PROLOGUE
It was hot, so blistering that it was overwhelming. Her body sweltering with the heat.
It burns, the thought echoed in her mind as it bounced around her skull. The warm glow emitted from the flames which pirouetted up to the rooftops in a deadly dance. Charred wood rests a bitter taste on her tongue.
Ivy couldn’t tell where she was or how the fire had begun. She had woken up to a burning building which a continuous throbbing on the side of her head.
With blurry vision, she crawled through the fire, eager to escape the insidious warmth. Her breathing struggled to rein free, constrained by the thick residue the fire left behind in the air.
It was like an endless maze, backtracking when a dead end was around the corner.
She could guess from a long list, who had started this.
Her family, desperate to rid her from their bloodline.
Their wealthy, blood-stained hands and powerful social standings, and this is how they cut her down? Set her alight and hope her roots disintegrate.
But she was Ivy Monroe, slightly crazy and resiliant. She wasn’t naive and she wasn’t weak like before. She had grown and will grow once more. Burn her down and she’ll rise from the ashes. Like a Pheonix of fire she flew out of the flames, she shoved open the fire escape she had crawled too. It’s exit sign still miraculously emitting a green glow.
Freedom. She was free from the melting confines.
Though when the door flew open and she pushed herself out onto the cold pavement. Ivy was greeted by flashing red and blue, the screeching of sirens. Not the best reception. A sense of relief was quickly replaced with dread.
“It was her! I saw her set it!” Someone screamed in the background.
Who? Did they mean her?
She couldn’t dwell on it. Oxygen had denied her, her lungs faulty with smoke. Black spots reeked her vision and she was blinded. It was so dark. A tunnel with no exit.
Then she felt numb, weightless. Invincible. But when she next wakes up to the unforgiving world, she would feel the weight of the consequences. The punishment for overgrowing, overreaching.
