Chasing Pavements ─ Tom Holland

91| SWEET SACRIFICE

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          THE dark of night finally stretched the horizon above, replacing the beautiful colors of sunset. Ivory saw her brother and friends' smiles and laughter in the diner, talking about whatever they deemed appropriate to talk about, but unfortunately, her soul couldn't unite with them tonight. Sure they celebrated for her because of her freshly new role in MCU, but the enjoyment was not emanating from her body at all. Tom, who sat next to her, laughed with them as well, unaware that she was currently battling with fright. Nobody knew about Luke threatening her, not like she wanted to tell them. They had enough helped her out of the vortex of disappointment and downturn when her marriage was canceled a few months ago – she literally could no longer burden them with her love life, especially Sebastian and Tom.

With Luke starting to contact her again, the feeling of being overly vigilant attached to Ivory more than it should be. Ivory knew she should have reported the police about it, but seeing him just trying to bother her through texts, she thought that wasn't serious. However, it didn't mean she came to this place without any protection – she did say she didn't tell anyone about Luke, but that didn't include Georgie and Caleb. They agreed to watch her from outside the diner as they were celebrating her joining the MCU because for them, Ivory deserved a little freedom after going through hardships a couple of months ago.

"Excuse me," A waiter greeted politely, breaking her from the trance she'd been in. The waiter smiled brightly, sparing glances to the actors and actresses who were currently loved by the people all around the world as she placed two mugs of coffee in front of Sebastian and Tom. "Your fans ordered it for you both."

"Only them?" Anthony exclaimed as he faked a disappointment tone, the waiter was already walking away from their table. "It's unfair, why we didn't get one as well?"

"I've been with MCU for a while longer than you, but only Sebastian and Tom got all the love." Hemsworth added, trying to sound mad. "Screw it, I'm joining DC."

Elizabeth took a bite of her churros before spoke up. "If Robert is here, I'm pretty sure he's going to throw a tantrum."

"Thank the Lord, he's not here." Chadwick replied with a sigh of relief. "Otherwise I'll dump you all."

In an instant, they were dissolved in a good fit of laughter, literally losing focus on their surroundings around but not with Ivory. A twist in her stomach made her completely unease as she stared intently at the mugs. Ivory thought maybe she was just overly paranoia because all the things with Luke, but oh how wrong she was. Somehow her eyes caught a guy with a black baseball cap and dark blue sunglasses paying a bunch of cash to the same waiter who escorted the coffee. Ivory wanted to scream how lame he was in disguise because he supposedly knew that Ivory knew him better than anyone else. Instinctively, Ivory found herself texting Caleb saying that Luke was here.

And that was where everything clicked. Samantha got a pack of coffee without any powder left inside, Mark received a message from the diner saying that they were had a promo all-you-can-eat for them all and Luke mentioned about choke to death – it was his plan all along. He wanted to poison both Sebastian and Tom here, the two people she cared about the most and couldn't imagine living without. Her chest heaved up and down rapidly as she thought what she needed to do. It was a good thing Sebastian decided he had enough coffee for today, so he simply pushed aside the mug and kept talking to the others, but Tom was a different story. He was about to take a sip when Ivory deliberately dropped her mug to the floor, the sound of something broke thundering throughout the diner and directly taking the attention of all the visitors – including Luke himself.

They made eye contact and in that moment, Luke knew she blatantly caught him. Their gaze locked on each other for a good two minutes, not until Tom's voice whirred into her ears. "Ivy, are you okay?"

"Ivory?" Sebastian's soft voice also triggered her to break the eye contact immediately.

Ivory blinked once, twice before she whipped her head only to find all of them had concern expression on their facial features. She forced a smile to form on her lips and nodded. "Yeah. I'm sorry about it." While the janitor of the diner cleaned up the mess she made, Ivory knew that Tom would keep drinking the coffee and she obviously couldn't let it happen, so with unanimous determination she spoke up. "Can I have yours?"

"You don't have to ask, love."

Sebastian sensed something was wrong, but he wasn't too sure of it. He followed her every move as Ivory reached the mug, hiding the fact that her hand was trembling furiously. The look on her face was also immensely clear that she was frightened of something, but what? And the moment she drank the coffee – an unreadable expression emblazoned her face as she kept her gaze on something behind him. Sebastian had no chance to see what she saw since Ivory drank the coffee out without interlude, and that was something she rarely did.

The poison was strong, she could tell from the moment it went down her throat, it instantly made her body react. She placed the mug down with a still-shaking hand, eyes not leaving the figure she grew to eminently dislike. It was slow, but it surely left a tremendous pain as if her flesh and blood were sliced by a knife. The stinging pain caused her to grimace silently, biting her lips to prevent a groan from coming out of her mouth. Ivory still held her gaze on him daringly, as if to imply the hint that no one should hurt the people she cared about.

Luke saw it all, fists clenching tightly as he hurriedly walked out of the diner. His plan perfectly failed since he didn't see this coming – hell, he never thought Ivory was willing to take the poison for Tom, now he was increasingly convinced that Tom wasn't just a friend for her. Luke was busy to disguise himself until he didn't realize Georgie and Caleb were already in front of him, causing him to stop dead in his tracks. Just as he was about to run off, a hand grabbed his arm and forced him to spin around to face the one and only, Ivory Stan.

It really surprised him to be able to see her walking on her own since the poison was the one equivalent to Polonium, but Luke could see that she was desperately detaining the great amount of pain inside, noticing her tense veins emerging on her neck. Luke stared at her, disbelief and regretful caparisoning his face because truthfully he still couldn't see her getting hurt.

"Why – Why did you drink it?" Luke managed to ask, slightly bowing his head.

However, he didn't get a chance to hear her answer that night. The moment Ivory was about to open her mouth–only blood was sprayed out of it, staining his face and the upper part of his body. Everything happened in a slow motion as he saw Ivory collapse to the ground and in an instant everyone came out of the diner. Sebastian, Caleb and Georgie directly cornered and shouted at him, but no sound was heard by him. Panic, fearful and apprehensive were the most prominent feelings among them all.

Everything was deadly silent, but her voice. Luke kept his gaze on the almost unconscious girl as she gave the guy who cradled her a weak smile, that smile alone made his heart shattered into pieces.

"Tom," Ivory breathed out as she gripped his hand for dear life, her body getting weaker and weaker as blood coated her lips. "I forgot to tell you something. . ."

Tears immediately deluged his eyes, not knowing what to do to help the girl before him. Her eyes began to droop, but Tom gently shook her body. "Stay with me, love, please."

Ivory hated to see him sad because he didn't deserve to feel any sadness – those dark brown eyes never matched with sorrow. But, what was more painful to look at was that sorrow caused by her. A lone tear escaped her eyes as she coughed blood – Ivory never thought it would end like this, but somehow deep inside her, she knew he would have done the same for her. At one point, Ivory was satisfied, she managed to prevent Luke from hurting both Sebastian and Tom. And that alone was the best feeling she had ever felt, seeing the two people she most cared about still in a good shape was something she wanted to see on and on.

Because you are the risk I'll always take.

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