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  My eyes bug out at Mom. Did he just say the word orgy? It’s breakfast for God’s sake. I suppose Mom will use this as a springboard to discuss their efforts at creating a satanic spawn.

  “Speaking of away,” my mother sings, “our away time is next weekend!” She beams over at him. “I think we’ll make a romantic rendezvous out of it, you know, really get the juices going.”

  “Oh, please no,” I blurt out the words without thinking.

  “Skyla,” Mom sighs in exasperation.

  “No, really, I’m all for it.” The more they’re away the better.

  An errant thought floats through my brain. If Mom and Tad are up for hatching more larva anyway, maybe Holden could somehow get that body? Heck, I bet I could help cultivate him into quite the upright citizen, a potential presidential candidate, even. Plus, I wouldn’t have to think about him leering at me every time I get out of the shower. Well, not for at least thirteen years.

  I look over at Mom and Tad and wonder if I have the guts to try and pull a stunt like that. Doubtful, plus it reeks of stupid, not that I’ve ever let that stop me before. I blow out a breath. At least Tad hasn’t uttered Holden’s favorite word.

  “Somebody,” Tad starts.

  Shit.

  He flexes the newspaper, “has got to clue this school in on what teenagers do behind their parent’s backs.”

  I push my coffee aside and wait for it. He pulled the pin. It’s just a matter of moments before…

  The ground shakes, unnatural gyrations that rival a ride at the amusement park— buck and heave beneath us.

  Usually it’s just me privy to these supernatural events, so I hold off on a full-blown panic until I see Mom straddling the kitchen sink with her head pulled back.

  “Earthquake!” She rips the words from her lungs in one lusty cry.

  I can hear Mia and Melissa thundering down the stairs howling with fear.

  The windows start in on a violent rattle, a tremor so powerful I expect the glass to explode any minute. As if on cue, the entire backslider, along with the windows in the dining room, ejaculate into the air forming a tornado of glass, with every last shard spiking right into…Tad?

  The earth ceases all movement. The chandelier engages in a silent homage to the convulsions we’ve just endured, but we ignore it. We ignore the fact we’ve just bared witness to one of the most violent earthquakes we’ve ever lived through and stare down at Tad—at the thing of horror he’s become.

  ***

  The first response team, which consists of six firemen complete in bloated yellow suits, stare down at Tad as more of a curiosity rather than a victim. I swear I saw one snapping a picture with his cell, his hand was discretely hidden underneath a clipboard, but I saw the flash.

  “Superficial wounds,” one of them informs my mother. He’s older with silver hair, bright blue eyes like Gage, and he has a comforting way about him, so my mother lets him hold her.

  Tad rolls from side to side moaning while they load him onto the gurney, and the EMT tells him sweetly to shut up. It’s more southern charm than it is nasty, but for all practical purposes I don’t mind Tad being put in his place, not even in this bizarre state.

  Mom gathers her purse and keys from the entry.

  “I’m going to the hospital. Can you make sure the girls get a ride to school either with you and Gage, or Drake?”

  I nod in obedience. I guess Mom isn’t aware of the fact Gage hasn’t really driven me anywhere in forever, and I guess this isn’t the best time to inform her I’ll be taking my driver’s test tomorrow after school.

  “It’s so strange, all these things that keep happening,” she mutters, riffling through her purse.

  Her auburn hair is loose around her face. Her eyes are wired with bright railroad tracks that give way to tears.

  “You know sometimes,” she looks up in frustration, “I wonder if this wasn’t meant to be.”

  The fury that surrounds Tad speeds out of the house and is replaced with a palpable calm. I feel terrible that she’s doubting the foundations of her marriage, especially since it was me who inadvertently put a hex on it.

  I think it’s officially time to call off Holden’s ghost, and I have a feeling it’s going to be easier said than done.

  A creak emits from the dining room, and the chandelier starts in on a slow swing, rocking from one side to the other. The drywall overhead cracks and splinters as the entire crystal-laden unit lands on the table with a crash.

  On second thought I’m going to need a miracle, or the intervention of a very powerful Sector.

  I know exactly how this is going down.

  Marshall is going to eat my soul for breakfast.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Fierce

  A dark curtain of a cloud stretches over Paragon smooth and rich as deep grey velvet.

  Ms. Richards calls us into cheer lineup and claps until we’re all facing front and settled into obedience.

  “I received word today that the all state cheer competition will take place in Tacoma this year. We need to start a travel fund. I need you girls to put your thinking caps on and start up those car washes, cupcake drives, gift wrapping services outside of department stores, anything to help us get to the competition as a team.” She gives a few wild claps. “Chloe!”

  Chloe jumps to the front as Ms. Richards replaces her on the grass.

  “The basket toss is the final stunt of the competition, and this is one event we’ve always been strong at. Skyla, you’ll be the butterfly,” she cuts me a devious look before babbling on about allegiance to our school and pride, but all I can think about is how much I hate heights.

  “Um,” I raise my hand. “I think technically Brielle is a touch lighter than me. Plus, she’s got like way less hair, and—”

  “Freaking shit, Messenger!” Chloe cuts me off. “If you cared anything at all about the team you’d hack your hair off like Michelle.”

  The bitch squad goes rigid. We all know damn well Michelle hacked off her tresses because she’s gone bat-shit crazy, well, that, and the fact she’s swimming in the deep end of the Fem pool.

  “OK, everyone on your feet—lets go!” Chloe relishes playing the part of drill sergeant. It makes Michelle’s wrath seem like long forgotten glory days.

  She instructs the other girls to get in a tight circle.

  “Not here!” She shouts and points hard over to the concrete. “There.”

  “That’s not safe,” Brielle clutches at her throat.

  That’s so sweet. Brielle must really care about me. Either that, or the thought of my head splitting like a watermelon takes her morning sickness to a whole other level.

  Chloe gets right in her face. “Tell me, when was the last time you saw grass in the gym?” Her ponytail whips around her face like a wild python. “I thought so. On the cement, right now!”

  We follow her over to the blacktop, and the girls get into a tight knit circle.

  “Um, maybe we could get a few of the football players to help spot. What do you think?” I look right at Ms. Richards who barely notices us anymore ever since she’s given free reign to the queen of treachery.

  Ms. Richards twitches her nose then looks down at the far end of the field before calling the coach.

  Ha! I won. I try not to gloat in Chloe’s direction. I’m sure she’s already plotting to douse me with kerosene and set me on fire. Of course, she’ll probably save that maneuver for the competition in an effort to outdo the other team.

  Logan and Gage run over with two other guys. Now this will be a pleasure.

  I step onto the circle of their hands with Logan’s just beneath my feet.

  “On the count of three I want you to catapult her into the sky as high as you possibly can,” Chloe screams. “Show the girls that you’re better than them. I want to see Messenger’s ass on the moon! One, two—

  It occurs to me in that moment that perhaps it wasn’t the stroke of genius I thought it was having four strong foot
ball players toss me in the air. As soon as Chloe said the word moon, my stomach leaped in fear—

  “Three!”

  I’m flying. I’m cutting through the wind like a rocket ship, a missile—a butterfly.

  West Paragon High retracts beneath me. It exposes itself in miniature as the earth begins to curve, my face buried in the thick of the clouds. I’m so frightened I don’t flex my hands over my feet, or even think about any competition.

  Then the earth comes up on me fast. I see the worried expressions of both Logan and Gage as a swarm of hands reach for me haphazardly with a gaping hole in the middle.

  Oh shit.

  I land soft in the arms of a wall of strength. My eyes open, and I’m greeted with an explosion of gorgeous dimples—eyes the color of the stratosphere.

  “You caught me,” I say breathless.

  Gage presses a kiss onto my lips. “I’ll always catch you.”

  ***

  I wait until after cheer to present Marshall with the Holden debacle.

  Gage is busy shuttling Catastrophe Chloe around, who I badly wish was Casket Chloe once again. Then he’s driving all the way back to give me a ride home because he’s really just that nice, and contrary to what Chloe believes, he really is my boyfriend. I so desperately miss Gage. I miss him driving me to school and walking me to class, the way he held me through lunch. Chloe needs to be boxed up—and fast. She’s redefined the word miserable ever since her untimely return.

  Mom sent a text during lunch and let me know they finished taking the final bits of glass out of Tad. She mentioned the nurses tried counting each shard, but gave up after two hundred.

  “So he was literally encrusted in glass.” I shake my head at Marshall. “He was like glass-man. He had this coat of glass, and if he got up and walked around it would have been totally freaky.”

  “Freaky,” he mimics. “I’m rather impressed. Even I felt the quake this morning. You know it made the local news. Guess where they said the epicenter was?”

  My mouth falls open.

  He digs his cheek into the side of his face. “The grid read precisely under the Landon residence.” He crosses his arms with the slightest irate expression.

  “What?” I’m not sure, but it seems like he’s trying to drive a point home, only, I’m clueless as to what the point might be.

  “You, Skyla, have unleashed a category five disaster. Hurricane Holden has proven he’s ready and willing to do whatever you wish to get himself back into a breathing body, because you, my dear, made a promise.”

  “Shhh,” I press my finger to my lips.

  “He’s not here. I don’t allow him near me.” He gathers a stack of papers and sloshes them into his briefcase.

  “So what am I gonna do?”

  “I don’t know what you’re going to do.” He snaps it shut and buckles the latches. “In fact, I don’t believe you realize what it is you’ve done to begin with. You’ve given a wicked soul dominion over an area of your life.”

  “I’ll take it back. I’ll tell him to stop.”

  “Too late. He’s accumulated all the power he needs. Let me give you a piece of advice, and please retain it. I’d hate to needlessly expel air for the benefit of having you nod absentmindedly.”

  I nod feverishly.

  Marshall closes his eyes with great patience before continuing. “Whatever he does, however much it hurts, you must not pay him any mind. As far as you’re concerned he simply doesn’t exist.”

  “And that will make him stop torturing Tad?” I’m both hopeful and surprisingly disappointed.

  “That’s unlikely to happen,” Marshall stands and motions for me to do the same. “Just be glad you’ll be out of the house in a year’s time and won’t have to stick around to watch the show. You’ve bound them, Skyla, and now the only way to remove this bondage is to do what you set out to begin with. Find Holden a body.”

  “Will you help me?”

  “No.” He speeds to the door and flicks off the light.

  I follow him out into the hall, down the stairs and out into a darkened world with a moth eaten sky.

  “Gage won’t be back for a few more minutes,” I say. “You wanna hang out? We can go over the chapter test if you want?” I let my desperation linger.

  “I’ve got a meeting.” He winks. “Someone you know will be there.”

  “My mother?” My mouth falls open interrupting a smile. This is far better than a chapter test. “Can I come with you?”

  “Are you interested in taking your last breath? We have a strict no mortals allowed policy.”

  “Oh, well, tell her that her daughter, the one being raised by Counts, says hello. Will my father be there?”

  “I don’t know.” He begins to walk off into the murky shadows of the parking lot.

  “Marshall?” I run over to him. “If the Fems have aligned with the Counts, who have the Sectors aligned with? Or have they?” It seems doubtful they would need to.

  “Celestra.” He ticks his head as though I should have figured this out. His face looks deeply tanned lost in the shadows, the white of his eyes call out like glossy beacons.

  “There’s not that many.” And I hate to say it, but after the slaughter Logan imposed, I wouldn’t be surprised if soon enough I was the last one standing.

  “We don’t need many.” He leans forward and strokes my cheek. “We just need one.”

  ***

  “We just need one. We just need one,” I whisper over and over again, alone in the dark at West Paragon High. I sing it to myself until my brain begs to split from the effort. It sounds like a chant, like a spell that has the ability to call something wicked into being by the sheer determination of the cadence alone.

  Gage called and let me know he was on Main Street. That means about four more miles, and he’ll rescue me from the armpit of my nightmares, which has seemingly morphed into West.

  Cerberus gleams in the night like a relic from my rose-riddled nightmares. Six eyes stare into the dark, three tongues lash wild off the side of the boy’s gym. The hound that guards hell, also guards West Paragon. I would have loved to have sat in on that PTA meeting when the board approved this infernal wall mural of monolithic proportions. Obviously hallucinogenics were involved.

  I peek over at the subject of my contention through slotted fingers. Three heads, each locked in fury, three forked tongues licking into the night. It reminds me of the Fem that replicated its horrifying effigy the night Chloe died—correction, the night I killed Chloe. Strange how the Fems intimately know your fears.

  “Excuse me?” A kind male voice surprises me from behind.

  I jump around and gasp.

  A clown!

  A shocking white face, thick and pale as paste, gapes back at me. His eyes are drawn in with heavy red shadow. His smile spreads over half his face with a grotesque lipstick grimace that has the distinct glossy trail of something far more sinister—like blood.

  I can’t breathe, or move, or think.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Run

  I take off into the night, dropping my backpack, losing the sweater tied around my waist—my headband.

  I run through the student parking lot clutching my phone with a death grip as though it were Gage himself, all the while breathing Chloe’s name like a curse. I hate her more than I thought imaginable for holding both my bird and boyfriend hostage. I need Nevermore as much as I need Gage. It’s not like Chloe’s going to have Fems chasing her anytime soon with that protective hedge clamped around her neck.

  The distant streetlights illuminate my erratic breathing into spastic paper white blooms. I hit the thicket just beyond the gravel parking lot and rush in at top speed.

  An old cadence from childhood strums through my mind at a million miles an hour, you’re running through the forest and you’re running really fast and you run into a tree. I say it over and over until somehow the words comfort me. The idea of hitting a tree head on and having my skull fractured—my bra
in swell out through the crevices— actually soothes me compared to meeting up with the monster grunting behind me.

  Something shifts in the forest. It breaks up the shadows with texture and movement. I can feel its heft unsettle the ground beneath me.

  I pause behind a small fortress of ingrown pines, trying to ration my breathing as I lie still and listen. Then I see it, in the starlit clearing, a wolf-like creature the size of Drake’s car crawls to life. It maneuvers its way over to me, bearing its teeth, long as pencils.

  I thought I knew my fears. I thought I understood their depths and how long I could last under their tyranny until I would succumb, but here in the cover of night, under the supervision of an anemic moon, I meet fear anew. This is a fantastic fear that covers me numb with shock. It asks nothing in return, as though I were an inconsequential target, just a passerby who stumbled upon an enormous wolf and a bloody clown.

  A scream dissipates in my throat. A paralysis so strong grips me I have to remind myself to breathe.

  The beast gives an unapologetic snarl in my direction.

  I let out an unearthly cry and shatter the silence for miles.

  A hard thump lands on my back and sends me crashing to the ground. I look over my shoulder and see a chalk white face, red oblong eyes—an exaggerated smile.

  I’ve heard that one sure way to conquer fear is to face it head on. I’m no expert, but I’m guessing the person who said that was A. purely speculating, and B. an ass.