I find Jael's pants first and toss them behind me while I'm scrambling over to my shirt, which I know is on the floor. It's just out of my reach and I crash to my knees, hard enough to leave fresh bruises.

The neck hole is just barely over my head when Ivy struts into the room, looking both smug and spiteful. Reminds me of a bitter old hag, just like her mother, and she has both the power and inclination to ruin her ex-boyfriend's life in every way possible. Death wouldn't even be the worst of it.

No one is that twisted or has that kind of control over someone else's destiny. Except for Ivy, who clearly has no qualms in this scenario.

Jael didn't even bother with the ill-fitting pants. He's in wolf mode, growling at the corner of the bed, leaping at her as soon as she's in range.

He's a blur in the corner of my eye, but Ivy, unsurprisingly, is a stronger, craftier, more vicious supernatural in a confrontation like this and remains a step ahead of him. I've never seen her in action, besides the broomstick, but Jael's wariness around her didn't come from out of nowhere. It was always plain to me even before I had a chance to get to know them. She held the leash and the chain around his neck had spikes in it.

Now, before I even have my arms in my shirt holes, I get to see, firsthand, what Jael was so out of sorts about. It explains why he didn't just break up with her, early and outright, quit his job, or give in right away to our raw, undeniable attraction for one another.

Ivy doesn't need sharp teeth or bulk or tough skin. Her magical reflexes are instantaneous. She didn't even need words or hand motions. Jael simply freezes, midair, in his leaping formation. He crashes to the ground like he's some taxidermy project that fell from the ceiling, no more than a foot away from the edge of the bed.

Ivy is already a few steps closer to the stairwell. "Would you two get up here?" she tosses over the banister, to whoever is down there, waiting for her orders. "It's nothing our sweet Sam hasn't seen before, but yes, put some pants on. Or not. Whatever floats your boat and gets the job done," she finishes off, to no one in particular.

She's back in the bedroom, but she barely even spares me a glance. In fact, she goes for her phone, like a TikTok addict with a moment of time to kill.

She is so untouchable, and yet so disgustingly ordinary and predictable. She is exactly what a mean, spoiled twenty-something should never be—special and with authority over others who have obscene advantages as well.

If she does ever deign to look down on me, I admit, I'm too shocked and horrified to pay it much mind. I scramble on all fours, over to Jael's stiff wolf body. "You, you . . . killed him!" I accuse, finally looking up at her with angry tears in my eyes.

"Hardly." She brushes the both of us off with just the flick of her hand. Seemingly frustrated that we're somewhere in Nomansland, technology not nearly as efficient as her paralyzing magic, her focus remains on her phone. She keeps repeating an audible tap in her effort to get the call, or whatever she's attempting, to go through. Her eyes roll when it finally connects. She simply says, "I hate that you're always right," and ends the call, pocketing the phone in the back of her skin-tight pants.

I struggle to find Jay's pulse, and before I do, he starts convulsing. And it doesn't roll through him the way you'd envision in an animal. He's still so stiff.

"See? He's fine." Ivy nudges him aside with her foot, making him slide lifelessly over the wood floor a few inches. Then, with her pristinely clean combat boots, she clomps back over to the stairwell. "Are you coming or what?"

"I'm still here..." I set Jay's head in my lap. "I won't leave you." I'm stroking the fur away from his eyes when they start to flutter. "We're in this together," I try to convince him, not sure he can hear me but hoping he can.

"There's a neighbor we had to scare off," a recognizable male voice breaks in from down below. Rollin, I'm almost positive.

"Whatever. Let's go," Ivy says to him, leaning in for a pose on the banister that she probably thinks is seductive.

It makes me want to vomit.

Those three, life-altering words are followed by fast, running strides up the stairs, spanned in just a few steps.

Rollin appears, snickering at my situation. I'm wearing just a loose pajama shirt with an almost dead wolf in my bare lap. My hair is all over the place, and I have fat, useless tears in my eyes. As he reaches for Jael, I clutch his head to my chest, despite being startled by another set of footsteps.

Faolan walks into the room, and he does not make eye contact. "Fucking coward," I mumble aloud. It was supposed to be in my head, but I'm just so angry that it slipped out.

They were friends. Faolan pretended to be my friend. I thought it was genuine or was at least the product of some bro-code thing—be congenial and supportive while your newly single friend works up the courage to make a move.

Faolan doesn't even acknowledge that he heard me, but I'm sure he did. He continues to "act" aloof.

"You're the one who found us," I comment when he squats beside Jael's back legs.

Faolan glances up nervously when I say that, and it's all the validation I need.

From the stylish purse at Ivy's hip, she pulls out a wrapper to something and dangles it before my eyes. "Does this look familiar?"

I don't reply, but the answer is yes. It's the half-eaten protein bar I had in my jacket pocket. They both went into my backpack and survived the river, but Jay shook out the jacket and draped it over my shoulders once we were on land again.

It was still dark out. It was a race for survival.

He didn't know the protein bar was there. I forgot about it and shouldn't have put it in that pocket in the first place.

"Faolan, here..." Ivy pats his head like he's a good dog. "Could smell it from the other side of the river. Pretty careless of Jael, if you ask me," she goes on, ambling toward the window and peeking through the closed shades, bending the slats with a disregard that suits her. "If he wasn't so eager to bed you, you may have had a chance to get away."

"He wasn't eager," I argue uselessly. "It wasn't like that. He was tired. And worried. We hadn't slept well in days."

"Please," Ivy turns back toward me to scoff. She crosses her arms beneath her piggishly overexposed cleavage, popping out around the sides of her impractical leather jacket. "I'm no wolf, but even I can smell your shame."

As if I'm not sitting there, red-faced with guilt, clutching onto Jael's wolf head with all my strength, Rollin, with his hands beneath Jael's shoulders, begins with Faolan the count of three to lift him.

And somehow, I prevent it.

"Let go." Rollin's stare is direct—black, soulless, and terrifying. "You're just gonna hurt him more."

Through the cloudy lens of my tears, I can somehow see the truth. I'd be a fool to challenge any of them.

Rollin is right, and it stops me from giving them a harder time. I let go of Jay, and the two of them lift his rigid body and carry him through the open bedroom door. Ivy lingers a few steps behind, but it's clear she has better places to be and more interesting conversations to have. I get no more than a tsk and a disdainful headshake, and then she's out the door, too.

For a few seconds, I stay on the floor, sloppily kneeling there, less than half-dressed, alone and confused. Are they really going to leave me here?

It's both shocking and unacceptable. I shudder at the thought—what it all means and what they think it means—and I refuse to let them choose for me.

While they're stepping from the last of the stairs, bungling Jael's body over banisters and other obstacles, I stumble onto the landing at the top. "Stop!" I call out to them.

The brightness hits me, forcing a squint. There are broad windows throughout the open floorplan, and the sun is still high. They're doing this in broad daylight. Revenge is that important to them.

I earn myself three looks, but that's where their regard ends. They barely even pause. Ivy doesn't even bother to goad her henchmen onward. They're across the floor, steps away from the shattered back door before I'm even on the same level as they are.

"What's going to happen to him?" I demean myself further, traipsing over the glass with bare feet.

An old pickup truck with a soft-top is parked outside, with the hatch already open. The sight of it gives me a chill. I've been in it before, I think, in a similar predicament. Subdued, completely blind and helpless, and at the mercy of forces that can't be beaten, evaded, reasoned with, or outsmarted, not by anyone as ordinary as me or even Jael. Foolish that we even bothered, and here I am, about to grovel, ready to offer anything they're still willing to take from me. Anything besides him. That, I won't give up. If they intend to drive away with him, and I have any fight left in me, my body will be beneath the tires.

Rollin and Faolan are hefting Jael's body into the bed of the truck.

Ivy swivels on the porch stairs to face me. Her hands are up to prevent my approach. "It no longer concerns you."

There is, of course, the threat of magic, but I push my way past her, nonetheless, and hobble toward the truck, over knobby, ungroomed earth, with shards of glass in my feet. "Where he goes, I go," I let everyone know. The wolf-boys, the neighbors, God almighty. I don't care anymore.

"The gesture is romantic, truly," Ivy chides from behind, and I can hear the smirk in her tone. "But, dear sweet Sam, I have orders and you're no longer a part of them."

"And you follow orders?" I attempt to sneak into the back of the truck by Faolan, the weakest link here. "I thought this was all your little science project?"

"Which ended as soon as you opened your legs," Ivy responds while Faolan darts into my way, blocking my passage with his bare chest. "Recovery and fallout belong to Ishmael. He insists."

I shove Faolan with a firm, sudden shoulder—a football trick I've seen—and it hits him in the ribcage. It clearly knocks some wind out of him, but it puts my arms in range of his hands.

"Take the win, Sam," he whispers while he's wrestling me away from the truck.

Of course, everyone here is stronger than me without magic, and Faolan has what would be admirable muscle tone for his smaller, leaner size. Still, I tug my arms away from his grip and scoff in the face of it in a way that can't be misinterpreted. He needs to know how wholly unimpressed I am. "If you think this is a win, you're just as heartless as the rest of them."

I attempt to knee Faolan in the groin and just miss. This brings Rollin into the mix with a grunt of irritation.

He joins the wrestling match I have little hope of winning, though I can feel the devil simmering to a boil inside of me. Still, within seconds, I'm brought to the ground by the two of them in a very unladylike situation.

Faolan strolls off, swearing through his jagged breath, while Rollin is squatting beside me, smirking at the free show. I know exactly what he's thinking. Before he has a chance to get up, I kick him right in the nose.

I'm actually a tad proud of myself that I see blood there. It did cost me, though. A few extra millimeters of glass inside my heel and another flash of all things unholy, but it was well worth it.

"Bitch," he mutters, standing up and closing the bed and hatch of the truck.

You're welcome...

"Are we almost done here?" Ivy inquires, her phone in her hand once again, but it doesn't seem to hold her attention the same way. She's surveying the area with a level of paranoia that brings me hope.

I push to my feet, correcting my shirt. My eyes dart to the phone. "I want to talk to him."

"Talk to who? Jael?" she inquires, sidestepping into a stroll that leads her to the edge of the cabin. She checks around it and then slowly retraces her steps.

"Ishmael." He's the only one who might negotiate with me under these new set of terms.

I'm guessing Jael would rather die than see me with Ishmael, and I'd rather be with Ishmael than see him die. Maybe it's a good thing Jael is out of it right now. It's up to me to figure things out, and I will always choose what's best for him.

At the mention of Ishmael's name, it takes a second to sink in, but when it does, Ivy laughs and laughs. It resonates through her soulless depths and disrupts something in mine.

"Call. Him," I grind out in the deep, angry voice that isn't quite my own. And I pursue her, one dramatic step at a time. "What? Are you afraid?" I challenge her lack of a response, verbal or otherwise. "That he might listen? That after just one dinner, he clearly likes me better than you?" I look her over with more disgust than I've ever given anyone. "Word is, he wants to get rid of you. I can't say I blame him."

Ivy's eyes narrow to slits. She is a jealous creature, and maybe I hit her where it would actually hurt. Perhaps she's 0-2, or 0-3 in relationships if that Malecek guy didn't pan out.

I did kind of ruin that for her too, didn't I?

It makes me smile, and I hope it's scary.

At a glance, I notice the shifters aren't following me. They seem stunned, still and silent.

A glimmer of concern passes through Ivy's features as I close in on her, but she holds her ground, and her vindictive sense of humor seems to trickle back in. "You think you have more power than I do? Over anyone?" She takes another moment to laugh her hollow guts up. "It's almost endearing," she says through an ugly pout. "This is all just a side effect of bridging, by the way," she acknowledges me with another lazy flick of the hand, but I don't miss the tremor when she tucks it back beneath her breast. "Don't worry. It'll pass. Once He sees you for what you are, and to what lengths you'd debase yourself, just to go on living your dull, pathetic life..."

"Then why haven't you killed me yet?" I slink a step closer, moving fluidly, like I have snakes for bones. "You know you want to. I keep stealing things you can't quite hold on to, and yet, here I am, alive, and not nearly as dull and pathetic as you'd like to believe. As you are, yourself."

Will Ivy rise to this new challenge? I guess I'll never know. Her attention deflects to the sound of fast-approaching tires. A siren begins to wail in the distance.

Just so everyone in a three-mile radius knows exactly where I am, I scream at the top of my lungs for as long as I can bear the pain and sustain the breath.

"Oh, for the love of—" I lose some of her final words with that little zap of her magic. Some of my faculties abandon me, but not all of them, like I expected.

It's a strange and unique phenomenon, not like Ishmael's mind-control power, which felt like knives twisting into my head. This is more like I'm in a hazy, soundless bubble and I weigh five thousand pounds. It stings, like a low-level current of electricity all throughout my body, but it's not unbearable.

With all my strength and determination, I get my hand to lift in slow motion. I cock my head at Ivy, who seems to be working harder than I've ever seen her, just to make sure I don't move.

Maybe this is another one of Faolan's "wins," but he's not on my team and he's a sore loser, through and through. He's in good company, and maybe that's why he keeps the company he does.

Ivy and I may be at an impasse, but someone creeps in from the side and takes me down the old-fashioned human way—with blunt-force trauma.

The last thing I see is Faolan with a bloody rock in his hand.