Chapter 8
Ivy
“Did I miss something?” Rogue asks after we’ve left the prison in our rearview. “The way she was carrying on it sounds like Alec is dead. But I would have gotten an alert if they’d found him.”
He pulls out his phone and lights up the screen. There is a look of concentration on his face, he taps at the glass. “Fuck. How did I miss this?”
“What?” I lean in to see what he’s looking at.
“They found a body. They think it’s him, but they need to confirm it.” The image on the screen changes. Rogue hisses. “Fucking hell.”
I cover my mouth as the tiny amount of frappe I had earlier tries to come back up, bitter and acidic. The body—if I can call it that—has pieces missing. He has no eyes. One of his hands is missing. And there are words carved into his chest.
“Is that real?” I whisper.
My eyes burn and my vision blurs. Not with tears for the brother who tortured me, but because his death seems unnecessarily vicious.
And also, I remember the sound I heard when I called Dizzy on our way to the ranch. That squelching, gurgling sound had turned my stomach and I hadn’t known why.
I think I know why now.
Rogue keeps clicking and scanning the pages he lands on. “They’re saying it is, though how the photos became public is under investigation.”
Dizzy stays still and silent. Her hands are wedged between her thighs. She doesn’t notice our reaction. Doesn’t register that Alec’s body has been found. How could she be so violent?
Do I want to know? Is accepting who she is a matter of pretending the details don’t matter? Or accepting that they do?
The light in her eyes has dimmed. She seems far away. “Dizzy?”
She remains mute.
I wave my hand in front of her face.
She doesn’t blink.
“Is she okay?” Rogue asks, breaking his gaze from his screen.
I breathe a sigh of relief that he didn’t ask if she killed Alec. Or ask what Nicole meant when she said she knew what Dizzy had done to her son. It’s a conversation we need to have in private. Without a driver and Davis present.
I snap my fingers.
Nothing. “She’s practically catatonic.”
She’s drawn so deep inside herself I can’t reach her. Nicole knew about Alec. Somehow, she knew Dizzy killed him. She said he would punish her. That it would be worse than the hunt, whatever that is.
Is that the memory she’s lost in?
“Perhaps she needs a moment,” Rogue says.
I nod. What else can we do? “Was Nicole talking about the person she has working for her? Did she accidentally give us a clue when she said he would hurt Dizzy?”
“It could be.” He tucks his phone away as the driver takes us onto the airstrip. “But it’s equally possible she’s fucking with us. Either way, no one had left the ranch but us when I checked in with Rebel earlier.”
“We need another way to flush them out then.” The car stops and Davis and the driver climb out first. I study the bodyguard with fresh suspicion.
Shaking my head, I push the idea away. Just because Jackson turned out to be a bad guy doesn’t mean our current bodyguard is working with Nicole.
I nudge my sister. “Dizzy, we need to board.”
She continues staring into nothing.
“Let me, baby.” Rogue waits until I climb out of the car and then reaches in to scoop Dizzy out. He carries her up the stairs and inside the jet.
I follow behind. Davis is the last one on board.
Rogue takes Dizzy into the bedroom and places her on the bed. She whimpers this sad, painful sound that makes my heart hurt. I crawl onto the bed next to her and wrap my arms around her. “Dizzy, talk to me.”
Tears slide down her cheek. Her only answer is a moan. Vibrant, psycho, kills a man with no remorse, Dizzy isn’t the woman I’m holding onto. This woman is fragile, like a delicate, broken doll. She shrinks in on herself.
“What did she mean...” I take a breath and try a different tact. “Lily?”
It flips a switch somewhere inside her. She bows off the mattress, her hands gripping and yanking hard at her hair, she screams. Chunks of the fine pink strands come away with her hands.
“Stop.” I throw myself on top of her, grappling to hold onto her arms and bring them down by her sides, but it only serves to redirect her efforts to clawing at her dress, which rides up.
“Holy shit,” Rogue exhales.
As suddenly as the screaming started it cuts off. Her breathing is labored.
“Look at her thighs,” Rogue says in a strangled tone.
Holding her down now isn’t a fight. I manage to pull back enough to see that her dress has ridden halfway up her stomach, and what Rogue sees, what I see is hundreds of silvery, white scars.
My eyes grow wet. “What the hell happened to you, Lily?”
“Get off me. Get off me.” She starts to thrash violently.
Rogue grabs me around the waist and hauls me off her before she can throw me from the bed. He carries me out of the room.
“Put me down.” I thump at his shoulder. “I need to help her.”
“We need privacy,” he all but shouts at Davis as he slides me to my feet. “And find out when we’ll be cleared to leave.”
The bodyguard nods and leaves to talk to the captain. He shuts the door between us and the crew area.
“I’ve seen her wild and psycho and jealous and hyper, but this...” It’s different. She’s different. “It’s like she’s not Dizzy anymore.”
“What do you want to do?” Rogue asks. “I’ll follow your lead.”
“Call West.” He understands my sister better than anyone. It’s possible he’s dealt with this before. He probably knows what the hunt is that Nicole was shrieking about. And if not his background in psychology and psychiatry will help.
Rogue makes the call while I fetch some water from the attendant. Twisting off the lid of a bottle, I take a gulp and try to ground myself. My phone chimes with a notification.
Danica: I’m boarding the plane with your dress. Should be there in five hours max.
Danica has my dress. How could I forget all about it?
I thought all I would be worrying about this weekend was being the perfect bride and the chance of waking up with a massive zit on my wedding day.
Instead, I’m not sure there’s going to be a wedding.
How can there be when my dress is in a different state than I am?
My sister is having some kind of breakdown.
And Nicole’s sidekick is still unknown to us.
“Look here. It was her decision to come,” Rogue raises his voice and his cheeks flush. His eyes widen. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”
I snatch his phone from him. Put it on speaker. “West, we have a problem. Dizzy is… well, she’s not Dizzy.”
“What do you mean she’s not Dizzy?”
“It’s like she’s someone else,” I say.
“Like she’s not herself or…” When I don’t respond he asks, “Who is she then?”
I hesitate but only for a second. My voice is a whisper. “Lily.”
He inhales sharply.
A chill runs down my spine. “Why is she like this, West?”
“Trauma.” He sounds terse. “She won’t know who you are. She won’t know that you’re her sister while she’s like this. Because she didn’t know you then.”
“How do I help her if she doesn’t know me?”
“Sedate her,” he orders.
“What? How am I supposed to do that?”
“You have anti-anxiety meds. I saw them in your file,” he says.
“I carry them in my purse. I don’t have my purse.” I left it at the ranch last night when the girls and I went into town to help Summer.
“What about motion sickness tablets? They make you drowsy,” Rogue says. “They probably have some on the plane.”
“That will work,” West says, having overheard Rogue.
Rogue leaves the cabin to speak to the crew about the medication.
“They won’t take immediate effect though. You’re going to have to find something to restrain her with until she’s under. Don’t leave her alone.” He hesitates. “It’s important you don’t take your eyes off her.”
This is crazy. How is it possible that what Nicole said to her could set her off like this? My gaze flicks from the bedroom to the door Rogue will reappear through any time now. “West, what is the hunt?”
“How the hell do you know… never mind, it’s none of your business,” he snaps. “Do not ask her about it. Don’t mention it where she can hear you. You won’t like what happens if you do.”
Rogue comes back with Dramamine. “Are we sure this is a good idea?”
I nod. “West, do I give her the prescribed amount on the pack?”
West doesn’t miss a beat, telling me the dosage like all the information is right there in his memory. He’s definitely done this before. He’s so obsessed with her that he would do anything for her. Including sedating her for her own safety.
Like that time she came to visit and she had bruises all around her wrists. She played it off like it was kinky, but still couldn’t help but tell me the truth. He’d restrained her. She’d escaped. And he had come looking for her.
At the time it looked like abuse, but if this is why… Leaving her like this is somehow worse. “How often does she get like this? Like… Lily.”
“Bring her back to me, Ivy,” West demands without acknowledging my question. “I mean it.”
“I will. I promise.” I hang up and hold Rogue’s phone out to him.
He covers my hand with his. His blue eyes study mine intently. “You want to go back.”
“I hate that I let Nicole get to me. Because of that Dizzy is suffering. And our wedding is this close to being postponed. Again.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“I won’t either.” I stare determinedly up at him.
Last night after the accident the ranch was the last place I wanted to be. Today while we were with Nicole, I felt the same trapped sensation I did when I lived with her. But screw her and her scheming.
“She knows I won’t do what she wants now.
Her leverage and ability to communicate outside the prison walls is gone.
We’ve neutralized her. Or we will have, when we find the person she’s working with.
” I clasp his face with both hands. “I’m going to marry you, Rogue Maddox.
At the Heart Ranch. Like we planned. In front of our friends and family. In the dress of my dreams.”