I look into Logan’s honeyed eyes an insurmountable length of time. A world builds, as a scene comes to mind. The little blond girl from the time we were in Paradise appears. She’s the same little girl from the vision I had when we first landed in the tunnels.
“How are you doing this?” he asks with wonder.
“I don’t know. It happened earlier with Marshall, I could read his thoughts. Is that what’s happening? Am I reading your thoughts?”
“You are.” He holds back a laugh while riding his hands up over my back.
“Who is she?”
“Someone from the future,” he whispers it in secret. “Someone who might find a home in that house of ours one day.”
“Logan.” I take in a sharp breath at the revelation. “It’s going to be me and you in the end.” A swell of relief fills me. I was a dry well waiting for the sky to open and Logan brought the rain. He presses a kiss against my cheek and the world and everything in it rushes around us like a kaleidoscope of sound and color—everything in creation points like an arrow to the first boy I ever loved.
He pulls back gently and cast a heavy look of apprehension. “Not necessarily.” He glances down, and the despondency returns to his face. “I know a little bit more...” He lets his words dangle without hope, like a corpse from a tree. “We need to fight the war, stay focused. Then—once we win, all of my focus belongs to you.”
He pulls me in and holds me as if a herculean wind were about to blow through the coastline. “But something happens,” he whispers. “Something you or I can’t understand and may never fully grasp while on this earth. Your mother filled me in on just enough to confuse me—enough to bulldoze all my dreams.”
Logan locks me in this death grip for what feels like hours.
As usual, Logan knows just enough to keep ahead of the game. Something about his words haunt me—tear at me like barbed wire spinning through my digestive track. For once I’m glad he’s saving some piece of the future as a surprise. In fact, if the future for us is as bleak as he paints it, I may never want to fill in the blanks.
Chapter 67
The Unbirthday Party
Logan is generous enough to spend his birthday with me, agreeing to visit Demetri’s demented estate while I spy on my mother. He drives us down the black narrow road that leads to the Fem preserve. Logan takes up my hand intermittently, and whispers poetry with his heart regarding my eyes—the fullness of my lips.
The woods that line the main road behind Paragon Estates look wild, unkempt on this boiling grey day. God put a lid over this skillet of a rock and set the island to simmer. Summer blooms like an invisible fire around us, but the storm clouds, the fog, they want us to believe in the subarctic lies they propagate. Paragon wears the mask of winter, staying true to its morose roots. It numbs our affections, disables our ability to believe in the sun and all of the glory it brings.
We make a quick run over to Demetri’s to check on my mother and the child she holds questionably in her custody. If shacking up with my father’s killer is her big plan B in life, I might be moved to petition the state for custody of both her and the baby—then again, she doesn’t know Demetri is the one who murdered my father. That’s exactly why I believe it’s time to apprise her of a few things.
“Thanks for coming with me.” I give Logan’s hand a squeeze.
“I want to do everything with you, Skyla,” he says, rounding out the driveway.
It may have sounded like a proclamation but the veiled threat to Gage was layered just beneath. The patience he once held for the two of us has waned. All that altruistic reasoning that secured the underpinnings of my relationship with Gage is casually being pulled from underneath. After we take down the Counts, he’s very much planning on taking down the one who’s like a brother to him—Gage.
We park and run up the steps, ringing the bell several times. It chimes in a sweet rhythm that drones on in an annoying manner. Before I tire of its melody, I give a few good power knocks over the lead glass, leaving the surrounding ironwork to tremble under my aggression.
The thick scent of barbeque lingers in the air and I try to ignore the fact my stomach is growling again. I knew I should have gone to town this morning and dived into Marshall’s culinary buffet, but that whole Miller-in-the-mirror thing sort of depleted my appetite.
“Smells good.” Logan nods toward the house like this should mean something. All I smell is the heavenly aroma from some neighbor’s grill wafting over. Then it hits me. Demetri doesn’t have a neighbor for miles. Hell, he’s probably roasting the nearest neighbor on a spit—or at least their pet. He’s just that wicked.
Logan and I circle around the back and lo and freaking behold find Demetri and Mom flocking around the barbeque—Mom with the baby dangling on her hip. It’s a real Norman fucking Rockwell American tragedy unfolding.
Demetri leans in and says something that inspires my mother to burst into a fit of titters. Probably talking about how he’s tormenting her daughter in his spare time. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he leaks the truth to her in small doses, just enough for it to sound incredibly ridiculous. Of course she’s laughing. It’s unbelievable.
Mom pauses from her torrent of giggles long enough to sip a bright red frozen concoction with a frost of salt lacing the rim of the oversized glass—Celestra slushies no doubt. She’s wearing a large, brimmed hat and a bathing suit with an unflattering bandeau top that squishes her topside and accentuates her problem areas—namely those amply supplied birthing hips she wishes to put to good use. Her swimwear is totally working against her, although I have my suspicions that Demetri could care less if she were wrapped like a mummy. His obsession with her knows no bounds.
A shadow moves overhead. The clouds rearrange themselves, dark and angry like a swarm of agitated bees. If the sky gets any darker, it’s going to have to apologize to the parched earth for not delivering on its promise.
“Skyla?” Mom’s mouth hangs open at the sight of me and it’s so not the oh my gosh, look who’s here? We’re so fucking glad to see you! kind of a greeting, either. It’s more like…
“What the heck are you doing here?” She whips it out in a heated whisper.
That.
“Nice to see you, too.”
Mom tries to place Beau in a miniature playpen with an umbrella blooming from the side, but Demetri intercepts and coos into the baby Count as if he were gunning for daddy of the year. What I wouldn’t pay to see the kid puke in Demetri’s mouth. I know for a fact it’s possible because that’s the kind of stuff that YouTube is made of.
“I just talked to your sisters. They’re doing great.” Mom pats a hand in the air as if she were on vacay with the new hubs and is glad to see her offspring can fend for themselves.
“I’ve got steak, if you kids are hungry.” Demetri pulls the meat off the grill while cradling Beau with the other hand. And gah! Right next to an open flame! If that baby had any Celestra in him whatsoever, I’d swear he were taunting me, but he doesn’t. Demetri is just in dumbass territory—in other words, his natural habitat.
“Thanks but—” I start.
“Sure.” Logan pipes up before I can properly shut down the offer.
“So how long is this little farce of yours going to last?” I hiss over to Mom, not bothering to hide my dismay from any of the parties present.
“How long is your little farce going to last?” She snaps back. “Mr. Dudley called—said he had no choice but to take you in after you all but accused us of physical abuse.”
“What?” I did no such thing.
“He said you were tired of being treated so unfairly by your stepfather. And really, Skyla? That’s embarrassing for me to hear. I happen to like Mr. Dudley. The last thing I want is for him to think you and Tad are on the outs.”
My mouth hangs open and I just stand there gaping at her.
“Lunch is served.” Demetri fans his hand over the table and its bloodied carnivorous offerings.
“Come on.” He
r affect brightens as she ushers me along. “It’s filet mingon,” she whispers as if it were marinated in gold.
“Whatever happened to the wonder diet that was going to have you ovulating into oblivion?” I can’t believe I’m even invoking the state of her uterus, but desperate times call for reminders of desperate stepfathers. “I thought you were cutting out bovine until the immaculate-conception took place?” God, I hope it’s immaculate. The thought of my mother getting her groove on with Tad, Demetri or any other male on the planet sends my appetite in retrograde. Those steaks might as well have been soaking in formaldehyde.
“Who can resists a good cut shipped straight from the cattle farm?” She leans in with a glimmer of lust in her eyes as if “cattle farm” were code for Demetri’s package. “He has the meat flown in on dry ice, fresh from a friend’s ranch in Texas.” She takes the baby from him.
Demetri has no friends, and suddenly, I’m wondering if the charred flesh in question is beef at all.
Mom and I take a seat at the table with Demetri and Logan.
“Shall we say a blessing?” Demetri reaches over and takes up my mother’s hand. He reaches for mine, but I refuse the offer. “Dear heavenly Father,” he begins with his eyes shut and head bowed as if he means it, “we implore you to shine your countenance upon this table”—there it is—“and anoint the food with which you saw fit to bless the occasion. Shower us with your goodness as we richly praise your holy name—amen.”
I look over at him half expecting him to burst into flames or laugh out loud, but Demetri remains solemn as a statue.
“It’s Logan’s birthday,” I say. I stop shy of espousing the fact I’m heading out for an overnight adventure with half the kids on the island, unsupervised no less.
“Happy birthday!” Mom sucks in a breath as if he just won the lottery—and in some small way he did, the lottery of life. “You know…” She tilts her head, readying herself to gift him with a pearl of wisdom. “Last year, I thought you might have been the one for Skyla. There was just something about you.” She shakes her head. “But all’s well that ends well, right?”
Boy—she’s a lousy cheerleader.
“Right.” Logan compresses a bleak smile.
“I bet you’ll be the best man at their wedding.” Demetri digs the knife in just a little bit deeper. “Lizbeth can’t stop talking about what a spectacular day it will be when your cousin and Skyla finally unite in holy matrimony. There’s nothing more intimate than becoming man and wife. It’s a sacred ritual made most beautiful when entered into with the one your heart desires.”
Logan looks from him to my mother as if wondering which one he should assault first.
“I’m sure it will be a great day.” Logan knocks back a glass of water, trying to wash down the memory of the conversation and all the imagery it’s evoked.
“When you do find a girl,” Demetri starts, “one that you truly love”—he gives a sideways glance at my mother—“make sure you do everything in your power not to let her slip away. Giving someone else a foothold can be the difference between a lifetime of happiness and one drawn out existence, bathed in misery.” He loses himself for a moment in my mother’s eyes. “Choose wisely, then love tenaciously.” Demetri lifts his glass as if it were a toast at their wedding. “Wise men would give away entire kingdoms in exchange for the love of a lifetime.”
Logan lifts his glass and locks eyes with mine. “And some would give far more than kingdoms.”
***
After the conversation catastrophe that just took place, I thank the two of them for the bloody heifer and take Logan down to the basement to help me “log some hours,” when really, I’m going to amuse the hell out of him with Demetri’s Paragon voodoo collectables. Obviously, it was imperative I move quickly. Who knew that Mom and Demetri would tag team Logan and bash his heart in on his birthday?
“What was up with that demonic pep talk he gave at the end?” I ask as we head down the dim corridor toward Demetri’s underworld. “I mean, clearly it was geared toward my mother—some passive-aggressive attempt to let her know he screwed everything up by letting her slip into my father’s arms. Well, technically Tad’s, too. And trust me, I am forever grateful for both transgressions.”
“I don’t know.” Logan’s chest expands and deflates in a sigh. “But he had a point.”
“What? He’s the enemy. He never has a point. His only point is to make my life miserable—that and world domination.”
Logan stops shy of the double doors at the end of the hall.
“He was right, Skyla.” He sweeps over me with his sad eyes. “I gave someone else a foothold in our relationship and now I might never get you back. If I do, your heart will forever be linked to Gage in some way. I have to accept that. I pushed you in front of him not realizing he was going to barrel through you and now your heart is fractured. You’ll never be wholly mine again.”
Everything in me freezes. Logan is right. I’m fractured. Gage has grafted himself over my heart and now there was no way of undoing it.
We head down to the basement, and I feel guilty as hell for keeping quiet. But the truth is, I don’t know what to say or how to say it. Every road, every conversation, seems to lead to pain these days for Logan and me. I pull him in and place a gentle kiss against his cheek.
“I still love you, Logan.” I press the words out with all my heart. “I will never stop. I don’t know what you did to me that day we met in the bowling alley—or before that in my dreams, but you shifted my entire existence on its axis. I will never recover. I will always need you, deeply—completely. I’m hungry for you in the worst way. I don’t think I could ever get enough.” I don’t think I’ve ever spoken the truth like that before, where it hurt like hell, where I could feel the breaking of a dam deep in my heart and it felt like the sweetest release. That was our relationship in a nutshell, pain and relief rolled into one. “I love you.” I peck another kiss just shy of his lips. “I love you more than the heavens love the sun and the moon.”
“I know,” he says it low, a smile of satisfaction ready to bloom on his lips. “We just need to get back on track. I was the one who said after the faction war. The Counts may have tried to kill us without the war—but the truth is, they needed it to happen. They’ve been manipulating us this entire time. We were brought together, you and me, two near perfect Celestra, to desire one another.”
“Oh my God.” I envision my mother doing the celestial happy dance once she lined us up in one another’s sight. We were nothing more than the propagation of a species. “She did this,” I hiss. “My own mother snatched you out of an entirely different period in time and put you here in front of me. She took one look at you and knew I’d fall in love.”
“Gage couldn’t start the war. He may have had your heart, but he wouldn’t have had the right blood, the proper motive to fight. It started with our love, Skyla. Gage may have been meant for you, but she backtracked—handpicked me for a reason.” He nods into my theory. “But I don’t think she found herself in a pickle and started scratching her head trying to figure out what to do. I think this”—he opens his arms at the sparse offerings—“was a part of it all along. I was meant to be here with you right from the beginning.”
“I believe it.” I pull him in. I don’t doubt for a minute my mother has a higher agenda in all of this, something bigger than pulling Logan in to seduce me, win my heart. It was something that involved Celestra and humanity as a whole.
I try to shake the thought away by retrieving the metallic version of Gage from my purse. “Marshall says I should return this.” I hand him the figurine as I lead him into the cavernous room with the makeshift island. Logan walks house to house exploring while I replace Gage safely in the Oliver abode. I go over and pick up Marshall’s house and sure enough there I am. And so is…Michelle?
“Oh my God.” I pick up the frazzled looking girl, her face locked in a scream. “This is Michelle—she fell in that haunted mirror.”
<
br /> “She still in there?” He comes over and inspects her tiny effigy.
“As far as I know. Marshall is waiting for her to come out and tell him all about the good time she’s not having. Remind me to never get on his bad side.” I look up at Logan accusingly because we both know he beat me to it.
“Let’s see what else is down here.” Logan takes my hand, expertly changing the subject. He leads me through a maze of hallways until we stumble upon a door and Logan opens it with caution.
It’s pitch black inside, save for a movie projected onto the rear wall. It’s a viewing room complete with large velvet chairs—enough to hold fifty people easily.
“That’s you,” Logan whispers, pulling me deeper into the mysterious room.
My body moves on the screen. I wave back at the camera, my face the size of a refrigerator.
“Come here,” I call, waving someone over. I can’t believe it’s me, same hair, same face—dressed in clothes I don’t recognize—a sweatshirt with the word “Host” written across the front.
“Let me set this thing down,” a male voice booms through the speakers. The camera shakes before panning back to a large white house—me happy dancing on the porch in anticipation.
“That’s the house I want to build for us,” Logan marvels. “That’s exactly how I envision it.”
“You ready to do this?” A dark-haired man in a baseball cap fast approaches the foreign version of me. I can tell from the broad shoulders, the wavy dark hair peeking out from under his hat, it’s Gage.
I watch as I hop up and down on the porch, giddy as a child. “Yes!” It bumps out of me.
Gage scoops me up in his arms and spins me before landing a tender kiss on the lips.
“To our first official home on Paragon,” he says, whisking me to the open mouth of the doorway.
“Only home,” I correct, pulling him closer by the beak of his hat. “Gimme a forever kiss,” I say before we lock lips under the threshold of Logan’s dream home. I pull back and glance at the camera in horror. “Turn that off.” My face goes white as if I’m reliving an unwanted memory. I make a mad dash to shut off the camera and my fingers collapse over the lens—the sky, the sea rotate in turn before the screen in Demetri’s demented viewing room goes blank.