Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5) by Addison Moore Page B

wellbeing.
    Marshall takes one final step into Logan. “I’ll have you castrated if you ever pull a stunt like that again. I’ll hang you naked in the middle of the schoolyard for all to inspect the damage.” He fumes. “Though you lie in temporal bliss, wait for me. I will cut you down—there is not a bone in your body I will not break with glee.” Marshall cuts his hand through the air and points hard at the door as it flies open in obedience to his invisible command.
    “Come on,” I whisper, dragging Logan through the threshold. “I’ll catch up with you later,” I cut Marshall a hard look for his seemingly unwarranted scolding.
    Logan and I jump in the truck and he starts up the engine with an aggressive assault.
    “What the hell was that about?” I ask as we peel out of the driveway, leaving indelible tire marks in our wake. “Let me guess—Ezrina?”
    “No.” He blows a hard sigh through his cheeks as we head onto the highway.
    “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” I ask accusingly.
    “No, Skyla,” he depresses my name out in less than a whisper. “I’m not.”
     
     

Chapter 66
    Happy Birthday
         
    The dark sky lights up in a fracture of lavender tendrils. Lightning dances through the heavens every few seconds, mimicking the glimmer of sunlight on a dappled L.A. morning. Logan rolls down his window and lets in the dry static charge—lets it cool the fuming anger that Marshall ignited in him like a fuse.
    We head downtown and bypass the bowling alley like it never existed, as if it didn’t belong to him.
    Logan turns toward the beach in the direction of the most untouchable real estate Paragon has to offer. He pulls onto a piece of land that sits next to overpriced lots bejeweled with fancy homes that stretch along the beach all the way down to Devil’s Peak.
    “It’s so pretty here,” I whisper.
    It’s where the greenbelt meets the waterline with a tumultuous kiss. The waves pull in and out all day, working themselves in a pent-up fury without ceasing. I could never tire of the Paragon shoreline. It holds a majesty all its own. I could stare for hours at the bright turquoise water as it seizes and unfurls. God’s handiwork at its finest. 
    I decided I wouldn’t push the issue regarding the argument he just had with the sexually pent-up Sector. If he didn’t want to talk about what inspired the scuffle, then I would simply draw the well from Marshall’s side. I’m pretty sure Marshall would decode every mystery that ever lingered if I bared a little cleavage. 
    “Last empty lot on the strip. I always thought I’d build a house on it someday—walk to work,” he says, glancing at the bowling alley from his rear view mirror.
    “It’s beyond beautiful—perfect place to build a house,” I say. “You could take a walk on the beach every morning—surf if you wanted.” Most likely the fog would play hide and seek with the beach, but it’d still be there calling out to you, reassuring you of its presence with its briny whispers.
    Logan inhales deeply while looking right at me as if I were oxygen. That lone breath wipes all of the perennial sadness from his eyes and replaces it with a seed of hope.
    “Is this where you’d like to live, Skyla?” He bows into me with a boyish tenderness. Something about his hesitancy is equally endearing and heartbreaking.
    “Are you kidding? This is the only place to live.” I tick my head toward shore as I hop out of the truck. Logan comes around and takes up my hand. The ocean roars into our ears, trembles through our bones as it settles over the shore.
    “I’ll build you a house here.” Logan knocks his shoulder gently into mine.
    “You’d do that?”
    “Watch me.”
    “You really wouldn’t be building it for me.” I pull him in and trace out his eyebrow with my finger. Logan is the royalty of Paragon, sublime in every way. “I believe it would be us you would be building it for.”
    His smile fades, depletes to a