Chapter 2

Ivy's POV

I kept one hand on the door until the latch caught. The men had come in close together, but the instant the light went out, one of them stumbled into a drum. The clang made it sound as though he'd run halfway across the room.

"Kevin? What'd you shut it for?"

"I didn't touch it."

"You were right behind me. If it wasn't you, then—"

Something brushed my sleeve. One of them had backed up almost to the door. I still had Rubio's file in my hand. When the man turned, I caught him before he could get a word out.

"Hey! Who just grabbed me?" another voice said.

The first man hit the floor. I moved along the row of drums, feeling my way with my free hand, and my knuckles caught on a length of square steel tubing that stuck out between two of them. I worked it loose.

"Tito?" The voice came again, louder this time. "Come on, man. Answer me."

The second man went toward the sound on the floor. By the time he heard me behind him, I'd already swung. He dropped hard enough to rattle the drum beside him.

Kevin was the only one still on his feet. I could hear him dragging in air through his mouth. He backed away until his heel caught on something, and he landed hard on his ass. One palm slapped the concrete. When he lifted it, his fingers made a sticky sound coming off the floor.

"What am I touching? Oh, Jesus. What is that?"

He tried to stand. His foot slid out from under him, then slipped again when he tried to brace it. The third time, I waited until he was upright and swung the steel across his knees. The crack came a split second before the scream.

I went back to the door and opened it. Light spilled across the concrete, all the way to where Kevin was folded over his legs. I let the end of the pipe scrape the floor as I walked toward him. He watched it for a second, then looked past me as if one of his friends might still get up and help.

Tito lay on his side with blood welling through the cut in his throat. Every breath made a low, bubbling sound. The other man was facedown, his head turned just enough for Kevin to see one open eye. There was a dent in the back of his skull. Kevin looked down at his wet hand. A dark patch spread down the front of his jeans.

"Who paid you to bring me here?"

I knew Kevin from school. We'd barely spoken. Mostly I'd seen him hanging around with guys like Rubio or showing off in the halls. He'd had to go out of his way to get involved with me.

"You can't kill me." His lips kept moving after the words ran out. "I didn't even—"

I lifted the pipe.

"Chloe!" He threw an arm over his head. "This was Chloe's idea. She sent me twenty grand to get a guy to do it and send her the video."

I held the pipe where it was.

"The transfer's on my phone. Look at it yourself." He swallowed. "Once she had the video, all she'd have to do was threaten to send it around. You'd go to whatever college she picked. Same school as her. She said she could make you do anything after that."

Of course it was Chloe. I'd seen her find the one thing a girl was scared to have spread around school and hold it over her until she gave in. It made my stomach turn to hear how casually Kevin could explain what she'd meant to do with me.

He told me the passcode before I even asked. "You got what you wanted, okay? We go to school together. You know me. I swear I'll keep my mouth shut. Nobody's ever gonna hear about—"

He ducked as I swung. The pipe caught him in the back of the head.

I took the phone from his pocket and entered the code he'd given me. Chloe's messages were still there, along with a record of the transfer. In another thread, the men had been sharing videos of assaults. Kevin turned up in clip after clip. So did the men he'd brought here with him.

The first time around, I'd kicked Rubio in the face hard enough to break his nose. I'd made it out of the room, but I'd heard them coming after me, and when I reached the waste pit, I'd dived headfirst. I'd meant to die before they caught me. Once I hit the liquid, instinct took over. I could swim. I stayed under until my chest hurt and waited for the men above me to give up. By the time I pulled myself over the edge, they'd gone. They must have figured I'd drowned.

My face had come through it, but the chemicals had left the rest of my skin raw and red. I'd swallowed some of the stuff on the way down and spent days burning with fever. By the time I went to the police, Rubio and the other two had skipped town. The police picked up Kevin. At the station he'd cried and said the others had made him go along with it. His lawyer got him out on bail, and the next time I saw him, he was back at school.

"Better start walking home with somebody," he'd said. "Next time I get you alone, we'll finish what we started."

With his phone still in my hand, I could hear him saying it as clearly as if he'd just leaned over and whispered it in my ear. I set the phone down and hit him a few more times.

Getting all four men to the pit took longer than killing them. I dragged Kevin and the other two out of the storage room by their ankles, one at a time. Then I went back for Rubio, still lying where I'd left him on the plant floor. My arms shook every time I stopped to get a better grip.

I knocked over drums of industrial chemicals and watched the runoff spread through the blood. Then I set the plant on fire. The place had stood empty for years. I was counting on anyone who came to look seeing an old industrial fire and deciding there was no reason to pump out the pit. I'd been down in it. I knew how deep it went.

Two weeks until the hurricane. For now the police still answered calls, and I couldn't afford to spend those fourteen days waiting for a knock at the door. I had too much to get ready.

As far as I was concerned, only the dead could be trusted with a secret.

At the offshore lab, they'd laid me out on a table day after day and cut into me. I'd become a monster in that place a long time ago.