Skyla takes a ragged breath at the idea of what that number mightmean.
I bring her hand to my lips and press in a kiss. “We’ve passed up seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, so I guess we’ll know in July if it’s months, and if not, it must beyears.”
“Decades,” she’s quick to counter. “It will be decades. My mother knows how much you mean to the boys andme.”
“Decades.” I press my head back into the seat and try to digest it. There’s no way Candace would gift me a blessing that big, and seven more decades with Skyla as my wife would be exactly that, ablessing.
She shakes her head with tears wobbling, threating to tumble forth into the world, but she’s slow to let them fall. “Let’s move on. I hate that stone. I hate a lot of things.” She swallows hard. “Why did you do it—the covenant with Demetri? I’m ready to listen.” Skyla holds my gaze, heavy as the sea, as angry as those sooted clouds darkening theskies.
I glance back to the boys one last time. Still sound asleep. In a way, this is the perfect moment to bare my soul with all parties present and accounted for. The rain pounds over the windshield and the air in the vansours.
“You know that I love you”—my voice hitches as I force my gaze to seal over hers—“that I would do anything for the boys. When I broke faith with the Barricade, the penalty was that someone I hold dear would take my place in my father’s wicked world.” My eyes flit to the raging sea for a moment, the whitewash beating the shore. I feel that much rage and more at the thought of Demetri’s wicked world. “At the time, I couldn’t imagine who that would be—so I agreed.” My eyes close, and I’m transported right back to the stone of sacrifice where Demetri set my universe on fire. “The night the boys were born I don’t know who or what detained me, but I tried to move heaven and hell to get to you, Skyla. God, I did.” My head taps against the seat as tears come to the party, and I sniff them back. “When I held Barron—I heard him.” My voice breaks as I burst through this dam of emotions. “I heard him as if he were in the room withme.”
“Heard who, Gage?” Her voice quivers, and she leans in close. Skyla slides over and squeezes onto my lap. Her cool hands clasp over my face. “Who?”
“Demetri.” It’s as if I’m back there, in that room, holding my precious son for the very first time. “It was Barron he was after.” My face falls into my hand, and I pinch my eyes closed, trying my hardest to get a grip, to stop crying like a pussy and take it like a man. “I knew then what I had to do, Skyla. I needed to take his place. Demetri can have me—but he can’t have myboys.”
Tears sit frozen in her eyes, unable to fall, paralyzed by the truth. “Gage.” My name expires from her lungs like the hiss of a train pulling from the station, and in a way it is. The definition of who we are has long since left the platform. We have derailed, left the world as we once knew it. In truth, I had left back in November. It’s just now Skyla is joining me on this runaway train to hell. “You are my hero.” Her voice is hoarse, a mere whisper, an idea of what it could be. “I’m sorry about the pain I’ve caused, thehurt.”
“No.” My finger lands over her lips, harder than I meant for it to, but the idea of Skyla apologizing to me is sacrilegious. It is also the very last thing in the world I want. “You had every right. I wanted to tell you.” A watershed of tears warm my face. “But I didn’t want Demetri’s madness to ruin those precious first moments we had with the boys. He gave me an ultimatum. I had to commit the night of the christening or the deal was off the table.” Our eyes lock, our shared anger fuses in a stream of unification. “And that’s what you saw that night.” My voice shakes with rage at what’s become of me. “As much as I want to blame myself for getting in the mess to begin with”—I shake my head at the idea—“I’m certain he would have found another way. It just so happens that I made it easy forhim.”
“Then we’ll make it hard.” She grips my hands and holds them between us. “This is the springtime of ourrebellion.”
“There is no rebellion for me, Skyla. I’ve accepted my fate. You are looking at the face of your enemy. I can fight it, but it will be tough. Then slowly as time goes on, my heart, my ideals will bend to the will of myfather.”
“And if that happens, I will defeat you,” Skyla says it soft, quiet, with such love in her eyes, it erases any doubt that we could ever truly be enemies. Our love has transcended anything that might bog us down ever again. Even if she grew to despise me, love would still be there like anundercurrent.
“You are well able.” It’s true. Skyla has the ability, the mental fortitude, and stamina needed to defy any form of evil thrust in her path. In my worst state of being, I would simply be a stump for her to step over on her journey to greatness. I have no doubt about that. “And that is what waits forme.”
“Don’t buy into it, Gage.” Her lips linger over mine, hot and dripping with our shared tears. “Please, no. You’re strong. Your strength is what gives us hope. Look at you now. You’re here with me. We’re still Gage and Skyla. See? Nothing haschanged.”
“It wouldn’t for now. None of this takes place with me in the natural.” I look into the eyes of my precious wife, the girl I’ve worshiped ever since she was nothing more than a figment of my visions. “The truth is, Skyla—I’m worth more to Demetri dead than I am alive. I am a dead man walking. Expect my death, Skyla.” My thumb wipes the tears from her cheek. “It will be upon ussoon.”
Logan
Last nightI dreamed of a hostile future. I dreamed of myself in another form, a wiser, far more experienced version that had come down from paradise to offer a helping hand in what will be the greatest plight of my young deceased and perhaps even resurrected life. I dreamed of Gage in that desolate, cavernous plane, Paragon in Nocturne. Gage seated firmly on his throne of fire with his beastly skin, and unknowable wicked eyes. In no way did he remotely resemble the boy I grew up with. That burnt thick skin with its glassy scales, the mile-long tongue that whips about in flames. This future version of the two of us fascinates me, and I watch in horror—in a sad act of faraway admiration—everything in between. Greatness, no matter how wicked, has the power to instill a certain awe in people, and Gage in all of his monstrous glory is no different. I am in awe of his wickedmajesty.
“How will you fix this?”the version of myself that stepped down from paradiseasks.
“I don’t know.”I give him the same answer each and every time. I have had this dream dozens upon dozens of times, and each night it plays out thesame.
He places his strong hand over my shoulder, warm and weighted, as if it alone had the power to assure me everything would somehow be all right. And then just like that, I’m pulled out of the dream by the vacuum of reality. My eyes are always slow to open as I struggle my way back. And I always ask myself the same damn question—what in the hell should I donow?
I blink to life, and my gaze drifts to the gap in the curtain, exposing a veil of snowy white fog that has already wrapped its arms around the island. Paragon loves to dress herself in its softness. She loves to sand off the rugged edges of reality by dewing herself in the ever-present mist of youth. I wish I could wrap Skyla and Gage in softness, prepare them for the hard fall that inevitably lies ahead. It’s been a week now that he’s told her the truth, and she’s embraced it with the loving kindness I always knew shewould.
Skyla and Gage are working again. And I want that for them. I wish they were working from the start, and I was long since dead, content and buried, staring down at the two of them from paradise above. Although, technically, that’s not true. From that bodily deprived standpoint in the hereafter, you can’t see the world or anything in it. That is a lie, or more accurately, a distortion of the truth that people love to believe. The dead have surrendered their knowledge of this life along with their bodies. The world and all of its inhabitants are under the Master’s watchful eye and that of his Son. It is they that look down. They alone are mindful of what needs to be done. They function as one and the same—the Father and the Son—and it makes me wonder if Gage and his father—Demetri, will too function as one in the same. That is the frightening reality staring us in the face. But my father, my mother, and all of the saints that have passed on, are incapable of solving any single problem for me. God has got this. The last thing He needs is billions of meddling spirits meddling with His universe, trying desperately to right all of the wrongs, desperate to be gods themselves without holding the blueprint of what comes next and where it fits into the grand design. It’s true. If given half a chance, I would have commandeered Skyla and Gage to the happily ever after they need, that some might say they deserve, although, I’m not entirely in that camp. If I’m honest, I’ll admit defeat, but I’ll also admit that I love Skyla too much to ever let her gocompletely.
The Smite brothers come to mind with their altruistic outlook on love—Graham in particular. He gave the woman he loved away to his brother like a parting gift, a token of his appreciation. Skyla is far more than a token, than a jewel to hold in my palm and pass along to any of my brothers, and I do include Gage in that number. Nope. I cannot give her away. And in the same vein, I cannot give Gage away either—least of all toDemetri.
A hard knock comes over the door, and Lexy bursts in with a tray in herhands.
“Rise and shine, bright eyes! Today is a new day, and you and I have a world toconquer.”
A dull groan rumbles from me. Lexy Bakova is the last girl on the planet I plan on conquering the world with. Not to mention the fact I tried to do specifically that with Skyla and drove her—scratch that, cemented her in Gage Oliver’s arms—and I, myself, ended up dead in theprocess.
Lex sits next to me, depressing my mattress right along with my spirits. I know for a fact her presence annoys the living hell out of Skyla. And I’m not looking for anything sexual with Lex, which is exactly what Lex wants with me, so it’s probably time I gave her theboot.
“Lex, there’s something I need to tellyou.”
