My pulse races in my ears and my heart pounds in my chest as fear grapples inside of me.
I earn a few choice looks from other students as I brush by them, but I don't care to acknowledge them. I all but dive through the flames of the entrance into the Fire Protectors’ dorm, taking the stairs three at a time until I skid to a halt on the second floor.
Despair pierces through my chest as I croak her name.
“Ivy…”
My eyes are wild and panicked as I take her in. Her feet dangle off the floor, while her back is pressed against her door. Her pretty blonde hair cascades around her face, hiding her the best it can, but it doesn’t disguise the way her head hangs limp. Her chin rests against her chest, and her skin is gray.
I move on instinct, fear blazing through my veins as I come to a stop in front of her, trying to lift her chin, but the second I press my fingertips against her cheek, she ignites in flames.
Burning before my very eyes, I gape in horror as I feel the heat ghost across my skin, consuming my hands as ash falls at my feet.
I jerk back, my soul splitting in two, as I bear witness to the most terrifying sight that I have ever witnessed.
Again.
14
BARON
Ifucking hate these four walls.
I hate how white they are.
I hate how clinical it feels.
I hate how I have no control over anything that happens in this small space.
I both love and hate that my fated mate is a phoenix.
I should have known we'd be here again. I just didn't anticipate it being so soon.
The moment I sensed panic in Archer's tone in the meeting room, I knew nothing good would come of it, but Ivy's death didn't even register on the scale. Yet here we are again, squeezed in tight around her sleeping form as we wait for her to rise from the ashes once again.
My hands clench on the arms of my chair, my knuckles whitening so brightly that they match the walls of the room. Every muscle in my body aches with tension.
Four days ago, somebody killed my fated mate again.
Four fucking days.
If we thought it was bad last time, the extra twenty-four hours so far have made it feel a million times worse.
My brother remains at my side in a similar seat to the one he took last time. Teddy is on the other side of him, while Archer stalks back and forth at the foot of Ivy's bed. Hugo fills the seat closest to her, elbows resting on the bed with his head in his hands.
Despair bleeds into the room, coming from each of us, amplified by one another, worsened for ourselves whether we like it or not.
A new addition joins us this time, an insistence we couldn't deny after her reaction to her last visit here.
Meadow sits on the opposite side of the bed, legs tucked underneath her as she rests her elbow on the arm of her chair, cheek against her palm, while her eyelids rest at half-mast.
It's been like this for four days. We might have moved on occasion, but no one's eating enough, and no one's sleeping at all. Really, no one's doing anything but worrying for the girl before us.
As the mid-afternoon sun threatens to pierce through the dark clouds in the sky, which I'm sure Hugo has something to do with, it doesn't feel like we're any closer to relief.
“She should be awake by now,” Archer grunts, stating the obvious, like we haven’t already discussed this.
We're all clock-watching, time-conscious, and worried.
