Ivy

Tears sting my eyes when I try to blink, and my lungs hurt when I try to breathe. My eyelashes flutter and stick to my skin as I slowly try to open them.

Either the bright light shining in my face is clouding my vision, or I’m scared to open them in fear of Drew punching me again.

I woke the second he pulled me by my legs out of the back of his car. My head and back smashing into the frozen ground. He beat me right there, grabbed my hair and dragged me through the snow into the cemetery.

A chill runs up my spine. I can’t believe he brought me to his family’s final resting place. Goes to show how out of his mind he is.

My memory of how we got here is unclear, but I know what happened, and I know I’m ready to fight for my life as well as Cade’s.

The bitter cold air, harsh winds, and heavy snow seep into my skin, stealing the heat from my fingers and toes just as fast as the wind steals it from my face.

My hair is soaked, parts of it are frozen and sticking to my face and neck.

Vomit rises when I recall the bloody scene before I was knocked out. Guilt pricks my heart. All I have left of our attack is hope that Chaz survived.

“Cade’s coming for you, Drew. He’s going to find me, and when he does, I’m going to watch you die.” I yell, opening my eyes and try to push my half-frozen body into a standing position.

I won’t permit him to back me into a corner this time. I’d rather die first before I show fear ever again. Regardless if it’s trickling down my bruised arms and legs, sending worse chills everywhere until I swear I hear my bones rattle.

I will stand my ground.

I’m going to survive this because I deserve a better life. Cade is that life and I refuse to give up. Not when I’ve endured this man’s kind of crazy for as long as I have.

And boy is he crazy. If I didn’t believe it before, then the newspaper articles, and the research Cade and I did on why Drew killed his family proves it.

“Oh, he’s coming alright. I made sure he knows right where you are. I suspect him to be here any minute. Kind of fitting for him to die in the place he’ll be buried. The two of you made a nice move by getting Casey and my daughter out of the way. You did me a favor by getting rid of them. I could give a rat’s ass if I would have killed Casey, but selling my daughter to be trained for a man’s personal debauchery wasn’t something I wanted to do.”

Drew raises his brows. He’s waiting for me to ask him how I feel about him being Molly’s father.

I’m not playing by his rules. Not anymore. “You’re delusional if you think I’m buying into your bullshit that you care about that little girl.”

“I don’t care about them at all, Ivy. Them living isn’t going to stop me from killing you and Cade before I turn the gun on myself. I wanted to torture your pure little heart. Wanted you to die knowing I killed your friend. I wanted you to beg me not to sell my daughter and watch your heart bleed out when I told you it was too late. Since you one-upped me, I’m going to plunge this into your heart, pull it out and stick it in mine. Now that sounds like a good plan. One that can’t go wrong.” He pulls out a knife. One so familiar looking that my insides curl right into themselves. No! I refuse to believe he found Cade’s knife. It’s a fake, just like everything else that is this pathetic man.

Anger snakes through my gut. I have to stall him. Kill him, because Lord knows I won’t survive him using that knife on me.

“You’re trying hard to scare me because your world is unraveling, you brainsick piece of shit. What kind of monster has taken up residence inside you to make you hate so much you wouldn’t have a thing to do with your child?”

Ice sinks into the skin on my neck when he gets up in my face and dangles my gun he obviously took and positions it underneath my chin.

“Are you not aware by now that the three of us are going to die here tonight? Let me tell you something else you aren’t aware of. The monster in me is you. You couldn’t let Cade go. You couldn’t give me a chance. You took residence inside of me. Driving the plan, I made haywire and poisoned my skull. Molly is a girl. I wanted a son. Our son. You fucked that up by not giving me a son, and I’ll be damned if you live to give Cade one. Nice gun. What else did my little brother give you, Ivy?” He leans in, whiskey breath and all and licks right up the middle of my face. “I can smell him on you. Did you come for him? Did you?” He drills me with a look infused with fury. It seeps out of his dark edges, gloomy and bitter.

“If I ever have a child. It will be Cade’s,” I yell, violent sobs building in my chest.

I lift my leg to knee him in the balls when he reels his hand holding the gun back and cracks it against my face, knocking me back down with the sharp force of his blow.

The solid power from his strike kicks the air from my lungs, squeezes it in my throat until I’m gasping to breathe.

He drops to his knees. Foolishly lays my gun beside him. A sinister growl pierces the freezing air as he grips my throat. “You’ll never be a mother, Ivy. I didn’t want it to end this way. I wanted to destroy you before Cade hunted me down. Leave you weak and scared. Make him see you weren’t the sweet gift he thought you were. The entire time you’ve been gone I’ve barely slept knowing you were spreading your legs easily for him. You think I’ll let you live after that? My fucking wife getting off to my brother. Not a goddamn chance.”

A menacing chuckle falls from his mouth. Eyes that used to scare me so full of ire and his crazy that death is the only answer to cure him. Even that is too good of a punishment for everything he’s done. All his mocking and ridiculing do now is making me pity the demon living inside of him. How far gone he is that I can’t imagine the things that are going through his head. That’s the mechanism of a person driven by something they become infatuated with. They become so far gone that it takes over every rational thought. It all started with the story in the article.

“Let’s talk about my brother fucking you. Did you get on your hands and knees for him willingly? Were you nice and wet for him?”

My blood freezes. Heart is skipping in a harmful loud beat as white spots that aren’t snow, dance in my eyes. He’s killing me. I can feel my blood slowing, my brain shutting down, my heart struggling to beat.

Malice is what I feel for this man, although he’s not really a man at all. He’s messed up in a way I hope I never understand.

With his hand still on my throat, he runs the blade of the knife back and forth across the seam of my jeans in between my legs. I freeze. Every part of me locks up.

“Kiss me, or I’ll slice you from here to your skull.”

The bitter taste of him gags me when he shoves his tongue in my mouth; I bite down as hard as I can. The sour taste of his tangy blood mixing with the satisfaction of fighting back riles me up.

I won’t give up.

“There she is. The woman with a spark of life. Too bad she decided to appear a little too late. I warned you what would happen if you left me.”

I can feel the blade slicing through my jeans. Any second it’s going to cut me.

My lungs begin to burn, my hands instinctively going to his cheeks where I dig my nails into his face.

“You stupid cunt,” he hisses, drops the knife and his free hand joins the other. He squeezes tighter until my vision blurs and those alarming spots cloud my sight.

“You’ll never get away with this,” I wheeze out. My lungs are closing. For the first time since he’s struck me, I fear I’m really going to die. Pulled into blackness just when a few weeks ago I found the happiness I never thought would be found.

My lids grow heavy, my mind remembering how unfair life can be. It gives you a little of what it feels like to be loved before it shoves you through the gates of hell reminding you how it feels to live in the polluted air where the devil has all the control.

“I’ve gotten away with so much already. I would have continued to get away with it, unlike the man I copied if you would have loved me. You’re to blame for every fucking move I’ve made.”

I’m not to blame for anything. It was his choice to kill. His choice to hurt me. His choice to do everything.

My hands try to find something to hold onto. There’s nothing but the snow. Nothing until I feel the butt of my gun. With the strength I have left, I wrap my hand around it at the same time he yanks me up by my throat and slams me hard enough against the marble headstone that my brain tilts causing the gun to slip from my hand.

I’m going to die. Cade isn’t going to get here to save me this time.

My vision tunnels as his fists connect with my face. I cough and splutter as the blows to my stomach rob me of my breath.

“You spiteful cunt. I’m going to kill you.”

My thoughts cease when I feel Drew’s hand begin to dip below the top of my pants.

This bastard is going to have to kill me because there is not a chance in hell he’s going to take what he wants from me ever again.

“Fuck you. I don’t love you. I never did.” I spit in his face, my hand reaching down to grab his erection. I dig my nails into his sick, hard flesh, twisting the appendage with everything I have.

“Fucking bitch.” He winces, doubles over in pain, hands flat on the ground. His breathing ragged as he fights for air. I scurry to grab my gun. Fingers numb as I scrounge through the snow.

He grabs me by the waist, flips me over and straddles me.

I attack, clawing and scratching at his face. I scream, I buck, and the entire time I am attacking him he’s attacking me, but I am on a mission to kill this man before he kills me.

“You crazy bitch.”

I flinch, blood flowing down my face, vomit lurching when the knife suddenly rests on my throat as he claws at my clothes.

“Feel how fucking hard I am for you?” He rolls his hips into me.

“You are a sick, evil man.”

“And you’re a dead fucking bitch.”