Toxic Part Two

by Addison Moore

  I jump to my feet and lunge at her as she ducks behind Ellis, the shield tucked behind her cowardly back.

  “You’ll never do it.” I try to step around him but he blocks her with his body. “You can’t stand the thought of burning.” I hold up my arm and reveal the crimson beads dotting the surface. “Move.” I bite the air with my command, but Ellis doesn’t budge. “I said, move!” I scream.

  “Less than a minute,” Demetri vocalizes from the vaporous wall of the entry. “In the event you need this…” He pulls a sword from a sheath strapped around his hip and holds it to the light—long and svelte—it lights up a miraculous shade of cerulean that you could bottle and sell to the sky. He lowers the blade and glides it across the floor, landing the handle just shy of my feet.

  I swipe it from the ground. I remember what happened the last time I accepted a gift from my father’s killer. It cost me a region but now none of that mattered. If it backfired, I would welcome it. With death as my new friend, there were no true errors.

  The blade shines like nobility. It looks like a perfectly good sword, feels like one, too. I could kill Chloe or it could kill me. Either way, I would win. One of us would die today, that’s the way I would arrange it in the end.

  I motion for Ellis to step aside but he shakes his head with a nervous fervor.

  “Get out of my mother fucking way.” I say it low, staggering each word as if it were its own sentence.

  Ellis takes a breath. He holds out his hands like he were trying to settle a schoolyard fight. “I can’t.”

  “You’re going to die if you don’t move.” I have very little sympathy left for anyone who stands between me and that monster.

  Ellis’s right arm dangles unnaturally, the lower half reduced to a bloodied glove. “You made me promise to never let you hurt Chloe.”

  I’m so sick of that diatribe I want to shove the blade down my own throat for convincing the world of its false value.

  “I’m going to hurt you, Ellis, if you don’t move.” I swing into his midsection and stop just shy of eviscerating him. God—what was I thinking running around telling everyone to keep Chloe safe from my clutches? And now she’s taken the two most important people from me, and life will forever be a shadow of its former self. “I would never say that, Ellis. It wasn’t me. It was Fem or that witch that cowers behind you. I would never in a million years not want to off Chloe.” The image of me trying to help her in region eleven comes back to haunt me. Marshall healed her in my stupid honor.

  “Thirty seconds,” Demetri shouts his icy warning.

  “Ellis, damn it!” The words burn as I belt them from my lungs.

  He ticks his head. “I’m sort of seeing, Chloe.”

  There it is.

  “You’ve always had bad taste in girls,” I spew the words out with venom. “Move before I knife you, Harrison. I may or may not bring you back for a second spin on the planet.” And Logan and Gage can never return. I hate Chloe with everything in me. “Move!”

  “No.” Ellis steps forward and raises his hands as if he means business.

  I cut the air like swinging a baseball bat and slice clean through his midsection with one swift blow.

  Ellis glances down at the bloodied line expanding around his middle then looks up with a sense of dread.

  “Oh, God.” I take in a sharp breath and stagger at what just happened. In my madness to kill Chloe I hurt Ellis instead.

  Ellis falls to my feet in two equal parts, his eyes fixed up on me in horror.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. Chloe drove a stake right through my heart, and in my delirium, I hurt others.

  Chloe looks to the fire then to the shield. She hesitates a moment before lifting the metal sheet in the air and tossing it into the flames. The precious alloy detonates. It explodes with a loud clap of thunder as it disintegrates in the caustic whirlpool. There’s no way in hell it was going to protect us. It was all a lie.

  There it is. Everything is done. All hope is gone. Logan, Gage, and Ellis—they cared deeply about me, they wanted to help and now they were all dead. Loving me has proved to be the worst curse of all.

  Marshall appears in his velum form that I haven’t seen in so long. He blesses me with a dull smile, one that bleeds condolence. Not even his magnificent presence can quell this pain. Nothing this life offers could comfort me with my friends forever gone, my heart right there with them.

  “I’m going to do it.” The words swim out in a sea of chaos. I step in toward the open flames and the heat blisters the apples of my cheeks.

  “I’ll push you.” Chloe sings the words like a necrotic poem.

  Marshall moves in behind me. His wings widen like a sheath as he protects me like he always does.

  I force my right foot to take another step.

  I’m going to burn and the thought disables me from my heroic effort.

  “What’s the matter, Skyla?” Chloe taunts. “The idea of your skin melting off not working so much for you? Face it, Messenger. Nothing can survive that fire.”

  “Only gold.” Demetri sounds off.

  Chloe gleams a wicked smile, delighted to be front and center, present at my final hour.

  “What did you say?” I dart a look to Demetri. He stands with his shoulders back, chin up as his haughty eyes give a long blink of admission.

  “Only gold, Skyla,” he resonates from afar. “Only pure gold.”

  I look up at Marshall and quiver. Had this been what my father was preparing me for? And here I was to memorize those words, and it was Demetri who brought my father’s eternal wisdom back to me.

  “I’m as pure as gold,” I whisper.

  “You’re as pure as gold.” Marshall nods before bowing down and landing a kiss on my cheek.

  The fire explodes in a fit of wicked growls. I turn to face it, to face my destiny and wonder how I’ll ever survive those flames.

  “Will I live, Marshall?” I gaze up at him with a pleading expression.

  He closes his eyes and gives the slightest hint of discouraging news.

  I glare into the fire with a new resolve.

  I won’t let myself rest in peace—not before I fall on the sword of the Master. I’ll crawl to it in my dissolving state if I have to. I’ll do something right. Celestra and Sectors will prosper. The people in the tunnels will still have hope. If that were the sum total of my life, it would have been worth the misery.

  My left foot touches the last bit of soil—the next step changes everything.

  My life comes to me in jags. I see myself as an infant in my mother’s arms, her face a mirror of the one I would wear. All of the good times I shared with my father crumble before me like a house of cards. I see Lizbeth, then Tad, my new family—the view of Paragon from the ferry. Logan and Gage in the bowling alley with Brielle by my side. I see Logan lying over me on Ellis’s pool table as his kisses render me under his “ever after” spell right there, right then. Gage and his sea of delicious love—his incurable ache for all of my heart. He’s always had it. Always will. One memory after another—a carousel of kisses, the indescribable yearning—they swarm faster and faster until all I see are the crimson waves of the flames, calling me, luring me with their prickling fingers deep into the fire.

  Submerged within the blaze, I see them—resplendent and beautiful—Logan and Gage, Ellis behind them. They hold out their hands for me to join them in the blue heart of the flames. An apparition envelops each of them, Logan as the lion, Gage as an eagle, and Ellis an ox.

  My feet move.

  Falling in love is a lot like death. It chooses you. It decides the moment and the chain of events that will preclude the precise intersection of life in which it occurs. It uses you—treats you as though you were malleable in its warm hands. It doesn’t bother to ask if you want it or need it, just fills the gaping hole of destiny’s design.

  Love. My world bloomed with its beautiful never-ending ache. I would give all of my blood to my enemies to have it completely—if
I knew it would satisfy them—if I could live without it. But I know the resolution. I knew the end of the story before it ever began. I have chosen love. And now, I will surely die.

  This is the moment in my life for love and for death. Fate had intertwined the two, bereaved of any mercy. The architecture of my being, my infrastructure, was built for this very moment. The pillars of my life had been established long ago—the blueprint written in my bloodlines.

  Marshall chants over me—such a pretty song to die to.

  “I’m as pure as gold,” I whisper.

  For Logan and Gage who both fought so hard—for Celestra—I step boldly into the flames.

  Thank you for reading TOXIC Part Two. If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or your point of purchase. Look for ELYSIAN the final book in the Celestra Series, coming 2013!

  The Following is an extended preview of Addison Moore’s new series:

  Ephemeral (The Countenance)

  Ephemeral

  The Countenance Book 1

  by Addison Moore

  Copyright © 2012 by Addison Moore

  addisonmoorewrites.blogspot.com

  Cover by Addison Moore Publishing

  Interior art by Regina Wamba

  Editors: Amy Eye, Sarah Oaklief

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.

  Books by Addison Moore

  Ethereal

  (Celestra Series Book 1)

  Tremble

  (Celestra Series Book 2)

  Burn

  (Celestra Series Book 3)

  Wicked

  (Celestra Series Book 4)

  Vex

  (Celestra Series Book 5)

  Expel

  (Celestra Series Book 6)

  Toxic Part One

  (Celestra Series Book 7)

  Toxic Part Two

  (Celestra Series Book 7)

  Ephemeral

  (The Countenance)

  For my husband and children.

  You inspire me every day.

  Preface

  I used to believe in things, in people, in places, and names—concrete forms of life that end at some point in the unknowable future. I used to believe memories were infallible—that they could never collapse around you like a house of cards or burn to cinders before ever touching the ground.

  People vanish all the time. Other people. You hear about it on the news, see their smiling faces staring back at you on milk cartons—their pictures plastered around town like wanted posters. But it was a world within a world, and you innately knew this could never really happen.

  I used to believe in death. I used to believe once they put you in that box and tucked you away for one very long night, it was finished. The sunlight, fresh air, a warm embrace, they would never be yours again. It was the final vanishing act—your curtain pulled down and covering your casket. That was the day it would all start anew. Staring into the face of God, awaiting your final judgment.

  But I was wrong about everything.

  I had my name, my life, and my eternal judgment revoked in one passing hour at the hands of madmen who share my bloodlines.

  They took everything but my memory. They tried and failed, and now I’m nothing more than a liability—a spark in a bed of dried timber, waiting to unleash an inferno. I don’t know how long I can go before they stop me or if they even care.

  I used to believe so easily, and now I strain the most insignificant details from each passing day as if they were poison.

  I know one solid truth. Everything about this new world is a lie.

  I’m going to infiltrate their ranks—dismantle their kingdom—take them down until they all vanish, evaporate like smoke from the planet. I plan to erase any memory of them as if they had never happened.

  Or I’ll die trying.

  And I just might.

  1

  In Memory of Me

  In the grand scheme of things, you’ll be dead a lot longer than you’ll ever be alive.

  I marinate in that truth, baste in the beauty of its wisdom while peering out at the dull emerald world. I fumble through dense woods with roots that race across the forest floor like wild, petrified snakes. Wisps of lamp-lit fog twist throughout the narrow trails as gnarled branches coil around the evergreens.

  Something stirs from behind, disrupts the silence with the heavy crush of leaves. I jump—startled, as though waking from a very bad dream. My chest thumps in rhythm to the pounding in my head.

  “Hello?” I call out.

  I try to remember how I got here. The last solid memory I have is driving to my boyfriend Tucker’s house to rip him a new one for sleeping with Megan Bartlett, a girl I know from volleyball. I was distracted with rage, the light turned green, and I never saw the other car coming. Then the crash—I remember kissing the windshield as I bristled through it at a horrific velocity.

  A groan emits from the branches—more rattling.

  My feet crush over a bed of dried maple leaves, filling in the haunting void of silence.

  A hard thud lands square behind me, and I turn slow on my heels.

  It would have been understandable to see a deer, a bear, or even another human being. But this…

  A whimper gets caught in my throat and drowns out the idea of a scream. My heart seizes and I freeze.

  It’s a man—a thing, his grey skin decomposed beyond recognition, exposing dried muscle over bone, one eye missing, teeth all but gone.

  It staggers forward, slashing the air with a violent swing.

  I start in on a full-blown sprint, trip over an errant branch and land hard on my chest.

  It comes at me—falls on its knees beside me omitting a sharp putrid stench. I let out a gurgled cry—twist and claw, scampering to my feet.

  Its crooked fingers tear my sweater, easy as shredding paper.

  I bolt deeper into the thicket. The forest gyrates, turns into a viridian kaleidoscope as I fumble through a dizzying maze of branches.

  Loud guttural moans vibrate throughout the woods. I can feel its footsteps seconds behind. The forest darkens. The fog presses in and coats my throat with its oily haze.

  Panic enlivens me. Adrenaline courses through my veins creating a heartbeat in my ears.

  None of this is real—this is hell—a trapdoor within a nightmare.

  My breathing quickens and my head starts to spin as I navigate the spindles, the heavily shadowed woods.

  My mother once said most people are prone to run through this world blind. I remember her words and the soft mannerism in which she spoke them as I stumble from branch to branch, ripping a hole in my jeans, and losing my jacket on the offshoot of a pine.

  The creature gains speed, touches me. It grazes over my hair with its necrotic fingertips. I race blindly through the woods, pushing past the pain searing through my skull. My foot catches on a root and I crash to the ground with finality.

  I glance back, fully expecting to find the decaying body, the stench of death, but instead I see a boy my age—a look of surprise ripe on his face. He pulls me to safety behind the trunk of a pine and then lunges at the monster. He plucks a knife from his back pocket and wrestles the decrepit beast as it latches onto his face.

  I pick up a loose branch and give a hard jab at the creature’s groin. It gives a soft gurgle as if laughing at my efforts.

  A rock the size of a football catches my eye. I hoist it off the ground and lob it at the tangle of flesh rolling around in front of me.

  It hits the boy on the side of the head, and he lets out an agonizing groan.

  Shit!

  He flips the creature and lands it hard on its back. Its face holds a lavender hue, blue lips, unnatural bumps and lesions over its c
heek and decomposed forehead.

  The boy pummels its malformed face. He digs his knife into the eye of the beast, over and over until it ceases to writhe beneath him.

  He jumps up and cleans his blade against the soft trunk of a maple with two easy swipes.

  The creature sizzles. Its ragged clothes engulf in flames quick as a grassfire before extinguishing in a ball of smoke.

  “What’s happening?” I pant.

  “Don’t you know?” He replaces the knife in his back pocket. The hard line of his jaw pops as he suppresses a smile. “They’re biodegradable.” A rumble of laughter trembles out of him. He comes over and cradles the side of my face with his open palm, observes me as though he were a doctor. “You okay?” A stream of light falls over him, amplifying the fact he’s alarmingly handsome: tall with sandy hair and eyes the color of a lifeless sky.

  “I’m fine.” I want to say. I don’t know where the hell I am, but I think there are more pressing matters than my lack of topographical orientation. “What was that?”

  His brows knit together. He leans in to inspect me, skeptical that I even had to ask.

  “What’s your name?” he asks, wiping the dirt off his jeans.

  “Laken Stewart.” I grab him by the arm—feel his warm flesh come to life beneath my fingers. “Where am I?” I’ve never been a hundred miles from where I was born. Hell, I’ve never left Kansas. For sure, I’ve never seen a forest this dense, let alone barreled through it with my life on the line.

  “Ephemeral.” He dips into me with his gaze. “Connecticut,” he adds with a touch of sarcasm.

  “Oh, my God,” I whisper in fright. “I think I’m lost.” I touch my fingers to my temple as an explosion of pain rips through me.

  “Laken!”