“Ivy, please! IVY!” Pierce yelled, begging as he was being held back by Cillian’s boys no more than a foot from me. “Cillian, stop this!”
“Shhh!” I motioned over to him, still holding on to my sandwich. “You’re not supposed to talk during the show.”
And that is what this was.
There was no greater show on earth than watching a person get exactly what they deserved.
It was only out of sheer exhaustion that Ivy had to stop, and when she looked up from the woman now curled up into a fetal position, trembling, her face was covered in blood. Her hand was sore from gripping the baton so tightly. It slipped from her fingers, though I didn’t think she noticed. Instead, she wiped the blood on her face with her arm, which only smeared it. Reaching under the skirt of her dress, she pulled out the revolver.
“My mother-in-law gave me this—”
“IVY!” Cillian finally spoke up. “You have gotten a just—”
“No.” Ivy shook her head, her eyes wide and hollowed out, and she pointed at Rory. “This will all heal. In a few months she’ll heal. Not like Sarah Foster, the paralyzed girl—”
“Sarah Foster is not part of the neighborhood. This isn’t about—”
“You don’t get it.” Her voice became softer, and everyone watching in silent shock could all hear her clearly. “It’s always about me. Sarah Foster cursed me in that courtroom. She screamed and cried, and I took it all because I thought it really was me who did that to her. I told myself I’d go to apologize when I got out. But then Sarah Foster killed herself. And the weight of that along with everything else…part of me died that day. Rory did that. So…I’m getting justice for me...still. She should live with something that haunts her too, right? Mental abuse is still abuse. It is either this or she comes to see me every day until that same part of her dies too.”
“IVY, if you—”
“Don’t give me a reason,” I warned Pierce as he struggled. “At least she’ll live.”
Cillian said nothing.
“Ivy…” Rory reached up, grabbing her dress with her bloody hand. “Please…please…” She sobbed out.
“Do you know what I learned in prison?” Ivy asked, staring down at her. “That everything that happens to you is your own fault.”
“I…v…y…we’re…sis—”
“Stepsisters,” she reminded her, ripping her hand away and then looking at the revolver to read the inscription. “Che sarà, sarà. My husband says it means what will be, will be.”
She spun the barrel once before she stepped on her shoulder, holding her down.
“IVY!”
She fired.
People jumped, gasped, turned away. Startled, one man even puked, but it was in vain.
“Apparently this is willed to be,” Cillian stated when no bullet fired.
Ivy smirked and so did I.
“My mother meant what I will be, shall be. That at all times the choice is mine. If you live it is our will,” I said, reaching for her bag, and her heels, before rising to my feet. “If you die…it is our will.”
Ivy fired once more, this time the bullet hitting her in the spine. Kneeling, I placed the heels in front of her. She took her bag and said to all of them, “Now I’m done. We won’t take up any more time.”
She stood at my side, and I looked at him.
“How much longer do you think I’ll let you stand in that spot, Cillian? How much longer will I let you believe everyone here thinks the Callahans should leave Boston? When will I show you just how many people have turned against you? How much longer will I let this city destroy itself?” I asked before glancing down at my watch. “How about until dawn?”
“Any man who believes a word you say is a fool. You really think you’re God, don’t you?” He huffed, chuckling, though I could see the concern in his eyes. And the fact that I could see it meant he was nowhere as strong as he thought he was. But that was again my doing…I allowed his confidence to grow.
“Simon,” I called out to the teenager who sat at the picnic table, who wouldn’t move before. He rose to his feet.
“Yes, sir,” he asked, now much more respectfully.
Cillian looked at him obviously.
“How’s your grandfather?” I asked, though I hardly cared.
“Good, sir, thank you for your help.”
“You little disloyal bastard—” Elroy charged at him, but the boys around him all stood up, pulling out brass knuckles, a knife, one even a gun.
“Plot twist.” Ivy smiled at Cillian.
“Rory?” We heard her voice. Shay, Ivy’s stepmother, walked forward, people parting for her, in her hands two bags of groceries. Her eyes were large as she stared at the woman in the grass, in shock. “RORY!”
She screamed, dropping the bags and rushing toward her daughter. “Rory!” Her hands shook as she touched her. “Call for help,” she said softly at first until no one moved. “SOMEONE CALL FOR HELP.”
“Call, but will they come?” Ivy asked her.
It was then that she saw the blood on Ivy. She tried to lunge forward, but Cillian grabbed onto her, pulling her back, and so all she could do was scream.
“Your crazy bitch! What have you done? WHAT DID YOU DO? I’ll—” She started to cough, collapsing. “I’ll kill you for this.”
“If you don’t die from the water first. I hope you didn’t fill those with the water from your houses…” Ivy said to her, and she froze. All of their eyes looked over at the pitchers of water out for people. The man getting himself a cup dropped it and stepped back.
“We did bring our own food for a reason,” she added.
Everyone who held cups in their hands dropped them.
“What can I do from a prison cell eight hundred miles away? You asked me that, remember? And I told you to watch your front,” Ivy said to Cillian as one man began to cough gently at first but much more violently, grabbing onto the people around to stand up straight. “This. I could do all of this.”
A Belladonna indeed.
“For these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me,” I said, picking up the bag of bagels Shay had dropped out of the grocery bag. “I may not be God, but that does not mean I can’t take lessons from his playbook, now, does it?”
After all, if anyone knew how to seek retribution it was the Lord. “Dawn, Cillian. That is how long I’ll wait for your apology. For you to remember you were nothing but a puppet king who forgot he was on strings.”
TWENTY-FIVE
“Find what you love and let it kill you.”
~ Charles Bukowski
AN HOUR UNTIL DAWN
IVY
Fury.
Wrath.
Rage.