Chapter 53: Leader of Central Station
"Damon?" The word left her lips in a low whisper.
For a moment, she just stared.
It’s been over four weeks since she had last seen him. Four weeks since he left without a word, four weeks of wondering if she’ll ever see him again.
And now, here he was. Just standing there... right in front of her.
Ivy blinked repeatedly, trying to make sure she was seeing correctly. Her chest tightened with something she couldn’t quite name, a relief, anger, or perhaps even both.
Around them, an even larger crowd formed.
Countless whispers filled the station, many still remembering the day those two had last arrived and what came after, but even those who didn’t watched in anticipation as their leader came to meet with a man of legends.
Suddenly, Ivy snapped out of her thoughts and became aware of the dozens of eyes surrounding them.
Her gaze shifted between the three of them a couple of times until she finally realised that there were two people missing.
"Let’s talk somewhere more private," she said, her voice steadier than she felt. She quickly turned and led them toward the leadership meeting room, the crowd letting them pass through without hesitation.
’She seems different,’ Damon thought, walking behind her.
She was wearing a long black and red dress with a slit at the side that occasionally exposed her legs when she walked. The top of her dress had a low-cut that exposed her collarbones and shoulders, giving her an even more daring image than the practical attire she’d worn last time Damon had seen her.
Her looks earned her glances from every man they passed, but it wasn’t her appearance that caught Damon’s attention, it was her face.
There were faint dark circles under her eyes, the kind that came from countless sleepless nights. The way she walked carried a weight of authority he recognised immediately.
’She must’ve been leading them since then,’ he realised.
After Kade’s death, there was a vacuum, a position that had to be filled. Naturally, people turned to the next strongest person, who, after Damon’s sudden departure, was Ivy.
She didn’t want the role, but she also wasn’t the type to abandon innocent people, and so she had no choice but to lead those who looked to her for answers.
Finally, after a few minutes of walking, they arrived at a small room with a large desk and countless chairs around it.
Ivy waited for each of them to enter before shutting the door close.
"So-" She began, but she had no chance to ask what happened as Jax quickly began.
"They’re dead. I... I fucking knew it, I told them!-"
"Jax, slow down-" Ivy tried to diffuse the situation, but the man’s anger was too much for anyone to calm him right now.
"Ask your boyfriend you sent us looking for, I’m done!"
Without waiting for an answer, Jax stormed out of the room, shutting the door loudly behind him.
Ivy, Damon and Victor exchanged surprised looks before Victor stood up after the man.
"I’ll go try to speak to him," he said before quickly leaving after him.
All of a sudden, it was only Ivy and Damon in the room. Well, and of course, Kitsune, who was in her fox form, was lying now on the table.
A moment of silence passed between them before Damon finally began to explain what happened, from the moment of him stumbling upon the group fighting against the Evolved Fire Hound.
Ivy listened carefully, catching every detail of everything that happened. Her serious expression broke once he got to the Citadel part of the story. Artheus’s death, the strength of the monsters. Damon could tell that each of these things put even more weight on her shoulders, the girl visibly shrinking under the responsibilities.
"What are we supposed to do now..." She mumbled under her breath. It was more to herself, something Damon wasn’t supposed to hear, but he did.
He took a few steps toward her.
"Everyone needs to get stronger," He said calmly.
Ivy’s eyes lifted to see Damon standing a meter away from her. She sat pressed against the edge of the table with a complicated look on her face as she stared at him.
Suddenly, her hand reached forward, grabbing a small part of his shirt and tugging him toward her.
The moment he did, her head dropped onto his shoulder.
Damon, unsure what to really do in this situation, simply stood there, letting the girl rest there for a couple of moments.
"You left," she mumbled, before lifting her head back up, her eyes locking with his.
Damon didn’t respond. He hadn’t thought about what he would say when he returned, simply because he never planned on being here again. Now that he was here, however, he realised that his departure required some explanation.
Before he could give any explanation, though, the girl bit her red lips and inched closer toward him.
But before she could reach him, Damon’s shirt got yanked backwards, far stronger than Ivy’s earlier gentle pull.
He had no time to react before a pair of slender arms coiled around his neck like a pair of serpents.
Standing beside him and staring needles into Ivy was Kitsune in her full form.
Ivy blinked, struggling to process what had just happened. One second she was, at least according to her, having a moment with Damon, and the next, a silver-haired woman with impossible beauty wrapped her arms around him as she owned him.
But Ivy would have no chance to react as Kitsune was first to speak.
Her grip on Damon tightened as her lips moved closer to his ear.
"Darling, didn’t I tell you not to play with Pheonixes?"
Of course, she never told him that, but that wasn’t what confused Damon in the moment.
"Huh? Phoenixes? What are you-"
"This girl right there," She glanced at Ivy, who stared at them with a bewildered expression. "She stinks of one."