Chapter 58: A cockroach in the cupboard

Ivy’s pov

A bloody, unconscious man was slumped on the floor. His eyes were closed, his face was a mess of bruises, and a dark, wet stain spread across the floor from his side.

Was he dead?

He looked dead.

My hand flew to my mouth, trying to seal in the scream, but a choked, terrified sound escaped. Dead.

The Knights had a dead body stashed in a secret room. My whole body shook so hard, like a wind-up toy. My eyes kept running over the wounds, the wet stain that was spreading around him, pooling.

They killed him. They killed someone! I had to get.... I had to get out of here!

I wrenched the door open, ready to run, and crashed directly into a wall of muscle.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Kai hissed, his good hand shooting out to steady me. His bandaged arm was still in its sling.

I scrambled back from him, my pointing finger shaking violently. "You! Murderer! Killer! You and your brothers are psychopaths!"

His face hardened, all the softness I had seen in the studio when he was painting me vanished. In one swift, brutal movement, he grabbed my arm, spun me around, and slammed me against the wall, his body pinning me.

A loud wail left my lips as I flailed around, trying to push against his grip, pain shooting up my arm when I bent it at an awkward angle.

"Oh, for fuck sake, stop screaming!" he snapped in my ear, gritting his teeth. Rap music still played from his studio, and nausea built up in my throat.

What kind of person in good conscience sits in a studio, painting, knowing that they had a dead man rotting in the next room? A sick person. A sick, twisted psycho!

"Let me go, you psycho!" I shrieked, trying to shove him off. "You’re going to kill me! You’re going to stuff me in a closet with your other victims!"

"Victims?" He cackled, shaking his head.

"Have a little faith, little Ivy. Believe me, if you were a victim, you would know it. You’d be in a thousand pieces by now."

"Screw you!" I screamed, blood pumping wildly in my veins. If I was going down, I was not going down quietly.

"Ivy, calm the fuck down already. Your screaming isn’t going to do shit. How the hell did you get in here in the first place?"

"Why?" I cried, growing hysterical in an instant.

Nothing good could come out of discovering they had a dead man in their fuking closet. The state of the man was appalling. They must have beaten him to death.

How else would he have gotten all those bruises, wounds, and the gash? "Why would you do that to a human? How could you... How can you even call yourself a human?"

"Oh gee, here we go again. Should I turn myself in to purgatory? I’ll go confess all my sins later, happy?"

"Is this a joke to you?" I yelled, my voice bouncing off the walls and straight back into my ears. I could hardly afford to wince.

I tried looking over my shoulder at him, breathing heavily behind me, spitting in anger.

"Fuck you, Malachi! You think you’re so tough? Hiding behind your money and your secret passages? You’re just a thug with a paintbrush!"

"How poetic," he scoffed, his hazel eyes boring into mine. "Will you fucking listen now?"

I was panting, my chest heaving against the wall he had me plastered to. He leaned forward, his face close to mine, his free hand tilting my jaw up. "Breathe, Ivy," he commanded, his voice softer now.

I wrenched my jaw away from his grip, spitting at his face. "Don’t tell me to fucking breathe. Whose fault is it that I almost passed out?" I grumbled, my heart hammering against my ribs.

My eyes darted to the door of the room I had just run out of while screaming, struggling to catch my breath. "Why is there a freaking dead man in there?"

Kai rolled his eyes. "What are you going to do? Call the police?" He smirked, a cruel twist of his lips. "Go ahead. You might just take his place."

I paled, the blood draining from my face. Take his place? A thick lump formed in my throat while Malachi cursed under his breath. "I was kidding, for fuck’s sake. The bastard isn’t dead."

To prove it, he pushed off of me and strode into the room. I heard him kicking the man hard, and the poor, bruised-up man on the floor screamed, a guttural cry of pain.

Kai poked his head out of the room, then walked out with a bored look on his face.

"See? The bastard is alive and kicking. Traitors are like cockroaches, they don’t die easily."

I shrank further into the wall, pure terror rushing through my veins, my eyes the size of saucers.

Traitors?

Would they do this to me if they found out I was a spy? Would they torture, then kill me? What if they knew already? What if that was why Milo started blackmailing me? Were they all toying with me?

So many questions rampaged my guilty thoughts. I swallowed hard, my throat tight. I had to get the hell out of here. I pushed off the wall and started hobbling away, my legs feeling like jelly.

Kai followed after me, striding carelessly, his footsteps echoing in the narrow passage. "Running away, little Ivy? Where’s your backbone now? Don’t tell me a little blood scares you."

I scrambled through the secret passage, back into his walk-in closet, and out into his bedroom. I was almost at the door, my hand reaching for the handle, when he grabbed me again.

"Going somewhere?" he taunted.

Before I could answer, I felt a sharp, stinging prick on the side of my neck. I swatted at it, my fingers brushing against something small and metallic. My vision began to swim, the edges blurring, and my legs gave out from under me.

"Night, night, little Ivy," was the last thing I heard before the world went black.