Torn (A Wicked Saga, #2)(8)

Chapter Three


I’d originally planned to get my butt out of my apartment and make my way to the headquarters on Thursday, but that’s not what I ended up doing. Instead, I checked in with Jo Ann, my only non-Order friend. Unsure of how to explain why I had disappeared from class and hadn’t been very communicative, I went with the trusty old “I got mugged” excuse, which was sadly believable, but there was a good chance that was the second time I’d used that excuse to explain away random bruises. I really needed to come up with something more creative, because I was sure there was going to be another instance when I was going to have to lie to her.

And that sucked.

Besides the fact that I liked her and enjoyed how genuinely kind she was, being around Jo Ann made me feel . . . normal. Like I was any twenty-one-year-old about to turn twenty-two in two months. That I could have things like a degree and a boyfriend. Like I wasn’t shirking my duty by enrolling in classes at Loyola—classes I was most likely going to fail.

That served as a cold reminder that I wasn’t normal.

I spent the bulk of Thursday dealing with my rather ineffective attempt at being normal. I’d tracked down the syllabus, but only managed to get a return call from my statistics professor, of all people. After bluntly telling me I’d missed way too much time, he explained I needed to talk to my advisor and then mic-dropped on me by hanging up.

My advisor didn’t call me back until Thursday afternoon, and it wasn’t a good call, but honestly, out of everything else, it almost felt like not a big deal. Just another reason to eat my feelings through the last box of pralines.

I’d missed too much time, a week here and a few days there, and I had a choice that really wasn’t much of a choice at all. Fail classes due to already missing so much time, and it was only the beginning of October, or withdrawal from the semester.

I was going to have to withdraw, and it was hard not to laugh at the tiny, almost pathetic voice that said I could reregister in the spring or once things calmed down. As if things were ever going to calm down.

As I tossed my phone on the couch cushion, I told myself that I was still Ivy Morgan. I was still her even if I had to drop out of college, even though I was a halfling. I was still her. No matter what.

I had to keep telling myself that.

So I stayed in my apartment, on my couch, Thursday and Friday. Ren and Tink were relieved about that. Their reasoning for me “taking it easy” came from two very different places.

Ren worried about my health—physical and mental. He didn’t want me back on the streets until I was ready for both.

Tink didn’t want me stepping out of the apartment, because he feared I’d be exposed as a halfling or snatched up by the prince.

But I wasn’t going to stay hidden away forever. I couldn’t. I just had to be smart about all of this. The bruises were fading, and in probably another day or two I could go out in public without people staring at me. The ache deep in my body was also fading. I could protect myself if necessary, and I was pretty sure by Sunday I’d be fine enough to get back out there.

I hoped so at least, because I was already going stir crazy. I had too much time to think and try to figure things out. There were a lot of things I didn’t understand. If I sat down and started listing them, I’d be doing it for the next week, but one of the biggest things was why the prince hadn’t come knocking or busting down my door. According to Tink, after the prince got way too familiar with my blood, he could sense me out, so he had to know where I lived.

I asked Tink that question when Friday evening rolled around and Ren was out on the streets. “Why hasn’t the prince showed up here?”

“Huh?” he murmured, squinting at the TV.

I sighed.

Tink was sitting on the couch beside me and he’d commandeered my laptop at some point. The Walking Dead was on the television—well, it was on the Amazon Fire Stick TV thingy that the little bastard had ordered a few days ago unbeknownst to me. On my laptop, he was watching old episodes of Supernatural. I think he was on season three judging by the current length of Sam Winchester’s hair.

At least it wasn’t Harry Potter and Twilight this time, because I was getting really tired of hearing him quote Edward Cullen and Ron Weasley at the same time.

“Why are you watching both of them?” I asked, folding my arms loosely across my chest as I leaned back against the cushion.

“I think it’s good to be prepared,” he said from his cross-legged position.

“Prepared for what?”

He stopped the show on his laptop. “Zombie apocalypse or a demon infestation. You’ll thank me when people start eating each other or when a yellow-eyed demon shows up and starts burning people alive on ceilings. I’m going to be like Daryl and Dean and grab a bucket of salt and a bow with unlimited arrows—hold up!” He held up his hand as he zipped into the air above the laptop, focused on the TV.

Everyone was standing in front of a barn and psycho Shane was pacing in front of the locked barn doors. Psycho Shane went full crazy after he shaved his head. At least, that was my opinion.

“‘Things ain’t the way they used to be!’” Tink shouted at the same time Shane did, thrusting his little brownie fist into the air. He then turned to me, expression serious. “Things ain’t the way they used to be, Ivy!”

“Oh my God,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose.