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  “I’m going.” He nods as though it weren’t even a question. “Get some rest.” He presses a kiss onto my lips. “I’ll text you and let you know if I’ll be back in time before you go to bed.”

  “I’ll stay with her,” Logan volunteers.

  “No.” I practically bite the air when I say it.

  “Definitely, no.” Gage says as he heads out the door in a hurry.

  I walk over and watch as he gets into the car and speeds away. I can’t believe this keeps happening. It’s like a nightmare that circles on a loop.

  “I guess you want me to leave, too,” Logan rumbles from behind.

  I glance back at the stairwell, Mia and Melissa have calmed down, and Brielle and Drake are probably getting down.

  It seems like it’s the right time.

  “No, I don’t want you to leave. In fact I want you to come with me.”

  “Anywhere,” he says breathless.

  “Good. Because we’re going to see my father.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Light Drive

  Early morning in L.A., a thin layer of orange smog lies over the city like a suspended vat of pollen. The sweet scent of Mom’s roses dance in the balmy air as the sun warms over my shoulders like a friend I long to know again.

  I made sure Mia and Melissa were apprised of the fact Logan and I were taking off before we left on our light drive.

  “Should we still call it light driving? I mean now that I can’t stand Chloe,” I ask as we sit outside my old L.A. house waiting for Dad to come out for his early morning bike ride. I miss everything about L.A. even the plants skirting our property, the pale aloe plants that raise their powdered arms to God—the lavender verbena.

  “She took so many things away from you.” He squints into the sun. “I think it’s the least you can take from her. Call it light driving and own it. In fact, own everything around Chloe—that ought to annoy the living hell out of her.”

  I give an impish grin. “I think it’s my life’s mission to annoy the living hell out of her.” Also, to kill her twice, but I leave that part out.

  My father bounces his bicycle out the door and pauses to examine the two of us.

  “Skyla!” He lets his bike fall onto the lawn and pulls me into a tight embrace. “I miss you.” He presses his nose deep into my hair, taking in the fragrance as though it were exotic incense.

  I pull back and beam at him. He looks amazing. His hair is slicked, still dewy from the shower, hiding every stitch of grey. His eyes sparkle out at me, and it’s only when he gives a few rapid blinks that I realize he’s holding back tears.

  “I’m right upstairs, how could you possibly miss me?” I was hoping I had impressed myself on him, and from the look of things, I have.

  “I miss you knowing that I’m no longer with you.” He circles over me with his somber eyes. “And look at you, you’ve grown into a beautiful young woman without my permission.” He ruffles my hair on top. “Who’s this? The lucky boyfriend I presume?” He turns to shake Logan’s hand.

  I take them in together, standing there—Logan and my father, and my intestines tether in knots. It’s surreal to say the least. At one time, I thought I’d be with Logan forever, and for him to meet my father is beyond a dream.

  For sure I thought now that Logan is a Count, I’d have an easier time seeing my life without him, but something deep inside still nags at me, sweeps me toward him, easy as dust with a broom.

  “He’s my boyfriend’s, um…uncle, cousin—something,” I swallow the last few words.

  “Oh.” Dad pulls back and examines him curiously. “Very well, you kids up for breakfast?”

  ***

  Dad piles us into the minivan, and we head out to a diner not too far down the road.

  Logan and I sit together, so I can gaze over at my father without distraction. I love his effortless smile, the laughter that bubbles up unwarranted. I had almost forgotten what a joy he was to be around, how much jubilance he brought into my life.

  We put in our orders then bask in the wonders of one another for the next several minutes.

  “We’re starved.” I tell Dad about the entire Thanksgiving debacle as we wait for our food.

  “Who’s Tad?” The words amble out of him innocently.

  Oh God.

  I look to Logan for help.

  “No, it’s OK,” Dad reaches over and touches my hand briefly. “You don’t need to hide anything to protect my feelings. Is it someone your mother is seeing?” He blinks in surprise. “Has she remarried?”

  Everything in me twists. I’d hate for my dad to suffer one ounce of pain over, of all things, Tad.

  “He’s not you. He doesn’t even come close to being you.” The words strangle out of my vocal chords.

  A bus glides by the window followed by a steady stream of SUV’s and overpriced luxury cars. I’d rather veg out watching L.A. traffic than break my father’s heart over nothing. “He’s crap,” I eek the words out.

  “Hey.” He jiggles my wrist until I turn back to look at him. “Nobody’s crap,” he says softly. “I’m sure this Tad person has some redeemable qualities.” His gaze drifts off to an invisible horizon behind me. “Wait a minute. It’s not Tad-always-in-a-fowl-mood-Landon, is it?”

  “Yes.” I pat my hands down on the table just as the food arrives. “He’s constantly pissy and moaning about something, and he’s a Count.” I try not to shout the last few words.

  Dad withdraws his perennial smile and drops his head down to chest in thought.

  “I want you to keep an extra eye on him,” he says, still twisting his lips.

  “I will.” Then I let it all out. I tell him about school and Chloe coming back to life and to my birthday party minus the fact she contracted his death, and, of course, Logan being a Count. Logan who I thought I loved, but couldn’t, and who I might be able to trust, but I’m still not sure.

  “I’m sitting right here,” Logan muses.

  “I’m well aware,” I say, rather annoyed.

  “Can my daughter trust you?” Dad’s eyes shine like twin globes. I miss those blue-green orbs more than I could ever know.

  “Yes.” Logan doesn’t waver—doesn’t break my father’s heavy-handed stare.

  “Don’t worry, he’s out of the picture.” I’m still more than miffed by the fact he makes a habit of withholding pertinent information from me. It’s like a character flaw. Deep inside I’m afraid to let Logan in again. He was so close to the rawest part of me—sometimes I think I’m going to break, or spontaneously combust from the pain of losing him. It’s better this way with the impenetrable wall. You can’t have your heart broken if there’s a fort a mile wide around it. I’ve got mine encased in the fibers of Gage’s vision. Ironically, it’s that vision that hurts me most when it comes to Logan. When I accepted Gage’s gift of knowing as the absolute truth—that was the moment I really lost Logan—that’s when it hurt like hell to know I’d never have him no matter how many faction wars we won. “In fact my boyfriend, Gage, he’s a Levatio,” I continue absentmindedly, “and he’s already told me we’ll marry.”

  Dad blinks back with a look of both surprise and slight disgust. “I don’t like the thought of you talking marriage so young.” His cheek rises on the side, no smile. “And where is this Gage? Why didn’t he come back here with you?”

  I take a deep breath and tell him all about Chloe’s blackmail Friday scheme, end with the story of how we exchanged left arms and how she slit my throat.

  Dad reaches across the table and runs his fingertips over the scar across my neck.

  “She did this to you?”

  I don’t dare tell him that she set him up to die, that I killed her in turn.

  “Skyla.” A look of despair disintegrates his features. “You’ve been through so much. I’m so sorry I’m not there to help you.”

  “Mom is. But she’s not really my mother, is she?”

  He studies the two of us from across the table. An uneasy feeli
ng clots up the air, and I can tell he’s searching for delicate ways to put things.

  “No. She’s not.”

  There are only a few true moments in life that define you, that make you aware of everything around you so acutely that you could remember the details right down to the cheesy 80’s song playing over the speakers, and for me, this was one of them.

  “I knew it.” Something has always been missing, cluing me in to the abnormality of the situation. This insurmountable elephant that congested the distance between us, sucked the air right out of the room whenever she was around for too long. “Why the big secret?” I knew a half a dozen people back in L.A. who were the product of affairs, and all of them knew of their dubious conception. “Why don’t I know anything about my real mother?”

  My father draws back in his seat and takes in a full deep breath before expelling it in a sigh.

  “It’s because she’s not human, Skyla.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Out of This World

  The waitress comes by and refills our drinks. I try to relax, so I don’t accidentally jump across the table in an effort to shake the truth out of Dad.

  It’s so weird. Here I thought Mom, well, Lizbeth, was my mother all along. I can’t imagine belonging to anyone else. Sure I don’t always get along with her, and ever since she married Tad things have been less than stellar, but at least I still have her in my life. I’ve always appreciated the consistency.

  “Skyla,” Dad leans into the table. “I realize things have been changing quickly for you, that you were thrown into this Nephilim world with no preparation, and I really am sorry for that.” He takes a breath and examines me. “I had every intention of telling you once you came of age.”

  “Thirty? You were going to wait until I was thirty?” My mouth hangs open. That’s like twelve lifetimes away.

  “No,” he gives a gentle laugh. “Eighteen, or so. I was going to wait until you graduated from high school. I thought that would give you just enough time to experience life as a normal teenager, and you’d be armed and ready to go to college. Obviously, I regret this.”

  “Please, don’t regret anything.” I can’t bear the thought of my father losing sleep over this. “It’s OK. Logan and Gage were nice enough to tell me what I needed to know.” When they felt like it.

  I shoot a look over to Logan.

  I still don’t get why Logan didn’t rattle everything off at once like I would have.

  “Now that we’re here,” Dad continues, “I want you to know you can come to me anytime and ask me anything. I want to help you. I’m on your side.”

  “Can you come to me sometime?” The thought of my father in Paragon thrills me.

  There’s something more than a forlorn look in his eye. He gives a passing glance at Logan and lingers there a moment before redirecting his solemn gaze.

  “There would have been a way,” he says through croaking sorrow. He clears his throat before pressing on. “Two things. Number one, it’s not possible to travel into the future on your own. You need a supervising spirit. And, number two, you need to know where to go.”

  “I’ll tell you where to go—heck, I’ll take you,” the offer speeds out of me.

  “Neither of you belong in this world right now. You’re time traveling, Skyla. The real you—the one that belongs here is at home oversleeping for school.”

  “If the Skyla oversleeping at home knew where to take you, could she?” I think I found my loophole.

  “No. She would need a supervising spirit. And, besides that, she may not be able to because the influence is coming from a future source. The only thing you’d accomplish is filling yourself with psychological trauma.” He gives a stern look. “You need to go through the events that have happened, Skyla. They’ll mold and shape you, take you to the destiny that’s been carved out for you since the beginning of time.” He points a finger low against the table. “There is a reason these boundaries are in place, or else a Celestra would never die, we’d simply travel to a more convenient time to live. Promise me you won’t try this.”

  “But if the Celestra knew he were going to die, and he had a supervising spirit then he could?” I ask.

  “Yes.” It comes out exasperated. “But let me make this very clear to you. If in any way you think letting Sleepy Skyla in on your plan won’t change your destiny, think again. She can never know of you. Once you leave an impression on her,” his hands slice through the air, “the world as you know it is forever altered. Promise me you will never do this.”

  My world will be forever altered? Probably in a good way. But I’ll never convince him of that. I would be able to undo everything. I can go and kill Chloe in real time, well, probably get thrown into prison in real time, too.

  I know full well I can’t promise. If I made a promise to my father, I’d have to keep it.

  “Promise?” He doesn’t let up on the intensity.

  I give a half nod. That’s all he’s getting from me.

  “OK, start with my mother.” I’m all for changing the subject.

  “I met her in high school.” He nods over to Logan and smiles.

  My stomach clenches. It makes me want to drive the point home that there’s nothing going on between Logan and me.

  “Her name was Candy—Candace. We hit it off right away, and to be honest, I had a gut feeling right from the beginning that this was going to be the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with.”

  My entire body cinches. That’s exactly how I felt when I met Logan. There wasn’t an ounce of me that felt otherwise. It was like we had been bound together by some eternal chord right from the beginning. But if I’m going to be marrying Gage—Gage who I absolutely do love, why didn’t I feel that way towards him instead? Anyway, I do now, and that’s all that matters.

  “She was amazing.” He shakes his head. “Whenever she walked into the room everybody knew it, and I’m not just talking looks, there was something different about her.”

  “Like Skyla,” Logan interjects.

  My father appraises him quickly.

  “Do I look like her?”

  “Mostly. You have quite a bit of me in you, too.” He winks.

  “Mia looks like me,” I add. She does now more than ever.

  “How is she?”

  “She’s good.” I don’t dare tell him she’s converting to Landonhood. I know for a fact she’s supposed to go to the courthouse in a few weeks to start the process of changing her last name.

  “I think when I get married I’ll keep my last name,” it comes out sad, uncalled for.

  “Messenger-Oliver,” Logan’s cheeks flush with color.

  “That’s a mouthful.” My father raises his brows as he sloshes the ice in his glass. “Don’t feel obligated because of me. You’ll always be my daughter, and I’ll always be your dad.”

  “My mother—did she burn?”

  “She did.” He pushes out a hard breath. “You were three months old, and your grandmother was watching you. I was at work—had just finished grad school and so had Candy, she was interning at a lab doing genetic research, and there was a fire. She was in a high-rise on the twenty-fourth floor, the windows were stationary, and the only exit was blocked from debris that fell during the explosion.”

  “Explosion?” I take in a breath.

  “Natural gas, something to do with a pipe that was left on.”

  “Oh my, God.” My hand flattens over my chest. “So, you think it was the Counts?”

  “I know it was the Counts.”

  “So, she was a pure Celestra, and so are you.” I say it as a fact.

  He shakes his head.

  “I’m not pure, not by a long shot. I’m Celestra with a lot of human mixing.”

  “Then how can I be pure?”

  “I wasn’t kidding when I said she wasn’t human. She’s something called a Caelestis.”

  “Oh, I know what that is!” A serious flashback of my trip to Sectorville with Marshall ri
ps through my mind. “They sit on the decision council.”

  “You do know.” He straightens. “How do you know?”

  “She’s involved with a Sector,” Logan is quick to dispense.

  “What?” Dad’s eyes flare with worry.

  “It’s not a big deal.” I’m going to strangle Logan for even mentioning Marshall. Didn’t he notice that I artfully left out certain details earlier when I was filling my dad in on everything? Like the fact my faux mother, too, is a Count.

  “Sectors are a huge deal,” Dad scolds, “I don’t want you near one, got it?”

  “Got it.” I can still feel Marshall’s greedy tongue massaging out my tonsils. I don’t really know how to defend him. “Um, he’s really kind of nice, and he’s super smart, and he could easily be a model.” For a second I envision Marshall sprawled out in his underwear on one of those huge framed posters in Abercrombie, then Logan, then Gage. It’s strange how the mind works. According to Marshall, Gage spends most of his time imagining me without my underwear, and I keep wondering what he looks like with them on. I hope to solve that mystery soon.

  “Skyla,” my father leans over takes up my hand, “you have to know he wants something.”

  I wonder if it’s Gage or Marshall he’s referring to.

  “Like the Caelestis wanted something from you?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer. Just gives a sly smile like I pinned it right on the nose.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Give a Little

  Logan and I return to the butterfly room near four-thirty in the morning.

  “Thanks for coming with me.” I rub the palms of my hands against my jeans. Just holding his hands to get back here made me explode with heat. The sooner he leaves, the better.

  “Will you return the favor sometime?” he asks.

  “Where you going? Some big Count convention? You wanna present me yourself?” I’m only half kidding.