Chapter 31 – IVY
Chapter
Thirty-One
IVY
“Wake up, Cherry.”
The voice pulls me to consciousness, and I slowly open my eyes, blinking away the fuzziness.
“There we go,” comes the voice again.
I look to my right, eyes landing on black suede shoes and dark slacks on long legs. I follow them up until I reach a disturbingly familiar face.
No.
I’m dreaming.
I’m dead and this is my hell.
I shake my head and frantically blink, trying to rid myself of the image before me.
He crouches to where I lie on the floor and that's when I realize my hands are also tied behind my back.
“It’s true, Red. Your eyes are not deceiving you. We are reunited at last.” He opens his arms wide as if this is some welcomed reunion.
I awkwardly sit up and move myself further away from him.
“It can’t be. I shot you. In the head!” I say, shaking my head in denial.
“You sure did. And we’ll discuss your punishment for that later. And for all the effort I’ve gone through trying to find you. But I can’t deny how much I’ve missed you, my sweet cherry.” He brushes a finger along my cheek, and I flinch away.
“How… how did you survive? It’s not possible.”
“Aw, Red, I’m starting to think you’re disappointed.”
“I am,” I growl.
“I see you haven’t lost your fire. Good.
” His satisfied smile widens. “You should work on your aim; you just grazed my skull. Maybe go for the heart next time. Although, you running away from me sure felt like you ripped open my heart.” He brushes his hand down my hair and looks lovingly at me as I curl my lip in disgust. “But you also made me look like a fool!” He slaps me hard across the face enough to send my body back to the floor.
“Fuck you! I should have unloaded the whole clip into your fucking face!”
For a moment, he looks disappointed, sad even.
“Maybe you should have, but perhaps there’s a part in you that didn’t want to really kill me. Perhaps my sweet cherry developed feelings for me, after all.”
“Not a fucking chance.”
“You’ve been gone far too long. I think you need to be retrained.
That’s fine. I’ll happily break you again until you're behaving properly. But for now, I’ll give you some time to think about your mistakes.
” He walks to the door. “We’ll catch up soon, Red.
And I want to hear about everything you’ve been up to and how you ended up in the Southern Poisoner’s home.
Oh, by the way, you looked ravishing at the ball.
It was hard to resist taking you right then. ” He smiles and leaves.
Oh my god. He was there.
The image of the man in the wolf mask who was watching me flashes before me, and I sharply inhale. It was him. And the cherry bomb… fuck. I should have known! I’m so stupid! I lay my head back and stare at the ceiling.
This is my fault. Again.
Something in me cracks and I start laughing. Laughing until I’m almost crying.
My luck can’t possibly get any worse.
Once again, I’m in the hands of this psychopath. A dead psychopath. At least he was supposed to be dead.
Nikolai is alive.