“I will.” He looks as if he’s about to get hit by a train.
“I love you, Gage. You’ve been my true brother in every way, and I want you to know that.”
“I know.” He pulls me in tight, and this time it’s my shoulder getting doused with tears. “I love you, too, man.”
The room warbles and shifts as Dudley appears by my side.
A harrowing cry erupts from down the hall as Skyla rouses to her first cruel day without me by her side.
I pull back and look into my nephew’s watery eyes. “You better get going.”
“Come back to us.”
“I will.” I pat his back as Dudley and I dissipate in a vat of fog.
I watch as Gage bolts out of the room and over to Skyla’s side. I watch as they hold one another, while Gage tries desperately to comfort her. Their days to come would be engulfed with sorrow, death and caskets, because in their reality life had not yet swallowed the grave. But it was already done, victory on Calvary, and I was the beneficiary. My riches will remain hidden from the world, at least for a little while, leaving Skyla and Gage an inglorious crown of pain.
An ethereal road tunnels out above me, leading to the sky. I’m alive and well, mostly, and heaven lies before me.
Dudley and I lift through the roof, into the day already brimming with life. The sky recedes like a scroll, and we drift off into a familiar looking lavender fog until we land in the ethereal plane, my feet firmly planted in front of Skyla’s mother. Just seeing her striking resemblance to the girl I love drives an arrow through my heart.
She settles her clear eyes over mine as a peaceable smile glides up her lips.
“What am I going to do with you, Logan Oliver?” She walks over the expanse of the lake until she’s standing two feet before me.
I step in and take up her hands. “Send me back.”
Her lips curve at the tips. Her hair glows with a ray of light traveling through each shaft, and it only makes my heart bleed for her earthly twin all that much more.
“Send you back?” She runs her fingers through my hair a moment. “And how do you propose I do that?” She tucks a smile in her cheek as if she knows exactly how it can be done.
“I’ll take anything you’re willing to give me.” My heart pounds against my chest as if it actually had a function left to perform.
“I’d consider a Treble—but the rules have changed.”
Dudley clears his throat. “Now, now, let’s not make any hasty decisions.”
“You’re right.” She holds up a hand to silence him.
Shit.
“Language.” The two of them pipe up at the same time.
“I’ll send you back, Logan.” She gives the hint of a smile. “But how long you stay won’t be up to me.”
“You will?” Yes!
“It will be painful.” Her features iron out serious as stone. “Your heart will be grated to shreds, one painful stroke at a time. You’ll come back to this very spot and beg me to relieve your grief by sending you to the paradise of God.” Her eyes glow. A smile plays on her lips as if she were enjoying this on some level. “Do you wish this brand of torment on your living soul?”
“I do.” I’d accept any torment she’s willing to gift me so long as Skyla and I can be together.
She sharpens her gaze over me. “Who says you’ll be with Skyla?” The ethereal plane trembles with her laughter as I suction backward through the thick lavender fog.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Dudley bleeds the words into my ear as we land safe on Paragon just shy of his overgrown barn.
“I have to get to Skyla.” I start to take off, and he pulls me back.
“Not so fast. It’s Jock Strap’s time to shine.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Did I stutter? Besides, no need to run, you’re in a Treble. You can appear to them at will. But might I suggest you hold off a bit and let them grieve the fact you’ve truly left the land of the living. This Treble she’s put you in is far more fragile than the one she gifted you prior. I wouldn’t run around making any big future plans—or dinner arrangements for that matter.”
I pull my arm free as his words settle in. Dudley wants me to let Skyla grieve once and for all, and in the process she and Gage will bond immeasurably.
“Precisely,” he muses. “I can hear you by the way.”
“What do I do in the meantime?”
“There’s a fresh bed with your name on it in the Soullennium.”
“What about here?” I motion back at his overgrown house. “You’ve got sixteen spare bedrooms.”
“I’ve work to do, and I’m afraid I can’t have you in my way.” A shit-eating grin spreads over his face.
“Are you still my supervising spirit?”
“As long as you’re in the Treble.” He winces as if the idea pained him.
“I’ll give Gage and Skyla some breathing room, but it doesn’t mean I’m not popping in every now and again.”
“Very well.” He tips into me with a solemn expression before turning toward the house.
I pull him back by the sleeve. “Watch her for me, will you?”
Dudley glances down at my fingers still gripping his shirt, but I don’t let go. “I promise you, I’ll do just that.”
I hold out my hand, and he meets me with a firm shake.
“Until we meet again.” He tips his head into me as I start to disappear.
Paragon fades into that constant fog it’s been robed in since the beginning of time, as I head off to my new home in the Soullennuim. Death pulls me from the planet like a thousand whips hooking into my skin with its knife-sharp edges. It tackles me in the gut and drives me down the ethereal field right toward that shithole that Skyla isn’t allowed to visit. Then I relax and stop fighting something that’s already happened, and the pain goes away. A peace that surpasses all understanding takes over. And deep in my heart I know I’ll be back—back to Paragon—back to Skyla.
So many things have changed, and, yet one thing remains the same. I’m still madly in love with my beautiful bride, and I’ll move heaven and earth to make us happen.
We’re still happening. I can feel it. We still have hope.
“I love you more than the heavens love the sun and the moon, Skyla,” I shout it out over the planet like a battle cry.
And from this moment on, it is one.
*Thank you for reading, Perfect Love. If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review at your point of purchase.
*If you would like to purchase Logan and Skyla’s song on iTunes please click the following link: Candle Wax —single— Charity Shatwell & The Cobblers
*The following is a preview of Addison’s Moore New Adult series, Celestra Forever After.
A Preview of Celestra Forever After
“Beware of your friends; do not trust your brothers. For every brother is a deceiver, and every friend a slanderer. Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth.”
—Jeremiah 9:4-5
The Distal Future
Logan
Time waits for no one. Death comes in like a thief and binds your wrists. It fetters your feet, blinds and whips you before whisking off with your soul to the paradise of God. Death is ruthless in its endeavor as it rips you away from the planet—unremorseful as it gives all of your loved ones the finger. I cheated death, mostly. Rumor has it I’ll come back one day. But, in the end, Candace was right, this halfway life that my soul lingers in, this delicate state of limbo between this realm and the next, has proved a special brand of torment.
They say every living soul has one true love—the trick is finding them, and then holding on. You can miss love by a mile if you’re not careful. It can sneak up on you in the least likely places, a parking lot, a chance meeting at a party, a bowling alley.
My true love’s heart lingers for me, although our paths have split for a time. They’ll converge again, but for now, she belongs to another and it hurts l
ike all bloody hell. I didn’t think it would. I didn’t think it could. Then again I never think too deeply when Skyla is in the balance.
“Oliver!” Dudley cries out from the clearing near his property and points a good fifty feet away to the arrow he’s just lodged in eye of an oak. “Top that. I doubt you can.”
That’s Dudley for you, always quick with the dig, at least where I’m concerned.
He’s lured me out here, claiming he has a gift for me. I happen to know for a fact that Dudley’s idea of a gift doesn’t quite match up to the English definition.
I pull an arrow from the quiver strapped to my back and take a few steps forward.
“I’ll land it in the heart of the trunk, on top of yours,” I shout over to him. “Try not to get your riding pants in a bunch, sweetheart.” I fire one off, and it slips just past the tree and digs into the bushes.
Dudley barks out a laugh.
“You’re a fool to even suggest that arrow would obey your nonsensical whims.” He loads up and stretches his bow taut, but he’s not aiming for the oak, he’s aiming for me. “I’ll get it over your head and give you a trim off the top at the same time.” He launches it like a missile, and, before I can duck, the wind whistles over my skull. That damn arrow nearly scalped me in the process.
“You’re a piece of shit, Dudley.” I pat my head for signs of blood before glancing at the glorified stick neatly planted in the trunk of a pine just shy of where I’m standing.
“The sentiment is mutual.” He fires another shot back toward the oak. “You think about my offer?”
“No can do.” Hell yes I thought about his offer, and there isn’t a chance I’m going to let him utilize me as his lackey, especially not when it consists of me sidestepping Skyla. I’ll leave the trickery to my nephew.
Skyla. A cloud of dread seeps over me just thinking about her. I never knew it would pain me to hold her in my heart, and yet, here that day has come—it’s been here all along. All these months on the island—all the shit that’s gone down with Gage, with the Steel Barricade, Chloe and her constant scheming. It’s all more than I can take. But I’d do it again and again for Skyla.
I wonder if she cares. I wonder if I should have left the planet entirely and never stuck around where I didn’t truly belong. At the time, staying seemed like the right decision, but now, in the light of day, under the inspection of the circumstances, I question the very thing I swore to cherish, my time here on Paragon—my time with Skyla.
“Have you fallen asleep on your feet?” Dudley belches it out across the expanse, and his voice drones on in an echo, instable as water.
“Yes, I’m asleep.” I yank an arrow from my quiver. “That’s because you bore me to fucking tears.” I stretch back my bow, with an arrow ready and willing to eat air, and turn slightly to my left, aiming straight for Dudley. I let go and watch as it glides across the field, right past his left shoulder. Figures. I shake my head in mock disappointment. “Missed.”
“You’re a bigger moron than you think.” A fire churns in his eyes. His hands move quick as lightning.
A blur of a line travels my way, slicing through the air at an alarming, low trajectory. I jump out of the way, and it nails me right in the heart.
Dudley straightens with pride. “I, on the other hand, never miss.”
My body lurches. I stagger back as a crimson stain blooms across my chest.
“You shot me,” I say, disbelieving. God. He’s going to fuck up my body. I try extracting it, and a spear of pain shoots through my skull.
Dudley strides toward me a few feet before reloading. “The important thing to note about a Treble is your flesh doesn’t quite have the ability to heal itself like it used to.” He fires another one off in my direction and lodges it into my chest right next to the last. “Pity.” He flexes a brief smile.
A jolt of pain rockets through me.
“Fuck.” Now it’s my voice echoing across the field.
Maybe this is it—his big gift. Maybe the Decision Council sensed I was bitching about my imperfect half-life and decided to renege on the offer. And now Dudley gets to maim me at his leisure, bury me in his backyard so he can piss on my grave every now and again just for kicks. Hell, maybe Gage will join him.
“I’m not going down without a fight.” I pluck arrow after arrow out of my quiver and land six in the field, two in his gut. His crisp, white dress shirt darkens as a deep red liquid oozes out. “Looks to me, you bleed like the rest of us.”
He glances down at his newfound wounds slightly amused.
“I don’t take lightly to what you’ve done,” he says it stern as a reprimand.
“Nor do I.” My bow shakes as I stretch it taut with all my effort. I shoot another one off in his direction, aiming for that pompous mug of his, and son of a bitch—
Dudley lets out a strangled cry and sways back with an arrow through his eye.
The faint voice of a girl comes from the direction of the house, and Dudley holds up a hand as if to still me.
“Marshall?” she cries. Her voice carries high and light like a flute.
Skyla.
I take a step back and try to pluck the arrows from my chest, but they’re lodged behind my ribs, and it hurts like shit. My chest tightens. It’s getting hard to breathe as the world starts to fade.
“Marshall, where are you?” She shouts from just a couple feet away, and now the inevitable will happen. Skyla is about to see Dudley and me both in a serious state of disrepair.
“I’m in the clearing, love.” He calls back with his voice smooth as silk.
I glance over.
He’s already extracted the arrow from his eye, and is working the two out of his stomach. I reach down to do the same, and another hits me, creating an unholy trinity of overgrown darts—pinning my heart, caging it in with pain.
“Let this be a lesson.” Dudley tips his chin up. His eyes are still intact, his dress shirt, crisp and clean, no worse for wear. “Don’t ever think about turning on me.”
Footsteps quicken in this direction, and Skyla illuminates the dark woods with her porcelain skin. Her eyes glow like quicksilver.
“Logan!” She stops at the foot of the forest, examining me, but she doesn’t scream, or run, or flip Dudley the bird for inflicting such damage in the first place. Instead, Skyla smiles. She walks over slow with her eyes locked over mine as if the arrows, the blood dripping from my body at an accelerated rate—Dudley himself—were inconsequential in general. “It’s me.” She tilts her head as she steps up her gait.
“I can explain.” I give a tug at my shirt, and she holds a finger to her lips never once taking those luminous eyes off mine. I shoot a look to Dudley because something, for sure, is the hell up.
Maybe this is Chloe in disguise. Maybe Dudley’s big gift is for me to shack up in the Transfer with good old Bishop wearing Skyla’s body like a bad Halloween costume.
“You’re really here.” She touches her hand to my face and looks at me in wonder. “And now, so am I.”
“I think I need help.” My breathing grows erratic. My chest is on fire. I’m pretty sure I need to start hitting the panic button and getting Candace Messenger on the red line because something akin to a celestial ambulance is going to be needed in just a few seconds.
“God, I love you,” she whispers, her eyes narrow in on me as if she were in pain. She places her cool hands over my cheeks and pulls me in.
Skyla hikes up on the balls of her feet and crashes her lips to mine. I don’t fight it. I twist my arrow-riddled chest to the left and pull her in close as we indulge in a deep meaningful kiss with our tongues slipping over one another for what feels like hours.
My knees start to buckle, can’t breathe. The world feels as if its spinning out of control, and I sink to the ground.
The last thing I see is Skyla’s beautiful face—then Marshall’s ugly mug as he stands over her shoulder.
“Your gift is here.” He smirks down at me. “And should yo
u have shown me an ounce of gratitude for all I’ve ever done for you, we wouldn’t be witness to your demise.” He kicks me in the thigh before heading toward the house.
Skyla drops to my side and gently slaps my cheek, begging me to stay awake. Her voice dances around me elusive and hard to grasp, like a butterfly.
The world fades in and out.
Get your mother, I try to tell her.
“Logan, wait!” she screams. “Logan, come back. Something big has happened, and it affects you and me.”
Skyla walked out of the forest with zero regard for the arrows lodged in my chest and kissed me. Something big had happened and she wanted to share the news.
Tell me, Skyla, I want to know.
My eyes won’t open, all sound fades from the world.
Skyla was my gift, and now I lose her twice.
Dudley is right. I’m a bigger moron than I think.
Her lips sink over mine, soft as a summer sky. Skyla’s kisses are resuscitating my love-thirsty soul—her lingual affection is the exact brand of medicine I’ve needed all along.
Skyla is the cure for everything.
I’ve always known that.