Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5) (46 page)

“Shit, don’t move.” I kneel beside him.

Gage reappears. He tries to lift the jagged beam, but it doesn’t budge. He gets on the ground and gives a few good kicks before the rusted hardware gives an inch. Logan slides his arm out and pushes me away from the crumbling structure.

“Let’s get out of here.” Gage takes me by the hand and leads us out into a dust-filled haze. The three of us make our way through roads congested with dislodged boulders, an entire layer of dirt caked over an unrecognizable cityscape.

“There.” Logan points over to the circular remains of the bowling alley. A strange glow of sunlight shines down from above, paper white and blinding, with no heat. We cross the street and take in the lay of the land from behind the architectural deformity.

“Oh my God.” It depletes from my lungs in agony.

Bodies in piles—angels all around, sifting through corpses like wheat. 

Horses roam the vicinity. Behind them lies an entire row of men with assault rifles. In the far corner, I see Marshall with his arms stretched wide, overseeing the entire situation.

“This is it.” I marvel, stepping in for a closer look. My wings flap slowly with enthusiasm. “This is the scene from the mural in Emily’s living room.”

“You’re right,” Gage says, taking it all in.

Gage and his impeccable features. He doesn’t have to fight this war. His participation was never mandatory nor do his bloodlines hang in the balance. This is his love shining through, his radical love—his utter devotion to me as a person. Gage is a blaze of glorious righteousness and he uses our love as fuel for the fire. My heart sinks at the thought of him getting hurt, physically or emotionally.

Marshall makes his way over to us with his wings intact, the touch of a scowl on his face. His beauty and nobility outshines every last one of us. He pours out his glory as rich and pure as God himself.

An explosion rocks from behind. Bodies charge into the area—the Counts—their flesh is coated in mud, dulling the luster of their unfortunate lineage.

Nat and Holden barrel in with a scream in their mouths. They fight shoulder to shoulder as they come into the thicket of flesh. Holden slices a man in half with a bayonet, stabs another in the face right through the eye.

“Crap,” I hiss at the carnage. “We need to get in there.”

Chloe isn’t far behind. I spot her in the mayhem as Celestra tries to get out of the way because they were caught off guard, most unarmed. Chloe falls to her knees holding herself by the waist. A seam of crimson stains her shirt.

“She was hit.” I try to rush over but Marshall catches me by the waist.

Not for you to tend to, love
. He says it with great sadness as if the outcome didn’t look too good.
Isn’t this what you wanted?
He looks down at me as if I had the power to kill her with my admission.

“I don’t know what I want anymore.” I try to break free from his hold, but he doesn’t budge. That vision Gage shared comes back like an unwanted visitor. “I hate death, Marshall. I
hate
it.”

He points over to Chloe and she jolts as if she were electrocuted.

For you
, Marshall says it sweetly.
She lives for now
. 

From behind, a bevy of voices cry out in distress. I glance back to see a swarm of mud-clotted bodies pulling Gage into their midst.

“Shit!”

In one swift motion, Marshall takes to the sky with his wings spread wide.

“Skyla,” Logan shouts, pulling me toward a split in the building as a way out of the chaos. “Get to safety. I’ll get Gage.”

“No,” I shout, refusing to follow his lead. “This is my war. These are my people getting hurt, sacrificing their lives. I need to stay and fight, and if that means I die, I’m OK with it.” Not really, but I’ll be damned if I let a cowardly implication fly at this sensitive hour.

Logan snatches me by the wrist and holds back a smile.

“You can’t win if you’re dead,” he says, exasperated, almost as an afterthought. “But I’m proud of you.”

A shadow envelops us from the right. A woman with stunning features holds out a rifle to me like a peace offering. Her chestnut hair explodes a potent shade of crimson in the light.  

“Ezrina!” I draw a breath at the sight of her. For one, she’s sporting the gorgeous uncursed version of herself and for two, so not supposed to be here. “How the hell did you get here?”

“Never mind.” She hoists something that looks like a missile launcher over her shoulder, long-handled with a dark mahogany overlay and carbine fittings. She pulls the trigger and a series of rotary blades spit out at demonic speeds. Nothing but beautiful metal discs spinning their ballet of death as they slice across the field.

“Holy shit,” Logan whispers.

A tall, dark, and handsome Nev appears beside her side, his skin tinted the palest cast of blue, much like Logan’s. “She has a knack for sharpened steel.” He gives a quick wink in my direction.

My mouth drops open at the two of them. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to having the warm fuzzies at the thought of Ezrina and Nevermore risking their necks yet again, but I’ll be damned if they’re winning my war for me.

I take off into the battlefield, posthaste to find Gage, firing into the line of quasi humans who bear their mortal mark as clear as a summer sky.

“Skyla.” Logan motions in the direction of a mob with a dark-haired boy lodged in the middle—Gage.

We hit a wall of Counts and slash and thrash our way through the crowd. My wings lodge and snag as I swim through the sea of violence to get to Gage. The blade of a knife curves across my belly just enough to graze me. It slices the dress and my flesh in one neat line.

I look up to find the vaguely familiar face of a girl, wielding a machete. She wears an evil grimace while slashing her weapon in front of me. Something about her reminds me of Emily so I kick her feet out from under her rather than introduce her to the working end of my rifle. It’s not until I step over her body do I realize who she is. It’s the girl from the lake—the one I presumably killed. The Counts have already resurrected her and brought her back to the front lines to fight the war for them.

I tread forward without giving her a second thought.

“Gage!” I shout as bodies fall around me. 

I spot Cooper alone in the midst. His shirt is off and a long gash runs from one end of his ribcage to the other as if someone tried to saw him in half. I glance back for Logan but he’s nowhere to be found.

“Cooper!” I shout, bolting over.

The girl with the evil grimace appears, quick as an apparition. She dives at me with her blade, but I jump out of her knife-wielding way, and she slashes Cooper instead.

His flesh splits straight down his side as if it were rubber.

“You stupid shit.” I jab the butt of my rifle into her jaw and knock her to the ground.

“Here,” I snatch the machete off the ground and shove it in Cooper’s hand.

A hard blow cracks over my skull and I drop to my knees. 

The world blinks in and out of existence as Cooper helps me up and pulls me away from the blistering crowd.

I stagger in the wake of the cranial assault, trying to gain my footing. 

Cooper tries to yank me off the field, but I screw my toes in the ground. I may be seeing stars, but I’m not leaving the fight.

A long blade comes at me. I look up in time to see the wicked girl from the lake wielding a pocketknife straight at my abdomen. The unholy grin dissipates from her face as her body bisects in half. Her torso lands to my left and her legs wobble a moment before settling to the ground. I look up to find a sickly blue frame with his bloodied sword still erect from the rather brutal charge—Holden Kragger.

“We’re even,” he says, dipping back into the crowd.

“You’re good.” Cooper digs a smile in his cheek. “You’ve got the enemy siding with you.”

Blood pools on the ground as the girl Holden killed dissolves to nothing.

I take him in. Cooper seems like the world’s nicest guy.

“Speaking of the enemy, Cooper, what does Laken Stewart mean to you?” It feels off asking him now, but really, when else is there?

He directs his gaze toward the crowd a moment, hesitating with his answer. “She’s someone special.”

“I thought so. Look, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Laken Stewart is a Count. I saw her in the Transfer myself.” I stop short of mentioning Wesley and his demented yearnings.

“I know she’s a Count. But she’s not like these guys. She’d be the last person to hurt Celestra.”

“Cooper—” Before I can get a word in about her family, or Wesley—an entire herd of muddied Counts charge in our direction.   

Cooper and I start in on a slaughter. Arms and legs and the entrails of the enemy rain down like a blood-soaked wet dream. This is the moment I was born for, one of them anyway. This was the war in my honor, for my blood and for the blood of my people. There isn’t a Celestra on the planet I’m not holding in my heart. I don’t know what will become of the Counts that Cooper and I are extracting, but in the heat of the battle, as my hair, skin, and muscles are being cut to pieces, I could care less if the entire brood of them were barreling straight into hell on the Demetri express.

This was the end.

God had spoken and vengeance was mine.

Logan appears, bloodied and battered, sporting a rifle of his own. He points in the distance and I see Gage fighting off two Counts with nothing more than a stick.

“We’ll loop around.” Logan inverts his lips momentarily. “He’ll make it, Skyla. You don’t have to worry.”

I catch a glimpse of Cooper as he’s swallowed in a rolling cloud of flesh, all of them Counts. He expels a loud roar and the crowd bursts into a sanguine shower. Cooper presses the enemy like a vat of grapes ripe for the harvest—drawing new wine from their bitter hearts as he rages toward victory for Celestra.

I glance back at a familiar looking boy in the distance, a bow swinging in his hand.

Ellis? I squint into him. His jowls are set deeper, his body smaller in stature, and an unnatural smile hedges on my lips. That’s the boy who took region six for the Counts—the one Gage mistook for Ellis in the middle of a downpour and I was slow to believe him. Just the sight of him makes me want to run to Gage and apologize all over.

The boy looks right at me, lifts his crossbow and fires. 

A biting pain gaffs my left shoulder just above my wing. I let out a cry and hold onto Logan to keep from falling. 

“Shit,” Logan seethes. He gives a gentle tug at the newly embedded arrow and a hot bite of adrenaline explodes through me.

“Take a deep breath.” Logan latches on and yanks it out rather unceremoniously.

I let out a shrill cry that cuts through the war machine percolating around us. It drills into the sky and straight back to Marshall’s estate where my mother is watching safely from Paragon—in her party dress made of stars, with my father tucked neat by her side.   

Logan pulls me in and presses a burning kiss against my lips that not only manages to silence me, it takes away the pain—the war, thoughts of my destiny with all its malignant intent.

The rain starts in and saturates us with my mother’s blessing. She desires Logan for me. He’s her pick in the race for my heart. I guess in some ways, Logan has already won.

A wild cry comes from the battlefield inspiring the two of us to exchange a knowing glance.

Logan pulls back and washes over me with all of his hell bent love. “Let’s do this.”

I take him in, so fierce and noble.

“Let’s do this.” I knock the butt of my rifle into his, and we make a run for the enemy. 

We storm the field in an effort to secure a win for Celestra—save Gage in the process as tears rain down from heaven. Our clothes cling to our skin. My wet hair dances over my back, thick as snakes.
The sky summersaults into itself as it bears down and expels a never-ending stream of citrine aggression.

We hit the wooded area just past where the kitchen would be. I recognize this as the place where the Mustang ran over the two of them.

On the mountain in the distance, I can make out foot soldiers heading up in rows of ten and twenty, angels interspersed between them.

“I thought the angels couldn’t fight this battle,” I say as we take a moment to catch our breath.

“They can’t.” His face pinches with pain. “They’re here for the dead, Skyla. They’re taking them home.”

So many bodies—so many precious beings lying strewn on the ground like refuse. I guess people do die in this war. I held out Ezrina like some life-gifting force and here were the messengers of God collecting souls from the deceased by the droves. 

The rain lets up as I scan the field for Gage. He needed me and I failed him. I should’ve blasted through the crowd to reach him. He would die before he left me to fend for myself and now perhaps I played a role in his death by not returning the favor. 

Chloe runs from a quickly dispersing mob. She holds a blade dipped in blood—her face white with shock.