Whitehorse wafts in and out of the fog like a dream, like a nightmare. Logan purchased this plot of land in Silent Cove a few years back and built this—some might say monstrosity, some might say tender gesture for his future wife—my wife.

The wind picks up, bites its way through my jacket as I make my way up the clean white porch. I can’t help but note the verse arched above the doorway, I love you more than the heavens love the sun and the moon. He does. Logan loves Skyla exactly that much and more, and even though it sets off an inner rage in me, I understand it. Skyla is the kind of woman that leaves you breathless and wanting more. And as much as I want to, I can’t forget the fact it was Logan she wanted first. The love we share might have blossomed from our friendship, but there’s not a thing in me that believes what we share today isn’t real.

A dry laugh strums through me. Skyla hasn’t spoken more than a few words to me in months. The only reason we still share a bed on occasion is because we’re both exhausted from taking care of the boys. Our lips, our bodies have been virtual strangers to one another ever since I pledged allegiance to the dark side.

The doorknob gives in my hand, and I step in without bothering to knock. “Yo!” I bark and a tiny female frame startles on the sofa—dark copper hair cut above her shoulders, that permanent scowl on her face. It’s Lex.

“Is that what you do in your spare time, Gage Oliver? Barge into other people’s homes without knocking?” Lexy Bakova spikes up on the sofa, pulling a blanket up to her chin and turning the volume down on the television. “Logan!” she shouts, clearly annoyed by my presence. “Gage is here!”

“What brings you here?” I’ll admit, I’m slightly amused at the size of Lexy’s balls. Logan has made it known to her more times than I can count that he’s not interested, and she relentlessly continues to knit herself into his life. A shallow part of me is cheering her on, but I know Logan better than I know myself—lately that sentiment is true to a fault—Logan doesn’t want Lexy—not in that way. He’s not interested in some close second to Skyla, not that there is one. He wants Skyla and only Skyla. Can’t blame him. I feel the same.

“What brings you here?” She cranes her neck past me as if she needed me to move so she can see that goliath screen. Logan’s television takes up the wall, something that one might think screams my financial dick is bigger than yours, but in Logan’s case, he just wants to feel like he’s at the game. We spent our lives in worship of college football up until Skyla showed up, and ever since we’ve spent the remainder of our time worshiping her.

Logan pops in before I can answer.

“Glad you’re here, man.” He slaps me five and pulls me into a partial embrace. Logan called and said I needed to get my sorry ass down to Whitehorse as soon as possible.

“I came right over. What’s up?”

His forehead wrinkles with concern, and I can tell he’s holding back. I can only assume it’s because Lex is in the room. “There’s some stuff I wanted to go over with you downstairs.”

Technically, there is no downstairs at this particular Oliver estate. The only thing down there is the subterranean lab he built for Ezrina to emulate the one she had in the Transfer—but in typical Logan fashion, it’s infinitely larger than the facility the Counts furnished her with. It’s been a godsend, but something tells me that’s up for debate at the moment. I follow Logan into the kitchen and through the pantry, which leads to the stairwell that spirals down to the lab. To say it’s enormous down here doesn’t do it justice. A football field might be dwarfed. I’ve never walked the periphery, but from what I can tell it spans a great deal past his lot lines.

“What’s up with Bakova?” I ask, jogging to keep up with him. “She still trying to heat the sheets?”

“That would be it.” He shakes his head at the thought. “She’s company, though.”

“For who?” Logan has been at the house we grew up in as much as I have these last few months.

“I pop in every now and again, and it’s nice to have someone to carry on a conversation with.” He cuts me a quick look, and his cheek twitches. “Relax. I’m shitting with you. Trying to stave off her hormones is like holding up a wall. She’s relentless as they come.” He frowns as we head down the corridor that leads to Ezrina’s shiny new chop shop. “But she’s with the Barricade—she’s one of you.”

I pull him back by the shirt like a reflex and shove him against the wall. “Don’t say that, dude.”

Those lucent yellow eyes of his meet up with mine, and a sober moment bounces between us. “Own it, Gage. You went in with a purpose. You and I both know you went in to save your children—and now that you’re in, we can use this.”

“Is that what you dragged me down here for?” I give him a hard shove, and the back of his head hits the wall with a thud.

“No.” He squeezes his eyes shut tight as if that knock to the skull actually hurt. “But you asked what Lex was doing here. I’m telling you there’s a need to infiltrate.”

“So you infiltrate with Lexy, and Skyla infiltrates with Chloe.” And I infiltrate on my own, but I leave that dismal bit of obvious news out. I bypass him and head into the stainless lab with its white-on-white décor that messes with your head. “Tell me, Logan. Has Skyla given you the slightest hint of what she’s up to, or is that something the two of you have decided to keep from me?” I run my hand along the stainless sink, so squeaky clean you could eat right out of it.

“I don’t have any clue. But if I did, I wouldn’t keep it from you. Just like I’m not keeping this from you.” He motions for me to follow him farther down the hall to the room where Ezrina has a legion of oversized glass tubes on display, each filled with blue keeping solution, each one void of one quasi-human body. She built this resurrection wing in hopes to bring back the Videns from their impending doom. A third of the Videns have gone MIA, gifting their life to Wesley’s cause. There’s no real way to know if they went in knowing they’d convert into Spectators—something Wes is busy spooking the world with. The hope is to capture them and return them to their pre-Spectator state. But how do you convince a dead man that he should want to live if he prefers the alternative in order to progress a demonic movement? This room tells life and all of its hard questions to go to hell. Ezrina is determined to help me save them.

“I know all about this room, Logan.” I touch one of the tanks with my hand and let the icy current enliven my anger once again. The Videns were gifted to me as a people, and the fact that a significant number of its youth is now all but dead speaks volumes to my leadership skills. I don’t give a shit if they wanted to go in—they made the wrong decision. I should have been the one to guide them, not Wes with his deadly intentions.

“Did you know about this?” He heads to the corner, where a white curtain surrounds one of the glass coffins, the blue solution glows from behind, and near the top it looks as if the fluid is percolating. Logan pulls the partition away with an easy flick of the wrist.

“Shit.” I take a quick step back, my heart leaping into my throat at the sight. “Is that—”

“Laken.” He gives the side of the tank a quick knock, but the girl inside doesn’t flinch.

Laken Flanders floats submerged with her eyes closed, her mouth sealed shut, her long brown hair floating around her like tendrils. She’s neatly tucked in a skintight wetsuit of some sort that Ezrina used to dress the Counts in.

“Shit. Does Coop know about this?” My head beats erratic, echoing through my skull at the insane amount of grief my friend must be feeling, or will feel. Hell, I care about Laken myself, and seeing her lifeless body spinning silently in that bubbling brew pains me.

“I don’t know. But that’s not Laken—at least not the version we know. As soon as I saw it, I ran like hell to tell him, and lo and behold he was having dinner with his wife. Whoever this is—whatever Ezrina has done, has something to do with—”

“Wes.” My eyes close a moment at the thought of my brother having anything to do with this at all. “Who is she? Laken never mentioned a twin. I met her sisters at the wedding, and this isn’t one of them.”

Logan and I look up at the girl silently bobbing in the bright blue watery grave. Her uncanny resemblance to Laken is impossibly perfect.

“It’s not a twin.” He glares at the girl a moment. “She might not be one of us. Hell, she might not even be human.”

The sound of heels clicking down the hall behind us echoes into the room. “Logan?”

“It’s Skyla.” Logan looks to the curtain, and I can tell that for a brief moment he considers covering up this latest, perhaps not greatest, dirty little secret of ours. But he doesn’t do it. I think the days of keeping things from Skyla—even if it had fallen under the banner of her safety—are long gone.

“Gage?” Her face lights up for a moment when she sees me, and just as quickly her expression dims when she sees the horror in the room. “What in the hell?” Skyla staggers forward, her wool coat cinches her waist, emphasizing the fact she’s all but bounced back into shape. Skyla is beautiful in any shape or size, but I’ve heard her lament more times than not how much she craves to have her old body back. God, how I’ve missed her body in any state.

Logan smacks me in the gut and pulls me out of my stupor.

“Skyla.” I lunge forward and wrap my arms around her. “It’s not Laken.”

“No.” Her voice comes out small. Her gaze never leaves that liquid casket. “I just left her. But—”

“We don’t know what’s going on.” My arms tighten around her waist, and every cell in my body relaxes for the first time in months. I haven’t held Skyla like this since December. Not holding your wife for months should be criminal. My heart thumps back to life as if it were waiting for her touch all along. And it has.

Logan steps over, and the three of us stare up at the girl, the thing together. “I stumbled upon her this afternoon.”

“And you called Gage.” Skyla gently breaks free from my arms and walks over to the tank, running her hand along the glass as I did moments before. “Of course, you did. He’s the one you trust,” she says it so low it’s as if she’s speaking to herself.

Logan and I exchange a quick glance. It pains us both to have lost Skyla’s trust. Logan and I have spent years breaking Skyla’s heart in just that fashion.

“So, this is what Marshall and Nev were talking about.” A deep sigh expels from her as she sags at the sight of the girl above. “This must be Ezrina’s secret project.” She turns toward the two of us, the look of indifference on her face. “And that’s all I know.” She blinks a sarcastic smile. “Gage.” Her expression darkens. “Just the person I wanted to talk to.”

I can feel Logan flinch by my side. “I think I’ll head upstairs. I was thinking about making dinner. How about I make enough for the three of us?” He takes off without bothering to wait for an answer.

“Four,” Skyla calls after him as he takes off. “Don’t forget your precious little Lexy Poo! Sluts have to eat, too, you know!” She turns to me and growls as if I were somehow harboring a slut of my own. But as irritated as she is, I’m that happy. In fact, I’m bursting with joy inside because my beautiful wife and I are alone, not another living soul in the room with us—and God knows that Laken lookalike isn’t able to take her next breath.

“Why are you dimpling at me?” She scowls at my cheeks as if the God-given divots I sport have somehow harnessed the ability to piss her off. It wouldn’t surprise me. Everything about me pisses Skyla off lately. And I’m not sure it shouldn’t.

“Because you’re beautiful—and you’re still my wife.” That last part comes out unnaturally aggressive. “And because it was me you wanted to speak with. I’d be lying if I didn’t say it stroked my ego a bit.” There—a single truth rolls around between us, hard and cold as a marble.

Her brows rise a notch as anger dissipates, replaced with amusement. “I bet there’s something far more tangible than your ego you’d like me to stroke.”

I don’t hesitate to run with it. “Can I put in a request for your tongue to do the stroking?” She drew first euphemism. Skyla and I have always enjoyed a healthy dose of sexual banter. It feels normal, necessary, and yes, desperate on my part just a bit. But then, I think the world knows I’ve always been desperate for Skyla on some level.

“I’d laugh, but that bulge forming in your jeans lets me know you’re not joking.” Her demeanor flattens once again. “Control that dragon in your pants, Oliver. He’s not taking flight in my vagina anytime soon.” She steps in front of the glass vial, and the glow from the keeping solution washes her skin an electric shade of blue. “Nevertheless.” Her voice grows breathy in a way that I haven’t heard in months, and my dick grows ten times harder. It takes far more willpower than I have to get myself off that sexual ledge. I should have mastered this skill by now. In high school, for as much as we were messing around, we weren’t fucking around, and thus my inhuman ability to get my hard-on to go the hell away.

“Nevertheless.” I step in behind her and tuck my lips just shy of her neck. I can’t help it. That word sounded like a promise. At this point I’ll take an insult from the woman I love, let alone a vow.

“That’s what Ezrina is calling her, Nevertheless.” She runs her fingers across a small bronze strip adhered near the bottom of the tank. “Ezrina always gives them a proper name—their given name. But not this one. She’s opted for an idea rather than a truth.” Skyla tips her head toward me and doesn’t bother hiding the smile tugging at her lips. “I guess the two of you have something in common after all.”

A tired laugh dies within my chest. Skyla thinks I’ve opted for an idea rather than the truth. What she won’t let me tell her is that the truth is darker, far more frightening than she ever wants to know. A part of me doesn’t want to tell her. It’s morbid and hellish, and without a ray of light. What’s the point? Although, I need for her to understand—and so there it is, the double-edged sword.

“You were looking for me?” I sweep the hair off her shoulder and soak in the heat from her body as I take a bold step closer.

Skyla looks up with those heaven-sent eyes, those barely there lenses that look clear as glass—a color impossible in nature. Those eyes alone should tip people off that she’s not quite human.

“Yes,” she whispers, glancing to the ground as her cheeks heat with color. “Tell me everything you know about Melody Winters.”

And just like that, my heart plummets because this isn’t the topic at all I was hoping for.

“Why? What’s up?” I look back up at the girl with Laken’s face. She’s about as much a mystery as Melody is to me at the moment.

“She says I stole this ring from her.” Skyla holds up her hand, and the large blue stone on her finger glows like a fallen star. I glance to her other hand and she’s still miraculously wearing her wedding ring, and that sight alone makes my heart soar.

“Where’d you get the ring?” I pick up her hand, pretending to be morbidly interested in her newfound jewelry, but the truth is, I’m thirsty to hold her, so very thirsty for her touch.

“Chloe gave it to me for Christmas.” She carefully pulls her hand away and fondles the ring with her thumb.

“Chloe?” I try to hold back my judgment of their new bond, but for the life of me I can’t. “Skyla, what are you doing with Chloe of all people? You know you can’t trust her.”

“I can’t trust anybody.” She shrugs it off like a fact. “And don’t worry about what I’m doing with Chloe. I’m guessing you have bigger things to burden you these days.” Her eyes darken as she stares me down with something just this side of hatred. Skyla sinks to her knees next to the floating casket by our side and releases a nozzle near the bottom that sends both the fluid draining and the entire glass capsule tipping to its side.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m freeing this poor thing. What does it look like I’m doing?” She glides a metal gurney from the corner and rolls it over. “You can help if you want, but trust me—I don’t need you.”

Those last few words cut like a knife. “I need you,” I say as I help her hoist the glass the vial on its ear. Skyla meets up with my gaze a brief moment before twisting open the top of the contraption, and the smell of something a little more pleasant than formaldehyde hits my nostrils.

“Shit.” I tuck my face into my arm a moment to catch my breath.

“You think that’s bad. Imagine a world of servitude with this stench. I smelled this in my sleep for months—tasted it in my food.”

Skyla was taken captive and worked with Ezrina for a time. It was a dark season in our lives. It seems as if our lives are continually peppered with dark seasons.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“You don’t have to be sorry about that.” She grunts as she pulls the girl free from her confinement and lands her onto the glorified metal bathtub before her.

“I’m sorry about everything, Skyla.” As difficult as this conversation is, I’m relentlessly pursuing it. “Let’s take a moment and talk things through.”

“No.” Her eyes flicker to mine like flames. “Right now, I want to talk about Melody Winters—not to mention the fact—figuring out what in the hell Ezrina is doing with Laken 2.0. And before you say it, yes, I smell Wes at the other end of this disaster.”

“So we’re on the same page regarding that.” I watch as Skyla runs her hand over the girl’s face, examining her with the precision of a surgeon. “Melody is Dominique Winters’ daughter. She has two brothers, Asbury and Cash. They live on the other end of town in some weird mega house that has some never-ending construction project going on. The mother, Dominique, had a major heart attack about seven years ago. She was DOA when she got to the hospital and then miraculously woke up about an hour later as if nothing happened.”

Skyla stops all movement and glances up at me. “Sounds like a familiar story, doesn’t it?”

“It’s close to what happened to Melody, only she woke up at the morgue.”

She gives a wistful shake of the head as she rolls the girl on her side. “I always suspected you could wake the dead.” She does a finger sweep of the girl’s mouth. “Especially the estrogen card carrying variety.” Skyla shoves her finger down the girl’s throat, and a burst of blue liquid vomits from her. “There we go,” she says it softly as if speaking to the girl. “If only I could figure out how to resurrect the dead myself.”

A burst of blue light shines through the Laken lookalike as she coughs and sputters to life.

“Skyla.” I hold an arm over the girl in the event she’s about to attack.

Ezrina and Nev hurry into the room along with Logan and Lexy.

“What have you done?” Ezrina shrieks and sends us both jumping back. “Skyla!” she growls so loud it sounds like a cat with its tail on fire.

Skyla takes a careful step in toward Ezrina. “Who is she and what does Wesley think he’s about to do with her?”

The room grows strangely silent as Ezrina and Skyla have a momentary standoff. But the girl groans and vomits another vat full of keeping solution and brings everyone’s attention right back to her regurgitating self.

Nevermore clears his throat. “I do believe we have a life on our hands. Rina, please tend to the girl so she doesn’t suffer.”

“I’ll deal with you later,” Ezrina growls at Skyla before barking commands at Nev for her tools.

Skyla backs up slowly, her face washed white with shock as she stares down at that ring Chloe gifted her. “I have to go.”

Logan grips her by the shoulders. “What happened? Did you pull her out?”

Skyla glances up at me a moment. “The boys are at your mother’s house. Bring them home for me.” She darts down the corridor before anyone can stop her.

“Skyla!” I run after her, but she’s out the front door and I’m chasing taillights into the night. “Where the hell are you going?” I pant as I try to catch my breath.

Logan and Lexy run out the door, and I join them on the porch.

“Skyla’s friends with that girl.” Lexy shudders. “I bet she’s off to tell Coop.”

“That’s not Laken.” Logan takes a seat on the porch, and I join him. “Would you mind giving me a minute with Gage?”

Lexy clicks her tongue and huffs toward the door. “Fine, but remember I came over to discuss the dance. It’ll be here before you know it, and there are still a ton of details we need to cover.” She slams the door behind her as if to annunciate the point.

“Yes, the dance.” Logan bounces his knee to mine a moment. “Lexy just put it all in perspective. Who gives a crap about a mysterious girl wearing someone else’s face or the fact you and Skyla had a moment alone—when we’ve got an ’80s dance on the horizon?”

“Yup. How I wish that was my greatest worry.”

“Can I ask what happened between you and Skyla?”

“She wanted to know about Melody Winters.”

“What about her?”

“I don’t know.” I wipe my face down with my hands. “Something about Chloe gifting Skyla a ring that Melody says she stole. I told her everything I knew about that chick. Anyway, nothing too earth-shattering happened between Skyla and me. I’m still in the doghouse, barking at the moon like a fucking loon. Dude, it’s days like this that have me believing I’ve screwed things up for good.”

“My dad—your grandpa had a saying”—Logan claps his hand over my shoulder—“all’s well that ends well, and if it isn’t ending well, it isn’t the end.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“It sounds good to me, and I’m dead.”

A dull laugh rumbles from me. “I’m a dead man, too. It’s just a matter of time, dude. This is nothing but a long farewell for me.”

“But those boys—” His voice trails off. “They can sure use you around for the next six decades or so. I know what it’s like to lose a parent—both parents. It sucks. No offense to Barron and Emma. God knows I appreciate them, but there’s something about having your own mother and father around that’s a special blessing.”

“And that’s why I’m fighting.” I stare out at the unmapped darkness that bleeds into the ocean. “What exactly I’m fighting against, I am not sure.”

Logan slaps me over the knee. “Then it’s time to find out. You up for a drive?”

“Depends on where we’re headed.”

“We’re going on a hunt.” He jumps up, and I’m slow to follow. “Lex”—he shouts through the screen—“I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Okay, hon! Take your time. I’ll be right here waiting.”

Logan jogs down to his truck, and a quiet laugh strums from him. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he says for my ears only.

I hop in next to him as he revs the engine. “So, what are we hunting for?” I slip on my seat belt as the truck jackknifes out of the driveway with a jolt.

“Answers.”

* * *

Paragon is known for many things, but answers are not on the list.

The highway stretches out before us, hardly visible beneath the white plumes of fog cropping up like ghosts. We drive deeper into the night as the terrain gives way to large stretches of shadowed land without the hint of a streetlight to guide our way. I’ve walked along this stretch of road before, so unknowably black in the night with a darkness so enveloping it convinces you to surrender. It tempts you to lie down between the evergreens and fall into a deep slumber with eternity curling its fingers for you to follow along for the ride.

I know where we’re headed, and the closer we get, the less I want to be here.

Logan pulls in high up on the driveway as Demetri’s house sprouts up like an overgrown haunted jack-o-lantern.

“He’s not going to tell us anything new. Why bother?”

“Dude.” Logan winces as we hop out of the car and into the damp Paragon night. “You need to loosen up. You’re already in deep shit. What the hell do you have to lose?”

We head on up, and I give a brisk knock to the door before letting myself inside. “The damn thing is never locked.”

“Of course, it’s not”—Logan smirks—“the most dangerous person on the island is in the house. He probably craves the challenge.”

We step through the foyer and into the cavernous living room with its wall-to-wall marble flooring, the enormous fireplace blazing with flames, and not too far from that, Demetri laughs it up with some dude dressed in a trench coat.

“Dudley?” Logan and I say in unison.

“Gentlemen!” Demetri holds out his arms, welcoming us, an amber-colored drink cradled in one hand and a cigar in the other. Dudley is sporting the same toxic duet.

I pause a moment, taking in the strange sight. First, I don’t know Demetri and Dudley to be scotch toting, cigar smoking friends. Second—“What the hell is up with the celebration?” My blood boils at the thought of the two of them saluting my efforts to take a walk on the wicked side.

“Young Olivers.” Dudley frowns at the sight of us before taking a puff of that stogie in his hand.

“Son!” Demetri takes a few steps forward as Logan and I head over. “Please—you and your uncle must partake.” He points to the bar behind him. “Whiskey aged seven hundred years in an oak barrel.”

Dudley grunts. “How many times do I have to inform you it’s scotch? It’s from Scotland. It must be referred to as scotch.”

I called it.

“I suppose the whiskey is in the details.” Demetri winks my way.

“It’s the devil,” Logan says, heading over and pouring himself a finger length and one for myself. Neither Logan nor I are big drinkers, but something this rare should probably wet our tongues if for nothing else but the novelty of it.

“Cuban cigars.” Demetri tips his head to the humidor resting next to the whiskey—scotch whatever.

“Interesting.” I take up two and hand one to Logan.

Logan looks to Dudley. “When in Rome.”

Buried in that phrase is a barb about his honeymoon with Skyla. I’m not sure how Dudley fits into the equation, but I know for a fact he does. Dudley always seems to factor into the equation.

Demetri lights us up, and before you know it, the four of us are smoking cigars and swilling scotch like old friends. I wish I could say there was tension in the room. I wish I could say that Logan and I were about to go postal and toss both of their celestial asses into the fire, but the truth is, we’re too busy amusing ourselves with the flavor of smoke on our tongues. I take a sip of the scotch, and a fire burns straight down through my esophagus. Tastes bitter and sweet at the same time—like life and death all rolled into one. It tastes like my own tears the night I gifted my destiny to the devil standing before me.

“What brings you this way?” Dudley blows a plume of smoke in our direction. “Let me guess. Skyla has you lathered in a tizzy, and now you’ve come to claw your way out of the havoc you’ve ensnared yourself in.” He and Demetri share a laugh, and it stuns me.

“Is this what you do in your spare time?” I’m talking to Dudley more than I am Demetri. “Laugh at the state of Skyla’s world? I am a part of her world whether or not you’ve bothered to notice.”

Dudley’s affect falls hard and flat. “I am Skyla’s world. The two of you are simply stepping stones that destiny has laid out to ease her path to me.”

Logan scoffs at the arrogant Sector. “The boys are her world, Dudley. Check your ego. I’m no stepping-stone, and neither is Gage. We are boulders, partitions to a love that you will never feel. You’ll never have her heart. Not the way we have it.”

A silent laugh bounces through me, but I can’t help it. Logan is right. Skyla loves us both. I’m not up for sharing, though. Honest to God, half the time I think I’m the boulder, the partition to his love with Skyla. But I’m greedy as hell when it comes to that girl. She’s mine, and I’m not sharing with anyone.

“Interesting.” Dudley pegs me with a look that assures me he’s heard every word. I don’t know all of the details concerning his powers, and I’m not interested. Instead, I take another puff of the cigar and blow my own billow of smoke his way. I take another swig of the scotch and enjoy the burn all the way down.

“What men you’ve turned into.” Dudley scoffs, that dead look in his eyes is targeted right at me. “It must make you feel quite grown up with a drink in your hand, a Cuban at the ready.”

“Now, now, Dudley.” Demetri gives a sarcastic smile to the Sector. It’s clear he’s playing off the name Logan and I choose to use with him. “This is a rite of passage. And a privilege, considering the aged libation, the aged Cuban in our hands as well.”

“What are you boys celebrating, anyway?” Logan puffs away on his cigar as if all of the angst and tension he just ushered into the room a few moments ago were simply for show.

“Ezrina.” Dudley tips his head toward him. “She’s with child. She and Heathcliff will be parents come fall.”

“Whoa.” Logan and I exchange a quick glance.

“That’s great news.” I take a step back, trying to ingest it. “We were just with her, and she didn’t say a word. We’ll have to congratulate her the next time we see her.” We were just with her, and she didn’t say a word because she was livid with Skyla for waking the dead.

I glance to Dudley. If he heard me earlier, he heard me now.

His demeanor hardens over mine. Knew it. The bastard has been reading my thoughts all along. “Great news, indeed.” He knocks back the rest of his drink. “I’m hoping for a boy. Marshall is a splendid name.”

Demetri is quick to elbow him. “I’m vying for my own name. Nothing says male virility like Demetri.”

“I see that’s why you named your son Gage.” Dudley lifts his drink, and I’m about a second from knocking it out of his hand.

“All right—enough shooting the shit.” I set my drink down hard onto the coffee table. It’s probably fashioned out of some poor soul’s casket once Demetri ate the body for breakfast. He’s a monster. I can’t lose sight of that.

“I’m no monster. I’m your father, Gage.” Demetri lifts his glass.

So he heard. The house must work in the same way Ahava does, linking thoughts or some shit.

“DNA donor.” I offer a tight smile. “What’s the real powwow about?” I glare at Dudley a moment. “I don’t buy for a minute that you’ve stopped your wicked day to toast Ezrina’s maternal milestone.”

“Ah, yes, the truth. Perhaps it was the scotch itself.” Demetri tips his head toward me. “I had forgotten all about that barrel my grandfather had stored in the basement until I stumbled upon it this afternoon. Do feel free to help yourself whenever you please.” He glances to Logan. “I extend the invitation to you as well. Bring your brothers if you’d like. I might even break it out for the twins’ first birthday party. Nothing but the best for my grandchildren.”

Logan scoffs at the thought. “That won’t be necessary, and I highly doubt you’ll make the invite list. Skyla is their mother, and I respect her wishes.”

Logan shoots me a curt look. I know what he wants—for me to let Demetri know he doesn’t meet my standards for the invite list either. But I can’t do it. I don’t want to or plan on rejecting him in any way. The truth is, I need Demetri as much as I need Skyla at this point. He holds the curse, or at least the reins to it.

“The curse.” Demetri nods, and I hold back a satisfied smile at how easy that was for me. “I’ll tell you this, son—one day, fairly soon, you will refer to it as a blessing.”

“Doubtful.” I take a deep breath and glare at Dudley a moment. “But according to Wesley, very much possible. So, what’s next? I’m here. You’re here. Fill me in on what’s to come. Maybe you don’t know this about your long-lost son, but I hate suspense.”

Dudley’s chest bounces with a silent laugh. “You are the personification of suspense, Gage. As much as the universe is holding its breath to see what becomes of your wife, it’s equally invested in your next move. Don’t discount who you are or what you’re destined for. This road before you doesn’t lie in your father’s bounds. This is your journey. You will dictate where the road leads. So, if you’re asking him what comes next, you are asking the wrong person. Find a mirror and repeat the question.”

The room clogs up with a stunned silence.

According to Dudley, I’m in charge. I fashion my next step. I choose the road. I choose who I love, who I hate, who I kill, and who I let live. Then it’s easy. I choose Skyla. I choose home. I choose my boys. I choose life and not death. I choose Celestra and not the Counts or whatever the heck they’re calling themselves these days. I choose the Sectors over the Fems because God knows they will not plunge the world into darkness. And I most certainly choose to liberate the Viden youth out of their current state of Spectator bondage. There. Done. Simple. I hope to hell everyone in the room heard it.

I glower at Demetri and Dudley in turn, but their peaceable smiles, those content looks on their faces don’t offer me a clue as to what they’re thinking.

“Well intended.” Dudley gives an approving nod my way, but there’s something about that veiled sadness on his face that lets me know it was most likely for not. Dudley doesn’t shit around.

Demetri puts out his cigar on the marble stand next to the fire. “You’ll do well by yourself if you follow your heart.” He glances to me with that strange penetrative look that spells out my defeat before I ever get there. “You will, indeed, follow your heart. That is the beauty of your destiny, Gage. Not even you will be able to deny it.”

“He can, and he will.” Logan slaps a hand over my shoulder. “He’s got his heart in the right place. A heart of gold. There’s not an ounce of wickedness in him. I know him better than I know myself.”

“That may be so.” Dudley breezes by the two of us, dropping his cigar into his scotch before abandoning his drink. “But this isn’t about wickedness. It’s about control. I assure you those are two very different things. The Sectors are immovable, Jock Strap. You remember that.”

“Sector Marshall,” Demetri calls after him, and Dudley turns one last time. “You’ve been removed before. It will happen again.”

Dudley frowns over to me before reverting his gaze back to Demetri. “If you’re counting on him to get you where you need to be, then you have a tougher road ahead of you than one can imagine.”

“And you’re counting on the girl?” Demetri hollers after him, that perennial smile still tight on his face.

The girl being Skyla. Logan and I exchange glances because neither of us appreciates him framing her as a simple girl.

Dudley takes a few steps back into the room. “That girl is my spirit wife. Don’t underestimate her. Each time I’ve done so myself, I’ve lived to regret it.” He takes off, and I spring after him.

“Dudley, wait.” I chase him down the stairs into the damp fog.

“What is it, Jock Strap?” His body turns vaporous, see-through like smoke right before my eyes, and it’s like talking to a ghost. Something in me enrages when he calls me by that locker room riddled moniker. I’ve hated it for years. I’m sick of it, and I’m sick of all of the bullshit surrounding my life at the moment.

“My name is Gage—a perfectly fine name for a man. It’d be good for you to learn it—to use it—if you want to see me on your side.”

Those fiery red eyes of his illuminate the night as he presses all of his own rage into me. I can feel it, scalding me from the inside like a boiling kettle. “And so it begins.”

He evaporates into the night, and a calm fills the surrounding area.

And so it begins. My heart thumps hard in my chest as Logan and Demetri make their way out onto the porch. Is Dudley right? Am I already teaming up with Demetri simply because of my disdain toward that particular Sector? Shit. I can’t let that happen. I’ll need to find a way to make peace with him somehow. There’s no way I should be caving in so easily. Dudley is one of the good guys whether I want to admit it or not. This isn’t the time for me to be an asshole and hold past grievances against him.

“Everything okay?” Logan pulls out his keys, and his truck burps to life.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Why don’t you head back to Whitehorse and take care of whatever it is you have to do with Lex? I’m gonna hang out for a sec. I’ll teleport home. Better yet, I might just walk. I think I need to clear my head a bit.”

“No worries.” He slaps me five and takes off into the night.

“Come.” Demetri tries to lure me back into the house, but I make my way up to the porch, and that’s about as far as I’m willing to move.

“What’s going on?” I call out into the night as if he were on the other side of the island. “I need you to be truthful with me at all times if this thing between us is going to work.” There. Those are words I could never have said around Logan. For as much as Logan wants me to burn this area of my life to the ground, a part of me understands that I had better own it before it owns me.

Demetri lands his right hand over my shoulder, his dark eyes bearing into mine. “I solemnly swear on all that is holy that I will always be truthful with you, my prized son. You are my child, born of my own flesh and blood. You are my heir, the light of my eyes, the life-force that makes my heart beat.”

“I see two problems with this, Pops. Your eyes shine like coal, and I’m pretty certain you don’t have a heart. I’m a pawn. I get it. You need me. You are confident in my lack of understanding of the situation, and you believe with all of the heart you don’t really have that I will inadvertently, all on my own, fuck things up for my wife and her people.”

He winces with the expletive. “In truth, yes and no. I do believe that your lack of understanding is your own, but like anyone in life, you’ll ask the questions and seek out the answers. The answers stem from you as much as the questions. And as for foiling the efforts of your precious beloved, I cannot foresee that the things you will do to hamper her efforts—perhaps they will be accidental on your part. Dudley may have underestimated your wife on occasion, but I never have. You see, I understand the principle that once someone is filled with a holy desire to do right by their people, there is nothing in heaven or on earth that can stop them. Skyla is her father’s daughter. Far more dangerous than that, she is her mother’s daughter. Both of those aforementioned deceased in-laws of yours were never ones to follow the rules to get what they wanted. They both paid with their lives, Gage. Let that be a lesson to you.” His eyes flare like heated coals, an irony within an irony. “You will pay with your life if you decided to forge a path that bristles destiny’s desire.”

“By destiny’s desire, you mean the curse I’ve cloaked myself with.”

“It is a blessing, son.” He steps down and pulls me into a partial embrace. “And one day you will see it that way, too.” He heads inside, and the door seals itself shut with a hiss.

The fog moves in quick, covering the porch in a dense billow of clouds, and it’s hard to tell which way is up in this whitewashed world anymore.

My phone buzzes in my pocket— it’s a text from my dad. The only father I’ll ever have in my eyes.

Rev says the refrigeration unit is on the fritz again. Are you able to run by the morgue?

I text right back. I’m on it.

I’d walk around the proverbial block for my father, but for Demetri I wouldn’t cross the street.

That stone Skyla handed me all those weeks ago at the boys’ christening party comes back to mind. Everything Demetri just said was bullshit because I happen to know that no matter what I do, my days are numbered.

I’m about to bristle destiny’s desire.

That’s for damn sure.

* * *

I don’t bother with the late night walk I had hoped would clear my head. Instead, I use my old tried and true Levatio transportation system and teleport over to the morgue.

The Paragon Cemetery bears the family name, albeit subtly on a wall plaque as you head into the foyer. My father, the one who I count as such, is a humble, decent man who would move the heavens to make sure I had my true heart’s desire, a simple life with Skyla and my children by my side. I’m pretty certain that whoever is in charge of doling out destinies up there—and yes, Candace, I’m looking at you and your cohorts—that they royally effed up because I’m no king, no prince of the Countenance underworld. I’m not even remotely interested in helping the Fems or the Sectors if you get right down to it. I’ll go kicking and screaming all the way down to the armpit where they store that rusted out throne they think I’ll call home one day. Nope. Bristling just so happens to be my new favorite word. I am bristling destiny, out loud, in the open, for everyone seated in that destination station to see.

There’s a light in the room indelicately called the kitchen—the prep area for corpses. My dad has a smidge of Ezrina in him, and that’s one of the things I like about him among many.

“Rev?” I spot him kneeling over an electrical panel in the back. His hair is growing back from its recent shorn state, and he looks halfway like a law-abiding citizen—halfway. His beat-up leather jacket rides up his back, exposing a mean looking tat scrawled over his torso. Rev, or Revelyn, is Dr. Booth’s son. I’m not sure how many kids Dr. B has, but if they’re all like Rev here, I don’t care to meet too many.

He falls back on his ass before bouncing to his feet. Rev is tall and wide as a linebacker. He’s a little older than me, but looks hardened by life with a nasty looking ridge outlining his cheek that looks as if it was gifted to him by way of a knife and currently three steady lines that dig into his forehead.

“Dude, this whole system is shit, but I think I fixed it.” He kicks the grill shut and slides his tools toward the wall. “I called the service, but the fastest they can get out here is Monday. It should hold until then.” He wipes the sweat off his brow.

“Thanks, man. I appreciate it. I know my dad does, too.” Suddenly, I’m feeling for the guy. He’s a part-time employee running a little more than an internship as he works toward his mortuary science degree. He’s been a good guy to have around the place, and I’m glad my dad is finally getting some trustworthy help. “Why don’t you take off? I’ll lock up around here.”

“Cool.” He slaps me five, and the grease from his hand gets transferred to mine. “I’ve got Mia crawling all over my ass. I guess I’ll give her a call and let her know I’m free.”

“What are you doing with her, anyway?” I try to hide the fact that I want to punch him for it. Mia is just as much my little sister as she is Skyla’s. There’s no way I want this guy sniffing around her—as if that’s the only thing he’ll be doing. “You can get any girl you want at Host. Legal girls—emphasis on the legal.” There. Feed his ego and see how far that gets you.

“You don’t think I know that?” He winces, and those bushy brows frame his face just the way Dr. Booth’s do. “But chicks like Mia, dude, they’re clingers. They get one taste of the goods”—he clutches onto his dick and shakes it—“and they can’t get enough.”

“Shit,” I hiss under my breath as I try to maintain my composure. “You’d better get going before I shove you into one of these drawers. You’re not to touch her. You got that?”

“You got it, chief.” He tips his head back as he ducks out of the kitchen. “Don’t bother venturing out back. Heard some noises earlier. I think we got a pack of coyotes. I’ve already scared them off once tonight.” The slam of the front door echoes around the room like a gunshot.

For a second, I consider giving Skyla the heads-up about Rev, but the boys pop into my head. Crap. I should probably shoot her a quick text and let her know where I am. I know she wanted me to pick up the boys for her, and I feel bad. She’s probably already home with them, nursing or begging them to go to sleep. I know two things about our boys for sure—they’re boob men, and they like to burn the candle at both ends. Those kids do not understand the concept of a solid eight. I know it’s making Skyla insane. I’ve tried to help out, stay over, but for the most part, she gives me the boot each and every time.

I head to the refrigeration unit and check out the temps. A chilly thirty-eight degrees should keep all of the guests at the Oliver Inn crisp for the night. Just as I’m about to kill the lights, a pronounced thump comes from somewhere deep inside the walls.

A mean shiver runs through me. That was no coyote. I head out through the back door, and the fog welcomes me with an icy embrace. The cemetery is covered in a blanket of white as the fog lifts her skirt and dances over the gravestones.

“Anybody out here?” That was no animal. It was a solid wallop against the side of the building. I follow the walkway around the structure until I come upon the mausoleum. The moon hangs low, barely visible through the dense plumes bursting through the air like powder. It’s a magical kind of night, and if I wasn’t standing in a glorified body farm, it might even be beautiful—hell, it is beautiful. This is exactly the kind of night I wish I could share with Skyla.

A muted bang comes from the left, and my heart stops on command.

“Holy shit.” My muscles freeze as a paralyzing fear grips me.

I’m not afraid of the dark. I’m not afraid of the cemetery—at least not under normal conditions. But I’ll admit that being here on my own, well after hours, is beginning to edge on my nerves.

Those Spectators of Wesley’s come to mind, and I usher them right back out. I can take them if I have to. But the idea of wrestling with a brain hungry corpse ties my stomach up in knots.

“Anybody out there?” My voice thunders through the mist and comes back to me as a haunting echo. “Shit.” I head over to the mausoleum and stand still at the mouth of that cavernous marble entry. There are bodies interred on the outside in what is aptly named the Hall of Heavens. And, of course, there is the oversized structure itself, a two-story building that contains thousands of bodies of yesteryear that have been lounging here far longer than my family has owned the place. The Hallowed Hall. No offense to my father, but I’ve always thought it smells like rot in here.

Rump, thump!

“Hello?” My heart detonates time and time again, deafening me from the inside. My blood runs cold at what that sound might be. Definitely coming from the Hall of Heavens. I head over and stagger my way slowly down the first row with its dull metal plaques gleaming under the stage lights we installed a few years back in hopes to deter any freaks that might want to confiscate a body for the hell of it.

A sonic boom goes off from the left, shaking the metal vases hanging loosely in their couplets.

Crap. Exploding body perhaps? Dad filled me in on the phenomenon one year after he came back from a casket convention. He assured me it would never get hot enough on Paragon to insight such a messy spectacle, but then, humans are comprised of enough gases to cause even the most caustic explosion whether they’re dead or alive. Case in point, both Drake and Ethan Landon.

Nevertheless, my father, being the precautionary gentleman he is, made sure all crypts were connected with a meager ventilation and drainage system. Yes, drainage. Corpses have a way of leaking even after being embalmed to the hilt. The air vents help the gases escape, thus sidestepping the exploding casket scenario, and the drainage system helps with seepage and leakage. Barron Oliver—Senior—has all of his cryptic bases covered.

Of all the bodies buried in this mausoleum, I personally have only known one. I come across Kate Winston’s marker and place my hand over her name. Kate and I grew up together. I’ll always remember her as the sweet little blonde who told bad jokes and would go out of her way to make you smile. Back in high school, Kate was accidentally beheaded during a school-sponsored ski trip. It just so happened that it was Skyla’s ski that brought on that tragedy. Hell, it was probably Demetri working on Chloe’s command. Demetri is her supervising spirit bitch, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she had him hacking the heads off anyone she deemed fit. And by deemed fit, I mean pissed her off. Chloe is so easy to piss off, it’s shocking half the island still has their heads attached.

About a year after Kate was killed, Chloe thought best to pull the poor girl’s corpse from the morgue and took her detached head to homecoming where Kate’s main apex was hurled over the field like a football. It was a thing of horror as only Chloe could produce. Chloe is a thing of horror, which is exactly why I’m so damn alarmed that Skyla has anything to do with her.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Kate’s marker jumps beneath me, and I retract my hand as if from a fire.

“Fuck!” I roar as I jump back ten feet. I stalk over to the crypt once again that’s housing my old friend, her beheaded body, albeit her head set in its traditional location.

I pull out my phone and text Logan. Morgue. Now! That meager phrase will have to do. I shove the phone back where it came from and head to the marker that’s bowed from the pressure.

“Oh shit.” I grunt as my hand runs over the deformed metal. It’s at least an eighth of an inch thick.

Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!

The walls, the ground shakes with the racket as the sound gets louder, far more severe, and the façade of the structure begins to crumble. I waste no time. Instead, I run like hell back into the kitchen and reach for the tool bag underneath the sink until I come up with a crowbar.

“Holy hell.” I run back toward the thundering clatter that has the entire cemetery under siege with its persistent banging, it’s jackhammer-like aggression.

“Enough!” I roar to no one in particular as I attempt to flick the marker off Kate’s grave. The ground rattles beneath my feet. The loud continual booming deafens me as I struggle to ease the pressure of whatever the hell is going on.

“Gage!” Logan calls my name from somewhere on the other side of the cemetery, but I’m expending all my energy prying off the plaque. It’s not until my Levatio strength, or something far more sinister than that in me initiates does the marker go flying like a Frisbee. The metal sheet beneath it bucks in and out like a heartbeat, and I shove the crowbar in as far as it will go until it too goes airborne like a flying saucer.

Logan gets closer. His shouting rises above the rabid thumping from inside of Kate’s grave.

I reach into the dark mouth of the crypt to grab ahold of the casket, but it’s bucking like a bronco in that small concrete space.

“Shit!” I growl as I reach in with both hands and pull the trembling coffin out of the enclosure, and it flies right past me like a mahogany missile, falling to the ground with a thud and bringing with it an unsurpassed silence I thought I’d never hear again.

The casket has landed on its side, splitting open as it rests over the marble floor like a tent.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I kick the casket over onto its back to reveal her corpse in two pieces lying on the floor. Kate lies still in her formal gown. The scarf that was wrapped around her neck blows past me with the wind, but her head lies crooked to the side, face up, those eyes that were once sealed shut with my father’s eyelash glue fidget as if blinking to life. Her hands twitch, once then twice before tapping over the floor before snagging a finger around a single blonde curl. “Kate,” I whisper as I witness the atrocity.

She pulls at her head, tugs it over, rolling and bumping her face over the cold hard tile before grasping it with both hands and situating it on the base of her neck—her face is set a little too far over her shoulder, offering her an unnatural disposition. Not that anything about this is fucking natural.

“Kate?” There she is, blonde and petite as ever with pale doll-like features, a pert nose, and tiny little lips you can hardly tell are there.

She slaps her hand over the floor as if begging for assistance before pointing to her skull.

“Your head.” I fall to my knees and do my best to twist her head in the right direction. “Hang on.” I leap over and gather the white silk scarf that’s wrapped itself around a fallen vase. In all of the earthquake-like melee, the mausoleum looks as if it’s been ransacked of all its flowers, leaving all of its plastic floral displays scattered like debris.

I wrap the scarf around her neck and do my best to secure her head to the rest of her before pulling her up and cradling her stiff, cold body in my arms. I’m going to have to shower for a week before I touch the boys again.

She pries her lips open with her fingers, then her eyes—two milky blue orbs stare back at me. There is nothing more disconcerting than having an eye or a mouth pop open during a viewing, so we like to glue them closed along with the mouth. But in Kate’s case, she was glued shut twice. My father is meticulous about the state of his corpses. And I’m sure he won’t appreciate the fact that I’ve been present during two reanimations in such a short span of time.

“Gage,” she mouths my name as she settles her eyes over me. An eerie grimace takes over her face as she struggles to smile.

Footsteps speed this way and stop abruptly.

“Oh fuck.” Logan staggers and sways on his feet as he gets in close. “What in the hell have you done now?”

“I don’t know, dude. But something tells me we’re going to need Ezrina.”

No sooner do the words leave my mouth than the cemetery rumbles and grumbles as if experiencing a seizure of its own.

“Forget Ezrina”—Logan gives a suspicious glance around—“we’re going to need Dudley.”

A shadow elongates over the cold stone floor and then another.

“No need to call Dudley.” Skyla appears with Chloe by her side, both bleached white with terror, their eyes set over the rolling earth as the gravestones disjoint, undoing the symmetrical, linear as hell pattern my father has worked so hard to perfect over the last few decades. “I already did.”

“Skyla.” I gently lay Kate over the floor, and her body bucks as she crawls spastically sideways much like a spider.

“For shit's sake!” Chloe screeches. “Kill it with fire!”

“Oh hush.” Skyla bolts to her old friend and lays her hand over her forehead as if checking for a fever. “She’s warming up.” Skyla looks over to Logan and me, panting through a smile. “She was the first I tried to wake, and here she is.”

“Only she’s not one of us,” Chloe snaps. “You let that stupid beating heart of yours get in the way, and, as usual, you’ve fucked things up before they’ve ever began.”

“Shut the hell up, Chloe.” Skyla struggles to help Kate to her feet, and I jump over to assist. Kate wobbles before toppling backward, stiff as a board, and I help Skyla lay her back on the ground. “It’s going to be fine.” A single tear streams down Skyla’s face, falling over Kate’s forehead like an afterthought. And just like that, the color pours back into her flesh. Her lips turn a ruddy shade of pink as she manages to sit up and pant as if she actually had a working set of lungs.

Logan leans in to get a better look. “What the hell is going on, Skyla? Why is Kate sitting here? Why is the entire cemetery doing the graveyard hop?”

Skyla glances up at him with a vengeance in her eyes. “Stop asking so many questions, Logan, and get a damn shovel.”

There is a moment of pause as both Logan and I exchange a brief glance.

Skyla has done this? How has Skyla done this? More to the point, how has Chloe done this?

“Shit.” I take a few steps back and nearly land on my ass until the ground stops quaking beneath my feet. “We can’t dig up the cemetery, Skyla.”

“We don’t have a choice.” She pulls out her phone, and before she can touch her thumb to the screen, Dudley strides on over as if this were the norm—as if the ground jumping, the jackhammering of a thousand corpses begging to escape their casket prisons were an everyday occurrence—and apparently on Paragon, it’s not far from reality.

“Silence!” His voice roars over the dark expanse, and in a show of bravado on his part, a miracle on nature’s part, the fog rolls back like a scroll, receding from the graveyard as if it were chased by a demon, or in this case a Sector—and for a good five solid seconds the graveyard returns to its unanimated state. “Skyla,” he barks, looking back at her with his face screwed up in anger. “What in heaven’s name have you done?”

That tone he’s invoked with her sets a fresh rage percolating in me. “Don’t talk to my wife that way.”

Skyla bursts past me as she gets in his face. “Don’t you act surprised. I was kind enough to brief you!”

“When it was nothing more than a fantasy.” His voice hits its upper register, his chest is puffed out like a gorilla, his nostrils flaring. He doesn’t take those heated eyes off her. He is pissed as hell and doesn’t mind showing it. I’ve yet to see Dudley agitated. For sure I’ve yet to see him reach that level with Skyla.

I don’t hesitate pulling her in and wrapping my arms around her. Skyla is trembling, her breathing hitting an erratic pace the way it used to in the bedroom.

“What’s happening?” I whisper just above her ear and steal the moment to take in her warm vanilla scent.

“It’s this ring.” She rubs her thumb over a blue heart-shaped stone sitting on her forefinger. “Chloe gave it to me.” She pauses long enough to scowl over at the demon. “It has powers. Marshall said something a while back about it being a portal of power only the creator Himself is privy to. I wasn’t aware of the power it held until I woke that girl up in Ezrina’s lab.”

“You woke the girl.” Dudley closes his eyes with a worrisome look of boredom. Dudley only invokes that placid expression when things have truly gone to shit.

“Not me. The ring,” she insists.

“This ring.” Logan comes over and picks up her hand, forcing the ring to sparkle in the dull light. Kate coughs and sputters behind us, but we take a moment to focus in on that ring with its eerie blue glow. “Where did it come from, Chloe?”

Chloe giggles out a dark laugh as she heads to Kate and helps her stagger to her feet, unsteady as a toddler. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“I think I do know.” Skyla hitches a brow over to the girl she’s pretending to favor. “Melody Winters said I stole it from her.” She tilts her head toward Bishop as Kate writhes unsteadily in her arms. “More to the point, she called me a time traveling thief.”

Dudley offers up a slow clap, more of an insult than an encouragement, but I’m pretty sure he knows that. He seems to be up on his put-downs. “Now you’re warm, Ms. Messenger.” He cuts a look to the cemetery with its markers and stones in disarray. “And how in heaven’s name do the four of you think you’re going to excavate this bone yard of its bodies? Each person in his or her own crypt six feet under? In a concrete encapsulated tomb at that? Even with your shared strength and impressive powers, be they meager in comparison to my own, this will take you a year.”

“Nice.” Skyla scoffs openly at him. “It’s good to see you offering your encouragement and support. Do you have any other brilliant, yet discouraging, line items you feel the need to point out? Because if you’re done, I suggest you find a tractor, or, better yet, use your most impressive supernatural powers to excavate the place for us.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I pull her in tight. “We’re not digging this place up.”

“That’s exactly what we’re doing.” She abruptly removes my arms from her waist. She looks to Logan and me with something just this side of pleading. “It’s a part of the plan.”

“The plan.” Chloe nods almost sarcastically. Why the hell can’t Skyla see that she’s pretending to befriend her for kicks? This is nothing but a game to Chloe.

“I can’t help you, Skyla.” Dudley takes a few steps toward the graveyard. “Heaven will have my wings. This is something I’m afraid I’m unable to concern myself with.” He tips his head toward her as if he were about to take off.

“Oh no, you don’t.” She latches onto his arm. “I forbid you from leaving. I forbid any of you from leaving,” she growls at Logan and me but offers a deadly glare to Chloe. “I need you. Celestra needs you. We need these bodies.”

“Who did these bodies once belong to?” Logan is stern with his former wife. It seems waking the dead has the ability to piss off her ex-husband and her delusional spirit husband as well. Oddly, I’m not pissed. I’m just very fucking concerned.

“Celestra.” She glances to Chloe as if to silence her. “Among other Factions. I took the cemetery map book from your father’s office.” She looks right at me. “It was the only way I’d know who was who. I needed to resurrect those I thought might be willing.”

“Willing to do what?” My heart plummets to my feet because I can feel my brother’s name bubbling up her throat.

“To thwart Wesley.” She sharpens her eyes over mine when she says it. “To thwart those millions of feds he has sniffing around the island.”

“Shit.” I close my eyes at how far down both Demetri and Wes have sent us spiraling. “What are you going to do with them?”

Chloe steps up next to me as if we were suddenly on the same team. If you ever find yourself on the same team as Chloe Bishop, just know you’re on the wrong side.

“I know”—Chloe slings a hand over my shoulder casually—“we could put them in Tenebrous. The tunnels belong to you now, Skyla. So that shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Tenebrous.” Skyla shakes her head. “Too far and too much work to transport them all. Besides, we need them handy, and we need them plausibly human. They’ll need to be present if they’re ever going to get caught.”

“So they’ll be taken.” The words strum from me numbly. People who have already crossed that great divide are coming back for more hell on earth because my own brother has sentenced the Nephilim to a fate, ironically, worse than death—government experimentation.

“Marshall”—Skyla struts toward him, tits out as if she were trying to seduce him—“you have to help. I need these bodies freed before morning.”

“Impossible,” he shoots back, his chin up as if he enjoyed defying her on some level.

“Oh, come on”—she gives his tie a firm tug—“nothing is impossible with you.”

“All right.” I stride forward and carefully remove her hand from Dudley’s tie before I decide I need to knock him into eternity where he belongs. “I’ll do it. Show me what bodies you need excavated, and I’ll power through it.”

Chloe huffs a laugh. “I’ll help. Skyla, you go home and let the little ones swing off your boobs or whatever it is you do with them.” She scuttles up to me with her hair and tits bouncing, and I’m quick to look away. “I highlighted all of the areas we hit in that journal your dad keeps.” She wags one of his composition notebooks at me. “You can use that as a road map. And don’t worry, Gage. A shovel fits in my hand, too. I’ll be right by your side as we power through it together.” Her hand glides over my shoulder. “It’s going to be a long, hard, sweaty night.”

“There, you see?” Dudley sheds a shit-eating grin. “You’ve a hero or two to keep you on your morbid deadline.” He scowls toward the east. “I’d best check on Ezrina and see what’s become of her latest pet project.”

“Marshall”—Skyla pulls him back as he starts to take off—“that girl looks exactly like Laken. You tell Ezrina she better have a damn good explanation for it. And for the love of all things holy, do not let me catch that girl down in the Transfer.”

“I’ll pass the word along.” He tips his imaginary hat as he walks into the open arms of the fog. “Good night, all.” And with that, his body evaporates into a watery state before dissipating altogether.

Chloe leans in toward Skyla. “What’s this about a Laken clone that Ezrina is housing?”

“I’m sure Wes will fill you in soon enough.” Skyla takes the book out of Chloe’s hand. “I’m not leaving.” She locks her eyes over mine, and for a moment I could swear something real just bounced between us. “Ask your mom if she can watch the boys for a few more hours. She never picks up when I call.” She opens the book, and Logan leans in to peer over her shoulder.

A slapping sound from behind gets our attention, and we find Kate pounding her foot against the ground as if she’s having a seizure.

“Kate!” Skyla rushes over as Logan and I help the poor girl to a sitting position.

Her lips contort as if she’s desperately trying to tell us something.

Chloe scoffs. “It doesn’t work so well without the vocal cords, does it, Kate?”

“Be quiet, Chloe.” Skyla pulls out her phone and hands it to the girl we were once close friends with. I know this is technically Kate, but seeing her like this, her limbs looking slightly mangled, her hair badly tangled from a few restless years in a casket makes her unrecognizable.

Kate does her best to punch in the tiny letters popping up on Skyla’s screen, but she’s choppy at best. I doubt we’ll get a clear message out of her this way.

“Emksa?” Skyla shakes her head. “Kate, I don’t know what you’re trying to say. I’ll get a pen and some paper for you when we get settled back at the house.”

“You’re taking her home?” Normally, I wouldn’t question Skyla taking a friend to the house. Hell, Chloe has slept in my bed more than I have lately. But Kate is dead—was dead. Her body is putrefied and most likely crawling with microbes that no antibiotic could hope to cure. “Not with the boys,” I say it lower than a whisper as not to insult our newly reanimated friend.

“She’ll stay with me.” Logan gives her a light tap over the knee, and her leg goes slack as if it’s just slipped right out of joint.

Chloe takes the phone from Skyla. “Wait a minute. Are you trying to say Emma?”

Kate gives a spastic clap of the hands and touches her finger to her nose, an old charades’ trick to let someone know they’re right.

“Emma?” I lean in and look into Kate Winston’s jaundice-colored eyes as she nods frantic into me. “As in my mother?”

Her hand slaps against the ground, and her forefinger touches her nose over and over, bending the cartilage off to the side.

The cemetery starts to rumble at top volume again as the thundering of a thousand corpses rises as they beg to be set free.

Chloe sits down next to Kate and picks up her hand. “I’ll keep Kate company while the three of you tend to that unruly herd of the undead just clamoring to join us.” She gives a little wink my way. “Don’t get too tired. I have plans for you later.”

Skyla groans. “It never gets old, does it, Chloe?”

“How could it? Only someone as foolish as you would cut a man like Gage Oliver loose.”

“Did you just call me foolish?” Skyla leans in, and Chloe shakes her head frantically as if she were a three-year-old about to be punished by her mother. “That’s not what I meant. I’m strictly speaking from the heart—or between the legs as it were. Gage isn’t a toy you toss to the side when you’re bored with him.”

“I was far from bored with him.” Her voice grows curt, her expression tight. “I was betrayed, Chloe. A word you often confuse with greed. Your gain always equals someone else’s pain.” Skyla stalks off toward the thumping and rumbling out in the field. “Keep it down! I’m coming!”

“We’re still friends, though, right?” Chloe calls after her and gifts her the middle finger once she turns her back.

“Nice.” Logan shakes his head as he follows Skyla out to the chaos brewing in the cemetery.

“I don’t think it’s nice, Chloe. I think whatever this thing you and Skyla have going on is downright bizarre.”

“She’ll get over it. We’ve been arguing like an old married couple all week. It’s cabin fever, and believe you me, I’m sick of her shit, too. Kate and the rest of the dead-on-arrival gang should liven things up a bit.” She leans back and attempts to comb her fingers through Kate’s hair. The tiara Kate’s mother planted over her skull clings for dear life. But Kate stares off straight ahead, her lips mouthing the same thing over and over again at a frenetic pace. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was my mother’s name.

It does beg the question. What have you done now, Mother?