“Nobody hates you.” I thread my way through the cramped space, trying not to look at the clutter that abounds—diapers and clothes on every surface, a pile of towels and blankets amassing against the window. A part of me wonders if this is a fire hazard. The entire room looks like a tinderbox. I lean in and offer my beautiful princess a kiss to the cheek and her flesh feels hot and clammy. The room smells thick with sickness and sweat intermingled with the slight hint of baby powder, but I’ll be the last to point out they should put a crack in thewindow.
“Put a crack in the window,” Skyla belts the command out to Gage faster than I can process the fact she’s just read mymind.
“My abilities are fading.” Her legs curl under herself on the mattress as she pats a spot next to her. “You can leave, Gage.” She dismisses her husband as if he were a mere servant, a paid employee, and at this point Gage would be honored to beboth.
Gage puts a crack in the window just like he’s told but takes a seat at the edge of the bed next to me in an outright act of defiance. I shake my head at him. Gage and I have gone around the block regarding how to fix this mess. Skyla simply isn’t ready to hear anything that transpired that night with Demetri. And I get it. She’s not opposed to what Gage has done—or at least I’m hoping she won’t be—but she’s opposed to us making another move behind her back. And that’s exactly what we did—what we seem to keepdoing.
“Emily isn’t talking.” Gage looks to the two of us. “I’m trying to figure out if the Videns went in against their will. Ethan swears it’s the truth. The Faction isn’t willing to come to the meetings anymore, so I’m basically thinking of heading door todoor.”
“I’ll go with you.” I tap my knee over his. Gage and Skyla have both been knocked out by the flu—or as Skyla calls it, The Great Emma Plague of the Millennium. Emma and Barron have yet to fully recover themselves. And believe me, Emma has made herself that much more miserable knowing her grandchildren had to suffer forit.
“And I won’t go with you,” Skyla quips. “Again, you can leave now.” Her voice wobbles as she blinks back the moisture in hereyes.
“Did I walk in on something?” I rise to leave, and Skyla lands her leg over my thighs, pinning me down onceagain.
“You know, on second thought, I think I can use some air.” She scoots past me and lays the boys down in a single bassinet and neither of them makes a sound. “I’ll get dressed”—she heads to the closet—“maybe you can supervise me as I try to run around the block?” Her hair billows over her head, an entire foot like a blonde halo, and she looks comical in a breathtaking way. Skyla’s kinky curls have always delighted me. Her hair, those velum clear eyes, everything about her has a personality of itsown.
“I can be your trainer,” I whisper as loud as I can as she entombs herself inside the walk-in. Gage shoots me a look, and a twinge of guilt eats at me. “Sorry, man.” I slap a hand over my nephew’sknee.
“No, it’s fine.” He rubs his eyes in a lethargic move. Gage looks as if he hasn’t slept in months, and hehasn’t.
“Just thought of something.” I offer a congratulatory pat to his back. “The boys are two months old to theday.”
“Nathan.” His head bobs with the admission. “Barron is holding out untiltomorrow.”
We share a quiet laugh. The boys were born minutes apart on two different days, just like Skyla and Gage themselves, and on exactly their birthdays. Nathan on Skyla’s and Barron on Gage’s bigday.
“Hey”—he whispers as he cuts a quick glance to the closet—“I want to talk to you about something realquick.”
“What’s up, man?” It hurts my heart to see Skyla and Gage not getting along. Hell, it hurts my heart that she’s still pretty pissed at me as well, but the fact she wants to go anywhere with me is a huge step in the right direction. “You want me to talk toher?”
“No—yes,maybe.” He grinds his palm into his hand. “I don’t know. Actually, I wanted to let you know that I went to the bank this morning.” He frowns at the closet door a moment. “A few weeks back, Demetri brought this woman to the New Year’s party Lizbeth threw, and I met her. Her name was Dominique. It turns out she’s Melody Winters’ mother, the chick from themorgue.”
I shoot a quick glance out the window, trying to absorb this. “I take it her mother wasgrateful.”
“Too grateful. She said she wanted to give me a reward. She mentioned something about making a straight deposit to my account. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, and then the boys got sick and I got slammed. So this morning when I went in to deposit a few checks, I about dropped dead when I saw thebalance.”
“She was generous.” I nod, trying to put the pieces together. The fact this is Demetri’s friend we’re talking about sends off all sorts of bells and whistles. “What are we talking? A hundred bucks? A thousand? Tenthousand?”
He shakes his head and hitches his thumb in the air. “One hundred thousanddollars.”
“Holy shit.” My body heat spikes just hearing the number. “Did you tellSkyla?”
“Nope.” His brows hike a notch. “I called Mrs. Winters to let her know I couldn’t accept it, but she said I could donate it to any charity I wished. She’s not taking itback.”
“What are you going to do?” A part of me wonders if I’m the charity in question. I wouldn’t take a dime even if Gage offeredit.
“I’m keeping it.” His dimples dig in deep. “I’m setting some aside for the boys’ education, and I’m using the rest to fix that damnhouse.”
That Damn House is just about the official name of the haunted shack Skyla and Gage purchased a few months back. It just so happens to sit on the property next to Barron and Emma’s. Skyla will be her mother-in-law’s next-door neighbor one day, that is, if she and Gage survive this current crisis, and I have no doubt they will. And when they do, Skyla will have a whole new crisis to deal with. I wish I could have stopped them from making the purchase, but That Damn House is behind thedamngates, which means it has the potential to be worth a lot of damn money oneday.
I reach over and slap him a quick five. “I’m damn glad for you, man. Just let me know what I can do tohelp.”
“You really want to break your back withme?”
“All day long, dude. All thedamndaylong.”
“Thanks, man.” He reaches over and pulls me in for a quick pat to the back. “And another thing, something isn’t sitting right with me about the Winters. I asked Brody about them, and he didn’t seem to know too much. He said he’d look into it forme.”
