End With A Bang (Slap/Bang Duet #2)

26. Wake Up

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Wake Up

Ivy had become an abstract sunflower.

She was an exquisite sight; laughing and dancing, leaving squiggles of color across a boundless white canvas. Sever knew he couldn’t join her, but he didn’t mind. Her joy was infectious.

“Wake up, Boy Wonder,” a teenaged Aidan said, slinging a gangly arm around Sever’s neck. “The world is waiting.”

Aidan had a point. A masterpiece like this didn’t belong to any one person. It belonged to the entire world. They needed to set her free, so that everyone could experience her power.

“We should set her free,” he told his boyhood chum, “so that everyone can?—”

“WAKE UP!”

Startled out of his vivid dream, Sever opened his eyes. Aidan wasn’t there, and Ivy wasn’t a painted sunflower.

She was beside him, jolting upright in alarm, his son’s name on her lips.

That woke him up—and so did the sight of Jason in the room, trembling with rage, pointing a semiautomatic pistol at him.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Ivy,” Jason said. “Move away.”

She didn’t budge. “What the hell are you doing, Jason? Put that down!”

“Shut up! Shut your mouth and move away or I swear to God I’ll?—”

“You’ll shoot me?” Ivy said, eyes wide.

Sever knew he very well could—by accident. The boy was hanging on by a thread. “Ivy, do as he says. Move away.”

“I will not! This is insane! You’re not a killer, Jason! You’re angry, and you have every right to be, but you’re not?—”

He fired at the chaise by the window, causing a plume of stuffing to fly out of it. Either Jason knew that the deluxe suites were soundproof, or he didn’t care.

In any case, it had the desired effect: Ivy shrieked and jumped out of bed. Sever stayed put.

Jason advanced. “I come from a long line of killers, don’t I, Dad?” His nostrils flared. “I’m thinkin’ I should embrace my true nature. Like father, like son?”

“Go on, then.” With unwavering eye contact, Sever peeled back the duvet that covered him and said, “Shoot me.”

“Sever, don’t be an idiot!” Ivy hissed, “Tell him!”

Jason seemed momentarily thrown by the fact that Sever was wearing trousers. They’d spent the night in a chaste embrace—she hadn’t taken off her shirt or sweatpants either; he was probably noticing that now.

If he hadn’t known their affair went beyond the pleasures of the flesh, he knew it now.

“What are you waiting for, son?” Fairly confident that it would have the opposite effect, he provoked him, “Follow in my footsteps.”

Predictably rattled by that, Jason swung the gun toward Ivy. “Don’t touch that phone!”

She dropped her phone, held her quivering hands up. “Okay!”

“Jason,” Sever reasoned, “no one’s making any calls. It’s me you want, not her, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jason agreed with a sneer, returning his aim to Sever’s forehead. “It really is.”

Ivy whispered tremulously, “This is so stupid?—”

“Shut up.” Jason glanced at her as he kept Sever in the crosshairs. “You don’t get to talk, you lying, cheating, monster-loving whore.”

“She didn’t do this to hurt you,” Sever said. “Neither did I.”

“No, of course you didn’t. You just saw something shiny that you couldn’t have, and you stole it from me, just like you steal everything else!”

“You’re right. I was selfish. It wasn’t fair to you.”

“Yeah, well, excuse me for not being in the most forgiving mood right now, my wife just left me for a murderer !”

“He’s not a murderer,” Ivy insisted through clenched teeth. “He didn’t kill anyone. Tell him, Sever.”

“Don’t, Ivy, let it go.”

“No!” She shouted. “The lies end here and now. Tell him about Roxie, or I will.”

Jason tutted in bitter amusement. “Yeah, tell me. What bullshit line did you feed Ivy to convince her you didn’t strangle my mother to death?”

Sever heaved a sigh of resignation. Ivy was right, there was no point in lying anymore. No one left to protect, aside from a tiny, frightened Stéphane, shivering on a cross. He’d projected that child onto Jason for far too long. So, he said it: “She’s alive.”

Jason opened his mouth, sputtered for a moment as he processed this information. “You think I’m stupid? What the hell are you two trying to pull?”

“It’s true,” Ivy said. “I saw her. I saw her with my own eyes. Just... please put the gun down and we can talk about this?—”

“No! I don’t believe you! I don’t believe either of you!” Confounded, stupefied, his adrenaline fuel running out, he lowered the pistol. “What... You saw her?”

Ivy nodded.

Cautiously, Sever got out of bed. “Give me the gun, and I’ll tell you everything. I’ll even take you to her.”

“This is... I don’t even... I don’t believe you.”

Jason was so disoriented that Sever was able to gently wrest the gun away. Safety engaged, he tucked it into the back waistband of his khakis and put an open palm on Jason’s shoulder.

Jason pulled away, but it was an afterthought. Dazed, he sat on the bed.

Crisis averted... thanks to Ivy. Sever cast her a glance.

She was solemnly gathering her things. “I’ll go,” she said, bag strap on her shoulder. “You two have a lot to talk about.”

Wait. She was leaving him? Now? Before they’d even had a chance to say their proper goodbyes? “Ivy...”

She gave him a sweet, sad smile. This was it. The end. “Goodbye, Sever.”

He sighed, helpless and heartbroken. After she left the room, he sat on the bed and noticed Jason peering at him sidelong. He’d gotten the picture.

He was a smart boy. ... Man . A smart man.

Perhaps they did have a lot to talk about.

“What the fuck ?” Ivy said out in the living area, and then she was back at the bedroom door—this time with a wild-eyed brunette holding a compact silver handgun to her chin.

He didn’t dare move, but Jason sprang up. “Kara, what are you?—?”

“Back off, Jason. This isn’t about you.” Her glare was settled on Sever. “Hands in the air, both of you.”

Sever raised his arms, at a loss as to how—and why—Kara Bennett had ended up in this hotel room.

Ivy’s eyes were on him.

“Kara, what the fuck?” Jason asked.

“That’s enough out of you, kids,” Kara said, riveted by Sever. “The grown-ups are talking now.”

“That we are,” Sever said carefully, reading her for clues. She was staring at him like she knew him, intimately. Had he bedded this girl a decade ago? She looked to be in her early thirties; that would make her old enough. Or perhaps she’d been a Masterson girl... “What can I do for you?”

“Tell me what I need to know, and I might not blow her pretty pink brains all over your love motel.”

Ivy was wearing a brave face, but she was terrified, and so was he. If anything happened to her because of some misstep he’d made in the past... Well, that wasn’t going to happen. “Let her go, I’ll tell you anyway.”

“Ha. No. Who’s the body?”

“The...?”

“ Body . The dead one that you passed off as Roxie? Her name wouldn’t be Desdemona Rowe, would it?”

Sever stared at her anew. “Who are you?”

Kara cocked the gun she held to Ivy’s throat. “Answer the bloody question!”

“Yes! Yes, that was her name.”

“She ever mention a little girl named Ophelia?”

“Wh...” She had, as a matter of fact. That was the name Dez had given the love child they’d conceived in her incestuous, goth Bonnie and Clyde fantasy. But that was just a fantasy , it wasn’t... real...

She slid the gun from Ivy’s chin to her cheek, and the clothes she wore came into view. Black velvet and crystals...

He remembered that dress. That necklace. And those eyes. “Ophelia.”

She smiled, sardonic. “Hi, Dad.”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Ivy muttered, while Jason echoed, “‘ Dad’ ?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Kara informed Jason, “You banged your big sister. Several times. Sorry to break it to you like this.”

Ivy’s nose wrinkled, and Jason reeled.

“Hang on, all of you. I never slept with Dez before that night?—”

“Sure about that, Batman?”

Batman . Sever frowned as that triggered a long-buried memory of a seemingly insignificant night: Aidan gave him ecstasy, stuck a Batman mask on Sever’s head and they raced across the river on stolen bikes to a squat crawling with goth runaways.

“She was sixteen, just like you. You were at a masquerade of some kind. You may not remember, but you were her first.”

Sever didn’t recall shagging anyone that night, but then he didn’t recall anything between the time he walked in and the time he woke up in a dusty clawfoot bathtub the next afternoon. Try to look surly , Aidan had told him on the way. No woman can resist a dark knight. “I had no idea.”

“Neither did I. I had to figure it out myself. From the clues in her yampy rants and riddles!” As her veneer cracked, a slight Brummie accent surfaced through the American one she’d clearly cultivated. Yampy was one of Dez’s favorite words. “I had to figure all of this out myself. Even what you did to her.”

Her death, she meant. “I promise you, it was an accident, Ophelia.”

Her lashes fluttered at the sound of her name, but she held her ground. “I could accidentally pull this trigger.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Jason warned her, but Sever held up a hand to quiet him.

“Or, you could let her go. This is between you and me, yeah?”

She shook her head. “I’d rather kill the only thing on earth that makes you happy.”

Sever tried very hard to tamp a violent reaction to that. “She doesn’t want me.” His gaze met Ivy’s for a moment. “Nothing matters anymore.”

“How sweet and tragic and patently false. Where is Roxie?”

He cocked his head. “What do you want with Roxie?”

“It was her idea, wasn’t it? To invite my mother over that night. Roxie knew about me, you know, but she hated that I existed. That there was another link to you out there.” She stepped forward with Ivy in her grasp. “Did she make you do it? Egg you on?”

“No,” Sever said, aware that telling her the truth could lead to an even messier situation. “It was all me.”

“My mother promised me I would meet my father. But before she could do that, she disappeared.” A tear ran down her cheek. “Desdemona Rowe was crazy as a loon, and she was a godawful mother, but you killed her and disposed of her like she was a piece of rubbish. Like I ... was...”

“I wish I had known about you,” Sever said, earnestly, and that made her falter.

“This is bullshit,” Jason said, and snatched the gun out of Sever’s waistband.

Reflexively, Kara aimed her gun at Jason, and reflexively, Sever stood in front of his son.

There was a pop, and a strange, hot sensation. Sever sussed out what had happened by watching Ivy’s horrified face.

He’d been shot.

He lost his balance, and collapsed onto one knee.

“NO!” Ivy ran to Sever just as he toppled to his back. She covered his spurting wound. Was that his heart? “Sever? Sever. Sever! You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

She didn’t sound very convinced. She looked lovely, though. Like an angel. He saw a gun, pointed in Jason’s direction... “Behind you.”

Another shot rang out, but it didn’t come from Kara’s gun. Kara disappeared from view, and he heard a thud. Ivy turned around, crawled away, and came back with his blood-spattered phone.

“What happened? Is Jason...”

“Shhh, he’s okay. We’re all okay.” Hand on his chest, she put the phone to her ear. “Terrell? Sever’s hurt.” Tears began to stream down her face. “We need a medevac... Please hurry!”

He wanted to touch her face, but he couldn’t move his arm. “Don’t cry. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said, sobbing. “I love you so much.”

Well, that was overdue. With what breath he had left, he chuckled. “What’s a fella got to do, get shot?”

“Don’t laugh.” She pressed her lips to his ear. “I love you, Sever. I love you...”

Those were the last words he heard.