Page 4 of Gravehouse

“Fuck you.” The words scrape out of me, and I yank against the restraints until my shoulder screams, blood running faster down my side, hot and insistent. “Let me out.”

“Or what?” She sounds amused. “You’ll bleed on my floor? You’re already doing that.”

I pull harder, the chain rattling but holding as my feet slip in my own blood. I catch myself, gasping, the pain wiping my head blank for a second.

Ivy.

I need to find her, need to make her explain why she looked at me like that before she pulled the trigger, like I was already dead, like she’d mourned me months ago.

“Where is she?” I demand. My voice breaks halfway through and I don’t care. “Where’s Ivy?”

“There it is.” Her satisfaction loud. “The desperation. You’re rabid for her, aren’t you? Even after she shot you. Even after she left you dying.”

“Tell me where she is,” I demand.

“No,” she says.

I thrash against the cuffs, leather burning into my wrists while the chain shrieks and my vision tunnels. Everything hurts, everything narrowing down to the single thought that Ivy is out there and I’m locked in here.

“Let me OUT!” I roar, tearing my vocal cords.

Silence.

“This is pathetic,” the woman says. “Look at you. Feral over a girl who put a bullet in you.”

“She’s mine.” The words tear through all my restraint. I don’t give a fuck anymore. “She’s MINE.”

“She’s nothing.” She spits each word. “And by the time I’m done with you, you won’t want her anymore.”

I laugh, blood bubbling at the corner of my mouth as I lick it away.

My eyes drag up the wall, landing on the camera like I could see right through her.

“You don’t know me.”

“I know exactly what you are, Delacroix. You’re a rabid dog who thinks he’s a wolf. But rabid dogs get put down.” Her voice drops lower. “Or they get rehabilitated. Broken down. Remade into something useful.”

My arms burn and my side screams, my heartbeat thumping in the wound, each pulse pushing more blood out.

But all I can see is Ivy’s face, her shaking hands as she held me, the tears that fell even though she tried to stop them.

“You can drug me.” My words slur, but I force them out. “You can break me. But you won’t make me forget her.”

“We’ll see,” she says.

The speaker clicks off.

My eyes snap open to find her standing three feet away, close enough that I see the satisfaction curling her mouth. Black suit, black heels, black soul, everything about her screaming money and control.

“You smell like a funeral,” I rasp, each word dragging over what’s left of my throat. “Knew you couldn’t handle me without turning me into a zombie first?”

She doesn’t flinch, studying me like I’m a toy. “Still so much fight left. Impressive.”

“Let me down.” I smirk, jerking against the chains. “See how impressive I am.”

“Such violence.” She circles me slowly, heels clicking against concrete. “All for her.”

My jaw locks. “Don’t.”