< Cameron

(Ivory's P.O.V.)

"If you're going to sneak wounded boys into the house, you've got to be a little less obvious about it," I spoke up as soon as I heard Liam's footsteps lazily coming downstairs.

He pinched his nose in frustration, causing a smirk to break out on my lips. "Give it a rest Sherlock. Do you have nothing better to do than to spy on your own brother?"

"Nothing escapes my eagle eyes." I shrugged. "Besides, Alex isn't too good at sneaking out, he broke a photo frame. For someone who kills for a living, I expected better."

"What time did he leave?" he asked, ignoring my last statement.

I rolled my eyes at him when I noticed the small blush spreading on his skin, which he was very unsuccessfully trying to hide by pulling at the neck of his shirt. I didn't understand why he even bothered trying to hide it. It was an established fact now, Alex meant Liam becoming a red tomato.

"Oh please tell me you didn't fuck. I'll have to bury him alive." I scrunched up my nose, barely stifling my laugh when he almost dropped the glass in his hand .

"Get your mind out of the gutter." He glared and sat down next to me.

"Hey, did Ashton pick your call? I tried several times as soon as I woke up. I figured he might be pissed, it completely slipped out of my mind due to . . . " he trailed off, not saying Alex's name.

I frowned. "No, he didn't answer my call either. Maybe he's just shaken from everything that's happening. I mean, he gets answers today doesn't he?"

"Way to celebrate the twenty fifth," Liam tsked.

"Anyway," I said, finished with my breakfast, "I'll go check on him, got nothing better to do, perks of having night shifts."

"I'll try to get out of work early too, 'cause I doubt Tristan would let me take another off," he said. I kissed him on the cheek before grabbing my stuff and walking towards my car.

The cold air hit me like a truck the minute I stepped out of the house, making me shiver and pull the coat close to my body. I pulled open the door of my car and got in, turning on the heater to warm up again. Whoever invented heaters had my greatest respects.

I could've just walked to his place, we lived pretty close anyway, but I decided to see Jules later on and no way in hell was I walking in this chilly weather. I pulled up next to his house, instantly narrowing my eyes at a black Ferrari that stood there.

Cameron.

No doubt it was the asshole's car.

And Jules was standing right next to it to confirm my assumption.

I got out, locking my own car behind me and looked for the other car that was absent, signaling that Theo wasn't home.

What did Cameron want here?

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I asked. Taken by surprise, she dropped her phone with a loud screech escaping her mouth. I rolled my eyes at her reaction. It was surprising how she couldn't handle me popping out of nowhere but still managed to fall in love with a criminal.

"Jesus! You scared me Ivory," she breathed out in relief when she saw that it was just me and picked up her phone.

"Yeah, before I get more scary, what is the asshole doing here?" I asked, pointing at the car she was leaning on. He had to be here with her because no way in hell would there be a day when Cameron Ty would let someone else drive his car.

"I don-I don't know, he just told me to wait here. He came to look for Theo but nobody is home. Ashton . . . he's missing, I'm assuming that Ace guy got to him."

"So? He's just gonna break in?" I fumed. But not missing the last part of her sentence. He was missing?

He had some nerves, breaking into the house of my friends. Criminal or not, I wasn't shit scared of him. I could still happily choke him with my own hands.

I stomped inside the house. He had been successfully escaping my clutches for long now.

Not today Cameron, not today.

"Cameron-fucking-Ty get the fuck out of this house right now!" I yelled. Jules followed behind me, constantly trying to pull me back but I kept snatching my arm from her grasp. I yelled again but there was no reply whatsoever.

That bloody asshole! Thinks he can just avoid me, huh?

I moved towards the staircase.

"Ivory stop!" Juliana came to stand in front of me before I could, trying to push me out of the house.

"What are you doing? Just let me handle him." I tried to get her off me but she pushed me too hard. I fell on the floor as my head painfully hit the edge of the wall. A pang of agony shot through my head as I clamped my hand over it, feeling a sticky liquid starting to ooze out. "What the—" I stared at my blood coated finger tips in shock.

I raised up my eyes to shoot a glare at Juliana, but disbelief was what took over me completely. She was aiming a gun . . . at me.

"Where, the heck, did you even get that from . . ." I scowled at the weapon in her hands. Was she out of her mind? What did she think she was doing?

"Enough!" she seethed, a manic look flashed in her eyes putting me on alert. "Enough of your bullshit. Don't you ever get tired? Throwing people around like that!"

"Wha-is that what this is about? So what? You'll aim a gun at me for pushing you when I clearly told you not to intervene?" I scoffed at her ridiculousness.

Okay, she was clearly out of her mind.

"Oh," she scoffed, "I'm the one intervening? He’s my boyfriend, yet I’m the one intervening! I'm always the one intervening, am I not? For him it's always Ivory this! Ivory that! For you it's always Cameron this! Cameron that!"

Had she lost her mind? What the fuck was she even going on about? "Jul—" I started but she grabbed my shirt and heaved me up.

"Listen here you little bitch! I'm not a fucking joke! I love him! You can't just pop in whenever you fucking want to and take him away!"

"Jesus, Juliana keep him all you want! I hate him, he hates me. What kind of shit is going on in your head?" I tried to pry her fingers off of me, I didn't know whether to be impressed or to be shocked at the amount of strength she was putting in her hold on me. But rather than either of them, I was starting to get pissed at her refusal to let go.

She dragged me into the living room and threw me on the glass table, sending the glass shattering beneath me as I fell on it. Pain blinded me and tears threatened to prickle my eyes. I held myself away from the glass by forcing myself to stay up on my palms, hissing when some of the broken glasses pierced my skin. I quickly removed my weight from on top of them before they could go in any deeper.

That bitch, I grit my teeth, she had lost it. What the fuck did she think she was doing?

I plucked the glass out of my hand, wincing at the shots of pain it kept sending through my hands every time I moved it even a little bit, and threw it away.

A clicking sound froze me, so did the feel of a metal tip touching the back of my head. My jaw dropped in utter shock. Was she actually fucking serious about this? She wasn't really going to pull the trigger was she?

I slowly turned around to face her and took a step back, raising my hands halfway as in a surrendering manner, hoping to calm her down.

"That's the goddamn problem isn't it? I have no clue what pathetic part of you is there to fall in love with. I have no clue what he sees in you despite all your bitchiness. You're so full of yourself, thinking everything just revolves around you. You don't deserve his love, and yet you are all he ever fucking talks about. I'll never have his love as long as you exist."

"You've lost your mind. You're just being paranoid. He doesn't love me you fucking bimbo. He'll gladly let me die without so much as a flinch," I fumed at her. Was she even listening to her own words? It would be the end of the world the day Cameron Ty would show me any emotion other than hate. I didn't even know how we had come this far. As far as I could remember, it used to be just little fights because of our equally aggressive personalities. But then for no reason he had started making them a bigger deal than they were. Out of nowhere the stupid fights had turned into a drama this big.

"Sweet Ivory, hyper aware of everyone else around her but oblivious to what goes on in her own life," she mocked. "Well then, if he'll let you die without flinching . . . maybe you should."

Fuck, I closed my eyes, expecting a bullet to hit me any second. But it never did.

Instead, what I heard was strangled noises of someone choking and gasping for air. Slowly, I opened my eyes and they fell straight at the knife that rested right in the middle of her throat.

Horror-struck from the sight, I staggered back and watched as she fell straight to the ground, a pool of crimson blood forming around her.

My eyes immediately found Cameron who stood in front of the door, his hand still half way in the air. It took me a minute to realise that he . . . he had done that.

"Why?" I breathed in disbelief. Cameron Ty had just saved my fucking life. Was the world ending already?

"Isn't it obvious? She would have killed you." He tilted his head in mock innocence. As if it was the most obvious and normal thing ever.

"You just killed her," I said, more to myself than to him. He had just killed her. The fucking asshole had just killed her, he had killed her and I was alive.

"But you love her and you hate me!" I retorted incredulously, trying to make sense of why he would do such a thing.

"I'll drown in joy when you'll get off my back," he had told me once.

He chuckled and shook his head at me as if I had said the most absurd thing ever. That motherfucker . . . he actually had the nerve to chuckle.

"She was right about one thing." He came to stand in front of me. "You are awfully oblivious." Before I could retort with anything smart, he kneeled down and pulled the knife out of her throat.

I turned my eyes away from the sight. I didn't feel any remorse for what happened to her, I couldn't. I was hyper aware of the fact that she would have killed me. We had done so much together, got drunk together, fixed up guys for each other when she had been single and what not. There was a time when we used to stick like glue to each other. How easily she had thrown all of it away and aimed a gun at me.

I felt nothing for her.

A loud ringing sound filled the air, grabbing my attention. He pulled out his phone and stood up.

"Alex?" he answered. He listened for a minute before his eyes shut together tightly and his expressions turned sour.

"Fuck!" he swore and punched the wall, causing me to flinch and take a step away from him. "Of course, she pulled this stunt! I should have known. She was so fucking determined to help that son of a bitch . . . fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" He kept punching the wall again and again.

"Hey! You'll break your hand," I pointed out, earning a glare from him.

Nevermind, he could break his hand all he wanted. My fault for bothering with it.

"Of course, I'm coming you fucker." He hung up and started typing something on it, I assumed he was sending someone a text. "Xavier will be so fucking pissed," he muttered under his breath.

"Mind filling me in?" I waved my hands in the air to grab his attention. He looked at me with a scowl but something made it go away.

"You should do something about your hands," he said monotonously and pushed past me.

I turned them to face me.

Oh yeah, right.

They had been beautifully sliced. I had almost forgotten about them. They didn't cause much pain as I was used to picking up pieces of broken glasses, be it at work or at home, considering literally all my family was the epitome of clumsiness.

"Hey!" I yelled after him when I saw him vanishing out the front door.

I rushed outside and saw that he was just about to open the door of his car. I grabbed his hand to pull him back.

"Yeah, real nice Ivory, get blood on my hands," he taunted.

I snatched my hand back from him at his words. "No offense, but you already do have blood on your hands," I mocked, "About which . . . what are we supposed to do with the dead body?"

"We?" He blinked at me. "That's a first."

Deep breaths, Ivory. Deep breaths.

I refrained myself from smacking him right in the face. Normally I wouldn't even think about refraining, but saving my life had earned him small bonus points, and not to mention there were more pressing matters to stress about. "Cameron—" I sugar smiled at him— "the fuck we gonna do about the body?"

"We are going to do nothing. I've texted someone, they'll handle this. Go home." He moved to pull open the door of his car. I pulled him back from his shoulder and stopped him again.

"Go home!" I mocked him. "Go home my ass! I'm going with you! Do you seriously expect me to trust Ashton and Theo with you guys? Where even is he? Where's Theo?"

"Do me a favour Iv! Just rub your blood stained hands all over me, why don't you?"

"Yeah you would like that wouldn't you." I took a threatening step towards him.

How dare he call me 'Iv,’ it was reserved exclusively for everyone that was not him.

"Listen here you annoying bitch. My sister has deliberately gotten herself trapped—" He grabbed my arms in a painfully tight manner— "To save your fucking friend. And rest assured, if anything at all happens to her, I will personally raise hell on them myself. You are going to go home and get your bloody hand fixed and make sure your brother doesn't get involved in the mess too because if he does, I'll never hear the end of it from Alex." He snatched his hands back, causing me to take a staggering step back.

"How do I know that I'm not leaving him alone to die?" I questioned him but I wasn't screaming anymore. I just wanted him to give me a reason to trust him. He was right, I couldn't leave Liam alone and possibly have him come after me. But I wouldn't leave Ashton for the dead either.

"Jesus, did you even hear a word I've said?" he asked frustratedly. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sucked in a sharp breath to calm himself down. "You're not leaving him for the dead. My sister is out there, with him, tied down as a fucking bait to save your fucking friend. She'll not leave without him, and my family will not leave without her. Which means that by choice or no choice, we will get him out of there. And that idiot Theo too, that is if we are guessing right about him being there."

I let his words sink in and nodded in acknowledgement. Made sense. They could handle Ashton and Theo. I had to make sure Liam didn't run off as well. It was a plan good enough. Besides, they were trained, that much was evident from Cameron's brilliant knife throwing.

Bizzare, I thought as I stared at him, one stroke and she was dead. How long had he been doing this?

"Go home Ivory," he sighed and spoke softly, something I never thought he'd do with me. "You'll get your friends back."

"Okay."

I believed him.

🥀

Your love is a razor blade kiss
Sweetest is the taste from your lips

–Razorblade Kiss
(Him)

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(WORD COUNT: 2800)

QUESTION OF THE CHAPTER:
If you could be any one character from this book, who would it be and why?