Page 45 of Torn Ivy
My power lashes out, turning the kitchen table into a mass of writhing vines before I get it under control. “They don’t control me.”
“No?” He holds up his phone. “Then why is there already a team of elite assassins being assembled to handle this if you refuse?”
That stops me cold. “What team?”
“The Wraiths.”
The name hits me harder than I’d have liked. Memories flood back to my first year as Poison, watching from the shadows as they worked. The Thompson case. The stench of decay and madness. The way they’d kept him conscious througheverything, how they’d made him watch as they systematically destroyed everything he loved before finally ending him.
“Fuck,” I whisper, and the crystal walls crack with my fear.
“You have twelve hours,” Ramsey repeats softly. “After that, they move in. And Ivy? They won’t just go after Cathy. Anyone who tries to protect her will be considered a target.”
“They’re really not fucking around,” I mutter.
“No, they’re not.” Ramsey stands, moving to the window where storm clouds now press against the glass like living things. “This is a power play, pure and simple. They want to prove they own you.”
“But why now if they don’t know about The Resistance or about my new powers?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“Tell me about Wraith Team Alpha,” I say, forcing myself to think tactically even as my power threatens to tear reality apart around us.
Ramsey’s expression grows grave. “They’re the worst of the worst. Five members, each specialising in a different form of torture. Their leader, Echo, she’s something else. Rumour has it she can make a single moment of pain last for what feels like eternity.”
“And the others?” I need to know what I’m up against, need to understand exactly what threat they pose to my aunt.
“Shade works with shadows. He turns them solid, uses them to flay skin from bone. I saw their work once, early in my handler career. The victim... they looked like they’d been carved by living darkness.”
My power pulses with each revelation, turning the crystal walls into mirrors that reflect infinite versions of us, each slightly different. In one, I’m fully Poison. In another, pure chaos energy given form.
“Whisper specialises in psychological torture,” Ramsey continues. “Gets inside your head, makes you experience your worst fears on loop. They drove an older vampire mad in less than an hour. He’s still in an asylum, screaming about shadows that speak.”
The storm outside intensifies, rain beginning to fall upward as my control slips slightly.
“Grave can control decay; makes you feel your body rotting while you’re still alive. Keeps you conscious through the whole process.” Ramsey shudders. “And then there’s Silence...”
“What does Silence do?”
“No one knows exactly. Those who’ve encountered them never speak again. Literally can’t. Something about their power steals your voice, not just physically but deeper. Like it takes your ability to express yourself at all.”
Ramsey’s phone buzzes again, and I gulp as he looks at it. “What does it say?”
“This is the final test. Do this, and they tell you what happened to your parents.”
“What? Are you for real?”
He turns his phone around to show me. “Very for real.”
“Fuck. Well, I already know what happened to my parents, so I don’t need to do this, right?” I let out a weak laugh that is devoid of all humour.
“Wrong. If you don’t do it, they take your soul as per your contract, and Cathy dies anyway. Painfully and slowly.”
“So what?” I snap. “I’m supposed to make it quick and painless?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know, Ives. I’m here as your handler, giving you facts when you can’t see them.”
“Shit.” I sit back down and drop my head into my hands. “I don’t know what to do. Can they still take my soul with me like this? Won’t Death stop them?”
