Page 138 of Burning Ivy (The KORT)

What in the actual fuck?

My rage has sought solace in plans concocted through silent seething, in flames swallowing the hollowness of betrayal, in breadcrumbs scattered for the ravenous loved ones who mirrored traitors.

Fury from behind a curtain, like the Great and Powerful Oz.

Today, the veil tears.

I’m swaddled in a lung-suffocating bulletproof vest and adorned head to toe with weapons, like a psychotic assassin. And you know, I hope they see me fucking coming because if I’m going to unload a mag of rage into someone, I want them looking me in my eyes when I’m doing it.

Like I’m a badass gangster.

Yeah, that’s what I’m telling myself to pump up for the impending wrath, but I’m actually just a girl who grew up with pigtailed braids and family dinners and a healthy interest in superhero movies.

I’m not a killer.

I’m scared out of my wits.

But for the two people who devoted their lives to shroud me in a protective cocoon, even though I’m still pissed as all get-out at my mother, I’ll become one.

I’ll sell that part of my soul to keep theirs intact—an aberration from the skittery career plans Celeste and I cooked up. The life of a gallery owner billows out more like a hazy delusion than an achievable aspiration.

But erasing myself, hacking into security systems, and laying traps for the country’s most savage triggermen?

An even greater crackbrained hallucination.

How is this my fucking life?

I’m confident Wells will swoop in and rescue my mother. The riled hit men trying to kill me won’t anticipate that. They’ll expect me to show up at my father’s treatment facility.

I’ve always hated disappointing people, so off I go.

The ground is blanketed in a heaping sheet of snow, thanks to a storm that rolled through yesterday. It adds a chilling backdrop to the death trap I’m trudging toward. The slush-slogged roads are slippery, but the all-wheel-drive Porsche Cayenne Turbo I bought has both speed and traction, so there’s that.

Slowing to a crawl near Shady Pines, I scope out the vehicles and immediately identify three in question—a beefy SUV, a crossover utility car, and a scraggly coupe, which has clearly seen better days. It isn’t so much the makes or models roiling my nerves; it’s the abhorrent horror show lurking within them.

All at once, their bloodthirsty eyes land on me—the coveted guest of honor.

A sacrificial lamb.

In a bizarre out-of-body experience, I flash a caustic megawatt grin and offer an audacious, full-finger wave.

This is the fuzziness I was referring to—the exploits my brain isn’t weighing in on.

Goading taunts hurled at a firing squad.

The black SUV is the first to rally the resolve. A brief rotation of chunky tires.

Quickly jerking to a zealous charge.

And I’m gone, bulldozing through the goopy brown snow, the treads of my tires working overtime to procure the needed traction, windows sprayed and splattered with sludge.

Three rabid hunters are blazing a snow-laden trail in my wake.

But they don’t know these roads like I do.

I swerve around a parked car, narrowly avoiding another charging at me as I white-knuckle the steering wheel for a sharp turn. After a short stint on the main road, zipping between a minivan and a sedan, one of my shadows—the battered coupe—fishtails into a snowbank. I glance in my rearview mirror and tsk.

We’ve barely gone two miles, dumbass.

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