The hint of a smile slits across his face.
“Life isn’t fair now is it?”
Chloe cackles, and Marshall’s eyes dart across the room at her. She leans into Gage as though it were natural, as though she truly believed he wanted her there.
“Maybe I can reduce your work load by one.” Something swims beneath the corrupt smile he wears as though he were bursting to fill me in on the details. “I smell death, Skyla.” He indulges in a bigger grin as though this were great news. “Coming to camp less than days away.”
“You do?” I border on full-blown enthusiasm at the prospect of Chloe’s impending demise.
“Do restrain your elation,” he warns. “I’ll let nature take its course at ten and if you feel the need to withhold your touch, I’d rather still enjoy the company.”
“Ten,” I say it with vigor.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have plans to make.” Marshall abandons his tray and strides out of the facility. I can’t help but bite down a smile that’s waiting to invade my face.
I catch Logan and Gage eyeing me suspiciously from across the way. I try to focus in on my meal but can’t.
Chloe’s days are numbered. Because freaking shit—ding, dong, the witch is almost dead.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Body Rock
OK, I’ve seriously reconsidered my enthusiasm regarding Chloe’s date with the grim reaper. All of the Counts I’ve offed in an effort to repay those Celestra deaths haunt me horribly. I know as a warrior, that desires to save my race, it was the right thing to do but as a human, who understands all too well what it’s like to lose a member of my family, I feel lower than the scum stuck between the ridges on the bottom of my shoe. I’m less than nothing, worse than Demetri Edinger and Chloe combined because I claim to have a heart but have proved to all of creation that I don’t. I’m no different. I’m exactly like they are—conjoined twisted souls, the same.
After dinner, the party commences in our room.
Emily instructs us all to put on a bathing suit, and I giddily comply.
It’s only seven, and the guys could not believe we were opting out of the movie downstairs in lieu of soda and junk food up in our rooms. When they begged to come over, they were equally stunned when we emphatically said no. Well, I didn’t say no, Chloe, the master of ceremonies said no. I would have loved to lounge around with Gage in my bathing suit. Of course, Chloe would be here, and she’s sort of the killjoy of our love, so that wouldn’t have been any fun anyway. My date night with Gage is Friday. I’ve got good vibes about what might transpire in his room that night, but I don’t dare breathe a word around Chloe, hell I don’t even think it around her.
Tomorrow night is New Year’s Eve. After the party, Ellis and I will travel back to one of my all time favorite nights—the night I extinguished Chloe’s flame, if only for a little while. Wednesday, Logan is going to visit my dad whether I like it or not, so, of course, I’ll hitch a ride, and then there’s Friday…
“Messenger?” Chloe is clearly perturbed. “Get your razor.”
“Oh, right,” I pick it up from the nightstand obediently and wave it at her. Chloe has this demented fantasy that shaving our legs together will be some sort of psychedelic bonding experience. Maybe she’s hoping we’ll all go insane and shave our heads like Michelle, well, almost like Michelle.
Brielle slides her leg out of a vat of water from what looks like a trashcan, and I try not to gag. I push a dollop of foaming gel onto my palm and lather it up and down my shin. I don’t feel any mystical connection or sense any romantic notions with this bizarre shaving ceremony. This is the same banal routine I carry out each day in the shower. In fact, I can’t help feeling bored by the entire event. The room is quiet as we busy ourselves with stripping the unwanted debris off our bodies. It feels slightly industrial as though we were taken prisoner by Chloe and now we’re forced to participate in mass hygiene rituals together.
“So who here would like to share how they’d prefer to die?” Chloe pans over at the entire lot of us as though she’s ready to make our dreams come true.
“No, the one way you’d never like to die,” Emily corrects.
Funny—the two of them tag teaming us with such morbidly laced questions. I wonder if this is a precursor to Emily creating our life drawings. And, let me guess, she’ll make sure to tell us each we live out our worst nightmare in the end.
“By fire,” I volunteer. “That’s how my dad died.” I cut death rays through Chloe when I say it. I almost add the fact that my mother died that way, too, but leave my genealogy out of the conversation.
“I’m with you,” Brielle quips as she opts out of coming up with her own grisly scenario like having your heart stop while trying to push a twenty pound baby from between your legs.
“I don’t know, maybe falling, or getting a part of your body whacked off unrepentantly,” Kate pulls at her long blonde curls, looks up at the ceiling when she says it. “I hate heights.”
“Me too.” See? We’d totally get along if we knew each other better. We’d totally steer clear of cliffs and Ezrina, who, by the way, is completely capable of hacking off body parts unrepentantly. Kate and I would be great friends, unlike Chloe who threatened to push me off Devil’s Peak the first chance she could.
“I want to fall,” Michelle sings into it softly. “I like the feeling. It’s fun and scary, like at an amusement park. I’d hate to burn like Messenger.” Michelle says it like it’s already happened.
“What about you, Nat?” Chloe prods her into the conversation.
Nat’s curls are so kinky, so locked up towards her scalp they look like dread locks.
“I want to feel the fear,” she needles me with the word fear, “I want to have the pleasure of knowing that I’m about to eat it for good and have the chance to let out a blood curdling scream. So, yeah,” she picks at something on her leg, “falling, I guess.”
I think both Michelle and Nat missed the point since it was supposed to be the worst death, not your preference, but geez, what the heck ever happened to old and in bed?
“I want to die in bed,” Lexy looks over each one of us. Finally, someone with a good idea. “Naked, with Logan wrapped around me.” She stares off dreamily into the black window.
My stomach cinches at the thought of Lexy and Logan tangled up in one another. I’m ashamed of the fact that I can’t seem to let him go. I wish with everything in me that I didn’t care about him.
“It’s how you’d hate to die,” Chloe hisses as though Lexy’s visual upset even her.
“Falling,” Lexy shrugs it off.
“Well, we will be on a ski lift for the rest of the week,” Brielle gives a few upwards strokes to both her legs before wiping the creamy foam off her skin. “I hate feeling like this.” She lies back on the carpet and fans herself as though staving off a serious urge to puke.
“What’s wrong with you?” Kate asks. She’s so innocent I almost want to give her the G version before Brielle spews it out there.
“I’m with spawn,” Brielle says bored, like she were telling us what she had for dinner.
A collective gasp fills the room.
“I bet you don’t even know who the father is,” Chloe is the first in line to offer support.
“Nice way to change the subject, Bishop,” Brielle pins her, “but I think you should answer the question. What kind of death do you fear?”
“I don’t fear anything,” Chloe takes in a breath and pushes her face towards the light. “Ever since I’ve been back, I haven’t felt a quiver. It’s like I’m stealth. I can handle just about anything.”
Yeah, right—one day without Gage and she’d stop the world from spinning and eject all of humanity off into space.
“The worse way to die is unloved,” she bows her head, “I think I need it to breathe. I need to experience what that’s like just once, and if I don’t, I’d rather die in a million fires. Nothing could hurt worse than not being loved.”
/>
The room grows quiet, still. It was obvious to me, the one time I met the Bishops that they loved Chloe very much. I know damn well it’s Gage she burns for. A swell of pity rises in my chest, aches for me to claim it, but I won’t. I love my father too much to feel sorry for Chloe.
“Em, what about you?” I ask. Emily is an untapped well. I’d stay up all night to hear her read a grocery list. That’s how much she fascinates me.
Emily plucks a marker out of her purse. “I don’t play stupid games. Whoever wants to go first, lay on the bed.”
Michelle hops on and stretches her arms back, long and lean like two gold snakes. As soon as Emily starts dabbing into her stomach with the tip of the marker, Michelle breaks out into a fit of giggles. It takes no more than two minutes for Emily to whip up a garden scene on her torso. A strange evil looking man hovers over a frightened girl surrounded by black roses. That looks about right.
Brielle hops up and is decorated with a simple martini glass. Bizarre, and yet if her mom is any indicator in the direction her life might be going, I’d say Emily is two for two.
Kate gets two floral wreathes and a chain of lightning bolts across her neck. Chloe gets a goofy maze and a giant sword slashing through the whole thing. Nat gets some insane face that looks as though it’s locked in a scream, and Lexy gets a dozen little balls of fire whirling all over her with a girl that’s deflecting them by way of her foot.
Finally it’s my turn.
I lie down on the cool slippery comforter and wait for the show to begin.
Emily leans in and drops her marker on the bed. She places both her warm hands over my stomach and breathes out the words, “Oh, my God.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Grand Design
I watch from the bed as a starlit night rains its glory over the lake in a brilliant reflection of light. The night wind whistles its fury through a crack in the balcony door, creating the sound of a thousand ghosts screaming, all of them clambering for a body as though I alone were the purveyor of their misery.
Emily glides over me with both hands equipped with two and three colored pens each. She’s providing us with an ambidextrous feat that astonishes each of us in the room. And if Brielle suggests one more time that Emily should totally be an artist one day, I’m going to smack her myself.
Michelle, Kate, and Lexy seem only slightly amused by the aggressive stream of ink being let out upon my person, but Chloe and Nat study it as though it were an ancient language that unveils timeless secrets, as if even their own destinies were intertwined with mine. They try to read me from every angle.
Emily has generously covered my entire torso, my limbs, the inside of my thighs, under my arms, the soles of my feet. It’s ridiculous how much something like this tickles. Yet, there is definitely something torturously erotic about the entire event—the elongated strokes, the quiver of cold felt covering just about every inch, their hot breath raining down in spasms—the nonstop voyeuristic nature of the act alone.
The clock on the nightstand glows 9:55 in bright red numerals. God knows what I’ll turn into if I don’t get to Marshall’s room in time.
“I have to go.” I try and bat Emily’s hand from leaching into the center of my chest, but she growls at me and presses on with a fury, continuing her endeavor.
“I don’t think I can take anymore,” I say. Truthfully, Marshall or not, I really can’t stand another moment of Emily’s continual molestation. And I reek! I’m probably going to get blood poisoning from the toxin in those things.
“You can’t rush shit like this, Messenger,” Emily wipes the back of her hand against her forehead before continuing. “I’m almost through.” She continues to tickle the landscape of my body in long sweeping strokes, dusting over me in a continual tizzy as though this were the grand finale. She picks up pens and drops them so fast, it’s a wonder she can keep track of the colors. It’s only then I notice there is a rhythm involved, another layer of intricacy at work here that leads me to further believe there’s an outside force influencing her every move. “There.” She steps back admiring her labor from above. Emily turns her head nine different directions before bringing down a black marker over my heart.
“I thought you said you were done?” God, it’s ten freaking o’clock! The last time I feared getting in this kind of trouble, my dad was alive and I actually cared about curfews. Although I have a feeling, Marshall’s intent is far from paternal.
“OK, one more thing.” She forces a puzzled look as though even she can’t understand what that marker is doing dancing across my chest. Without hesitating she pulls off my bikini top on my left side and scribbles something over my boob. “Shit,” I knock her hand off. This has got be a joke.
“Suit yourself.” She begins, replacing the caps on the markers.
Obviously Chloe wanted her to do this crap to me. I stand up and inspect my body. It’s rainbow vomit. I take a closer look. Actually, it’s flowers, and vines, and thorns, and bodies? A book, lightning bolts, a million butterflies, a mountain, a magnificent looking sword—a twin to Chloe’s—holy shit, Emily really is the haunted artist.
I snatch a white bathrobe off the bed with Pine Pole Lodge neatly embroidered on the left hand corner and pull it on. I cinch up the belt, step into a pair of Brielle’s black FMs that she dragged up here for New Year’s Eve, and bolt out the door.
“Where you going?” Brielle shouts after me.
“I have to meet a friend.”
***
When I pushed my feet into Brielle’s four inch FMs, it wasn’t because I wanted to impress Marshall. It was because they were the closest thing to the door, and I knew I would have to cross the center courtyard which is covered with two inches of fresh powder.
I try to shake the chill off my shoulders as I get to his room. I give a brisk knock and wait. A few seconds drift by, and I start to wonder if this is the part where I have an awkward run-in with Ms. Richards leaving. I give a series of far more aggressive knocks, and the door pushes in with the weight of my hand.
“Marshall?” I whisper in the event he really does have company. The lights are on, and I can smell his spiced cologne, so I open the door further and walk in. “Hello?” It’s pretty clear he’s nowhere in the vicinity.
The bathroom door sits wide open. The bed is neatly made, bloated with a luxury comforter we were deprived of in our suite. The sheets are still stretched taut, still tucked into the mattress. I walk over to the bed and bounce my knees off the mattress. A black suitcase lies neatly zipped on the floor. I give it a kick—feels solid. I peer at the door, not a sound coming from the hall. Reflexively I reach over and the zipper cuts through the air with three palpable sizzles.
I flip back the heavy lid. Another zipper on the inside keeps neatly hidden, whatever is creating a serious bulge, and the sound of chimes emits, sounds like change but richer in texture.
“I knew it!” A voice peals from the doorway.
I look up in horror to see Nat dashing her way over.
“I knew you were going to see Dudley. Where is he? Getting whipped cream from the kitchen?”
God—she’s probably right.
I try to close the suitcase, but she pushes the flap back farther and dives in elbows deep.
“OK, we should probably go.”
“I can’t believe you’re really getting it on with Dudley,” she pants as she holds up a pair of boxers.
I snatch them out of her hand and pull down the top of the suitcase.
“We need to get the hell out of here,” I look nervously towards the door. “He’s going to go ape when—”
“What’s that noise?” She interrupts my earnest plea and slaps the lid back with finality. Her fingers slide across the zipper in the upper compartment before dipping down inside. A slight smile begins to play on her lips. “Ooh,” she laughs, producing something red covered with lace, and, oh holy crap—it’s lingerie.
She shags it out in front of me.
“
It brings out the nothingness of your eyes,” she mocks.
It’s a corset with black ribbon running up the back in loose X’s. I snatch it away and hold it up to examine it myself. It’s gorgeous but I’ll never tell Marshall that. The metal hooks that run along either side of the back are shaped as intricate metal flowers. It looks more like an amazing piece of art, rather than something you’d strap to your body.
I toss it into the suitcase and get up.
“I’m out of here,” I whisper.
Her hand pulls back from the side compartment once again, this time producing a variety of metallic objects. She holds up a black leather choker with a pendant of a miniature spirit sword dangling from the middle. I take it from her and temporarily ignore the other trinkets in her palm—ignore the fact that Nat has already submerged her other hand into Marshall’s kinky bag of goodies. I fondle the miniature sword to see if I can get it to illuminate. What could I kill with this? Miniature Fems? Inflict punishment on Chloe’s big toe?
Nat holds something out, and a glint of light snaps me out of my thunderstruck stupor.
Twin rings. I recognize the dazzling blue stones set into silver bands.
“Oh, God!” I gasp at the sight. The stones are identical to the one on Chloe’s protective hedge.
Nat clasps her hand around them before jamming one on her finger.
“They’re mine,” she stands.
“You can’t take them!” I try to pry her fingers open in a panic. “You don’t know Dudley. He goes insane when people steal from him!”
“Let go,” she shoves me hard against the bed.
“Nat,” I shout after her as she heads towards the door. “You’re going to lose a finger, or worse!” She leaves a vacuum in her wake. Great. There’s two more protective hedges running around and they’re under the custodial care of a Count.
I shut Marshall’s suitcase, so I can get the hell out of dodge. I happen to know better than to take things from Marshall. I’ve learned my lesson twice on what it means to mess with the all-powerful Sector in my life.