Chapter 21
Skyla
The fog rolls in through the towering evergreens surrounding West Paragon High like some kind of mystical curtain, turning the world into a dream set in soft focus.
The rain has finally given up its tantrum, leaving behind the rich scent of wet pine needles and damp earth that makes everything smell like hope and inevitable disaster—this is Paragon, after all.
Voices echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once, giving Paragon that haunted house vibe it definitely feels like.
That mural of Cerberus painted on the side of the gym looms larger than life through the haze, its three heads watching over the athletic field with the kind of intensity that makes you wonder if it might actually blink.
Which, considering everything else that’s been happening lately, wouldn’t even crack my top ten list of oddball things that’s happened this week.
School is out for the day, cheer practice is about to start, and the bitch squad has assembled on the field like a perfectly coordinated army of pom-poms and attitude.
The entire lot of us is dressed in a mishmash of yoga pants, sweats, and shorts so short they’d make our mothers faint and our fathers buy shotguns.
Chloe stands at the center of our little mean girl clique, clipboard in hand, looking as if she’s about to conduct a hostile takeover rather than teach us how to spell victory with our bodies.
“Ladies,” she snips, her voice cutting through the fog with the authority of a girl who’s never questioned her right to command a room, “we have exactly forty-five minutes to perfect our routine before I lose what little faith I have left in this squad’s collective intelligence.”
The fact that Chloe thinks there are any signs of intelligent life in front of her makes me wonder if she’s been huffing hairspray. I realize that dig includes me, but let’s face it, Chloe has never thought much of me or any of my brain cells, for that matter.
“Wow, Bishop,” Michelle grunts, pulling her dark ponytail in two in an effort to tighten it. “Way to really boost our confidence.”
“Confidence is earned, not given,” Chloe shoots back without missing a beat. “And based on yesterday’s performance, most of you are operating at a deficit.”
Lexy snorts from her position next to the equipment bag. “Says the girl who face-planted during the last pyramid.”
“That was a strategic dismount,” Chloe replies coolly. “Something you’d understand if you spent less time picking your nose and more time actually learning the choreography.”
Emily, who’s been stretching in silence, looks up. Her locks are wild and free and billowing over her head like a dark, curly cloud. “Are we calling it choreography now? I thought we were just making it up as we went along.”
I bite back a laugh as Chloe’s eyes narrow to dangerous slits. Every move we’ve ever done was thought up by Chloe in her dreams. She’s convinced it’s some subliminal supernatural talent of hers.
“Emily, sweet, sweet, bitchy, witchy Em,” Chloe says with enough spite in her voice to poison a well. “Perhaps you’d like to demonstrate the routine for everyone? Show us all how it’s really done?”
“I would,” Em grunts back, “but I’m still trying to figure out if that move in the second verse is supposed to be a high kick or a call to Dudley that says meet me in my bedroom.”
The entire lot of us laughs at that one, and Chloe seethes with the promise to yank our intestines out in our sleep. She would so enjoy it, too.
Kate bounces on her toes like someone mainlining Red Bull through an IV. “I think it’s supposed to be a high kick! At least, that’s what I’ve been doing, and it feels really spirity!”
“Spirity?” Lexy repeats flatly. “Is that what we’re calling whatever Chloe does with her legs while she’s climbing Studley Dudley?”
More laughter. More lethal looks from Chloe. I’m sensing a pattern. And I’m loving the pattern, considering that I was the brunt of most of the jokes in this little corner of hell we called West Paragon Cheer.
Bree sighs hard. “I think we all just need to practice together and—”
“What we need,” Chloe interrupts with venom in her voice, “is for everyone to stop talking and start moving. Positions, now. And if anyone even thinks about improvising, I will personally ensure your social lives become extinct—and maybe your actual lives, too.”
“Classic Chloe,” I mutter. Part drill sergeant, part serial killer. That basically sums up her entire life.
We scramble into formation, and for the next twenty minutes, Chloe puts us through our paces with the intensity of a Sector tracking down rogue Nephilim.
She barks corrections, demonstrates moves with precision that would make celestial beings take notes, and generally makes it clear that anything less than perfection is a personal insult to her entire existence.
“Michelle, your arms look like you’re drowning in slow motion,” she snaps during a particularly complex sequence. “Lexy, that wasn’t a jump. That was a sad little bounce and an insult to gravity. Emily, I can literally see you mouthing the counts, and it’s giving me secondhand embarrassment.”
“Maybe if the timing made sense,” Emily mutters, but she adjusts her stance anyway.
“What was that?” Chloe blinks her way.
“I said maybe if the timing made sense in the context of human movement patterns rather than whatever fever dream inspired this routine, I wouldn’t have to count as I try to stagger my way through it.”
I cough to cover a snort of laughter. Emily might be quiet most of the time, but when she decides to unleash her inner snark, it’s deliciously lethal.
“You know what,” Michelle says, stopping mid-kick and putting her hands on her hips, “maybe we should all just focus on having fun. It’s not like we’re performing at Nationals or anything.”
“And we won’t be with that attitude.” Chloe’s voice rises about three octaves. “For your information, fun is what happens when you execute a routine flawlessly. Fun is what happens when you don’t embarrass yourself in front of the entire school. Fun is—”
“What happens on ski week!” Kate interrupts with the kind of excited squeal that could wake the dead.
Although when I accidentally kick her head off and she kicks the bucket, she definitely will not be waking up for anything.
“I am so pumped for that trip. It’s going to be freaking amazing!
Thanks to Messenger, I can’t stop thinking about it now. ”
And just like that, the entire dynamic shifts. Suddenly, everyone’s talking at once, the routine forgotten in favor of vacation planning.
“Ski week is going to be killer this year,” Lex moans as she says it.
Far more killer than any of them can dream.
“I already have my entire wardrobe planned,” Michelle gushes. “Three different ski outfits, plus all those cute lodge outfits, and party dresses for the after-dark events.”
I bite down on a smile as I remember the exact after-dark events she’s thinking about. Gage and I were plotting to have our first time together happen on that cursed mountain. But every celestial force, including the Grim Reaper, was determined to stop us.
“Party dresses?” Lexy raises an eyebrow. “Michelle, it’s a ski trip, not Milan Fashion Week.”
“Fashion Week wishes it could be as fabulous as my ski wardrobe,” Michelle shoots back. “Besides, there are going to be college guys there. College guys, people. This is serious business.”
“College guys who are probably more interested in actually skiing than watching you pose in designer snow pants,” Emily points out with a grunt.
“Shows what you know,” Michelle sniffs. “A good snow pant can work miracles.”
“Only if they’re as easy to pull off as they are to pull on.” Bree laughs. “I’m just excited about the hot chocolate and the fireplaces. It’s going to be cozy and romantic.”
“Romantic until you face-plant into a snowbank,” Lexy says. “Which, knowing our collective athletic abilities, is pretty much guaranteed.”
“Speak for yourself,” Chloe cuts in. “I’m as graceful on the slopes as I am everywhere else.”
The conversation swirls around me, but all I can think about is what I know—what I remember from the future that was. One of them comes home from this trip in a body bag. One of these girls, laughing and planning party outfits and talking about college boys, doesn’t make it back alive.
And that’s when I make a decision—although I’m not sure I’ll be able to follow through with it, but still.
“Actually,” I say, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. “I’m not going on the trip.”
The entire group turns to stare at me like I just announced I’m giving up social media forever.
“What?” Kate’s voice is pure shock. “Since when?”
“Since I decided I’d rather not risk breaking my neck on a mountain.” Or hers, but I leave that part out.
Chloe’s eyes narrow with suspicion. “Right. Because you’re known for being so risk-averse.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” I say.
“And actually, Kate, I’ve been thinking you shouldn’t go either.
” Okay, so I may have told her the same thing at Rockaway, but the point sort of mandates repeating.
Just because I won’t be there doesn’t mean fate won’t figure out a way around that Skyla-shaped obstacle.
In fact, I highly recommend she rolls herself in bubble wrap and stays in bed for the entirety of that week, month, and maybe the next five years.
Kate’s face falls as if I had just told her Santa wasn’t real. “What? Why not?”
“It’s just...” I scramble for a reason that doesn’t involve prophetic knowledge of ski-related disasters. “I have a really bad feeling about it. Call it intuition.”
“Intuition?” Michelle scoffs. “Since when do you base major life decisions on feelings?”
“Since always,” I lie smoothly.