Vex (38 page)

“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 it 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.

We wait for Logan after fourth outside his classroom, and Gage pulls him by the elbow into an alcove to have a talk with him. He’s good and pissed at Logan for not even offering to get us out of this nightmare. So, it’s only natural when Logan struts out of the conversation as though it were irrelevant, that Gage starts to pummel him against the lockers—igniting the halls with the percussion sound he creates with Logan’s body.

The corridor fills in. People drain from other buildings to witness the carnage, and about a thousand cell phones record the event.

Marshall stomps into the hall, barking at them to cease and desist. He’s so archaic. Do people even say cease and desist anymore? He lunges forward as though he’s going to intercede before squinting into the parties at play.

Gage thrashes Logan over and over, then Logan returns the favor, and the beat goes on, uninterrupted by the so-called authority figure among us.

“Stop them!” I scream at Marshall.

I was hoping for a little bloodletting
.
Barbaric as it might be, this is all rather neat and clean. First world fistfights seem to lack the uncouth vulgarity they pretend to hunger.    

Another teacher, a
real
one, steps into the hall, and Marshall intervenes as if he were doing so all along.

“Nice save,” of your own ass, I want to add.

Gage comes over, patting an already fat lip and kisses me above the ear.

“I gotta go. I’ll pick you up for your driver’s test.”

“Thank you,” I mouth the words as he takes off down the hall.

Logan takes off towards the administrative building in the other direction.

And then there were none
, Marshall gloats at the impotent victory.
Come
, he motions for me to follow him into his classroom.

The air inside is warm and congested. I look over at my seat and the one behind it, the one Gage used to fill pre-Chloe. Now, it seems impossible to even remember those bliss-filled days.

“I was having a conversation with one of my cohorts,” Marshall starts. “Do you wish to know what it was regarding?” A fresh rage brews beneath the surface.

“I don’t think so,” I stammer the words.

“I was discussing the matter of your punishment regarding that blade you stuck in my side. Nearly cut out a kidney—imagine my reaction when my suspicions were confirmed, that you were not the perpetrator after all.”

I open my mouth stupefied, and not a word comes out. Not that I could say anything to rectify this situation. Besides, if I do incriminate myself, my vocal cords will probably be in one of Ezrina’s pickle jars by morning.

 “This limited world view,” he twirls his hand near his temple, “is the partial price I pay for being here. I’m doing this all for you. Do you realize this?”

“I never asked.”

“Which Oliver is mine for the taking? Name him, or I eliminate the possibility of error and choose them both.”

“Logan,” it speeds out of me. A hot searing stone plunges deep in my intestines. It twists my bowels into knots until it feels as though I might explode, splatter across the classroom.

I did it. I pulled the pin on the grenade that is Marshall and left Logan standing at ground zero.

“Well, then,” he looks up forcefully from his lashes, “you’ve spared the one your heart desires. I’ll paw at the pretty one, like a lion with a mouse, before I stagger him with a harsh blow. Enjoy the show, Love. This one’s for you.”

I turn to leave the room. I’m so frightened for Logan, a part of me wants to find him and warn him.

“Oh, and, Skyla?”

“Yes?”

“Good luck on your driver’s test.”

***

After school Gage takes me to the DMV. He lets me use his truck while he sits inside reading roadmaps for the next hour straight.

It probably would have been a good idea to actually drive the truck, any truck, to familiarize myself with its foreign mechanisms before getting behind the wheel on this, the most sacred driving event of my vehicular history, but I didn’t. So, when the hour is over and I return the pasty-faced gentlemen, who looks unmoved by the fact I’ve just fishtailed, and jackknifed, and flipped an illegal u-turn on a two lane highway that blocked traffic in both directions for miles in the pouring rain—the fact he says those two magic words,
you pass
, astounds me.

“You passed!” Gage picks me up and spins me once I tell him the good news. “We need to celebrate. Dinner?”

I nod, numb from shock. “My house though, I need to feed the masses.” Mom texted during the test to let me know she wouldn’t be back tonight. The preceptor didn’t look too kindly on me when I tried to text back in the middle of a lane change.

“I was worried there for a second,” Gage pulls me in by the waist. “I couldn’t remember if you ever drove my truck, and with this downpour, I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to see the road. It’s a miracle.”

“Yeah, a real miracle.”

Marshall’s not so angelic face pops in my mind. I have a feeling I know just who to thank.

***

   Holden bitches and moans about the pizza I brought home for dinner while pawing two girls from East that I’ve never seen before.

“You know what sucks?” Brielle announces with a mouth full of food while sitting on Drake’s lap. “I get to taste this crap twice when I puke it up later.”

“Sick!” Melissa throws down her slice. “I’m not hungry.”

“Me neither,” Mia chimes in. “Maybe we should go out later to that build your own ice cream place?” She leans into me as though it were the best idea in the world.

“I thought you just said you weren’t hungry?”

“You don’t need to be hungry for ice cream,” Melissa comes to her defense. “Besides, the storm is letting up. We should totally celebrate your newfound freedom.”

“I don’t have a car.”

They both gag on the reality they’re not going anywhere tonight and head upstairs.

Holden whispers something to the groupies swooning at his side, and they take off down the hall. I can hear the door to his room open and shut.

“Why are your skanks making themselves at home?” I shoot him a look.

“Because I’ve got somewhere to go, Sis. And guess who’s going to take me?”

***

Surprisingly, I don’t have to beg and promise Gage that I won’t lose him. Instead, he comes willingly with Holden and me on our light drive.

Holden lands us at East again, springtime.

I take Gage, and we head into the parking lot to find my next favorite stoner.

She cuts a dirty look as we head in her direction. Emerson is ready to electrocute anyone with all that hatred she stifles in those big beautiful eyes.

“Back so fast?” Emerson holds her hand up over her eyes to block out the sun.

“I can’t get your stuff,” I say. “I got caught for possession, and now I have to go to court.”

“Yeah, right,” her hair tousles over her shoulders, stiff as thick black wires.

Gage leans in and looks into her with great sadness.

“You don’t know me,” his voice is low, deep in his chest. “My girlfriend is in trouble. She really needs your help. If you give her the information she’s looking for, I can give you a pass to the bowling alley—bowl free for a year.” He pulls something out of his wallet and hands it to her.

“Cool.” She examines it, but doesn’t take it. “Meet me at the bowling alley at five. We’ll test it out together. If it works, you get your info.”

The bell rings, and she gets up and dusts off the back of her jeans.

“I guess I’ll see you there,” she starts to walk away.

“Hey, what’s the date?” Gage shouts after her.

“You people and dates—it’s the sixteenth of April.” She bounces into her stride. “Get a calendar.”

“You’re a genius,” I marvel at his handiwork. “We’ll meet her at the bowling alley.”

“She won’t be there,” he says, watching as she shrinks in the distance.

“Why not?”

“She’ll be dead.”

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Toxic

Gage and I sit on the outer fringes of East Paragon High until the school day lets out, then follow Emerson down the street to the coffee shop that her parents own.

“That’s where they found her,” Gage whispers as we duck behind the building.

A barrage of black clouds float in, insult the unblemished sky with their presence.

“Shit,” Gage hisses, pulling me back into the juniper bushes.
It’s Chloe
.

I twist to get a better view from the foliage. She stands by the dumpster, wrapping something in a plastic shopping bag before hurling it inside. She kneels to the ground and spreads her palms in the dirt, washes her hands in Paragon’s soil as though it had the power to cleanse.

What the hell?
Gage tries to decode her bizarre ritual.

She disappears around the other side of the building leaving nothing but a set of psychotic fingerprints in her wake.

We give it a good few minutes before Gage pulls an all out dumpster dive and retrieves the plastic bag.

“What is it?” I ask as we hightail it back to the bushes. I hope it’s nothing stupid like a banana peel or a receipt from her latest latte. But, then again, neither of those require a bag, nor would they inspire you to take a dirt bath after disposing of them.

“Gopher poison,” he turns the package around, “only one ingredient—strychnine.”

“Emerson didn’t die of a botched transfusion,” I hold my breath at the thought, “Chloe killed her.”  

“Chloe’s days of threatening you are numbered.” Gage presses out a hopeful smile and pulls me into a kiss. “We’ve got her. We just need to figure out a way to prove it.”

He leads me down a back stairwell over to a dusty window that peers into the basement. A towel and a hypodermic needle sit on a small table inside while bodies mill around towards the back.

“Let’s go,” Holden slams through the metal door to our left. “Right now! Come on.”

He’s hopped up on his latest infusion—feeling like the king of the world.

I look over at Gage, “Do you think?”

“Hope not.”

***

It’s safe to say that when Holden sends the girls from East packing in multiples, the fact that he’s not feeling well is an understatement. The prospect of him ingesting Chloe’s toxic blood seems highly probable.  

“He’ll go into renal failure, his liver is probably doing flip-flops, he’ll vomit blood in an hour,” I say to Gage. The Internet is a great place to do all your one-stop horror shopping on the realities of just about anything.

Gage clears my history in the event Tad decides to have my computer confiscated once he declares the house a crime scene.

“Crap,” I can’t even gloat over the fact I’ve finally got dirt on Chloe because Holden is in his room offing Ethan Landon for a second time.