Page 137 of Gravehouse

Ivy shakes against the chains with no control over any of it.

Cross-trauma. Every response caged, poked, prodded: every memory that caused it hitting her at once. Emeric is forcing her to relive all of it so he can condition her to obey him again.

The whine spikes, and Ivy’s mouth opens on a scream I can’t fucking hear.

“Asher.” Amélie ’s voice drifts from somewhere far off. “Asher, what are you?—”

My hands are shaking. The phone slips out of them and hits the floor with a thud, and everyone rushes for it in slow motion.

“Oh God,” Punk breathes.

I snatch the two semi-autos off the table, slinging one and carrying the other, and grab three magazines, jamming them into my waistband without slowing down.

“Ash—” Atlas lunges off the couch. “Ash, it’s bait, you know it’s bait?—“

I don’t give a fuck what it is. It’s her, in pain, and me, sitting here doing nothing.

Daniel and Sinead are climbing off the snowmobile as I slam the front door closed. They’ve been out searching for hours for nothing. I should have known to go straight to fucking Dovecrest from the beginning.

“You wanna put a shirt on, boss?” Sinead calls after me.

Fuck no. What I want is to rip Emeric, Camille, and her fucking mother apart.

And I will.

One-ninety on thespeedometer and the Aston’s still pulling. Snow comes off the rear tires in two white plumes, the heater cranked against my bare chest.

Khloe’s been screaming through the speakers since I left.

“—actual stupidest motherfucker alive, I swear to God, Asher, pull over and I mean it?—”

“Khloe, fucking relax!”

Snow sweeps across the road, hiding the faded center line. I steer from one clean patch of asphalt to the next, pushing the Aston through the winding roads between Veilarath and Désamour. The rear tires slip through a bend, catching again when I ease off for half a second.

Half a second is probably pushing it...

“Asher!” my sister snaps. The irritation would be perfect rage bait if I wasn’t dead fucking serious about getting to Ivy. “HE SENT IT TO YOU.”

I wince.

Her voice cracks the speaker. “You are being stupid and fucking erratic and—” she pauses. “Oh my God you’re giving Atlas right now!”

That kills all the smugness in my chest.

“What do you want, Khlo,” I say. “For me to pull over and give Emeric another hour with her?”

“No.” Pause. “Just twelve minutes until we catch up.”

“Sounds like I need to take you driving again. You’re a bit rusty…”

“Ash,” Khloe groans. “You go in alone, he gets exactly what he wants.”

I laugh. “I don’t give a fuck because he already has what I want.”

The video replays inside my head.

I press harder on the accelerator until I reach two thirty-five.