Toxic Part One (Celestra Series Book 7) (6 page)

Chapter 7

Stranger Danger

The idea of Marshall poisoning me swills through my mind.

Gage blips Logan back to the house, so he can get some much-needed rest and takes Dr. O with him to get Logan settled. It’s a relief having Gage out of the vicinity. I’m far too weak and tired to bleed out my emotions for another minute.

Marshall sits me up and I recline against his blessed-by-God body. I could spend an eternity resting in his pleasurable embrace. I watch the rain press into the glass as it spreads into sheets against the window. Every now and again, the world lights up with an electrical charge so violent you could swear the end was near. That’s how I envision the great apocalypse, all hellfire and rain, nonstop thunder and earthquakes—Gage with Chloe in his heart.

Marshall heads over to the sink, and I lie back on my side and observe him as though every move he made were imperative for my survival, my sanity as a whole. He washes an entire batch of apricots before smashing them to bits and pieces with a small wooden mallet. The mortuary in general isn’t the best place to whip up a fruit salad, but who am I to school a Sector on culinary hygiene?

“What are you doing?” I inquire.

“I’m attempting to prepare the right ratio of cyanogenetic glycosides. Just enough to kill you—no point in going overboard.”

Sorry I asked.

Gage pops back into the room.

“Hey.” His dimples go off, and I look away. Their obvious powers of seduction are still in play even in this sorry state of being. “My dad needs a few minutes. Are you feeling better?” He pulls up a chair. Gage doesn’t hesitate picking up my hand and kissing it. I’d slap him silly, but I’m all about breathing at the moment with no reserves for anything else.

“Marshall is preparing a dish for me. But don’t worry, it’s just enough to kill me,” I manage just above a whisper.

Gage pulls a bleak smile, averts his eyes toward the exterminator in question for a brief second. “I won’t let him kill you.”

“Marshall doesn’t have to worry about killing me,” I seethe, holding his serious gaze hostage. “You beat him to it.”

“Skyla.” He pulls my name out in a mournful sigh.

“I
forbid
you to speak to me.” I pull my fingers free, and my hand falls limp to my side.

“Lover’s spat?” Marshall appears holding a glass of milky brown liquid.

I shoot him a look. Marshall is relishing this “lover’s spat.” I can tell. Anything that lends me distance from the Oliver boys and sweeps me in his Sector arms is more than a welcome change of pace.

I nod for him to continue with the toxin concoction he plans on inflicting me with.

“Never fear, love.” Marshall helps prop me up and holds the elixir to my lips. “I wouldn’t dream of letting the reaper make haste with my bride-to-be.”

I smile at Gage when Marshall says the words
bride-to-be
. I hope he chokes on those words at dinner, hears them over and over on a loop until he’s dizzy and wants to vomit.

Marshall taps the glass. “I promise you the effects of the cyanide will simply shut down your kidneys and force your blood to mass-produce hemoglobin in an effort to push it through the liver and rid the destruction through your digestive tract. Nothing a little one-on-one with the porcelain throne won’t cure.”

Crap. Not only am I going to die after chugging down the suicide solution, but I’m going to have a rabid bout of explosive diarrhea as my last living memory.

“As your future bride-to-be, I appreciate your honesty.” I nod at Marshall and reluctantly take the dark liquid from him. I glare at Gage for a moment. Honesty is something he’s allergic to.

“It’s soda with an apricot seed reduction,” Marshall asserts.

“A cyanide smoothie.” I smile at him lovingly. “I can’t wait until our honeymoon,” I say with the last bit of energy my body is able to dispense. I have high hopes of Gage having a coronary episode while envisioning my post marital vacay with our math teacher, and how apropos for him to succumb to his demise in the morgue of all places. And with no Dr. O around to save him—tsk, tsk.

I push the drink to my lips and knock it back in one giant gulp.

Shit!

A bitter jolt corrodes my taste buds, viral as battery acid. My tongue inflames before swelling like a balloon. It arrests my ability to swallow and throws my gag reflex into overdrive.

Poison! It finally hits me. Marshall really is trying to freaking
poison
me.

With an animated level of panic I no longer thought possible, I toss the glass clear across the room and flail in a fit of retching histrionics.

Dry heaves bubble to the surface. An entire string of inglorious belching discharges from my body until finally I manage to hurl food I didn’t even know existed inside me all over the toga I have strapped on.

Gage swishes around like a blur, producing a glass of water from a beaker, and I swill the liquid in my mouth. The thought occurs to me the beaker probably has the chief function of housing eyeballs, extracted dental fillings that Dr. Oliver might be selling for gold on the side, or God forbid, strange bodily fluids that ooze from the deceased, and I puke like a fountain.

Gage glances at his phone. “I’ll be back.” He no sooner evaporates then he reappears with his father.

“Good God, child.” Dr. Oliver’s face is white with shock.

“I’ve already converted the oil base.” Marshall strides up with a hypodermic needle. “The smoothie wasn’t to her liking.”

Gage helps douse the vomit fire out of my lap with a dozen tiny towels.

“I’ll get you some clothes.” He looks up at me, his face veiled in pain. “I never wanted to hurt you.” He disappears before I have the chance to properly hurl on him.

I never wanted him to hurt me either.

“Her complexion is ashen, and her pulse is weak,” Barron says, replacing my wrist in my lap. “If the shot doesn’t work, I’ve no choice but to run her to the emergency room.”

Marshall flicks at a tiny vial with his finger and a squirt of liquid jumps from the needle.

I hold my arm out and look away. I hate shots but if it’ll let me spin on this planet just a little bit longer, it’s totally worth it.

“Oh, dear Skyla.” Marshall swims with glee. “That’s not where I’m making the deposit.”

I dart a quick look to Barron, and he shakes his head.

Marshall gives a lewd smile as he trails his hand down my body and lifts the back of my makeshift dress well past my thigh.

Crap.

Just Crap.

***

Once he administers the horrifically humiliating and equally painful septic dose, Marshall rights me and cloaks his body around mine for a brief second.

“I’m afraid my soothing effects will negate the results we’re looking for.” He presses a sweet kiss into my ear as his pleasurable sensations course through me. “I must leave at once.” Marshall tenderly sweeps his thumb over my cheek. “I can’t bear to witness my beloved in pain.” He pulls back, exposing Gage standing there holding a pair of my jeans and a sweater. “I bid you take her home at once.” He glances over at him. “Don’t leave her side. Though she loathes the very sight of you and wishes you seeped in a vat of boiling oil—she needs you more than ever.” And with that, Marshall explodes out of the room in a thunderclap.

“Why would Skyla loathe you?” Dr. Oliver creases his brow at his son, perfectly stymied how a love like ours could ever go wrong. “Skyla, you have less than a minute to get dressed before the full effect takes place. I’ll call later to see how you’re doing.” He nods before leaving the room.

Great. It’s just Gage and me and my body, the ticking time bomb.

I make Gage turn around while I pull on my jeans and sweater. I muster the energy to glance in the mirror just above the hand sink.

Gah!

I’m hideous!

Raccoon eyes have invaded my face courtesy of faulty mascara, and my hair is balled up in a giant bird’s nest, big enough to house an eagle.

“I look horrible,” I announce mostly to myself.

“You look beautiful.” Gage turns his head just enough when he says it.

“Wow, Chloe must have paid you a bundle.”

Gage turns around once he’s surmised I’m fully dressed, like he didn’t strip me clean the first chance he got last year after I passed out in his truck—pervert.

“Chloe didn’t pay me a penny,” he says, tucking his cheek back in frustration.

“Nice to know you’d stab me in the back for free.”

“You know I wouldn’t do that.” It comes out sweet, like an elongated song that reverberates its tragedy.

“I don’t know you at all. You’re worse than a stranger.” I’m quick to correct.

The room sways. I grip the side of the stainless sink as my stomach seizes in painful knots.

I let out a childlike cry that burns as it razors out of my throat.

Gage picks me up in one fell swoop.

A horrible, biting pain rips through my abdomen.

“I’ve got you,” he soothes. “It’s going to be OK.”

My body starts in on a series of violent convulsions.

Gage is wrong.

Nothing will ever be OK again.

Chapter 8

Livin’ on a Prayer

The sky over the Landon house spins in a color palette of grey, as Gage rotates us in the direction of the front door.

Fat cumulous clouds dusted in soot hibernate above, their lining embalmed in a fairytale blue. They hold a covenant with the heavens to pour down their blessings over the island within minutes. They make promises and know how to keep them.

An uncontrollable shiver runs through me. My teeth chatter with such violent force I’m convinced I’m chipping them in the process.

“Let’s get you to bed.” Gage runs me up the porch. The front door sits slightly ajar, and we find Tad sorting through a pile of sleeping bags in the entry.

“Aha!” He straightens. With his hair graying on the sides, and the severe spare tire around his waist, he doesn’t look like he has a whole lot to
aha
about at the moment. “Mia and Melissa said you haven’t been home all night. I knew you were off in some seedy motel room. I have news for the two of you. Prom is not some fornicating bonanza that lets you forgo your morals. Just because you spent seven or eight hours groping each other on the dance floor does not make it OK to lock yourselves in a room and let loose.”

It takes a heroic effort for me not to hurl some serious projectile vomit in his direction—and I’m completely capable, I can feel it.

“Sorry,” Gage offers. “We were watching the sunrise at Rockaway. It’s sort of a tradition around here. We must have fallen asleep.” Gage looks down at me, warms me with his eyes.

“By the way,” Tad says, barreling past Gage and his excuse with his own verbose agenda, “Melissa said that crazy teacher of yours came storming in this morning looking for some brochures your mother promised, and he broke the mirror I gave her for our anniversary. Who the hell goes into someone else’s bedroom looking for marketing material?”

“He’s a complete idiot.” Gage affirms with a nod.

“Finally,” Tad shouts, “someone who sees him the way I do. You’d think he has everyone else under some kind of spell the way the entire island yields to his charm.”

I hate to interrupt this precious bonding session between Tad and Gage over, of all things, their shared disinterest in Marshall, but everything in me feels as though it’s going to pop from the unearthly amount of pressure brewing in my belly.

I let out a harrowing moan.

“Skyla’s not feeling so good.” Gage starts toward the stairs.

My stomach sears with a flash of pain, and I bury my face in Gage’s chest. He smells good, familiar—and strangely safe. He tries to make a break for my bedroom, but Tad blocks his path.

“Oh, she’s sick is she?” Tad snickers. “A little too much booze filtering through the liver, hey? I’ll have you know Drake had his baby last night while the two of you were off cavorting. If my guess is right, we’ll be hitting the maternity ward once again in about nine months’ time—and it won’t be for me.” He mutters something about missing his wallet and continues to riffle through the camping discards splayed out all over the entry.

“Congratulations.” Gage speeds past him. “You enjoy that new grandbaby. I’ll hang out with Skyla and make sure she’s OK.”

“I bet you will.” Tad’s voice bellows up after us.

Gage lands us inside my room at superhuman speeds, pushes my dresser over the door with his shoe, easy as sliding a book.

He doesn’t say anything—simply wraps me in my comforter and grabs the tiny trashcan under my desk before teleporting us up to the butterfly room.

The soft swish of tissue paper wings greets us as I double over in agony and let out an anguished cry.

For a brief moment, I thought maybe he was bringing me up here to draw on serendipity, that the romantic implications of it all would somehow bring me back to him. But now I see the practicality involved as well as the puke bucket I’m sure to put to good use.

He pulls me onto his lap and drags his lips from my cheek to my ear. I can feel the heat emanating off his body, his heart beating up against me with its smooth percussion. I thought we’d grow old like this—that his lust for me would hold out for ages.

“Throw up if you need to. Don’t hold back.”

Not quite the words I was hoping he’d say—then again, he’s not quite the person I thought he was.  

Strong, grinding pain gnarls my insides, incapacitating my ability to think or speak. My mouth opens, and I try to scream or breathe. It’s all too much to bear—such blinding hot pain—nothing but a violent rush of excruciating agony.

Gage rocks me in his arms, prays over me with fervent whispers—invokes the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as if he were performing an exorcism. Gage begs for a divine mercy that never comes.

I thrash and writhe, land my lips on the flesh of his neck and linger for a moment. Something about his being offers me respite in the midst of this incomprehensible storm.

A flash of pain ignites through my skull, and I buck uncontrollably until Gage—the butterfly room—it all fades to nothing.