Expel (22 page)

Chapter 38

Dance of the Butterfly

I shove Ethan around in the hall before trapping him in his bedroom, knocking him back on the bed like a bowling pin.

“What the hell was that video expose` on my love life about the other night?”

“I had no clue she was going to do that. She’s a freaking nutcase.” He leans over and combs his hair back in the mirror. “Besides, it pissed me off. Makes me want to go after her even more.”

“It does?” I pause, stunned. “Like, as in go after and mate with her, or go after and get rid of her?” I’m betting it’s the former. Placing my hope in a Landon family male would be both foolish and dangerous.

“Getting rid of her.”

“Well, good.” I’m pretty sure that the big dismissal will take place after he’s physically through with her. He seems intent on rocking her world—his bed—same difference.

“You should trust me,” he deadpans, because he knows I can’t. Honestly, it’s all starting to sound a little canned, like he’s telling me whatever it is he thinks I want to hear. I don’t like where this is going.

“I do,” I say without conviction. Why do I feel like I’m about to get sucked into a wood chipper? “How are you going to get rid of her?”

“I’m going to exterminate.” His expression darkens.

I don’t know that I want Chloe
dead
. After experiencing the non-finality of it all with Holden, Logan, and Chloe herself, I’m not sure another celestial piranha is what I’m after. Not that Logan is a piranha. He’s a lion—a hot lion, albeit without any fur, or skin or bones at the moment.

“So what’s the plan of action?” I’m tired of Ethan skirting the issue. If he’s mapped out his strategy, I want in on the details. Second thought, if the end result is manslaughter, I’d hate to go away for guilt by association. People go away all the time for stupid stuff like that. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. Just make sure death is not involved.” That’s too easy for Chloe. She needs a good life sentence of misery—one without Gage preferably. That alone is a cruel and horrific punishment much harsher than a quick trip to the transport. That alone might kill her. Come to think of it, a life without Gage would kill me, too.
 

***

I head upstairs and find Mia snooping around my drawers.

“Get out!” I shout. I don’t care if she is trying to piece together the perfect ensemble to steal Melissa’s boyfriend, I’m cranky and tired, and I just want Gage to crawl in through the butterfly room and make everything all right. He used to protect me from the Counts in my life, and now he’s probably hoping they’ll turn me into a salt-free quiche and eat me for dinner. “How did it all go so wrong?” I didn’t mean to say it out loud.

I crash on the bed and bury my head in the pillow.

“Hey, what’s the matter?” Mia comes over and gives one long scratch down the center of my back. Her fingernails sizzle across my flesh, and it actually feels nice.

“Gage hates me,” I muffle into the foamy expanse.

“Gage?” She balks as though it were impossible.

I twist around and pull my pillow into my chest, hug it as though it were a body.

“Did you guys breakup?” Mia’s face lights up at the prospect of fresh gossip.

“I guess we did, unofficially. I wouldn’t know, he won’t speak to me.” I don’t know why I’m sharing this with Mia of all people.

“What happened?”

“He caught me kissing Logan. It was an accident. I never meant to do it.” My heart sags because outside of those kisses I still have very real feelings for Logan. “Do yourself a favor and fall in love with just one boy.”

“I know, right?” She looks up at me with childlike innocence, reminds me a lot of the Skyla I used to be—the one Logan made fall in love with him by simply showing up in her dreams. “Plus, it means you’re a total slut if you run around kissing other boys, just saying.”

“Logan, kissed
me
. I am not a slut.” What my heart feels and what my body does are two different things. I tried giving everything to Gage, wanted to, but in the end I just wasn’t ready. But now I’d run to him naked in the middle of this viral downpour if he wanted me to, if he let me.
 
 

“And that teacher?” She narrows in on me suspiciously.

“He means nothing.” That’s not entirely true. I do feel some sort of connection to Marshall, but it’s spiritual in nature—at least I’m pretty sure. Nevertheless, no more vision hunting through his upper orifice. I’m done with that game.

“If I could only have Gage back,” I whisper, lost in a fog of despair.

“That’s how I feel, Skyla. Gabriel was mine, and Melissa stole him.”

“Are they a couple?” I’m horrified by this. They’re sisters. Talk about a relationship killer. Then again Logan and Gage still sort of have one, or at least they did until Holden showed up.

“He says he’s still into me, but Melissa keeps inviting him to the movies, the library, and he keeps going.”

“Sounds like an ass. You can do better.”

“I don’t want to do better. I want him back.”

I relax against the wall and consider this. Why shouldn’t Mia fight for her man? Why should us Messenger girls sit back and let the boys we love drift into the arms of other girls?

“Then you need to fight for him,” I start. “Be the first one to talk to him at school, when you see Melissa cornering him, break up the party. All’s fair in love and war, right? Ask him to the mall, the beach, the falls.” An image of me swimming in my bra and panties with Logan last summer zips through my mind. “Well, maybe not the falls. Oh, I know! Ask him to the Althorpe dinner. Mom says we can bring dates, and he could be yours.” I shrug into my genius.

“Thank you!” She leans in and hugs me before running into my closet.

“Get out,” I say.

“Oh, I am. I’m leaving through the butterfly room.”

“What?”

“Gabriel’s picking me up. We’re going for ice cream. And, before you freak out—his sister is driving.” She climbs into the secret compartment, and I follow her up.

“Mia!” I scold as she crawls into the attic and disappears. She doesn’t answer. She’s already halfway to stealing her boyfriend back just like I suggested.

It seems I’m only capable of somewhat competent ideas.

***

  
I curl up on the black sparkling floor of the butterfly room and wait for Logan to come.

An easy slumber wraps its arms around me and ushers me into a restful languor. Dreams of Gage and Chloe walking along the beach hand in hand devour me. They cut through me with anguish. I call out his name, but he doesn’t answer. He whispers to Chloe instead, and they share a secret smile.

I startle awake as a pair of warm arms wrap themselves around me, and I take in a sharp breath.

“It’s just me.” Logan helps me sit up. I’m still reeling from the spectacle of imagining Gage and Chloe together as a couple. “How was your day?” He gives a tired smile.

“I fired you,” I scratch at his stomach. “Chloe, too.” I raise my brows rather proud of that one. “You wouldn’t happen to have eighteen thousand dollars lying around would you?”
  

“Is that what he took?” Logan’s jaw redefines pissed.

“That I know of,” I add. “Will your uncle front the money?”

Logan shakes his head. “Don’t ask Barron. The mortuary is hurting right now. I know for a fact he just pulled money out of the house to cover expenses. The last thing I want is for anyone to go bankrupt trying to satiate Holden’s appetite for financial destruction.” He exhales a lungful of air. “I guess I’ll lose the bowling alley.” He says it despondent as if there were no other way.

“I’ll try to help.” I squeeze his hand. “Don’t give up hope, promise?”

“I promise.” He leans in, touches his forehead to mine. “What’s going on with Gage?”

“If it makes you feel better, I’m dead to him, too.”

“It doesn’t make me feel better.” Logan’s spirit is feather soft, rich with an otherworldly understanding. As if in crossing over to death, he gained a plethora of knowledge and wisdom. Logan always knew too much to begin with and now he was in an intellectual realm all his own. “I want you and Gage to be happy. I know it sounds strange,” he struggles to get the words out, “but I hope there’s a time for us. I think there will be.”

“Does it go along with what you know?” I don’t mean for it to come out as sharp as it does. Sometimes, I just wish I could wring Logan’s mind out like a dishrag over my mouth—absorb all of his insights into our future, to the future that I share with Gage, and see it from his bird’s eye perspective.

“It does,” dejection flexes through him. “But I care about Gage, too. I don’t want him upset, or heartbroken.”

My insides twist at the confirmation that I broke Gage’s heart.

“Yes, he’s hurting, Skyla, but he’s healing, too. Just give him the time he needs.”

“What if he needs forever?” How’s that for irony?

“He won’t,” Logan looks down upon his admission. “I’m sorry for the pain you’re both going through, but, in truth, I can’t get past the idea that you belong with anyone else.” His eyes graze over me with open heartbreak. “With everything in me, Skyla, I swear it was you and me who were meant to be together. I think of Gage, and I want to tear the planet to pieces because I pushed you into him.” He drops his head back, despondent. “I swear on everything that is holy, it was supposed to be you and me.” His voice ends on a threadbare whisper. Death has reduced him to less than human, and I’ve reduced Logan to ashes, slashed him to pieces with my incessant pining for Gage.

What do I say? How do I respond? Of course, I love Gage, but a very real part of me understands exactly what Logan just said as though the testimony had sailed from my own lips.

“Let’s get you back into your body,” I whisper, artfully choosing my words.

He gives a wry smile. “I talked to my uncle. He’s going to research the most efficient way to off Holden and get me back without any damaging effects.”

“I’ll make sure Marshall gets you to where you’re supposed to be.”

“Not at the expense of your body, Skyla.”

“No, nothing like that, I swear.” I tug at his hand. “I miss you, Logan Oliver.” I bring up his hand and plant a gentle kiss on his finger.

He gives a smile born of sadness. “I’ve been missing you for months, Skyla Laurel Messenger,” Logan wraps an arm around my shoulder. “I wish it were summer and we had just met. I’d do everything different.”

“You mean, Gage,” I sigh.

“I don’t think I could have stopped what the future holds, but, for sure, it didn’t have to play out this way to get there. Yes, I mean Gage, I mean us—Chloe.”
 

“How do you think Chloe was able to capture all of those precise moments? You know, me and you—me and Marshall.”

“And Ellis,” he leans in.

“That was the most innocent of all. He was peeing on my hand.”

Logan squints and shakes his head as if he wants me to spare the details.