Ivy

Dread.

It coils through me. Tightening my chest, and restricting my breathing.

Suffocation swallows me whole.

My eyes spring open. They’re stinging and burning like the rest of me. On instinct, I go to shoot up when the worst pain I’ve ever felt punches through my arms and legs.

I can’t move.

It feels like my lungs are in my throat. My brain feels dead. If I wasn’t breathing, I’d believe I was.

Terror lashes through my being when I take a deep breath, my chest constricting. It’s then I realize I’m wrapped in bandages of some sort.

“What did you do to me, Drew? I’d rather be dead than to be at your mercy this way any longer.” I cry out. Panic crawls across my flesh. I can feel scratchy tape on the top of my hand, the prickly twinge of an IV. “No. Take this out of me.” My entire body fires off in uncontainable tremors. I can’t stop shaking.

“Oh, my God. That smell. You’re trying to drive me insane.”

Wherever I am, it’s not a hospital. Hospitals do not have the familiar smell of Cade mixed with vanilla.

My brain races in a fret of fright trying to remember what happened. Am I dreaming all of this? Did he hurt me more?

I can’t recall a thing after walking into BURN. Nothing. My body shakes as I fight with the restraints that have me strapped down, and my mouth goes desert dry. Tongue thick and heavy. Pain and fury clash in my veins. It builds until I release a blood-curdling scream.

Terror. I nearly laugh at it when I thrash trying to get this IV out. Of all the things he could do to me, this is the worst.

“Did you have your way with me again? Beat me until you broke every one of my ribs, and now you're going to pump me full of drugs. Why not just kill me, you son of a bitch.”

The pain grows like a weed gone wild, spreading from my toes to my teeth. There’s a dull ache between my legs.

“Oh, God, did you rape me again? You sick animal.”

Clarity moves through the depths of my brain, poking and prodding in the darkest depths of my mind, ripping wide open every wound the man has ever inflicted on me. All the bits and pieces of scattered agony of the life I’ve lived have destroyed the woman I used to be.

I want her back and I’ll be damned if he breaks the little bit of me I have left.

“If you didn’t have me strapped down, I would run this time, Drew. Run and make sure you never find me. I won’t let you win. You will not break me. I’m stronger than you think. So much stronger.”

Nausea churns in my stomach without any notice. My head swims in a vacant pool of nothingness. My heart feels weighty as if the blood pumping through my veins becomes too thick to help give it a steady beat.

“Get this out of me,” I scream until my throat burns. “Are you happy now that I’m begging? God, I hate you. Hate you so badly that if I ever were to be free, I’d kill you.”

My mind reels back to that frightful night when I lost who I was. The one who stood on the sidewalk, shaking, terrified as she watched the home of the man she loved go up in flames, knowing he was trapped inside and Drew nor I could do a thing to save him.

“We have to save them, Drew. Please?”

“I tried to save them. He’s gone, sweetheart. All of them are gone. I’ve got you. Everything will be alright.”

Everything was never alright.

Confusion consumes me.

I’m lost in my frozen mind.

Unease winds through me, and I swear my throat is closing tight from anxiety. The air around me thins, and a sob burst from the depths of my stomach.

My sobs swallow me whole, raw from the inside, so very real on the outside. I’ve been robbed of everything. That despicable man stole not only my life, but my soul, a part of me no other person except Cade has ever seen.

Cade. Why does he always enter my mind in the most troublesome moments? He’s gone. Has been for years, and yet like the tiny sliver of hope I’ve carried with me to be free, his face and name are a constant dangle in the air.

If I could only pluck him out of it so he could be with me.

I blink. Chaos and disorder dot my vision when a ray of light streams across my legs. It’s in that moment when I tilt my head that I realize I have no idea where I am.

I’m not alone either.

“Changing your sick game on me now? You can’t have your way with me strapped down like this, what did I do wrong? You married a piece of shit, that’s what? I can hear you breathing, Drew. Don’t pretend like you aren’t there.”

I haven’t a clue where I am, but the view from the windows that run from the ceiling to the floor is one of absolute magnificent beauty.

What I see, takes my breath away. The sky is a hazy slate of gray. In the mist of the dusky sky are millions of lights. They twinkle like somebody has taken handfuls of gold and silver glitter and tossed it in the air. It’s a view I’ve seen several times when my dad and I first moved here. We were both so hypnotized by the bright lights of New York that we spent many nights exploring. Banking in our memories of how every skyscraper glistened and glowed.

The morning light slowly filters in. The snow is falling heavily. I draw in the deepest breath and lose myself to everything outside running wild and free.

“I’ve made a mess out of my life, Dad. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’d go through it all over again just to have you here. I miss you so much it hurts.” My lips tremble, and the sobs wrack out of me like a raging river ready to drop and crash into an angry waterfall.

Nothing but jagged rocks below.

Cutting me deep.

The lights across the city flicker, bringing memories that do the same.

Raw and real and rage.

My father taking his last breath. Drew beating me. Debasing my inner self until there was nothing left of my spirit. Clay being murdered and the way my evil husband went on a tangent to double security.

A recollection. It flashes through my brain like lightning.

Awareness.

Wide and heavy.

Someone was watching me at the club. Maybe he has me and not Drew. “I can feel you. I don’t know what you want, but if your plans are to torture me and send me back to my husband you’ve failed. There isn’t anything you could do to me he hasn’t done. It’s obvious I’m ruined so, by all means, do your worse.”

“You’re wrong about that. My worse would be to kill you.”

I tense, gasping. Eyes widening and focusing on the deep, yet tired and slurred rough voice coming from the corner of the room.

Drew is here, and he’s drunk.

Oh, God. Please let me die.

“Don’t you dare look at me, Ivy. If you do, I won’t take out the IV. You understand?”

Fear and confusion slam through my tattered nerves. Every one I’ve ever had buried deep surfaces and slithers across my skin like a harsh warning.

Insanity has stolen my mind like an unhinged thief. It has my mind muddled.

“What’s dripping in my veins, Drew? Something is clogging up my mind. You need to take it out.”

“It’s not coming out. You hear me?”

I should disobey him and turn my head. Tell him to end my suffering now.

“Yes.” I gulp down my fear. It’s an easy thing to feel when the man who embedded it in you thrives on it.

The smell of vanilla hits my senses again. Either I’ve really lost my mind, or he’s trying to make me. There are only two men that smelled like that, and both are dead.

Silence hangs in the air. An empty void with unspoken promises I can’t decipher. I choke down a laugh. The only thing he ever promised me was something to fulfill his sick gratification.

“What do you want, Drew?”

I’ve no doubt tensing against the shaking of my limbs isn’t good for what lies beneath these bandages. On impulse, I do it anyway.

I’m hit with more silence. More confusion.

“You already have me right where you want me? Taking what you want. Beating and raping me. Making me stand by your side when I’d rather stand in hell. Where are we and what kind of game are you playing? Did I refuse to suck you off, not dance the right way for your perverted clients, so you beat me again? Did you torture me like you’ve done plenty of times by fucking me with the handle of Cade’s knife? Why won’t you just kill me? I don’t want to be owned by you anymore. I want my freedom.”

“Fuck!” he roars so loud I swear the floor underneath me shakes. “That’s enough. You’ll get your freedom as soon as I know you're safe. Right now I’d appreciate you staying still. You’re hurt, Ivy.” He hisses out words he’s never spoken before as if he’s the one in pain.

Something’s off with him. It blares like a foghorn in my head.

His heavy words linger in the air, pushing piercing spikes through my insides and slicing me with the burn of a dull blade. Why does his voice sound the same, yet different? Deeper even?

“Since when do you care if I’m safe or stay still. What the hell is going on with you?”

My chest caves, my heart dropping. So much turmoil is racing through me that I can’t rationalize anything until I get some answers.

“How long have I been here and where is here? Where’s Casey? Do you know who killed Clay?”

He laughs. A mockery of sorts that pisses me off.

“Answer me. You bring me to what, a hotel? Fix me up, which, you’ve never done before and do God knows what to my body. You have an IV in my arm, and it’s filling my veins with poison, and you don’t have the decency to shed some light on what’s going on.” Of course, he doesn’t. There isn’t a decent bone in his body.

“I didn’t kidnap you. I saved you. You were drugged, a sex enhancer. You weren’t acting like yourself. All you need to know is you needed pain medicine. Enough with the questions, Ivy.”

Drugged? This sick man is giving me more questions than answers. Stirring my thoughts until I don’t know which way is up or down. The more I mull it around in my brain, the more it spins.

“Who drugged me, and what did you do that we’ve had to disappear?”

Hopelessness wraps around me. I’m already living in hell. A cruel, merciless life so why would someone want to drug me? The only person who would do such a thing is him. But why? He takes any time he feels like it, and he would never get me sexed up enough to share me. No, it’s someone else. Someone who has him running.

Pain clutches my stomach when I let the idea of what could have happened slip into my mind. Fog swoops in and skirts a hazy mist in my being.

“I don’t trust you. You could be lying.”

“I could be. That’s for you to decide. You’ve been here for over twenty-four hours. That’s enough information. Process it and when you’re ready, I’ll tell you more. I’ll have someone come help you shower, get you something to eat. The IV stays in until I say otherwise, and you will not be leaving this room until I say.”