“So if I had…when I put on the pendant, I’m free of all things scary?” I hold up my hair while he attaches the clasp.
“And nobody will be able to kill you. Ever.”
I shut my eyes hard and cry a little over my stupid, stupid mistake.
***
If I hadn’t embarrassed myself before, I was working really hard at it now. You’d think I was at Chloe’s funeral the way I pushed my food around my plate and said two words the entire meal. Gage sits on one side of me, and Logan on the other. I feel slightly disoriented and dizzy from all the information Logan just pumped into my brain. If only he would have spelled everything out for me right from the beginning, I would have never gone back on my own volition.
Melissa can’t take her eyes off Gage. Its kind of adorable watching an unexpected bit of puppy love bloom, even if it is one sided. We sing to her and she blows out the candle sticking crooked out of the complimentary slice of flan. I’m sure Tad expects us to split it ten ways, so I’m not too stunned when he asks the waitress for extra spoons.
“Melissa, did you make a wish?” Emma asks politely.
“Yes.” She’s quick to answer. “I wish, when I grow up I marry Gage.”
A round of laughter circles the table.
I shake my head, still fogged up in a daze. “Actually, Gage is going to marry me.” I say matter-of-factly.
“Skyla!” My mother looks both surprised and miffed. “I thought you were seeing Logan?”
“I am. It’s twisted.”
When the check comes, Logan’s Uncle Barron insists on treating the birthday girl and covers the entire bill.
Everyone rises to their feet simultaneously. Logan shakes Tad’s hand then my mother’s.
“You mind if I treat Skyla for dessert? I’ll bring her home right after.” Logan asks still holding her hand in both of his.
“Not at all.” She says. “Take your time.” She leans into me on the way out. “I like him. Don’t blow it.”
Typical of my mother, not to have faith in me. What does she think I’m going to do? Burn down his kitchen? Cause a riff between him and his cousin? Return the one gift he gave me that could save my life? All of the above?
The waitress seats us at a table for two, nearby. Logan and I peruse the menu, and end up ordering the deep-fried ice cream.
“I can tell my mother loved your parents.” My mouth drops as I realize what I’ve just said. Sure, remind him he’s got dead parents. Add it to the list.
“I know what you meant. I consider them my parents. To tell the truth I don’t really remember the original set.” He pulls a bleak smile.
“I’m sorry. That’s terrible.” The romantic vision I had is completely destroyed. “She was on the phone with you.” I add in a lowered tone. Why not go out with a big bang and upset him over his dead girlfriend, too? “When I saw her, you were picking out a color for your truck.”
“Oh.” His voice rises as though it were all coming back to him. “And she suggested Gage go with black. He never forgave her for that. It’s too hard to keep clean.”
It’s quiet again. The waitress brings our dessert and two spoons. We start in slow with the task at hand.
“This is really good.” I say without emotion.
“I know.” He’s not eating. He’s looking through me with those rare glowing eyes. It’s the secret I’m keeping that has him perplexed. He may not know, but he suspects everything.
Chapter Forty-Four
Mystery
At breakfast, Tad announces he’s decided to take my mother to the mainland for the day. I’m so thrilled I do a little happy dance underneath the table.
“And I hope all of you behave.” He says the last word aimed sarcastically at me.
“I’m not leaving the house. In fact, I’m not even leaving my bedroom.” Logan’s coming over today. I texted him and asked for a do-over after I fantastically ruined every aspect of last night.
“Great.” Tad produces a piece of paper from behind his back. “So you won’t have a problem signing this.” He lays it flat on the table before me, and plops a pen down besides it.
“What’s this?” I ask picking it up.
It reads, I Skyla Laurel Messenger pledge not to have wild and out of control parties, or gatherings with two or more people without my parent’s full and final consent. I will not have boys over under any circumstance unless both parents approve and at least one parent is present in the company of said boy. I will not drink alcohol, nor will I allow my friends to consume alcohol on my family’s property. I will not do illegal drugs, nor smoke cigarettes, cigars, or Salvia. And lastly, I shall not have intimate relations without the bond of marriage while under my parent’s roof. If I should choose to become sexually active, I will honor my parent’s request and give proof of my selected choice of birth control…
I jump up from the table. And wave the paper in my mother’s face.
“Do you know about this?” I shriek. I knew Tad was sick and twisted, but now he’s exposed himself to my mother.
“I do.” Her lashes lower and her voice drops to her shoes.
“You do?”
“Yes. I went with him to have it notarized.” She adds, a little miffed at my questioning.
“You had this notarized? I can’t believe you. You’re both sick!” I throw the paper between the two of them.
“You’re out of control, Skyla.” Tad’s calm voice only sets me off even more.
“I’m not out of control. You’re out of control. You’re…you’re a freak! A cheap freak! Why do you have a stack of hundred dollar bills locked upstairs in your bedroom?” I clasp my hands on my hips. I’m going to let all the bombs drop and fall where they may. I’m sick of living with this uptight asshole, and when my mother hears what a nutcase he is, she will be too.
“What are you talking about?” His head rotates in a half circle.
“And what about all those news clippings about this house being haunted, and the dead girl who used to live here?” Both Mia and Melissa let out a shriek. I step into my mother’s face. “I bet you didn’t know he has a news clipping of Daddy’s accident. If that’s not grounds for divorce, I don’t know what is.” I roar.
My mother’s head drops down into her chest and hangs there while she tries to absorb it all.
“Lizbeth, what in the hell is your daughter talking about, now?” His face turns purple when he says it, and a vein on his forehead pops from the effort.
“It’s mine Skyla.” She groans. “The clippings and the money. They’re mine.” She lifts her shoulders to her ears.
“Are you hiding money from me? I thought we weren’t going to have separate accounts? What happened to what’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine?” He sounds like a child when he says it.
“It is. I swear it is. I like to have a little cash on the side in the event of an emergency. Everybody should have cash at the ready.”
“She said there were hundreds of dollars there. How would you feel if I hid hundreds of dollars from you?” He’s still changing colors.
“Well the way you don’t trust banks, it wouldn’t surprise me to find hundreds of dollars inside the mattress!” She yells.
“Why don’t you rip it open and find out!” He matches her velocity.
Mia and Melissa are holding each other huddled on the couch, crying, while Drake stands mystified in the hallway.
“What the heck’s going on?” He asks.
I pluck the paper off the floor and carry it over to him.
“Here’s some light reading for you courtesy of daddy.”
Stupid demented document.
I will never forget this.
***
How my mother can get up and leave with that monkey man, stuns me. I let Logan in right through the front door, and lead him up to my bedroom. Both Mia and Melissa are locked in their room due to the high frequency of ‘ghost like noises’ the house has been experiencing according to them.
&nbs
p; I lock the bedroom door behind us, and set my comforter on the floor for us to sit on. I have the rug, but I haven’t vacuumed since we moved in, and I can hardly stand to walk on it barefoot let alone sit on it with Logan.
He lies flat on his back and lets out a groan.
“Hey, you’re not sitting.”
“Am I supposed to be sitting?” He glances up at me.
“Yes. It’s rule number, five hundred sixty-nine. When a boy enters the house illegally, he must be in a vertical position at all times.”
“Does that mean my pants have to be buckled, too?” He gives a loose grin.
“I’ll get you a copy of the aforementioned document so you can go over it with your attorney later.” I wave it over him like a flag.
“I broke my back on the field today. Is there an exemption for broken backs?”
“Oh yes, it’s under the no mercy law. Tad will personally kick you in the balls when you’re down, and you’ll probably be forced to like it.”
“Not funny.” He hikes up on his elbows. “I have something you might like though.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?” Anything that doesn’t have to do with Tad is officially considered good news.
“The results of your blood test are in.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Proof
Dr. Barron Oliver, the sign reads, as Logan and I await the test results in his office.
“Sorry for the delay.” He says taking a seat behind the large mahogany desk.
He’s got a white lab coat on and a pair of spectacles. He twitches his lips as he silently reads the document shielded by a manila envelope.
Logan and I wait in eager silence of the long coming news. Whatever it says in that report, however much a percent I am Celestra, or even if I have mixed blood, it was a gift from my father. How I wish he could have been here with me so we could discover our family secrets together. I bet he didn’t have any idea about all of the factions and variety of gifts.
“Good news.” He looks up at us over his lenses. “First about that moisture sample.” He takes off his glasses and bites down on one side. “Unusual amount of plasma.” He ticks his head at Logan as though the two of them are speaking some special language.
“What’s plasma?” I ask.
“What kind?” Logan taps his hand on the table.
“Plasma is the fundamental liquid component found in blood.” Barron says before looking over at Logan. “It was human.”
“What the heck is human plasma doing floating around my house? Is my house really haunted?”
“You’re a spiritual being, Skyla. Don’t you live in your house? Haunted is a relative term these days.”
“I don’t spray my plasma all over the place.” I shake my head. “Excuse me, but I’m a little more than freaked out. You think it was Chloe?” I ask Logan.
“No.” Barron answers for him. “It was more than likely one of the Sector minions doing the bidding of the Counts I gather.”
“Why would they bother?”
“Why would they bother?” He parrots, amused at my line of questioning. “They would bother my dear,” he pauses to pick up the results from the blood sample. “Because you happen to be a rare and wanted specie. Your levels came in as pure.”
“How can I be pure if my mother’s not a Celestra?”
He shakes his head. “It’s impossible. Your mother must be a Celestra for you to be a pure breed.”
I swallow nervously. I don’t know which I dislike more, the fact I’m being compared as though I were a horse, or the fact my mother is indeed a Celestra and finds the need to hide it from me even after I grilled her.
“Pure.” Logan appears bewildered by the news. He looks at his uncle sternly, and they share a few brief moments worth of solemn expressions.
“It’s not good news is it?” I think the answer is obvious. In a perfect world there would be more Celestras, and the Counts wouldn’t feel threatened.
“Normally it wouldn’t be good news Skyla, but Logan tells me you have my mother’s pendant. Wear it. It’s the only one of its kind.”
“Why only one?” The panic starts shifting in slow boiling circles just beneath my chest.
“It’s been passed down from the ancients—the hero’s of old, the men of renown.” He presses into a polite smile. “It needs to be gifted to you for it to work. And Logan here generously gifted it to you at his own expense.”
I gulp down a dry pocket of air.
“I’m very thankful.” Mournful, is more like it. I’d love to blame Logan for not highlighting the finer points of Celestra 101, but it’s my fault for not heeding his warning to begin with. If I knew he was going to be right all of the time, I would have taken him much more seriously.
“So now that you have the pendant I don’t feel too bad sharing this last bit of unexpected news.” He breaks out in a genuine smile.
“What?” Logan leans in impatient.
“The blood sample has been stolen. There was a break in at the lab—after I ran the tests of course. It doesn’t surprise me. Those Fem’s can smell Nephilim blood from thousands of miles away. Put them on the right scent and it’s not a challenge anymore.”
“What do you mean, put them on the right scent?” I think I know, but I want to hear it from him.
“It means someone directed them to you first, then they went hunting for your blood. They probably found it in minutes. Decimated the lab.”
“That means they’re already after her.” Logan says.
“They will be until she dons the pendant.” He turns back to me. “And after that too, waiting for it to disappear from your neck. Oh, they would have a field day with you. You’re young, and beautiful. They might even try to breed you with their kind to empower their gene pools.”
“Breed me? I’m not some animal you can lock up in a cage and force to have a litter of babies.”
“You are if they catch you. It’s a part of the price of being pure.”
A part of me wants to ask if by pure he means virgin. Because if my virginity ups my value in any way then by all means I’ll do whatever it takes to save my life. But I know better.
“Put that pendant on as soon as you get home.” Logan is stern and direct with me.
He chose my safety over his, just like he chose Chloe’s before me, and I’ve gone and ruined it. I’ll be dead soon just like Chloe.
I’ll tell my mother. She’ll hire a bodyguard for me. I’ll pull the money out of my college fund, only I don’t have one, and Tad would never agree to that.
Face it. I’m a dead girl walking.
Chapter Forty-Six
Change
Turns out Mia and Melissa can’t keep a secret.
Tad and my mother have ‘somehow’ been apprised of the fact Logan was in my room, and that I disappeared with him for several hours.
Since their initial tirade, they’ve been hitting websites like e-realestate.com pretty hard with various parts of the country on display—as in moving. They’re in a total frenzy trying to find permanent placement before school starts in two weeks. Tad’s already talking about an all girls boarding school for me. Not that it would much matter without Logan.
It’s worse than death knowing I’ll be away from him. I’d rather be eaten by a thousand rotting Fem’s than leave him here in Michelle’s eager clutches.
I watch as the fog billows out the window in silent abundant bursts. The trees stand stoic in its wake, like dark foot soldiers at the ready, just waiting for a command. I don’t think we’ve seen the sun but twice the entire time we’ve been here. The thought of moving to some cheerful sunny location depresses the hell out of me. I like the moody, grey days. I like the cool of the fog on my skin, how you can inhale the day, swallow it down and make it become a part of you.
I see Brielle waving me over from her balcony so I head over without explanation to Tad or my mother. It’s not that I’m making a point to be rude, it’s just that I’ve sworn an oath to myself t
o never speak to either one of them again. And if they move, I won’t speak at all. There’s a comfort in my silence. It might be the one thing in my life I’ll ever be able to control. They can try to shake my vocal chords out of me if they want, but I’m not using them. I’ll be known as the mute girl forever more.
“Hey!” Brielle’s face contorts with panic. “What’s wrong?” She takes my head on her shoulder, pats it softly from behind.
“They’re going to move.” I hum into her shoulder. Her shirt smells faintly of bleach and a nice brand of softener my mother used to buy pre-Tad. It’s a frivolous expense I heard him once tell her. I wish she would let him know he was too, of the emotional variety.
“Who’s going to move?” Brielle sounds distressed as we take a seat on the dirty wicker bench.
“We are.” I thumb back at the house. “Can I move in with you?” I ask hopeful, knowing full well my parents wouldn’t allow it. I doubt at this point I could even spend the night, which reminds me, I should bring her a copy of the legal document they drew up on my behalf. I bet her mother would choke on her soy late if she laid eyes on it. She might even spring for a lawyer in an effort to help me get legally emancipated from such barbaric circumstances.
“Yes. That would be a blast. And for sure my mom wouldn’t care about whatever has them miffed. Don’t your sisters love it here? And what about Drake? You can’t take Drake.” She spreads her hand in front of her in a mild panic. I watch mesmerized as her long pale fingers melt into the fog. I’ve never noticed before what pretty fingernails she has. Mine are so brittle they never make it past my skin.
“My sisters hate the house. They think it’s haunted. And Drake’s a moron. Nobody listens to him.” True and true. I take the blame for my sisters, but I stand by what I said about Drake. At the end of the day though, he’s not half bad, plus Brielle likes him and I like Brielle.
“Oh ho-ney!” She rubs my back over and over until her mother comes out to join us.