Charlie’s hands curled into fists. “I don’t care why my grandfather felt he had to keep this from me. He should’ve at least beenhonestabout what happened here! We deserved to see this for ourselves.”
Charlie whirled toward the children’s area but Marcus cut in front of him, pressing a hand to his chest. “No,” Marcus insisted. “Fuck this. Eddie’s right. We’ve seen enough. We don’t need to see what happened to those kids, too. There’s no reason to keep going.”
“Fuck no, there isn’t,” Ivy snarled. “We shouldn’t have come here at all. The Emperor kept this from us for a reason, and we still came here. I think we all know exactly why.”
Ivy narrowed their gaze on me.
My voice shook. “What exactly are you saying?”
“Youreallywant me to say it out loud?” Ivy spread their arms wide. “Fine. This was a stupid idea. We didn’t need to seethis shit and traumatize ourselves. Ava, the Emperorknewyou would come no matter what he ordered you to do. That’s why he wanted to keep this from you, but you justhaveto get your own way, don’t you? You’re so insistent on trying to save the world that it hurts people, and now, we hurt ourselves. You aresoadamant about stopping suffering in this world, but you've madeussuffer by bringing us here. You want to save people, but you never think about saving the people around you. You could’ve saved us from this, but you didn’t. Now we gotta deal with it.”
Chancey’s voice got rough. “Don’t go there, Ives. We didn’t know. You’d think a whole lot differently if we’d gotten here in time to save these people. Perhaps this could’ve been avoided if the Emperor would’ve been honest with us, instead of leaving us to come to our own conclusions.”
“Yeah, blame Cassiel,” Ivy scoffed. “I’m telling you he didn’t want us coming here for a reason, and it’s because he knows as well as the rest of us that Ava needs to save every person who’s in trouble, even if they can’t be saved.”
“She’s trying to do the right thing! You’re being selfish!” Chancey demanded.
“If it’s selfish of me to want to save the people I care about, then I guess I’m selfish,” Ivy spat. “You want to know who I care about? Me. You. Us. Fuck the world right now. I’ve been miserable my whole goddamn life, and this shit ain’t helping. All I got from coming here is just another fucked up memory that’s going to haunt me for the rest of my cursed existence.”
Ivy hugged themselves and turned away, trembling with each pleading, broken word. “We didn’t get back at my father, and we sure as hell ain’t getting back at the Warden now. I’m sick of adding people to my long list of revenge I gotta take. Hell, my list of people to take revenge on is so fucking long, I can’t even remember who I need to get back at anymore. I just want torest,and I can’t do it, because Ava’s over here thinking she can play the hero.”
“Don’t put this on Ava,” Charlie growled. “I get it. You’re looking for someone to blame, but this isn’t her fault. You want to bitch and moan about how hard your life is? Look around at what happened to these people. At least youhavea revenge list. These people will never get theirs. So are you going to lay down and take this, or are you going to help us end the Warden? Because that’s where this shit has been leading all along.”
Charlie began pacing, his words frantic now. “We needed to come here to see what we’re up against. And we need to start putting a plan togethernow. We need to kill the Warden, and figure out how to stop him. If you don’t want to be a part of it, then go back to the palace and enjoy your time off, because the rest of us have shit to do.”
Charlie was starting to lose control. As much as he wanted to kill the Warden, I could see that, rationally, he was piecing together that it wasn’t possible anymore. If the Warden could do something like this without consequences, that wasn’t something we could stand up to. I could feel Charlie fighting himself through the bond, arguing with his logical mind that we could beat this.
It was terrifying to watch him actively lose it.
“You ain’t thinking straight if you think we can take on this kind of power, because what happened here is nothing we have a chance against,” Ivy sneered. “I know your grandpa told you to pivot with each problem, but this ain’t one you can solve. I’m damn good at what I can do, but I know when I’ve been beaten.Wedon’t have a chance of fixing this, so we need to figure out what the hell we can do to make it to the next day. If the Warden can do this to all these people, we’re next.”
“If he could do this to us, we’d be dead already,” Charlie shot back. “We’re stronger than him. We just need to figure out a way.”
Ivy laughed in Charlie’s face— literally. Ivy got so close to Charlie that their noses were less than an inch apart. Ivy’s fangs protruded as they gave a mocking laugh.
It was completely insane, and I fell apart watching it. Ivy had been damaged from the moment I’d met them, but this… I’d had my hand in really wounding them this time.
Charlie didn’t move. Just stood his ground without batting an eye.
“Ives, come on,” Chancey sighed, grabbing Ivy’s wrist. “Calm down.”
“Calmdown!” Ivy shouted, whirling on Chancey. Sobs broke from their chest, and tears began streaming down their face. “You don’t understand what’s going on here. I’m going to lose you.We’regoing to lose each other.”
Chancey shook his head. “That ain’t true.”
“No, Chance. I’m not giving you up for a lost cause, because Charlie’s leading us down one,” Ivy snapped.
Chancey’s shoulders fell. “Ives, please.”
Ivy pointed a finger in Chancey’s face. “Don’t give me that shit. You’re mypartner. You’re supposed to stand beside me, and if you can’t do that, then fuck you.”
Ivy stormed off, their vampire speed carrying them around the side of the building so fast I hadn’t caught where they’d gone.
Chancey hesitated, then said, “They just need a minute, but Ivy’s got a point. This was a dumb move. We shouldn’t be here.”
Charlie frowned, showing almost no emotion. “Look, if you guys can’t handle what happened here, that’s too bad. You need to see the reality of what the Warden can do, because sticking our heads in the sand and pretending like he’s not hurting people is doing nothing for anyone.”
“I’m with Ivy,” Alistair piped up. “Eddie already went through this, and you made him relive it again. You shouldn’t have made him come, Charlie.”
