Burn (34 page)

The next morning before school, I sneak in a few more entries from Chloe’s diary.

October 15
^th
,

Went to Emerson’s grave. I bought a dozen white roses with the money I took from Mom’s purse and placed them in a vase buried in the ground. I like it out there in the cemetery. It’s peaceful, so quiet.

 
I tried to imagine how I might look in one of those long wooden boxes Dr. Oliver has on display. Logan gave me the grand tour today. He kept making jokes about how the bodies are laid in that steel bathtub and that if people knew what they did to you in one of those, they’d rethink this whole dying thing, but I didn’t laugh. It took everything in me not to run out of there screaming.

I ran my fingers across Emerson’s name carved into the cold black granite until my fingers went numb. If I wasn’t so chicken shit I’d go back in time and tell her I was sorry, but I’m not sure I really am.

October 16
^th
,

Holden was a total asshole on the phone today. What else is new?

Anyway, at school, Gage didn’t even look remotely pissed during fourth period, so I invited Logan over for a repeat performance. When we were done, I asked Logan if he talked to
Gage
about us. He got all weird on me and started asking questions, wondering if I was with him just to make Gage jealous or something. I never did say Logan was stupid. Of course, I denied it. Besides, who wouldn’t want to be with the second hottest guy at West? Plus, it pisses
Lexy
and Michelle off. Just watching them squirm makes it all worthwhile.

***

A storm rages outside the hallowed halls of West Paragon High. The electricity flutters in rhythm, as the thunder rattles throughout the science building like a thousand angry skeletons. Logan sent me a text asking me to meet him under the stairwell at 1:20.

I get a hall pass and leave without telling Gage where I’m headed. After our heated hormonal exchange last night, I know it would break his heart even if it were a purely platonic meeting, which I’m almost sure it will be. But a small aching part of me is hoping for something more—I’m beginning to hate that part of me.

I don’t see Logan. He’s a no show again, just like the other night.

The door to the janitorial supply closet is open, and I hear a whisper. I lean in to check it out.

I’m yanked in violently and shoved to the back, knocking over a shelf of cleaning supplies in the process.

I turn around in time to see the back of a man in a dull green jumpsuit securing a metal chain between the doorknob and a nail pegged to the wall.
  

He turns and looks down at me with a strange blank expression.

It’s the boy from the party—
Holden
.

“You’re not real,” I breathe out the words in a panic.

“I’m very real.” He knocks over a row of paint cans and flips over a tray of tools as the room explodes in a wild cacophony of bangs and whimpers. “I’m so
fucking
real!” He screams, pulling at his arm right below the shoulder and twisting violently until a circle of liquid darkens the fabric. He yanks off his arm and starts wielding it around like a baseball bat, forcing me to whittle myself in the corner.

I’m so frightened I can’t breathe. My muscles do their best rendition of rigor mortis, and my brain is completely unable to come up with a plan.
Fems
die then disappear. How do I get rid of a ghost?

“What do you want?” I shout over his disruptive, one-armed tantrum.

“What do I want?” He thrashes his bludgeoned limb to the floor and charges at me. “I want my life back!” He explodes the words over me in one hot putrid breath.

I couldn’t save my father no matter how hard I tried. Maybe it was somehow ordained for me to kill Holden that night? I can’t do this, and everything in me knows it as fact. So I do the only thing I can do. Lie.

“I’ll do it. I know a Sector.” My breathing quickens. “I can time travel…”

“I know a Sector, I can time travel,” he mimics, making me sound like a whiny toddler.

“Make shit happen!” His voice booms louder than any human voice possible. He reaches up and grips his face until the flesh rips right off in a slow viscous pull. All that
remains,
is a wash of blood over muscle—his eyes stare back at me bulging and round as the tissue around his lips pull into a clown-like grimace.

I retch at the sight. The stench sends a fresh rise of vomit shooting up the back of my throat.

The room starts in on a violent rattle, causing a few stray cans to fall from the shelving unit behind us.
 

 
A loud pop explodes overhead and the lights go out.
 

Shit!

My skin starts to pulsate as though one hundred hands have clamped over me at once.

“Having fun yet?” Holden emits a deep guttural laugh as a hand crawls up the back of my shirt.
 

I want to die. I’ve never been sure of anything, like I am of this. I’d rather have Pierce with his neatly covered flesh sucking the lifeblood out of me than have anything to do with his brother the bloody ghost.

A scream gets locked in my throat.

I can’t think straight. His fingers cinch up my hair. I scream for real this time until it feels like the world could shatter from the sound of it.

A wild panic seizes me as I snatch at the counter. I grab a hold of a small metal cylinder and start thrashing him with it as he struggles to fully seize me.

The door thumps in jags. It opens in one energized burst. I look up at a figure lost in the shadows.

A wild spasm takes place beneath me as Holden bucks and writhes. His fingers claw at me—run right through my chest as he begins to evaporate, slow as smoke.

It’s Logan.

He lifts me into his arms and takes me underneath the stairwell.
 

“It was Holden,” I say out of breath.

“Are you OK?” He pants.

“I think so.”

I take in his clean scent—try to memorize the flex of his muscle as I run my hand over it, solid, like skin over steel.

“I didn’t get your text last night,” he says. “Left my phone in the car. I’m sorry. Gage told me what happened.” He studies me a moment with intense anguish.

“Gage was there.” I try to shrug it off like it’s no big deal.

“I’ll be there next time and every other time after that.”

“Why?” Really, I want an answer.

He brushes the stray hair away from my eyes.

“Because I’m the one who will always love you, even if I can never have you.”
  

Chapter Forty-F
ive

Rebel, Rebel

Friday morning, I head downstairs overwhelmed by the fact I’m the root of pain for dozens of people in the world. Those Counts we killed had families, and just knowing Brielle, Nat and Ellis—I can tell that not all Counts are out to get me. The fact that some or all of those Counts might have had children makes me seriously question my actions. Logan was right I should have thought things through. Logan is always right and somehow this more than slightly pisses me off.

“Ready for the field trip?” My mother swipes a dishtowel into a glass, then holds it up to the light.

“Oh right.” The away game is tonight. After fifth, we’re all getting shuttled to the ferry and heading to the mainland.

Drake comes in and sits at the bar looking rather morose over the fact he won’t be joining me.

Tad rattles his paper. It’s become his way of getting our attention just before something moronic flies from his mouth. Normal people would clear their throats, but then again Tad is not normal so it makes perfect sense. Also, he apparently never got the memo that newspapers have gone the way of the VCR. I’m sure the news he’s reading is as stale as his breath.

“The football team going?” He peppers his voice with concern as though the football team going to a football game is cause for alarm.

“It’s a football game, so it sort of makes sense.” I pull the milk from the fridge and set it on the counter.

Drake’s back vibrates as he gives a silent laugh.

“
Skyla
,” my mother groans. “Does everything that comes from your lips have to be drenched with such sarcasm? We’re starting to feel attacked.” She locks her fists high on her hips.

She’s feeling attacked? I’m feeling attacked. Of course, I can’t voice that, or I’ll get shipped away to an all
girls
prison, or the psych ward, or the graveyard—all of the above in quick succession.

“I’m concerned,
Skyla
.” Tad ambles over next to Mom with his arms crossed tight. They both wear the same irrevocably pissed expressions.

“What’s there to be concerned about? We’ll be back Saturday.”

“The school has you all checking into the same hotel,” he says, laced with suspicion, as if suddenly I’m responsible for travel arrangements.

“Yeah, so? Brielle, Nat, and Kate are sharing a room with me. Boys and girls are on different floors.” I get a bowl out of the pantry like it’s no big deal. Oddly, I haven’t given the away game much thought, but now that they mention it, I think it’s going to be pretty damn exciting.

“There’s always the elevator,” Drake says through a mouth full of cereal.

“That’s right.” Tad is quick to agree. “Gage will undoubtedly be there. Are the two of you?” He conjoins his forefingers then separates them.

“I gave her permission to keep seeing Gage.” My mother sighs into her words as though she were knowingly opening a Pandora’s box of grief.

“Oh really?” Tad’s voice hits its upper register. “Well at least we’ll know who to thank when there’s a crib in her room nine months down the road.”

My mouth falls open at the accusation.

“
Skyla
is not having sex,” Mom says with a reserved sense of calm. “We’ve already had this conversation.”

Mia and Melissa walk in on cue and take seats on either side of Drake.

“And you know this for a fact, because?” He shouts. “
Lizbeth
, she routinely lies to us. It’s just who she is.”

It’s who she is? He makes it sound like lying is embedded in my genetic code, or its some pathological condition I’ve contracted.

“And what about the rest of the kids on this trip?” He directs the question over to me. “Do they
drink
or
drug
?”

A laugh gets caught in my throat. Before I can wrap my head around his stupid phraseology, Mom steps between us.