“Ivy,” he breathed.
She took a step toward him, and then felt cold steel press against the back of her head.
“Drop your gun,” Hyena snarled from behind her.“Or I’ll blow her brains out.”
Chapter Twelve
Fear hit Ivy like atidal wave, it flooded her veins so fast it stole the air from her lungs.The barrel pressed to the back of her head felt impossibly solid.She was going to die.The certainty of it settled with a strange, quiet weight, less panic than sorrow.
She thought, absurdly, that it was depressing and sad.There were murals she hadn’t painted yet.Places she still wanted to see.Versions of herself she hadn’t finished becoming.
Then, threading through that bleak acceptance, came another thought.Havoc came for me.The realization cracked something open in her chest.Not hope, but something warmer.
She’d told Hyena a lie when she said Havoc didn’t matter, that what they shared was nothing.Standing here now, with Havoc across from her, gun raised and hands shaking despite the steel in his posture, Ivy saw the truth with painful clarity.
Havoc meant something to her, and judging by the naked terror in his eyes, she meant something to him too.Havoc’s gaze never left her face as he slowly began to lower his gun.The movement was controlled, deliberate, like he was handling a wild animal that might bolt at any wrong twitch.
Ivy felt Hyena’s grip tighten, the gun pressing harder into her skull.
“That’s it,” Hyena crooned.“Real slow.”
Havoc had clenched his jaw so tight Ivy could see the muscle jump.His shoulders were rigid, every line of him screaming restraint.He looked wrecked, as if he’d already accepted losing her and it had hollowed him out from the inside.
No.Something in Ivy snapped into place.She was done waiting, finished with letting men decide what happened to her body and her life.She’d spent years traveling alone, navigating unfamiliar cities and stranger dangers, trusting her instincts and learning how to protect herself because no one else would.
She wasn’t helpless.Before fear could talk her out of it, Ivy moved.Ivy drove her elbow back with everything she had, aiming low, hard, exactly where she knew it would hurt the most.
Hyena made a strangled sound, a sharp, furious gasp torn out of him.He loosened his grip on her instinctively, his body folding in on itself.
“You bitch!”he screamed, rage slurred by agony.
“Ivy, duck!”Havoc roared.
She didn’t think.Ivy dropped.The world compressed into noise and motion.Ivy hit the ground hard, the impact knocking the breath from her lungs as a gunshot cracked overhead.It was deafening, sharp enough to ring in her ears.
She felt something warm splatter behind her, heard the unmistakable thud of a body hitting concrete.Silence rushed in, broken only by the echo of the shot and her own ragged breathing.
