Page 122 of Corrupting Ivy

Randall’s face dripped with blood, which trickled down to his tattooed torso. With a violent, dark glance, he stood peering at me as if he could see straight to my soul. It chilled me to my core, freezing my beating heart in my chest.

With a snap of his fingers and a motion with his hand, two armed men flung their guns to their backs, picking Jeremiah up off the ground, each man grabbing an arm.

I sat in shock, unable to utter a single word, surrounded by a meager but highly armed militia. Randall took a tissue out of his pocket and used it to clean the blood off his knuckles and face before slipping it back in his pocket. The two men dragged Jeremiah’s ragged, bloody body to the ball mill’s opening.

Was he going to… No. He wouldn’t.

Alek flipped the switch on the generator, firing it up, and confirmed what I’d feared.

The ball mill began rotating. Its heavy steel balls beat against the inside of the machine.

“Wait.” I raced towards Randall. “Stop. What are you doing?”

As I approached him, the metallic tang of blood in the air became stronger until I could taste it on my tongue. My heart hurt as it fell into my stomach, twisting and churning with my guts.

I yanked on his arm, forcing him to look at me, remembering the days I wasn’t able to touch him. His brown eyes fell on mine. I gasped and released him like hot embers in my hands. They were black and hollow as if the man I knew vanished and left me with something unrecognizable.

“Randall?”

The men holding Billy at gunpoint wheeled him over as he screamed. “Ivy, please. Don’t let them do this to me. I didn’t want to go through with any of it. He made me.” They stopped him next to Jeremiah. “Please listen to me.”

I turned to face him, seeing the fear flooding his eyes, then I glanced back at Randall. He didn’t deserve my pity.

“You once told me you killed him, and yet here he is.” He placed his hand on my chin and moved my head up and to the side. He stared at the inflamed bruises I’d forgotten about. “Now, it’s my turn to make sure the job is done right.”

“Randall,” I shook my head. “Not like this. He isn’t worth it.”

“I warned you I wasn’t a good man, Ivy. You’re mine now, and this is what happens to anyone who touches someone who belongs to me.”

Flutters burst across my belly.

How could his revelation swarm me with lust and passion when he was about to do this?

I jerked my chin from his grasp and backed away from him as Billy screamed. I needed to get far away from this, but I couldn’t. I was smack in the middle of it all with nowhere to go. Randall gave the soldiers the okay with a nod. They picked him up, wheelchair and all, then threw him inside.

Billy’s bone-chilling screams bounced around the cement truck-like barrel as the steel balls rotated around, crushing him.

I covered my ears. My stomach churned as they bent down to do the same with Jeremiah. Then, I turned and ran, but not before I saw what remained of Billy pooling on the ground in a slurry of dark red sludge.

Ducking behind Jeremiah's car with the crumpled front, I heaved what little I had in my stomach to the ground beneath me.

Four men broke through the clearing, carrying Sheriff Dun’s corpse. I could only assume they intended to do the same with his remains as they did with the others.

When the cramping in my stomach receded, I stood and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

Out of my periphery, Randall stalked towards me.

I swayed away from him, my heel catching on a rock. Twisting, I caught myself before my knees scraped against the ground.

“Ivy. Stop.”

Stumbling to my feet as I walked down the rocky mining road, my hand covering my mouth, hoping to stem the nausea and gain some distance from the noisy machine.

Randall picked up his pace, following behind me while my heart sent conflicting signals to my brain.

I wanted him to hold me, but then I wanted to run, not from him, but from all of this.

Mr. Grady’s agonizing screams seared into my mind with staggering clarity, and now Billy’s joined him.

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