“Would it be all right if I checked her vitals?” the nurse asked me instead of Ethan.
Stomach somersaulting, I agreed, gesturing for everyone to move out of her way.
“She should be waking up soon,” the nurse announced a few moments later before taking her leave.
Ethan approached, dressed in yet another suit with a bright-green tie and making me wonder if the man ever wore anything else. He extended a hand between us.
Locking eyes, I took his hand, shaking it firmly. “I love her too.” I confirmed, staking my claim, not backing down.
He smiled, two dimples flashing, and yep, his tooth sparkled under the light. “I know.”
Not exactly the reaction I expected. Not at all the reaction I would have given if I were in his shoes.
“Do you have a problem with that?” I challenged, testing his resolve, wondering just how big of a fight this was going to be. Not that it mattered. Victory would be mine. I was in Ivory’s life now, and I wasn’t leaving.
Ethan pursed his lips, almost amused. “Should I?”
My tongue slid over my front teeth. That smug look made me itch to deck his pretty-boy face. “Well, if I were you, I definitely would have a problem.”
“Good thing you aren’t me.”
This asshole… Taking a menacing step toward him, I was intercepted by Fletch, who collided against my chest and bounced back.
Tripping over his own feet, he tipped over backward.
Oomph. His breath rushed out, and his eyes were squeezed closed as though he were anticipating a hard fall.
When none came, one eye squinted open, and then the other followed suit. “I expected that to hurt,” he murmured.
“I’m not as hard as the floor.”
Fletch’s golden eyes nearly fell out of his head as he realized he hadn’t hit the floor because someone caught him. Partially reclined into a broad chest, his wild hair clinging to that stupid green tie, Fletch tipped his head back, gazing up at the man who was still supporting nearly all his weight.
“You caught me,” Fletcher said rather unnecessarily.
“Well, it was either that or watch you fall,” Ethan replied, his hands looking so big wrapped around my friend.
Fletch’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and then he made a sound I’d never heard him make before.
He giggled.
Fletcher full-on giggled like… like some schoolgirl.
Shocked, I swung to look at Beau, who was also mind-blown and staring as though he’d entered the twilight zone.
“Up you go,” Ethan said, his smug arrogance nowhere in attendance when he basically picked Fletch up and put him firmly back on his feet. “All good?”
Fletcher’s head bobbed, his messy mass of hair bobbing with him.
“You should probably learn how to use those feet.” Ethan pointed, and Fletcher blushed furiously.
On instinct, I turned, seeking out Earth to see if he was also watching Fletcher act even more absurd than normal. But the second my eyes landed on him, on the way he’d slipped into the back of the room, I remembered.
I remembered why we were here and that right now, Earth… was not my friend.
Turning away, I pinned Ethan with a glare. “How’d you know Ivory was here?”
Unbothered, he replied, “The doorman called me when the EMTs left the building with her.”
Of course he did. Ethan probably got a call from everyone around Ivory when she so much as sneezed. That just pissed me off more.
Pulling out a cell from the inside of his jacket, he continued. “That reminds me. I need to try Audra again. I did before, but she’s not picking up.”
“She’s not going to,” Beau informed, his voice taking on a hard edge he normally did not have.
Ethan puzzled, forehead creasing. “Why?”
“Maybe because she’s the one who put Ivory in here,” I said.
Genuine shock contorted his face. “What? I thought Ivory had an allergic reaction.”
A rude sound burst from my throat. “Yeah, to something Audra gave her that was tainted with strawberries.”
He gasped. It was very dramatic. I was beginning to think it was a requirement to be overly dramatic on the Upper East Side.
“She wouldn’t.”
“You really believe that?” I questioned, tilting my head to the side. Did he really not know Ivory’s stepmother was a witch?
“I mean, everyone knows Audra is a cold woman… but murder?”
He seemed sincerely surprised.
I didn’t know him well enough to know if he was just a really good actor or if this was the truth. My instincts told me I could believe him, but the sight of Ivory lying in a bed made me doubt even myself. With her safety on the line, I needed more than just my instincts.
When I rotated, my eyes found Earth once more. He stood in the corner, almost lurking, just watching everything unfold.
Watching as if the bastard hadn’t caused this.
His face flickered when he felt my gaze but didn’t return the stare. An ache I didn’t want to feel or acknowledge squeezed my chest and, with it, the bold rush of anger.
Still, I stared at him. Still, his word carried weight.
“He involved?” I asked, my voice rough and low.
Everyone’s attention sharpened, Beau and Fletch dividing their gazes between me and Earth.
Bristling, Ethan spoke, “Involved in what?”
Earth’s eyes flicked to Ethan, then to me. Unspoken truth passed between us. He knew I knew, and now there was tension between us that never existed before.
“No.” He confirmed.
I believed him. Maybe after everything, I shouldn’t have. But I did. Besides, why lie now that I knew? My fingers ached from the ferocity with which I squeezed my fists. They ached even when I unclenched them and turned away.
“What is going on here?” Ethan demanded, voice rising. “I want an explanation.”
A barely audible sigh ended all conversation, every eye in the room turning to the sleeping beauty. Gently scooping her hand off her middle, I cradled it between mine.
“Ivory?” I whispered. “Ivory, wake up.”
Another soft sound had us all leaning in, soundlessly watching as her long dark lashes began to flutter.
Endless moments stretched on until her eyes opened completely, her blue stare hazy when it landed on me.
“Princess,” I whispered, relief making my voice weak. “You scared the hell out of me.”
She blinked again, but then a sleepy smile curved her bow-shaped mouth. It was as if someone opened a cage filled with butterflies, releasing them all into my stomach where they went wild.
“You’re here,” she whispered.
“Of course I am.”
“I’ve been waiting,” she confessed, making the same butterflies erupt again.
How could I have ever made her wait?
Stroking her cheek, I swallowed. “I know.”
“How are you feeling?” Ethan asked, moving up near her side.
Her eyes widened, confusion replacing the haze. “Ethan? What are you doing here?”
As if becoming fully aware, she glanced around, noting the IV taped to the back of her hand.
“Where am I?” She worried, starting to sit up too fast.
“Easy,” I urged, gripping her shoulders and guiding her back down. “Take it easy.”
“What happened?” Her eyes latched onto me, fear blazing in their depths.
“You ate something that touched a strawberry.” I began, fury contaminating my emotions once more.
She gasped, a hand covering her mouth in shock. After a moment, her hand slid away. “The apple,” she whispered, attention turning inward as memories clearly came flooding back. Shimmering eyes found mine. “Audra…”
“Shh.” I soothed her, pushing her the rest of the way into the pillows. “We know. It’s okay now. You’re safe.”
Her fingers wrapped around my wrist, their length not even able
to reach fully around, clinging desperately. Her eyes implored I listen to her words.
“I remember.” Her voice quaked, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes and immediately spilling over.
The pain radiating off her was palpable, so strong it dulled the fury eating me alive. Despite the tumultuous emotions attacking me, my voice remained gentle. “Remember what, sweetheart?”
More tears slid across her cheeks. More pain pierced my heart. “I remember when—” A choked sound left her throat. “After I took a bite of that apple.”
The grip on my wrist slackened, and her teeth made sharp clacking noises as they began to chatter. Eyes glazing over as though whatever tormenting her was just too much, she began slipping away… limbs going limp, lashes falling against her cheeks.
Not again.
In a desperate attempt to pull her back, I did the only thing I could think of.
I kissed her.
61
Ivory
* * *
My mother smiling. My mother screaming.
Drowning. Dying. Slipping away.
Breathing. Warmth. Anchored in place.
The faint brush of a tongue was unmistakable. The tip gliding along my lips, not asking for access but offering something far more valuable. The reassuring caress folding me in warmth and security, embracing everything I was feeling and telling me it was okay.
I didn’t have to run anymore. I didn’t have to protect myself so fiercely.
Reaching out, I answered the soft kiss, deepening it just a fraction. He didn’t stop or pause when I took what he gave. Instead, his arms tightened all the more.
The watery grave trying to swallow me turned into friendly sunbeams on a spring day. A meadow filled with pink daisies, their petals brushing against my sun-kissed skin.
Withdrawing slowly, our lips parted, and I stared up at him with quiet awe. The worst of the storm quelled, my heart no longer consumed by chaos.
“It worked,” someone whispered nearby.
“What worked?” someone else whispered.
“True love’s kiss.”
The infinite, glittering universe existing in his stare never wavered from mine. “Did I bring you back?” The husky quality of his words raised goose bumps along my arms.
I nodded. You brought me back.
“Where do you keep trying to go?” Neo asked, slightly chiding even though he spoke gently.
“Me?” I scoffed. “You’re the one who walked out.”
The smile on his lips was faint just like the stubble on his chin. “Touché.”
“I’m not trying to go anywhere,” I confessed. “It’s my subconscious way of protecting myself.”
“Protecting yourself from what?”
“From the past,” I echoed, the chilling memory that flooded me like a nightmare when I lay dying on the floor rising within me again.
Suddenly, it all made sense. The unfamiliar panic that rose up out of nowhere, the way sometimes flashes of memory would attack and confuse. My phobia of rain, hatred of water.
I’d thought those things were just who I was.
No.
They were a product of something terrible a child should never endure. And because of that, my young mind repressed it all, locked it down deep, and threw away the key.
Until a single bite of a poisoned apple exposed the truth.
I groped for Neo’s hand. Our fingers entwined together, and his strength rallied my own. Touching a brief gaze on everyone in the room, I didn’t speak until my eyes came back to his.
“Your painting. The one where color seeped from your world…” I began, knowing it seemed like an odd place to start but feeling it was actually perfect.
Neo nodded, allowing me to lead.
“The car accident. The angel wings,” I whispered, the claws of trauma scraping over my already abused heart.
He was there, enclosing his free hand around our linked ones. My skin was chilled, but his was warm and he rubbed gently, offering me every ounce of heat he contained.
“That morning I saw it, I felt it so deep. So deep I couldn’t understand why it felt like it was part of me. But now I do.”
Neo nodded, encouraging me to go on.
“It’s a representation of what happened to you, right? To your family. How your world went from color to black and white.”
He nodded again, visibly swallowing at the painful reminder. I understood how he felt. I understood in ways I hadn’t before.
“It happened to me too,” I confessed, crying again.
Crooning nonsensical sounds, he leaned in, brushing at the wetness, trying to soothe my pain even when he was filled with his own.
“Audra killed my mother when I was a little girl. She tried to kill me too.”
The reaction from the men around us erupted, but Neo stayed still. Leaning close, placing his arms on either side of me, he used his body as a shield. “She tried to kill you before today?”
Chin wobbling, breath hitching, I went on. “They said it was a car accident. That it was just some sort of unfortunate thing. Daddy always told me he was thankful I hadn’t been with her…” My eyes sought his, holding on. “But he lied.”
Shock rippled over his features, but like a tree rooted in the wind, he stayed. “What do you mean?”
“I was with her. We were driving home from the theater. It was storming terribly. Great groaning thunder, pelting rain. The sound of it was so loud on the roof of the car that I started to cry. I was in the backseat, my mother and driver up front. Suddenly, someone screamed, and there was a violent jolt at the back of the car. The second time it happened, Mother shoved me onto the floorboards and told me to cover my head.”
The sounds of crunching metal and then a horrible bang filled my ears.
“I waited for my mother to call out, to tell me it was okay to get up. But the silence stretched on, and I was so frightened.”
Flashbacks of the repressed night assaulted me still. The blood. Her outstretched hand. The broken glass.
I was suddenly enveloped in a familiar scent. Comfort wrapped around me and, with it, a feeling of safety. “Stop,” Neo begged, holding me tight but also cradling me with care. Cupping the back of my head, his fingers massaged my scalp as if he could banish the horrible memories. “You don’t have to relive this again”
But I did. I’d been keeping it buried my whole life. It was time to face the truth, to face what that wicked woman had done to my mother and to me.
“I do,” I insisted, pulling back so he could fully hear my words. “People need to know what she did. I need to face what she did.”
“Audra?” Fletcher asked, his voice reminding me we weren’t alone. For a little while, I’d fallen into a place where it was only me and Neo.
Briefly, I glanced around to where four men stood, faces drawn, eyes wide as they, too, heard everything I described.
“That wicked woman,” I fiercely told them all. “I remember looking out the window in the back seat, through the pounding rain, onto the dark street.”
“What did you see?” Beau asked.
“The car that ran us off the road sat nearby, headlights streaked with the heavy rain. Pounding on the glass, I screamed for help. One of the windows slid down, allowing me a glimpse inside. It was her. Audra. She had a scarf around her head and I didn’t know who she was at the time, but I recall her impassive face quite clearly.”
“Your stepmother ran you off the road,” Neo reiterated, his face a mask of anger.
“She killed my mother because she wanted my father.” I confirmed, still having trouble believing it myself. “And she didn’t want a stepdaughter, so she tried to kill me too.”
“But you didn’t die,” Fletcher pointed out.
“I beat on the window and screamed her name. I was so confused when she just rolled the window back up like she didn’t even see.” The memory made me tremble, so I held on to Neo a little tighter. “The car started to drive off, and I started to cr
y. But then it made a wide turn, and I thought it was coming back…”
Neo’s breath caught, and pain flashed in his eyes. He knew what I was going to say. He understood.
“It slammed into ours again, flipping it into the river. And then it drove off and never came back.” As I stared off into nothing, my voice sounded like an echo in the vacant hollows of my broken heart. “I managed to swim free of the car, somehow ending up on the edge of the river. But that’s all I remember.” Glancing at Neo, I said, “I can’t remember.”
Wrapping me close, our bodies swayed on the bed as he whispered comforting, near-silent words against my ear. The brush of his breath over my skin made my eyes droop closed, exhaustion whispering in my limbs.
“You’re not going to leave again, are you?” I asked, wanting his comfort so badly but afraid it wouldn’t last.
“Never again,” he vowed.
Pulling back, pursing my lips, I looked over his face. “Are you lying?”
My entire face was cradled in his palms. The intensity of his stare made my stomach flip and my heart beat rapidly.
“I would never lie about forever.”
As I snuggling back into his chest, another tear dripped down my cheek. This one wasn’t from pain, though. This one came from relief.
62
Neo
* * *
Exhaustion pulled her down so quickly that when I laid her sleeping form back against the pillows, the tears streaking her cheeks weren’t even dry.
Heart constricting, I dabbed at the dampness, taking care not to irritate her already red and aggravated skin.
It seemed entirely unfair that one trauma would make her recall another. Unfair she had more than one trauma to live with at all.
Everyone remained quiet as I pulled away, staring down at her vulnerable form marred with hives, swollen lips, and puffy eyes.
I was almost too late.
The still atmosphere rippled when I spun, eyes landing heavily on Earth. A large part of me was still in denial, unable to even comprehend the truth the other parts whispered.
It couldn’t be true. Can it?
Ivory White : A House of Misfits Standalone Page 31
