19. Ivy
Chapter nineteen
Ivy
Age Twenty
If I said anything other than yes to being their friend, I was pretty sure I'd end up next to Tilly, floating in the water with my neck gaping open. I said yes that night because I didn't think I had another choice, because it felt like it may be true. But as that summer slipped away, it became clear that I wasn't their friend. It became even more apparent that fall, winter, and the spring after when I finally gathered the courage to write them… and I didn’t get so much as a postcard or a ‘return to sender’.
I don't know what I was to them, but I know what they were to me.
Everything .
Long days bled into quiet nights and though I listened for any mention of a missing woman, a body, anything, there was no mention of Tilly, no police car to come crawling up the gravel road, no mention of anything nefarious. By the time we pack it all up to go back to our penthouse, it's as if none of it ever happened, as if it was all a fever dream. By the time I see them the next summer, it feels like a bad trip, a moment of chaos that my brain corrupted with time.
I know it wasn't. I know what I saw. And I know that these men I am completely helpless to resist are capable of horrible things.
It doesn't stop me from spending my nights in Killian's parents’ basement, getting high while I watch them simply be themselves, talking about basketball and video games and mundane shit that I don't care about.
And yet, being with them feels right. Or maybe it’s the drugs they’ve kept me on.
I’ve been happy to accept the continuous string of pills they feed me, which keeps away the withdrawal from whatever the country club pool boy has to spare. It’s also kept me from having to process the fact that the only people in the world who can even tolerate my presence are murderers, because I am a fucking accessory. Thinking about it makes me want to peel my skin off, so I don’t think about it. I stay high on Theo’s supply.
At this point, I don’t even know what I’m on, and while I wouldn’t call it an addiction, I crave it as much as I crave their attention.
My parents have been absent much of the summer, leaving me with Uncle Vitoli, who’s gotten increasing more uncomfortable to be around. Given a choice between known killers and the man who looks at me like the little red riding hood to his big bad wolf, I choose the killers. It’s why I’ve thrown caution to the wind, sneaking out on the nights when my uncle’s drank himself into oblivion to get my fix.
They don’t push my boundaries, don’t hurt me, don’t make a move, for the most part.
Until they do.
Killian’s parents are out of town, so tonight instead of sneaking around in their furnished basement like their dirty little secret, we have free reign of the cabin. It’s all very cozy, clean without being pristine. Photos of his parents in every stage of their relationship adorn the halls, creating a sort of timeline as Killian appears in them too. I watch him grow as I walk down the corridor on my way back from the bathroom and notice that he’s even smiling in some of them. Theo and Monty appear in a few, as well, and my throat swells at how much I missed, being dragged away from them every year when the leaves begin to fall.
Sometimes I feel like a ghost, like I’m insubstantial. Sometimes I think I’m nothing at all, because even a ghost is a collection of energy absent matter, and I don’t even have that to give. The way I watch them sometimes acting as if I’m not even there supports my theory.
"I know you love a good game, Bambi." Killian smirks, daring me to try and deny whatever he’s about to suggest.
In truth, I do love his games. I love how he takes control, how he convinces me to surrender it.
"Spin the bottle?" I guess, noticing Theo taking a long swig from the whiskey bottle that's set on the coffee table before us.
"I don't have to spin a bottle to make out with whoever I want." He drops onto the couch at my left, making all the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
He sets the gun down in the center of the coffee table with a smirk, daring me to back out before he's even told me what sort of game we're playing.
It takes effort, but I force myself to stay still as his eyes trail over each one of us.
It's a shiny silver gun, one with a round chamber near the trigger.
I've watched him kill, and I have accepted that something in him craves the violence, murder. But I have a hard time imagining him using that gun to end someone's life. It seems so cold, impersonal. And yet, as I look at it, my pulse picks up, my veins rushing with adrenaline breaking through the haze of whatever drugs they gave me tonight.
I've been dreading the next kill, not knowing whether they would make me be an accomplice, a witness… or maybe their victim.
"What is this?" I ask, my heart sticking in my throat.
"A gun." Killian says, deadpan. "Revolver, specifically. With a chamber that can fit six bullets."
"Wh-" I swallow, struggling to maintain my calm. "Why would you need that many?"
"I don't." He smirks. "But tonight, we do."
"You can't be serious?" Monty laughs, though the sound is a little dragged out, like even his body is hesitant to accept whatever is about to unfold.
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"Roulette?" Theo's voice contains excitement he doesn't bother trying to deny.
I feel the world starting to slip away as the gravity of the situation settles over my throat, cutting off my air supply until I choke out, " Russian Roulette?"
"The best kind there is." Killian confirms, holding up a small little copper nub pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
A bullet.
It doesn't look like much on its own, but I know the truth of it. I know that that little bullet can rip through my body fast enough that it tears ligaments, shreds muscles, and creates a hole that lets out all of the sickness I've tried to live with for so long. I've always been apathetic about facing the potential end of my life, and now all of a sudden, my heart feels like it grew wings that it's desperate to spread. But the steel bars of the cage I've left it trapped in won't let them free, so they beat furiously inside of me, ruthlessly, painfully.
The agony is beautiful.
"One bullet, six chambers." Killian explains.
I glance around like maybe his victim will materialize, but I guess I'm the only one left out of whatever they all seem to understand. No surprise there; I've always been on the fringe when it comes to them.
"Four of us." Monty whispers, a hand on my shoulder giving him the leverage to get close enough to me that his whisper feels like a cannon blast.
I watch as Killian picks the revolver up and examines it, using his thumb to coax open the chamber and slip a bullet into the round. Every part of me is tight, tense and anxious, despite the fact that inside, I feel like I'm melting. I don't know if it's the drugs or something else that's liquified me, but I feel too insubstantial to move, like if I take a step, I'll fall to the ground.
As he spins the chamber, my eyes lock on the barrel of the gun, aimed in my direction. "You going to shoot me?"
"I'm not going to shoot you, Bambi." Killian laughs, his eyes glittering with that sharp and violent hunger I know so well. "That's not how the game works."
A game.
All games have winners and losers. I'm guessing if you lose this game, you lose everything. But if you win? Well, that could be worse.
I stare at the barrel, still pointed in my direction, my heart thudding heavily inside my chest.
"Okay." I say. "What are the rules, then?"
Killian's smirk is deeper on one side of his face, betraying a dimple that's so deceptively soft it makes me insane.
"The rules are simple. You take the gun, point it at your head, and pull the trigger."
"And hope it doesn't go off." Theo adds with a grin. He’s flawless in every way, the perfect balance to Monty’s soft shadows and Killian’s sharp edges.
"Or hope it does." Killian shrugs, making my eyes narrow on him.
He must sense my weakness, though, because he leans over me, bracing his hands on either side of my shoulders, the tip of the gun grazing against my upper arm. I swallow the rise of excitement, giddy and heady, as I stare at him expectantly.
"You scared, Bambi?"
Scared isn't the word I'd use for whatever I am feeling. Scared implies that I don't want this. Scared implies that I want to turn and run and never look back. But that's not what I want.
I want them the same way I always have. Their acceptance, their friendship, their love...
I don't tell Killian that I'm not scared. I don't tell him that I couldn't possibly be scared when this is the first time I've felt alive in the last year. The physical pain I give myself doesn't drown out the mental pain anymore, and none of it makes me feel three dimensional. None of it ever convinces me that the heart inside my chest is actually beating, despite the moments of unsettling awareness that creep into the silence. I don't dare tell them that this moment is too beautiful to be laced with fear, that I am only alive when I’m with them.
"I'm not scared."
Of its own accord, my tongue flicks out over my lips, and Killian tracks it with his eyes, which are full of something darker than usual.
"Maybe you should be." Monty says, the voice of reason. It’s little more than a whisper.
But I refuse to let them intimidate me into sitting on the sidelines, not playing because of fear. And it’s not like my terror would make them back down, anyway.
"I'll go first." I suggest, my throat threatening to close around the words even as I speak them.
My bravado earns me a bit of laughter from the three of them, and it makes taking the gun so much easier. Killian's hand closes around mine, guiding me to lift the muzzle to my temple. I can feel my blood throbbing against the metal as we press it there, death a fraction of a second away. His thumb runs along my index finger, guiding it to the trigger.
"Just pull when you're ready, Bambi."
I hear Theo's low laugh from somewhere behind Killian's shoulder.
"Any last words?" Monty asks, coming around to stand in front of me. "You know? Just in case?"
There's nothing worth saying, and nothing that needs to be said. So, I say nothing, letting my silence speak for me.
My finger strokes the trigger without any real pressure, an impulse.
"Can you taste it?" Theo asks, his voice husky and low.
"Taste what?"
My own voice sounds far away, and I wonder what I took tonight and if it's causing me to feel this way. I also wonder, if I get the bullet, if there will be time for this to hurt… if I'll feel anything at all.
" Death , Tiger Lily. Do you taste it right there on the tip of your tongue?"
I don't taste anything except for the traces of the whiskey I drank, and if death tastes like whiskey, then he's already so much sweeter than life.
Killian's fingers leave mine slowly, like he's backing away from an explosive. And to be fair, I am holding live ammunition. I could turn the gun on him, on any of them, in a second.
But I would never.
I let my eyes flutter closed, focusing on the slippery feeling inside me, sufficiently numbed even in spite of the intensity of the movement.
Exhaling a shaky breath, I force my body to still, force my mind to quiet as I lean in.
And then, I pull the trigger.