Page 61 of Torn Ivy
“So, we have a plan,” Ivy says, a fierce grin spreading across her face. “Now we just need to draw them out.”
“How do you propose we do that?” Torin asks.
“We give them what they are after,” Cathy replies. “Me.”
“No,” Ivy says, shaking her head. “We give them me.”
“No,” Cathy echoes. “We give them me. This part isn’t about you. They want me out of the picture.”
I narrow my eyes as I take in this exchange. There is something Cathy isn’t saying. “Why?” I ask.
Cathy shrugs. “Because I’m Ivy’s aunt, because I work for the resistance? Who knows? Take your pick?”
Bram nods slowly. “It could work. We lure them in, thinking they’ve got you cornered, then spring the trap.”
“I don’t like it,” I growl.
“Me either,” Ivy protests.
Cathy checks her weapon, a grim smile on her face. “Well, tough shit. Decision made. Bram? Take us back?”
He looks at Ivy for confirmation.
She nods slowly, and I groan. This is going to end in disaster. We aren’t ready for this.
Bram creates a shadow portal, and we jump through, landing in Cathy’s back garden again, hidden behind some big bushes.
I watch uneasily as Cathy strides confidently into the middle of the grass, her weapon held at the ready. The rest of us are hidden, poised to spring our trap.
“Here I am, you symmetrical freaks!” Cathy shouts. “Come and get me!”
For a long moment, nothing happens. The garden is eerily silent, not even a breeze rustling the leaves. Then reality ripples and two of those perfect beings step through, their movements unnaturally fluid.
“Catherine Hammond,” they intone in unison. “You will be eliminated to preserve the natural order.”
Cathy snorts. “Natural order my arse. You lot wouldn’t know natural if it bit you on your perfectly sculpted backsides.”
She raises her weapon and fires. The blast hits the beings square in the chest, causing them to flicker and distort. But just like before, they begin to reorganise almost immediately, impossible flowers blooming from the cracks in their forms.
“Now!” Ivy shouts.
We burst from our hiding places. Bram’s shadows lunge forward, creating a barrier to contain the chaos that’s about to be unleashed. I grab Ivy’s hand, channelling my magick to help anchor her to the here and now. Torin moves in next to Ivy and places his hand on the back of her neck. I feel her shiver at his touch.
Ivy’s eyes blaze with purple fire as she coils the magick deep inside her. Static forms around us, sending our hair standing on end.
I watch with a bad feeling in my soul as Ivy gathers her power, purple energy crackling around her. She takes a deepbreath and unleashes her magick. Raw chaos erupts from her in a swirling vortex of purple and black energy. It slams into the perfect beings with devastating force.
For a moment, nothing seems to happen. The beings stand motionless, absorbing the chaotic energy. Then cracks form in their perfect symmetry. Tiny fissures that spread and multiply.
“It’s working,” Cathy murmurs.
But something’s wrong. I can feel it through our connection. Ivy’s power isn’t just affecting the beings, it’s tearing at the fabric of reality.
“Ivy!” I yell. “Pull it back! It’s too much!”
She doesn’t seem to hear me. Her eyes are distant, lost in the flow of pure chaos.
The perfect beings are coming apart now, their forms dissolving into swirling patterns of impossibly ordered chaos. But reality is fracturing around us. I see glimpses of other realms through the cracks - places that shouldn’t exist in our world.
