That was the only thing I wouldn’t stand for.
“And if I run? Will you kill me, too?” I turned around and met his fiery glare. “Will you punish me the same way you punished Evaleen and Anaxandra?”
Something in him snapped at my taunting. He scooped me to him, one hand a prison around my waist, the other tightly gripping my neck. His thumb dug into the underside of my chin, making me want to gag. His fingers jabbed into my throat painfully, but I refused to show him my discomfort or my fear.
“You are mine, Ivy.” His words pushed out of his chest with crushing conviction. “And you continue to fight me.”
He picked me up and carried me toward my room. The tips of my toes dragged across the hardwood floors and I started to fight.
I had been afraid before… I had been afraid a lot in my life. And that’s why it was easy to recognize the consuming fear that clawed on the inside of my skin, leaving long, gaping wounds throughout my body.
My eyes welled with tears and blood pounded in my ears so hard I couldn’t hear anything. “Nix,” I pleaded on a broken voice. “No, please no.”
In my room, he tossed me on my bed and loomed over me. I tried to scramble backwards but he caught my ankle with his beefy hand and stopped my plight. “I like that you have a spirit. I like that you fight me.” As if to accentuate his point, his thumb traced the arc of my bare foot tenderly all the while I kicked and fought to get away from him. “But last night you went too far. Girls died because of your impetuousness. I wasted hours of my life that I will never get back. And you’ve angered my allies.” His grip tightened on my foot, bending it at an unnatural angle. I cried out in a mixture of terror and pain. I tried to kick him in the crotch with my free foot, but he caught that one too. He yanked me forward so my legs straddled his thighs while he stood at the edge of my bed. His hands moved to hold me by my thighs, biting into my legs as if he were trying to sink his fingers through the skin.
Panic blinded me, choked me. “Let me go! Nix, stop!”
“You don’t tell me what to do, Siren! You don’t get to tell me what to do! I am a god and you are a child. Do you understand that? Do you understand that I am the one that lets you breathe! I am the one that lets you live. You are nothing but a shiny toy for me to play with and I will do with you what I please.” Spittle collected in the corners of his mouth and his eyes blazed so brightly they seemed to glow in the darkness of my room.
His hands moved from my thighs to my waist where they lifted my tank top and dug into my naked skin. “Nix, please!” I cried. “Please stop!” Please stop. Please stop. Please stop!
My heart pounded so hard I thought it would break, that it would hit my chest cavity one more time and shatter into a million jagged pieces. I was so cold my entire body was shaking. I laid my hands on his and tried to pull them off me, but his grip was so tight, so intentional.
He was going to rape me. He was going to rape me to teach me a lesson while my mother sat in the other room doing nothing.
“Beg me, Ivy,” he barked at me. “Beg me to stop! Promise me you’ll never behave this way again. Swear that you’ll stop pushing me and fighting me and trying to leave when you cannot escape me! Not ever!” His voice escalated to shouting, the force of his words shaking me to the core.
“I promise!” I screamed back. “I swear I’ll stop! I swear I’ll do what you want!”
“Lies!” His voice boomed through the room. “Those are lies, you deceitful bitch! This is what I want. This!” His hands moved down below my hips and I whimpered pathetically. “Will you give me this, if it’s what I want? You’re lying. Again and again and again. All you do is lie!”
“Nix,” I sobbed. “Please. Please. Please!”
He released one side of my hip and rubbed his flat palm over my stomach, pushing my tank top higher in the process. His fingers pressed into my skin, marking me… branding me in some awful, unthinkable way.
“This is mine,” he rasped in a mantra like chant. “You will learn this lesson. I will teach it to you so that you never forget. I own you. You are my possession. Your life is mine to do whatever I want with. Your future belongs to me.” His hand pushed up and I knew I was going to be sick. One more inch and I would puke all over him. “This night belongs to me.” His fingers traced along the tattoo on my ribs and he rubbed away the concealer I’d applied earlier. His nails scraped painfully at the skin as if he could scratch it off himself. I whimpered against his assault. “This is a lie,” he told me. “Your soul is not free. Your soul will never be free.”
My head tossed back and forth and I was crying so hard I couldn’t even get words out, I couldn’t even beg him to stop because my tears were so forceful. This was not going to happen. I could not let this happen. I tried to fight him but he pushed me back down. I tried to pull away but he held me tight. He overpowered me in every single way and there was nothing I could do to stop this.
My fingers clutched the comforter around me and I tried to take my mind to a different place. If I couldn’t stop this, maybe I could make it so I didn’t remember it. Maybe I could force my mind to think about every other thing and this wouldn’t mark my memory.
I tried to go somewhere else mentally. I tried desperately to go anywhere else but the only thought that looped through my head was of the boy that both made everything better and that only made this worse. How could I tell him about this? How could I keep it a secret? Would it ruin us forever? Would it destroy me so there could never be an us?
Ryder.
Ryder.
Ryder.
Ryder.
My breath hitched on sob after sob. This could not be happening to me. I could not be facing a monster like this and losing. Where was all my strength? My determination? Why couldn’t I fight now?
I started to struggle harder. I tried to bite him, scratch him, head-butt him; but the hard, cold truth was that he was bigger than me. Stronger.
He clamped his hand down over my throat and shoved his legs into my open thighs. I screamed at him to stop but he smiled down at me with malicious intent.
That’s when I noticed his face for the first time. Up until now he had been this black blur hovering over me. Hysteria and desperation had made me blind and deaf. But the glint of his straight white teeth caught my attention and I had a moment of clarity as I took him in.
His eyes were bright with excitement; the black of his pupil had spread out and turned into glittering onyx. His naturally bronzed skin shone in the dark room, as if a fire raged just beneath his skin. His muscles flexed and hardened with each squeeze of his fingers and bend of his powerful body. His mouth twisted into cruelty personified and promised all kinds of unthinkable acts ahead of me.
My stomach lurched and my mouth went dry.
This wasn’t a man, this was a god.
His touch started to burn, as in really burn. The pads of his fingers seared my body. I could smell frying skin and the pain made me scream until my lungs ached. Then the water came. The same sensation as before only there was no quick release. Water burbled up in my lungs and spilled out my mouth. I coughed and choked on it. I tried to pull necessary breath through my nose, but no oxygen could make it past the acidic salt water. I struggled to sit up, thinking that would be better than drowning like this, but Nix slammed me against the bed, his blazing fingers digging into my skin and setting me on fire.
I wouldn’t last through this.
I couldn’t last any longer.
There was too much pain. My head felt insane with the sensations. The synapses and electrodes fired too quickly, they were explosions in my head, bright bursts of madness as I slipped toward a beckoning darkness.
“Enough!” a strangled voice shouted into my nightmare. “Enough of this!”
“Ava, you will leave now or I will end her!” Nix shouted back. “This has gone on long enough! I will not stand for it anymore! I will not go through this again!”
“Leave her, Nix, or I will end you myself.”
> Nix jolted backwards, as if he had been shocked with something powerful enough to grab his attention. His hands left my body and he stepped out of my legs. I rolled over so I could cough up the rest of the saltwater, hating the briny taste in my mouth and the burning in my lungs. But at least I could breathe again.
At least I could breathe.
I looked up, shocked to find my mother holding the tip of a short sword at Nix’s throat. He took a step back and she followed him.
“Where did you get that?” he growled at her. He had not lost his godhood yet and towered over her larger than life. Each of his muscles bulged at the seams of his clothing. His hair was a rakish mess on the top of his beautiful head. Yes, he was indescribable like this, so utterly lovely to look at my eyes hurt.
And yet beneath the pretty packaging was an evil so great I felt it in my bones.
“Don’t you know, Poseidon?” My mother forced him back another step and then made him turn so that his back was to the door, but easily angled for her to escort from the room. “I thought you knew where all the god-killers were hidden.”
“You can’t use that,” Nix reasoned in a slow voice. I looked at the sword, at the god-killer, and noticed for the first time how remarkable the weapon was. The blade glowed brilliant gold, even in the dark room and the silver handle glimmered from the light of the blade. There were markings in the handle that looked like fire burned beneath them. They twisted around the grip and the guard in intricate patterns, shining orange and blue, sizzling against my mother’s skin.
“Can’t I?” she pushed him to the doorframe.
“No,” he growled. “And neither can Ivy. So why would you have that? Who would give you such a weapon?”
“Someone that wanted my family and me to be safe,” she hissed at him. “I won’t use this tonight, but you will not touch my daughter again. Not like that.”
He looked frustrated and impotent and his figure started to shrink in front of my eyes. When he was back to his familiar façade of man, he regained control of his expressions and leveled her with a scary gaze. “I will not touch her again tonight,” he agreed. “But you know as well as I do that you can do nothing to stop me from having her whenever I want from this day forward.”
“She is a child,” my mother’s voice broke.
“And I am a god!” he bellowed. Reclaiming his calm, he spoke with chilling simplicity. “And you are a woman that can do nothing to stop me.”
“You will kill her,” my mother argued. “And you need her.”
That seemed to bring him up short. He didn’t have a response for that. And so he gave me one last withering glance and then pushed the sword away from his neck. He walked up to Ava and slapped her so hard across the face that she flew to the side and dropped to her hands and knees. The sword hit the carpet with a thunk and slid out of her reach.
He stared at my mother with indignant contempt and slowly raised his eyes to mine. “You understand now, yes? And if you don’t, I will kill your mother right now just to prove a point. I will not use my powers or a weapon. I will use my fists and my hands and I will enjoy every second of it. Do you understand?”
I nodded rapidly, but I couldn’t speak through the flood of tears.
“I will come back tomorrow.” He took a step toward me, never tearing his fierce gaze from mine. “Where will you be?”
“Here,” I croaked quickly. “I’ll be here.”
“And will you help another one of my girls leave?”
I thought of Exie and Sloane. I would help them. No matter how scared I was in this moment I would help them when they asked.
“Will you attempt to help another one of my girls leave?” He screamed at me.
“No!” I cried weakly. It was a lie and I resigned myself to that. I had to believe this lie though or there was no telling what could happen.
“Then I will see you ladies tomorrow,” he finished politely.
He turned around and walked out the door. Neither of us moved until the front door slammed shut and then I scrambled off my bed and to the floor where my mother sat hunched over and bleeding at the mouth.
She sat up and looked at me. Really looked at me. For the first time in my life, she wasn’t Ava Pierce, ice queen extraordinaire. For the first time in my entire life, she was my mother. She threw her arms around me and hugged me tightly. We sat there in a mess of blood, salt water and tears as we sobbed into each other, depending on the other one for support.
I had never leaned on my mother before. Even as a child I knew she was this distant thing that could not be touched, especially by me. But now she held me, soothing my hurt and fears, holding me tightly against her and wiping away my tears.
The nightmare began to recede and I started to breathe again. I pulled back from her and looked at her sparkling green eyes; the same emerald jewels my own mimicked.
I didn’t trust her. I couldn’t trust her.
Actually, I didn’t know what to think.
This was an unprecedented moment between us.
“Where did you get that?” I asked the first question that came to mind. I eyed the sword that lay discarded several feet away. Out of everything that had happened tonight, that was my first question. A god-killer. They were supposed to be only rumors. And they definitely weren’t supposed to be accessible to human hands.
“I think it’s time to talk.” She stood up and held her hands out to me. I took them carefully, suddenly very cautious.
“What are we going to talk about?”
She looked at me affectionately, love and loyalty radiating off her. “Why I’ve been a horrible mother your entire life.”
“You mean there was a reason?” I didn’t know how to process this or wrap my mind around the concept.
“Would you believe me if I told you that it was to save your life?” She smiled faintly and took my hand.
As she pulled me to the living room, I told her, “No.” But even with the sound of the word, I knew I had begun to doubt.
Chapter Twenty-Two
She led me to the couch and sat me down. Taking a seat to my left, she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her slender arms around them.
“First, I want to tell you what happened to Anaxandra and Evaleen tonight. I think it’s important you understand what happened. I have to warn you that it’s not going to be pretty, but I hope you find some peace through this.”
I nodded for her to continue. Already my mother seemed different and more likeable. My body was still shaking from Nix’s assault, the news of my friends’ deaths and the leftover trauma from the night before. I didn’t know how I could mentally handle more, but I needed to try.
I needed answers.
“They made it as far as New Mexico. Sometime during the night, they swapped cars in Colorado with some teenagers. Nix found Thalia’s car just over the Nebraska-Colorado border. That was smart of them. They also managed to pull cash out of all three of those credit cards you must have given them before they got out of Omaha. That was also smart. They didn’t have cell phones. They didn’t call home. And they appeared to be on a nonstop drive to Mexico. But what you need to know about Nix is that he has people everywhere. As soon as he cleaned up the situation at the auction with you, they realized that the girls were gone. He sent out an alert immediately and not twelve hours later they were found. They were smart. They couldn’t have done anything better. But by sheer luck, one of the men in Nix’s underground network spotted them at a gas station. Nix took Ky and Crete with him and had the girls an hour later.”
I gaped at this. Nix had an underground network? That made sense, I realized. Probably something like a black market for human trafficking. Those of us in the Greek circle were in the business but in a top tier. Nix dealt with many more avenues of human-trafficking on every level. He probably had people all over the world.
That did not mean good things for me and my plan to escape.
“Are the people in his network human?” I whispered in
fear.
My mother’s jewel-like eyes regarded me carefully. “Some of them. Some of them are more than human. But most of them are much less. He is smart, Ivy. Never underestimate him. Never.” I nodded to show her I understood and she continued. “Anaxandra went first. Ky has never been able to control his body or his temper. He beat her to death on the side of the road.”
She paused and I couldn’t help but say, “Better than being beaten to death in his bed.”
Ava looked at me as if I’d grown a second head. “You’re right, Ivy. You’re very right about that.”
“What happened to Evaleen?” Emotion closed my throat and my words sounded pushed through a hole the size of a pinprick.
“Suicide.” The words were like an explosion in my chest.
“What?” I gasped for air. My insides crumbled inside me like falling debris after a dynamite blast. Mentally I scrambled to gather the pieces and put them back together, but I knew this was part of the end of me. This was a reality I didn’t think I could face.
“Crete had been more… lenient with her. Of course she knew it was only a matter of time before he enacted his punishment.”
“Where?” I whispered. “When?”
Pain flashed in my mother’s expression, deep and cutting. “The airport bathroom. She broke a mirror and used the… the pieces to cut herself.”
“And no one found her? No one stopped her?” That seemed very public to me. I felt terrible for whoever stumbled upon her.
“The cuts were deep enough that… she didn’t suffer for long.”
I stared at the hands in my lap. I had this out of body experience. I felt unattached to everything. My hands sat there but I couldn’t feel them. I felt like I was floating above my body, like I had no connection to this earth at all.
“Ivy, do you know what you did for those girls?” There was a tone of awe to my mother’s voice and that alone was enough to send me crashing back to reality. I looked up into her haunted eyes and saw respect for the first time ever. She didn’t wait for me to answer, she finished her own thought. “You set them free. You need to know that. They faced unspeakable horrors, but you set them free.”
The Fall (The Siren Series) Page 24
