Page 116 of Corrupting Ivy

Jeremiah stepped around his brother, then ripped the tape off my face, pulling all the tiny hairs along with it.

“Don’t you have anything to say?”

I shook my head, my words frozen like my body.

Did he want me to tell him I was sorry? I wouldn’t say it. How could I? He deserved it after everything he did to me.

Jeremiah swooped down and backhanded me across the cheek. My skin stung with white-hot pins from the impact, followed by a dull clunk reverberating through my eardrums.

My mouth opened in a silent cry.

“Tell him you’re sorry.” He bent down and pulled my hair at the back of my skull, forcing me to look at Billy. Flashes of sharp pain rode up and down my spine as he held my head back, causing me to shriek. “Look him in the eyes and tell him you're sorry.”

I diverted my gaze, but not before I saw the glint of amusement in Billy’s eyes. He’d smirked, just like he always did when he was proud of what he’d done to me. He wasn’t just an angry abuser—he was a sadistic one who enjoyed my pain.

Jeremiah gripped my cheeks with his massive hands and squeezed until my molars pressed into my flesh. “Look at him,” he said, seething. Spittle erupted from the space between his teeth.

“Okay, that’s enough,” my father said, putting a hand on Jeremiah’s shoulder.

Jeremiah whirled around and punched my father in the face twice before knocking him down to his knees. Peter grabbed my father, holding him for Jeremiah to assault.

“Stop it,” I said with a shrill scream, then stood from the couch and rushed him. Jeremiah turned, and with one giant hand to the center of my chest, shoved me hard. I stumbled backward, my legs hitting the couch, causing me to tumble over and my feet to fly into the air above me.

He turned back to my father. His head hung to his chest as Peter held him up on his knees. A string of bloody saliva touched the ground next to the small puddle of blood dripping from his nose. Peter pulled his head up with a fist full of hair, revealing a deep gash in my father’s forehead. Jeremiah swung again, hitting my father in the nose, then to the temple. This time, Peter let him fall to the floor, where he didn’t move.

“You fucking asshole.”

“Watch who you’re speaking to, Ivy,” Billy said.

“I’ll never tell you I’m sorry. I hate you with every sense of the word and every fiber of my being. You mean nothing to me and wish I would have done the job right the first time.”

Jeremiah launched himself at me and hauled me up by my arms, then backhanded me.

Stars danced in my vision as the tunnel narrowed.

His hand came down again.

I felt nothing.

The tunnel closed.

The light disappeared.

“She’s on the move again.”

My hands squeezed the steering wheel as I watched the time tick by second by slow second. “We’re almost there. Thirty more minutes.”

“It might be sooner than that. She’s heading in our direction.”

My gut tightened, twisting into a knot as I weighed my options. Do I speed up and get to her sooner? Or do I park us on the roadside and wait for her to pass us.

“On this road?” I asked.

“Let me see that,” Alek said, holding his hands out for the laptop.

The bright screen illuminated the truck as he placed it on his lap.

“I’d say they have about twenty minutes until we come in contact with them,” Alek said, then got on the radio to the men behind us. “Buckle up, boys. We’re about to make contact.”

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