Chapter 13 Ivy
IVY
“Are you sure about this?” Cassian lightly drums his fingers on the steering wheel as we sit parked outside my parents’ house.
We’ve sat out here for ten minutes since Cassian parked up on the curb and not a word has passed between the three of us. Raven sits in the back with her face buried in her laptop, humming off-key as she types furiously like her life depends on it. From the serious look on her face, it just might.
I watch her in the rearview mirror, using her as a distraction from the house in front of us until Cassian speaks, then I meet his turquoise eyes and nod.
“I’m sure,” I say quietly. “I’m just…” Scared. Distressed. Suddenly so exhausted that it’s a challenge to keep my eyes open.
Cassian nods and goes back to drumming out a beat to the invisible song only he can hear, patiently waiting for me to make a move.
I want to and at the same time, I don’t.
Coming here was the best idea I’d had an hour ago, but now that I’ve seen the front door covered in crisscross crime scene tape, I don’t want to be here any longer. I want to go back to the safety of Ruslan’s room at the Empire State building and hide there for the rest of my life.
With the way he looked at me before he left this morning, he might actually let me do that.
I stare at the crime scene tape until my eyes blur, so I close them and thoughts of my mother flood my mind. She was in there. She was attacked in there and my father was murdered. She deserves answers as much as I do.
Something ignites in the back of my mind, a determination that chases away my exhaustion and fuels my movements to get out of the car and grab my crutch in a single breath. Cassian follows after exchanging quick words with Raven inside the car.
“She’s not coming?” I ask when Raven makes no move to follow.
“She’s busy. She’s just here for support. And also because she does her best work on the road, apparently.”
“Apparently?” I lift one brow. “You don’t sound confident.”
“She’s a tech genius.” Cassian shrugs as he positions himself between me and the house. “Feels like she does her best work everywhere.”
“Oh.” Gripping my crutch, I gaze past Cassian’s shoulder to the front door.
“I’ll ask again, are you sure about this?” He rubs at the back of his neck and flexes his broad shoulders as if trying to protect me from the view.
I nod once more. “I have to do this. Can’t live in free clothes for the rest of my days.”
Cassian falls into step beside me with a soft laugh. “Honestly, clothing is not a concern. Whatever you need, Ruslan will get it for you.”
We walk slowly as I place my weight heavily on my crutch to protect my ankle. “That’s so weird.”
“What is?”
“That you guys just… don’t worry about that stuff. Clothes and stuff. I mean the cars you drive? The place where you live? Even those little devices?” I wave my hand in his direction, trying to imitate the card. “I feel like I’m in some kind of movie.”
“Feels like that sometimes.” Cassian chuckles, sliding one hand into the pocket of his cargo pants. “A horror movie sometimes.”
Talking is a nice distraction because suddenly, we’re at the door and I don’t remember the rest of the walk up the path.
Cassian removes a flip knife from his pocket and slices it through the tape in three easy strokes, then he tests the handle.
The front door swings open easily and the dark of the hallway looms at me.
My stomach flips and pulls south as if I’m suddenly falling, halted by Cassian’s gentle touch to my elbow.
“Do you want me to go in and get your stuff? You can just tell me where it is.”
It’s tempting but I shake my head. “No. I’m okay.”
“You sure? You’re kind of pale.”
I glance up at him and force a weak smile. “I’m still upright.”
Cassian doesn’t look convinced but he nods and steps into the hallway, holding the door open for me. I grit my teeth and follow.
The air inside is colder for some reason and as I breathe deeply to calm myself, there’s a faint stink of copper in the air.
Blood.
The stairs are halfway down the hallway, leading up to the darker upper floor.
I wander the house slowly, checking each room in turn just to show that there’s no one and nothing hiding.
The lounge is exactly as I remember it, but the curtains are drawn, and plates of rotten food rest on the coffee table.
My parents must have been eating when they were attacked. Dinner time, maybe?
The kitchen is bare and empty with the blinds closed and only the hum of the fridge for company. Cassian remains by my side until I reach the downstairs office. The door is closed but when I reach for the handle, Cassian’s hand shoots out and grasps my wrist.
“Ivy,” he says. “Your father was killed in there.”
My heart gives one singular, powerful beat and my fingers curl against my palm. “In there?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Do… the crime scene people, do they…?” The words catch in my throat.
“No.” Cassian releases my wrist. “They don’t clean.”
If I want answers, they’ll be behind that door, but the thought of walking through that door to see where my father was murdered is too much. Tears sting at the corner of my eyes. Hiding them from Cassian, I abruptly turn and hobble toward the stairs.
“My room is up there.”
Cassian follows me upstairs and then walks on my right-hand side, keeping himself between me and the only door on the right.
That door leads to my parents’ room. I don’t need to ask why he did that. I can guess. My mom was raped and assaulted in that room. Nothing will make me go in there.
In my bedroom, Cassian remains by the door and leans against the frame while keeping one eye on me.
It’s weird being back here. This room doesn’t feel like mine anymore.
The bedspread is mine, so are the books piled high on the bedside table and the games console where I’d spent too many evenings soothing my mind with simulation games.
The posters of cities I’ve visited around the wall and the snow globes lining the top shelf near the window used to bring me such joy when I looked at them.
Now they fuel the dread in my gut. I’ll never get on another plane so long as I live.
All these things, all these memories, are mine.
Yet I feel like I’m in someone else’s skin looking at things that I should feel something for.
I feel nothing and the longer I stand and stare at everything, the stronger the urge to run becomes.
I throw myself into pulling clothes out of my dresser and into the suitcase I find in the closet, stuffing it full of underwear and clothes I’d rarely wear outside of parties. Anything to get out of here.
Cassian doesn’t say a word, he just watches and then takes the suitcase from me when I’m finished.
Back downstairs, I eye the front door and then turn toward the office.
“Ivy,” Cassian warns. “You don’t want to see what’s in there.”
“I do,” I say firmly. “Plus… if there’s anything my father was hiding, I know where to look.”
Cassian’s brow twitches and he glances over his shoulder toward the door, then he sets the suitcase down. “Alright. But the second it looks like you’re going south, I’ll carry you out of here regardless of what you say, okay?”
“Okay.”
This time, Cassian lets me go first. I push against the door handle until the metal clicks and the door swings open, the handle escaping my grasp as I only take a half-step forward.
I spent years of my childhood in here. I’d climb over his large desk, spin the globe by the window until all the countries blurred together, read stories with dad on the fur rug by the fireplace, and sleep on the leather couch, only to wake up with the seams imprinted on my cheek.
One Christmas, we even opened all of our presents in here until my mom spilled red wine on the rug. Rather than getting angry, Dad liked the pattern of the stain and kept it.
The stain is lost now under the dark brown puddles of dried blood.
It’s everywhere.
The desk is splintered down the middle, the couch has been torn open by something sharp and shoved against the wall, my father’s office chair is in the middle of the room and surrounded by more dried brown puddles of blood.
Blood streaks up the wall, staining my father’s books in the bookcase and even splattering on the ceiling above.
The drinks cabinet usually under lock and key is smashed open with all the bottles broken and scattered across the floor, and the globe I treasured so much as a child is caved in and covered in blood.
My stomach rolls and bile crawls up my throat. I immediately cover my mouth.
“We’re leaving,” Cassian says firmly but as he reaches for me, I jerk away.
“I’m fine,” I choke. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not, and Ruslan will have my ass on a platter if your mental breaks.”
“I’m fine!” Not meaning to raise my voice, I glance at him through my building tears. “Please. I’m fine. Just let me breathe.”
Cassian doesn’t look convinced and crosses his large arms over his chest. “Fine. Five minutes.”
It stinks in here. Alcohol mixes with stale blood in the air and it catches in my throat like a blade.
No matter how hard I swallow, the sensation doesn’t shift.
There’s nowhere for me to walk that avoids stepping on the stains on the floor so I grit my teeth and hobble to the bookshelf as quickly as I can.
Behind several heavy accountancy books that thump to the floor as I shove them aside, I find the hidden back panel and release it with a press at the lower left corner. It slides free and reveals my father’s safe.
“Cool,” Cassian remarks.
“He showed me it once when I was a kid,” I say as my voice trembles. “He was keeping Mom’s anniversary gift in here so she wouldn’t find it.”
“Do you remember the combination?”
I nod and type in the date of their wedding anniversary. The safe beeps quietly under my fingertips and the door pops open with a click. Inside, there’s nothing of value and my heart sinks.