CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
WELLS
“I ’ve got her,” I say into my comm, informing the guys Ivy is in my arms.
I would’ve had her sooner, but we had to take out a van barreling toward her, along with two bastards who jumped out of it while she was blowing up the crossover.
Two more vehicles full of assassins swarm the eerie schoolyard.
My crew waits patiently at their posts for them to unload.
With three cars set ablaze, our marks are more inclined to ditch theirs and attempt to overrun Ivy on foot.
Although I’m grateful she shared her plans with Ryker so we could get to her faster, I’m livid that she threw herself into this before confirming we had arrived.
When we realized she was leading her pursuers here, we entered through a back way, which means as far as they’re concerned, she’s still alone.
A sitting duck.
That misconception will render them bold enough to take foolhardy initiatives, which is precisely what we want.
It’s evident by the carpooling that several of these assholes are working together, but they aren’t the kumbaya, sharing types. No doubt they’re planning to kill Ivy and then fight to the death to be the last man standing to claim their millions.
That egocentric greed enhances our advantage. We’re battling individuals, and they’re warring against a team .
“Eyes on nine tangos,” Ty reports. He has overwatchfrom an abandoned office building across the street. Perched on the roof, he’s our sniper—in position to eliminate the majority of our marks.
“Nine tangos confirmed,” Gage says, lying prone on a two-foot snow mound at the corner of the D side of the school.
With limited time to map out the schoolyard, we’ve reverted to ABCD nomenclature for the sides of the building—the front being A and traveling clockwise around the facility for B, C, D. Ty’s overwatch position affords him a clear view of A while Liam, Gage, and I man the other three sides.
“Announce your kills,” I order while the wind whistles a haunting tune and Ivy’s frozen lips nestle into my neck.
Ty’s sitreps pipe through the comm. “Tango one down. Tango two down.”
“Tango three down,” Gage grinds out.
A cacophonous din follows. Screams and curses and gunfire.
“Tango four down,” Ty continues. “Tango five down.”
Entwined around me, Ivy’s chilled body is slack as I await the all clear .
Listless. She’s suffered a concussion, probably severe bruising to her ribs and chest as well.
I’m hoping that’s the extent of it. The vest she’s wearing is level-three body armor—a gift from Tom, I assume.
But even that isn’t enough to prevent damage to her tiny frame.
I slit the fucker’s throat after he blindly fired at her from behind a tree.
The gurgles from him choking on his own blood were only a small consolation.
Ivy’s eyes are glazed, breathing shallow, hair matted and bloody from a head wound.
There’s a deceptive dusting of white powder coating her limbs, as though she were making snow angels in this deserted schoolyard.
But the mix of crimson and rust swirling in that snowy powder decimates the wistful first glance and lends a haunting horror-house vibe to the angel in my arms. She took a beating, but my fierce Little Storm raged like an unforgiving cyclone, slaughtering about a quarter of the fuckers on her own .
“Tango six down,” Liam chimes from the C side, where our truck is parked.
The strength with which I have Ivy pressed against this massive oak is surely uncomfortable, but it’s necessary to ensure there’s no shot on her while I fire at anyone approaching.
“Tango seven down,” Ty trills, the raucous clamoring in the background finally diminishing.
Gage’s gruff tenor follows seconds later. “Tango eight down.”
Ty’s tone deepens an octave, peppered with concern. “Tango nine unaccounted.”
“Tango nine unaccounted on Delta side,” Gage confirms.
“You smell like a memory,” Ivy warbles in a sleepy drawl, her nose nuzzling my jaw, apparently oblivious to the bloodbath encircling her.
“Not a memory, Ives. I’ve got you. Stay awake.” As the words fall from my lips, Liam’s voice announces in my ear, “Tango nine unaccounted on Charlie side,” and my gut wrenches.
The snow crunches as a scraggly figure emerges from the shadows, mere feet from my position. My pulse ratchets higher as I smash Ivy into the tree and fire at his face—a kill shot between the eyes. A shower of gore and bone, flesh and brain matter, rains down on us both.
“Tango nine down,” I say, clutching Ivy’s trembling body more securely.
She isn’t screaming, not externally anyway. But she saw it, and she’s in shock, somewhat aware that she’s blanketed with the insides of another human. Nothing prepares a soul for that. A string of bleats and whines stutter out of her.
Fuck , I never wanted this for her. But it’s where we are, and there’s no way out, except straight through the carnage.
“Alpha side clear, Chief,” Ty reports.
Gage’s voice resounds through the comm next. “Delta side clear, Chief.”
“Charlie side clear, Chief,” Liam finishes .
I scrutinize the area with a final once-over. “Bravo side clear. Move out.”
With that, I dash to Ivy’s Porsche, snatch her go bag, pluck her rifle out of a bush, and sprint toward the C side.
Stationing Ivy and myself behind the coverage of the school, I coil around to launch a grenade at the Porsche, demolishing any evidence of her presence here in a blast that bellows with a tumult of clanging metal and shattered glass.
The whoosh of flames sunders the smoky air.
When I climb in the back seat of the truck with Ivy straddling my lap, no one speaks a word.
She’s a harrowing sight—cloaked in the remnants of life and death and her journey through Hell.
Ty sits beside me in the back, Gage shotgun with Liam behind the wheel.
He peels out of the parking lot with a jolt, sirens blaring in the near distance.
While I’m whispering soothing words into Ivy’s ear, Ty reaches a hand over, squeezing reassurance into her thigh.
I’m sure he simply needs to feel her, to know we really have her, but she pays him no mind.
Racking sobs rumble from her chest as she clasps her hands into the hair at the nape of my neck.
She’s stuck, suspended in the terror that ensued around her.
We drive straight to our safe house—one we’ve had in this area for years because of her.
She needs medical attention, but we can’t take her to a hospital when she’s doused in blood and brains.
I cart her straight to the bathroom attached to a bedroom.
She clings to me as I shimmy our vests off.
Her hand never abandons the grip on me, even as I shuck our clothes, tossing them beyond the door for the guys to burn.
Flipping the nozzle to hot, I enfold her quivering frame into mine.
My fierce girl seems so small here, so fragile.
The tremors in her limbs and her chattering teeth scream how rattled and flustered she is, but her sapphire beauties are glossy and vacant.
Like her mind ventured on one of her vacations.
Split between two worlds.
I lift her into the shower, and she sags against me, sluggish, while I scrub over her bruised and battered skin, a crimson stream puddling around our feet.
Her ribs are tender and already varnished with purple-and-black contusions that extend to her back, and her left breast is an angry, mottled red.
She winces as my fingers peruse the marks, but still, her gaze is absent.
There are blood-encrusted scrapes and cuts mantling her scalp, so I gingerly work my fingers through the tangles, sifting bits of my kill from her knots.
“You’re okay, Little Storm. It’s all over, baby.”
She doesn’t respond, her empty eyes fastened to something out of reach, some unattainable destination of peace.
I keep talking, hoping my voice will penetrate her haze and bring her back to me. “You did so good. My strong, brilliant girl.”
And here, in the heavy steam of the shower, after a month and a half of anguish and days of trepidation, I permit myself a brief breakdown because, Christ , she’s here. Traumatized but here. And so damn breathtaking.
I brace my hand on the dewy tiles behind her, a shuddering breath billowing out as still-vivid fears prick my eyes and drip to blend with the shower drizzle. “ Fuck , I missed you so much, Ives.”
Her ocean blues, spilling like a sea at high tide, snap to mine, loosening the knot in my chest a smidgen. “My mother?”
“Safe,” I assure her, skimming my thumb over her bloodstained cheekbone. “Your dad too. They’re at the hospital. We’ll go there soon.”
“My dad. Good. I thought …” She scans my face, then my hair, unkempt and still saturated with particles of her assailant, before she locks eyes with me again, her pupils blown and as wild as her matted strands. “I … killed people. Lots of people.”
“Five,” I tell her honestly. She killedfour inside the vehicles and one on foot. Glossing over our reality won’t stabilize her shock. Owning it is the only way through the fog.
She slumps against me with a whimper. That brittle facade she’s been wearing shatters into a flimsy and feeble humanness.
It’s what makes Ivy so unstoppable, so awe-inspiringly formidable.
She recognizes value in life, her own and others, and crusades for it.
That’s why she lured me to chase her—to prove my humanity, to convince herself of the authenticity of our marriage in the face of duplicity.
It’s why she risked her life for a woman she believes betrayed her—because it didn’t erase the love, sacrifice, or worth that same woman had bestowed upon her.
And it’s why she’s grieving the deaths of these monsters—because there’s no room left for their redemption.