“You had just run away when it happened.”
“Ran away?” Dad doesn’t bother to hide his disapproval.
“I was taken by the Counts. Well, I was going to be, but then I escaped. So, yes, I ran away.” Great.
“Skyla says I’m one of these Counts, is this true?” Mom clutches at his arm for answers.
Dad looks from me to her. I didn’t mention on my last trip that she was anything, and he didn’t offer up if he knew. I want all of this hashed out right now. I’m so sick of secrets. If I had a panacea, which caused people to vomit up all their twisted ways they hide from the world, I’d administer it in high doses to the ones I love and love to hate.
“You’re one of us,” he nods.
He did know.
“Why would you marry a Count?” It escapes my lips soft, not meant to be offensive to the mother that raised me, but curiosity is driving me now, and I might explode not knowing the answer.
“I fell in love with her, Skyla. Love chooses you. Besides, there’s not an evil bone in this woman’s body,” he leans in, caressing her cheek with his thumb.
“So, a Celestra and a Count can marry.” That vision of me walking towards Logan down a petal-strewn aisle comes back. I’d rather eat dirt and wash it down with gasoline.
“Yes,” his eyes narrow as if he understands the origin of my question, “just as easy as a Celestra and a Levatio.”
Which reminds me, “Dad, can I talk to you alone a moment?”
Mom heads back outside without saying a word.
“Gage is trapped in the past,” I say, trying to control my escalating panic.
“What?” His ears perk up in unison.
“He got arrested for stealing his own truck. There’s a binding spirit, he can’t teleport, and I can’t get him back. I have bail him out with Logan on Monday.”
“You can’t time travel for fun. It’s nothing to be tampered with. In fact, if I could have held back one bit of information from you it would have been that. This is dangerous. You’re playing with a fire that can consume you before you ever realize you’re being burned.”
I cringe at his analogy.
“You weren’t going to tell me.” I sink a little in my seat.
“Sometimes, you keep things from the people you love in order to protect them.”
God, he sounds just like Logan now.
Mom knocks gently on the screen, and I leave the room, let the two of them have some privacy before we head back. I wonder what kind of things they’re saying to each other? What kind of things would I say to Gage?
Gage and I are never going to worry about something like this. We’re going to be married forever—that is, if I ever get him back.
Chapter Sixty-Four
The Rescue
Monday morning is dark as evening. Ceaseless thunder goes off overhead like the growl of a bear—hungry and menacing. I head downstairs for breakfast and find Mia and Melissa huddled over cereal, buzzing about something.
“Today’s the day!” Mia beams at me.
You would think she was the one getting her license or at least attempting to.
“Yup,” I say, albeit less enthused as I snatch a freckled banana out of the fruit bowl.
“I can’t take you, Hon, I’ve got an appointment at two-thirty,” Mom scuttles by in a frenzy. “I’m just praying we’ll be able to catch the last ferry back tonight.”
“You’re going to the fertility clinic?” Hard to believe they still want to proliferate Tad’s seed even though the damaging effects have been well documented.
“We have two more rounds to go, and after that…” She throws her hands in the air.
“After that we’re officially out of the running,” Tad shakes his head into the near empty refrigerator, “unless, of course, I start robbing banks which judging by the rate this family burns through food, I just might have to.”
“Skyla,” Mom stops just shy of pouring herself a cup of coffee, “if I’m not back in time for dinner, would you mind calling something in? I’ll leave cash by the sink.”
“Call something in?” Tad stiffens as though he’s got a crick in his neck. “What is this? Room service? How about everyone make their own sandwich? How’s that for economizing?”
“We don’t have any food,” my mother holds an empty bread bag up with the end piece rotting away inside. “And, besides, I prefer they eat a nice hot meal for dinner.”
“Not when that nice hot meal runs fifty bucks,” he begrudgingly pulls cash out of his wallet and slaps it on the counter.
“Can you get Gage to take you to the exam?” Mom looks through me a moment as though she were remembering the details of some horrific dream. Her eyes widen, and her lips clamp together. “Come here,” she motions for me to follow her into the hall. “Skyla,” she swells with tears. “Did it really happen?” Her voice strains from the effort. “Did we really see him?”
She was flying high the remainder of yesterday, and now it all seems so far away to her, just like the first time that I went back.
“It was real,” I assure her. “You were there, and now we can go back to him anytime.” I wonder if that’s why she was so standoffish with Tad just now. Odd to think my own dad is getting in the way of my mother’s marriage.
Her fingers run through the back of my hair, and she holds me like that a moment, stifling tears. “I do. I do want to go back and see him—often.” She darts a quick glance down the hall. “As soon as you get the results from your test, I want you to call. Driving is a huge milestone in any teenager’s life.” Her smile is layered with our secret.
“I will.” That is, if I can get back in time from rescuing Gage. It kills me that he’s doing time all because of my desire to nail Chloe.
“You know what else is a huge milestone in a teenager’s life?” Tad comes upon us quickly. “A marijuana bust. Just received an email that your court hearing is tomorrow at 4:15.”
“I have cheer,” I say in a panic.
“You’ll have jail if you don’t go. The officer says you were just shy of forty grams, A.K.A. just shy of a felony. Do you know how close you came to ruining your life? To having a record?” He opens the accordion doors to the washing machine and starts a load as though this were a conversation we’ve had a thousand times before.
“Well, I didn’t,” I say, stupidly. Shit. I nearly ruined my life carting around illegal substances, so I can bribe a poor dead girl into giving me Chloe’s secret. One more gram, and I would be in prison with a freaking felony record. This has got to stop. Trying to take down Chloe is going to drive me insane or worse, incarcerate me. I’m betting she’s rooting for both.
My cell goes off. It’s a text from Logan.
I’m outside.
Time to help out someone whose life I seem to be inadvertently hell-bent on destroying—Gage.
***
I’m happy to find Ellis already in the truck, as I scoot in beside him.
“You think you’ll have enough cash?” I look to Logan for answers.
“Good morning to you, too,” Ellis pushes into me.
“Morning.” I can’t help but note how unnaturally lucid he appears. “Where we going?”
“The dirt lot behind the bowling alley. And, I’ve got two thousand dollars,” Logan announces. “I’m pretty sure that’s more than enough.”
“I have court tomorrow,” I give Ellis a serious look of disdain, like this were somehow his fault.
“You’ll get community service,” he shrugs. “The judge might up the fine, but he’ll apply it to the bail charges, so you shouldn’t be out that much more.”
Shit. Tad already owes Logan some serious cash. I’ll have to pay back every penny with my job at the bowling alley, and with all those nonexistent hours, I should be paid up by never.
“Would you mind putting me back on the schedule?” I look hopeful over at Logan—Logan whose heart I ran over with a tractor, then stripped him of his Celestra abilities for good measure.
/>
He pulls into the lot and drives over a mud slick alongside the building.
“I’ll put you back on,” he looks content that I asked.
“Of course, I’ll need a ton more hours if I ever hope to pay you back for bail, the car, and the auto insurance.” Logan already said he’d front me the money, and now I feel like crap for giving him what amounts to a celestial bitch slap. If he would have told me everything, stopped loving me so damn much, and spilled his freaking guts, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.
“A ton more hours coming right up,” he gives a sly smile as though that were the plan all along.
He kills the ignition and puts his hand out. I place my hand over his, and Ellis covers mine.
I close my eyes to take us back to that fated homecoming night that keeps chiseling itself into our existence—fueling our needs in the shape of a thousand little roots that feed off the base of its time space continuum.
***
I land us behind Ellis’ monster truck. I can see Brielle standing next to her jeep, twirling her hair while laughing with some boy from East.
“I’m coming with you,” Ellis announces.
“Why?” I’m amused, but a part of me wonders if I should be alarmed.
“Gage never gets in trouble. I’d pay to see him behind bars.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “We need to catch a ride from Brielle,” I say.
“No, I’ll drive us,” Logan insists.
“Right,” I muse, “so you can get thrown into a cell next to Gage? No thanks.”
“I’ll drive,” Ellis taps his chest. “I’d never call the cops on myself.”
“You won’t know it’s you, brainiac. We need Brielle,” I step out of the shadows, and call out to her.
“Did you forget your purse?” She bounces back in four-inch stacked heels.
Ellis and Logan appear beside me, looking nervously around for their counterparts.
“Can we get a ride?” Logan smiles over at her.
We pile in, and I sit upfront with Brielle.
“I didn’t get your name,” she laughs at her oversight.
“Laurel,” I look back at Logan and Ellis accusingly, in the event they should get creative and blurt out the truth. It’s not really a lie. It’s my middle name.
“Pretty,” she ticks her head into the road. “Hey,” she looks into the rear view mirror, “you guys notice Chloe’s been acting strange lately? She’s like totally paranoid. I think she’s taking your breakup pretty hard.” She cuts a quick glance at Logan, who’s managed to tuck himself in the shadows. I’m sure he’s not too anxious to expose the fact that he’s aged a decade or two.
“She’ll be fine,” Logan sighs into the lie. “She’s still got a thing for Gage.”
“Knew it!” Brielle spikes in her seat as though it were the best gossip she’s heard all day.
“She’ll have to fight me,” I whisper.
“What did you say?” Brielle’s mouth falls open.
“She’ll have to fight me,” I say, defiantly. “I’m totally and completely in love with him.”
“Well, hate to break it to you,” her head jets out an inch, “but I heard he was making out with some girl from East tonight.”
Chloe—she saw me kissing Gage in one of my incarnations. No wonder she hates me—Gage loves me everywhere, in every time dimension. My stomach does a soft roll just thinking about his affection. I need to make sure I return the favor with every part of me, very, very soon.
“I guess that makes two Olivers who have a hard time sticking to just one girl.” She shoots Logan a quick look.
Logan unfaithful?
As in, to Chloe?
Strange.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Play With Me, Stay With Me
It takes forever to get rid of Brielle and convince her we would rather visit the minimart at the gas station across from the precinct rather than hitch a ride back to the party. As soon as she’s out of sight we ditch across the street.
“Skyla, I want you to know,” Logan’s face is weathered. I’m spellbound looking at him like this. I reach up and pat his ashen hair, so soft. I wish he would stay this way, flush his younger self away in the carnival of time. “Brielle is going to freak when she sees us at the party.”
“She’ll just think we beat her there. Plus, she’ll be toasted in an hour and puking in my fountain,” Ellis interjects. “It’ll all pan out like a bad dream.”
“That’s exactly what it’s panning out to be,” I say.
We step into the precinct, and I spot the arresting officer behind the counter, same guy who apprehended me for possession. This whole night, as an entity, is turning into one serious mind fuck.
Logan steps forward and does his best impersonation of an adult. His posture, tone, the way he presses his hands flat and calm against the counter, all of it comes naturally as though he weren’t impersonating anything at all. A woman in plain clothes listens to him. She pulls her slow gaze across his features, whets her lips as though she were sending him an invitation. She’d probably freak out if she knew he was only seventeen but then again he’s not, in general, he’s nearing thirty or forty, I think. If anyone should be freaking out, it’s me.
He shells out some serious cash before returning to the waiting area.
“They’re getting him.” Logan relaxes to the seat next to me. I can tell he’s ambivalent about Gage’s impending return.
It takes everything in me not to pick up his hand, relax into his chest like I use to. A powerful pull still exists between Logan and me—that, I can’t deny.
“If you could go back to the beginning, would you tell me everything?” I whisper the words out in jags. A part of me wants him to understand that this is my version of I’m sorry.
A crackling sound emits from Logan’s throat as he struggles to choose his words.
“Ellis?” I turn to my left. “Would you hold something back from someone you professed to love?”
“I love my mom,” he peels open a bag of chips he picked up from the convenience store, “I don’t share my stress relieving coping mechanisms with her, so, yes. I would hold something back from someone I profess to love.” He leans over to Logan, “what are you holding back?”
“Nothing that I’m willing to share,” he lowers his head in my direction. “Look, I can’t,” he pleads with me to understand.
“About Chloe’s big secret—rumor has it you should be shot for what you did,” I whisper.
“I said that—still believe it.”
The air grows stale. The room fills up with an uncomfortable silence as I try to siphon through a billion possibilities as to just what the secret might be.
“I’ll have my mother reinstate your powers if you help me,” I whisper. I hope he’ll at least consider it.
Gage is escorted into the room. It’s like the lights go on in my life once again. I run over and hold him, kiss him full on the lips—and openly diminish my chances of Logan ever telling me his secret. But I can’t help myself. I would sell out my entire future to taste and breathe Gage.
***
We get back to Paragon present, and I go over to the Oliver’s and wait as Gage gets ready for school.
“I guess you’re missing your first day at East.” I fall onto the bed and look up at him as he cinches the towel around his waist. He shags his hair out over me, gently sprinkling me with the reserve from his shower.
“Hey!” I pull him down over me. His skin is still moist, and the sharp scent of soap clings to his skin.
“Let me take you to class,” he offers. “Tad is going to hang me by the balls if he finds out I’m the reason you’re not there.”
“I guess,” I push my lips against his before nuzzling into his neck. “Can you believe in a year and a half we’ll be free of him forever?”
“I don’t know about forever, but yeah, for the most part.” He traces my lips with his finger, and I push it in my mouth, run my tongue along i
t like a promise.
His cheeks darken a shade. His dimples light up an immoral smile just as a thunderous knock vibrates through the door.
“Everything all right in there?” It’s Emma.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” Gage shouts back.
I hop off the bed so fast I accidentally take his towel with me.
Gage pats his hands on the mattress, amused at my blunder.
Shit!
I spin around and squeeze my eyes shut in one childlike maneuver that leaves me both stunned and embarrassed.
What the hell kind of girlfriend can’t appreciate the fact that her boyfriend is lying there in all his God given glory? Of course he’s going to think I’m a child because obviously I am. I try and force myself to turn around. I twist my shoes but the rest of me won’t follow. It’s not natural. What in the hell am I going to do? Turn around and just stare at him?
The soft scent of his cologne envelops me as he appears behind me. He pulls at my earlobe with his lips and gives a light massage to my shoulder.
I love you.
“I love you, too.” I place my hand awkwardly over his, still lacking the initiative to face him.
I can see him reach for his clothes through the corner of my eye, then jump into his boxers, his jeans.
I turn around and take him in. My stomach sours at the thought of Chloe monopolizing him today.
“Guess what?” I say, a little more irate than I intended. “Logan knows something that can flush Chloe out of our lives forever. It might be able to stop this I’ll-tell-Dudley bullshit.”
“He does?” His brows swoop in like twin dark birds.
“Yes, and he’s not telling.”
His face smoothes out. “We’ll know in less than an hour.”
Chapter Sixty-Six
Beat on the Brat
Gage walks into West as though he belonged there, as though his name were still on the roster somewhere.