Chapter 18

Ivy

"Get the fuck into the seat," the brute who has me says as he shoves me against a chair in the middle of the makeshift room, but I fight against his intention to get me into that chair. It looks terrifying. A single chair hooked up to equipment, monitors, implements that look like torture devices. I'm not getting in that chair. Besides, there's something happening in the warehouse, and though I am afraid to hope, I'm sure it's Atlas. My body is responding to his power by answering with a reserve of its own. The echo of the warmth has become a raging river cutting through the fear inside me.

When the man can't get me into the seat, he slams my face against the seat, tugging on my arms, and holding them behind my back. I'm bent over the seat as he restrains me with his heavy body bent over me.

"Be still," he hisses. "I need to lock you up."

"Fuck you." I grind out the words, and with as much effort as I can grab hold of, I slam my head back, and connect with his nose.

He shouts in pain but doesn't release me. Warm liquid drips onto my neck, slides under my shirt. "You fucking bitch." He slams me harder against the chair.

Ivy.

I twist my body trying to find him, but the man's weight makes it difficult. So I cry out with the link, Atlas!

"You're going to get what's coming to you," the man says, lifting me by my arms and slamming me back down. He pulls on my shirt, tightening the collar so that it's pressing into my throat. "We're not supposed to kill you. Too valuable and all that. All I see though is a bitch who needs to be taught a lesson."

I cry out, but there isn't any air to give it wings. I struggle against his hold, kicking out and connecting with his shins. "No!"

"Let her go." Atlas's buttery-rich voice is laced with the absolute calm of rage.

The man turns, holding me in front of him like a shield. "Who the fuck are you?"

My mouth drops open, and my heart bursts with absolute awe. Standing a few feet away is Atlas, the epitome of the avenging angel. He's coated with blood, his white wings spattered with it. He looks absolutely terrifying.

"Your worst nightmare," he answers the man.

"You're here," I say.

Retreat!clicks over a radio.

And somewhere in the warehouse, a horrifying screech rents the air followed by a burst of chaotic screaming.

It's the nezzah! Luka yells. Samson. Samson! I need you.

"Of course, I'm here," Atlas tells me, his eyes never leaving the man at my back.

"Hazel?"

"Samson and the others are getting the women out."

The fuzzy call to retreat repeats over the radio.

"It looks like they're leaving you behind," Atlas tells the man.

"I'll kill her," the man says, one of his arms secured tightly around my neck, and the other around the top of my forehead. "I don't give a fuck what she is."

Atlas tilts his head. "You could certainly try, but that's going to turn out about as well for you as it is to let her go."

It's unsettling, only I'm suddenly so turned on by it. Not now, Ivy, I think.

Channels. Atlas's eyes drift to me and he smirks. Save that thought for later.

Fucking gratus, Rome answers, but there's a bitterness to the sound.

"So, what was going on here?" Atlas asks the man and starts forward. "Men stealing women."

"You know, sereph." He spits the final word like it has a nasty taste.

"I don't, actually."

That horrible screech bursts out once more, and whatever it is, its movement shifts the plastic sheeting.

It's so huge, Tate yells down the connection.

That's what she said,Samson quips.

How's that portal coming, Luka?Rome asks.

Working on it!

"If you think that demon is going to save you," Atlas tells the man, "you're mistaken. Besides, it's about to be taken care of in about five seconds." He holds up his hand, the back facing me and the man who is using me as a shield. He begins the countdown. "Five" he says aloud, puts down his thumb. "Four." To me alone he says: Ivy, I'm going to need you to use those legs for me.

His pinky. "Three"

What do you want me to do? I ask him.

"Two." His ring finger. Jump. Grab hold of a bar above us, okay?

What?

He's insane. But I think of his earlier lesson about balance. I choose to trust him.

"One." He folds down his pointer finger leaving only his middle finger. Atlas smirks. "Out of time." Now.

A brilliant light explodes. I crouch and explode up with a jump I'm not prepared for, my legs filled with power. I fly up, screaming, looking at the ground below me as it retreats under me.

Grab hold of something Ivy!Atlas says in my head as he surges forward, plunging a knife into the man who'd had a hold of me.

The man falls.

I'm flailing about, looking for something to grab, only there isn't anything. My body is being dragged from the air toward that bright light. It's a swirling vortex of a horrible blaze sucking in a massive monster. It's dark, devoid of anything life-like. Dull, matte darkness, its bulk is covered with thick armor. It has multiple arms—tentacles—affixed with pinchers, and rears up on a thick tail, the end of which curls around behind it, rattling with warning. Its massive jaw is filled with rows upon rows of teeth, and there's a row of several eyes around its bulbous head.

I scream as the gravity of the swirling vortex grabs hold of me.

Suddenly Atlas is there, his wings out behind him. He has me but fights against that horrific force trying to draw everything into its maw.

Atlas! Get out of the gravity field,Luka yells.

Atlas!

Atlas! Hang on. Another minute!

"Grab hold, Ivy." Somehow, he's fought the current and maneuvered us closer to a catwalk.

I reach out, wrap my arms around the bar and hold it as tightly as I can. Atlas wraps his body around me, grabbing hold of the catwalk on either side. Then he closes his wings around us, yelling as if he's being torn apart. I squeeze my eyes shut, refusing to look until suddenly the roar of sound is gone and it's eerily quiet. When I open my eyes, we're tucked into Atlas's wings. There's the rumble of whatever is happening beyond us, but inside, we're safe.

It's closed.Luka's voice slips through the connection.

"Atlas." I throw my arms around his neck. "I thought?—"

"I told you, Ivy," he presses a kiss against my temple, "you're mine."

When Atlas reopens his wings, it looks as if a hurricane has whipped through the warehouse. Most of the cells have either collapsed into scattered bits of refuse or are gone completely. The makeshift lab is gone but for the chair, which seems to have been bolted to the floor.

The women?I ask.

All out,Tate replies.

I look at Atlas. "My sister."

Atlas flies me through the warehouse and sets me down just outside, where the women have congregated.

"Hazel!" I cry out.

From between bodies, Hazel elbows her way through and rushes to me. When she hits me with her embrace, we nearly fall, only Atlas is there behind me, catching us both.

"Ivy. Ivy," she's crying. "You're here. You're here."

"Of course, I'm here," I whisper, smoothing her hair with my hands, and suddenly feeling those words… Atlas's words to me.

"I'm so sorry. So, so sorry," she's sobbing. "I should have stayed. Should have listened."

I press her cheeks between my palms. "It's okay. We're okay." Then I pull her back into my embrace and just hold her, with Atlas's strong presence at my back.

Hazel doesn't want to let me go, and I don't blame her. My arm tightens around her too, as if she might fade away, but neither of us know how to drive a motorcycle. We can't ride together. "We can take the bus with the other women," I say, offering a solution.

Rome has chartered several buses, which are being sent out to the sentinel families across Murrus.

"Why there?" I'd asked when he'd mentioned it.

"Because I know those sentinel families. I trust them." Then he frowned at me as usual.

Now, Atlas pales at my suggestion and shakes his head, then swallows as if he's worried. "I guess I could follow…"

I suddenly realize why he's worried. He thinks I won't stay. That if I get on that bus, I'm not choosing him. I still haven't made up my mind, but returning to Carran Hollow is on my itinerary. There's something fantastical happening, and I'm not ready to close the door on it. I need more information, which I won't find where I've come from, and that information–and learning how to fight—will be the only way I'll be able to keep Hazel and myself safe now. Besides, my feelings for Atlas—even in as short of time as I've known him—have exploded exponentially. That isn't something that can be denied.

"She could ride with one of my brothers. So we can all stay together," he suggests.

"Hazy?" I ask my sister. "What do you think?"

Tate steps into the space next to Atlas, as if he's been called, and now knowing about the link, he probably was. Atlas introduces him to Hazel. "This is my youngest brother, Tate."

Tate grins, flicking some of that dark hair out of his dark eyes, though curiously, I see he has a burst of gold in the right eye, like a firework in his iris. A dimple cuts into his left cheek when he smiles, and though he doesn't exactly look like Atlas, their kinship is very apparent. "Hey." He holds out his hand.

"Hazel," my sister says and takes Tate's offered hand.

Tate looks down at their connection then back up at Hazel. When they release their handshake, he clears his throat. "You're welcome to ride with me." I notice his smile is gone, but am not sure what to make of it.

She glances at me. "It's safe?"

I nod, hating the haunted look in her green eyes, afraid to dig too deep into what she's been through over the last several weeks. "Perfectly safe."

She glances at Tate. "Thank you," she says.

An hour later, we're back on the road, and this time our caravan of bikes includes three buses carrying women who've agreed to join us.