Page 61 of Poisoning Ivy
There's no electricity running out here, so when Killian gets the lock free and slides the doors apart, Theo flicks his phone flashlight on and I settle my palm against Ivy's lower back, keeping her from bolting if she gets spooked. Maybe we should have prepared her, but it's too late for that as Theo's light beam bounces around the shed and lands on the body in the center of the floor.
He's pretty much just a skeleton now. After we got the body out of the house, we dragged it up here to the shed. Ivy's mother and father both tried to collect him from us, saying they neededproof of his death. Killian gave them that proof in the form of a photo taken on Ivy's own father's phone. He assured them that if they ever came back here, they'd end up exactly the same way as the vic, who we now know is Ivy's Uncle Vitoli... or at least the man she called her uncle. I'm pretty sure there was never any blood relation since Ivy's father made it known that same night that he wasn't even her father, that she was a bastard child whom he felt no affinity for. As awful as it was to hear him say that, he'd really buried the lead by not telling us that he'd married her off to some prick who couldn't make a woman come with a vibrator and a map to the G Spot. After they left, we ditched his body here, right under their own noses the whole time, so that if anyone ever came knocking, it would be the D’Aquino family that fell under suspicion.
Ivy tries to bolt as expected, but I hold her still. "You left us with a body to clean up, Bambi. Were you trying to implicate us in his murder?"
"Uncle Vitoli?" She gasps, looking at the form laid out on the ground.
With flesh and muscle, he wasn't an impressive man, his belly round and fat, his little dick stubby like the rest of him. But he looks shorter now, without all the trappings of flesh.
"It wasn't very nice of you to leave him there in my bedroom..." Killian says disapprovingly. "We were mad at you, for leaving us with the hard part. Especially because you slaughtered him like a pig. His blood was everywhere."
"Hewasa pig." Ivy says firmly, not showing the faintest bit of remorse.
"Well, lucky for you, we cleaned it up. We kept your secret. Now I want to know, Bambi... are you going to keep ours? You aren't going to tell anyone that we killed your husband, are you?"
I hear her swallow beside me, her fear and disgust palpable as she stares at the bones on the ground.
"Ivy..." I wave a hand in front of her face, trying to draw her out of whatever trance she seems to have fallen into. She blinks, turning to look at me. "Are you going to be a good girl and keep our secret?"
"Or do we have to lock you in this shed with him until your tongue is incapable of betraying us?" Theo asks, brushing a knuckle along her cheek.
"You have two choices, the way I see it." Killian says, looking down at her with lust sparking in his dark eyes. I've seen that look a thousand times, and about nine hundred of them have been because of her. No matter what he says, I can't believe he'd really kill her. No matter what kind of release it gives him, it can't be worth losing her forever, can it? "Option one, you admit that you're just like us. A killer, sick. You can prove yourself over time, and in the meanwhile, I can think of a few ways you can make it up to us."
"Option two," she says, like it's the one she's picking before she's even heard what it is.
Killian's eyes drift to the skeleton and then back to her, making the intention clear.
"Someone would hear me scream," Ivy says, sounding confident despite the way she's itching her casted arm anxiously.
"Not if we drug you." Killian tips a shoulder casually. "That would give us a few more weeks to have fun with you however we see fit before you'd start to decay too much to be fun."
I can feel the outrage rippling off of her, static in the night air around us. "If you want to kill me, then you should be a man and do it." She says, crossing her arms comically over her chest.
"I don't want to kill you," he assures her, his breath ghosting over her lips. "I want to ruin you every night for the rest of your life until they put you in the Earth to rot."
Ivy blinks up at him. "Option three?"
"There is no option th— " Killian's words break off into a howl as she stabs at him with something in her hand that I don't catch a glimpse of as she takes advantage of his pain, turning and running.
I reach for the thing sticking out of his chest to assess the wound as Theo breaks off to chase after her. Killian grits his teeth and pulls it out of him before I can even get a hand on him, making his blood spurt on my face. For a minute, panic fills me as I imagine she caught something vital, but he peels his own shirt off so he can assess it himself. A small puncture wound in his right shoulder, not big enough to have been made by any kind of knife I've ever seen.
Glancing between us, I see the thing she stabbed him with, and I nearly laugh. A fucking corkscrew. I guess that's our fault for not seeing it coming. How else would she have gotten the bottle open that she drank?
"It's a flesh wound." Killian assures me. "It'll stop bleeding on its own. Come on. Our girl wants to run. It's only fair that we chase her."
We turn together in the direction that Theo chased her, down the hill back toward her family's cabin. I don't know if she thinks she can barricade herself inside or if she's foolish enough to think she can find a phone to call for help, but neither of those options will stop us. And now that Killian's got a taste of blood again, he'll chase her like a rabid dog until he gets what he wants.
"You want to run so badly, Bambi." Killian calls after her. His voice carries down the hill behind her as Theo pushes forward, gaining on her. "So fuckingrun!"
I barrel down the side of the hill with him at my heels, unable to control the excitement working its way through me. I always get the greatest rush of adrenaline when she gets me to push my limits, to push hers... when she makes us do something she says she doesn't want, that her body says she absolutely does.
"We're coming for you, Poison!" I call out to the night as she decides it's useless to hide. I think she knows her only chance at escape is if she keeps running.
But she can't run forever. When she stops, when we catch her, she'll have to pay for trying to break the rules. Until then, I'll let her enjoy the game.
Chapter thirty-three
Ivy
