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  “I don’t think I have enough for this place,” Gage shuffles nervously.

  “Oh, don’t worry about it.” My mother pats him on the shoulder. “Hon, throw on a room for Gage,” Mom gives a swift nod.

  It’s like she’s lost her mind.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Tad’s eyes narrow down to nothing.

  I hate it when Tad and I are on the same wavelength.

  “I’ve got about two hundred.” Gage hands the cash over to Tad.

  “We’ll fit the rest,” Mom offers.

  It’s like Demetri ate her brains for dinner. Either that or she’s trying to wrangle Tad into a divorce. I vote for B.

  The elevator ride up to our conjoined rooms is awkward to say the least. No one has said a peep about sleeping arrangements, and being that there are only two rooms, it’s safe to say I’m stuck with the unpredictable red head for the night. She’ll probably regale me with stories of her glory days with Demetri which, of course, will prompt me to vomit without the aid of a horse pill which, in turn, will only confirm to her the fact I’m carrying some nonexistent lovechild.

  “Well, here we are,” Tad says, sticking the squared off key into the slot. “Night kids.”

  “Wait! Whoa.” Mom backs him out of the room. “Don’t you mean goodnight girls? Gage is sleeping with you.”

  “Oh, no,” Tad shakes his head. “I spent good money on a fancy hotel, and I’m sure as hell not enjoying it with some seventeen-year-old boy.” He points for my mother to get the hell inside.

  “Tad, they’re kids for Pete’s sake.”

  “They’re fornicators Lizbeth. What they do in that room will only reflect the reason for this visit in the first place. They’ve probably been scheming to sneak off in the middle of the night and copulate by the ice machine.”

  Copulate? Why does it sound so particularly nasty when he says?

  “Geez.” Mom buries her face in her palm. “Are you two OK with this?” She looks from me to Gage.

  I just stand there in shock. There’s no way this is the woman I grew up with. I wasn’t even allowed to say hello to a boy until like ninth grade.

  “Are you OK with this?” I ask disbelieving.

  “I am if you are. Be respectful, please.” She nods over at me as though we were already rutting.

  “OK, we will. Goodnight,” Gage says speeding me over to the next room and slipping the key into the neat metal line with expert ease. If it were Logan, I’d wonder how many girls he’s done this with before, but it’s not. It’s Gage. His agility and expertise is strictly based on his excitement over the situation.

  I step into the room and listen as the door shuts with finality, watch as he secures the double locks in the event my mother’s sanity revisits in the night.

  He drops the bags, and gives an indecent grin in my direction.

  It’s just Gage and me.

  Alone.

  In a hotel room.

  ***

  Gage opens the curtains to let in the sparkle of stars and bright city lights.

  There’s something perfect about Gage tonight—something altruistically beautiful about him, just for me. He saved more than kisses long before I arrived on Paragon, and tonight he wants to let me have it all.

  He pulls at his shirt, and it perforates sending buttons flying loose across the room.

  Gage is fatalistically gorgeous. His eyes shine like aqua stones, his teeth flicker like alabaster flames.

  I try to do something sexy like pull off my sweater in one fell swoop, only my left arm gets locked up on a loose thread, disorganizing the effort.

  “Chloe’s stupid arm,” I try and make light of it. Only, I’ve said Chloe’s name out loud on the night I choose to gift myself to Gage. It’s then I realize I’ve stepped onto the devil’s platform, ready to board the train bound for calamity.

  Gage comes over and kisses my neck, my shoulder—just above my belly.

  I give a little laugh. An echo transpires and I press my hand against his chest a moment.

  More giggling.

  “It’s my mom,” I hiss, completely grossed out at the thought of what she might be giggling at.

  “They’re watching TV,” he assures. “We’ll be quiet.” He pulls me in by the waist and unbuckles my jeans.

  Gage is mesmerizing me with his kisses. He casts a spell with the hot lusty trail of his hands as I pull us back onto the cool slick comforter adorning the bed.

  He slides me forward as we sit on our knees lost in a dizzy cloud of kisses.

  I run my fingers along the rim of his jeans before fiddling with the button.

  He pulls away and looks down. At first I think he’s going to help me figure out the combination to his pants, but instead he reaches in his pocket and whips out a pack of gum or something.

  I take it from him.

  “What the hell is this?” I say baffled by its squared off shape.

  “Protection.” He takes it back and opens it with his teeth.

  My mouth hangs open. Of course, it’s protection, what the hell did I think he was giving me? A Tic Tac?

  He hands it over and I try examining it in this dim light.

  His cell goes off.

  “It’s late. I’d better see who it is.” Gage slides off the bed.

  I pluck the round disc out of the package. It looks red. It’s freaking red? I elongate it with my fingers thinking I would blow it up like a balloon as a joke but it’s all sticky and crap. I can’t believe Gage wants to impale me with a red water balloon that feels like it’s been rolled in maple syrup.

  “Whoa!” Gage takes it from me as he lands back on the bed. “I don’t think you were supposed to do that.” He examines it in the light before tossing it aside and smoothes his hands over the bed in an effort to clean them.

  “That was sort of gross,” I say, sliding in next to him.

  “That’s OK, we can do other things.”

  “Like?” I press a wet kiss into him full with relief.

  “Like, use this one,” he harvests another one out of his jeans with the ease of a magician.

  “Oh, right.” Good God, he’s mass-producing them in his pants. “So who was on the phone?”

  “Chloe,” he frowns before pulling me over on top of him. “Don’t worry, I shut it off. She won’t be bothering us tonight.”

  Suddenly having Chloe interrupt us doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

  What am I saying? This is Gage.

  I give a molten hot kiss before sitting up on his stomach.

  A fit of laughter emits from the next room over, and this time I can distinctly recognize both Mom and Tad’s voices.

  Gage compresses out a sigh. “It’s like we have an audience.”

  “Worse audience ever,” I say, sliding back down next to him.

  “I don’t think we should, you know,” Gage lets it hang in the air. “It should just be you and me.”

  “Not Mom and Tad?” I try to sound shocked by this.

  “No, definitely not them.” Laughter rumbles in his chest.

  “You know,” I curl up in his arms, “sometimes I can’t help but think that I never would have met you if I didn’t end up on Paragon. You think if my dad never died, destiny would have still brought us together?”

  “I guess we’ll never know.” He drops a kiss on the top of my head. “You ever want to go back to L.A. sometime?”

  “Yes. And time travel doesn’t count. I’d love to bring you with me, show you around. I think it’d be a nice place to visit but it doesn’t feel like my home anymore. Weird, huh?”

  “No, that’s not weird. How do you feel about Paragon?”

  “It’s amazing. I wish I grew up there to begin with. I don’t ever want to leave.”

  “Then we won’t.”

  A shiver drills through my bones in the most satisfying way when he says the word we. It makes me feel whole, complete.

  I fall asleep safe in his arms and dream that Gage and I are alone on the black san
dy beach of Rockaway Point. We watch the waves fold over themselves as we throw flowers in the water. Gage holds me on the sand as we watch the most magnificent sunset that Paragon has ever seen, with a red and cobalt sky.

  That’s one dream I hope comes true.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Devine Appointment

  Water, sky, and earth all meld together in one grey blur. Turns out, the mainland doesn’t look too different than Paragon on any given day. But there’s something about the island—I think it’s the borders, knowing it all ends, the way it holds me in, safe with its loving granite arms. They comfort me. They say you can go here and no farther, you cannot pull out for an eternity like you can on the mainland. On the island you have to stay where the earth tells you.

  We catch breakfast at the hotel restaurant downstairs. I offer to share a meal with Gage since he forked over every last cent to help cover most of the room, but my mother won’t hear of it. She makes sure Gage eats like a linebacker. I counted three times where Tad openly called him a freeloader. It makes me so sick I almost vomit spontaneously, without aide of the horse pill Mom tries shoving down my throat.

  Afterwards, we trek across town in a morbidly silent drive, as if we were about to plan a funereal. The fertility clinic my mother frequents in hopes of forging a new offspring looks far beyond state of the art, just as she’s been touting. It’s an enormous stainless facility with white glossy floors and minimalist décor that lends itself to creating another life as though it were a science experiment worthy of NASA’s attention. It has the definite aftertaste of the Transfer, something encoded in the simplicity of the interior design, the blank dead faces of the staff.

  We wait in the reception area while my mother fills out a mountain of paperwork, so I can pee in a cup, and they can berate her for foolishly mistrusting her daughter.

  Tad growls into his cell after getting off the phone with Holden for the umpteenth time.

  “You’ve got to let go—trust him,” Mom quips without releasing her gaze from the medical forms.

  “I just need to know he’s safe. He just got back and then we did this to him.” Tad stops shy of blaming me for our sudden departure.

  “He’s going to be fine,” Mom reaches over and caresses his hand. “Skyla, why don’t you and Gage take him under your wing, show him around.”

  “What about Drake?” I ask horrified at the thought of lugging Holden around like my new BFF.

  “Drake is glued at the hip to Brielle,” she succumbs to a sigh, “besides, he doesn’t know people the way you do.”

  “He was fine at Ellis Harrison’s house,” the image of Holden doing body shots off some unknown girl filters through my mind. “He seemed to fit right in like he’s known everyone on the island longer than I have.” Which, technically, he has.

  “Yup,” Gage nods. “In fact, he had a few different girls lined up that night.”

  “That’s my boy!” Tad smacks his hands together as though Holden just hit a homerun. “He used to be a quiet kid,” Tad’s expression grows somber quickly, “never really had many friends. He was pretty close to his mom, just took off one day.”

  I look over at Gage. We both know darn well Ethan Landon still hasn’t come home.

  “So where do you think he went?” I ask.

  “He said he hung out with friends and tracked us down on the Internet. I knew he’d come home.” Tad scrubs his fingers through his hair. “I’m relived, too, the last message I got from him was pretty ominous.”

  “What was that?” Mom retracts her pen.

  “He said there were people after him. That they knew who he was and wanted him. I don’t know, something about experiments, blood sacrifices, the kind of things you tell your parents to freak them out. You know, the verbal finger.” Tad picks up a complementary newspaper off the rack and flexes it in front of him.

  I cinch my hand around Gage, let him penetrate me with those cobalt marbles as we try and figure this all out.

  Sounds like Ethan was running with Ezrina’s crowd. Either that or the Counts aren’t opposed to taking down their own.

  I nod.

  That’s exactly what I was thinking.

  ***

  “Skyla Messenger?” A nurse’s aid with long dark hair calls my name, and for minute, I think she’s Chloe. I see her everywhere now—afraid she’s going to multiply like some annoying pattern of wallpaper.

  “I’ll be right back,” I whisper to Gage.

  “Oh, no,” Tad protests. “We didn’t drag him all the way out here just to wine and dine him. He goes, too. I want him to get the full experience. Nothing but front row seats for this one.”

  Gage doesn’t wait for Tad’s tirade to end. We head on back and are led through endless twisting halls only to have me weighed and my blood pressure taken. The nurse instructs me to pee in a cup and leave it in the bathroom.

  “That was easy,” I say as I retrieve Gage and we head back to the reception area.

  It was all, sort of, anticlimactic. We didn’t even get to settle in a room and wait for Doctor Dudley an additional two hours like Mom had promised.

  Tad and Mom don’t say a word as we wait for the results.

  “What if it gets switched?” I whisper to Gage. I could have the world’s longest fake pregnancy if Fems or Counts are working against me.

  “It won’t. I promise.” He wraps an arm around me as we wait.

  It takes an eternity before my name is called again. This time it’s a short stocky man with grey hair at the temples.

  Mom and Tad follow us back, and Mom lunges at the doctor with a hug.

  “I just know my daughter will be receiving the best treatment with you. Also, I look forward to my own prenatal care. I can’t believe we’re both so lucky to be a part of your facility.”

  So, this is the Dudley lookalike? He’s so far from looking anything like Marshall it’s almost a joke. Clearly when it comes to men, my mother’s default is set to the equivalent of a fun house mirror—with the exception of my father, of course. He was flawless in every way.

  The doctor leads us to his office and beckons us to take a seat.

  “Skyla,” he nods into me. “You, my dear, are not having a baby.”

  A swell of relief fills me wide as the universe and I resist the urge to high-five Gage.

  “She lost it?” Mom snatches at her chest in horror.

  “No,” he closes his eyes briefly. “There’s no evidence of a pregnancy at all. The hormone levels are completely normal. Is there a reason you decided to make an appointment at our facility rather than purchasing an at home test?”

  I look to Mom.

  Her face is bright pink, and her lips are contorting in fifteen different shapes at once.

  “I’m sorry you had to inconvenience yourselves like this,” he continues, “but, in the future, know this sort of mystery can be solved with a ten dollar kit from the grocery store.” He stands and shakes our hands in turn. “I look forward to seeing you again, Lizbeth.” And with that he walks out the room.

  You can practically see the steam coming from Tad’s ears.

  “This little side jaunt cost just under a thousand dollars,” his jaw remains clenched as he says it.

  “I tried to tell you,” I start, but Tad raises a hand as though he can’t take another word.

  “A thousand dollars we will never get back,” he says with his eyes shut.

  “Because you didn’t trust me.” I lock eyes with Mom.

  She circles my face with a darting gaze. There’s an apology written all over her person.

  “Skyla,” she sighs, “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m still a virgin.” I hope she’s taking notes because I never plan to utter those words again.

  “Last night, you spent—” her hand quickly covers her lips at the travesty that was averted.

  “I know. It’s a miracle.” I cut her a cold look.

  We stand and head for the door.

  “Looks like you’r
e a little angel after all,” Tad says with a crooked grin. He waits until my mother leaves the room before whispering. “Something tells me a box full of hormonal monkeys has nothing on the two of you.”

  “I am an angel,” I cut a hard look when I say it.

  He looks from me to Gage.

  “I know exactly what the two of you are.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  It’s a Dead Man’s Party

  After falling over herself with apologies and embarrassing herself successfully over the phone with Emma, Mom has decided I am the most trustworthy child that ever walked the planet. And after Tad’s offhanded remark, Gage suggested we chalk it up to his own unique brand of I-hate-you humor, but keep an eye on him nonetheless.

  Logan happens to be having a get together tonight, so I tell Mom and Tad it’s in Holden’s honor. Drake and I lug him with us and all the way over he bitches about not having a car of his own even though Tad has graciously been letting him borrow the minivan at will.

  “Ask your dad for a car,” I say as we head into the Oliver house, which has lost its docile homey appeal and looks rather like an imitation of Ellis’ abode on any given Saturday night.

  The Olivers are at a mountain retreat and entrusted Logan and Gage with the house until they get back. I’m pretty sure hosting sixty plus teenagers wasn’t high on the to-do list.

  “That psychotic you gave me as a father?” Holden gives a hard sniff as though examining the air quality.

  “No, the psychotic nature gave you the first time around—Arson Kragger,” I’m quick to correct. Tad doesn’t have money for another car after treating Gage and me to the most luxurious hotel room Seattle has to offer.

  “Yeah, well,” Holden smirks at the thought. “He’s not so keen on the resurrected me.”

  “Oh, that’s understandable, I guess. He probably needs you to prove you’re you.”

  “He could give a rat’s ass that I’m me. He’s already collected on the life insurance. He’s a Count. He counts cash,” he shrugs. “I would have done the same thing.” His eyes reduce to slits as he scans the crowd. “My brother’s coming.”