Logan yanks his hand from mine. “Shit,” he roars so loud it pulls me right back to reality and I watch as he kicks the dirt under his feet, picks up a stone and hurls it into the woods. “That fucking asshole,” he thunders, growling and writhing. I can see his soul squirming under his skin as he struggles to process what I’ve just told him. “I gave him everything,” he pants the words out in a whisper. “It’s Demetri, Skyla. He’s got to be behind this somehow. Gage would never willingly—”
“Gage is gone.” My words ring out like a gunshot. “He died the night of the boys’ first birthday party as far as I’m concerned. I don’t want to think about what’s happened since. It’s too crushing. It’s pressing against me with the weight of the planet, and I can’t breathe.”
It’s too much for me to deal with. The betrayal Gage has executed will have to be swallowed down in bite-sized pieces. There is one thing I can do in hopes to right this runaway train, and that’s exactly what I’m on my way to accomplish. As much as I cannot stand what Gage has done, a part of me agrees with Logan. Gage would never willingly— And that’s the unfinished sentence only my heart can complete.
Words I will never speak.
Deep down, I will fight to clean the grime off of the man who was once my husband.
Actions that no one must know.
This morbid desire must be hidden from the world to a degree. Fighting Gage and loving him will only lead to madness. Right now I need to pick a lane, and it just so happens to be the one that doesn’t include Gage Oliver.
Logan steps in, his breath materializing in white papery plumes.
“Let me take you home, Skyla. Better yet, leave the boys with your mother for the night. Come to Whitehorse with me.” He gently takes up my hand and reels me in as he tries to convince me to haunt that beautiful house he built for us. Logan is a master of comforting me in my greatest hour of need. And ironically, he is always the road that leads to my next greatest hour of need. And still, a debate on whether or not I should go rages within me.
The neighing of a horse comes from the woods and this time I’m not startled or frightened of what we’ll find. I know very well what we will see.
“My sister.” It comes from me lackluster as Logan and I head into the woods. The evergreens spray their elongated shadows among the silver spears of moonlight penetrating the forest. The scent of raw earth and night dew permeates our senses.
“Rory?” I call out. Her relation to me was revealed to me back on that horrible night, that horrible Halloween night—an irony considering it really was an All Hallows’Evilnight. Logan was apprised of her presence while she was haunting me for the better part of last year, and then I filled him in on who she really was after both she and my mother exposed me to the truth.
It turns out, Rory was the first biological child my father and mother conceived. My mother miscarried early on, and Rory went on to eternity without ever experiencing the sorrows that Earth has to offer. But her soul was bitter. She claims to have been the one Celestra needed. It did not please her that I, the second in line, was gifted such an honor.
According to my sister, my mother had stripped her birthright. Rory claimed the tragedy that embroiled her was exclusively our mother’s fault—our mother, after all, is the keeper of destinies. Our mother, Candace Messenger, however, had a different spin on it, as she usually does. In her eyes, it was far from her doing. She claims she does not have the power to gift life or death. Rory was dismissed by the Almighty’s hand, not Candace’s doing in the least. I suppose the truth might straddle somewhere in the middle—a fine line of right and wrong. I’m not sure whose truth cuts closer to the godly bone, and that’s exactly why I chose andstillchoose to stay out of it.
“Rory?” Logan calls out, and his voice echoes back to us like a warm embrace.
The braying increases with intensity, the whinnying, the crying of the poor beast all that much more urgent.
Logan points to the right and a spastic white flicker catches our attention. We run over and spot the enormous white steed with a noose around its neck, the rope hooked up on an elevated bough. Poor thing. The horse indeed looks to be Shaddai, the ethereal horse that stands taller than any Clydesdale. My mother said the horse once belonged to her while both the glorious equine and she were living. And unfortunately, my mother was riding the beautiful beast the same afternoon she miscarried my sister. I’m not sure Rory has forgiven Shaddai or my mother ever since.
The fog filters in around us, unfurling as thick as batting as if Paragon itself were the underbelly of an enormous quilt. I can almost feel the needle bouncing over my head as loving hands move with determination to entomb us inside of this mess we live in, forever.
“I don’t see her,” I pant as I try to catch the end of the rope gyrating through the air like a whip. “Rory?” I call out one last time but nothing.
The horse bucks and pulls back with all his might at the sound of her name and the noose tightens all the more. His eyes bulge as if he were about to enter the death throes, as if he werereal. Despite the fact, this is either one phantasm putting on a spectacular show or somehow this beast has managed to come to life. And judging by the way he looks less transparent and far more solid and opaque, I’m betting on the latter.
His hind legs buck violently as the distressed horse struggles to free himself, cinching the noose with every writhing move.
“Logan, we have to help him. Do something.”
The beast lets out a strangled roar and Logan wastes no time in climbing the evergreen and using his shoe to help ease the pressure between the noose and the poor creature’s neck. The horse jerks while shaking himself free and falls onto his hind legs with his head to the sky, his hair wild and free.
A jag of lightning flares overhead like a crack in the night as if exposing the brightness of heaven just on the other side.
Logan hops down and gives a crooked grin. “I follow orders.”
“I see that,” I say, stepping on the tip of the rope before handing it to him. “And believe me, I’m impressed.” I look into Logan Oliver’s beautiful eyes and mourn everything we once were. How foolishly everything went astray. We were full of good intentions, but it was all a jumbled mess in the end. “I need you to follow another order. Take this beast back to my mother where he belongs.”
“Come with me.” He doesn’t miss a beat, his eyes still magnetized to mine as if he were afraid I would bolt—and he should be, because I will.
“Not a chance,” I say, my heart is already set on where I’m determined to go. “The last thing I want is to hear my mother sayI told you so.”
The sky illuminates once again in an entire web of light, and I tick my head back and roar at the woman who is at the helm of this insanity. And I do not for a minute doubt that my mother is in control.
“It is Gage and Chloe’s wedding night!” My voice rubs raw as the words claw their way to the sky. The disbelief shines right through my voice and ignites a pall over Paragon, this haunted island Gage and I have called home for as long as we’ve known one another.
