59. Chapter 58
A sharp pain split through her skull. Her body ached against the cold ground beneath her.
She tried to move, but her limbs wouldn’t budge.
She opened her eyes, squinting as she searched the dimly lit room.
A few lit torches along the walls were enough to show her she was somewhere underground.
The walls were mostly stone, though some inlets had skeletons lying on them, and the ground was a mix of rock and dirt.
When she found the center of the room, her stomach bottomed out, and her breath grew haggard.
“Red door. Door. No.” Her mother’s words replayed in her mind.
Maeve’s voice came next. “There was a red door that was open…But then I met you, Ivy, and then Ezra. Both of you were there.” Was he here with her somewhere in this room? She wished she could move. “And a blonde, but I couldn’t see her face.”
She tried to move her lips, forcing every ounce of strength she had to her mouth. “Bri—Br—Briar.” Her voice crackled, as if the potion they’d given her had dried every bit of fluid inside her.
“Ivy?” Briar’s voice, weak and quiet, came from somewhere in the room. “You’re awake! Oh God,” she sobbed. Her crying echoed around the room. “I’m so sor—”
“Please stop your incessant whining,” a familiar voice said. Heels clicked quietly against the stone, and when they came into view, crouching to meet Ivy’s eyeline, her breathing shallowed. She was right. She couldn’t believe it took her so long to catch on.
“Surprised?” Professor Abbott asked with a sinister ruby-painted smile.
“I doubt she is,” Briar spat. “She’s smarter than you think, you old crone.”
Abbott rolled her eyes, pushing herself back up and sauntering out of view to the left. “How many times have I told you to shut up?”
“Not enough,” Briar sneered.
“If you weren’t special, I would’ve killed you a lot sooner,” Abbott said, her voice vicious and sharp. “You were always so fucking annoying.”
“Wh-Why?” Ivy rasped. The words were a little easier, like her muscles were regaining their strength.
Abbott didn’t answer. Instead, with a single flick of Abbott’s hand, Ivy rose from the ground, and she floated through the air slowly to one of two stone pillars in the center of the room.
Her back flattened against it, and cold iron chains snaked around her body to hold her in place.
The chains tightened around her torso, forcing her breathing to shallow.
Ivy turned her head, only a fraction, but it was enough to see Briar chained to the pillar beside her.
It wasn’t the same Briar she remembered. Her blonde hair was matted and coated in a layer of dirt, her lips were cracked, and her eyes and cheeks had sunken in. She stretched out her hand toward Ivy weakly. Ivy’s could only twitch in response.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
She had so many questions for her best friend.
Or who she thought was her best friend. But being in front of Briar again, she could scarcely parse out what she’d learned over the last few months from the years she’d spent by her side.
Ivy wasn’t sure there was any point now that they were at the end.
Instead, she said the only thing she had the strength for. “I know.”
Abbott cleared her throat, moving closer to the door with a roll of yellowed parchment in her manicured hand. “Now, we’ll beg—”
A clatter of noise echoed from the left side of the chamber. Flickering orange light glowed in the corner, revealing an exit to the chamber they were in, and large, bulky shadows grew smaller until someone with a black bag over their head was kicked into the room.
“Fuck you,” Ezra spat. They had his arms bound in front of him, but it didn’t stop him from trying to fight back. Three masked figures clung to him as they moved to make way for the last of their group, who was holding Maeve, judging by her purple jacket, and Liam.
They tore the sacks off their heads and, as soon as Ezra’s gaze landed on her, he immediately fought against his glowing restraints. “Ivy!” he called out to her, his panicked voice echoing loudly off the walls. “Don’t you fucking touch her! Ivy!”
“Ezra.” She could barely hear her own voice amid the chaos. Tears welled as she watched him struggle.
He threw his head back, beating his skull into the face of the one standing behind him.
“Let her go!” Ezra yelled at Abbott. He thrashed out of the hold of the other two and charged at her.
He didn’t make it far before tendrils of darkness coiled around him and threw his body against the wall.
The tiniest spark of ice pricked under her skin. Silas. He was here too.
Ezra cried out as the magic held him in place. “Let me go.” He fought, trying to yank himself out of the trap. But it wouldn’t budge.
They put Maeve on one side and Liam on the other, making them sit on the ground. Their hands were bound in front of them, the bindings glowing a faint blue. Maeve’s cheeks were stained with tears, and when she glanced at Ivy, she broke down sobbing.
“Ah, how surprising you would be here. Come to rescue your little love?” Abbott said, tilting her chin as she observed the scene before her. “Your father’s bound to be disappointed in you. Though, from what I’ve heard, he’s quite used to that.”
“Fuck you,” he hissed. “And fuck my father too. May you both rot in hell when I put you there.”
“Such tough words for someone who is currently powerless,” Abbott sneered, stalking toward him.
“When you leave here, you’ll barely make it out the door before Haverick snatches you up for abandoning his plan.
” She dragged her painted red nail down his cheek.
“It’s too bad. I would’ve loved killing you myself. ”
“Plan?” Ivy stuttered.
She turned around, a sly grin plastered on her face as she cocked her head. “Oh, lover boy here didn’t tell you?”
“Don’t sa—”
“Shut him up,” Abbott snapped. The darkness wrapped around his jaw, muffling any noise. “I’m surprised you didn’t sleuth this one out too, Ivy.” She slinked over and pouted with an malevolent glint in her eye. “He’s been working against you since the beginning.”
She sucked in a breath, coughing as the chains restricted her.
Abbott cackled as she moved over to Briar and grabbed her jaw.
“When we first tried to take her last year, her disappearance made national news. Dear Ezra here made sure that only lasted for less than a month. He wiped her name, her face, her existence out of newspapers, off bulletin boards, off teleprompters. All because his daddy told him to.”
She couldn’t breathe. Her heart threatened to stop. She stared at Ezra, hoping it was all a lie. He shouted against his bindings, tears streaming down his face.
Abbott dropped her hand from Briar’s face and stepped closer to Ivy.
“It eventually broke him. He left the job unfinished, which led to pesky brats like you. But when he was offered something he couldn’t refuse, he followed his father’s orders all the way here to keep our business a secret.
He covered up the other disappearances. Clearly it wasn’t enough to deter you.
” She slid a finger against the snapdragon pendant and snickered.
“He used you, Ivy. All so it could lead to this moment of glory. All so I can finally have what is owed to me.”
Ivy tore her gaze from Abbott and back to Ezra. She wished she could speak more than a word or two at a time. Could he even hear her if she did? Instead, she tried mouthing the words. Is it true?
But Ezra only sobbed. Instead of shaking his head or yelling in denial, he crumpled as if the shame of his lie finally sank in.
A sharp cry escaped her, and she tried to inhale for more air, but the chains made it impossible to get more than half a breath.
She should be numb to betrayal by now. But her heart split in two and shriveled into dust. Her chest burned, and her world closed in around her, threatening to snuff out the last of what little hope she had buried deep inside her.
Abbot sauntered back to the door with a satisfied look on her face, clearing her throat as she opened the scroll.
A strange language poured from her lips, and the text glowed red as he chanted.
The chains slithered off Ivy’s body, clanking to the floor, as the spell levitated both her and Briar into the air.
Ivy glanced over at her, and despite the abuse Briar had been through, her eyes were still the same fierce amber-brown that she recognized.
Briar’s hand clasped around Ivy’s, their fingers lacing together.
Carvings deep in the red door shone brightly, coming to life from the words falling out of Abbott at a furious pace.
Then it was like a million tiny needles pushed out from beneath her skin. Pain radiated through every inch of her body, and she screamed. Briar’s cries mixed with hers, drowning out the demonic chanting of the professor.
Blood streamed out of her body in thin lines, swirling with Briar’s in the air as it filled into the gold carvings.
She watched in horror as her own life slipped away in front of her.
In her periphery, she could see her friends try to fight back, only to be restrained like Ezra. Maeve’s vision was right, after all.
Ivy was going to die.
She thought she would be braver when facing her own death.
She’d had months to come to terms with it.
But she was terrified. Not necessarily of dying, but of what her death would unleash.
Their blood was nearing the top. Her head spun, her heart slowed, and her grip on Briar weakened until their hands eventually fell to their sides.
Her vision tunneled, her surroundings blurred, and everything except the door faded into nothing.
Red light beamed from the filled crevices.
A loud clicking of locks clattered. And the door creaked open to reveal an endless landscape of shadow and red smoke.
The Nether. It was a nightmare she’d only read about, but was now a grim reality.
All thanks to her being too trusting. Too desperate.
Too stupid. She tried to gasp, but no sound came out.
On the other side of the door, someone was walking out.
Abbott stumbled back as the figure trudged forward. The creature came closer, its body mangled and red eyes glowing bright. When it crossed over the barrier into their world, Ivy realized it wasn’t a creature. It was a man.
Briar’s body dropped to the ground with a heavy thud.
But Ivy didn’t fall. She turned her sights back to the man before her.
His clothes were tattered and burned, revealing patches of skin that had melted away to sinew.
Half of his jaw had rotted away, showing broken, black teeth and cracked bones.
But the injuries healed themselves, his muscles and skin sewing themselves back together, right in front of her,
The man’s hair—once scraggly and white—grew to his shoulders, shining the same red as her own. His skin sealed itself over the sharp cheekbones, and his lips repaired themselves into a slight grin.
Gabriel.
“Sister?” His voice was lighter than she expected. Steady. Calm. Horrifying. “Don’t be frightened. I’ve always wondered if we would be reunited one day.”
He stepped closer to her, his hands folded behind his back as he examined her. He still smelled of rot and sulfur.
“How are you still alive?” Abbott asked with a tremble.
Gabriel’s gentle expression faltered as his head snapped in Abbott’s direction, his neck clicking with the sharp movement. “I wasn’t speaking to you, Professor.” His arm rose, and his hand squeezed into a tight fist.
Abbott choked, the air she had left expunged from her lungs, and she crumpled to the floor. Ivy’s eyes widened as her brother turned back to face her with a small smile on his rigid face.
“Where was I?” he asked, as if he hadn’t just murdered someone. “Ah, right. I didn’t expect to see you again. Twenty-five years is such a long time to be shut in the Nether. How are Mom and Dad? Quiet, I imagine.”
She made a pathetic attempt at clenching her jaw.
“I seem to have struck a nerve.” He chuckled. “I imagine they also never thought we’d see each other again, Ivy. But they failed to preempt the stupidity of teenagers playing with magic they do not understand. Sad their sacrifice was in vain.”
The last of her tears slid down her cheeks. Whatever they’d done to keep her safe—to keep the world safe—she’d destroyed in a single night.
“It need not be,” he said, placing a hand on Ivy’s shoulder.
Energy radiated from his palm, as if he were funneling a fragment of power and life into her.
For the faintest moment, she could breathe, and she rushed to take her next inhale.
He retreated, and her lungs shrank again as her exhale was a painful wheeze.
“They thought they were sending me to my death.” He shook his head. “But they gave me exactly what I wanted. I have power, Ivy. Power descended from the very beginning of our planet. And you can have it too if you join me.”
Dread slicked over her body like cold sweat.
“Think of all we could accomplish,” he whispered. “This world could be ours.”
She reached for what little strength she had. “N—n—no.”
His head reeled back, his lip curling into a vile sneer. “You deny me even when you are an inch from death? I am the only reason you still have breath in your lungs.”
She said nothing. There was nothing left for her to say.
Not to Gabriel, anyway. She had a million things to say to everyone else in the room.
If only she could speak. But the last of her oxygen was seeping from her lungs.
Her vision tunneled. She lifted her chin barely an inch, and he gritted his teeth.
The cries from Ezra, Maeve, and Liam all filled the room again, but Gabriel only focused on her.
“So be it.”
A resounding bang filled the chamber, and her sight flashed white as she faded into nothing.