I head on in and find Gage sitting at the kitchen island with a box of glazed donuts open in front of him. Three empty spots where donuts used to live. He doesn’t look up when I walk in, just takes another mechanical bite and stares at the countertop like it holds the secrets of the universe.
“Hey.” I grab a donut and bite into it, sugar coating my tongue.Heaven. The fact that I can eat like a teenager tonight is yet another bonus this haunted light drive provides.
“Hey.” His voice is flat and as dead as those bodies in the morgue.
I grab another donut. Then another. My appetite feels bottomless, like every cell in my body is demanding fuel to process what just happened under the watchful eyes of Cerberus. Skyla’s hands in my hair. Her laugh against my mouth. The way she looked at me like I was her whole world.
Why exactly haven’t we done that before? I vote we head that way as soon as we get home tonight, and you know, relive the memory.
“Looks like you worked up quite the appetite.” Gage’s words slice through my donut-induced haze, and I give a little laugh.
“You know me, I couldn’t shake ’em off with a stick tonight.” I wink his way despite the fact I know he’s brooding. He’ll get over it. He always does.
Gage finally looks up, and his eyes are icy as a winter storm. Cold and dangerous. “Look at you, rolling in here, demolishing half a box of donuts like you haven’t eaten in weeks. Must have been some night.” He forces a smile, but it’s short-lived.
The way he says “some night” makes me wonder if he knows exactly what kind of night I had. And with whom.
“I’m just hungry.” I keep my voice steady. And now I’m wondering exactly what he thinks he knows. “Sue me.”
“Hungry.” Gage nods like he’s considering this. “That explains the appetite. Doesn’t explain why you look like you got mauled by something with really soft claws.”
My hand flies to my neck, where I can still feel the ghost of Skyla’s mouth. Damn. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Right.” Gage stands up, shoving his chair back so hard it scrapes against the floor like a riot. “Well, whatever kept you so busy tonight, I hope it was worth it.”
And there it is. He knows.
The words hang in the air between us like a challenge. Like he’sdaring me to confess, to admit what we both know happened. But Gage doesn’t know about the light driving, doesn’t understand that the girl he thinks is his girlfriend is actually a married woman from the future who happens to belong with me.
All he knows is that his girlfriend was kissing someone else behind the school as if her life depended on it.
“It’s not what you think,” I tell him.
Gage’s jaw ticks. For a second, I think he might swing at me. Might finally say what we’re both dancing around. Instead, he grabs the donut box and shoves it across the counter toward me.
“Go ahead and finish them off. Looks like you need the energy because it’s exactly what I think.”
He walks past me toward the stairs, and I resist the urge to say something—anything—that might make this less awful. But what can I say? That I’m sorry for taking what was never really his? That in a few years, none of this will matter because Skyla and I will be married with kids and a life that Gage is part of but will never truly belong to?
“Gage.” His name comes out before I can stop it.
He turns around, and for a split second, I can see the hurt in his heart, raw and bleeding at seventeen.
“Don’t.” His voice is quiet and dangerous. “Whatever you’re about to say, just don’t. We both know what happened tonight. We both know what’s going to keep happening. So let’s skip the part where you pretend to feel bad about it.”
He disappears upstairs, and I’m left alone in the kitchen with a box of donuts and the taste of victory that has suddenly turned bitter in my mouth.
Because he’s right. I don’t feel bad about it.
Soon, Skyla and I will be gone, and the old version of Skyla will land right where Gage wants her—in his arms with undying devotion.
Gage might win the battle, but I win the war. And I snap up another donut to celebrate.
12
Skyla
Paragon Island sleeps beneath a blanket of fog so dense it swallows the world beyond my window, transforming the landscape into a ghostly watercolor painting.
