SPELLBOUND
〈chapter sixteen〉
The elevator bell dings as Mason quickly exits and rushes down the 4th-floor corridor at the hospital. His arms were full of medical supplies as he approaches the room where Melissa was with a semi-conscious Hayden and Ivy.
"Over here, yeah," Melissa instructs Mason. Ivy drowsy watches Mason put down the medical supplies near her.
"Shouldn't we be talking to one of the doctors?" Mason questioned.
"I've been wrestling with that for hours. Do we bring them in and watch them treat Hayden as a normal patient, while we stand here knowing that's not going to work? Or do we keep trying everything medically possible to save her, while her body does things that shouldn't be medically possible?"
"Is she dying?"
"With the amount of mercury in her body right now, she shouldn't even be alive.
"What about Ivy?" Mason asks as Ivy lets out a groan of pain and rushes to her side.
"It's complicated. The fact that she's throwing up mistletoe is a big concern, seeing as that stuff to werewolves can be harmful and usually exposes their true nature, but then Ivy isn't just a werewolf. So I don't even know how it's even affecting her, besides the pain. And if what she told Liam is true, my chances of saving her are through Hayden."
Mason gave Melissa a confused look, clearly not having been caught up on the latest updates on one of his best friends.
Melissa sighed as she broke it down to Mason in the simplest of terms ever, "If Hayden dies, so does Ivy."
✯☾✯
Scott pants as he reaches the roof of the library. However, the mountain ash barrier was still blocking him from leaving, looks like the barrier was as tall as the school library.
Another asthma attack hits Scott, and he reaches for his inhaler and takes a puff. However, it doesn't seem to be working. Scott ends up crushing the device in his hand and notices a puff of purple gas exiting.
Scott immediately realizes that Theo was the one who had given him this inhaler, which was full of wolfsbane. Scott had unknowingly been weakening himself everything he used the device, all thanks to Theo.
Scott turns around and sees that Liam had joined him on the wolf. Expect Liam was in his wolf form, fangs, and claws all out.
"Did Theo let you in?" Scott questions as Liam walks around him.
"Did you lie to me?" Liam furiously asks.
"I've never lied to you."
"But you won't save Hayden, meaning you won't save Ivy."
"I can't save Hayden. At least, not with a bite. If you'd just think about that for a second, Liam, you would know that I'm right."
"I am thinking! My girlfriend is dying! I'm thinking about alternatives."
"Liam, it's the Supermoon. It's feeding your anger. It's making you more aggressive," Scott tried reasoning, but it was obvious his beta had other plans.
Thunder rumbles in the background.
"It's making me stronger! You're gonna keep your promise. Even if it kills you! Because I won't let Ivy die," Liam says as he lets out a loud roar.
✯☾✯
Ivy is standing next to Melissa as the McCall nurse is checking on Hayden's vitals. Ivy hears the EKG machine beeping and Ivy looks to Melissa in fear.
"What's happening?" She asks as Melissa gasps and mumbles, "oh, no, no, no, no..."
Ivy feels a powerful wave of pain rushing through her and she grips onto the exam table for support.
"I think you better get Liam," Melissa suggests to Mason, as Hayden's vital begin to drop and Ivy tries to fight off her own pain.
Mason looks at Ivy in worry, "What about Scott?"
"He's not answering. And if Liam wants to be with Ivy, he needs to get here now. Because Hayden's dying and I don't know what else to do. I have no idea how much time Ivy would have left after Hayden dies."
Mason puts his hands on top of his head, freaking out about what is to come. One of his closest and most trusted friends is dying right in front of him. The thought of losing Ivy was unbearable.
"Go! I will text you if anything changes," Melissa commands.
Mason nods before walking towards Ivy, and pulling her into a deep hug, "I'll get him okay. You won't be alone."
Ivy nods as her eyes begin to water up, "Hurry."
Mason starts to walk out of the room, but Ivy calls out to him one last time.
"Thank you," She tells him and Mason gives her a faint smile, knowing that that 'thank you' was more than just an everyday simple 'thank you.' It held meaning, one that ran deep for both the pair of friends.
Mason knew that it was also Ivy's form of goodbye to him. He held back the tears threatening to escape his eyes as he ran down the 4th corridor, racing to find Liam.
✯☾✯
Ivy sat on a chair, wrapped up in a blanket to help keep her shivering body warm. Melissa found it strange that the young girl started freezing out of nowhere. Ivy figured it might be her powers acting up. Either way, Melissa was doing everything she could to help keep the two young girls in front of her alive.
As much as Melissa hated to admit Hayden wasn't going to make it out of here alive. And Ivy had informed her that she will follow after Hayden's death. But that didn't stop Melissa from trying everything she possibly could to help keep Ivy alive.
Melissa was very fond of the Steiner girl. She reminded Melissa of the daughter that she always wanted but never had.
Ivy gripped Hayden's hand, trying to comfort her best friend, letting her know that she wasn't alone. Ivy felt Hayden slipping away each and every second that passed. Her eyes watered up, knowing that she was about to lose her best friend very soon. And to make things worse, her own death was approaching as well.
Ivy looked up at Melissa and sighed, "She's getting worse, I can feel it... She doesn't have much time left."
Melissa wrapped an arm around Ivy's shoulder and pulled her into a hug, knowing that there was no other way to comfort Ivy on this. Melissa comforted the young girl as she cried on her chest.
✯☾✯
Ivy wasn't sure if she was awake or hallucinating at the moment. Her mind had no will power left to try and distinguish the difference between the reality and fiction. Was she in reality or was she facing some sort of fictional thing? She had no idea. But she did know one thing. It felt pretty fucking real to her.
★
Ivy was back at the high school. She didn't know how or when she got here, but she was there indeed. The night was dark and stormy. Clouds were looming above her as her feet carried her through the outside of Beacon Hills High School.
Something about this felt very familiar to her. As if deep down, she knew that whatever she was walking towards had already happened and she was seconds from reliving it once more.
Her feet finally stopped carrying her, and she took in a breath as she realized her surroundings. She was back there. She didn't know it was possible. But she had been taken back to the very night that her brother Aiden had been stabbed by the Oni and died in her and Ethan's arms.
★
Ivy wanted to do something. She wanted to run towards Aiden and pull him away from the danger that was about to occur. But she couldn't move, it was if she was glued to the ground. Preventing from trying to save her brother. Forcing her to watch as the Oni runs his sword through Aiden's stomach.
Ivy watches as black goo drips down from Aiden's mouth. Tears begin to drip from her eyes. She longs for her brother but is unable to reach him.
✯☾✯
"AIDEN!" Ivy screams as she regains consciousness. Melissa is immediately by her side, comforting the young teen as she screams for her deceased brother.
"NO! AIDEN!" Ivy continues to scream, as Melissa tries to snap the teenage girl from the hallucination she was experiencing. "NOO!"
"Ivy, I need you to listen to me. You have to snap out of it. It's not real, Ivy."
Ivy snaps out of it, struggling to breathe. She never thought she would be forced to relive that horrible experience ever again. But yet here she was. Looks like death had some games to play with her before she actually does die.
✯☾✯
Ivy didn't know that she had lost consciousness once more. She didn't know that she was once more about to be thrown into the worst day of her life. Expect this time around, a twist was headed her way.
★
Once more she was back at Beacon Hills High School, the dark gray clouds up in the night sky, foreshadowing events that no one knew were about to happen.
Ivy alongside her twin brothers and Derek were all engaging with the two Oni in front of them. As the Nogitsune wickedly watched them struggle against his Oni.
Aiden moves to pick up the triskelion box but two more Oni appear before him, blocking his path. "I hate ninjas."
Ivy chuckles, as she hears what her brother had just said. "Ninjas will be ninjas. Well, it looks like now we each get our own Oni," Ivy tries joking, trying to lighten up the situation around them.
"Focus, Ivy," Ethan warned her as she nodded before engaging in a fight with the Oni in front of her. "Time to go down, loser."
★
The four of them continued to fight the four Onis in front of them, but they were on the losing side. Their strengths/moves were nothing on them.
"Can't they just bloody die already?" Ivy groaned, getting real tired of the ninjas surrounding them.
Ethan suggests to Ivy that she should take the triskelion box to Scott, while he, Aiden, and Derek hold off the demon ninjas. But Ivy refused to leave her brothers behind. The Steiner siblings always stick together no matter what. They were a team.
Chris Argent along with Isaac Lahely arrived just in time to help the four of them out. Chris fires a silver arrowhead into one of the Oni, as it explodes into black smoke.
The Nogitsune flees, as Derek tells Isaac to take the triskelion box to Scott, to which he does as told.
★
Derek holds out an Oni for Chris to fire the silver arrow at. Now there was only one Oni left standing. However, once Chris fires the arrow, the Oni slices the arrow away with his sword.
"Get the arrow, it's the last one," Chris yells towards Ivy, seeing as she was the one closest to it. Ivy quickly grabs it and succeeds in stabbing the Oni with it. But the Oni is also quick on its feet and runs his swords through Ivy's stomach in the process.
Ivy's werewolf eyes lose their glow, as blood drips from her mouth. Ivy stares at the sword in her stomach in shock, as her older brothers yell out for her. Ivy pulls the sword out from her stomach before she collapses onto the ground.
★
Derek quickly catches her, as Aiden and Ethan approach their little sister. Their eyes watered, as tears escaped their eyes. They each grab onto their little sister, as she struggles to talk with the amount of blood and black goo escaping her mouth and wound.
"Does it hurt you both as much as it hurts me?"
"Yeah," both responded, their voices brittle and raspy. The boys broke down crying. Their little sister, the one that they have tried so hard to protect, was dying right in front of them, in their arms.
Chris and Derek were both silent, their hearts breaking as they watched this heartbreaking moment between the Steiner family occurring right before their eyes. They didn't deserve what was happening.
"It's okay. I'm glad you two losers were here with me at least," Ivy told her brothers, who lightly chuckled before they began to cry even more.
"I love you," Ivy told them as Aiden and Ethan both placed their foreheads on Ivy's, both telling her how much they loved her before Ivy took her last breath. And died in their arms.
✯☾✯
Ivy gasped for air as she woke. Her hands immediately went to her stomach, trying to find the wound that the Oni's sword had impaled her with, but found no wound.
She had been hallucinating the whole thing, except instead of Aiden dying, she had taken his place.
"Ethan," Ivy mumbled as Melissa helped the girl up. "I have to call Ethan. I have to talk to Ethan. I have to call my brother. I need him. I need E," Ivy states, repeating her brother's name over and over. She needed her big brother.
Melissa nodded and went to look for Ivy's phone so that the young girl could speak with her brother who was overseas from them. Melissa knew it pained Ivy that her brother could not be here with her before she died. At least, with a phone call, the two could be with one another.
Before Melissa reaches Ivy's phone, the EKG beeps rapidly before the line goes flat. Melissa's heart breaks a little, Hayden had just died. She was gone.
Melissa pulls out her phone and quickly sends Mason a message suggesting that he gets Liam here quickly because Hayden had just died and that Ivy would soon be next.
Ivy stares at the EKG for a couple of seconds before realization hit her.
Hayden was gone. Her best friend had just died.
"No, Hayden. NO!" Ivy runs to Hayden's lifeless body. "No, no, no. Wake up, Hayden. WAKE UP HAYDEN! Nooooo."
Ivy breaks down, tears streaming down her face. Melissa is quickly right next to her, comforting the girl as she dealt with the best of her best friend.
"Ethan, oh my god, Ethan," Ivy stated, "He doesn't know. E doesn't know. I have to talk to him. I have to..." Ivy starts freaking, as Melissa warns the young girl that she needs to breathe. "No... Ethan. Ethan, I have to speak to Ethan."
Ivy feels the life start to drain within her. Her time was now limited, but she refused to die without saying goodbye to her brother. She had to hear her brother's voice one last time. Melissa quickly grabs Ivy's phone and hands it to her. Ivy quickly dials her brother's number. Not bothering texting him first, emergencies were always call first, text later between the two especially after the dread doctors had taken her.
"Ivy? What's wrong?" Ethan's voice sounded worried through the phone. Ivy was about to respond, but a loud groan escaped her mouth as pain rushed throughout her body. Her magic was dying, barely putting up a fight, seeing as how poisonous her body had become.
At the sound of his little sister's groan, Ethan quickly became worried. Something was wrong, he could feel it. "IVY!" he yelled into the phone.
"I'm okay," Ivy said her voice raspy, as Melissa looked at her in disbelief. She took the phone away from Ivy and put it on speaker.
"She's not okay. She's dying. I'm trying everything I can to save her, but it's not working, Ethan," Melissa informed the older Steiner through the phone.
Ethan gasped as he finally understood what that horrible feeling was that he was feeling deep inside. He was feeling his little sister's pain.
"Ethan?" Ivy asked, breaking him free from his train of thoughts.
"I'm right here, Ivy."
"Good."
Ethan chuckled, "I'll always be here, Ivy. Through thick and thin."
"Through thick and thin," Ivy agreed.
"How?" Ethan asked.
"How what?" Ivy chuckled.
"How are you dying?"
Ivy looked over at Hayden's dead body before turning to Melissa and then her phone. "Hayden and I are connected. Killian says it has to do with my witch powers but also with the dread doctors experimenting on us. Hayden, she... she just died. And I can feel it. I don't have long."
Ivy hears her brother's breathing getting deeper. He's trying to stay strong for her.
"Killian? Killian as in Killian Frost?" Ethan questioned, hoping that it wasn't the same person.
"The very one," Ivy replied, not having the energy to ask her brother how he knew that name. She figured she'll save her strength for something better.
"I'm sorry, E. I should have - I should have told you. I'm so sorry."
"Ivy, you listen to me. You have nothing to be sorry for, this isn't your fault."
"I promised Aiden that I'll never leave you. That I'll always take care of you. And now I'm breaking that promise."
Through the other side of the phone, Ethan felt his tears dripping down his face. His little sister was dying through the phone, and there was nothing he could do to save her. He wasn't even there to be right beside her. At least Melissa was with her. At least, she had someone with her. She didn't deserve to die alone.
He still hated that he wasn't by her side.
"Listen to me, Ivy. I'm going to be okay, you hear me. You have nothing to fear or worry about. You're not breaking your promise to Aiden, neither one of us is. I love you so much, Ivanna. You have to know how proud I am of you."
Melissa's heart broke as she listened to the conversation between the two siblings as she held Ivy's hand.
"Does it hurt you as much as it hurts me?" Ivy asked the very same question their decrease brother asked them before he died.
"Yeah," Ethan's voice brittle.
"It's okay," Ivy reassured her brother, as her lifeforce was barely holding on. "I love you too, Ethan."
Ivy turned to Melissa with tears in her eyes, as blood left her mouth. "It's okay," Ivy wept as her eyes slowly closed. And just like that, Ivy Steiner was dead.