Page 32 of Poisoning Ivy
There's a splash as Tilly's body falls into the water, as he drops her without any concern for those now vacant eyes. She bobs on the surface, bleached blonde hair pillowing around her, the gaping wound in her throat pushing the last of the air out of her chest so that she teeters, dipping below the surface. Nausea swells inside me, burning in my empty stomach, but it gets trapped there, tamped down by something in the way Killian looks at me.
"You... killed her?"
Part of me thinks this can't be real— I'm having a fever dream in the basement, that they slipped me some kind of drug, that I'm just trying to contend with my hatred for them. It wars with the intrigue they pique inside of me.
"She touched what's mine." Killian smirks, sidling up to me and coaxing my chin into his fingers, as if I have the awareness to try and look away when his dark gaze has me pinned to this very moment by the fabric of my entire soul. I'm aware of his wet thumb stroking the line of my jaw, which I didn't realize I was clenching, but I don't know if it's water or blood that he's painting my skin with.
"What?" I try to shake my head to make some sense sink into the space between my ears, which seems to have shut down. Theo's hands on me keep me from moving, but I flick my eyes to Monty. "Why?"
"I already told you, Bambi," Killian chuckles, leaning into me so that his skin brushes against my naked chest, creating a static buzz between us that comes automatically, my body responding to him even in the madness of the moment. "She touched what's mine."
As if to illustrate his point, his hand slips between us, fingers grazing against the space where blood is thrumming between my legs, waking to a call I don't understand.
"This pussy is mine. I thought you figured as much when I carved my name into the supple skin of your ass. But if you've forgotten, I will gladly remind you."
My breath hitches as fear tangles with desire and my feelings of guilt and disgust. I just watched him murder someone, and I did nothing to help her. Now I'm a witness to murder. Will he kill me next to silence me?
A hot tear slips down my cheek, but I don't dare move to wipe it away, hostage to his touch between my legs, his dark eyes paralyzing me. For a minute, I think he may crush his mouth to mine and devour me until he can lull me into a sense of security before drawing the blade across my neck, too. For a minute, I think he's going to throw himself at me and drown me here, the way he had Monty drown her on his cock. But he does noneof those, his gorgeous face cracking with a grin that makes him look every bit of the predator that he is.
Someone favored Killian when he was being crafted in the depths of hell because he is exquisite and cunning, a trap that people will walk willingly into. I thought it was just me, but after watching Tilly with him, I know that I'm not the only one.
"You want to run, don't you, Bambi?" His hot breath tickles my lips when he laughs. "It would be a shame, wouldn't it, if youcouldn'trun this time?"
I work hard to swallow, his name on the tip of my tongue. "I won't tell anyone."
Monty chuckles behind him, and I turn to see him brandishing the knife that Killian abandoned, watching the blood drip off of it in the moonlight. "Of course you won't. Who would you tell?"
The fucking police, for starters.
"Ivy won't betray us," Theo whispers, pressing a kiss against my bare neck that makes me wilt more than it should. "Will you, Tiger Lily?"
"No." I whimper, the automatic response getting caught on a wave of pleasure as a hand grips my breast and his thumb coaxes my nipple into a stiff peak. I can taste the danger, thick in the air, sweet and toxic at the same time.
"How do we know that our little doll won't betray us?" Killian hums, his eyes sweeping mine in search of an answer to that question.
"Are you going to tell on us, Ivy?" Theo chuckles, his voice an echo from the past—a time when Monty swam behind me and pulled on the strings of my bikini top, letting the others get a glimpse of my small, budding breasts six summers ago.
I know the answer they want, and I know the answer that I should tell them. I also know the answer that I would say if I were a good person, and it's not the one that comes out of my mouth. "No."
I've never told on them. Not a single one of the fucked-up things they've done to me over the years. Pushing me around when we were kids, tricking me into picking a bouquet of poison ivy, telling me that I'm dumb and useless, and using me for a sick thrill. I took the heat for traipsing through the Fosters' yard when they sent me chasing after the dog that got into Theo's bag of weed, and I claimed it was mine when Mrs. Foster found the mutt nosing around in her garden, clearly disoriented. My parents footed the vet bill that they then punished me for by a hundred lashes with my dad's belt, given to me by Uncle Vitoli, who enjoyed the punishment a little too much. I kept their secret when they mutilated me, placing new scars over top of the ones they earned me before.
For reasons I don't even understand, I've let them torture me, and I've taken it because their brand of serrated hate feels so much better than my parents' general apathy for me. The pain they give me feels like a treat, and I don't know how to make sense of that other than that the look in their eyes when they do these things feels like it's mutual... symbiotic. It gives me something instead of just taking, like everyone else does.
"That's right, Bambi." Killian smirks, nodding like he's proud of my realization. "You won't tell on us, because who do you have to tell? You have no one but us."
Another hot tear drips down my cheek, but this time, Killian leans forward, pressing his tongue against my flesh and lapping it from my face. His hand twines in my hair, fisting it and pulling me against him until I feel his teeth on my skin.
"Who owns you, Bambi?"
"You." I whisper, my brain already trying to decide how to contend with that on top of everything else.
"Say my name." Killian coaxes, pressing his lips together over my cheekbone and kissing it so hard, I think I'll bruise.
"Killian." I whimper.
"Who else, Poison?" Monty's voice is low and husky, and when I turn to look at him, there's so much need in his eyes that I want to hold him against my chest, easing his pain and guilt like I did last year when he came to my room.
"Monty." I swallow, trying to tamp down the rest of the tears that are lining my throat, confusion and desperation that I won't let show.
