Page 13 of Poisoning Ivy
Killian laughs behind me, but I don’t stick around to see the impending explosion. I carry her to the kitchen, turning the faucet on and running a dishcloth under it.
“You piece of shit.” Theo growls, disgusted. “Why the hell did you marry her if you were just going to slap her around?”
“Her fucking daddypaidme to marry her. It was arranged, and she knew it.”
I grit my teeth, having a hard time imagining the girl who used to chase butterflies, make flower crowns, and do rain dances in the clearing marrying someone as part of abusiness arrangement.
“It’s okay,” I tell her gently, trapping her between me and the counter so that I can use the cloth to dab at her skin.
She blinks, so I smooth it over her instead, letting the cool water sober her a little. “You’re fine.” I tell her, running my hand across her other cheek until I’m gripping her chin between my hands.
Ivy draws in a strained breath, like she’s trying to remember how to breathe. Then I see the light flicker back on in her eyes and the fear along with it.
I don’t relish that fear the way I did five minutes ago.
“Hey,” I tell her softly, “It’s okay, Poison. I’ve got you.”
Chapter ten
Ivy
Poison.
Through the fog, a little spark of clarity breaks through.
Monty.
Monty called me poison, and he spoke it like a pet name, like a term of endearment.
I never understood that nickname, and I don’t understand anything about this moment.
There’s no way that Monty would do this to me, is there?
“I—” I open my mouth, trying and failing to come up with words. My thoughts feel disjointed the way they usually do after I dissociate. I’m trying to get a look at the eyes behind his mask, but it’s distorted by the paint covering the mesh screen—the big X over one eye, a large, solid circle over the other. There’s a smaller X for a nose and a huge curve that hides his mouth behind a wickedly painted smile.
“Bring her back over here.” One of his friends says. I recognize the voice as the one who gave my husband choices, his words in my ear as he asked for direction on how best to violate me.
“No.” I whimper, and then I immediately hate myself for it. My body is too tired to fight, my head aching the way it does after a dissociative episode.
He ignores the plea, dropping the cloth he’d been wiping my face with, and gathers me in his arms to take me back out to the room, where my husband still sits, tied to the chair. One of the masked men—the one with the monster face painted on his mask—paces back and forth with his hand on his head, like he’s trying to rake it through his hair. The other seems to be watching as I’m brought back in and set on my feet in front of Cody. I’m shaking, apparently, which makes it hard to stand still as his eyes rove over me like he’s looking for any sign of damage to his property, as if he’d care.
“I want to hear your wedding vows, doc.” The ringleader behind me commands, placing a hand on my shoulder that makes me bristle.
“I—” Cody’s mouth falls open, his eyes darting to mine. “I don’t remember them.”
“Come on, you can’t have been married long. Your memory’s surely not that rusty.”
“It’s been four years!” My husband snaps. “I don’t remember what they—”
“How about you?” His knuckle brushes against my throat with slow intention, and a shiver that has no business happening laces my spine. “Tell me your vows, Bambi.”
Bambi.
I suck in a breath that makes me choke on it, my throat threatening to close.
It’s true, then. What the one said to me in the kitchen, calling me Poison. That would be Monty—the only man who’s ever tried to tell me that being called Poison was actually a compliment.
But Bambi? That name I understand, and it’s because he told me I was always running.
