Toxic Part One (Celestra Series Book 7) (25 page)

Mom wrangles her way to the front and steps directly in Tad’s line of vision. She’s shouting something and pointing at the stack of hotdogs getting cold in front of him.

Tad breaks free from his voluptuous trance and grabs a fist full of wieners and crams them in his mouth all at once. It’s shocking how disturbingly phallic it all looks, and just as I’m about to force myself to turn away, the buzzer goes off.

“Good show.” Marshall starts in on a dull applause.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Isis was a set up to throw Tad off.”

“She is,” Marshall whispers directly in my ear. “Believe me, dear Skyla, she is.”

Chapter 35

Nothing Lasts Forever

I was right about the puke bucket.

Turns out Ethan and Drake were capable of synchronizing their projectile vomiting, which inspired Tad to gag along and eventually join in on the fun.

Mom mentioned something about giving Mia and Melissa a ride home after the fireworks as she was leaving with the barf brigade. Personally, I think she was just trying to keep Isis from comforting Tad with her thirty-six triple E’s. Mom practically needed a whip to keep her off him once he jumped off stage. It was like he was a rock star, what with all the pawing, and the way Isis pressed his face into her décolleté as a congratulatory embrace was obscene to witness. Had my mother not staged an intervention, he might have happily puked right there on her person.

The band starts up again, and people move to the sand and start dancing against the growing expanse of a deep purple night. A blanket of diamond-encrusted stars cover the heavenly vault in a display of magical delight I’ve never witnessed before. They wink down like lasers switching on and off, and I marvel at the jewel-tone sky. 

“Shall we?” Marshall pulls me in deep into the crowd of jostling bodies—half of them being the student body, which clearly indicates, that he, as faculty, knows no shame. I like that about Marshall, not caring what anyone else might think. He controls the situation, not the other way around.

Brielle springs up beside me, and the three of us dance in a circle with Brielle mostly bopping to herself and Marshall testing out every dirty dancing maneuver known the world over and then treating the crowd to a few that I’m pretty sure are neither legal nor possible.

Marshall glides his hands over my thighs like a lover—dips in with mock passionate kisses over my neck that leaves my entire body craving the real thing. Something in me surges, and I grab a hold of his waist and sway with the rhythm until I’m panting with thirst for him. There’s something about Marshall, about his hyper-vigilant desire, his indescribable zest for life that is unstoppably attractive. It’s happening—that wooing effect he has on me from time to time that magnifies to an all-out volcanic level explosion—it surges me in, slow and bubbling, waiting to spew out all over the island.

The music stops abruptly, and it takes a few moments for our bodies to cease all movement. Really, I want nothing more than to run my tongue over the hills and valleys of Marshall’s flesh and let him do the same to me. I could easily fall into a puddle at Marshall’s feet and continue where we left off—horizontally.

Gage appears, his eyes lit up like sapphire beacons. “Great band,” he says it flat with a marked pissed expression at the graphic display Marshall entertained him with. “Too bad they’re having some serious technical difficulties.” Gage reels me in by the hand, and I twirl into him. I can feel the power surge break from Marshall like a light switch going off.

Before I can refute Gage and his actions, the expression bleeds off Marshall’s face.

“What have you done?” Marshall whispers, looking past my shoulder into the forest as if he’s just been clued in on some huge misgiving I’m involved in.

“I haven’t done anything.” I turn to face Gage. His serene expression, those dimples that I desperately want to dive into call to me because I know for a fact I have done something, and it happens to involve temporarily misplacing Logan.

“I will see you in the morning.” Marshall’s tone is sharp as the tip of a blade. He stalks off toward the forest, not bothering to hide his irritation.
Be warned, we have visitors.

I take in a sharp breath as I scan the black canvas draping over the evergreens.

“What’s the matter?” Gage breathes the words over my cheek like a warm L.A. breeze.

“Nothing in particular.” Everything to be exact.

A thunderous pop goes off, and a flare of light ascends into the atmosphere exploding into a luminescent bloom before sparkling like a Christmas tree on fire.

A crowd migrates toward the shore as the firework display ignites over the ocean.

“I know a place with a great view.” His face lights up blue then purple, then a violet shock of white that bleaches him, pale as paper.

“Sounds like some cheesy pick up line,” I say.

“Is it working?” His right dimple digs in deep. It’s obvious his left one isn’t sold on the idea.

“A little,” I say, lowering my defenses. It’s not my fault I’m caving. The heady scent of marshmallows roasting is making me delirious. Not all of us stuffed our faces with the remnants from a meat grinder. Not to mention the fact the display of light rocketing off overhead has me wishing I had a pair of strong arms to wrap around me—familiar arms that used to make me feel as though there were nothing in the world that could ever harm me.

A pink orb appears from a whisper. It holds itself in the sky for five solid seconds before a series of white shooting stars propel from its nexus. It’s so achingly beautiful, and then it evaporates to dust—phosphorescent ashes that rain into the ocean, forever forgotten like Gage and his love for me.

“So where we going?” I dust his face with a look of inquisition. I’ve given an inch, and now I’m curious as to what it’ll cost me.

“Are we going somewhere?” A twinge of hope sparks in him.

“You said you wanted to talk to me. I’m guessing in private.”

His brows dive bomb into a V. “You trust me?” He’s pleading with those desperate eyes.

“You’ve already fed me to the Counts. How much worse can it get?”

“I promise you have nothing to fear with me, Skyla.” The illusion of genuine love pours from him as he melts me with a penetrative stare.

A writhing ache churns in my belly. It’s as though Gage has so perfectly tricked my body into wanting him, desiring him on a cellular level. It’s impossible to simply let him go.

He takes me by the hand with caution as if my fingers had the capability to ignite into flames and singe him if the situation warranted. How I wish I could hurt him so easily, although it’s the emotional damage he’s done to me that scalds me from the inside. I could never replicate that kind of misery and graft it over his heart. I thought I did with the DVD but those were misrepresentations of who we were—my mistakes that I deeply regret. And the idea of him in bed with Chloe, probably both figuratively and literally, was an all-out deceit birthed before I ever got here. 

Gage moves us past the crowd, away from where the band is still trying to piece together the mystery of the severed power line. I think I know the origin of their misery—it was the same one that produced mine, and now I was letting him take me places.

We move deeper into the night. A familiar-looking coral tree emerges in my line of vision.

There it is, our love shack, the one he built with his own hands from palm fronds, secured with twine and his false affection, so it wouldn’t blow away like we did.

It stands all of less than five feet with the soft weathered tendrils from the palms waving friendly in the breeze.

“I miss this,” I whisper. I didn’t mean to say it out loud. A part of me wonders if my body is working against me—letting him hold my hand, following him—what’s next? Mind-numbing kisses? 

God, I hope so.

Gage picks up my other hand and holds them both in the air before kissing them in tandem. He pulls us down to our knees and relaxes his warm chest against mine, his fingers reacquainting themselves with my back.

“I’m going to tell you everything,” he whispers.

The sky blackens unnaturally. The fireworks fade to grey as a shiver runs through me. A glacial frost I hadn’t felt before penetrates through to my bones.

“Something’s happening.” My voice replicates itself indefinitely.

The Tenebrous Woods appear in snatches—gnarled branches—navy sky.

One reality is fading and another is about to take over.

Paragon folds in on itself in a violent clap.

I fall through a chute of enveloping darkness so strong I breathe it, taste it—swallow it all the way down to Demetri’s dark twisted tunnels.

Chapter 36

Crash into You

A dark solace, a free fall into a sinister world overcomes me. The glowing embers smolder in this tubular descent. The heavy scent of smoke and ashes burns through my nostrils. 

I can feel the wind licking my skin, my limbs bend the way gravity demands, but the girth of my body, the weight of my flesh feels alarmingly unfamiliar.

I try opening my mouth but seem to have lost all control.
Logan?

I’m right here
, he whispers.
You’re in me now
.

Oh God
. I watch as the walls ignite like a firebrand. The smell of a furnace intensifies as the ground comes upon us.

Logan lands hard on his side and we let out a solid groan in tandem.

Are you OK?
I look down to survey the damage. We’ve landed in the hallway, the same black-and-white checked pattern on the floor—same creepy flocked wallpaper that lines the Transfer, hugs these walls.

Logan’s wrist is unnaturally bent. He sits up and nurses it for a few seconds.

You feel that?
He lets out a soft moan.

I feel something. It’s not too bad though, no pain.

Good. I’m glad there’s no pain,
he says, rising.

A terrible sound comes from the left, and I’m startled to find my body lying on the ground with my blond mane tangled in a huge ball around my face.

“Skyla!” Logan tries to rouse her.
Sorry—can’t call her Ezrina down here. I just want to make sure your body is still intact.

The thought occurs to me that I might get trapped inside Logan forever, and perhaps that vision of me walking down the aisle toward him was really his wedding to Ezrina.

“Survived.” Ezrina gets up and dusts herself off, still wearing my bathing suit top and shorts from Rockaway. A layer of dark sand covers my feet like glittering shoes.

“Excellent.” Ellis’s dad comes upon us with the requisite glowing clipboard in hand. “Your Junior Council, Wesley, is in need of a pick me up.”

“Where’s this Wesley guy from?” Logan asks, trying to maintain a casual air about his curiosity. I’m betting he plans on paying him a visit. Kicking a little Count ass on the side. 

“He’s a traveler.” Morley is quick with the answer as he leads us down a long narrow hall. “Wesley is from two years in the past. That’s how dry the reserves have been. We’ve been incredibly backlogged.”

“So I heard,” Logan nods. “Demetri filled me in on the treble.”

Morley shakes his head. “Let’s hope we don’t find ourselves in a mess like this ever again.” He straightens. “However, it’s picked up lately. Your supplies from the faction war helped significantly.” He winks into Logan.

That’s because you killed those eighty-nine Celestra!
I’m almost giddy over the idea that they’re not really dead, although I suspect they wish they were.

Correction, Holden killed,
Logan interjects.
You think they’re down here?

I know they are. Marshall said so, and Ellis senior just affirmed it. They’re probably resurrecting them like they do their own. Marshall wants me to bring it up at the faction meeting, make myself look like some kind of hero or something. He thinks it’ll give me some street cred, and maybe people will momentarily forget that I keep on losing.

Logan groans at the thought.

“What’s the matter?” Morley pauses just shy of the lacquered double doors.

“Just hurt my hand in the landing.”

“Well,” he says, frowning over at Ezrina, “it’ll be over soon. I’ve put in a request to have her instated as a permanent guest. It’s not right that you’re having to escort her like this.”

What? What kind of request?
I’m more than panicked that this older, not wiser, version of Ellis wants to lock me up and throw away the key.
He so wants my treble revoked.

“I don’t mind coming down here.” Logan gives a bored smile. “Besides, this way I get to keep her around. She puts out, so it’s all good.”

Really, Logan?
I’d roll my eyes, but I’m deficient in those at the moment.

“Can’t say I blame you.” He openly roves over my body. “You should consider procreation since you’re close to pure yourself. Her children would be wonderful donors. Of course, the Family would pay you handsomely for such a sacrifice, and you could visit regularly.”

“I don’t know if I could handle my children hating me like that.” Logan shrugs as if they were discussing gas prices or the brand of oil they use in their cars.

“Oh, they wouldn’t hate you,” he assures, “they would have the luxury tower, as would she. Once a child is born into the tunnels, they know no other way of life. It’s the new model the faction is switching to. It’s much easier on everyone to raise them here right from the beginning.”

“I can see the logic.” Logan nods.

Ezrina turns and looks into Logan’s eyes, but it’s me she’s gazing at—holding me steady with my own steely gaze.

Ingram appears from nowhere and Morley, who, by the way, is rife with bad ideas, heads in the opposite direction.

What a freaking asshole
, I say. I am so going to slash his tires first chance I get. I can totally see why Ellis feels the need to numb himself into oblivion. If Morley were my dad, I’d need more than an ample supply of narcotics to help me make it through the day. And to think I tried to encourage Ellis to quit. I think we should all be thankful Ellis hasn’t taken a swan dive off Devil’s Peak by now.