Expel
Authors: Addison Moore
expel
Celestra Series Book 6
Addison Moore
http://addisonmoorewrites.blogspot.com/
Other books by Addison Moore
Ethereal (Celestra Series Book 1)
Tremble (Celestra Series Book 2)
Burn (Celestra Series Book 3)
Wicked (Celestra Series Book 4)
Vex (Celestra Series Book 5)
Copyright
©
2012 by Addison Moore
This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.
Table of Contents
Chapter 13—Put Your Hands on Me
Chapter 14—The Marriage Mirage
Chapter 18—Right Here, Right Now
Chapter 32—The Heart of the Matter
Chapter 38—Dance of the Butterfly
Chapter 39—The Good Girlfriend
Chapter 40—Dinner with the Enemy
Chapter 43—I Ain’t Missing You at All
Chapter 51—Get It on Like That
Chapter 57—Like A Lover’s Voice
Chapter 59—Trip the Lights Fantastic
Chapter 64—Treasures and Trinkets
Chapter 67—It’s Raining Caskets
Chapter 73—Torment in the Transfer
Chapter 80—Dress You Up in My Love
Chapter 84—Confusion is Nothing New
Preface
Suffering is the nature of this world. It is the golden standard by which all things are measured. It is not happiness that sets the bar, but agony. Even happiness cannot be fully recognized without the right measure of misery to contrast its borders. Suffering magnifies hunger—exhaustion—prods you to move when prosperity is just a dream out of reach. It is the mortal twin of eternal hope. How you respond to its touch molds you, shapes your future as it rains down oppression like fire over your shoulders.
Deception. It laid over my world like a bruise, covered it so completely I bought the lie that the shadow offered and found comfort nestled in its thorny arms. I walked the trail it dusted with breadcrumbs, walked into the slip noose it had skillfully wove and dove off the cliff without realizing—willingly, with vigor.
Heartbreak. There is no bigger void, no darker shade of soot—no ache more
unstoppable than that of a broken heart.
A heart in pieces can very much kill you—without love’s healing touch, you will
surely die.
They say time heals all wounds.
They lied.
Chapter 1
Death Throes
Rain falls like tears from heaven over the dirt lot behind the bowling alley.
Logan lies to my right with his eyes wide open, gaping up at the sky pouring down its wrath like it didn’t even matter—Gage to my left with a blood-soaked shirt, same dead stare, no affect, no response. I crawl up on my knees and pull both their hands into my chest. I can’t lose Logan and Gage—it’s unimaginable—unacceptable. I look back down at the pink wash on my arms. Blood—my Celestra blood.
“Oh, God.” I pat the ground for an errant piece of glass. Without hesitating I pick up a shard, give one clean slice clear up to my elbow and run the crimson seam along Gage’s perfect lips. Before I can offer my lifeblood to Logan a voice calls from the outline of darkness, just shy of the forest.
“Skyla!”
I look back and see a familiar frame, the glint of blonde hair. It’s Logan.
“Help me,” I plead.
He speeds over and falls on his knees beside me.
“Skyla, you have to come with me,” there’s an urgency in Logan’s voice I haven’t heard before. He’s wearing the same clothes from tonight. This is where he came while I was at the dance. He knew.
A series of screams erupt as the bowling alley begins to drain. Cries of,
oh my God
and
call 911
fill the field.
Logan yanks me up. I falter on my feet as he pulls me into the forest.
“Let go!” I try to head back, but he cages me in with his arms. “
Nev!
” I cry out for Nevermore.
“You have to trust me, Skyla. Everything depends on this moment.”
“I can’t leave! You’re both dying.”
“Death does come,” Logan anchors me with a dark expression. “You’ll be signing both our death certificates if you don’t come now—you might be anyway.”
“Just do it!” A female voice bleats out from behind. I catch a glimpse of her—it’s like looking in a mirror—it’s me.
“I have to help him. He’s going to die.” I look back at Gage lying in the mud—blood pooling around his body, glossy as tar.
“He does die,” she shouts.
The ground trembles. An army of overgrown wolves with tails as long as leashes race into the dirt lot at bionic speeds. Green eyes that glow like lanterns light up the field. They awaken the forest with their menacing growls.
A series of unearthly screams erupt as the crowd from the bowling alley disperses.
“What’s happening?” I trip over a branch, backing away from the scene. “Nev!” I cry out for Nevermore again, but he doesn’t come.
Sirens cut through in the distance.
“We need to go.” Logan hooks me in tight by the waist. “We need to leave right now.” He grabs a hold of the girl behind him.
“We can’t change anything in the past,” I roar the words into his face, struggling to break free.
“Skyla,” Logan pulls his lips along my neck—lines a fire of passion with his hot breath up to my ear, “we’re not going to the past.”
I look over at the carnage as a group of wild beasts circle the two of them. A growling lone wolf pounces onto Gage, causing blood to spurt out of his mouth three feet high.
“
Gage
,” I scream, as the world begins to fade.
“Gage is staring death in the face, Skyla,” Logan whispers. “And in a moment—you will, too.”
***
There is no greater hope than that of life and life unstoppable. It is death, in all of its inordinate timing that afflicts our world, turns it into a ticking bomb ready to rock our existence whenever it feels the need. It shatters through me. All of my bones reduce to broken shards, cut me from the inside as we sail through the watery depths of time.
I have never moved forward, never seen what the twisted hands of fate have waiting for me outside the visions Marshall has imparted, the few I’ve had of my own, vague as they were. This is a venue I’ve yet to experience. Although my pedigree allows for such maneuvers, it would be impossible for me to partake without the supervising spirit Logan procured. His wanderlust, his self-proclaimed ideology of our love projected him into the future to do God knows what. Whatever it is, whatever waits for me on the other side of this curtain of darkness, I’m not sure I’m ready to see it, face it, accept it as gospel.
When traveling to the past you can rest assured you will always find a concrete truth, some stamp of reality that you can depend on, recognize. But it’s the comfort of knowing our lives have long since moved on that you can wrap around, secure as a blanket. You may not like where you’ve landed, but you have the assurance you’ve made it past the event because that juncture in time has already seen and dismissed you. Even if the residue of your actions color your present, you need not fear where you’ve already been.
We race through a tunnel of darkness. Strong oppressive winds howl over us. A pinhole of light emerges in the distance as we speed towards its illumination, pulling us into its safe haven like gliding along a polished stone.
“Skyla,” Logan breathes directly into my ear, wraps his arms around me like a very tight coil. “I love you.”
I nod into him. Touch my palm to his beautiful face and try to break a smile, fighting tears that want to destroy the moment.
I don’t know why I came, what good I could possibly do, while both he and Gage lie in the mud back at the bowling alley, exasperating themselves as they cling to life. That’s where I need to be. Coming here was a misstep, the highest form of neglect, and now there is no undoing it.
“I need to get back,” I lament.
He shakes his head, presses out a smile that blooms from grief.
“Tell her what to do!” The old me rattles Logan by the shirt in a panic.
“She’ll know,” Logan doesn’t take his eyes off me.
His features soften, nothing but his love for me radiating from within. He touches the side of my face soft as feathers, brushes back my hair as the light expands around us, bright as sunshine, if you were standing on the surface of that great and resolute star.
His smile grows, his eyes tell me he’s always loved me, always will. He leans in and grazes his lips over mine. Logan is alive under the guise of our love. It pulsates through his veins buoyant and hopeful.
He delivers a kiss that spans the markers of time, sends a pleasure filled quiver through me that annunciates the fact my feelings for him live, that my affection for him trembles inside me like a coward, afraid to own it, touch it, feel it.
A light so terribly brilliant envelops the three of us, dissolves us in its silent blaze. My eyes begin to adjust to the surroundings as I squint my way into this new reality. There’s something vaguely familiar about the bleached floors, the glossy white walls, the patina of blue that drapes the vicinity.
“Skyla,” Logan’s voice is forced, tunnel-like with the distinct tail end of an echo.
I turn to find him ashen, vaporizing.
“Logan!” I snatch at his arms, swat at his person—swipe right through him as though he were less than air. “What’s happening?”
“Skyla,” he points up behind me. “I love you.” His voice trails in a whisper—his body evaporates into an anemic blue fog.
“Logan?” I spin around in a panic.
A wall of glass tubes fills the expanse—bodies suspended in a sterile blue liquid stretch out for miles. I recognize this place fully—the Transfer.
“Where are we?” The old me asks, her voice giving away the fact she’s visibly shaken.
I don’t answer—don’t move, forget to exhale. I just stare up at the all too familiar face of a beautiful boy floating in his deathly slumber.
It’s my sweet friend, my love—Logan.