Rebirth

"Ivy! I'm talking to you. Zoning out again?"

A voice--familiar, cold, sharp enough to grind against her teeth.

Ivy's eyes flew open. Light hit her like something solid, her pupils snapping shut against it, the world around her breaking apart into fragments--warm orange light, the low hum of voices, a man's mouth opening and closing, the words not yet reaching her.

Where was she? Was she dead? Was this hell, or something else entirely?

Then she felt it. Her hands moved on their own, searching for something to steady herself, and found instead the round, taut curve of her own stomach.

She went rigid. Beneath her palm, something was beating--faint, rhythmic, unmistakably alive.

She took in the room around her. Warm orange light. The beige couch she'd slept on a hundred times. The family photo on the wall. All of it told her the same thing: this was her home. Her living room. The place she'd just been thrown out of.

And there, in front of her, was a face twisted with irritation, lips still moving.

Adrian. The same man who'd stood silent at that door while their daughters screamed, who'd sat in a room filled with Jake's laughter and let it all happen.

She stared at his mouth as it opened and closed, and the memory surged back, precise as a key sliding into a lock. She knew exactly what he was about to say.

Her own lips moved without her permission--barely a whisper, half a beat ahead of him.

"Ivy, you need to sign the house over to me. It's too dangerous out there. Only a man can protect this family."

"Ivy, you need to sign the house over to me. It's too dangerous out there. Only a man can protect this family."

The two voices overlapped perfectly, word for word, not a syllable out of place. The silence that followed was heavy enough to steal the breath from her lungs.

Something in Ivy--something that had been frozen solid since the moment she opened her eyes--came roaring back to life. It was real. Someone, something, had heard her. Heard the broken words she'd screamed into the dark.

She was back. Fifteen days before the apocalypse. Before the virus. Before the screams she knew she'd hear for the rest of her life, however long that turned out to be.

Aria. Layla. Were they here? Alive, somewhere in this house, right now?

She needed to find them. Hold them. Tell them nothing could ever hurt them again. This time would be different. She would burn the world down before she let history repeat itself.

She started to rise from the couch, but a voice cut through her thoughts before she could--not her own, but something clear, flat, edged with an electronic hum, like a notification from a system she'd never signed up for.

Ding!

{Hello, Host. Welcome back.}

Every muscle in Ivy's body locked. The words tumbled out before she could stop them. "Who are you?"

What answered instead was a sharp jolt of pain across her belly.

Thump!

A toy car had slammed straight into her stomach. She sucked in a breath, both arms flying up to shield the bump, the strange voice shoved to the back of her mind.

"Were you even listening to my dad?"

Jake stood three feet away, wearing that particular twist of self-importance only a child raised to believe he was the center of the universe could manage. "My dad's talking to you. It's rude not to listen when he's speaking."

But not this time. Not ever again. Ivy's voice came out low and sharp, her eyes locked on his. "Jake Brooks. Listen carefully. If you touch me or my daughters again--once, just once--I promise you, you'll regret the day you were born."

Silence fell over the room instantly. One sentence was all it took for everyone to understand: this wasn't the Ivy they knew anymore. This one was something a little frightening.