Vex (45 page)

Honestly, I was fully expecting someone like Lexy, or Michelle, or Chloe, but not this thing of horror staring back at me.

“Oh, my God,” I say, extinguishing a breath.

I let out a scream that gurgles out of my lungs until it feels as though my head is about to explode.    

Chapter Seventy-Seven

The Time Traveler’s Girlfriend

I find Logan and Gage locked in a heated argument in the dirt lot next to the bowling alley. The fog wraps itself around me heavy as a coat—the thick mist frosts my hair like beads of crystal stars.

“First,” I push a hand into Logan’s chest, “thank you for taking care of Chloe, but what the hell is going on?”

“You’re welcome, and what are you talking about?” He doesn’t bother to hide the fact he’s mildly irritated.

“Drake has a picture of you and me in a serious lip-lock—at the dance.” I make sure to include the ‘at the dance’ part. I just want to strangle both Drake and Marshall. Drake for taking the picture and Marshall for arranging the Fem. “It wasn’t me,” I insist, “it was a Fem. She time traveled with Ellis and Gage. She wasn’t even wearing the same dress! It was a bad knock-off.” I’m sure the dress Marshall gave me was special issue like the rest of his things.

“That’s exactly what we’re talking about,” Gage steps in closer, totally rattled and looking for a fight. “He’s got ulterior motives. He just wants you back. Don’t trust him.”

“You can trust me, Skyla,” Logan is quick to refute.

A low growl emits from deep in the forest.

Shit. Logan probably blabbed all about Devil’s Peak to get back at Gage for stealing me, which he totally didn’t. Gage and I have destiny written all over us, a thousand prophetic visions say so. Maybe Logan wants all the credit of unraveling my relationship with Gage—that’s the real reason he got rid of Chloe.

“Skyla,” Gage looks into me with those watery blue eyes, and my mind revisits that heated scene at Devil’s Peak with Logan. I just want to run, throw my hands up over my head in shame and scream that I’ll never be good enough.
“It
was
you in that picture,” he presses out the words in a whisper.

“No,” I shake my head. “It wasn’t.” This is like some bad nightmare. “I promise, I was looking for you the entire time at the dance. It was a freaking Fem.” I turn to Logan, “Marshall used a Fem that day he snatched me out of class, the day of Chloe’s inquisition as to what a Sector was—remember? And tonight he used the same Fem to drag Gage off to the Transfer. He’s got you both fooled.”

“Not this time,” Gage places his hands over my shoulders, “Logan has been running around with you all night. Not this you, the you from your past—while your father was still alive, and you lived in L.A.”

“I didn’t know how to time travel then,” I shake my head, confused, “and I have no memory of that happening. I don’t remember Logan.” I look over at his face, lit up like gold from the lamp up above. I would have memorized his features, gone over them in detail until I could draw him blindfolded, in the dark, with the expert ease of a sketch artist.

“I’m sorry,” Logan picks up my hand and cradles it. “I swear, I never would have done it if there weren’t important things I needed to do. That’s how I nailed Chloe.”

I snatch my hand back and lean into Gage.

“Is that how you’ve been getting into the future? How you’ve been time traveling all along? With
me
?” I shake my head. Logan, who was once afraid to light drive, now cruises the inventory of time as though he were God, probably playing the part while he’s at it. Just the thought of him running around like that, makes me dizzy with discomfort. “It’s not possible.”

“It is,” Gage wraps an arm around my waist and stares at me intently. “He’s—”

“He’s not a Celestra anymore.” I cut him off in disbelief before blinking into Logan. “But, you found a way.”

A pair of headlights pull into the dirt lot and beam over us, inserting far too much reality into the situation.

“I enter through your dreams, Skyla,” Logan relaxes as though he could breathe now that his secret is out. “You come willingly. You think you’re sleeping, and, as it turns out, you have a propensity to forget your dreams.”

“Logan,” I breathe his name, astonished.

An engine revs up four times as though it were readying itself for a drag race. We look over to the light flooding in our direction. The high beams kick on and off like a warning before it races forward at top speed.

Logan pushes me out of the way just as the metal grill wafts against my clothes, but both he and Gage freeze. They stare right into the vehicle. The headlights wash them white as statues. Both Logan and Gage try to jump the hood, landing themselves in the windshield. A shower of glass explodes as they eject back onto the ground. The car comes back and slams Logan in the side of the head as he slides beneath the fender, pins Gage against the trunk of an evergreen, throws itself in reverse, and does it again and again with unnatural acceleration—demonic speeds.

I begin in on a continual scream, so primal, so alive—it saws through my lungs, transcends acres, time, and space. Its sad song carries for miles.

The car halts to a stop, and the engine idles. A light rain begins to fall.

I look up to see the driver noticeably missing, the frame and color of the vehicle startlingly familiar. It’s the Mustang—it’s my car.

I run over, drop to my knees and stare horrified at their crumpled bodies as a mass of dark gloss pools around Gage.

“No!” A dull ache expresses itself in the form of a guttural moan.

I press my hands in his blood as I lay close to his face.

“Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.” The words speed out of me until they’re indistinguishable from one another, altogether inaudible. His blood grows cold so fast outside of his body. I want to siphon it all somehow, put it back in. I place my lips next to his, my cheek on the dirt, in the soft velvet from his marrow. I roll my lips into it, taste the salty brine, kiss him with the residue. The rain washes us anew as I linger on his lips.

A series of growls captures my attention. I spike up and find four rabid wolves barring their fangs in my direction. Reflexively I pick up a stick. The smaller wolf with blazing eyes knocks me back by the shoulders. It doesn’t take much to wield all of my strength and propel him deep into the forest with one voracious push. I jump up and give a power kick to the one grazing at Gage’s neck. Something pulls me to the ground from behind, landing me hard on my side. I look up to see one of the creatures airborne, flying in my direction with his knife-sharp teeth ready for the kill—and with great mercy, the world fades to nothing.

***

I rouse to a cool breeze, an echo of crickets off in the distance. I’m no longer in the dirt lot behind the bowling alley—I’m alone—not a soul around. It’s dark. A night sky with a lavender glow ripples overhead. It vibrates like a living thing, not some nebulous distance that fills the volume between heaven and earth as a span of arid gases that soak up dreams and wishes.

It’s the ethereal plane—region one—the faction war.

God, my mother has lousy timing.

The disc!

I dig into my jeans and pull out the round piece of iron. If I hadn’t changed, if I were still wearing that dress, I’d be stuck here.

Marshall’s words come back to haunt me. One flick of the disc forfeits the entire region to the enemy.

I toss the coin boldly into the air, watch as it thumps to the ground with finality.

I’ll gladly let the Counts win round one—hell, I’d let them win every round just to get back to Gage and Logan’s side.

The sky ignites with a brilliant flash. The earth shakes—the surroundings shift. I struggle to focus as if waking from an unsettling dream.

***

The wolf knocks me back into the mud, its fangs already locked onto my neck. Rain spears down with fury as I appear back in the dirt lot—back on Paragon, without missing a beat.

I twist and snatch it by its mane, give a massive yank that plucks the beast off my body. It claws into my arms, leaving beads of blooming scarlet before it scampers off into the woods.

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 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.”

Look for, EXPEL book 6 in the Celestra Series, COMING SOON!

***

The following is a preview of Addison Moore’s new series, EPHEMERAL book 1 of The Countenance, coming 2012.

Ephemeral

The Countenance Book 1

by Addison Moore

http://addisonmoorewrites.blogspot.com/

Copyright
©
2011 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.

Chapter One

In Memory of Me

In the grand scheme of things, you’ll be dead for a lot longer than you’ll ever be alive.

I marinade in that truth, baste in the beauty of its wisdom while peering out at the dull emerald world. I fumble through dense woods with roots that race throughout the forest floor like wild petrified snakes. Wisps of lamp-lit fog twist around the narrow trails as the thick branches of gnarled oaks coil around the evergreens.

Something stirs from behind, disrupts the silence with the heavy crush of leaves. I jump, startled as though I were just waking up from a very bad dream, my chest thumps in rhythm to the pounding in my head.

“Hello?” I call out.

I try to remember how I got here. The last solid memory I have is driving to my boyfriend Tucker’s house to rip him a new one for sleeping with Megan Bartlett, a girl I know from volleyball. I was distracted with rage, the light turned green, and I never saw the other car coming. Then the crash—I remember kissing the windshield as I bristled through it at a horrific velocity.

A groan emits from the branches, more rattling.

My feet crush over a bed of dried maple leaves, filling in the haunting void of silence.

A hard thud lands square behind me, and I turn slow on my heels.

It would have been understandable to see a deer, a bear, or even another human being. But this...

A whimper gets caught in my throat, drowns out the idea of a scream.

It’s a man—a thing, his grey skin decomposed beyond recognition exposing dried muscle and bone, one eye missing, teeth all but gone. It staggers forward, slashing the air with its violent swings.

I trip over an errant branch, landing hard on my back. It comes at me, falls on its knees beside me with its putrid stench. Gnarled fingers tear my sweater, easy as shredding paper.

I let out a gurgled cry, twist and claw, scampering to my feet.