Page 93 of Torn Ivy
The world around us has descended into utter chaos. Bram’s chanting has taken on a deeply disturbing tone, his voice distorted, deep, and echoing strangely. The darkness pressing in feels alive and malevolent.
I can barely make out Torin’s form across the circle, but I can hear the panic in his voice as he calls out to Bram. My throat is raw from retching up bile, and the acidic taste is bitter in my mouth.
“We have to stop this!” I shout, but my words are swallowed by the howling wind.
Suddenly, a piercing scream cuts through the oppressive blackness. It takes me a moment to realise it’s coming from Ivy’s lifeless body. Her back arches off the ground, mouth open in a now silent scream as tendrils of inky blackness pour from her eyes, nose, and mouth.
“Ivy!” I cry, lurching forward.
“Don’t break the circle!” Torin yells.
Even as every instinct screams at me to go to her, I stop, knowing he’s right. Breaking it now will destroy everything. Bram is channelling something so utterly terrifying that I don’t think he will ever be able to recover from it. If this was how the Ancient Fae operated, I’m fucking glad I didn’t have to live in those times.
The world around us rotates. Slowly at first in an anti-clockwise direction. “Fuck! It’s working! We’re reversing time!” I shout, but then promptly throw up again as the earth swings around at a rapid rate that my stomach just can’t handle.
The world spins faster and faster, a dizzying blur of darkness and flashing images. I can barely keep my eyes open, let alone focus on maintaining the circle. But I know I have to hold on. For Ivy. For all of us.
Suddenly, everything stops.
45
IVY
I’m falling,tumbling through an endless void. Fragments of memories and realities whirl past me in a dizzying kaleidoscope. I catch glimpses of myself - as Poison, as a child, as someone I don’t even recognise.
Bits and pieces of me are swirling all around, disappearing from view as I scream, panic rearing its head as it seem this backwards ritual hasn’t worked. I’m lost. Torn again, and I don’t think I will be able to survive another eternity like this.
Then suddenly, all the fragments are drawn back together at a supersonic speed, and I’m slammed back into my body with such force that it knocks the air from my lungs. I gasp and splutter, my eyes flying open as I take in my surroundings.
I’m standing in Cathy’s garden, facing down a group of monstrous creatures. Their twisted forms blur and shift, defying description.
Tate’s hand is clasped tightly in mine. Torin’s cool palm rests on the back of my neck. Bram stands slightly in front of us, magick swirling around his fingertips.
“Wha—” I start to say, but then it all comes rushing back. The guys. My love for them. The ritual. The fractured reality. Onlythis time, we seem to have gone past the time when I split off into different parts, and Tate died and somehow rewound back to the moments before I blasted myself to Jupiter and back.
“Ivy,” Tate says urgently. “Do you remember?”
I nod, squeezing his hand. “I remember everything now. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”
He grins and says, “I fucking love you.”
Grinning back, I reply, “I fucking love you too.”
“This is all very nice and whatnot, but can you please focus,” Torin snaps as the perfect Life creatures descend on us.
I look around for Cathy and for a moment I don’t see her, but then I breathe out in relief to see her about to shove a rocket up these monsters’ arses in the form of her laser gun.
“Wait!” I call out. “Stand down.”
“What?” Tate murmurs.
“Trust me,” I mutter, hoping to everything that I’m not wrong about these idiots. They are programmed to kill in an orderly fashion; as bizarre as that is, it’s a fact. Instead of blasting them with chaos, we just need to make the world around them too chaotic for their brains to comprehend. They will—hopefully—go on the fritz and implode themselves as they go into meltdown. “When I say three, we move. Everywhere. As fast as you can around them. Don’t touch them. Don’t fire. Make them come after us.”
“Got it,” Bram calls. “Hurry the fuck up, though!”
I shrug and smile. “Three!” and I move.
I rip my hand from Tate’s and sprint to the left, zigzagging wildly across the garden. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the others scatter in different directions. The creatures pause, their heads swivelling as they try to track our chaotic movements.
