Chapter Forty-Seven
Next to You
The buses fill in quickly.
The temperature drops. The sky darkens to soot as though the world were mourning for sweet, beautiful Kate. I scan the crowd for Marshall. It’s him I want to sit next to all the way down the mountain, so I can lambaste him for being so cruel.
“Skyla,” Logan pulls me in without permission. The warmth from his skin comforts me. Makes me linger far longer than I ever should.
“Have you seen Dudley?” I need to stay focused.
“No,” his expression clouds over. “I want you to stay away from him. Both Gage and I do,” he corrects the rebuke to include Gage, as though, I might listen to reason better if he weren’t the only one in the equation—and usually he’d be right, but not in this case.
“I can take care of myself.”
“No,” he says it sweetly with pathetic undertones. “He’s too powerful. He has an agenda. The rest of us are just pawns. That includes you.”
“Well, the tables have turned. He’s my pawn now.” There’s no way I’m going to tell Logan that I plan on sleeping with Dudley to get Chloe out of my life for good. Marshall’s voice booms from the other end of the parking lot. I shake Logan loose and dart in his direction.
My feet glide on a patch of ice, sailing me right into Marshall.
“I’m sitting with you,” I say, panting from the sprint.
“First seat on the left, you can take my bag,” he hands me a small duffel.
I snatch it from him, and head inside.
***
Another half hour passes before we’re just about loaded to go. Gage and Logan are on another bus, so I won’t have to worry about them disrupting ‘operation take Chloe down’.
I rest Marshall’s duffel on my lap and something protrudes from it hard on my thigh. I try and molest it from the outside but I can’t make out the form—probably more lethal jewelry. Really, why doesn’t he just leave this stuff at home in a safe like normal people?
Without putting too much thought into it I unzip it and peer inside. It’s not like I’m going to take anything. I’ve seen what can happen. It’s not pretty.
It’s too dark to make anything out properly. I turn on the overhead light and dig around inside. Tons of free floating metal objects filter through my fingers. I remember Marshall once mentioned he forged iron or something along those lines. I fish out the largest item in the bag and hold it out—a silver statue of Ezrina. I drop it like a hot coal and fish out something else. A small rattle looking thing, circular with a long handle and something inside of it pounds the walls of the metal surface as though it were trying to escape. I place it back towards the bottom and pull out a disc. It’s unreasonably heavy in comparison to the Ezrina figure and the haunted rattle. It has an opaque stone in the center, pink, pretty. I pull out another with a hazy blue stone, and another with the color of light green jade. The three discs look just like the ones Emily drew on my torso. Creepy.
I fish out a final disc from off the bottom. It has the picture of a flame on one side. I flip it over and gasp.
I recognize those lips, those eyes, that hair—it’s me. My likeness molded into this colossal-sized coin. My face protrudes from the metal as though I were trying to escape.
I put the disc in my jacket pocket and dip back into the bag. Something round maneuvers between my fingers, almost as if it came to me.
Marshall steps on board and walks past me to the back of the bus, taking roll. I pull the final object out of the bag and examine it under the light.
A severed head.
I replace it in the sack, zipping it back up just as Marshall lands by my side.
“I’m giving you preferential treatment because of your emotional trauma. Otherwise, female students are not allowed to sit with male professors.”
“Thank you.”
“However, since the entire student body knows that you and I are an item,” he wraps his arm around my shoulder and leans into me inappropriately. “And, I’m the only instructor on board, we don’t have to hide our affections for one another.” He glides into a lust-filled smile that fades as quick as it came. His eyes narrow in on mine before he holds his hand out.
“The amulet.”
“No,” I say, defiantly. “It’s mine—my face.”
His eyes glow an eerie fire yellow, inspiring me to produce the overgrown coin and place it on his palm.
“What is it?”
“It’s a decorative piece I’ve come to call my own,” he emphasizes the last two words.
“I saw the head. You knew it was going to happen.”
“On occasion I know things.”
“Why didn’t you stop it?”
“What fun is it to always save—rescue, release? Once in a while I just go with destiny’s flow, and if a head happens to roll, so be it.”
“Did you mean for Kate to get her head chopped off or did I do that on my own?” Not that it’ll make me feel any better either way.
“I, my love, take revenge very seriously,” his voice resonates pitch perfect with anger. “I don’t make mistakes, and I don’t let humans, or their partial counterparts, get in the way. But if you must know, my revenge coincided nicely with her timely demise. It’s a fact that she was called home at that hour, otherwise I would have dismembered her civilly, let her live out her years with a simple prosthesis. Not everybody has a body farm, you know,” he eyes my Chloe arm. “I would have saved death as a judgment for something far more sinister, a stabbing perhaps.”
Shit.
“And my role?” I try to revert the attention back to Kate’s death.
“Should you not have called upon your Celestra powers, you would have merely knocked her in the temple, equally as deadly, but not nearly as messy.”
“What about the other two? Nat and Michelle?” I’m almost afraid to ask, but it’s doubtful Marshall has left a stone unturned.
“I have plans for the two of them,” he sighs. “Our friend, destiny, has yet to conclude its work in their lives, but when the time comes I’m allowed an indulgence or two, a limb, a head. You’re much more efficient than Ezrina, by the way.”
“You used me to kill somebody.”
“It would seem.”
“Is this something you plan on making a habit of?” I’m stunned to even be asking.
“Perhaps.” He pins me with venom. “Which Oliver pays for sticking me with the sword?”
“I take the blame.”
“Well, then.” He relaxes back into his seat. “I might just take the three of you down for sport.”
“But you need me.” I can feel my entire life pulsating before my eyes.
“Then choose the object of my wrath.”
My mouth falls open. Of course, I’m not going to say Gage, but I can’t seem to find it in me to say Logan, either.
“No—and you can’t have them both,” I hiss.
Marshall runs his fingers over the side of my face, locks onto my eyes with a tender loving gaze.
“Neither can you.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Downtown
The sky opens up. A vat of rain dumps on Paragon by the merciless distributor who sees fit to vex us with nonstop turbulent weather. The sky pours out its fury in a torrent of violent tears for Kate, whose only sin was to don a band of metal she purchased for twenty dollars by way of Nat.
Instead of Mom and Tad waiting for me at the terminal, I’m escorted by Marshall to the precinct along with Nat, Pierce, Holden and Gage. We were all expert witnesses to the accident that took Kate’s life, and now we have to recount all of the tragic events in horrific detail.
The harsh light of the police station burns through my retinas, causing me to squint my way through the precinct as we ready ourselves for questioning. I’m weary, worn out from a constant river of tears, overwhelmed by the fact I can’t go a month without slaughtering another human being, intentional or accidental.
A tal
l man with wiry hair and a police vest stares down at the five of us. “State your name and your version of the incident.” He starts with Holden.
“Ethan Landon,” Figures. Now, at the police station, he wants to use that name. He continues, “I was stuck in the snow and I heard screaming. When I looked up, her head was gone.” He blinks a smile, causing the officer’s ears to peak.
“And you?” He points over at Pierce.
“Pierce Kragger. Fell down. I saw the lift move, this guy fell over me. The next thing I know Skyla, here, has got this look of revenge on her face, and she’s gunning for the blonde.”
“I did not have the look of revenge on my face.” OK, so maybe I did, but I was thinking of Chloe, trying to kick off my skis in an act of self-preservation. I would have broken my leg, a thousand times over, if I knew what the consequences would be. Then again, Marshall did all but call me a pawn.
“And you?” The officer gives a lazy nod in my direction.
“Skyla Messenger,” I hesitate, “um, I felt the machine kick up a notch, and the next thing I knew it was speeding up. It all happened so fast. In fact, I’m not really sure what happened…” I let my words hang there. A hard knot damns up my throat.
“Gage Oliver. We rolled off to the side as soon as we could,” he offers. “I went around and stopped the lift. The operator was passed out at the controls.”
“That was quick thinking.” He makes a note of this. “And you?”
“Natalie Coleman,” she cuts a look in my direction before proceeding. “I know that what happened was a supposed accident but I feel like I owe it to my best friend to tell the whole truth.”
She’s going to spill about the haunted jewelry?
“Skyla and Kate were at it all week.”
“What?” I spike up in my seat.
“My turn,” she growls. “When I looked up, I saw Skyla laughing at us like she thought it was funny, then she got this look on her face like she was up to something. She pulled back her ski and thrust it right at Kate’s face. I think she was trying to slice her, you know, to be mean, but still. Look what happened.” She reclines in her seat with a ticked off look on her face.
“Liar,” I say, disbelieving. “I have never been anything but friendly with Kate.”
“I have three other witnesses that will vouch for what I’m saying,” Nat continues, “also, she threatened my friend Michelle as we were leaving, saying she would end up dead like Kate if she wasn’t careful.”
“I was warning her,” my fingers fly up to my lips. “Not about that, about something else.” Shit!
The officer doesn’t look amused. In fact, he looks horrifically pissed.
“You’ll have to come back down, give a deposition,” he nods over to me. “If any of this is true, you might want to acquire representation. Whether or not this was malicious needs to be addressed,” he straightens the papers in front of him. “Your parents are outside ready to pick you up.” He scowls at us in turn, as though, we were the exact representation of what’s wrong with this world before gathering his things and leaving.
“How could you say that? You know it’s not true.” I’d reach over and shake her if Holden and Pierce weren’t gloating besides her.
Then I decide to go for it anyway. I lunge over and dig my hands into her shoulders.
“She’s in here, Lizbeth!” It’s Tad. “She’s attacking another one!”
Gage collapses both my arms to my side and plucks me off.
“It’s OK, I’ve got you,” his soothing tone relaxes me and for one delusional moment, I believe things might actually work themselves out.
The three of them clear the room. Holden yells to Tad that he’s got a ride.
I can hear my mother shouting as she makes her way over, and I take one last moment with Gage to melt under the watchful eye of his navy gaze.
“Skyla!” Mom gives a guttural cry. I turn around to face her deep look of concern and Tad with his never-ending scowl of disapproval.
“I didn’t kill anybody. I swear it was an accident.”
“Oh, Hon!” Mom pulls me into a visceral hug. Her hair is sopping wet. Her bathrobe peers out from underneath her coat, letting me know that coming down to the police station to pick up her daughter was the last thing she planned on doing this evening. “Of course, it was an accident. Let’s get you home and cleaned up. It’s been a long, long week. We missed you.”
“What about the dead girl’s parents?” Tad quips. “They’re going to miss her for a little longer than a week.”
I blink, at him disbelieving. He’s right. For the rest of my life, I’ll hold up my achievements and failures to Kate’s death like a measuring rod of morbidity. I’ll think of her when I graduate from high school, college, on my wedding day, the day I give birth to my first child. All of those things I took away from her. I don’t care what Marshall said about death waiting for her. My foot played an integral part of her not being here today or any other day for that matter.
“It really wasn’t my fault,” I plead with him to understand as much as I do myself.
“No, Skyla, it’s never anyone’s fault when someone gets their head severed off,” he snaps, “but mark my words, we’ll have a letter in the mail bright and early Monday morning, asking for the deed to our house. They’re going to clean us out, lock, stock, and barrel, but you go ahead and nestle yourself in the fantasy that it’s not your fault.”
“Is that all you think about—money?”
“No, Skyla, but it’s sure as hell what the rest of the world thinks about,” his tirade continues, “trust you me, once they factor in the funeral cost and the fact they can hold someone else accountable for all the misery they’re going through,” he turns to leave the room then backtracks. “For once I truly wish to God, instead of riding around on some defunct ski lift you kids were locked in a room somewhere mating. At least then the causalities would be kept to a minimum, and the only lives you’d screw up, would be your own.” He storms off down the hall.
Mom drops her head in her hands and groans.
Gage gives a kiss just above my ear and whispers, “Welcome home, Skyla.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Tiaras and Caskets
Days bleed by, long grey days that sleep in their own shadow. The sky quivers with light, trembles a baritone, warning every so often. It emancipates us from the sun, stretches out a blanket of darkness until there is no further delineation of day and night, just one long expanse of midnight—the black seascape of the ocean floating as a backdrop. Everything good has disposed itself—gone like Kate in the nebulous reserve.
Chloe is high on life, clear and sharp, even with that Fem infested ring on her finger. She glows in this murky environment, thrives on the rusted scent of earth as it bleeds up through the rain.
The funeral is short—simple, like Kate. The electricity in the church blinks on and off as though the very structure were mourning her loss. Candles are lit up and down the aisles with an explosion of flickering glory surrounding the glossy white casket. Two giant wreaths of flowers lie on either side of her like bookends. One is from her family and the other from mine. Mom and Tad have gone out of their way to pay extreme care to the situation. They’ve catered dinner to the Winston’s home each night this week.
Kate’s grieving mother could be her twin, twenty years her senior. Nat, Emily, Lexy, Michelle, and Chloe huddle in a circle of tears by her casket as a long procession of people wait to pay their final respects. I don’t know how it’s possible, but they’ve opted to have an open casket.
“You don’t have to do this,” Gage whispers in my ear as we wait our turn to pay respects.
Brielle turns around.
“I think you’re doing the right thing. Just stick to your story that you were good friends,” she winks before Drake pulls her back around.
“She winked at me,” I whisper in disbelief. “It’s like she doesn’t believe me.”
Gage looks past me over at Bree.<
br />
“She’s confused. And by the way, her baby bump is showing.”
I catch a glimpse of the frame of her body as she twists into Drake.
“You’re right. I wonder when they’re going to spill the news to Mom and Tad?”
“I don’t know, but when they do, make sure to let me know. I plan on beaming myself over for the big event.”
“Will do,” I say as we fast approach the coffin.
Brielle and Drake go up first. Brielle coos into the casket as though she were talking to a baby.
Gage tugs at my hand, and we stand next to them, close to where Kate’s head lies, her neck wrapped neatly in a scarf.
She looks peaceful, beautiful, with a crystal tiara pressed in her hair. Her makeup done as though she were going to prom. If she were Chloe, she might be, but she’s not. She has no angelic blood whatsoever. She’s simply dead and this kills me.
I press my hand up against the cool satin that lines the inside of the casket, give her a pat goodbye before walking away with Gage.
Chloe walks over unabashed by the fact Gage has his arm around me. She tugs him over to herself like reeling in a fish.
“Natalie is completely insane over the fact you’ve killed her best friend.” Her teeth glisten under the glow of candlelight. “If I were you, I’d watch your back.”
“And if I were you. I’d watch your back.” I step away from the two of them, making my way towards the rear of the church.
“Skyla,” Mom hisses, stepping away from a huddle of women. “That was really nice of you to pay your respects.” She pulls me in, sniffling into my hair. “You’re being very brave. I’m so proud. Are you just about ready to go?”
I look back at Gage, his hands safely tucked in his pockets. Chloe says something to Nat and gives an open laugh, but no one seems to notice or care.
I see Marshall on the periphery, speaking with Ms. Richards.
“Um, just one more second. I want to ask Mr. Dudley a quick question about class.”