Page 99 of The Ruling Class

“I’m not leaving you here.” My eyes stung with tears. My face was warm with them. Breathing hurt. Looking at her hurt.

“I’m sorry,” Ivy told me. “About everything. I’m sorry for never being what you needed. I’m sorry for doing it all wrong. I’m sorry for lying to you, and I’m sorry for telling you the way I did. I’m so sorry, baby, and I love you, andyou are leaving.”

She’d never called mebabybefore.

No.This wasn’t happening. I wasn’t leaving. She wasn’t crying. I wasn’t crying. This wasn’t—

She pressed her lips to my forehead, then stood. She glanced at Kostas. “You’ll want to knock her out,” she said.

“Ivy, I—” I was going to tell her that I loved her, that Ihatedher, that I wasn’t leaving her, that Icouldn’t, but for the second time in twenty-four hours, there was a pinch at my neck.

And everything went black.

CHAPTER 58

Something dripped onto my face.Liquid. Cold.My head tilted to one side.Another drop.Awareness hit me like a sledgehammer. My eyes flew open.The Secret Service agent. Ivy.

I scrambled backward, jamming the heels of my hands into the pavement. It took me a moment to register the fact that I was alone. Outside.Safe, I thought, choking on the realization.

Ivy wasn’t safe.

My cheeks were wet—with tears, with drizzling rain. It was dark out—nighttime.How long?I pushed myself to my feet, my heart thudding.How long was I out for?

Kostas had Ivy. And if the president didn’t give him what he wanted, he was going to kill her.

I stumbled out of the alley, pausing when I reached the street. Looking up, I could see the outline of a tall, thin building rising to a point in the distance.The Washington Monument.I was in DC.

Ivy’s not. He has her. Where does he have her?My brain wouldn’t slow down. It wouldn’t stop stacking questions, one on top of the other.

“Miss?”

I almost couldn’t hear the word over the cacophony in my head.Kostas has Ivy. She traded herself for me. I’m safe. Safe. Ivy’s not. He has Ivy—

“Miss.” A man reached out to grab my arm.

I jumped back, my hands held out in front of my body, a last line of defense against whatever might come. “Don’t.” The word that exited my mouth barely sounded human.

Calm down, I thought.

He has Ivy.

Calm down.

Have to find Adam. Have to find Bodie. He has Ivy.

Calm down.

“Are you all right?” the man asked.

I slammed the door on the rush of thoughts beating a rhythm against the inside of my skull. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to put together a coherent sentence. “Can I borrow your phone?”

Of the people I knew in DC, there was only one whose number I had memorized—Vivvie’s. I called. She answered. Words came out of my mouth—not the right ones, not enough to make sense—but somehow, she was able to tell her aunt where I was.

Her aunt was able to tell Adam.

And Adam came for me. As he ushered me into his car, I told him about Ivy, Kostas—all of it, in stilted sentences and streams of words that came too fast and blurred together. I told himeverything, and when he tried to take me to the hospital, I said no. He must have decided that it wasn’t worth it to argue with me, because the doctor ended up coming to us.

Adam had a one-bedroom apartment, small and hyper-organized. After the doctor had checked me over, after I’d told Adam and then Bodie everything I knew—told them again and again until I had no more words left inside me, until there was nothing left to say—Adam steered me gently toward his bathroom. He turned on the shower, handed me a towel, and laid one of his USAF T-shirts and a pair of sweatpants out for me.