by Kirah Nyx
Ivy and Addie had been friends for years. Penny had only come in less than a year ago, and now, Addie was slipping out of Ivy’s grip.
She rolled her jaw, muscles tight at the thought, and she had the urge to banish Penny from their trio.
But it wasn’t so much a trio anymore as it was a duo plus one.
Before Ivy could push up from the seat, the Fae slinked closer and took her wrist.
With a severe gaze, she warned, “You are connected to the objects in the painting, bound to nature itself, girl. You don’t know what you are. When you realise your purpose, remember these words; Trust the eyes of the stranger and banish the eyes of the familiar.”
Ivy managed a stiff nod. “Thanks for the sunscreen, blood, and cash. We’ll be on our way.”
Ivy left out the front door, trailing behind the girls, and headed to the car whose tires sank into the swampy ground. Penny and Addie, together, lifted the front of the car and moved it to harder dirt.
Ivy slammed the van door shut once they were all cosy inside.
Ivy had no time for prophecies, creepy old houses, or crazy hermits.
What she needed was peace and quiet.
That ended quickly though, when Penny flicked on the radio.
In the backseat, Ivy peered out the window.
Penny pressed her foot on the gas, sending damp moss and dirt flying back to the trees behind them.
With a glance at Ivy in the backseat, Addie forced a comforting look. “Even if we have to crawl our way through mud,” she said, “we’ll figure this out.”
“What’s there to figure out?” Ivy frowned. “Samael wants to marry me, I don’t want to marry him. My parents are forcing me into a marriage with a psychopath, and the Shifters will be hunting me by now. There’s nothing to solve.” She sighed and let her head fall back against the window ledge. “There’s only danger to run from.”
Addie’s jaw ticked. She turned around in the seat, facing the dirt road they rolled down.
Ivy didn’t miss the shared look between the girls in the front seats.
With a sharp bite on her tongue, blood was quick to fill her mouth, and she looked out of the window for the rest of the journey.
8
The three sat on the side of the road, holding their heads in their hands.
Smoke billowed up from the van’s engine. It had taken them all the way from Mexico to Louisiana, but the old hunk of junk had finally reached its end a mile out from the swamp.
Ivy could detect the sadness in Penny’s eyes.
They hadn’t had the vehicle long, but it had already become a staple member of their crew.
Penny had named the van ‘Slurpy’ after the troubling sound that came from the tank.
“Slurpy doesn’t deserve this.” Penny sighed.
Ivy shook her head. Misfortune was typical at this point.
She was almost amused thinking of how much worse the situation could get.
But she tried to remain focused.
She took out the mobile phone Penny gave her and searched the map for nearby places.
There were plenty of bars and burger shops to go around. But none were helpful to the current dilemma.
She checked along the outskirts of town and found a train station.
“Hey,” Ivy said. “How about we take a train from here?”
Addie nodded. Penny got to her feet and pressed her hands onto the rusted old van, as if to say goodbye.
Ivy was thankful to have a friend who knew so much about the Foundling World.
Without her connections, they wouldn’t have had any chance of surviving so far from home.
But they couldn’t rely on her for everything.
Despite how much Penny tried to put everything on her shoulders, Ivy knew she needed to lighten the load.
“Train station it is,” Ivy said.
They carted their heavy bags over their shoulders and whisked off into the night.
9
With only a flickering street lamp to light the entrance, the three stood in front of the train station.
The benches along the terminal were covered in paper coffee cups and old pamphlets, and a scruffy man slept on a bench down at the third terminal.
Ivy kept a close watch on him. Just in case. She couldn’t be too careful.
The three sat on a bench and, for a while, stared up at the clock. An hour until the next train.
They held three tickets to Atlanta in their hands.
It was the furthest this line would take them.
The farther away from their entry point into the Foundling World, the longer the trail they would leave until, ultimately, the trail went cold.
That was what Ivy wished for at least.
Addie groaned as she watched the ticking clock. “It feels like time is moving in reverse. Is that thing even working? It can’t only be three in the morning.”
Penny leaned closer and whispered soft words into her girlfriend’s ear.
But Ivy’s hearing could catch a pin hitting a pile of hay, and she knew exactly what they were up to.
Penny turned her smile on Ivy. “We’re going to head to the bathroom.”
Ivy dug through her bag. “Have fun.”
If that was how they wanted to spend their hour, power to them, thought Ivy.
If she and Domenic were here, not enemies, and he’d never betrayed her, that was exactly how she’d spend the hour too.
The two rushed over to the restroom, carrying a breeze of giggles with them.
Ivy snorted.
At least they were still able to have fun out here.
Pressing the canister of blood to her lips, Ivy swept her gaze around the bare station.
It was her own idea to take the train and she was the one least excited. But the trip was never meant to be fun.
The most entertainment she had was to watch the steady rise and fall of the homeless man’s shoulders as he slept.
Ivy chugged down half the canister then slammed it beside her. Hearing the sound of shattering glass, Ivy was startled.
She lifted her hand to reveal the broken screen of the mobile phone.
Ivy groaned. Penny was going to flip.
Ivy returned the bottle of blood to the bag and stood.
With a sigh, she walked along the platform, looking down at the train tracks.
They continued along to a thick forest.
She felt a cold breeze tousle her long silky hair.
Watching the trees in the distance, their branches reached out towards her.
The winds must have been strong that night because every leaf was bowing forward, like spidery hands beckoning her.
You are connected to the objects in the painting, bound to nature itself, girl.
Ivy scoffed.
Bound to nature.
Wearing a grim smile, she curtsied and glared out at the trees. “Am I supposed to save you? Do you own me like you own the Fae, is that what you’re telling me?”
If she’d expected whispered answers to carry on the breeze, she would have been wrong. The leaves only rustled.
Ivy felt a creep of heat climb up her cheeks.
She was a Vampire. A species she would have hated if she’d not been one herself. Bloodthirsty, cruel, and thieves. Plunderers of nature, not nature’s saviours.
To Ivy, all she had to do to find the answers of her species was close her eyes and think about Samael—think about his test.
How he ripped corpses back from the dead, animated them like puppets on a string, and forced them to do awful things.
When he was king, the whole world would fall. She knew it in her gut.
So maybe, just maybe, she let herself believe in that moment that she wasn’t just running from Domenic and the Shifters, or her family, or her engagement.
She was running from what the world would become.
Ivy clenched her fist around her necklace.
Domenic couldn’t be considered all that different to Samael.
But they each had something the other lacked.
Samael had power, status. And Domenic had Ivy’s broken heart.
She was uncertain why she still wore the necklace before.
Everything she thought up just seemed to be an excuse.
Anything to remind her of Domenic was probably the last thing she needed. But, truthfully, part of her didn’t want to let go of him.
He’d tricked and betrayed her, but that alone couldn’t undo the time Ivy had spent falling for him.
Ivy closed her eyes. She hoped she would open them and everything would go back to the way it was. But even in her dreams, reality pinched at her with cold nips of wind over her skin.
The first time she met Domenic, she believed he was a stone cold Videer. He was icy and distant, but in a school filled with everyone faking a smile, he seemed the sincerest, especially in those quiet moments they shared when he was kind and charming—traits so rarely seen by Vampires in any species.
That brutal honesty was what Ivy fell in love with first. He wasn’t afraid to be himself and speak his mind. And he didn’t care what consequences that meant for him.
In some ways, Ivy even looked up to him. She thought if she stuck around him, she could learn to boldly be herself too.
But then it all came crashing down. The man she built up in her mind to be this perfect symbol of honesty turned out to be the biggest liar of them all.
Ivy’s eyes peeled open; tears rolled down to her cheeks.
Despite everything he put her though, she didn’t want to accept that it was true. She wanted him to rush back to her side and explain that it was all a misunderstanding.
But she saw it with her own eyes: his body had contorted into a vicious beast, the same one that stalked her through the school, tormented her—the same beast he’d denied ever existed.
Ivy pulled on the chain of her necklace, wanting to rip it off of her neck. But her hand felt frozen.
The easy solution would be to accept that he was a Shifter and hate him. But that felt harder than running away to the Foundling World.
Ivy let go of the necklace and grit her teeth.
What started as a growl built up into a scream deep from her stomach.
All of her rage culminated into her lungs as she unleashed the sound of howling hellhounds.
She couldn’t stay calm. Not any longer.
In the distance, the restroom stall slammed open.
Addie and Penny rushed to her. They buttoned up their shirts and fastened their jeans as they approached her.
Ivy turned around swiftly.
If Domenic wasn’t going to uphold brutal honesty, then she was going to uphold it herself. She wouldn’t be lied to again.
“If you want to leave, do it!” she screamed at the girls.
They froze and stared at her.
“Before this train arrives, I need to know that each of you are committed to this. I can’t promise when we’ll be going back home. And I can’t promise we’ll be safe.” She rolled her jaw, trying to bite back some of that fury. “Are you with me? Because if you’re not one hundred percent on my side, then you’re not welcome with me anymore.”
Her friends were silent.
Ivy felt a lump in the back of her throat.
She felt alone. In the entire world, she felt like there was no one left that she could trust.
“Ivy ...” Penny was sullen. “You’re going to get through this.”
Ivy released a shrill, barking laugh.
They were treating her like she had lost her grip on her own mind, but even with her tangled and wild thoughts, she’d never seen things so clearly before.
She needed someone to reach out a hand and pull her up. Everyone wanted to pull her back home instead.
Ivy opened her mouth to speak, but she was interrupted by the blinding light in the distance.
The train was pulling into the station.
10
Ivy darted her gaze to the clock, confused.
Time goes by fast when you’re shouting at the trees.
Now, Ivy understood how the Watcher could live out in the middle of the swamp with nothing and nobody other than nature.
The train pulled up to the platform.
They looked for a sign, but they found no words stating where the train was headed or where it came from.
“Is this ours?” Penny asked, looking worriedly at her lover.
Ivy shrugged and grabbed her bag. “Whose else would it be? C’mon, let’s get a good spot and get some rest before—”
Before you lot choose to go home and leave me here all alone.
The girls didn’t move.
Ivy looked back at them, fastening the shoulder straps into place, and titled her head.
Addie breathed heavily as she stood in front of the carriage doors.
“Something’s not right,” Penny said in a shivery voice. “The train—it’s thirty minutes early.”
Ivy glanced at the clock. She was right.
“So what?” Ivy said. “Bet they’re early and late all the time here.”
Penny shook her head, sharp fingernails growing. That froze Ivy on the spot. Nails growing meant danger.
“It’s not just that.” Penny reached for Addie’s hand and gripped, then she guided her away from the doors slowly, backing away. “The windows,” she said. “They’re all blacked out. And can’t ... can’t you smell that?”
Eyes on the painted-black windows of the train, Ivy sniffed the air. She shrugged. “I don’t smell anything worse than him.” She jerked her head to the homeless man.
Penny blinked as if zapped, then swerved her look to the homeless man. He roused, sleepily, on the bench far across the train station.
“He does smell...” she whispered.
Ivy rolled her eyes impatiently. “Can we get a move on or what?”
“Ivy—” Penny and Addie turned their wide eyes on her, and Penny said in a quiet, shaky voice, “—it’s them. They’re here.”
Again, Ivy sniffed the air, but she couldn’t smell anything too strong, anything that didn't smell like dirty humans and the rats that live with them.
“Who’s here?”
The doors slid open.
And she got her answer.
The Shifters had found them.
11
The man they saw inside the train was certainly no conductor.
His eyes were blue as the night sky, his teeth long and serrated, and he stood hunched over on his hind legs.
Penny tightened her hold on Addie. Ivy choked on a startled breath.
Then, Penny shattered the silence.
“They found us! Run!”
12
Ivy knew this moment was inevitable.
Still, she wasn’t expecting it so soon.
She thought they would be able to lay low for at least a few weeks before the Shifters found them.
But Ivy was becoming skilled at watching all of her plans crumble. But there was still a chance that they could escape.
Ivy didn’t want to fear the worst just yet.
Penny dashed ahead with Addie, towards the far terminal.
They heard the glass shatter behind them as they passed the restrooms.
Addie pointed to an unlit security office.
“In there!”
Ivy swerved her eyes over the office, and saw with a heavy feeling in her gut, an ordinary man shiver and melt into a beast.
A planted Shifter.
“Look out!”
Ivy skidded to a stop just in time.
The homeless man dived at her, almost knocking her off of her feet.
But she skidded underneath his soaring, changing body—and when he crashed into the wall, he’d fully transformed into a hairy bear-like thing.
The girls sprinted out of the station, their breaths frantic.
They heard the clawing of sharp nails and fearsome howls.
They didn’t have much chance of outrunning a Shifter, but
there was nowhere left to go in the station—only one door leading outside.
They barrelled ahead and stumbled into an empty parking lot.
A chain link fence surrounded the perimeter.
The girls gulped. A cage—they were trapped, if the Shifters had surrounded them before revealing themselves.
But none of the girls knew the Shifters’ plans, and they had to quickly scramble for one of their own.
“Over the fence!” Addie screamed.
Like gazelles, the three of them leapt over the barbed wire above the fence with ease, and landed on the other side.
Behind them, the metal of the fence shook.
The Shifter from the train ripped against the bars, trying to pull the fence out of the ground.
But his transformation didn't help him jump the fence. He was much too heavy, a giant tusked beast with claws longer than Ivy’s forearms.
Ivy turned back to the girls, but they weren’t in front of her anymore.
They’d sprinted ahead, thinking she was right behind them, and taken a path that led to a dimly lit tunnel.
“Ivy!” Addie’s cry seemed so far away.
“I’m coming!” Ivy bolted to catch up with them.
But there wasn’t just one Shifter to worry about.
Outside of the parking lot, on her side of the fence, a pack of five Shifters waited beside the dumpsters, each with snarled expressions.
Where are they coming from?
Ivy scrambled to take a sharp turn away from the Shifters as they barged towards her, and she headed for the mouth of the tunnel that Addie and Penny just disappeared into.
How did they find me?
Ivy caught up and piled into the darkness.
Before the tunnel swallowed her completely, she glanced over her shoulder.
The six Shifters had somehow multiplied into two dozen.
Ivy clutched onto her necklace.
Over twenty Shifters, a creature whose blood and bite could kill her, were coming at her in the hordes.
They’d known she was here, known how long she would be here, and they’d planned around it.
The Watcher...?
Had she let the Shifters know about the three Vampires who’d visited her, one called Ivy?