She pulls back and I spot Gage in duplicate, Wes holding a beautiful blonde Charlie while Tobie runs away from him. Tobie has it right. Everyone should run the hell away from Wesley Edinger.
“Skyla”—Logan reels me in—“let me take you home.” His eyes flit to each of mine, begging me on a cellular level to listen.
“Not yet.” Chloe reaches into her purse. “Not until I give you your gift.”
She lands a svelte white stick in my palm and it takes a moment for it register.
“A pregnancy test.” It comes out like a fact. Each word stings like a slap. Unfathomable.
“Turn it over, Skyla. I want Gage to see it for himself.”
With the flick of my palm, the stick flips almost voluntarily, staring back at us with a bright pink plus sign.
Someone knocks the stick from my hand. The room closes in on itself. My feet carry me to Gage. My Gage. The man I was so willing to sell my people for.
I look into those beautiful cobalt eyes, that dark hair my fingers twitch to touch, that dark scruff a contrast to his skin, so very pale, white with shock.
With all I’ve got, I summon every last bit of saliva—I’d extract every bodily fluid right from the pit of my bowels if I could—and I hock it right in his face. A spray of the ages, baptizing him with my bastardized blessing.
“Congratulations, Gage. The two of you deserve one another.”
Logan hustles me to the door and shouts for Mia to bring the kids.
Ellis and Laken appear by my side, an odd combination but so very comforting in this moment where the walls of my world are set ablaze once again.
Ellis leans in. “Say the word and I’ll smother them both in their sleep.”
“I love you.”
Laken pulls me in, nose to nose. “I heard what she said about dinner. If you’re still going, I’ll be there.”
I offer a meager nod before extricating myself from her embrace and looking to the sky. As if on cue, Holden and his pale bride circle above me and I point hard to Marshall’s haunted manor. My Christmas gift to Chloe.
Logan shuttles me to his truck and straps the boys into their car seats before hopping in.
The fog wraps itself around Marshall’s estate like a blindfold, erasing all of its features, evaporating its inhabitants, leaving nothing but a peachy glow emanating as a reminder.
Bone-deep grief. Soul-soaked anger. The fork in the emotional road.
I need to choose, and I choose anger.
It segues perfectly into the road that I must travel.
Revenge.
6
Gage
Nightmare.
The room fades in and out once Skyla is hustled to the door. Chloe steps into my line of vision. That dark smile curving on her lips.
“Congratulations”—her fingers curl under my chin—“you’re going to be a father again.”
Shit. Say something. Anything.
“Yes.” I nod, dazed by the news. Emily and Nat stride by and I carefully herd them over. Emily with her painfully enormous belly—my God, that’s going to be Chloe. Skyla spit in my eyes, but Chloe threw acid into her face. “Nat, please get Chloe some water for me. See that she gets off her feet.”
