Burn (38 page)

“Sounds like an ominous forecast.” She keeps us moving at a frenetic pace. “You better watch it next time. Someone is going to see you.” She picks a large stick off the ground as though it were a reflex.

We step into the woods. An entire covering of tall black towers spread over us like a death shroud.

“Let me guess.” She bats her lashes. “Logan and Gage are embroiled in a power struggle. The love triangle of doom is about to collapse, and you don’t know which one you’re going to let deflower you first?” She places her hand up by her face and sighs.

“
Mmm
,” I moan. “The story went down a little different, actually.”
Our steps even out as we progress deeper and deeper into the black of the forest.
“I found a love that grows with Gage, and a love that will wait for me with Logan.”

“Aren’t you a lucky little witch?” She digs a smile into the side of her face.

“Do you know about love, Chloe?” I pant as the scenery glides by quick and smooth as a dream. “Love, as strong as death?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her features darken.

“I read it—right up until the end.” I pull her back by the shoulder.

A wild army of thumps land hard on the forest floor, shaking the earth with their disruptive growls.

“So you know?” There’s a hint of glee in her voice.

“I know what it changed.”
 

“What’s that,
Skyla
?” Her eyes sparkle with anticipation.

“Everything, between you and me.”

I don’t tell her that it touched down like a tornado and solidified my feelings for Gage, or that it drove Logan away, or that I may never look at Brielle the same way again.

It feels good razing over the truth, watching it rise and blossom in our conversation, natural as breathing.

“You have my father’s blood on your hands. You can’t expect to get away with it.”

“Well, now we’ve got a party.” She pushes out a smile.

“So Brielle was just a plant?” A part of me can’t believe that, even if it’s true. “And who’s the boyfriend?” Like I don’t know it was supposed to be Ellis. “Backfire much?”

 
“Nothing I do backfires.” Her eyes light up with anger.

“You couldn’t land Gage. He wants me—always has.” I wave his love for me like a banner.

“He’ll be mine. Everything I planned is coming true. You standing here is evidence of that.”

“I’m not with Ellis, and you’re not going to live.”

“Ellis?” She laughs when she says his name. “I live,
Skyla
, and it’s by your blood that I do it.”

The forest comes alive with a series of thuds and hisses.
 

“
Fems
!” A sheer look of panic grips her. “It’s happening.” She pulls me forward and propels me like a human shield.

“
Skyla
!” My name booms from somewhere outside the woods.

I can’t tell whether it’s Logan, Gage or Ellis for that matter.

“In here!” Chloe shouts.

A tall black dog standing upright, with three snapping heads stomps in our direction.

“Shit!” She pulls in behind me.

“You don’t get it.” I try and fling her in the
Fem’s
direction. “I’m not here to help you. I’m not bringing you back. I’m never going to help you. I’m never not going to try and kill you.”

The Fem gyrates wildly, with tongues as long as leashes. Chloe charges at it with the stick in her hand, spears it through the throat. She ducks behind a tree before taking off into the night.

The beast growls and staggers in my direction. Chloe didn’t kill it. She only managed to piss it off. It barrels towards me in a fit of wild thrashing, swiping the air, and I run in the opposite direction.

I can hear them—everywhere. Like a bad dream they snap branches from trees as though they were pretzels—groan like dying prisoners.

Chloe screams. I run towards her at a quickened pace dodging trees, hitting trees, twisting in and out of this disorganized maze of nature.

“
Skyla
!” It’s Logan.

I run faster away from his voice. I can hear
Gage
shouting in the distance. Gage might let me do it, but Logan—I don’t know if he’d stand by and watch me kill Chloe— if he’d help if I needed him to.

“
Skyla
, wait!”

The heavy sound of his erratic breathing propels me forward like springs.

“Get away from me!” I shout, running through a small clearing towards Chloe’s cries for help.

“Please, wait!” He snatches at my elbow twice before spinning me around.

We pant out of rhythm, creating a dense layer of fog between us.

“Don’t do it.” Logan squints into me. There’s a genuine anguish in his face that begs me to listen. “She’s going to die tonight. It doesn’t have to be by your hand.”

For a moment I forget about Chloe and a forest full of
Fems
, instead I shove him hard in the chest.

“You didn’t fight for me!” I roar the words from the deepest part of my soul. It’s anguish losing him. There aren’t enough tears, or I hate
yous
, to convey how terrible he’s made me feel.

“I am fighting for you,” it comes out strong, genuine and tender.

Chloe’s wails of terror light up the night.

Logan steps forward, his amber eyes glow in the reserve moonlight filtering down from the branches. He pulls me in and kisses me full on the mouth, a hot hungry bite of heat that lets me know he’s still in the ring, that his love for me is alive and burning— primal in his gut.

I pull back and pant into the dense night air.

Chloe calls my name, begging for my help.

“I have to go.” I run into the thick of the woods at breakneck pace. I don’t bother looking back.
 

Chapter F
ifty

Watch You Bleed

Paragon trembles beneath my feet. Entire explosions ricochet throughout the forest. I see arms and legs moving. It’s Michelle.
She’s trapped by the rotting corpse of a Fem, pinned between two trees
. Another Fem covered in thick dark hair claws at her back. Michelle lives. This I know.

“Payback’s a bitch,” I mutter.

I turn and charge toward Chloe’s voice, clutching at the dagger in my hand with bionic force.

“
Skyla
?” Chloe comes at me bloodied, her bottom lip swelling on one side.

A shag of red hair shoots out of the darkness like a flare—
Ezrina
. She bolts forward with that strange sense of calm, grips Chloe by the back of the hair and starts to drag her off.

“No!” I pluck Chloe free and pull her over a landmine of tree roots bulging out of the ground like a series of petrified snakes. “She’s mine.” I secure her arms behind her back and run her into the pit of the forest in an effort to lose
Ezrina
.

Chloe struggles to get her bearings. She hits me hard in the face with the back of her hand and knocks me to the ground.

I clasp onto her ankles before she has the chance to flee and cause her to sit down hard. The dagger strays near my ribcage, and I pick it up again and touch it. It lights up the night, ethereal—a lovely, deadly shade of blue.

One incision—death without pain.
This was far too easy.

Instead, I hike up Chloe’s dress and run my hand up her thigh until I hit the pocketknife clipped to her garter.

“
Skyla
, no!” It sounds like more of a command than a plea.

“This is for my dad.” I slash through her arms and legs. I remember where each clean slit was made into her flesh from seeing her in the morgue, and replicate it.

“You can’t kill me! I’m coming back.” She tries to break free from my grasp. I turn her over, and clutch her hands high up behind her back until I feel the bones bend unnaturally. She lets out a horrid groan, and I relent. “Gage, he told me,” she screams. “There’s nothing you can do,
Skyla
. I’ll be there.”

“There’s no more blood for you. I won’t give it.” I reach over and pat the ground for the dagger, but it’s missing. I pat out further, losing my grasp on her wrists.

Before I realize it Chloe thrusts me upside down, flat on my back. The glint of the silver pocketknife shines in her hand.

“First time was practice.” She presses the cold steel against my neck.

It was Chloe. Chloe Bishop slit my throat.

The dagger spins over to me by way of a tennis shoe. I look up in time to see Logan topple Chloe off me.

It feels good holding the knife that will kill my enemy. I pulsate my fingers over the handle. This is all the vindication I will ever need to avenge my father’s death—a soul for a soul.

Chloe and Logan roll around in the dirt. I wait until she makes one final revolution before plunging the dagger deep in her back, the handle rising just beneath her shoulder like a stump.

Chloe falls over, motionless.

Logan locks me in a tight embrace before we head on out.

“Where is she?”
Ezrina
looks frazzled. Her voice echoes through the forest like a flock of nervous birds.

I point back at Chloe. A single beam of moonlight underscores her being. She’s become a wilted flower, a terrible wasted thing of beauty.

I killed her. It was by hand.

We changed the future—Logan and me.
 

Chapter Fifty
-One

Happy Birthday

The window in my bedroom has been replaced. A white-framed casement window has been newly installed, and I roll it open and let the pale wisps of precipitation in. It feels good to be back on Paragon in the right time, with my blood regenerating, building its strength back up inside my marrow.

Nevermore comes and sits on the perch outside my window.

“
Nev
,” I say his name sweetly as I usher him in.

He looks majestic—pulsating around my dresser, the bed,
my
desk.

Chloe’s gone like a bad dream I’ll never have to reprise. We took the diary to the hotel incinerator last night and watched it erupt in a ball of fire as it met with the flames below.

It feels good to have rectified the death of my father. His blood was spilt for mine, and now the one who depended on it for her survival will never get another drop.

The death, the grief, it moves in a circle—makes a complete hoop of sorrow.

I click my tongue and hold out my hand as
Nev
jumps up on my arm like a perch. I can feel his heft, feel the weight of his stare as he studies me.

“You’re mine now. No more Chloe,” I say.