Page 142 of Gravehouse

Alive.

The word leaves me and the room slips sideways. My hand stays splayed over Asher’s chest, his heart hammering under blood and skin, and the walls inside my brain split open.

“Ivy,” he says close to my mouth.Too close.

Cold air cuts my throat. Branches slap my arms. Snow sinks under my bare feet as I run with no plan except away, away, away from the house, from his lies, from the look on that woman’s face when she—the woman.

Sharp cheekbones. Green eyes.

“I don’t understand—“ I stumble backwards, squeezing my eyes shut like it might drag me out of this nightmare.

“You see this?” Emeric said, gesturing to the same picture of the same woman. God, what was his deal with her? “When you see this face, what will you do?”

I didn’t even answer because what?

“Ivy, look at me.” Asher’s thumb presses under my jaw. The touch almost pulls me out. Almost.

It had been a month since he last pulled out her photo, but here he was again.

“Who is this woman!” Emeric yelled so loud my ears rang.

I stared at the picture, like a cloud going over my head. Blank. Void. “A trigger.”

“Who is also…” he asked, eyeing me.

I looked up at him. “My mother.”

He clicked his fingers.

Tears burn my eyes as the room around me softens.

Asher steps closer, and the night I ran from him drags me back under.

Once I’m far enough from my mother, I walk through trees. I walk down the mountain road. Ice cuts my soles open and gravel grinds into raw skin, leaving blood across snow, dirt, and pavement, and I don’t feel a damn thing. The tunnel waits at the bottom of the road.

Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, the concrete damp under my feet. My footprints smear red behind me.

I don’t look back.

I know where I’m going.

Shit. “I know where I’m going.”

A black security panel sits beside a steel door I’ve never seen, except my palm lifts to it on its own, fingers spread, hand steady. The reader flashes green.

“He put my biometrics into the—” My hands wave around the room, everyone watching me. “I don’t know when…”

The door opens, carrying bleach and metal. Beyond it, the conditioning ward.

Cuffs hang from a ceiling rail, leather worn dark at the edges, chains already lowered to the right height. I step beneath them. I lift my arms. No command. No struggle.

I slide one wrist in.

Click.

Then the other.

Click.