Page 9 of Torn Ivy
He grabs my wrists. “I know, Ives. I know. But you are ready for this now. This is the right thing to do.”
“No,” I growl. “The right thing to do was work for The Syndicate so I could find out what happened to my parents. For real. This is some fucked up shit I want no part of.” Panting heavily, I heave myself off him and move away, hands trembling.
The pink energy swirls around me, crackling and pulsing. I stare at my hands in disbelief, watching tendrils of dark mist curl between my fingers.
“What the fuck is this?” I demand, rounding on Josh and the others.
Josh stares at me in something like awe, but there is fear there, too, and it scares me. “That is your chaos magick awakening. The parts of yourself that you rejected while still in the womb.”
“Eww.” I glare at him with a big ick for talking about wombs. “I don’t want it. Take it back.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Cathy says gently. “This power has always been a part of you. You’ve just unlocked it.”
“By showing me my whole life has been one big betrayal.”
“I’m sorry, Ivy. I hate that this happened the way it did. If there had been another way?—”
“There was! You could have told me what was going on. Let me make my own choices with my eyes wide open. I feel like you’ve hoodwinked me, and that is not okay.”
He looks sad, and I feel torn again. Only this time, between loving him and being so angry at him, I could smash his face in again.
“Fair enough. But I’m a lying bastard who’s trying to save the world.”
“Fuck that,” I snarl. “What about my guys? Where are they?”
“If Death has them, they’re likely in his realm. A place between life and death,” Vex says.
“You,” I say, pointing at him, “had better run, because you made me trust you. I should’ve gone on not liking you.”
“Aww, she likes me,” he purrs in that sexy way that really pisses me off right now.
“Never said that,” I grit out. “Where is this place? How can I get there?”
“You don’t even know the guys are there,” Ramsey says.
I shake my head, feeling utterly defeated. “I was a fool to think I could outrun Death. Of course he has them.”
“Look,” Cathy says in that no-nonsense tone she is known for. “I get that this is all a big wake-up call, and you’re pissed off. With every right. What Josh and Ramsey have said is true, though. You weren’t ready. You had nothing to lose and everything to gain by working for The Syndicate. But here is a fun fact, Ivy. Your parents were killed by The Syndicate. That’s right. They killed your parents to get toyou. The poor little orphan girl with so much latent power, she could blow up universes. So listen up. You have two choices. Stick your head back in the sand and be a naïve little girl or pull your big girl knickers up and face the truth as we have given it to you.”
I stare at her, my mouth open at her blunt, harsh, painful words. The pink energy around me pulses and crackles, responding to the turmoil of emotions raging inside me.
“You’re lying,” I whisper, but deep down, I know she’s not. It makes a sick kind of sense, explaining so much about my life that I’ve never understood.
“I’m sorry, Ivy,” Cathy says, her voice softening slightly. “But it’s the truth. The Syndicate has been manipulating you from the start. If I had known what you were up to, I would have tried to stop you, but it was too late when I found out. You were in too deep, and I know that nothing I could’ve said would have mattered… except to push you further to them.”
I close my eyes, trying to process this new information. Everything I thought I knew about my life, about my purpose, has been a lie.
“I’m going to find my guys,” I declare suddenly, eyes snapping open. “And then I’m going to take down Death and The Syndicate. Not because you want me to, but because they’ve fucked with my life for the last time. But I need to know one thing. What happens when Death, as he is now, is defeated? What then? Who takes over? Are we going to end up in a similar situation?”
“That’s the thing,” Josh says, shaking his head. “We don’t know.”
Rolling my eyes, I mutter, “Great, just great.”
4
TORIN
I watch intentlyas Tate’s fingers probe the rough stone wall, searching for whatever he’s found. My enhanced hearing picks up the faint scraping of his nails against the rock.
