The door flies open, Dr. Oliver and Marshall burst into the room in an angry rush, and for a moment I wonder if their anger is directed at me.
“Good God!” Barron’s face contorts with shock. “She’s sheer alabaster.”
“Two is not enough.” Marshall plucks my lids apart and inspects my pupils.
“Three will kill her.” Barron holds the needle in front of him as though it were a gun.
“That’s always the point.” Marshall takes the needle and lovingly rubs his hand along the back of my thigh. I can feel a jolt of his special brand of electricity warm me with his love. “Two more, please” he says, pushing in the needle with a forceful jab. “Now.”
Dr. Oliver glares at Marshall a moment before disappearing. I’ve never seen him so angry, so distressed. It distracts me from the shooting pain wrapping itself around my spine like tendrils reaching up from the newfound puncture.
This new reality frightens me. Ingram wants me dead for something Ezrina did. Logan is as good as dead stuck in the Transfer playing honeymoon suite to a couple who my mother banished apart. They’re being incriminated for the same thing Logan and I are guilty of—administering a little vigilante justice to the Counts.
There’s no doubt in my mind my mother will punish Logan and I once the war is over for helping Nev and his twisted bride. I can feel it in my bones. Candace Messenger is like a bullet riding on the back of a comet, lethal in every capacity. Nothing compares to her wrath. I’ll wish the Counts had sucked me dry once she gets a hold of me—I’ll wish that Marshall had annihilated me with a thousand poisoned needles. At the end of the day, it will be my mother who crushes my skull with her heel. Chloe has nothing on her.
I let out a weak groan as a viral surge of pain covers my flesh. I’ve donned a coat soaked in kerosene, and Marshall scoured me with a blowtorch. A white-hot fire sears over me, wagering its assault along my raw exposed nerves.
Dr. Oliver appears with two more needles.
I struggle to open my mouth and beg for mercy, but the agony is too wild—too constricting in every way.
A fresh jab—a hard push of toxins burns my thigh, then another.
“Move.” Marshall barks at Gage. He scoops me into his arms and reclines with me on the bed.
My entire being gasps with relief. I dig my fingernails into his flesh. There is no way in hell I’m letting go. He warms me with his magical sensations, takes the pain down to less than nothing. I can breathe again. It’s so good like this with Marshall.
He presses his lips over the top of my head.
“I’ll be here, Skyla. I won’t let go.”
“You said it would kill her if you touched her,” Gage says, intolerant of the fact Marshall has taken his place in so many ways. “She needs to fight the poison, and she can’t do that with you wrapped around her.” Gage surges out the words like hacking through a forest.
Forgive me. I must leave. Marshall closes his eyes briefly before handing me back to Gage.
“No.” I writhe toward Marshall.
Gage pulls me into his lap, and a hot poker spears from my abdomen to my temple.
Marshall and Barron exit, shutting the door behind them with a gentle click and I let out a horrific groan.
“I can make things better,” Gage whispers it out in huffs.
“You’ve already made things worse!” My stomach clenches in pain.
“Look at me, Skyla. Focus on my eyes.”
I glance up at him and immediately fall into those sweet watery pools. This is probably just some lame attempt to lure me back into his trap by way of ocular hypnosis—sadly, it’s working on a rudimentary level.
“You don’t love me.” I hiss as a mean shiver runs through me. “You would have let me die happy in his arms if you cared anything about me. You would never want this pain for me.”
“I do love you. That’s exactly why I want you alive.”
There’s a venomous look in his eye, a general contempt for the purveyor of this intense misery.
“This pain is killing me,” I shriek. “Marshall.” His name comes out less than a whimper. “Please, bring him back. I beg of you.” My muscles twist in knots. My stomach claps together like an accordion full of bile. I gag and claw at his shirt as the life slowly chokes out of me.
“Skyla.” Gage presses his lips just above my ear. “Your skin is picking up color—your lips are pink. You’re almost there.”
I struggle in his arms for what feels like an eternity. This is a terror, an unrivaled pain that compares to nothing I’ve ever felt before. I would give anything to have a blade within reach, so I could slit my own throat—his throat, too, for removing Marshall from the scene.
Gage presses his lips over mine, drowns my sorrow with a spasm of his affection. All of this aching misery is extinguished with the hot pool of his mouth.
You can do this, Skyla. I need you. I need you to live for me—for us. Don’t die. Just breathe—breathe.
***
I wake up refreshed with lids wide open and find myself alone, back in my own bedroom. A slight surge of adrenaline pushes through my veins and oddly, I feel more alive than I have in my entire seventeen years.
My room is still, quiet, with the day yet to rouse itself outside my window. A sheet lies over me and I can feel its coolness against every inch of my skin. I peer beneath it to confirm my clothing-deficient status.
Very not funny, Gage Oliver—at least he’s consistent. He pulled the same crap a few months back when I passed out in his truck. It’s like he has some weird fetish to strip girls naked once they’re unconscious. Not that I know this as fact. The thought of Gage disrobing Chloe nauseates me, so I roll over and pick up my alarm—seven a.m.
I pull back the curtain and peer outside just in time to see the world flicker like a candle. It reaffirms the fact a storm has settled over the island. This is penance for all that nice weather Demetri furnished us with.
A raging sea of deep russet clouds moves swiftly overhead. I pull on my robe and open the window to take in the damp honeyed air of a fresh new day.
A dark winged creature descends quickly toward the ledge. His feathered plumes give off a purple hue in contrast to the strange-colored sky.
Nev squeezes in and shakes his wings out with a shiver that spans head to foot.
I plop on the bed next to him and massage him with my fingertips.
“What’s the matter? Honeymoon over?” It doesn’t feel quite right razzing a bird over his latest sexual adventures.
The honeymoon is very much not over. Might you forget I’ve a duty to attend here, but while I can manage it, I’m prone to a little afternoon tryst.
“So it’s almost like your punishment is null and void. How cool is that?” Ha, we’ve totally outsmarted my mother and the kangaroo court she runs in the nether sphere. “You know, my mother won’t even talk to me. She totally knows I’ve been taken by the Counts, and she still gives me the silent treatment. Baffling, right?”
Right. He twitches. If you’ll excuse me, the mere mention of that woman makes me anxious for the nearest windshield.
“Oh, gross.” I’m quick to crank open the window a little wider for him. “Choose the red sedan,” I say as Nev flies off to relieve himself. Serves Chloe right to have a bird crap all over her buffed and waxed girl mobile. I should pay Nev in earthworms to follow her around all day and use her head as a target.
Speaking of heads, a dark shadow bobs through the yard. I squint and make out the shapely form of a woman, dark flowing hair—it’s Chloe. She’s holding a stick in her left hand, and something long and stringy drips from her right.
“What the?” I press in toward the glass and the world illuminates with a violent flash of lightning.
Then I see it—the hair—the ghastly pale face with a wash of blood at the base.
A scream gets locked in my throat.
The glint of the shovel in her other hand catches the light as she strides into the forest that borders the
property.
Holy freaking shit.
Chloe Bishop just one-upped me in the decapitation department.
Chapter 38
Head Hunter
I waste no time dashing downstairs in order to conduct a rather spontaneous headcount of what remains of my family.
I knew Chloe was perfectly capable of chopping us to pieces in our sleep. She probably started with Ethan because he was within hacking distance.
Mom and Tad are mulling over a bunch of packets and pills, counting them out and itemizing their cache of baby-making supplies, no doubt.
“What time did you get in?” Mom greets me with an expression that assures it was later than desired.
“I don’t really remember.” Honesty is the best policy.
I turn to dart back upstairs and make sure Mia and Melissa are still capable of living out another bad hair day when I smack into the guillotine girl herself.
Chloe’s hair is matted on the side, mascara runs down her face creating muddied half-moons beneath each eye. She’s wearing a tank top and boy shorts, both of which are loose and ill fitting.
“You’re in your underwear,” I hiss.
“I’m in his underwear,” she corrects.
Disgusting.
“Skyla?” Mom calls out from the dining room. “Do you realize the girls were trying to hitch a ride home?”
“I’m so sorry!” I pause, trying to get my bearings on the lie I’m about to manufacture.
“You’re very lucky Demetri was there,” she snips. “If it were anyone else, I would have been beside myself. And, by the way”—she hustles over—“I have a very special surprise planned for you that I’m unable to cancel. Which makes me beyond livid because I don’t approve of rewarding bad behavior.”
“I’m really sorry,” I whisper in an effort to settle her down. “I think maybe someone slipped something in my drink.” More like Demetri slipped me into a drink.
“You know what?” Chloe’s eyes widen with a farfetched innocence. “I saw three girls passed out last night—heard some kids from East spiked the lemonade.”
As if my mother is going to buy that.
“It’s always the lemonade.” Mom tosses her hands in the air at the injustice of it all.
Chloe shakes her head. “Leave it to those yahoos from East to pervert the last piece of Americana.” She slinks across the room and checks out the array of foil packets strewn across the table in a semi-organized fashion. “What’s this?”
Of course, she’s interested in the ovarian super booster. Chloe is interested in procreating with Gage, so why not kick-start her body with Mom’s baby-in-a-bag kit? I’m sure she’ll fill her fallopian tubes with an entire bushel of ripe eggs in time for some afternoon inseminating.
“It’s a colon cleanse treatment.” Mom heads over and shakes one of the packets before tearing it open with her teeth. “It’s for the whole family. You’re welcome to it.”
“I hear that’s so healthy.” Chloe manages to assume a genuine stance on the aforementioned diarrhea enhancer.
“You should have some,” Mom insists. I’ll make enough smoothies for all of us. You just add yogurt and milk. It’s supposed to taste like heaven.” She snaps up a fistful of packets and heads toward the blender.
“So what does it do?” I ask, picking one up then and tossing it back to the table unimpressed.
“It gives you the shits,” Tad quips. “It’s going to turn our insides into the faucet of fire, and you won’t want to be three feet away from a toilet when it hits. Makes you crap your brains out for days.”
Lovely.
“Not true.” Mom pauses midflight with an industrial-sized yogurt container. “And I warned you of the dangers of filling your body with those carcinogens on a stick,” she reprimands Tad. “If we plan on trying again, we need to ensure a pure environment for the sake of our future child.”
Yes, God forbid he produce another breeder like Drake or a dolt who would sleep with his own killer like Ethan, and don’t even get me started on the twisted mind that hacks off the hair of her sister while she sleeps, which reminds me…
I pull Chloe aside by the elbow. “So what was with the early morning stroll? Needed to clear someone’s head? With a shovel!”
Chloe goes over to the window and gazes out at the dense woods, draped dark as a funeral. She tilts into the glass as if she were asking herself a question.
The blender goes off like a live grenade, drilling my skull with its intrusive whine.
I step into the window alongside Chloe and watch as the sky rips open—a deluge of rain bursts over the island like the breaking of a dam.
Chloe shakes her head and brushes the dewy glass with the tip of her fingers—an apology lingers on her lips.
“Who was it, Chloe?” I forget to breathe as I await an answer.
“More like who will it be,” she says it monotone into her reflection.
“You were traveling,” I whisper.
Chloe proves impervious to my prodding. Instead, she jockeys for favorite daughter and chugs down a third of my mother’s bowel blaster, side by side with Mom and Tad.
“Get dressed, Skyla.” Mom beams with a glossy milk mustache. “We’re going shopping on the mainland.”
“We are?”
“Tad has some quick business to take care of, and I thought this would be a great time to catch up.”
“Oh, perfect! Yes, we need to catch up on things.” I’m so going to squash Demetri like road kill and expose that yellow-bellied coward for what he really is—a monster. Once my mother hears how he’s been mistreating her baby—along with other people’s babies—she’ll be looking for the nearest millstone to tie around his neck.
“I’m heading that way to see my brother.” Chloe cuts the air with the lie like a ninja. “Can I catch a ride to the ferry?”
“I don’t see why not.” Mom twists me around and ushers me toward the hall. “We leave in a half-hour.”
“Half-hour,” I repeat as I traipse up the stairs. That gives me plenty of time to light drive back to this morning and see firsthand what poor, headless soul Chloe is responsible for killing in the future.
***
Binding spirit.
Figures. Chloe has every dimension covered to ensure her wicked deeds can carry on undetected.
By the time we arrive at the ferry, the weather has tamed to its requisite thick layer of fog. The clouds have deposited their reserves and are ratcheting it up for an even greater display later in the day.
It’s not until I hit the warm, dry cabin of the ferry do I realize what quicksand I’ve just meandered into.
Darla and Demetri wave up at me. To the devil’s right sits Gage with his open face and pleasant smile. Crap. I totally forgot Mom mentioned she scheduled her demented double date for today. And it looks like she’s decided to include me in on the misery—shopping, my ass.
Of all the stupid shit to fall for. Forget my mother throwing Demetri into the sea by way of a millstone—it’s me she’s drowning with her misplaced good intentions. And Chloe is here no less.
Double shit.
The horn sounds, and the boat floats away from the dock, leaving me trapped on a glorified raft with an inappropriate number of my least favorite people. I suppose there’s no way out of this mess, so there’s that. A perfectly good summer’s day wasted in bad company and my mother.
“Surprise!” Mom rattles me by the shoulders as she pushes me down next to Gage. “I know the two of you haven’t seen eye to eye as of late, but believe you me, there is nothing that a change of scenery can’t cure. It’s been a really rough year on us all, and I think we’re just now getting the swing of things on the island.” She looks over at Darla in hopes the spirit of renewal, and sharing custody of grandchildren, is alive and well. If not, I suppose there’s always a legal team that will help Darla see things her way.
“You’re never too young for true love.” Darla gravels out the words as if she were the you
th in question. She attempts to clear her throat, treating us all to a fun-filled mucus musical. “I’ve been up all night with that little brat.” She pounds her fist into her chest as if she’s trying to stop her heart—an action I might invoke upon myself in about five minutes. “He’s the cutest little shit, but you’d think sleep was against his damn religion.”
“We wouldn’t know.” Tad wastes no time in ruining the trip before we break three feet away from land.
Darla sways in her seat like she’s just been cold clocked. “If you bothered to walk next door, you might get to see the little demon for yourselves.”
Darla isn’t one to take crap from too many people. Zero to be exact.
“Excuse me?” Mom’s voice bustles to unnatural levels. “I’ve made repeated efforts to see that baby, and every time I knock on the door, I hear footsteps scuttling in the opposite direction.”
“I’m only following my daughter’s wishes.” She punctuates the spontaneous confessional by jutting her head out like poultry. “Y’all got your heads tucked so far up your rears, she’s petrified the kid’s gonna need a shrink before he can shit in a dish.”
“Speaking of which…” Tad makes a mad dash for the restroom.
You can feel the tension, the fatalistic hum of the lawyers and social workers drumming in the background as Mom and Darla start in with the death stares.
A bloom of lightning quakes through the portholes, followed by an intense growl of thunder.
“You know, I don’t think it’s that bad outside,” I say. “I think I’ll get some air.” I bolt for the stairs before my mother pulls a knife on someone.
“I’ll come with you.” Gage offers, appearing by my side.
“I would love some air.” Chloe grins her signature wicked scowl.
I can’t think of a better time for Gage to explain everything than with Chloe Bishop by his side.
Chapter 39
Nothing but the Truth