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  “Yeah, something like that.” His eyes avert. “I’m going to see my parents. I’d love for you to meet them. I’m going to ask about my lineage, and I was thinking it might be a good way for you to get the answers you’re looking for.”

  “I’m not looking for answers, Logan. I already know you have Count blood. And, yes, I realize that Dr. Oliver said you were close to pure but not like me. What does it really matter? You’ve already made it clear you’re going to renounce yourself as a Celestra to glean info out of their playbook. It doesn’t change the fact I can’t trust you, does it?”

  “Why shouldn’t you?” he asks softly as though he were truly puzzled.

  “I don’t appreciate people keeping things from me.”

  “Gage is keeping something from you.”

  “That’s different. It’s not his fault, it’s Chloe’s, and besides, I’m going to get to the bottom of this very quickly. She’s having her I’m-not-dead-after-all party on Saturday, and I have a few methods of extracting information from her.”

  “Whatever you’re planning, please don’t do it.” He’s got that look on his face that suggests everything I put my hands on turns to disaster.

  “I’m going to implement anything and everything to get my boyfriend back.” A spiral of heat spears through my stomach.

  His stony gaze drops to the floor as he considers this.

  “I’ll be there if you need me,” he looks uneasy as though he were struggling with something. “I want to prove my loyalty. Gage said there were five remaining Counts that need retribution for the Celestra that were killed.”

  “Yes. Gage and I are going after them.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “We don’t need you coming with us.” I like the thought of a getaway with Gage—murderous as it might be.

  “Then let me do it alone.”

  “No.” The thought of Logan going rouge freaks me out a little. A Count on a killing spree is never a good thing.

  “Then it looks like we’ll be doing it together,” he says.

  I don’t say anything, just match his determination—observe his strong jaw-line as it flexes with anticipation.

  “Then it looks like we are.”

  ***

  I text Gage as soon I wake up, but too bad for me because I don’t wake up until well after three in the afternoon, and Chloe’s already tightened the leash. I pull a face as I stare down at his text.

  Mall crawl. B over soon as I can shake her.

  I give a huff of a laugh. He wants to shake her. I wonder how Chloe would feel if she knew how much Gage loathed her for this. Doesn’t matter. I plan on beating the crap out of her tomorrow night until she fesses up whatever it is she’s threatening him with, or better yet, until she leaves my boyfriend the hell alone. I should cut out a thousand black butterflies and cram them into her locker with a note that reads her days are numbered— that she doesn’t get another cocoon.

  There’s a light knock at the door, and Mia steps in.

  Her hair’s pulled back, and I notice for the first time that she’s grown a little to where we’re just about the same height. I look over her features in a new light. She wears my father’s face like a mask, and now that I survey her bone structure a little better, her mother is present, too.

  I wanted to ask Dad more about my biological mother, like why she came to earth to begin with. Still so much I want to know, but there’s great comfort in the fact I can go back anytime I want, even if he can never come here. I’m pretty sure he has no clue old mom—Mia’s mom, is a Count.

  “What’s up?” I ask stretching like a cat.

  “I guess growing another person makes you really sleepy.” She circles around my desk and eyes the broken mirror on the vanity. I cut a look over to the window to see if the word body is still visible. A dense coat of fog presses against the glass as though it were fighting its way in. I run my fingers over the window in an effort to deface Holden’s efforts at communication.

  “I wouldn’t know. I’m not pregnant.”

  “You got rid of it?” She swoops over to me with a mixture of amusement and horror.

  “What? No.” I could never do that to Gage’s baby. An image of a tiny newborn with bright blue eyes and an infectious dimpled smile washes through my mind.

  God, we’re going to have the cutest kids on the entire freaking planet. I hope they all look exactly like Gage—well, maybe not the girls.

  “So do you know who the father is?”

  “Shut up.” Leave it to Mia to snap me out of my baby-loving fantasy. “I’m not having a baby.”

  “You can deny it all you want, but I found these under your bathroom sink.” She holds out a huge white bottle that I hadn’t noticed she was carrying.

  I snatch it from her and examine it. Prenatal vitamins. It’s like Brielle’s trying to frame me or something.

  “They’re not mine.”

  “Save it, sister.” Her lips draw out in a line. “I hear you got a car for your birthday, and I’ve got places to go.”

  “I don’t have my license, and I gave the car back.”

  “Well then, you’re stupider than you look.” Her entire person slouches as she perfects a hardened glare.

  “It’s like looking in a mirror.” I turn around and start riffling through my drawers hoping she’ll get the hint and disappear.

  “You’re going to get that car back and your license all in the same day if you’re smart, or your little secret won’t stay a secret for long. I’ll give you one week.” She leans into me as if to finalize the threat.

  “Look, I’m really not having a baby. I don’t care how many clues you stumble upon—you’re a horrible detective. Nancy Drew you are not.”

  “When Mom and Dad find out that you’re multiplying behind their back, you’re gonna be in big trouble. You’re going to wish you listened to me.”

  There’s no way in hell I’m going to be threatened by my little baby Count of a sister.

  “Besides,” she leans in, “I’ll tell Gage I saw you kissing that teacher.” She spears me with a hard look.

  Crap.

  “No.” She can’t tell Gage. She’s going to ruin everything. “You’re like, pure evil.” I spin her around and shove her into the hall.

  “One week, Skyla!”

  I slam the door behind her.

  “You’ll be sorry!” she shouts.

  If she tells Gage, she’ll be the one who’s sorry.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Count Me In

  That evening, I call Brielle and ask her to come over. Mom is staying another night at the hospital with Tad, and Gage said he wouldn’t be here until after he showered and changed. At least I know he’s not with Chloe, unless, of course, she’s has him showering with her now. God, the thought of Chloe seeing Gage in his underwear, stabs me with jealousy.

  “What’s going on?” Brielle breezes in. Her hair looks muted, darker, and her eyes are slightly glazed over. She crashes on the bed without giving it a second thought.

  “You.” I rattle the bottle of vitamins in front of her.

  “Oh, thanks, you got a soda lying around?” She takes them from me and unscrews the cap.

  “Are you kidding? Mia thinks they’re mine. She thinks I’m the one having a baby.”

  “Are you?” She eyes me up and down.

  “No. I’m not you. I’m holding out.” Not really, but it sounds better than Gage won’t let me.

  “Gee thanks. You really know how to kick someone when they’re down.” She pops a giant orange horse pill and knocks back her head in hopes it’ll go down.

  I pick up a half full water bottle that’s been rolling around my floor for weeks and hand it to her.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. It’s just the idea of Mia thinking I’m knocked up makes me insane. Besides, Gage and I haven’t done anything exciting yet,” I exude all the necessary disappointment as I flop down next to her.

  She
downs the water bottle before tossing it over near my shoes.

  “That could easily be remedied. Just take control of the situation. Gage is a guy, and he’s not blind, I mean look at you. He’s got one hot girlfriend. I think all you have to do is light the match. Once that fire gets going, it tends to get out of control real quick.”

  Light the match. I make a mental note. It practically goes hand in hand with my mother’s advice of handing out the invitation. Maybe I’ll combine the two?

  “So you going to Chloe’s party?” she asks, rubbing her hand over her stomach.

  “For sure. And you?”

  “I’ll probably be too busy puking my ass off.” She closes her eyes in exhaustion. “That’s what I do now. Besides, I can’t freaking stand her.”

  “Really?” I’m not sure I believe this. I’m not sure I believe anything Brielle says.

  “Really,” she assures. “So what happened with you and Gage? He’s like her right hand man ever since she got back.”

  “She’s blackmailing him.”

  Her head ticks to the side. “No surprise there.”

  “So are you going to tell Dudley it’s not his baby?” I ask.

  “And ruin an easy A? I think not.”

  “Brielle! Are you still working for him?”

  “Are you kidding? I couldn’t make it five minutes without gagging from the stench of all that horse crap. I’m back at the bowling alley, kicking my feet up and texting, where I belong. Plus, Logan can care less if all I do is hang out in the bathroom. He thinks I’m cleaning it.”

  “Nice.”

  Chloe mentioned in her diary that she set in place one perfect BFF. It’s got to be Brielle. I shouldn’t have her in my room, or my life.

  “Well?” Her voice spikes in frustration. “What’s she blackmailing him with?”

  Brielle’s hair is spilled out on the pillow like a series of thick crimson snakes. Her eyes glint out like a broken green bottle, and her skin’s bled free of all color.

  “I shouldn’t have asked you here,” I whisper mostly to myself. Her not liking Chloe is probably just a lie. “Sometimes I wonder why you and I are friends.” An unexpected swell of emotion rattles the last few words out of me as I hold back the urge to cry.

  “Skyla.” She sits up. “What the hell’s going on? Come here,” her voice softens as she pulls me into a hug. “You’re insane if you think we shouldn’t be friends. We’re better than friends. I think of you like a sister.” She pulls away still holding me at the shoulders. “And I’m going to have your brother’s baby.” She pats her stomach. “See? We’re practically family.”

  “Does Drake know?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m telling him tomorrow night. But, anyway, why are you going to Chloe’s party if she’s trying to snatch Gage away from you?”

  “I’m going to try and kill her.” I watch Brielle’s face for the slightest trace of loyalty.

  “You might have to kill Michelle, Emily and Lexy to get to her. She’s in the bitch’s protection program.”

  “I don’t mind offing the bitch squad.” I narrow in on her. “In fact, I plan on racking up quite a body count.” I spit the last word in her face.

  ***

  An electrical storm brews outside leaving a sizzle of brilliant white light crackling through our world every few seconds. The electricity went out an hour ago, and both Mia and Melissa went to bed with flashlights. I can’t stop thinking about Brielle, and how trustworthy she might be. Logan sprouts up in my mind like a weed. Should any Count be trusted no matter how much evil he has flowing through his bloodstream?

  A shadow emerges by the bathroom door, and I jump back into the corner of my bed.

  “It’s me,” Gage whispers as he strides on over.

  He slips off his shoes and crawls in next to me.

  I don’t bother with words—words might lead to Logan or Chloe—and I plan on taking care of Chloe myself tomorrow night. Instead, I press in with a welcoming kiss and wrangle him closer until it feels as though I’m going to push right through him. I plan on lighting that match to see if I could start an unquenchable fire.

  “I missed you.” I snuggle into him, taking in his clean soapy scent.

  “I missed you, too.” He circles my neck with kisses, and it lights me up from the inside.

  “So tell me how to get rid of you-know-who,” I whisper directly into his ear in the event Holden is lingering around like the perv he is.

  I thought we could ask my dad for the next viable corpse. Give him the body of some 90 year-old man with a grenade for a heart. He twitches his brows, impressed with his own solution.

  “Would your dad go for that?”

  We’ll see.

  “OK.” I track my finger along the inside lip of his jeans.

  “So I talked to Chloe today,” he says it low as though he wished he didn’t.

  I let out a sigh. A rumble of thunder explodes overhead and shakes the window so violently I fully expect it to explode into the room.

  I don’t want to talk about Chloe, not now, not ever.

  “So, what happened?” I pull up on my elbows and take him in. Gage is made up entirely of shadows, drawn in by charcoal lines, hair that lends itself to the night, eyes that explode with glitter like a freshly shaken snow globe each time they move.

  “I drew some boundaries. Let her know I wasn’t going to touch her, hold her hand.”

  “Nice.” I lean in and reward him with a kiss.

  “She’s got Nevermore.”

  “What?”

  “I guess Tad turned him over to an animal shelter, and the Bishops had a leg band put on years ago in the event something like this happened.”

  “Is she giving him back?”

  “What do you think?” He gives a bleak smile. “She put him in a giant cage and locked him up in her room.”

  “Crap. She’s stealing everything from me.”

  “Funny. She said the same thing about you.”

  My blood boils just thinking about it, so I change the subject. “Mia thinks I’m having your baby.” I stray far away from the subject of me clawing Chloe’s eyes out tomorrow night.

  “Oooh,” he moans with a smile. His dimples ignite like two black dots, and his teeth flash through the night like lanterns.

  “It’s not me who’s pregnant. It’s Brielle.”

  The smile fades off his face.

  “It’s not mine,” he teases. “That’s pretty wild.”

  “Are we going to have babies, Gage? You know, one day?” I lean into his arm like a pillow. I like feeling his warm flesh beneath me, feel his blood flow through his thick chord-like veins right under my temple.

  His head comes down next to mine, and we sit and listen to the night detonate like a series of cannons igniting—echoing above us.

  “I think life should surprise you that way.”

  “So you know? You’ve seen them?”

  Lightning flexes in and out of the room like an electrical current gone wild.

  Gage answers with a searing kiss that never seems to end.

  That night, I dream in kisses. I dream of Gage, and a perfect brood of identical little boys with black hair and cobalt eyes in a line that goes on forever. I turn around and standing behind me is another line of little boys, each one a doppelganger of Logan. They call out to me, pull at my clothes—my hair. I try to tell the blonde boys I can never be their mother, that I have another destiny, but they tell me I’m wrong. They tell me that deep inside my soul I know it’s true.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Debt Threats

  In the morning, I hold out a lock of hair and brush it over and over as I veg out in front of the fragmented mirror. That dream tunneled into my brain and has been replaying itself over and over like a horror movie. First of all, I don’t plan on having two hundred boys. Second of all, I’m never letting Logan near my baby making station, so it doesn’t seem fair that his evil Count spawn are harassing me in my sleep. I pause an
d put down the brush. There’s got to be a way to pull him out of my heart, extract every fiber of Logan Oliver from my being. It’s not fair to me, and it’s not fair to Gage, to have him haunting me in my dreams—my waking hours.

  Gage. He’s driving me to Chloe’s resurrection party tonight. Once I pluck Chloe bald and cull her eyes out, we should totally go out and celebrate after.

  “Dad’s here!” I hear Melissa squeal from the hall.

  A rash of thumps and screams erupt as Mia and Melissa run down to welcome Tad home.

  It is sort of my fault he almost committed harry kerry in front of his own children, so I head on out.

  I see Drake coming out of the center bathroom sniffing at his hand.

  “Gross,” I mutter.

  He motions for me to come into his bedroom. It’s loaded with rumpled clothes all over the floor and a musky odor that I try not to inhale all the way.

  “What?” I’d flop on the bed, but I know what goes on there.

  “I’m gonna break up with Brielle tonight.”

  “What?” My eyes spring open. “You can’t break up with her.”

  “Yes I can. She’s always cranky and bitching and moaning like everything that’s wrong is all my fault.”

  “Well maybe it is.” It so is.

  “It’s not. And she’s got like this viral stomach flu and she keeps coming over when I asked her not to. I hate puking. It’s like she wants to get me sick on purpose. Who does that?”

  “Right.” Stomach flu. “Well make sure you listen to anything she wants to tell you first. You know, in case she wants to break up with you or something. She did mention there was something important she wanted to say tonight.”

  “Cool.” Drake nods into this, looking more than mildly pleased with my line of thinking. “Thanks for the heads up,” he high fives me. “It’ll be way easier than me doing the dumping, plus she won’t care that I’ve already got Emily lined up to replace her.”

  “What?” I’m like my own echo.