“She’s in aGodlystate of mind,” Chloe corrects, huffing and puffing right along withus.
Emily swings the magnificent sculpture by its feet in a dangerous circle, quickening her pace until she’s nothing but a blur, and a couple runs out from the bushes behind her, adjusting their clothes—the girl screaming herself senseless. But it’s the girl’s familiar frame, her familiar face I recognize as myown.
“Mia?” I say mostly to myself as I gasp at the fact my baby sis just strutted her slutty stuff in front of every single onlooker planted on the Harrisons’ driveway. I struggle to make out the boy she was with, but he’s long gone, dissolved efficiently by Paragon’s signature fog. I’ll deal with her later. Him, too. The fog may not give him up, but someone will, and when I find out who he is, I’ll make sure he gives up the ghost. He’s a dead man walking. Of course, deep down, I know it’s Rev, and secretly I look forward to administering thebeating.
Gage takes a few staggering steps forward before thinking better of it and turns to the crowd. “Get the hell out!” he roars. “That thing’s about to launch like a missile!” He stops to take in the unmoved crowd. “I saidnow!”
Bodies scramble in a fury like ants, but there are several of us that act as if our feet had taken root. I can’t take my eyes off the whirling, twirling tornado Emily Morgan has become. Laken is right. She’s lost her mind. And I’m terrified that Chloe might be right, too. That this barbaric display might just be attributed to some Godly message—one that directly affectsme.
Marshall walks up from across the street, measured and calm, completely his unmoved self, and takes his place by my side. “It looks to me Mr. Harrison has spiked the punch with bath salts. I’d steer clear of the refreshment table if I wereyou.”
“That’s Emily. She has a vision for me.” The words swim from my lipsnumbly.
And just like that, Em’s twister of fun gravitates toward the center of the driveway. The sky up above quivers with the light of noonday as a crack of thunder so loud roars over the island it starts a whole new choir of screams from the people who were once Ellis’ party guests. Emily comes to a staggering finish, the statue resting at her side with the walking man seated on his bronzehead.
“And then they will make a request unto the Lord!” Her voice booms in a deep, unnatural manner. Gone is any trace of femininity, and in its place the sound of a thousand rushing rivers. “They shall beg for peace—beg to have their enemy broken—for their enemy to relent. They will say take my life in exchange for the one you seek, but I will remind them of the covenant they had made with me, and they shall be forced to drink the bitter cup of theirfather.”
“That must be Gage,” Iwhisper.
Lightning blinks in the western sky, flickering manically as if God Himself were playing with the switch. Emily screams, low at first then rising to the crescendo of a horrific tiger with its tail ablaze. She hoists up that bronzed statue once again, and the crowd gasps. Lightning strobes up above like a police siren, like awarning.
Emily Morgan takes that statue and hurls it at one of those prized lions sitting peacefully by the fountain. My heart aches as the lion’s head explodes, sending pieces of marble flying like shrapnel. Then one after another, with each scream far more violent than the last, she goes on a hacking spree, tearing each helpless lion’s head right off its menacingbody.
“SHIT!” Ellis howls while doing his best to yank out his hair. “You are going to fucking pay for this, Morgan!” Every vein in his head bounces. For as long as I’ve known Ellis, he has been twice as calm and mellow as Marshall, and here he looks as if his head is about to pop right off in keeping with thetheme.
In a fit of shouts and fury, Emily pitches the bronzed statue high into the sky. It launches toward the heavens like a cannon and sends the remainder of us ducking for cover. Marshall pulls me behind a Range Rover sitting at the base of the driveway, but it’s Gage and Logan who all but throw themselves over my body. Then with a heavy thud, not unlike an earthquake, it’s over and we emerge with the rest of the curious onlookers to find a smoking hole in the Harrisons’roof.
Emily falls face-first into the pool of shimmering water at the base of the fountain she singlehandedly destroyed. Twelve headless lions and one seemingly dead as a doornail EmilyMorgan.
“And there she goes,” Logan says before bolting in herdirection.
Logan and Gage pluck Emily out as a siren saws its music through this unsettled night, making its way over. Emily sits up on her own, looking mildly dazed but thankfullyalive.
Laken pulls me into a quick embrace. “I’m so glad it’s finally over.” Her mouth touches over my ear. “Don’t you dare overanalyze any of that psychotic crap.” She pulls back and forces a smile, patting my arms as if she just offered a pep talk. In a way, she has, but it’s altogether toolate.
“No,” I whisper as I take a catatonic step toward thedestruction.
Marshall wraps an arm around me, weighted and uncomfortable. “Yes, Ms. Messenger, I’m afraid it’s so. Don’t fret. There is a method to this madness. No matter what the circumstances life throws your way—you are the victor. There is a Son seated to the right of the Master who ensured justthat.”
Chloe snorts at Marshall’s cryptic words. “So, you’re saying if it isn’t ending well, it isn’t theend?”
Marshall snaps his neck in her direction so quick and curt a natural human would have severed their spinal cord. “Precisely, Ms. Bishop.” But there is something in his tone, a harshness he has never invoked with her before that sets my teeth on edge. Everything about tonight, about the last few weeks, has eaten at my sanity. What is this new world Demetri and his cursed goblet filled with my own blood has ushered usinto?
How is it that life and all of its offerings are suddenly so bitter, so randomly grievous anddestructive?
I glance over and spot Melody Winters clinging toGage.
Why have the dead forgotten their boundaries? Why has the universe unleashed her fury and forgotten to keep the natural order of things incheck?
The smoke finally settles at the base of the decimated fountain and Ethan helps Emily down thedriveway.
“Good show!” Chloe claps as Em passes us by. “Bravissimo! Bravissimo! Tell us, Em!” Chloe’s voice echoes into the night like a haunted refrain. “Who was the statue? Was it Gage or Skyla? Let me guess! It wasme!” That’s one thing about this demon by my side. Chloe owns her wickedness. She understands the full impact of her destruction and doesn’t apologize for its aftermath. Of course, heavy as lead, dumb as a stick—or statue as it were, is Chloe. Chloe has destroyed and decapitated more people than I care tocount.
Emily turns our way, her weary eyes a muted shade of red, glowing like embers lit in a jack-o-lantern. “It’s all of you. Destruction has come to devour you, to have you devour each other. This is the beginning of theend.”
A stunted silence strangulates thecrowd.
“Good night!” Chloe trills to Em as if they just had a friendly powwow regarding something cheer related, the only real topic, outside of Gage, that could exciteChloe.
