Authors: Addison Moore
Tremble (12 page)
It’s strangely immaculate. It hardly smel s like horse crap at al , for which I’m fiercely thankful.
“Briel e, fourth period.” She shakes his hand.
I watch as her face transforms, her eyes revert into her skul momentarily, and I’m surprisingly jealous.
“I know you. If you want, I can go over some quick pointers once I’m through with the shoot, guaranteed to boost your test scores. Do you like horses?”
Briel e stares at her bare hand stil hiked up in the air.
“I…” she starts.
“Why don’t you make yourself comfortable in the main house—help yourself to a drink. The television’s in the great room. Hangout and watch whatever you like. I need some alone time with Skyla, and afterwards you can come see the proofs.”
“Not a problem.” She marvels at his offer, ditching out of the barn without so much as a glance in my direction.
“Tips to guarantee you boost your test score?” I scoff.
“Works every time.” He leads us deeper into the cavernous structure and heads into a large empty stal . “Your dressing room. Or should I say your undressing room?” His eyebrows peak at his own cleverness.
“I don’t do birthday suit.”
“Here then,” he reaches over to a bench behind him and picks up a pair of cut off denim shorts and a white tube top. “Put these on too.” He produces a pair of worn tan leather cowboy boots complete with an inch of mud on the heels.
“The woman who wore these stil alive?” I muse.
“The definition of life is debatable.” He steps out of the stal and clutches at the door. “I’l have your wings ready when you get out.”
Nice. Wings. Why do I feel like I’ve stepped into a horror movie?
I squeeze into the ultra short shorts, which are oddly just my size. I pluck off my sweater and bra and pul on the tube top. Thank God I’m wearing socks because there is no way he would have gotten me to stick my bare feet in these disgusting boots. I shake them out upside down before venturing my hand inside to feel for spiders, or snails, or tiny mutant Fems.
I emerge from the stal feeling rather bare and freezing. Marshal breaks out in spontaneous applaud.
“Bel a! Bel a!” He chants.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Anything.”
“Why is it that when I saw you under water, and in that dream, you looked so much younger?”
“Oh.” He pauses from removing his camera from the case. “Have I aged myself too much?” He stands up and places his hand on my forearm. There’s that rush again. I can’t complain when he touches me. Each time he does it feels so damn good.
His face morphs into a younger teenage version then slowly ages, until he looks the way he does now. “Somewhere in the middle perhaps?”
He morphs backwards and shaves off about seven years.
“That’s better. Now you don’t seem like a such a perv.” I leave out the part about him being drop dead gorgeous. “So you have a wife or a girlfriend or something?” I’m not too up on the love life of Sectors.
“I’ve had many suitors. None like you though.”
“I’m not your suitor.” I can’t believe his audacity. Maybe I’m the one about to be molested?
A horse neighs from behind, and he walks over and pul s it out of the stal . It’s a silver looking horse, almost white with a light grey freckling. If Paragon were a horse, this would be it.
I walk over and pet the long flowing mane. So silky—baby fine hair, soft as feathers.
“What were you doing with Logan Oliver in the gym? Revenge sex because you didn’t like the implications of young Gage’s poetry?”
“I don’t have sex, so there’s that.” Not that I didn’t try. “And Logan and I are just friends. I’m in love with Gage.” For a moment I wonder if I accidently said Logan’s name instead.
“You’re in love with Gage?” He frowns. “I haven’t seen you hopping up and down on him, trying to cram your head in his mouth.”
“That’s not what I was doing. I was…” Oh crap, never mind. “Where are the wings?”
“Why are you hiding your relationship with Logan? I can help you.” He shakes his head and holds out his hands as though this were fact. And it might be.
“The Countenance wants me dead—correction, alive.”
“Don’t you know I’m the one they scurry to for help in that department? They’re cowards.”
“I’m supposed to believe it’s just you? I give you whatever you want and I’l be safe?”
He pul s me back by the elbow and spins me towards him.
“I like you, Skyla. Name something you need, and I’l give it to you to prove it.”
“I’l name something I need, but first you tel me what it is you want.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Candor
Marshal pul s me aside, and we take a seat on a large bail of hay, stil in solid block formation.
“I’m not going to mix words.” He claps his hands together once. In this younger state he bears a striking resemblance to Logan. “I want you, Skyla.”
I’d ask, why me, but I have an inclination. Logan’s right, how can I trust him—especial y now that he confesses to having the same goal as the Counts?
“Say something,” he beckons.
“I don’t know what to say. What do you want from me? I already know the answer. It’s my blood. My body is nothing more than a vessel that contains a pure Celestra.”
“I want so much more.” He places his hand on my bare knee and that intense rush is far sharper and wel defined than it’s ever been before. I don’t remove his hand. Instead I writhe inside with this bionic otherworldly electrocution that makes me feel like I can float right out of my skin. “I want you to fal in love with me. Is that outside of the realm of possibility? I think you’re funny and smart and witty. You’re everything I am, but better.”
His words don’t faze me. It’s clear he’s openly placating me.
“Tel me what I can do for you. I’l do anything if you give me the chance to make you fal in love with me. There is no limit, not even the sky.”
“Bring my father back to life.” I’l never fal in love with Marshal , but no use in pretending I’m above using him.
“Did he die in a fire? We both know the answer to that. Something else.”
“I want to know who the Counts are.” It comes to me clear as a bel as though I were continuing a thought that I conceived last night.
“Done,” he taps my knee before folding his hands.
“That’s it? You’re going to do it? I’l need a list, a directory or I don’t know, a picture gal ery to go with it…” My mind races with the possibilities.
“No, I don’t have that kind of patience, and, to be honest that wouldn’t benefit me much. When I spot one walking by, I’l touch you, and it’l open your spiritual eyes. They’re blue in nature.”
“Blue? What color am I?”
He smiles and gives an easy laugh as he gets up and reaches behind an old smal shed.
“You, my love, wil have to see that with your very own eyes. But not now.” He pul s two large, dirty wings out—giant—at least six by five feet each. I lay my hand on the soft downy wings. Bird wings, dove wings, real freaking wings. I can’t break my gaze, I’m so mesmerized.
“Here.” He clips them to the back of my top. I hold up the front so I don’t accidently expose myself from the weight of them.
Marshal helps me on the horse and instructs me to lie with my chest against its back. He arranges my hair so that it’s dangling al over, careful not to cover my face. I can feel the weight of the wings pressed against my back. They feel like a smal body taking a nap between my shoulders. It feels so good like this, comfortable, natural.
He takes a mil ion pictures, al with me locked in the same position. I don’t offer to do anything else other than lie there and blink.
***
After, I get dressed, and he leads me to the main house. Surprisingly the interior is quite normal, no death wings, or dragons, or anything else the outside might have implied.
“I’m going to help Briel e with her equations now.” He says it so matter of fact I almost believe him. “Make yourself at home. I’m aware you’re going to prowl. Try not to steal. I don’t look too kindly on thieves.” He averts his eyes as though he knows this too is inevitable.
Briel e giggles al the way upstairs.
It’s interesting. The house looks so common like a normal family could live here. No eerie heirlooms, no relics from the past, just plain everyday crap you see in people’s homes. I riffle through drawer after drawer, looking for anything that might incriminate him.
I slide open the drawer to the silverware with no real interest. A smal crowd of screams emits from somewhere below then dul s out as I close it. I open the drawer again, and I hear the scream of a tiny crowd. I slowly shut the drawer, and the screaming muffles.
“What the?” I slide open the drawer to examine the silverware, and the noise stops. Faces. On each knife, fork, and spoon, a startled screaming face is etched into the handle. Weird. I comb through the stack, each one looks different—one of a beautiful girl, one of a disheveled man, each one more unique than the last. A knife catches my attention. The face would not have been so recognizable if it weren’t for the shag of wild metal ic hair—it’s Ezrina. The image of her hanging from a noose a few weeks back blinks through my mind. She looks decidedly horrific, and the piece sets a wild shiver though me. I go to return the blade to the drawer, but end up burying it in my purse instead. There’s something mysterious about it, and I want more time to examine it later. I want to dig deeper into the drawer, but the mystery of the others unnerves me.
I riffle through cabinets and desk drawers—bil s, checkbooks, old magnifying glasses, nothing of any great interest.
About an hour later, Briel e sails downstairs glowing like metal that was left in the fire too long.
“Thanks Mr. D.,” she says as we head out the front door. She trots over to the Jeep and stops to rummage through her purse for the keys.
“You find anything interesting?” He asks.
“Just one thing.” I don’t bother tel ing him what it is.
“Remember our little deal?” He twists his head down in my direction. He’s fresh from the shower, and the strong scent of soap clings to him.
“Yes.”
He reaches down and picks up my hand and sends a welcome vibration sizzling through my body. He kisses the tip of my middle finger and nods towards Briel e.
I look over and see her waving.
She’s blue.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Peril
Sunday after church, when Carly and Carson offer to hang out and drive me home, I don’t hesitate to take them up on the offer. If I have to listen to Tad balk about his ingrown toenail for another minute, I’m going heave al over his newly cleaned upholstery. Besides, I’m hoping I could get them to drop me off at the bowling al ey, so I can tel Logan al about Briel e. It’s something I want to share with him in person.
Carson and Carly are both real y nice. I guess Carson has total y overlooked that whole drama thing with the spiked lemonade. She said it was no big deal, and it wasn’t the first time she was cal ed out on something stupid like that. She even apologized for my accidental foray into drunken debauchery.
They sit in the front seat and chatter amongst themselves on the drive home. I try to interject an opinion or share a thought, but mostly I’m overlooked.
“So where we going?” I ask as Carson turns down a dirt road that looks pretty endless. “You can just drop me off at the bowling al ey. I know you guys live on the other side, so it’s no big deal. Gage can give me a ride the rest of the way.”
Hard silence slices through the air like razorblades. A heavy feeling settles over the three of us, and suddenly it doesn’t feel like a Sunday drive with friends anymore.
“Um, I can…” I try again.
In one quick motion, Carly twists her blonde head around.
“It’s a short cut,” she barks. The perennial kindness has evaporated, replaced with a cold anger that’s layered with something more malevolent.
Trees stream by—fog fil s in the forest. It gets progressively darker the deeper we rol into the woods.
“Looks like we’re here.” Carson pul s into a narrow clearing that barely affords her the space to turn around and abruptly slams on the brakes.
“Shit!” I say as my face pushes into the passenger’s seat.
They eject themselves from the car simultaneously and open the door for me to get out on Carson’s side. It’s ice cold—damp as a bath.
Carly snatches my cel from out of my jeans and sends it sailing into the thicket to our left.
“You bitch,” I say, taking a step in the direction of my now absent phone.
“Takes one to know one.” Carson shuts my door and gets back in the car.
“Tel Logan I said hi,” Carly says before ditching into the passenger’s seat.
Carson starts the engine and rol s down her window.
“I’d threaten you not to tel anybody, but we already know you’re a little snitch.” She turns the car around in a fit and misses me by inches.
“Have a nice hike!” Carly shouts out the window as they speed down the trail. A plume of dust fol ows the tires, fil ing the air with the sweet scent of earth.
Great.
I head off in the direction of my phone. Shadows fal from every direction. Thick branches weave themselves into a luminescent tapestry overhead, and I can hear the distinct baritone chirp of a bird emanating from behind.
It’s him. A tal black raven bends the bough of a low evergreen branch. His head twitches incessantly before settling its hol ow eyes in my direction.
“Get Gage!” I shout, but it doesn’t move. Or was there some motion I’m supposed to do? I tap my lips then point hard towards the west.
Nothing.
The soft crush of pine needles awakens the silence. A black shadow from up above, screams through the air. It’s the raven disintegrating in the thick blanket of fog, I hope, going to find Gage.
The sky dims, the clouds shift and tumble until it’s evident that the storm due for tonight is going to land sooner than anticipated. Another loud crushing noise emits from deep inside the forest floor, this time the distinct sound of crunching leaves, snapping twigs. Something heavy this way comes—a person, maybe a Fem.
My chest heaves as a steady stream of vapors drift in and out of my nostrils.
If you scream in the forest with no one around, do you real y make a noise?
A cold sweat breaks out al over my body as I try to stil myself and listen. I scan the ground manical y for the phone. With my luck, it got caught up in a branch.
Footsteps—oh my God. It takes everything in me not to pass out.
I force myself to propel forward, taking in quick erratic breaths. My ears pulsate with the rush of adrenaline, deafening me with fear.
The footsteps quicken, stemming from the total pit of darkness to my left. I try to strain my eyes into the black hole. It’s like looking into the mouth of a deep and unknowable cave. I start to run, stil staring in the direction of the footsteps, until I smack hard into an object with the back of my head. I jump back with my hands splayed out to protect me.
A shoe.
I look up.
I hit a shoe, attached to a body, attached to a noose…
A piercing scream escapes from my throat so primal it lights up the forest with a series of disruptive echoes. I back away and hit something hard that sways when I touch it. I turn around to find another body strung up on a tree. A locked scream lodges in my throat as I twirl for an escape.
The forest is dotted with dangling corpses. Grey bloated flesh, pul ing apart from the cinching of the noose, dripping blood with flies dousing them like black blankets.
If fear were an animal, a person, a thing, I could only hope to kil it. There is no escape from this paralyzing psychosis. I take in uneven breaths as I stagger in a lopsided circle.
Someone grabs my fingers—cold icy hands. I turn abruptly to see a familiar mass of red untamed hair, wild crimson eyes, skin as pale as snow, lips like a paper cut—Ezrina.
She clasps my hand. A quick band of metal fal s like a silver rainbow over the inside of my left arm.
I struggle to get out from her grasp, pushing violently, as she hacks into my elbow with military precision.
I try to pul away and let out a scream.
She plunges the blade into the joint of my elbow and gives a wild yank.
With our fingers stil interlaced, she clutches my disconnected bloodied arm close to her chest. She gives a peaceful smile. Then disappears.
The entire forest returns to fog and shadows, not a body on a tree—only me and my lifeblood quickly evaporating. The raven circles high above my head, it disorients me.
Footsteps trek forward—it’s Gage.
He stops to take me in. His face blanches out of al color, riddled with shock.
“Can you cal my phone?” I ask, right before I black out.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Together
I vaguely remember being jostled around in Gage’s truck, him apologizing for being stubborn and not getting Logan, because he could have used the extra help applying pressure to my wound.
A cool hand squeezes my cheeks. The distinct odor of something strong pul s me into consciousness. I try to get up on my elbows, but I’m unable to move, there’s something strapped across my chest.
“Am I at the hospital?” I gasp for air. My eyes flutter open trying to force the world into focus.
“No. You’re here.” Dr. Oliver’s voice washes over me in waves.
I’m here… where’s here? I look back and forth at the cold sterile room.
“I’m at the morgue?” A shril panic rattles through me. “I’m dead?”
“No.” He pats my forehead with a cool damp towel. “Are you in pain?” His forehead ignites in a row of deep-set wrinkles.
I shake my head. It smel s disgusting in here, like catsup. I hate that smel .
“Are you going to be sick?” He holds up a smal pink basin.
“No. But I need to sit up.” I feel dizzy, but I manage to withhold that tiny detail.
He pushes a pil ow up under my head and squeezes another one under my back, unbuckling the belt that was holding me down.
“Oh my God!” I scream when I see it. The upper half of my arm bandaged out three times its size, the tip of it immersed in a tub of ice. “It’s gone.” I hiss. My fingers, my hand—it’s as though every memory I’ve ever had of my now absent appendage flashes through my mind and suddenly I’m grieving a long lost friend.
“It’s going to be OK, Skyla. Worse case scenario we can’t replace it.”
“Replace?” I’m dazed.
“If the transplant doesn’t take, we’l have to get you to the hospital. But don’t worry about that, I have al of the instruments here to undergo the procedure. One of the Celestra gifts is selective restoration. Because you’re pure, you have a unique ability to heal—to reanimate—on occasion.”
“Reanimate.” I take in a deep breath and let it out in ful . “Where are they? Logan and Gage.”
Something’s not right. They should be here with me. I remember the forest, the bodies, Ezrina and that peaceable smile with my arm tucked into her chest. I blink hard trying to erase the image from my mind.
“They’re in the cemetery.”
“What are they doing in the cemetery?” The words come out pressured, fearful.
He snaps on a pair of bright blue latex gloves and looks over at me as though I should know.
“They’re digging up the body.”
***
“Hey.” Teeth glimmer above me. I can’t make out the mouth, the face. My eyelids feel as though they’ve been pasted shut. “It’s me, Logan.”
I force myself to look up. His face is il uminated, over exposed from an ultra bright light, and for a second, only his eyes and teeth are visible.
The powerful spotlight snaps off and I can see him better.
“You did great,” he assures me. “You’re going to play softbal by spring.” He reassures.
“Christmas.” His uncle chimes in from behind.
A surge of adrenaline takes over, and I become ful y alert.
“I want to sit up.” I spit the words out fast.
Logan and his uncle help prop me up on pil ows. My entire left arm is bandaged, this time right past my fingertips.
Oh gross. Oh no.
Vomit rises to the back of my throat, but I manage to stave it off.
“Whose…” I’m afraid to formulate the rest of the question.
Gage emerges from the other side of the steel doors, and his entire face opens up with pleasure when he sees me.
“You’re doing great.” He says gliding in next to me. “I just got off the phone with your mom.”
My mouth fal s open.
“Don’t panic. I told her you were doing some cheers, and your back went out and that you might have tweaked your elbow. I had my mom talk to her and say she’d chaperone us, so you don’t have to go home tonight.” A devilish smile digs into his left cheek.
“Oh.” I shift onto my side. “So when she goes to look at my elbow that I tweaked, how do I explain the rotting flesh hanging off it?”
“You won’t.” Dr. Oliver slides over on his chair. “You’re going to be able to use your arm in a couple days. The flesh has already begun to heal, tissue’s good as new.”
“Whose tissue?” I look from Logan to Dr. Oliver. “Whose tissue is good as new?”
“The best match for you is another Celestra.” Says Dr. Oliver. “We had a few to choose from depending on the progress of the decomposition.”
Logan wipes the hair off my forehead and tucks it careful y behind my ear.
“So who’d you choose? Whose arm do I have?”
Logan eyes round out as he looks at me.
“It’s Chloe’s. You have Chloe’s arm.”
Chapter Thirty
Life
Logan’s Aunt Emma has the downstairs guest bedroom al ready for me. Gage helps me move into the center of the queen-sized bed and helps prop up the pil ows behind me. The room glows a gentle cream with a smal floral border that circles around the room just under the ceiling.
Logan comes in with a tray of fresh baked cookies and a tal glass of milk that Emma baked when she heard I was coming to stay.
“If there’s anything you need, press this button.” She hands me a portable intercom. “I’l be upstairs. Goodnight.” She waves before leaving.
“Thank you.” I feel surprisingly normal, save for the fact my left arm is bloated and immobile. Dr. Oliver strapped it to my chest in a splint. It real y does look like I’ve just sprained my elbow.
“So, tel me what happened.” Logan lowers his voice as though he were trying to lure the details out of me.
“Carson and Carly…they offered to drive me home from church. They seemed nice and friendly until they dropped me off in the middle of nowhere and pitched my cel phone into the forest.” I look over at Gage trying to offer an explanation for my bizarre remark earlier. “Then there were these bodies hanging from the trees, and I was scared spitless,” I pause. “The next thing I knew, Ezrina was slicing through my flesh and, poof, she disappeared.” I turn towards Gage. “That’s when you came.”
Logan climbs on the bed and scoots in towards my good side.
“Fems.” He says mostly to himself. “As for Ezrina, she doesn’t come unless she’s cal ed.”
“She sure came when I first got here—hung herself out my window, then took me to the chop shop.”
“That’s because the Counts summoned her after they stole your blood from the lab.” Logan picks up my hand and traces smal round circles on the soft flesh of my palm.
“So who cal ed her this time?” Gage directs it at Logan.
“Counts—they want me in pieces.” It’s obvious I’l never be safe.
“No.” Logan shakes his head. “There’s something more specific. Besides you’re with Gage. As long as you’re not an active threat, they’l let you live. They have some backwards code of ethics they work from.”
My left arm feels light and tingly. I try to twitch my fingers—Chloe’s fingers, from inside my bindings, and they move.
“I moved my fingers!”
“Great.” Logan’s face flushes with amazement. “I say we arm wrestle and put it to the test.”
“Ha.” A part of me wants to shoo them out of the room, so I can fal asleep and tel Chloe the great news, only it’s not so great if you’re Chloe.
“What’s wrong?” Gage sits gingerly on the edge of the bed. “You want something else to eat? A burger?”
“No thanks.” I shake the thought of Chloe out of my head. “Briel e’s a Count.”
I start in slow, explaining my modeling gig for Marshal . I let them know only the basic details before dropping the bomb about Marshal , a.k.a Mr. Dudley, being a Sector, touching me and letting me see Briel e for who she real y is.
“Shit.” Gage mutters under his breath. He takes a smal book off the end table and launches it into the wal .
“What? He’s completely harmless—so far. Besides, he has this strange ability to make you feel real y good when he touches you. Oh, and he can read minds,” I turn to Logan. “Not ours,” I pause. “Gage, he can read yours to an extent. He says you run a porn reel during math class.” The tips of his ears turn bright red. “Also, he threatened to take me captive if I told.”
“Wel then we don’t know anything, do we?” Logan gives a wry smile. “Use him. Have him show you who the Counts are.”
“It’s going to look bad. He’s a teacher,” I say.
“Doesn’t matter. He’s strange—eccentric, plus you’re working for him. It’s not that big a deal.”
Since when is playing with Sectors not that big a deal? I stare at him with an open mouth.
“I guess you’re right.” I snap out of it. My arm tingles. The flesh on my new forearm is starting to itch. “It’s itching.” I marvel. It’s like I’m brand new. Who knew I had al this powerful blood in me? A perfect Celestra can reanimate. No wonder I’m so…. I stop myself. “A perfect Celestra can reanimate,” I say out loud.
A cloud of deafening silence clots up the room. I can barely breathe from the excitement fol owing this trail of knowledge.
“Where’s Chloe’s body?” It comes out robotic—restrained.
“In the refrigeration unit. We were too exhausted to put her back,” Gage offers.
“Don’t put her back. Keep her in the fridge.”
Logan leans in with a stern look across his face. He rol s the cut fabric of my unraveling sweater between his fingers.
“We can use my blood to bring her back,” I add.
They scoff in unison. It’s as though I’ve just suggested the most childish idea they’ve ever heard.
“I’l donate my blood. A pint a week or whatever I can until we have enough to bring her back.”
“She’s ful of formaldehyde,” Gage informs me.