Vex (44 page)

“Yes, I did—just like you’ve committed to extracting Chloe from my relationship with Gage. I already know I’ll win the faction war with you by my side.” I give a sly wink. I plan on building up his ego so far it explodes to the four corners of the room.

“I’ll make it easy on you,” Marshall morphs ten years his junior. This is how I remember him from our first meeting, when he introduced himself to me by way of his mouth. 

Then something in me reverts, and I wake up as though I had just come to from some long horrible nightmare.

Holy crap.

I’m standing in my math teacher’s living room with nothing but my underwear and a pair of wings, and might I add, feeling anything but angelic. I pluck off my heels in haste and hold them out in defense.

Marshall leans in like a lion about to pounce. “Now, this, intrigues me on a whole new level.” He darts one way, sending me in the opposite direction.

“No!” I shout as he comes near me. “I’m sorry, I can’t actually go through with this.” I hold my hand out in an effort to stave him off.

“Let’s see if I can’t change your mind.”

He presses in with a kiss infused with passion.

A vision appears. I’m lost in a crowd. A sea of people with no faces, just the hands of a clock, numbers that I can’t read—Logan’s there. He asks me to follow him, take him places.

The door bursts open, the icy night air sears my bare skin, but Marshall doesn’t relent.

He presses in further and deeper, showing just one more. It’s Gage. He wears a look of horror. He’s bleached white, frozen like a statue, and this terrifies me.

“Skyla!” Logan wraps an arm around my waist and physically plucks me free.

He takes off after Marshall, pounding him relentlessly into the creamy white mortar of the fireplace.

Marshall gives a powerful shove, knocking Logan off his feet.

“I should rip you to pieces and feed you to the wolves,” Marshall seethes. A spontaneous blaze roars to life in the enormous fireplace, licks the air with its hungry tongues. The front doors slam shut with violent force, loud as a gunshot. “I will have my way with you—under my terms, in the hour of my choosing,” he hisses. “Shore up your affairs young Oliver. The scales of justice have been weighed, and you have been found wanting.”

Logan staggers up and bypasses Marshall on his way to the fireplace.

“I believe this belongs to Skyla.” Logan snatches one of the spirit swords from above the mantle.

“Out!” The word explodes from Marshall. The windows rattle with his deafening boom.

Logan bolts over and picks me up. He speeds us out into the driveway, pausing just shy of the Mustang and lands me on my feet.

“The keys?” Logan runs his eyes over me, clad in my underwear.

“The keys are in the car,” I say, snatching off the angel wings and discarding them.

“You may not want to get into that habit,” Logan’s face brightens to a smile, his chest still heaving from the sprint. “Skyla, I love you more than the heavens love the sun and the moon,” he whispers out of breath, and offers a soft tender kiss. A memory darts through my mind of a dream I once had long before I knew of Logan. He whispered those exact words to me—same ones that Marshall showed me in the vision. 

The scar I gave him down the side of his cheek curves into a lateral smile. He picks up my hands.
About Chloe’s secret...

Tell me
. I give a squeeze in anticipation. My expression sours as I remember the harsh reprimand I had my mother impose. “Tell me,” it comes out soft, ashamed.

The Counts will know if I betray them. I can only lead you in the right direction
.

“OK, we’ll make a game out of it.”

Ethan Landon wasn’t himself
.

“No, he was Holden. But Holden is dead now, and the real Ethan has come back to stay.”

His eyes widen as he pushes out a smile.
Chloe won’t like that
.

“Did Chloe know Ethan?”

How well does the grim reaper know his victims?

“Chloe is the grim reaper? Chloe killed Ethan?”

He gives a quick nod.

“Did Chloe lure him to Paragon?”

Logan pushes out a bleak smile.

“She did that to bring Tad and Mom to Paragon and, most likely, me. But how?” I stop the thought midflight. “Tad said something about Ethan saying strange things in a conversation—he believed people were after him. He was right, and I’m betting the people in question were Demetri and Chloe. He must have mentioned Paragon, and that’s why Tad hauled us here. Maybe that’s how she got us to the island. And what was your role?”

My uncle runs the morgue. If anyone knows how to dispose of a body, it’s me.

“Only the Counts ended up taking him.”

Logan presses out a smile as though he were proud of me.

“So, what can I do with this?” I finally have all the ammo I need against Chloe and have no real way of utilizing it. “I know for a fact she poisoned Emerson, but I don’t know how to pin her with anything.” For that matter, she knows I killed Holden.

“She’s at the bowling alley. Get her into the kitchen alone, and I’ll take care of the rest. I promise, after tonight, she won’t stand in the way of your relationship with anyone.” He stares off in the distance a moment. “I really do love you, Skyla,” he pauses. “There was no way I would have ever let Marshall touch you like that. I’m just sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

“Thank you.” A hard shiver runs through me. “I care about you, too.”

“I know,” he opens the door to the Mustang for me. “Oh, and, Skyla?”

“Yes?”

“Things are going to get a little wild tonight. I’m going to need you to trust me.”

I give a hard stare. Logan is stone serious to the point it frightens me.

“I will. I just hope, for your sake, there’s no cult gathering involved. I let you off the hook once. I don’t think I have it in me to do it again, even if it is for my own good.”

He raises his brows.

Doesn’t say a word.  

Chapter Seventy-Six

Mystery Kiss

I pull back on the sweater and jeans that I began this long night in before attempting to hunt down Gage at the bowling alley.

The parking lot is full. Cars are parked in total chaos throughout the dirt lot next door and all the way down the street. Four limos sit lining the front of the building. I’m pretty sure that’s a sight I’ll never see again.

I step inside to a dim lit room with a rainbow of neon decorating the lanes. I love bowling in the dark.

A pair of arms swoop in from behind and scoop me off my feet. I look up to find Gage lit up in all his dimpled glory.

“You look gorgeous tonight in case I forgot to mention it,” he says.

“Which part? In my jeans or in the dress of steel?”

“Both,” he leans in, “but I might need you to model the options for me one more time just to be sure.”

My face explodes with heat. I’ll never wear that ghastly gown again. I wouldn’t even care if it doubled as a protective shield from Fems. It’s forever linked to Logan and his ravenous lust—the magic we shared in the back of the Mustang. I take a big breath and exhale the memory. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.

Chloe motions Gage over to shelves full of bowling balls.

 “I’ll check out the back and see if Logan’s here,” Gage takes off in the direction of the kitchen.

Ellis trots over.

“You find Gage?”

“Yes. Hey, you haven’t seen Logan, have you?”

“I just saw him with you. Why? You lose him, too?”

“Very not funny, and for your information I technically didn’t lose either of them, they managed to disappear on their own. By the way, I think we should have a code word for the light drives, you know, in case the Fems decide to take you for a ride again.”

“OK, how about, I love Ellis? Or Ellis is the best looking guy in school or the on the island?”

“I said a word, not a paragraph on the vanity that is you.”

“Love honeys.”

“Where?” I ask totally disinterested in Ellis’ promises of promiscuity.

“No, that’s the code. You say love honeys, and I know it’s you. I’ll do the same. We’ll have to use it in a sentence.”

“Love honeys, in a sentence, got it.”

“As in, you are often looking for your love honeys, Logan and Gage.”

“Stop.” I swat him on the arm.

“What? You are. What are you doing right now?” He backs away, laughing, landing himself in a pool of prospective love honeys, himself.

Now, where exactly are my love honeys? Honey—Gage, to be exact. I turn on my heels towards the kitchen and bump into Chloe. Her skin has broken out into aching pustules with white infected tips that look outright lethal. Marshall’s payback is a real bitch.

“Come here.” I drag her into the kitchen. “I really need to talk to you.” Now what? Logan said get her into the kitchen, and he would take care of the rest, but I haven’t seen Logan since I arrived.  

“Is this another let’s-be-friends love fest?” She can hardly move her lips from the thickening of her skin. “Maybe we can have a three way with Gage and really seal our union?”

The lights go out overhead, and just in time because if one more filthy thing came out of her mouth, I was going to shut it for her. Not that I’d want to touch her in this condition, ever.

“What’s this? Another dismemberment ceremony you’re going to initiate without my permission?” Chloe steps into me.

A square of light appears over the back wall. A film is being cued as circles and dots appear at random.

“I’m outta here,” Chloe tries to dash out the door, but I spin her around instead.

Images appear. It’s Chloe, handling strychnine, lacing hypodermic needles, cups, and plastic pouches with the fine white powder. The images blink out then reignite to show her injecting Emerson with tainted blood. It blinks out again, and this time the scene changes all together. It’s the Black Forest, I recognize the clearing in which Ezrina hacked off my arm, only there’s no sign of Ezrina. This time it’s Chloe with the blade, and at the receiving end of her lethal abdominal blows is Ethan. God—she really is a killer. It goes on for another twenty seconds before it fades to black.

“I have all the evidence I need to pin you for everything,” I breathe the words slow and hot into her ear.

“You killed Holden.”

“A wild animal devoured him. It was well documented by Dr. Oliver himself.” I’m officially a card carrying member of the, I love Barron fan club. “Remember that brief incarceration you had by way of death? It will seem almost pleasant compared to the one you’ll have in prison.”

“What do you want?” She seethes with a suppressed rage.

“I want the binding spirit you invoked with your bitchcraft removed from around my house,” I pause. “And Gage.” Really there are no other words.

She takes a deep breath. Her hair falls over her eye like a curtain as she bows into her defeat. “Done.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.” Her mouth crimps in annoyance. She storms out of the kitchen, and out of the facility. I have a feeling I’m not done with Chloe yet. Chloe Bishop doesn’t go down so easy. But in the mean time…

I make a beeline out the door looking for Gage and bump into Brielle instead.

Her belly looks painfully swollen with skin stretched tight over the bulge as though she really did swallow a basketball.

“You changed! You looked so hot.” She pulls at her copper curls in disappointment. “You and I are going to have to hang out a lot more, you know, go shopping—girl stuff.”

I bite down on the inside of my cheek. I’m still a little leery of Brielle in general, and I have a thousand reasons why.

“You don’t trust me,” her head tilts dramatically.

“No, no, I do,” a little, “I’ll be hitting the mall hard with Mia and Melissa, you can come with.” How much harm can happen to a person at the mall?

“Perfect! And I saw the new schedule. Logan has you down for a ton of hours. I’ll catch you here, for sure.” Her eyes sweep to the side a moment. “I saw you guys at the dance. You know, arguing—kissing. I mean it was more like a serious make-out session.” She gives an apprehensive laugh.

“I wasn’t kissing Logan at the dance.” It was in the backseat of the Mustang, out by Devil’s Peak.

“It’s OK, Skyla, you don’t have to pretend. It’s just me.”

“No really, I wasn’t—where exactly did you see us making out?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs, “it was in a hallway that led to some utility room. Drake and I were looking for a place to have a little privacy, and saw that it was taken, by
you
.” She pokes me in the chest.

“It was probably just some girl that looked like me,” a crippling sadness comes over me just thinking about it.

“Oh, really?” She arches a brow with a look of disbelief. “Let’s see, she had on your dress, your hair, your face and, oh yeah, when I accidently knocked into the wall? You gave me one of those nervous smiles. It was classic Skyla.”

“Wow, wish you had a picture.” Like for real.

“I don’t,” she wrinkles her nose, “but Drake does. He went all covert ops in the event he needed to blackmail you.”

“Yeah, it sort of runs in the family.” I step over to him standing by the arcade.

“Let me see your phone.” I try to snatch it out of his hand.

“Hey, hands off,” he hikes it over my head. “This is serious ammo,” he shoots a look of discontent over to Brielle.

“Just show me the picture. I don’t even care that you have it.” Because I’m a thousand percent sure it’s not me.

Brielle’s baby has obviously begun munching on her brain. Two Counts probably equal a zombie baby, and judging from all the reanimation going on in Ezrina’s lair, I’d say that I’m pretty darn accurate.

Drake fiddles with his phone in an attempt to pull up the picture.

Of course, it wasn’t me. It’s clearly a case of mistaken identity. The entire facility was like walking into a cave, what with all the murky mood lighting. It was probably Lexy, or Michelle, or Chloe, and just the thought of Chloe and Logan makes me want to emulate her by sticking my finger down my throat.

Drake shines the phone in my direction and steadies it for me to see.