Wicked (20 page)

All four men rush him. They catapult on top of him with their bodies as though they were dousing a fire.

I try to harness my strength by way of anger. I think of Chloe and the way she’s bound me with her knowledge. The way she stole Gage right from under me, and now I’m powerless against her emotional bondage. She could blackmail Gage all the way to altar if she wanted. Maybe Gage’s vision of me marrying him doesn’t even take place until we’re all senior citizens—or worse he’s confused me with Chloe.

I pluck two of the men off Logan and toss them behind me with unnatural ease. Logan loosens up enough to kick his way up off the floor—grunting, panting—nothing but a tangle of questionable limbs. The first two return and restrain my arms leaving my legs in prime position to kick one square in the nuts, so I do.

He lets out a horrific oof. Back home, it would have probably sounded more like an ugh, or a ooh, but it’s funny how even amidst great pain the recipient of my punishment remains true to his foreign roots.

Why is everything so quiet? Why is everyone looking at me like I’ve just committed the most heinous atrocity? Oh right, they’ve all got a pair—

I turn and knee the man to my left, then the one to my right. It happens so fast, almost simultaneously. It’s as though I had psychologically immobilized them, and now they’re all victims to the bionic groin throbs I’ve doled out.

A lone man struggles with Logan. He sees me fast approaching and runs out the door.

Logan pulls out his pistol and points it down at the three men writhing in pain. Logan is doing this for me. I’ve encased his heart in permafrost and reduced him to nothing more than an executioner.

“No,” I say placing my hand over his. “We’re leaving.”

***

We return to the butterfly room. It feels so good to be back to my normal life as I take in the colorful specks lining the walls. I lie down and soak in the peace and beauty of the butterflies as they watch over us with hushed appraisal.

“I’m sorry if it was too much for you,” Logan lands on his stomach next to me.

“It was my idea.” I never said I had any good ones. “What’s going to happen next?”

“They’ll find a way to make us pay for this.” His face offers no apologies whatsoever. “You were right though, it was necessary.”

I reach up and run my fingers through his hair. It’s courser than I remember. So is Logan.

“Do you know this because—”

He cuts me off, “My conversion? Yes.” He adjusts himself onto his elbows. “Trust me, what we did tonight was a public service.”

“I do,” I breathe the words.

His face angles towards me, and he gives a humble smile for the first time in a long while.

“You do?” There’s a boyish quality about him when he says it.

I lean up and circle him by the waist in an awkward embrace that’s neither platonic, nor romantic.

“Yes, Logan, I do.”

***

Gage texts me in the morning and offers a ride to church. Not only is he going to look great to my mother, but I get to spend the whole entire day with Gage.

I head downstairs and find Tad and Mom hunched over a stack of papers at the kitchen table.

“Watcha looking at?” I ask, pouring myself a bowl of cereal and hopping next to Drake at the bar.

“Well, look who’s up?” My mother beams at me as though I were eight. “Are you feeling better?”

“I feel fine.” Truth is I’m wrecked both physically and emotionally, but globetrotting and murder will do that to you.

“So what’s with the forest worth of paperwork?” I reiterate. Probably renewing their membership to Counts International.

Mom and Tad exchange glances.

“If you must know…” Tad is clearly irritated with the inquisition.

Wow. I should reward myself for riling him up at this early hour. Then again, it seems right on schedule for me.

“Your mother and I,” he continues, “are getting ready to visit a fertility clinic in Seattle.”

“State of the art facility.” Mom leans in confidentially.

Sorry I asked. I think I would rather they were renewing their memberships to the slaughter Skyla committee—just about anywhere other than a freaking fertility clinic.

“So,” Tad continues, “looks like we’ll be using any monies that might have been allocated for your college educations and pilfering them in an attempt to bring forth yet another child into this world we’re ill equip to provide for.”

Drake scoffs as he inhales his last spoonful.

“Your father’s teasing,” Mom insists. “He wants this child as much as I do, if not more. I’m secretly hoping for twins.”

“Twins?” Tad balks.

Two Tad juniors? I’m just as shocked as Tad at the idea.

“Relax. It’s very common to have five or six embryos take when undergoing this procedure.”

“Five or six?” His face lights up a strange shade of purple.

“Well, we wouldn’t have to do any of this if you were able to hold up your end of the bargain.” She eyes him below the waist.

I guess Tad’s not the sperminator after all, looks like Drake holds that title—the sperminator—the impregnator—same difference.

Drake drops his spoon on the way to the sink and bends over to pick it up. His shirt rises midway up his back exposing a sea of navy ink, and Emily’s signature scrawled out in huge flowery letters.

Oh. My. God.

I abandon my cereal and follow Drake upstairs.

Chapter Forty

Ink

“Where the heck you going?” Drake asks as I file past him into his bedroom.

“Let me see your tattoo.” I’m giddy over the idea he’s inked up his back. I’m pretty sure it will piss Tad off spectacularly and put a fifty-dollar bill right in my pocket. That could be the first payment for my new car. Heck, I could finance the car and insurance on Drake’s bad behavior alone. I should get a bonus of like a thousand dollars for the fact he knocked up Brielle. Only, that’s probably the one thing I’ll never tell.

“I don’t have a tattoo. So get the hell out.”

“Irritable much? I’m talking about the Sharpie chicken scratch on your back.”

“Oh that.” He takes off his shirt, exposing a thick tangle of underarm hairs that make me rethink breakfast and perhaps every other meal of the day.

“Check it out.” He turns around.

The images stare out at me, and I let out a little shriek.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

“Holy freaking shit!”

“I know, right?”

He’s really digging my reaction, only I’m not really digging his body art.

Three tall figures are displayed on Drake’s back—all three with the effigy of a man, shirtless, one with the face of an eagle, the other with the face of an ox, and the third with the face of a lion.

“What is this?” I mutter. I told both Logan and Gage about my weird hallucination, nobody else on the planet knows about it other than the three of us, and sure as hell not Emily-the-haunted-artist-Morgan. And why the lion and not the donkey? Did she have it wrong, or did I? “So, did you tell her what to draw? And what did she do it with, a marker?” I stop just shy of touching his back.

“We were in her room. Things started to get freaky, and she asked if I wanted my back done. I had no idea she was going to whip out a bottle of India ink and start diagramming hieroglyphics and shit, but it’s pretty cool.”

“India ink? That’s like ten times more permanent than a tattoo,” I tease.

“Shut up.” He pulls back on his t-shirt. “I saw you talking to Brielle, she say anything about me?”

“Yes, she’s still totally into you. How can you be with Emily when she’s having your baby?”

“Shh!” He walks over and opens the door an inch to scout the hall before shutting and locking it. “She’s not freaking pregnant, OK? She’s psycho. She’s trying every trick in the book to keep me hanging around.”

“She is having a baby,” and she’s always been a touch psychotic, but I omit that fact. “She really likes you.” I don’t know why. “Besides, I still have the positive pregnancy test floating around in my bathroom, plus a bottle of growth pellets for that spawn of yours she’s lugging around.” I kept that gross stick in the event Brielle wanted it for a keepsake. I don’t even know if it’s the type of thing pregnant women keep—a stick full of pee, but if it were mine and it meant Gage and I were about to have a baby, I think I would. Logan races through my mind, and I shake him away.

Drake studies me, walks around in a slow suspicious circle as though I were keeping something from him.

“I think Mia’s right.” He folds his arms at his conclusion. “You went and got yourself knocked up, and now Brielle is using your catastrophe to try and get me back. It’s a twofer. You lock yourself up with whoever, and she shackles herself to me. And, had I played along, how much do you wanna bet she’d magically lose the baby before she balloons out? My mom used to watch those cheesy soaps all the time. Trust me, I know the mind of a woman.”

Drake’s expert level of stupidity leaves me breathless.

“You’re a moron,” is all I can manage.

“And you’ll soon be the reason I’ll be collecting some serious Benjamins. You’re a magnet of irresponsibility, and thanks to you, I’ll have an entire stack of dead presidents by the time the New Year rolls around.”

“Grant—not Franklin, is on the fifty dollar bill,” I say indignantly. “You will never have a stack of dead presidents with Benjamins, because Benjamin Franklin was never a president.”

He shakes his head. “Who cares? You get the point. So who’s the daddy?”

“You are,” I say without thinking.

Drake pulls a serious face of disgust just before his cell goes off.

“It’s her. Great. I got my own personal stalker.” He glares into the phone.

“Aren’t you going to answer it? You should at least talk to her.”

He spins me towards the door.

“Wait, what made Emily draw those figures?” I say trying to slow myself down from being firmly ejected.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” He launches me into the hall and slams the door behind him.

Yes, I would.

***

Gage picks me up at nine in his truck. I’m so glad to see it, I actually throw my arms over the hood and give it a kiss.

“How about one for me?” His dimples ignite on either side without trying.

Gage comes over and wraps his arms around my waist, cleanses me with his touch.

“I really missed you,” he whispers.

“I really missed you,” I say before indulging in the hot of his mouth.

“Holy Christmas!” Tad shouts. “Are you on the way to church or a motel?”

“I don’t think the neighbors heard,” I mutter hopping into the truck.

Gage and I quickly pullout and head onto the road so we won’t have the Landon Counts tailgating us all the way down.

“Logan told me about your little adventure,” he says, padding over the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.

I’d hardly call the slaughter we took part in an adventure.

“I guess we pretty much avenged those Celestra deaths,” it comes out quiet, sad.

“Not according to Logan. He says you have one left in Rome and still have Demetri Edinger to get to.”

“Yeah, well, I’d rather off Chloe any day of the week. Speaking of which, what are we going to do about her?” I can’t help feeling like it’s game over for me. Here I thought we were going to take down the Counts, stop them from killing any more innocent Celestra—hell, from eradicating Celestra then Chloe steps in and effortlessly becomes the new millstone around my neck.

“What exactly did Dudley say when he told you not to tell? Do you remember his exact words?”

“Not really. He basically said I couldn’t tell anyone he was a Sector or he’d be bound, and if it came to me or him, he would always choose him.”

“Great.” He stares out at the road depleted. “Maybe he just needs a pure Celestra to turn in? Maybe if Chloe were to tell him she knew he was a Sector, he could turn her over to the Counts. The Counts only wanted you because you were pure, I don’t see the difference.”

“I hope you’re onto something. I’m getting the feeling the only real thing holding Marshall back from handing me over is the fact he wants to marry me.” Have my partially human children and hold dominion. I’m sure that entails lots of great perks like him morphing into Logan or Gage on demand, but I’m not interested. “I’m not going to marry Marshall am I?” It seems like a stupid question to be asking Gage, who has already assured me he’s seen us take that mad dash down the alter.

He tilts his head thoughtfully to the side as though seriously considering this.

“I don’t know.”

“What?” I jump a little in my seat.

“I don’t know. I know that we get married, but I don’t know at what point, or what the circumstances are.”

“What do you mean circumstances? People get married because they’re in love, not because of circumstances. What did you see in the vision that made you think we were getting married? Was it a big wedding?”

That would be sort of awesome if he could fill me in on all the decor and colors and bridesmaid dresses and stuff because I’m not really creative in that way. I could plan the whole thing backwards—sort of reverse engineer the entire event.

“I never saw a wedding,” Gage glances over and gives a mischievous half-smile.

I reach over and run my fingers through his thick damp hair.

“Well, well, aren’t you a dirty little liar.”

Chapter Forty-One

The Art of War

Paragon Presbyterian erects itself like an ancient relic of mass and marble into the dull grey sky. It’s carved of stone with etchings and statues molded right into the infrastructure. A wash of fog stretches over the building and escorts us inside as it seeps into the foyer.

I’m half expecting the walls to tremble, or the floor to open up and drop me into Ezrina’s lair as some after effect of hosting the rose of a thousand demons inside my intestinal track, but nothing.

I turn around to tell Gage and bump right into Michelle Miller who’s still sporting her run-in with pinking shears. It looks a little more refined, like it’s the scalp clenching salon version. Surprisingly it doesn’t look bad on her. I bet it’s totally easy to wash and style in the morning and—oh freaking shit!