50. IVY
50
IVY
“This is the last stop before we meet Barry and my brothers,” Grayson said.
Red and my mother were in a separate vehicle, but they’d arrive at Hunter’s mansion around the same time we would.
“At least this gas station doesn’t look like it has serial killers running it,” I mused.
This time, Grayson pumped gas first, and then we wandered into the gas station to grab some drinks and snacks to satisfy our hunger for the remainder of the drive. Despite the stench of stale coffee and week-old hot dogs assaulting us, this gas station was the Ritz-Carlton compared to the other one. It even had restrooms inside rather than having to access them from outside with a key.
The place was bigger, too, with eight-foot shelves fully stocked with snacks. Grayson and I weaved through the aisles, and as I turned a corner, I nearly collided with a man.
The moment our eyes met, a wave of terror washed over me. My mouth ran dry, stomach swirling with bile as the guy fired off an intense, almost-predatory stare that reminded me of the look my kidnapper had given me all those years ago.
Which, rationally speaking, was ridiculous, because both of my attempted kidnappers had worn ski masks, so the only things I could see of them were their mouths, their eyes, and their bodies.
Nonetheless, it was a look that rooted my feet into place and glued my gaze on to him. In my periphery, I saw that it took Grayson a few steps before he stopped and turned, studying me, probably wondering why I was standing here, staring at a complete stranger.
“Beautiful girl like you shouldn’t be left alone,” he purred, his voice dripping with a sickening blend of desire and menace.
He’d meant it to be a come-on, I think, but it snapped me right back to when I was thirteen years old, when an almost-identical phrase was spoken with a dangerous and dark tone.
“Let me go!” I shrieked, kicking fruitlessly as he dragged me away from the safety of the sidewalk toward the waiting car.
“Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be alone,” he taunted.
My pulse accelerated until it was vibrating at an alarming frequency, carrying with it the unwanted grip that had plagued my nightmares.
Ever since the attempted kidnapping, sudden flashbacks would catapult me back to that terrifying moment when I’d nearly been taken. It could be triggered by the most unexpected things—an aggressive patient in the ER, the sound of a stranger’s voice, or even a scent that bore an uncanny resemblance to my kidnapper’s. Each time, I desperately hoped it would be the last, clinging to the long periods of peace between each episode, but just when I thought I’d finally broken free from the grip of my trauma, these new events—being kidnapped by Daniel’s men, the parking garage attack, and the assault in the gas station—brought these feelings back to the surface.
And now, they were seizing my body.
This guy couldn’t be him. Right? Again, my kidnappers had worn masks, so I couldn’t be sure.
But there, on his forearm, was another trigger, launching me back in time.
As he locked his arm around my throat, I desperately tried to twist my head and sink my teeth into his flesh. And when I did, a flash of angry red caught my eye. There, on his forearm, was a jagged scar carving a twisted path down his skin, a grotesque letter Z that looked as though it had been brutally etched by a serrated blade. The raised edges of the scar tissue gleamed in the sun.
And seared itself into my memory.
This man’s forearm sported a jagged red line.
“You like what you see, darlin’?” The man leered, his eyes roaming over my body in a way that made my skin crawl.
“Ivy”—Grayson’s hand pressed to my lower back—“what’s wrong?”
“Thinkin’ about all the fun we could have together?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Grayson snapped, returning his gaze to me. “Ivy?”
Evidently, I’d frozen. No, scratch that—I was trembling, which was beyond pathetic when you think about it. I could hold my own in dangerous situations, but this…this brought me back to that scared little girl before she’d learned how to defend herself.
Some sliver of my mind chastised me, asking, Why now, Ivy? Why not when you were literally thrown into the back of a van and taken by those CIA-type men?
Because I’d been in fight-or-flight at that moment, trying to stay alive. Here, I wasn’t fighting for my life. Instead, I was facing a man who might be my kidnapper all those years ago.
I studied the guy. Is it him?
“Ivy.” Grayson tried pulling me away, but my feet remained cemented in place, scrutinizing the stranger before me.
I’d know, right? The second I saw the culprit, I’d know it was him, right? I wouldn’t have to scrutinize him to figure it out.
The man’s lips curled into a self-satisfied smirk, gleaming with arrogance as he reveled in what he mistook for admiration.
“Looks like your girl can’t take her eyes off me,” he drawled, his voice dripping with a sickening blend of conceit and entitlement.
He stood there, basking in his own perceived irresistibility, completely oblivious to the fact that my fixation was one of terror, not desire.
“You want a real man, darlin’?” he taunted.
“I told you to shut the fuck up,” Grayson snapped again, tugging his arm around my hip. “Come on, Ivy.”
No. Those aren’t my kidnapper’s eyes.
In fact, now that I was looking closer, the scar on his arm was different.
“Ivy!” Grayson half-shouted.
Move, feet. Panic attack, cease. I order you.
The stranger had the stupidity to take a step closer. “Want me to show you what you’re missin’, darlin’?”
Grayson shoved the guy in the chest so hard, he landed on his ass with a thud.
As my pulse finally started its descent, I recognized how gross it was that this situation was stroking the guy’s ego. Any normal person would see something was off—and not in a good way. They’d be worried, even, probably disengage. Not choose to be slimy about it and certainly not stupid enough to provoke a muscular man like Grayson.
Grayson’s face appeared before me, his warm palm on my cheek.
“Hey,” he said. “Ivy, are you okay?”
Finally, I blinked. Finally, I swallowed. And finally, I could move my head with a nod.
Accepting Grayson’s warm hand, I slipped my fingers through his.
Slimeball shot to his feet, though, and shoved Grayson back.
He didn’t even flinch. Instead, he leaned closer to the guy and growled in a dangerous tone, “Walk away. Before you get hurt.”
Slimeball leaned into the threat, meeting Grayson nose to nose.
“Your girl was the one staring at me ,” he snarled.
I squeezed Grayson’s hand, tugging him away from the confrontation I’d caused, but now, he was the one who didn’t budge, and I could feel the electricity in the air buzzing dangerously around us.
If I didn’t do something, this would spiral out of control, and having the police show up was the last thing we could afford.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the guy. “I thought I recognized you, but I was wrong.”
His pervert glare met mine. “Tell your pit bull to back down, sweetheart. I’d hate to break his teeth in front of you.”
I’d hate for your neck to get snapped on account of this.
GRAYSON
I had to remind myself we were trying to keep a low profile. If anyone was keeping track, we left a dead body at a gas station, followed by another one in the woods. Not to mention the gunshots that may or may not have drawn police attention to that forest. The last thing we could afford was slaughtering another asshole, but my fists disagreed.
Do not commit murder, Grayson. If you do, you’ll have to take out the cashier, too, and that teenager did nothing to deserve it.
“Come on,” Ivy said. “He’s not worth it, Grayson.”
No. He wasn’t worth the air she breathed. This was one of those moments when I realized how abnormal I was as a human being. A normal human being would evaluate the situation and put this into perspective. This guy was just some jerk in a gas station.
Yet, when it came to Ivy, all rationality went out the window. This poor woman had been through so much, and I longed to shield her from everything.
It took a massive amount of willpower to merely exchange a few glares with the guy and let him walk away from me, unharmed. The fucker had the nerve to keep smirking at me, daring me to pummel him as he opened a bag of Doritos and dumped a handful into his mouth.
“What was that about?” I whispered to her once he was out of earshot.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “For a second, I thought he might be the guy that tried to kidnap me when I was thirteen.”
My body went rigid, a cold fury seeping into my veins. “What?”
“He’s not,” she assured me quickly, the words tumbling out of her mouth with guilt she shouldn’t have to bear. “The red scar on his forearm isn’t big enough, and it’s not the same Z-shape as the guy who tried to take me. But for a minute, I thought it might be him, and I kind of froze. It happens sometimes. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to cause a scene.”
There was so much to unpack in her words, each one twisting the knife of guilt deeper into my heart. The sheer terror she must have felt, thinking that monster might have found her again—a monster that I would hunt down and decimate when this was over. The reminder that I had failed her, that I hadn’t protected her from being taken in that van—which had obviously contributed to this PTSD-type flashback.
Witnessing her trembling, her skin pale, tore at my soul.
But what made my blood boil right now was the realization that anyone could have seen she was having a panic attack. And that asshole, that pathetic excuse for a human being, didn’t give her the space she so desperately needed. No. He leaned into it and made her suffer more than she needed to.
My fist clenched so tightly, my knuckles turned white, and my nails dug into my skin, nearly drawing blood. All I wanted to do was slam my fist into the creep’s face, wiping that disgusting smirk off his lips permanently. The only thing keeping me grounded was the gentle warmth of Ivy’s hand in my other palm, her fingers intertwined with mine, securing me to the present.
With a herculean effort, I managed to pick out our snacks and made it all the way to the counter to pay for them without shattering his skull.
But then…then Ivy had to use the restroom. This time, I swept it for any dangers before taking my post outside the ladies’ room door. Which was the precise moment Doritos Dirtbag evidently had to piss.
With a mouthful of chips, he smirked as he ambled past me toward the men’s room door.
Don’t do it, Grayson.
He tossed another handful of Doritos—unpaid for, by the way—into that fat mouth and talked over his crunching.
“You know, I think I’ll hang around for a bit,” he said. “See if maybe she wants to have a little chat, just the two of us this time.”
He’d been making Ivy uncomfortable to the point of her trembling, and he thought I’d let him put her through that again?
What a moronic way to provoke me. And what a dangerous man to provoke…
I once read a book about something called the law of attraction. Where you magnetize things into your life. And standing here right in this moment, a bolt of clarity hit me; I wonder if spending my days and nights hunting the biggest assholes on earth, in turn, drew more assholes into my life. It was the only explanation I could come up with why Doritos Dirtbag was in front of me.
Either way, as he slurped his fingers, I followed him into the men’s room, cornered him by the urinals, grabbed his collar, and slammed him against the wall. Bones crunched under my fist as I pummeled his face into a bloody mess.
When I was done with him, the guy groaned on the bathroom floor, surrounded by his coveted chips. Snagging his wallet, I held his license between two fingers.
“I know your name,” I said, “and your address. Tell anyone about this, and I’ll hunt you down, cut your balls off, and shove them down your throat until you choke on them.” I hissed, “We clear?”
IVY
I emerged from the ladies’ room, but Grayson was nowhere in sight. For a minute, I was worried that something happened to him. But the gas station attendant wouldn’t look that bored if there had been a big CIA confrontation.
I checked each aisle. No Grayson. I glanced out the glass doors, but our car sat parked in the same location—right next to the pump. No one inside.
Just as my nerves were about to get the best of me, the men’s room door swung open, and Grayson emerged, his steely stare locking on to me.
“We need to leave,” he said, his knuckles bloody.
My eyes widened, silently asking, What did you do?
His gaze remained unwavering, his expression conveying, You know what I did.
False. I didn’t know if that guy still had a heartbeat.
But look at those knuckles—they were swelling like a beast. He already had a left bicep with the bullet wound, and now, his right fist looked like raw steak.
Great.
I raced down an aisle, grabbing a pack of Ziploc baggies and a small bag of ice, hastily paying for them at the counter.
On the way back to the vehicle, I assembled a makeshift ice pack for his fist.
“I’m driving,” I announced. “And you’re icing your hand.”
“I’m fine to?—”
“I’m driving.” I snatched the keys from him, replacing them with the baggie of ice.
Once we drove off, I finally asked what could only be described as the strangest question a girl could ask her boyfriend.
“Please tell me you left him alive?”
My chest clenched, terrified of the answer.
“Unfortunately.”
Relief was immediately replaced with irritation, along with my teeth grinding.
“That was reckless,” I accused.
Grayson said nothing.
“From what I can imagine, you’ve spent your entire career having to be extremely careful. Controlled. Waiting for the optimal time to strike and all that.” The engine groaned louder as I risked a glance over at him. “So, why, when we’re trying to not attract attention, would you take the risk of beating up that worthless guy?”
Grayson’s eyes hardened. “No one disrespects you and walks away unscathed.”