The music picks up to psychotic levels and the chattering voices around us increase in velocity. Their incessant laughter is all too much to bear.
Gone is his friendly demeanor, replaced with something far more bone-cutting, a soberness akin to anger.
“Skyla, I find not one morsel of elation regarding the disaster that has overcome you. This is a grievance that far outweighs mortality. This is an eternal betrayal, one without excuse—one which sought out a barrier of love.” He lifts a brow and waits in anticipation as if he were quizzing me.
“True love has no barriers, Marshall. You and I both know that.”
He offers a solemn nod. “And that, my love, is what you must remember in the nexus of your darkest day.” His eyes slit to nothing. “It is the only kindness I will lend him.”
My heart flinches because byhimhe means Gage. But I’m too worn out to untangle that necklace of a riddle. I’m too tired to play Marshall’s reindeer head games.
“Why is Marlena here? Why are they all here?” My voice is back to raging.
His jaw squares out and his eyes zero in on mine with determined veracity. “So you may have your way with her—with them. You have enough anger bottled up inside of you to fuel a space mission. You must, and you will, rid yourself of it.”
Something in me loosens as I try to absorb his words. “You brought Marlena here for me to toss around like a ragdoll?” The words strum from me numb. “Because it was the closest thing you could give me next to Chloe?” My body relaxes a notch. “Now that’s true love.”
“Make note of it. Also, make note of the fact anger is not the emotion you want when plotting to land Celestra back in its coveted position. Anger is simply a sheet draped over grief. You can, and you must, find a way to operate around it.”
It’s as if his words had formed the sharpest blade and he slipped it into my chest, cutting my heart out then forcing me to eat it.
A whimper comes from me as I try to digest what he’s asked me. “I can’t, Marshall. I need it. I need the anger to protect me from the grief. You call it a sheet. I call it a shield. Everything else has been taken from me this night. Don’t take the one thing I’ve earned.” I swallow down the grief that’s vomited up in the back of my throat like bile. My cherished anger is raising its hand, sayinglook at me, taste how bitter I can be. It’s me you really need. “And as much as I know you love me, Marlena isn’t here simply for me to torment—although that was a damn good touch. What’s the real reason?” I don’t bother to blink while waiting for a response. I don’t want to miss a nuance of his facial expressions.
“There is more work to be done, Skyla. There are people we can utilize. And, in order to do so, we must first fall into their good graces.”
I glance to the fireplace, where Marlena seems to have made a remarkable recovery, her face still encrusted in crimson, but she wears her wounds with pride just like Chloe. The rotten apple didn’t fall too far from the ancestral tree. Marlena looks so much like Chloe it knots me up in a tirade just being in the same room with her. Gage, of course, is in the same room with Chloe, and I wonder if he’s losing himself exploring her body? Are they on the floor making paper butterflies just like the old days? Is he glad to be done with Project Skyla and glad to be back where he feels he belonged all along?
“Marshall, I’m going to ask you something and I forbid any doublespeak.”
He steps in front of me, blocking Marlena from my line of vision, but it does nothing to break the spell Chloe has cast on me tonight.
“Ask me anything. I am here to serve.”
I step in close and pick up both of his hands, our chests touching. His warm breath rains down my cheeks as those vibratronic pulses radiate from his being to mine. Touching Marshall has always been an erotic pleasure.
“Is Gage demon-possessed? Is that why he’s done all of these horrible things to my people and me—and then ran off and married Chloe Bishop?” My chest bucks as tears hit the surface, but I refuse to acknowledge them. They are of no use to me anymore.
Marshall sighs. His shoulders droop a moment as he looks to me with a forlorn expression. “Dear Skyla, he is no more possessed by a dark entity than you are. He is wholly of sound mind and body. His actions are his own. There is no outside influence.”
A horrific cry rips from me, dissolving the music and reaching the ceiling before penetrating the rafters and escaping to the heavens where my mother can glory in my misery.
There is no outside influence. There you have it. There is no demonic spirit bearing down on Gage Oliver’s soul. He is wholly himself. And it makes me wonder who he truly was to begin with.
“Were we a lie?” I say the words to Marshall so hypnotically slow, so very quiet. Marshall doesn’t need ears to hear me. He feels the vibrations of my soul. He’s more in tune with me than I am.
“That I cannot answer. Only the recesses of his heart know the true depth of his love for you. I had seen them, though. I bore witness to what appeared most genuine.” Marshall cradles my cheek in his hand, his thumb brushing so lightly over my lips. “You must move on now, Skyla. The time has come. You mustn’t look back.”
“I can’t do it.” I shake my head. The skull drilling chaos exploding around me feels right. It feels absolutely necessary. Had there been silence I wouldn’t have survived. Sometimes when your life is in such utter disarray you need all the madness this world can sponsor just to weigh you down so you don’t float away and drift slowly to the deep end of insanity.
A thought comes to me. A final grasp of hope in this desolate hour.
“Marshall.” I press myself against him, my fingers digging into his sleeves. “I must find a way to fix this.” My voice hikes an octave, completely threadbare as a bomb of emotions threatens to detonate inside of me. “Take me back”—it croaks out of me—“right now. Take me back to the beginning. I command you to do this.”
His head volleys to the side and his eyes slit to nothing. “Back to the beginning? That’s quite an order.”
“And you will do it with a smile.” I’m straddling danger with Marshall, speaking to him this way. It’s never a good thing to command anything from him. This is one Sector that can be stubborn as hell.
“Well then.” He sheds a manufactured grin that lasts less than a second. “I suppose we have someplace to go.”
