Prologue
Seasons come and go,each robed in its own rare majesty as decreed from the very hand of God. There is nothing more predictable in the seen, knowable world than their tiring revolution, fall to winter, winter to spring, spring to summer, repeating endlessly on a glorious loop. There is nothing more predictable in the seen, knowable world, perhaps other than death. Even our Savior was subjected to that infernal transformation all those thousands of years ago when he was known as the ringleader of the Nazarene sect. Death is no respecter ofpersons.
But a season of love had come into my life, a season of joy, a matrimonial union so vibrant and beautiful it brought on its heels the most tender of all blessings—two to be exact. Yes, first there was love—and then there was hatred. Love I found was fickle, untrustworthy, devoted to its own glorification. You pour yourself out for love, you feed it, you heed and ultimately, embarrassingly you need it. Love always holds the sharpest knife to threaten you with. Love doesn’t disappoint to make good on its threats, slicing your heart in two—watching you bleed out is simply another of its attributes. Hatred is far simpler. It fuels itself. It adulates you in all your tarnished glory. It creates a membrane between you and the target of your ill affection. It nurses your wounds, whispers the lies you crave to hear. It sprinkles a crown of ashes over your head and declares you the king. But ultimately, hatred is the cheapest balm—an illusionary fix. When all is said and done, it covers you with the dust of shame before reminding you that what your heart desires still lingers just out of reach. It is what you truly crave—love—the indestructible crown fashioned from the hand of GodHimself.
Lies spread before us like an open road, our feet embedded with the thorns of our indiscretion. The liars rule the earthen sphere and we are the liars, for even the angels are subject to reproach. While we distract ourselves with the minutia of everyday life, the enemy walks us deeper into the valley of the shadow of death—fashioning his scepter for ruling. While we looked lovingly into one another’s eyes, the dragon’s tail swept us up with its broom of destruction. Unknowingly, unwittingly, we have submitted to this ritual of darkness. Wickedness struggles to empty what we stand for and who we are under its submission. There is nothing new under the sun, even this treachery. And now, here we are, where the future meets the past, the agony of our newreality.
And then there is death—the curse that comes to all. It waits in patience for the time prescribed before striking with its sickle, reaping its harvest with a righteous bloodlust all its own. One moment you are here, and in less than that you are no more. Some say you go to the light. Some say you are enveloped in darkness. Both are correct in their estimations, for the believer goes one way, the infidel the next. Your time in the Transport is a wink, a microsecond—your destiny already sealed upon your departure. Not every soul lands on the emerald green lawn of the Elysian fields. Those who choose not to believe in the Son are chased from this planet by unspeakable terrors. Darkness waits eagerly for them, a horror of heat and destitution, only to land them in a realm where hope is a dream long out of reach. All is lost and they are notsaved.
It seems that those in power always have a son they would very much like to venerate, that they believe should and by their might will be worshiped. Oh, what a treasure to be that shining son for all to see—the might, the power, all majesty and creation laid upon his feet. Those in power always seem to have that precious son, and in all of the ironies that life could afford, I had married one, the son of horrors, the son of the black-hearted chief of theFems.
We were light and dark, good and evil, partaking of the fruit of one another so liberally we thought we could be unified as one. How naïve it is to believe that light could convert the darkness. How myopic to have thought my heart was the cure, my love the elixir to this tenacious disease. How sweet the boast would havebeen.
But the heart is where life truly lies. What you believe is as incriminating as it is liberating. It can hold you back. It can mold your destiny, sometimes in nefarious ways. God Himself understands how cheap the words that leave our mouths can be. He tests us. And once He doles out the exam, He is quiet. Like a good schoolmaster, He waits patiently while we navigate the briar patch set before us, the untamable wilderness. We feel so alone, so abandoned. We come to our end. How we crave our personal Egypt, the source of our once misery. How we look back with fondness upon that time of agony—never was there a greater sorrow than that moment. And yet we are never without Him. He waits, watches, inspects the depths of our heart. He searches the unknowable reaches and lays them bare, brushes His fingers over the nexus of our being. He never leaves us, never forsakes us, never lets us fall. He is the lover, the lifter of our souls. He strengthens us through familial bonds. Guides us by day like a cloud—lights up the darkness in pillars of fire. He is our comforter, and, if we are wise, we nestle in the shelter of His wings until disaster has passed. For the things that are seen are temporary. Those that are unseen, eternal. Mortality will be swallowed up bylife.
But ultimately, on occasion terribly, there is a time and season for everything. A time to be born—and a time to die. What happens in between is the gift. The seasons are stubbornly never-ending, but our lives are but a whisper in the grand scheme of things. Time is but a stranger in our lives—we only notice it upon reflection. But we bear the weight of its arrogance with each breath we take. We lumber forward in its shadow, numbering our days according to its whims. We are the victims of its callous design. Our faces etching a story across the arc of its measurements. We strive to stretch its fabric across the span of ten decades. But even the wise, the learned, the righteous cannot command it to heel. Your days are numbered, your steps determined by an Almighty hand with an Almighty design, outlined for you before you were ever knit in your mother’s womb. The first day and the last each carefully orchestrated to help you achieve your purpose. But people waver. Destiny is malleable within the realm of free will. And with that a self-made disaster looms around every precious corner. But ultimately, sovereignly, fate will undeniably right itself. Try as you might, fail as you will, succeed if you can, burn under the fire of your own sun—fate will find you, chase you down, make you its own. In the end, as stubbornly as the seasons come and go, you too will fulfill your purpose. And finally, when the silver cord is broken, the spirit severed from the body, you will find that ultimately what was revealed ages ago was true—the end is truly the beginning. It will happen to us all—just you wait andsee.
1
The Great Tribulation
Skyla
Ihave seen horrors before—livessnatched away too soon, destinies dismantled, an entire stream of chaos erupting around me. This season of my life had dissolved into turmoil, left me shattered in a single night—all alone to pick up the pieces. My life, my mind, my heart had become a hall of mirrors. Everywhere I turn there is Gage, laughing, then gone like smoke, Demetri and Wes—their faces all morph into one. There is no telling who is who anymore. It is up to me to rescue, redeem, revive what I can. I will do whatever needs to be done. I’ll take an ax to the mirrors and break them all into shards, crushing them down into a pile of rubble until they somehow resemble my life once again. Demetri cannot win. I will not lethim.
A dark spiral of stars leads out of the wicked Transfer as Chloe and I ride forward, each on our own prideful steeds. A spray of psychedelic lights, bursting in sunset colors, swirls all around us in a dizzying array of cosmic malfunction. Somehow, someway, I had harnessed all of my ripe anger into a clusterfuck of energy that tore a hole in Wesley’s haunt. The Transfer and its midnight sky are no more. In its place is a gaping misfortune that resembles a toxic primordial stew, no more capable of gifting life than its nutrient deficient soil. No, this was no life-giving force my anger has sponsored. This is raw, unadulterated rage come to fruition—something tangible to impress all the right people. There are so many people I’d like to impress with my anger these days, and tonight Gage Oliver, my husband, has gleefully, woefully, added himself to the list. I don’t know why his actions have shocked me. This is a world of fragile hearts. Where we don’t know how to support one another, only tear one another down. I wish I could say I heard the music before the song ever began. But I didn’t see this great deception coming. I was sidelined atbest.
A tunnel forms ahead, comprised entirely of stars, liquid mercury waving us in with its solvent energy. Chloe calls to me from behind, but I let her voice whistle past me like dust in this nuclear breeze. Her voice grows more commanding, far more urgent, but I press on, unwilling, unable to stop myself from the task athand.
This holy light of cosmic gases pulls us in with its powerful magnetic charge, but my drive to stomp out the fire that has erupted over the hillside of my life is far more potent than some invisible force—far more powerful than the destiny my mother has carved out for me. I spit on destiny. I spit on the thought of my mother, the puppet master, pulling my strings with her uncharitable heart. No. Gage Oliver is mine, and whatever the hell she thinks is going to happen, whatever the hell Demetri has bound and sealed with a wicked covenant shall be undone. I’ll undo it with my own damn hands if I haveto.
And lastly, I spit on Gage. I spit on the man who had no faith in me, in us, in our love, to overcome his greedy urge to slip away to the dark side. This is not the way we go down. This is not the end to our story. Fuck you, Gage Oliver, for ever thinking it was a good idea to bow to your evil father. And most of all, fuck you for doing so insecret.
Chloe and I enter the tunnel of light and a horrific roar explodes all around us. Gravity increases its grip, as my body weighs heavy on the stallion struggling to gallop beneath me. Time and place shift like a kaleidoscope, and I understand this on a primal level. Whatever this place is, whatever is happening all around us, one thing I know for certain, we are ebbing toward a new horizon in a new time and space—one that is very far from the Transfer and its adolescent level of brooding. I only know one thing for certain—I’m coming for you, Gage. And I’m bringing Chloe Bishop withme.
A flash of lightning blinds me. It rattles me right down to my weary bones and ignites me from the inside like a flash fire. The psychedelic stars, the tunnel of incomprehensible light grows increasingly brighter until it bursts under its own incandescence and in its place a sullen gray sky appears, a grassy knoll with tufts of weeds, the hillside we’re on is steep enough to tax our horses until we end up on higher ground. Chloe and I pause on the open dirt road and scan the vicinity. Up in the distance lies an old-world village with structures made from stone, as dove gray as the sky. There’s an unexplainable heaviness in the air, the weight of yesteryear, of simpler, yet equally dangerous, days goneby.
“Well, well, Messenger”—Chloe bleats as she fixes her sight on the dismal horizon—“it looks like we’re not on Paragonanymore.”
“We weren’t on Paragon to begin with. You are quicker than that, aren’t you? At least I’m hoping you are. Don’t tell me I’ve just saddled myself with a nitwit,” I say as we plod our way toward the shanty town in the distance. If we keep at this comfortable pace, it might take an hour at most before wearrive.
“You’re the only nitwit around here,Skyla.”
“Watch it.” The words come from me so harsh and quick, I sound just like my mother. I glance up at the sky where the mother in question resides. She’s a bit bitchy, that one. Lizbeth, my stepmother with whom I live, would have chortled right along with Chloe’s rude quip and then most likely apologized for existing. She’s just that nice. But thankfully, nice is not a requirement today, in this life in general for that matter. Nice is never required when dealing with the monster that gave the order to kill my father, and who killed my husband—first husband, Logan, by way of slicing off his head. No, nice is something I never need to be with Chloe Bishop. We have a long sordid history together, and not one moment of it wasnice.
Chloe positions her horse alongsidemine.
“What’s this?” I smirk at the sight of her. “You never were good at coming in second.” Chloe is a self-appointed leader in all areas of her mangled, mangylife.
“I don’t come in second to anyone, Skyla. You of all people should know that.” Her long dark hair blows back, full and thick in the breeze. Chloe has a cutthroat look about her, as beautiful on the outside as she is ugly on the inside. “I come out on top if I have anything to say about it. I was your superior at West,remember?”
“In cheerleading, Chloe. I think we’ve migrated past those pompom riddled days—hellish as they were. This is the new us, where you live in the Transfer with that lab rat brother-in-law of mine, and I live on Paragon with—” His name catches in my throat. I’m so livid with rage, I can’t even speak my own husband’sname.
“Wow,” Chloe muses as we move through the countryside to our unknowable, yet drab, destination ahead. “One little foible and his very name makes you gag on the bile rising in your throat. Gage has turned into quite the four-letter word. You always were easy to tripup.”
My blood boils in an instant. “Trust me, nobody has tripped me up.” I’m not entirely sure that even I believe it. “I’m not anyone’s bitch, Chloe. Most certainly not yours. Don’t you forgetit.”
“Right.” She scoffs at the thought. “You’re the one in charge.” Her foot extends to mine as she offers up a swift kick. “And you are, I suppose.” She exhales hard while taking in the evergreens quickly coming up on our left. “But you and I both know your lady boner for the dark-haired Oliver will bring you to your knees once again, quite literally.” Chloe moans to herself as if visualizing herself in a compromising position with my husband. I can almost guarantee it. Chloe has spent the last several years with a lady boner of her own to contend with for the dark-haired Oliver. “I bet Gage will make you get on all fours. You know, take you from behind. That will be his way of asserting dominance over you. He is theking.”
