31. Chapter 30
He tried his best to keep his distance from Ivy since last Friday.
Which wasn’t easy, considering she lived a few doors down.
He’d skipped history class both days. He didn’t get her coffee or breakfast. And he felt like an asshole.
It was what he deserved. Another person disappeared during the exams, and each poster he erased was like a piece of his soul dying.
What he said to Ivy was true. He wanted to be a better person.
For her. For himself. But he didn’t know how to when he’d been born into this corruption that had embedded itself in him.
When she collapsed in his arms at the end of the exam, it was the first time in years he was afraid for someone other than himself.
He carried her all the way to Embry. Hell, he would’ve carried her to the city hospital outside of campus if needed.
And the entire time she was out, his heart was beating against his chest, and what little magic he had left was frantically reaching for her, only to find nothing.
And that was when he knew he’d fucked up.
Seeing her wake up, feeling her magic pulse weakly inside her, made the truth undeniable. He cared for her. In the way he cared for only one other person in his life. And he wasn’t worthy of her. Not after everything he’d done. Not after what he was still doing.
So he forced himself to walk away. It was the only way he could rebuild the defenses she’d torn to shreds.
He’d go to her once he tamped down his feelings.
It was the only way he could continue doing what was expected of him and, thus keep his family away from her.
By Thursday night, a rapid knocking came at his door, and the way his magic pulled him toward it, he didn’t need to guess who it was.
“What the hell, Ezra?” Ivy growled when he opened the door. She weaved around him and strode into his apartment.
“Hello to you, too,” he said, flinging the door shut.
“Why are you avoiding m—us?”
His chest ached at the correction. He turned to face her, and his throat seized at the look on her face. Her jaw was tight, her mouth down-turned. Worst of all were her eyes, which shone with a thin layer of tears in the dim light from the corner of the room.
“Was it something I said?” she whispered, her brows scrunching together as she crossed her arms under her breasts.
“No,” he said too quickly. He stepped toward her, his hand reaching out to comfort her, but he let it drop instead. “No, it was nothing you said.”
Her expression softened, her arms falling to her front as she spun a small gold ring on her finger. “Then what did you mean when you said you wished you were a better person?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He couldn’t allow her any closer.
If he did, he’d risk her life. He wasn’t sure if Declan knew what she was up to yet.
A part of him still clung to the hope Silas would hold it to his chest. He knew for certain that his father was still in the dark.
If he’d known, he would’ve made the problem disappear.
Or, worse, he would’ve made Ezra do it as punishment.
The possibility sent bile into his throat.
“Doesn’t matter?” she scoffed. Her jaw tightened again, stepping toe-to-toe with him, and tilting her head enough to glare into his soul. “It matters to me.”
A lump formed in his throat. She was giving him an opportunity to open up, practically on a silver platter. He wished he could take it. He wished he could spill every single truth he’d been hiding. But he couldn’t.
“Well, you can’t always get what you want,” he said, the words barely making it past his lips.
“You know what? If you want to close yourself off, then that’s your own choice, and you’ll have to live with it.
” A tear slid down her cheek, and she wiped it away furiously.
“You gave me the opportunity to back out of whatever your family has pulled you into. I didn’t take it for a reason.
I want to be in this with you, so don’t force me to take it by being an asshole. ”
“I’m not making you do anything, Ivy,” he said. “You ever think I’m being an asshole because I am one? There’s nothing you can say or do to change that.”
“Clearly.” She stared at him one last time, as if she were silently pleading for him to talk to her. Instead, he forced himself to step back, letting his gaze drop.
“Fine,” she said, her voice thick. She stepped around him back to the door. “We’re going to the Halloween festival and the party afterward tomorrow night. We thought it would be a good way to blow off steam for once. Maybe show up if it matters to you.”
The door opened and slammed shut behind her as she stormed away.
Tears burned his eyes and stung his cheeks as he finally let them surface.
He grabbed the pillow from the couch, flinging it across the room.
The pillow crashed into a small lamp sitting on top of a short bookcase, sending it shattering to the ground.
“Shit.” He crossed the room, bending over to grab the bigger broken pieces of glass. But he froze when he flipped the bigger piece over. Taped to the side was a wiretap, and he’d seen them countless times as a kid to know exactly where it came from.
Every part of campus was decorated with pumpkins, orange and purple lights, illusions of vampires, zombies, and other terrifying creatures.
Countless food booths were put together by staff and students, games with colorful prizes, contests throughout the night, and a small merry-go-round in the center.
Ghosts actively milled about, enjoying watching and tricking the living.
He wasn’t stopping to take in the decor or the party.
Finding Ivy was all that mattered to him.
He hated how he left things with her, and if he was being honest, he missed being around her and talking to her every day.
With the wire planted in his room, which he guessed was the real reason Silas was in his apartment the night they snuck into the dean’s office, his brother must know about Ivy and that she knew something.
Which meant she was now on Declan’s radar.
Pushing her away would only make it easier for his family to get to her.
So he had to apologize and make it up to her.
He was the best person to protect her from them, even though it was because of him she was in danger to begin with.
He wove through groups of students until he finally spotted her at one of the booths with Maeve.
She wore a short black dress—the skirt hugging her curves and ending mid-thigh—with sheer black tights and knee-length boots.
The sleeves of the dress were loose and long, resembling bat wings.
In her hands, she had a mug in one and a witch’s hat in the other.
The purple lights above the booth cast her face in a vibrant hue.
As if she could sense him staring, she turned her head in his direction.
From this distance, he noticed her lips pout for a moment before she turned back to the cashier to pay for her drink.
He moved through the crowd, his steps slowing as he approached the booth where she and Maeve were. “Hey,” he said, shoving his hands into his pants pockets. Ivy and Maeve, who dressed as a cat with orange ears poking out from her tight curls, glanced over at him. “Can we talk, Ivy?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged, her words sharp. “Does it matter?”
Yeah, he deserved that. “Yes, it does.”
“Hope you have a good apology handy, Ezra,” Maeve said, arching a brow. He should’ve expected Ivy to fill her in on what he said.
“I do,” he said, his hand coming to the back of his neck. “At least, I hope it’s good enough. But…I was hoping to talk in private, if that’s alright?”
He watched as Ivy turned to Maeve, their eyes flicking and brows bouncing as if they were having a silent conversation.
Maeve nodded once. “I’ll go find Liam.” She looked at Ezra once more with a pointed stare, as if to reinforce her point before going into the crowd.
They stepped out of the square, where most of the activity was, leaving the twinkling lights and the loud music behind. Silence stretched between them as they ambled along a sparsely populated path leading toward the Constructs buildings, his mind stuck on how to start.
“Ivy.” He sighed, coming to a stop and reaching for her hand. She didn’t immediately pull away. Hopefully that was a good sign. “I’m sorry for how I spoke to you. You didn’t deserve that.”
“No, I didn’t,” she said, the sharp edges still there. Her eyes, painted with dark shadow which made the green stand out, were the opposite of her voice. They were soft. Pained. God, he was such a dick. “I came over because I was worried about you.”
“I know,” he said. “The truth is…I was avoiding you.”
“Oh.” Her voice was small, as if she were withdrawing further into herself, and she dropped her gaze to the ground.
“It was nothing to do with what you said,” he added quickly. She looked back slowly, her brow rising with expectation. “I’m terrified of letting you get too close to me, Ivy. Not only because of my family, but of what they turned me into.”
He paused, exhaling shakily as the truth sat on the tip of his tongue.
He wished he could tell her everything, even if it meant she would never speak to him again.
It would kill him, but at least she would know it all.
Except the truth would kill her too. If he kept it vague, though, perhaps it would be enough.
“I’ve had to do horrible things for my father, and I still have to, in order to—” he formed quotation marks with his fingers—“protect the family legacy.” His hands dropped back to his sides, and he shook his head.
“When I was younger, I did everything he asked to get his approval. It was never enough. I knew what he was doing was wrong, which meant I was doing something wrong. For too long, I assumed they were our enemies, people who would hurt us. It wasn’t until my mother got sick and… ”
His voice faded away, and he clenched his jaw to keep the tears at bay.
“It wasn’t until she was gone that I realized I was being lied to.
The one time I didn’t follow orders, he tormented me for months.
He kept me trapped, away from anyone except him.
When he finally let me go, I found out he had paid tabloids to destroy my reputation so if I ever spoke out publicly, nobody would believe me. ”
He shut his mouth, his brain practically screaming at him to shut up before he revealed too much. Too much would put her in danger. Too much would send her running away. She stood there, searching over him—for a lie? A secret? He wasn’t sure.
But her arms wrapped around his neck. Her body pressed against his as she tucked her head beneath his chin.
She was…hugging him. For the first time in his life, a simple hug sent him reeling.
He finally let his arms wrap around her, pulling her closer against him.
Their magic wove together gently, becoming one, and a wave of warmth rushed over him.
Her breath hitched. She must feel it too, and God, it made him want to never let her go.
He loosened his grip as she pulled back. Her hand rested against the side of his neck, and he was sure she could feel the rapid beating of his heart at his pulse point.
“So that’s why you wished you were better?” Her voice cracked, and a watery reflection of the nearby streetlamp appeared in her eyes.
“It’s part of it,” he mumbled. “But, if I tell you more—”
“Your family will know,” she said. “I understand why you want to protect me from them.”
“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his hair, wishing it were the only reason.
If he didn’t care about her, telling her what he’d done might be easier.
If she knew he was ordered to cover up Briar’s disappearance, then he would never hold her in his arms again.
And now that he knew how perfectly she fit in them, he didn’t want to lose her.
“I’m sorry to pour it all out on you at once. ”
“Don’t be. I’m sorry you’ve had to live through that.” Her thumb brushed along the line of his jaw, and a second later her hand froze as her eyes widened. “And…I essentially cornered you into telling me. God, I didn’t reali—”
“You didn’t. Not really,” he said, squeezing her hip gently. He regretted that action as soon as the supple curve filled his palm and sent a jolt through his body. “I wanted you to know. But it took me a while to figure out how to say it. Besides, honesty builds trust, right?”
“Right,” she said, her hands sliding from his neck to his chest. “Trust is important in a friendship.”
“Friends?” he asked, cocking a brow. “Is that what we are?”
“Is it not?” Her voice dipped lower, and before her eyes flitted to his lips.
“Maybe,” he murmured, pulling out one of his classic smirks. “Maybe not.”
“Hey!” Liam called out from somewhere behind them. He glanced over his shoulder to see him and Maeve coming toward them. “If you two lovebirds are done making up, we’ve got a party to get to!”