“I don’t want to wait,” he told me as soon as I walked in the door.
“Me either.” I walked over and straddled his legs so that I could lay a kiss on his forehead. He took my hands and held both of them between us. “Mallory Hunter came to visit.”
He frowned, and his forehead wrinkled in concentration. “Bad news?”
“Nix got there before us, I guess. He had the money transferred before Mallory could finalize the papers.”
“And I’m guessing the money didn’t land in the Swiss account Matt helped me pick out a few weeks ago.”
“Not unless you forgot you changed your mind and wanted it sent to Greece.” I unhooked one of my hands from his and ran it through his untamed hair. The strands were course between my fingers and my movements made them stick straight up, but I loved the feeling of his coconut-scented hair. I loved every part of him.
“We need to go, then. Now. Nix is probably onto us.” Ryder gently pushed me back and stood up. “I’m not going to let him find us.”
“I need to make one stop before we leave town.” I hoped he didn’t fight me on this. I physically could not make myself leave Omaha before I finished this one last thing.
“Are we picking up Exie and Sloane?” He looked at me with so much hope that I felt sick with the answer that churned in my stomach.
I shook my head. “They won’t come. After what happened with their sisters… they’re just too afraid. We’ll have to convince them a different way.”
His expression fell. “You’re right. We can’t make them come. But, I hate leaving them here. I hate that they gave up.”
“It’s not forever. After they see that we can make it… that we are safe. They’ll want to come. And we’ll figure out a way to send for them.”
“Okay, Red.” He leaned over and kissed my temple. I had the distinct feeling he was just telling me what I wanted to hear; but I would never give up on those girls. Never. Not even if I had to dispatch people to kidnap them.
“Are you worried we don’t have any money?” We were walking down the hallway, toward the entrance near the student parking lot.
“Who said we don’t have money?” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “We don’t have your money. But I’m a little more prepared for this than you.”
“What do you have? Enough to get us out of town?”
He nodded. “Seven thousand.” I gaped at him. “I’ve been saving since I was twelve. The money was meant for college.”
My gut twisted. “Ryder-”
“Hush,” he demanded. “The money was an investment in my future. You might not be college, Ivy, but you’re definitely my future. There’s actually more money, but this was all I could pull out right now. It will be enough to get us some place safe.”
“Is it in cash?”
“No, a couple credit cards under my dad’s name. Matt helped me work a little credit card fraud and then hooked me up with a fake ID. Needless to say they will not be turning us in.”
“Credit card fraud has never been so sexy.”
We rounded the corner and immediately stepped back. Nix was at the other end with Mrs. Tanner. He had two other men with him, Gigantes by the size and stature of them.
“It’s alright,” Ryder whispered. “We’ll go out the museum-side door. They didn’t see us and we’re not where we’re supposed to be. We’ll be alright.”
I turned around and ran off with him, believing every word he said. I was desperate to get out, determined to leave Omaha and Nix and this entire world behind for good.
I would have done whatever Ryder said to get free, whatever it took.
We pushed through an emergency exit that kids usually used to sneak a smoke. The Jocelyn Art Museum sat across a grassy lawn. The pink, swirly marbled building and its tall white columns loomed over us as a symbol of class and refinement while we became nothing more than teenage runaways. I wondered how many pieces inside the museum were dedicated to Greek mythology. How many lies were painted on canvas or depicted in sculptures.
I wondered if humanity would still admire the Greeks and their myths if they knew the whole, sordid truth. If they knew how we corrupted their world and spread our poison all over the earth like a plague.
Choosing to ignore the museum, I followed Ryder around the high school and to the back of the student lot. We climbed in his Bronco with no difficulty and pretty soon we were exiting west on Dodge and away from Nix.
I felt the sweet breath of freedom already and inhaled it deeply.
“Where are we going first, Ivy?”
“I need to say goodbye to somebody.”
“Who?”
“Sam Evans.”
----
I heard the beeping before we even walked across the threshold to his room. It was the kind of constant sound that lent background music to the heartbreak and despair of all the patients on this floor.
Sam’s permanent room was in a long-term care center in a wing of the newest Omaha hospital. The place had state-of-the-art everything: perfectly polished floors, fancy new technology, huge rooms that were decorated tastefully and smelled like antibacterial soap and depression. Ryder held my hand while we walked the hallways, our shoes squeaking with every step.
The receptionist had given us his room number and told us it was a very good time to visit him. He was alone right now. His family wouldn’t come up to visit him until a little bit later.
Ryder didn’t have the same fears as I did or carry the same burden that I had been holding for the last year and a half. He walked into Sam’s room with purpose and respectful dignity.
I hovered around the door, too afraid to look at Sam and too angry at myself to run.
“Ivy,” Ryder called gently.
I lifted my eyes from the wheels at the end of Sam’s bed and let them drag across his shriveled form. Legs that used to propel him into impossible dunks and made him sprint across the gym floor were now stripped of their former muscle and useless beneath a thin, white sheet. His stomach hunched at an awkward angle; also missing was the six-pack I used to love to run my fingers over. His shoulders were frail and his arms limp at his sides.
Finally, I forced myself to look at his still-handsome face. He was already staring at me with those light brown eyes that used to watch me with such an awed fascination. His chestnut hair was shorter than it used to be, closely cropped to his head, but still gorgeous, still a part of a breathtaking man.
He watched me with wide-eyed wonder and I stared back at him with something akin to begging. He was so different than I remembered. The Sam I knew wasn’t weak, he was ridiculously strong. He wasn’t disabled; he was a fully capable, vibrant kid with the brightest future ahead of him.
There was still that man buried beneath the tubing and hospital hookups. His eyes were still bright and no amount of degeneration would take away his strong jaw or large hands. But he was not the man I remembered. He was not the man whose life I had set out to destroy.
He was the product of my destruction.
He was the proof of what I truly was.
What I would always be.
“Hey, Sammy,” I grinned at him and dug for the courage to walk all the way into his room. When my feet started moving, I realized they wouldn’t stop. They took me all the way to his bedside, all the way until I sat at his side and ran my fingers over his buzzed head.
He moaned and rolled his big eyes. He hated that nickname.
My fingers kept brushing over his head and I realized in that moment how acutely I had missed him. I had let myself be heartbroken and guilty; I had allowed myself to be beat up over and over and over. But I hadn’t yet let myself admit that I missed him. I had cared for him so much. One day he was in my life and the next he was out for good and I hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye yet.
Or tell him that I was sorry.
I leaned forward and placed a kiss on his forehead. He followed me with those same eyes but as soon as my lips touched his skin, they closed wi
th a subtle kind of bliss. I rested my forehead against his and closed my eyes, too, savoring the moment, committing it to my eternal memory.
Tears slipped from my tightly closed lashes and fell to his hospital gown, leaving big splashes of emotion.
“I miss you,” I whispered to him. “I miss you so much.
He nuzzled his nose against mine but couldn’t speak with words to say the same. So I continued on for us.
“I’m so sorry it took me this long to come see you. I’m so sorry I stayed away.” More apologies fell from my lips in prayers and confessions. I begged him to forgive me. I pleaded with him to absolve all of my sins against him. “I’m so sorry that this happened to you. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault and I would take your place if I could. This should have happened to me, not to you. Please forgive me, Sam. Please, please, please forgive me.”
I finally pulled back to meet his gaze. It took every ounce of courage I possessed, but I finally let myself look into his soft eyes. They were wet just like mine and he looked up at me with such unwavering adoration that I started crying all over again.
Ryder walked over to us and put his hand on my shoulder. He looked down at Sam and introduced himself in a way that carried the respect and awe Sam once demanded from everyone. “Sam, it’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Ryder.”
My blackened, shriveled heart surged with a love I felt for both of these men. My love for Sam would be never-ending but in a completely different way than the consuming, forever love I felt for Ryder. I cherished this moment, this final moment of closure for Sam and me, for this next step that Ryder and I were about to take.
That golden pulse washed the room in the next moment and I knew that I was also setting Sam free. That coming here hadn’t just given me peace, but because of what I felt for Ryder, I could now give that same freedom to Sam.
He blinked up at me with a new kind of wonder. His dark lashes were wet with tears and his mouth moved even while he couldn’t verbalize his thoughts.
I cupped his smooth jaw with my hand and pressed a gentle kiss against his dry, cracked lips. “Will you remember me, Sam? I will remember you always. I’ll think about you every day.”
His lips twitched in an almost smile and I knew that he would. I knew that even though I set him free and cut his ties to the curse, that there was still real affection between us.
I gave him the greatest thing that I could. I released him from me.
But he gave me a gift, too. His forgiveness, his friendship, his kindness. I would take those things with me to the end of me.
When we finally got up to leave, I gave him one more kiss on the cheek. I let my hand run down his skinny arm and squeezed his cool fingers. I held us there for one moment, for just long enough for him to give me a weak squeeze back.
And then I said goodbye to Sam Evans forever.
And he said goodbye to me.
Ryder and I left the room hand-in-hand. We walked peacefully out of the hospice ward and to the parking lot where we truly believed our future waited for us… where freedom waited for us.
A lot more time had gone by than I realized. And the day had faded into early evening. Ryder had parked in the back of the lot and we walked unhurriedly toward his Bronco.
This was it.
We were leaving for good.
I turned to smile at him and he pressed a slow kiss on my lips while we tried to navigate through the parked cars. We stumbled, bumped into each other and fell apart laughing.
Everything felt right for the first time in my life.
For the first time ever, all of my planning lay before me as reality. I had closure from one of my most acute nightmares. And I had the man that I loved at my side, willing to run with me. He would keep me safe. He would help me be free.
There were still loose ends for me, but first I needed this.
First, Ryder and I would go somewhere away from here. Then we would worry about every other thing.
Ryder’s Bronco came into sight and he pulled out his keys from his pocket. We were talking about where we would go first and how far we thought the Bronco would take us before it spontaneously exploded. He stepped out of the shadows and faced us.
Nix.
Nix was here.
Nix stood right in front of us with a murderous expression on his face and his two Gigantes flanking him.
They were a collective force of raw, primal energy and malicious intent. They blocked our escape like a prison wall and sneered at us with the taste of victory already on their lips.
Ryder’s grip on my hand tightened painfully and both of us froze in that moment. I heard his car keys drop to the ground.
“Ivy!” Nix bellowed at the top of his lungs. I felt every punch of his cry as it hit me hard in the chest. His single word tethered me to this place in a way that I would not accept. He was the guard and his words were the chains and I was nothing but a helpless victim to his cruelty. I would never get away from him.
I would never be safe.
I would never be free.
Ryder looked at me. “Run, Ivy. Run, now!”
Chapter Twenty-Five
I should have run.
I should have listened to Ryder.
But how could I?
How could I leave him? How could I ask him to face Nix alone?
How could I ask him to fight my battles and slay my monsters?
I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
And so I entered into the worst moment of my life a willing participant. My eyes were wide open and I knew what would happen. I knew that Nix would destroy Ryder. I knew that we had no defense. I knew that the stupidest thing we could have ever done was to get caught.
And we got caught.
There were consequences for every action… these were mine.
This was the cost of my hope.
These were the penalties for daring to believe in a better life.
I linked my fingers through Ryder’s and squeezed his hand tightly. “I won’t leave you,” I swore to him. “I will never leave you.”
His stormy gray eyes met mine in the still moments before Nix struck. There was not fear in his steel-like gaze or even anxiety. He held me firm, he held me confidently. We faced the same sentence but he stayed courageous and noble. I quaked with fear, but he met this moment with an inner strength that shook me to my core.
Nix had already closed the distance between us. His heavy presence loomed over us like a palpable thing. His lips curled into a satisfied smirk while he stared down at Ryder with acute disgust and something like sadistic anticipation.
He had transformed in the time it took him to walk over here. Just like in my bedroom he grew to that godlike stature: larger, inhuman, more powerful and menacing than ever before.
His Gigantes bordered him but now looked like normal men compared to the size of the god in front of them. He reached for Ryder with his meaty fist, and I jumped in front of him.
With my arms straight out to the sides, I shouted, “No! Nix, I did this! It was me! Punish me!”
Ryder tried moving around me by grabbing my waist. Clearly he was not up for that suggestion. But I held firm. I fought him. I dared Nix to focus on me, to spare Ryder his judgment and give it to me. I was the one that deserved this!
Not him.
Ryder was only trying to help me. He was innocent.
“Nix!” He wouldn’t even look at me. His hungry eyes followed Ryder’s every movement. “Nix! It’s me!” I screamed at him until my voice cracked from the force pushing out of my lungs. “It’s me you want to hurt! It’s me you want to punish!”
Finally, his dark eyes flashed to mine. “You’re right,” he confirmed in a deep growl. And then he picked me up and tossed me to one of his hideous men. The Gigante caught me easily and trapped me against his body so that I faced Nix and Ryder but could not move. “I do want to hurt you, Ivy. You have disobeyed me for the last time. But I have told you this before and yet… here we are.” He g
estured to Ryder with a flick of his elegant fingers. Even though he was huge, even though he was the super-sized version of himself, he still maintained that sophisticated grace in every cell of his beautiful body. Even more so now. This was his true form. This was what ancient civilizations had worshiped and legends told of. This was the god that razed villages and ruled the sea. This was Poseidon in all his power. “Now I will hurt you so that you never disobey me again. I will hurt you so deeply, punish you so memorably that you will never step out of line again.”
“No!” I screamed at him. Tears tracked down my face as reminders of my weakness. I fought, I clawed, I hit, struck out and screamed in the arms of my captor but he was too strong. He held me against his body in a prison meant for me to watch the horror that unfolded before me.
Nix turned back to Ryder and I watched his broad shoulders tense for the first hit. Ryder lifted his chin and readied his body. They stared each other down, both equal parts of my life but for entirely different reasons.
“I will never let you touch her ever again,” Ryder threatened. His voice never wavered and I never saw one flash of fear in his features. He meant to see this through. Everything he had ever said to me had been real. Everything he had ever promised me had been true. He would protect me until the end. Those thoughts should have fortified me, they could have encouraged me… but they did not. Instead, they broke me. They destroyed whatever was left of me in an eruption of despair and grief. “She is free of you,” Ryder went on. “Whatever happens to me, Ivy is free of you.”
Lightning flashed in the sky over head. A huge streak of blinding white light stretched from one end of the sky to the other. A deafening roll of thunder followed in its wake, shaking the glass in the cars around us, vibrating the ground beneath my feet.
Nix looked up at the sky with hands balled into fists at his side. I could see his enlarged muscles bulging against the fabric of his now-tattered clothes. He heaved in a breath while shouting at the sky in a language I couldn’t understand.
His head dropped in the next second. He took in Ryder standing in front of him, readied for a fight and then his arm pulled back and released.
The Fall (The Siren Series) Page 28
