Expel (49 page)

The Transfer.

“Something’s happening,” I pant.

“I know.” Holden rubs the growing bulge in his pants abruptly against my thigh. “Let’s get out of here.”

A sharp scream emits from the center of the room.

I turn in time to see a body flying up towards the mirrored sphere hanging above the center of the dance floor. A pair of long brown legs kick up a violent tantrum. It’s not until I take a step forward that I see its Chloe. She spins and clutches at her neck. Her red dress goes off like shimmering fireworks on the Fourth of July.

It looks as if the protective hedge has caught on something, a wire that dangles from the disco ball.

Holy crap.

Could this be Ethan’s late, great, final act of revenge? Could Ethan Landon really be this big of a genius to hang Chloe Bishop in front of God and country right here at the East meets West glorified dance-a-thon?

Chloe is showing us up in the moves department with her determined spin, sway, swing—the way she bucks into her own departure is glorious.

Screams erupt like a choir of hellish angels. All eyes are focused upwards at Chloe as if we were sharing in some mass hallucination—a heavenly vision that will christen our flesh with a radioactive glow for days to come. This is a blessed event, songs should be written about this moment, poetry to recite to our grandchildren.

I step forward, dazed—in love with the idea of watching Chloe meet her most timely demise.

It is a thing of beauty. I wish my father could have been here to witness the grand finale of all her wicked schemes. It comes down to this. Chloe Bishop dies as a spectacle, dangling fifty feet off the floor, glittering proud as a brushfire.

She bucks and writhes, clawing at her neck with sharpened fingernails. Her flesh erupts in a series of long blood-soaked lines.

I want her blood to flow—my blood. I want to open my mouth, drink down her pain. There’s something orgasmic about this—sensual. I’ve achieved nirvana by the sheer prospect of watching her life expire.

Chloe lets out a horrid, gurgled cry. Ironic how the protective hedge is actually in the process of doing Chloe in. It must be a nice night for assholes to die. Unfortunately, if Chloe doesn’t survive, Mia may not either.

I grab a hold of Emily and drag her over to Michelle and Lexy.

“Get me up there,” I instruct. The bitch squad gets into basket toss formation. I conjure all of the angst and hostility I can muster towards Chloe in an attempt to leap to her rescue. “One, two, three!” I rocket up towards the ceiling easy and light as a butterfly. I pull down the metal hook that’s adhered to the chain around Chloe’s neck, hard and fast.

We fall in tandem. Her face, pale as plaster, lips as blue as a summer sky. The bitch squad cradles their limbs around Chloe, and I land with a gentle swish in Marshall’s waiting arms. A quick bite of sadness twists through me. I was half expecting him to be Gage. I pan the facility as Marshall props me up on my feet.

“She needs a jump start, Skyla, or she’ll be dead before help arrives.” Marshall hands me my purse.

“This has a one-time use only,” I scold, making sure he understands the dire implications of it all. “Besides, she’s still wearing that protective hedge.”

“Yes, Skyla,” he leans in, “But if death is ordained in the near future for Ms. Bishop—the Decision Council might just let the tragedy slide.”

He gives a quick nod towards the crowd amassed around her.

I look over to Chloe lying on the ground, limp as kelp, a most beautiful cadaver in the making.

My lips curve into the promise of a smile, my chest still panting wild from the effort.

I go over and touch my hand to her forehead.

I must choose.

Save Chloe and get Mia, or risk getting Mia out of the realm of Demetri’s horrors all on my own.

I stroke Chloe’s long dark tendrils arranged like snakes around her beautiful dead face and whisper, “Oh my sweet little bitch, how I hope you rest in peace.”

Chapter 86

If You Don’t Know Me By Now

Gage appears, panting, bloodied from the elbows down, his shirt stained with a strange viscous fluid. He snatches my purse and removes the device, shrouding his body over Chloe.

Good God, he’s going to zap her back into existence.

Her entire person jumps chest first off the ground an entire foot. Gage places his lips over hers, blows in breath after breath until she coughs and sputters. He spits out the residue behind his shoulder and wipes his lips down on the lapel of his jacket.

“What did you do that for?” It’s more rhetorical at this point.

He offers a depleted smile. “Because I knew you wouldn’t.” He pulls out his phone and texts so fast the phone pops in his hands, wild and spastic. “Brielle had her baby,” he pants glancing up at me briefly. “Baby Beau. She’s on her way to the hospital.”

“A boy! Is that why you’re covered in—did you?” I slap my hand over my mouth as he nods.

“Shit,” he barks down at his phone.

“What?” I push the device back in my purse as the EMTs settle in around Chloe.

“My dad says there’s no way we’ll get the charge we need for Holden.”

That’s because he wasted it on Chloe. I badly want to say that but don’t.

She gets up on her elbows and bats the medics away citing she’s more than OK.

Of course she is, she just had some real action from Gage—their first kiss right here at prom.

Ms. Messenger, I bid you to evacuate the premises
, Marshall says, helping me up off the floor. “Immediately,” he snaps. His jaw is distended, his eyes cut into the crowd with a look of vengeance.

I grab Gage by the hand and pull him along.

“Holden hard left,” Gage whispers before dramatically plucking his arm free from mine. “Just because I helped your friend out doesn’t mean I want anything to do with
you
!” He roars it so loud, the entire crowd reduces to a low rumble.

I glint over towards Holden. He’s all eyes and all ears. Gage and I have the floor. One last opportunity to squelch the life out of him tonight and I’d better not blow it.

“I hate you Gage Oliver! I
hate
you!” It shrills out of me like a fire alarm. I make a beeline over to Holden and grab him by the wrist. “Get me the hell out of here. I need someone in my life who knows how to have a good time.”

Holden huffs a laugh, takes me in with those serious Logan eyes—the dimple I gave him, by way of broken glass, pulsates in and out. He knows. He’s probably got Pierce and Nat waiting in that hotel room ready to hide my body once they beat me to a bloody pulp, drink down my blood like a brood of thirsty bats.

He leads me out the side exit towards the ocean. A wash of powder fresh fog baptizes us as we rush into the night.

I pray Gage is hot on our heels. That he hasn’t truly lost his sanity and isn’t sabotaging the altruistic purpose of this charade just to keep Logan out of our lives for good. I have a feeling this humanitarian effort, a.k.a,
operation zap Holden out of existence,
is going to take a little more than his cooperation.

Holden runs us down to the beach. He holds my fingers in a vice grip, sprinting us to the waterline so fast I can barely keep up in this mini-dress and heels. He knocks me down to the chilled sand, runs his hot hands up the bottom of my dress without waiting for an invitation. We jostle and roll further to the shore, with him assaulting me and me wondering how far I should let it go before I try to save myself from his ever-wandering appendages. The sand grows damp beneath me. An unexpected wall of water slaps over our shoulders, crushes us in a bath of icy brine.

Holden forces a series of greedy kisses upon me, roves his tongue in and out of my mouth in quick convulsive spasms. His teeth chatter against mine, his fingers dig into my arms so tight I can feel the circulation cutting off.

A conversation I had with Dr. Oliver comes back to me. I distinctly remember him mentioning that hypothermia would be the best way to preserve Logan’s tissue.

Waves topple us one after another until we’re floating with the natural ebb and flow of the sea.

I latch a leg around Holden’s waist, hook my elbow under his arm and paddle us out while offering up mouthwatering kisses. I spill kisses like lies, promises that will go unfulfilled as I sail us deeper into the dark expanse. I speed us out to sea like a dolphin, swimming hard and fast just the way Marshall taught me, like a marine animal trained for war.

My Celestra blood boils, keeps my body temperature comfortable and stable. I can feel Holden writhing in agony, teeth clattering like castanets. His chest heaves with convulsions from the icy waters.

I let go of him in the black calm of the ocean.

The sparkling resort is nothing but a simple dot glittering in the distance. I can make out the ridge of the island, the entire mass of granite a richer shade of ebony than the sky above it could ever afford.

The dress sizzles to life around me. Logan warms me. Leaves me secure in knowing that I’m not alone.

“Sh-sh-shit!” Holden seizes and thrashes before falling still to his waiting destiny.

I don’t say anything, simply pull him in by the fingers watch him slip peaceful into his final slumber.

Marshall appears glowing a translucent shade of gold as he floats above the surface. “This, my love, is death.” A colorful spiral of light encompasses Holden as it suctions his soul up into its vacuum.

“Now what?” I shout in a panic.

“Breathe life into him.” He floats up into the sky revealing an expanse of large feathered wings wide as a house. “The dress will do the rest.”

“Logan,” I cry, pulling him over to me—so still, so frighteningly still. I seal my mouth over his cold lips and give three lungfuls of air. “Logan!” I shake him, but nothing happens. He’s not moving or breathing. “Marshall!” I dive down on Logan’s mouth in a panic, pulling us under in the process. I blow in a deep lungful of air as my tears mingle with the ocean and wrap my body around him to warm him. My heart aches for Logan. I want him back, alive and with me, so we can watch the future unfold together, see where it might take us, see how far the path that destiny carved out for us leads. I give another gentle puff before pulling us to the surface. His lips twitch beneath mine. He returns a beautiful breath, consummates it with the impression of a kiss that I will remember for ages.

“Logan!” I scream jumping over him, submerging him under without meaning to.

He pulls us back to the surface. “Skyla,” he laughs into the night.

He’s back.

Logan is back—my Logan.

Chapter 87

Fallen Angel

The navy sky hides beneath a veil of feathery fog as Logan and I wash high up on the shore, still glossy and wet from our adventure at sea. He pulls me in, rests his arm over my waist with his chest panting into mine.

“You saved me,” he gasps for breath as he says it, pulling me in nose to nose. He grazes his teeth against mine still laughing, gasping.

“How do I know it’s really you?” I can tell by the way his eyes dance over my face, the delight radiating from his being. There’s something sweet and wholly unique to Logan that shines from deep inside his soul.

“Happily ever after,” he whispers, pushing his forehead to mine.
There will be one, I promise.

I get up on my elbows and offer a gentle smile. “It’s already here.”

A couple walking hand in hand along the beach captures my attention.

“Gage?” I scramble up to my feet and Logan follows. Chloe is gazing into him and they share a secret smile. “What the hell?” I run over.

“Skyla!” Gage races towards me and spins me in his arms, presses a kiss upon my forehead, my nose, my lips. He whips off his jacket and pulls it around me still warm from his body before looking up at Logan. “Hey, man, is it really you?” He pulls Logan into a half hug, ruffles his wet hair.

“It’s me.” Logan nods over towards Chloe who’s already halfway back to the resort. “What’s going on?”

To put it mildly that’s exactly what the hell I’d like to know.

He takes a deep breath. “She was thanking me. I knew you were fine, Skyla. I saw Dudley take off toward the water and disappear like a bat in flight. Besides, I don’t want to rock the boat with her, she knows Mia’s in the mirror.”

This catches me off guard.

Did I tell Gage, Mia was in the mirror?

“I was wondering,” I pause trying to take in this entire crazy night. “Why do you think Chloe had a binding spirit around the night of the accident if she wasn’t the one driving the car?” I search Gage like he might have the answer, hoping he does because I’m going to abandon my sanity if I meditate on the subject any longer. “It was Holden, by the way,” I tell Logan, bringing him up to speed.

Gage squints out into the black of the ocean as a thin coat of fog puffs between us.

“Maybe you didn’t go back far enough,” he suggests.

“OK then,” I lay my hand out, Gage covers mine, and Logan his. I close my eyes and think of that terrible night last winter that erected itself like a blade through the heart of our existence, and the world washes blank around us.

***

We appear behind the bowling alley as a light rain begins to pelt us. The three of us stand locked in an argument off in the distance. I can hear the rage in my voice—feel the tension between the three of us, distrustful as a pack of thieves.

The Mustang is still parked back where I left it. Chloe emerges from the service door clutching at her chest, choking back tears.

“She’s dying at the thought of losing Gage,” I say. “We had just showed her the movie where she slaughtered Ethan and Emerson.” I sneak a quick look to Logan.

“It’s no surprise she chose the same mode of torment to take you down,” Gage says, pulling me in and offering a warm kiss.
I love you, Skyla. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. You know that?

Seems like an odd time for Gage to be professing his love to me. I give a short-lived smile.

“I know,” I whisper.

“Look,” Logan points over to Chloe.

She bats at the air, yelling at someone or something to get away.

“I bet that’s Holden,” I whisper.

She looks over at the three of us arguing under the evergreen and seethes.

“The keys are in the car,” Chloe nods as if she could see him. “I want him gone. If he wants me out of his life so badly I’ll gladly show him the way.”

“She was after
me
,” Gage breathes in disbelief.

“Chloe wanted you dead.” I shake my head at the impossibility of it all. She’d want the entire human race wiped off the map soon thereafter, once she realized the egregious error she’s committed. Life would be impossible without Gage. I especially know that.

“She didn’t want him necessarily dead,” Logan says it sober. “She wanted Holden to take over, and I’m willing to bet she’d spend the rest of her life with him.”

The Mustang rolls forward, the lights flick on and off like a warning.

“Let’s get out here,” Logan takes up both our hands.

“Let’s,” I say.

And we do.

***

I retrieve my phone from the sand and put in a text to Melissa.
Did you find Mia? ~S

Less than a minute later.
She got pissed and locked herself in Mom and Dad’s room. She was bawling then it got quiet. I busted through the door and she’s just gone. Everything was shut, the doors, the windows. I don’t know where she could have disappeared to. I’m scared.
 

I know exactly where she might have disappeared to.

And so does Chloe.