Chapter 14
Skyla
The black sand of Rockaway Beach stretches before us like a funeral shroud, haunting in its beauty.
Waves crash against the shoreline in a relentless rhythm, their thunderous force sending sea spray high into the air before gravity drags it back down.
The briny scent of salt mingles with the sharp tang of pine from the surrounding trees, and I find comfort knowing I’m still home in a roundabout way.
And now, thanks to Ellis Harrison’s arrival, there’s a new note in this olfactory parade—the unmistakable earthy aroma of his botanical experiments circling through the air like a lazy vulture.
I still think it smells as if a herd of skunks trotted by.
What was supposed to be a romantic outing with Gage has morphed into what appears to be West Paragon High’s unofficial social hour.
Students pour in from the parking lot in waves that rival the ocean, with blankets and drinks in hand as if summoned by some teen telepathy—AKA Logan’s Keep Gage’s Baseball Bat Away From Skyla Oliver battle cry.
I’ve been relegated to the edge of my own blanket with Lexy, Emily, Chloe, Nat, Michelle, Brielle, and—most shockingly—Kate Winston, whose head is still firmly attached to her shoulders. For now.
Gage sits beside me, more as an observer than participant, with his mouth set in a firm line as he watches the bitch squad verbally eviscerate themselves and everyone they’ve ever come in contact with—mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and uncles, no one is safe from their prolific vitriol.
But the girls from East seem to be taking the brunt of their brutality. Better them than me.
Funny how our mutual hatred of East Paragon High ended up being a stronger bonding experience than surviving the faction war in all of its lethal gory glory. Nothing brings people together like a common enemy in a rival school’s colors.
Off to my right, Logan, Ellis, and Drake huddle around the bonfire they’ve built, the flames dancing higher with each log they add.
Logan catches my eye and smiles, clearly pleased with himself for turning my private date into a public spectacle.
Apparently, sharing me with Gage comes with a surveillance team this time around.
My phone screen lights up with another text from Marshall.
Ms. Messenger.
Second verse same as the first.
Short, cryptic, and perfectly timed to be annoying. I flip the phone over quickly, hiding the screen from prying eyes—especially Gage, whose mood has darkened to match the sand beneath us. Suffice it to say, nothing makes Gage angrier than Logan’s perfect timing.
“All I’m saying,” Michelle insists, tossing her lustrous locks, “is that Dudley has this way of looking at you like he’s memorizing every detail for later.”
“And just what is he doing later when he’s thinking about you, that is the question,” Lexy adds with a suggestive waggle of her brows.
I study Michelle for a moment, marveling at how her bald spots seem to have healed themselves overnight, and the length of her hair looks miraculously restored as well—not to mention her sanity.
All it took was getting rid of that haunted rose.
And for as much as Michelle and I didn’t see eye to vindictive eye, I much prefer this reality.
Believe me, if Michelle knew the alternative, she would, too.
Not to mention, she’d pen Logan a thank you—by way of her body on top of silk sheets.
She wishes. So does Lexy. And here I am writing all sorts of dirty messages to Logan with my body nightly.
Or I was at least until I got trapped in teenage hell with about a dozen or so of my so-called friends.
A secret smile creeps across my face as I contemplate the deliciousness of Logan’s body falling over mine on a regular basis.
“What are you smirking about, Messenger?” Michelle barks, catching me as I ogle her.
Chloe’s chest thumps with a laugh that never initiates. “She’s probably fantasizing about Dudley ravishing her.” She mimics stuffing her face as if she were eating a donut—a Skyla-filled donut.
It might have been Logan I was thinking about, but they look so much alike, she was close.
I look right at Chloe and shake my head. Oh, honey, I don’t need to fantasize. That naughty Sector can’t wait to have his dirty ways with me. Of course, I wish I could say those words, but don’t.
“Eh.” Brielle gives a nonchalant shrug. “I already did him.”
“Bree!” I swat her on the arm for that confession. Though in retrospect, I already knew that little bit of dirty and completely inappropriate history. The guy is like six or seven thousand years old. She always did have a thing for older men.
“Brielle?” Gage moans and covers his eyes for a moment. “Say it ain’t so.”
“Oh, it’s so,” she’s quick to correct him. “And it was so many, many times in a row.”
Bree has always been a showoff when it comes to keeping score in the bedroom. And it’s those exact bedroom shenanigans that land her knee-high in diapers before the rest of us.
“I’ve been with him, too,” Chloe is quick to confess, and I squint her way.
Wait… I’m pretty sure I didn’t know that. Or at least not this quick in the game.
“Don’t worry, Gage,” Chloe purrs, her eyes glowing with far too much naughty intent for my liking. “I memorized all of his best moves to share with you later.”
The bitch squad lights up with laughter—including my bestie, and I shoot Brielle a look that says et tu?
Gage shakes his head, his dimples flexing with more than a little restraint. “I’m good,” he says, voice dripping with cool disdain as he shoots down the demon among us. “Some of us don’t need training wheels to satisfy the people we’re with.”
All the girls on the blanket ooh and aah at the very same time, and I smile his way as if to say can’t wait! Gage has moves that I’m sure could teach even Marshall a trick or two. And I can certainly attest to that.
“It’s true,” I say, unable to resist. “Gage’s night moves can rival any man on this planet—and even a few of the heavenly beings roaming among us.”
Did I just say that out loud? Oh, for frick’s sake, the first good night’s rest I have had in years, and my brain is still malfunctioning? I really do need to see Ezrina about a head transplant.
A collective gasp circles the vicinity.
“No way!” Now it’s Bree swatting me. “I can’t believe you and Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dimples did the dirty deed and you didn’t even tell me about it.”
“You mean Mr. Baseball Bat,” Lexy is quick to correct the moniker.
And neither of them is wrong.
Gage tips his head to the side. She didn’t tell me either.
And just like that, I pull my hand free from his.
Talk about an ungraceful telepathic dismount.
Gage can’t read minds, it’s a Celestra party trick, but he sure knows I can tune into his thoughts whenever I’m touching his flesh.
And right now, I have a feeling I shouldn’t be privy to his perverted commentary.
“She’s lying.” Chloe is quick to clear the sexual air. “Gage is saving himself for me.” She shakes her hair back while glancing at the sky, and her confidence in this second lie is off the charts. Either that or she just shot up a prayer. Probably both.
“Please,” Kate scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Everyone knows Dudley is the real prize at West. No offense, Gage.”
“None taken,” he says with a dark laugh.
“Absolutely.” Nat nods emphatically as she casts her lusty vote for Marshall. “Those hands could tutor me in advanced calculus and anatomy. Especially anatomy.”
Michelle looks incensed and ready to kill. “Back off, bitches,” she hisses. “I’ve had my eye on him since he landed at West. I call dibs. Dudley is mine.”
I’d roll my eyes, but I know firsthand that Michelle’s obsession with Marshall is pathetic enough to make even Chloe’s Gage fixation look healthy. Kidding. Chloe would harvest my organs if she thought Gage would like her better with my kidneys.
“Over my dead body, Michelle Miller,” Lexy declares war with a smile, before refreshing her lipstick blindly and giving herself an inadvertent crimson mustache.
“Dudley isn’t looking for little girls. He wants a woman.
” She snaps her compact closed with finality.
“That’s exactly why I was thinking about stopping off at his place right about now. ”
“To see if you can find a real woman?” Chloe lifts a brow with the dig, and everyone on the beach laughs at that one. Well, everyone but Lexy.
Chloe’s cruelty knows no bounds. Even her closest friends are just ammunition for her next zinger. Glad to know I’m not special.
My phone buzzes again with the same message from you-know-who.
Ms. Messenger.
Thunder grumbles overhead like some ancient beast turning in its sleep, its discontent rolling across the sky in waves like a sonic menace. The clouds darken from gray to charcoal, as if the very elements are responding to Marshall’s summons.
I glance over at the bonfire where the flames are practically licking Drake’s shoes.
Logan’s face glows in shades of orange and red as the firelight carves dramatic shadows into his features.
Ellis sits enveloped in his own personal cloud, a pharmacological fog of his own creation that’s steadily expanding outward like a very hazy, very illegal nebula.
Logan glances my way, and I covertly wiggle my phone at him.
I don’t remember Marshall texting me so much and so cryptically.
Something is definitely up. Maybe he knows what’s going on?
Maybe he doesn’t know, and he’s just being his delightfully obnoxious self?
Maybe he wants to show me the future by way of his prophetic kisses.
Little does he know, I can return the favor now.
“What’s up?” Gage asks, leaning forward and nodding to my phone.
Shoot. The wrong Oliver is asking questions.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” I say quickly, trying to shove my phone into my purse, but a hand snatches it up from behind.
“What’s this?” Chloe says, holding the phone close to her chest like a hard-won trophy. “Hiding a naughty note from the best lover on the planet?”
The rest of the bitch squad laughs, and I catch Gage looking both embarrassed and markedly ticked.
Chloe glances down at the screen and grunts. “It’s just Dudley.”
More thunderous laughs break out at the mention of his name, deafening and so precisely timed I’m starting to think it’s deliberate. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn my mother has added a laugh track to my life. Next, she’ll add commercial breaks.
“What?” Michelle riots, practically levitating with outrage.
“Give that to me.” She yanks the phone out of Chloe’s hand and examines the screen herself.
“He was obviously just using Messenger to get in touch with me,” she spits out the delusion so fast it sounds half-convincing.
“I’ll put him out of his misery. I’m heading over there. ”
She tosses the phone at me just as the heavens open up. Fat raindrops pelt down, striking the sand with enough force to leave tiny craters. Everyone jumps up at once, and all of a sudden, there’s a collective shout—“Party at Dudley’s!”
Within seconds, Rockaway has cleared just as effectively as if someone yelled “shark” instead. Every car in the lot is careening for the Gates, including Gage and me, with Logan following in hot pursuit.
Gage nods at the windshield as we drive through the storm, his wipers struggling against the deluge. “What do you think Dudley wants?”
“Heck, if I know.” Ain’t that the truth.
Not once have I understood what that Sector has wanted from me—well, except for maybe me.
The rain pounds against the truck’s roof like some cosmic Morse code, each drop a message I can’t quite decipher as lightning illuminates our angsty teen convoy racing through the Gates.
Behind us, Logan’s headlights cut through the storm, and ahead of us, the rest of West Paragon High streams toward Marshall’s place like moths to a very dangerous flame.
The universe is orchestrating this moment with all the subtlety of a celestial sledgehammer, and I have the sinking feeling that whatever Marshall wants from me, it’s going to change everything.