla. Somebody did.”
“You see anything when you were down there?”
“I saw the rocks, they were lit from the inside—glowing. The entire bottom of the lake looked like it was on fire,” he shrugs. “Then we appeared here.”
“Something tells me we have a lot to learn,” I lament as a swirl of fog rolls in through the makeshift opening. “What about Chloe?”
“Tomorrow is Sunday,” Gage nods. “Demetri never misses church. I’ll pick you up at eight?”
“Sounds like a date.”
A lustful gleam ignites in his eyes as he offers a seductive smile.
“But we’re here now,” he whispers it out husky.
“Alone,” I add, tilting into him.
“God, I missed you, Skyla,” he breathes out the words while pulling me in.
I reach over and unbutton his shirt, take it off his person and drink him in like this. Gage is perfectly sculpted, a testament to the glory of the human body.
He pulls me down, lays over me as we collapse in a pool of warm kisses. I run my fingers around the rim of his pants, slip my hands inside the back of his boxers. Gage carefully pulls my dress over my hips, crests my shoulders before tossing it aside in a heap. We roll in the sand with nothing but the sound of the ocean crashing to earth outside our makeshift door. It’s heaven like this, with my skin pressed hot against his. We share fierce kisses that burn brighter than any star in the universe.
I have my forever back, my beautiful gorgeous Gage, and there’s not a thing that will ever keep us apart again.
***
When I finally arrive home, I find that Mom and Tad still aren’t back from Althorpe’s mandatory celebration.
I shower the sand off my body and put on my comfy clothes. As soon as I turn out the lights, Logan illuminates the room a beautiful cobalt blue that rejuvenates my energy just looking into his aura.
“Skyla,” his teeth glow like a row of tiny suns. His flesh forms. He’s wearing the same t-shirt and jeans over and over. I suppose laundry really isn’t an issue once you’ve stopped existing on a material level. “I heard about the war—I’m still proud of you. You did good.”
“I did lousy. Too bad you couldn’t fight.”
“I was there in body.” He winces because we both know Holden was a liability.
“We lost.” I head over and wrap my arms around him for an immeasurable span of time.
Sorrow pours from his spirit, nothing but walled-in dejection, overflowing grief.
We head up to the butterfly room and close the entry behind us. It’s bliss like this, entombed within its solemn beauty, the paper wings flapping with our slightest movement.
“Thank you for talking to Gage.” I pick up both his hands and warm them with mine. Logan feels real in every way, but his scent is gone, his essence is all that truly remains. “You helped him see everything.”
“It was time.” A depleted smile comes and goes. “He was better, and I couldn’t bear seeing the two of you in so much pain.”
“Logan.” I scoot in until our knees are touching. “If there’s supposed to be a purpose in all things, what do you think was the purpose of you dying?”
“There’s not,” he’s quick to answer. “Some things play out because of Man’s carnal desires—his foolishness. It wasn’t my time. I can come back.”
“Apparently, it’s never Holden’s time. It’s clear he’s going to ruin my life as long as I’m still sucking air on this planet.”
“I don’t know about that,” Logan rumbles a soft laugh. “But I’m coming back,” he assures. “That I can promise.”
“It’s because of what you saw in the future, isn’t it? That’s how you know.” I offer an anemic smile. I hope he’s right. Gage thought he and I would marry in a courthouse, and all that really happened was we found ourselves at the receiving end of an exasperated judge.
“Gage plays a role in your future, Skyla.” Logan tugs at my hand.
To hear Logan say it, see the words form on his lips, sinks my heart like a stone on fire. Ironic, since Gage reassured me just hours before there was a reason I had feelings for Logan.
“And you?” I ask. Somehow he seems convinced of both.
Logan searches the outer reaches of the room, traces the walls with his eyes like a lion trapped in his own den.
“I was at the dance tonight,” he sighs.
“Marshall was there. I thought you were on a supervised time out where he was concerned?”
“The vicinity,” he acknowledges. “I watched from the sky. When they said the sky was the limit they were lying.” He gives a passive attempt at a smile. “I saw everything,” it comes out despondent. He soaks in my features, gives a slow blink as if he were savoring them. “I want what you and Gage have.” He seals his gaze over me, galvanizing his love in this strange sentiment that would have seemed so crazy last summer when he had me completely. “I don’t want it with anyone else but you, Skyla.”
There are no words to comfort him with, not one simple phrase that will make it all go away.
Logan pulls me over and we sit there with his arms around me staring at the colored tissue wings freckling the walls.
“Remember when we sat here last summer? You asked what we had to do to be together.” Logan tightens his embrace around my shoulder.
I nod. “I asked what we had to do, and you said take down the Counts.”
“And you said, that’s what we’ll do,” he whispers, sad, forlorn.
“Then you pledged your allegiance to them,” I whisper. Our love proved nothing more than a tragic roadmap.
“I tried to save us,” he sighs. “And I will. All we need is a little magic—and a miracle or two.”
Logan holds out his hand and waves it like a magician before interlacing our fingers again.
The butterflies shiver and flutter. The room livens with the rumple, and one by one they exchange their waxed wings for real ones—each becomes their own unique creation as they fly around the room.
It’s magic, a miracle—the exact two things Logan is counting on to save our relationship.
Chapter 52
Deus Ex Machina
Sunday morning I force myself to shower and get dressed, still sapped of energy from the ethereal plane the night before.
Mom is already downstairs when I amble into the kitchen. She’s fully dressed in a white silk pantsuit with enough gold bejeweling her body to arouse a Pharaoh right out of his tomb—hell all of them. But I’m well aware the only false deity she’s trying to stimulate is Demetri.
“How did it go last night?” Her eyes widen with anticipation.
Tad steps up to the counter and plunks down his mug. “As long as a video camera wasn’t rolling, I’d say it went more than well.” He glares openly at me. “Are you aware of the fact that boy you brought to the party turned into a drunken mess and toppled off a table? He had to leave on a gurney, which, by the way was the second most peculiar exit of the evening. Do you realize no one ate cake?” His skin changes so many violent shades of purple it’s alarming to watch.
Expel Page 26