“My mother? Oh no.” I shake my head emphatically. “Lizbeth Landon is defiled through and through. I’m sorry. If the fate of the universe depends on me to wear my mother like a coat, it’s just going to have to look somewhere else for help.”
“I didn’t have Lizbeth in mind. But the upside to selecting your mother would be that you can bond with Master Jaxson once again.”
A hard whimper comes from me. “It is tempting. But she’s my mother. I’m not sure I could handle being in her body,seeingher body. I think there are some boundaries a mother and child should not cross—and bodily possession is one of them.”
Michelle and Lexy almost come to blows over the last piece of bacon while Nat documents the whole thing on her phone, but Marshall and I continue to ignore them.
Marshall gives a mock bow. “The goose stands alone.”
“What goose?” I take a quick inventory of the kitchen, only to see Nat drinking straight from the OJ carton and Michelle going for another helping of bacon. Lexy is busy texting someone now, and I look over her shoulder to see it’s a picture of her in a bikini, bending over and she’s sending it to Liam.
Lexy hitssendand grunts. “So who’s going to clean up that mess in the lab?”
I look to Marshall. “What mess?”
Michelle retches as if she were about to puke. “I’m not touching it. As soon as I saw that head on the floor, I hightailed it out of there. I’m a surface dweller from now on.”
“Head?” My eyes widen as I look to Marshall. I don’t bother questioning the surly Sector. Instead, I speed my way through the door, through the walls and down to the Wonderground, the exact replica of Ezrina’s laboratory that she had in the Transfer. This one happens to span football fields underneath the island, and the trio of women in the kitchen has taken to rent-free dwellings down here as well.
And then I see it—see him. Gage Oliver’s head lying in a pool of blue keeping solution, and that glass box his primal apex was displayed in sits in pieces, shattered all around him.
“Oh my God.” There is far too much keeping solution to have just come from the tiny container. It looks as if a sea of it had spilled. Had I needed to touch the ground my ankles would be covered. I float around in a spastic state, taking inventory of all the damage. Every glass tube Ezrina used to house the dead, or more recently the Spectators, has been shattered—the solution drained from each of them. All of her pricey equipment has been smashed to pieces, and there is no trace of Ezrina, Nev, or Alice—but then I already knew that.
“Marshall,” I pant at the devastation before me. “Take me to that monster.” I glare over at Gage Oliver’s head lying on the floor. “I need to speak with him.” A thought hits me, and I suck in my next breath. “He’s the one I choose to possess! I want to take over Gage Oliver’s twisted frame, and I demand you make this happen. I’ll right all the wrongs in less than a day. I’ll land Celestra and the Sectors on top so fast your head will be on a sexy swivel.”
“Demand as you will, I have no jurisdiction over his corporal frame, and you know that.”
“Let me guess.” My shoulders sag with defeat. “Demetri has a protective hedge over him.”
“Gage Oliverisa protective hedge. Once you’ve been issued a new body, built to withstand eternity, there is no destruction—no possession possible. He is marked as one of His own.”
“What a waste of a mark that was.” I glance to the ceiling. “Fine.” I head over to where his head lies. “I’d better pop him in the freezer until Ezrina can deal with this mess.” I try to pick him up by the hair, but my hand swipes right through him. “Wonderful. It’s official. I’m useless in this ghostly state. Marshall, you’ll have to do the honors.”
His cheek glides up one side as he snatches up a handful of that lush dark hair that once belonged to the version of Gage I loved best, and he picks him up.
“I’ll put him in the freezer, just the way you requested, but only after I wash the keeping solution from him.” He heads down the hall and I quickly follow along.
“Marshall, the sink is behind us.”
“Yes, but the toilet is this way.”
“Ugh,” I say, floating right alongside him as he heads into the restroom, and I watch as he gives Gage Oliver a long overdue swirly. And as soon as Gage’s face is washed questionably clean of all that keeping solution, Marshall pops him in the freezer, right here in the lab.
“Now where?” I stab my fists into my hips as I examine the gorgeous Sector before me. “Who is this goose you spoke of earlier?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” He takes up my hand, and we evaporate in a thick lavender fog.
A foreign living room forms around us, bland walls, a black and white furniture motif, an oversized television takes up half the wall, and on the black leather sofa sits an equally oversized ego.
“Oh no,” I say, staring at the very beast who has vexed me for far too long in my short life. “Not Chloe Bishop.”
The sound of a rhythmic thumping goes off nearby. Most likely someone trying to hack their way in so they can kill her.
“Not Chloe Bishop,” Marshall concedes. “ChloeOliver.” He winks my way as he puts the emphasis on her surname.
“Great,” I growl right at the nefarious princess before me. “Honest to God, Marshall, I’d do my best to set her on fire if she weren’t the perfect candidate. She’s single. Everyone is afraid of her. And she has the wickedest mind I know. But best of all, she despises my sister Rory almost as much as I do. You know what? I think Bishop will work nicely. Go ahead and do the switcheroo.”
That thumping sound grows a bit more aggressive, and Chloe turns to glower at the wall before tossing a small velvet pillow at it.
