Chapter 28 Grayson #2
I guess that time is now, and the acknowledgment solidifies my belief that Macy knows me better than anyone.
At places like this, my focus is on nothing but the target.
I don’t feel grief or remorse. It is as if my baggage is stored away for an hour or two, and I can breathe without fearing that I’m stealing the oxygen from someone more important.
After stuffing a freshly cut key into the lock, Macy pulls open the heavily weighted door before gesturing for me to enter before her. The range smells like gun oil and paper targets, yet its dusty appearance announces no one has used it in years.
“How do you know about this place? And when did you get a key?”
Macy switches on the light, highlighting a twelve-person gun range and a separate stimulation chamber.
“A friend owed me a favor, and this was the only thing he had that interested me. Since he has a background in locksmithing, I had him cut me a set of keys.” She walks behind the counter like she owns the place before placing a selection of guns onto the glass counter. “What’s your flavor, Malfoy?”
She grins at my eye roll before waving her hand across guns that range from semi-automatics to multi-chamber machine guns. I usually burn off steam with my own gun, but I want a change, so I select the weapon that will be heavy in my hand and with ammunition.
After accepting earmuffs and a box of ammo from Macy, I follow her toward the long line of shooting stalls. She doesn’t stop at the first cubicle or the last. She continues pacing until we arrive at the stimulation room.
“Six perps have cornered themselves inside a mirrored house at the annual state fair. They are accused of robbing a bank, which resulted in the death of the security guard and a bank teller. Multiple sources state that they are armed and are holding over two dozen hostages. Your objective, if you choose to accept it, is to use any force necessary to apprehend the suspects and lower the chance of additional civilian casualties.” She gleams at me like she can feel the excitement slicking my skin before announcing that the clock has already started.
“You have thirty minutes to neutralize your targets and secure the scene. Good luck, Agent Rogers.”
A balk stiffens my spine. “I’m not ready. I haven’t even loaded my gun.”
Macy twists her lips before lifting her eyes to the glowing red timer ticking down the seconds outside the entrance of the chamber. “Tell that to the hostages waiting for you to save them.”
Under her amused gaze, I load the magazine of my gun and then enter the stimulator, my earmuffs left behind. The weight of the firearm is familiar and grounding. It clears my head of negative thoughts and reminds me what I live for.
As I enter a long line of mirrors, I line up the first target. It’s a simple silhouette of a man in his mid-twenties, but I’m most interested in the painted Glock in his jeans.
When I squeeze the trigger, I remove a self-inflicted penectomy from the perp’s death certificate. My bullet cracks through the air before it slices the cardboard cutout in half.
When I spot something out of the corner of my eye, I jackknife around to face it, causing my heart to thud in my ears.
I almost fire again until I realize the woman is pushing a stroller.
This stimulator has all the bells and whistles.
Sounds, tastes. It even has the smell of a freshly fired weapon.
They make it as realistic as possible because games like this are the only way to determine if an agent will choke before putting them in the field for real.
After highlighting the closest exit, I continue through the maze of mirrors.
Although I hate to admit it, after learning the truth only an hour ago, my mind is blank, and I am only focusing on my job.
I save lives for a living, and even when my personal life is spiraling, I have no shame in admitting that.
I fire again when I’m jump-scared by a cutout on a motorized arm. The perp goes down with a hole between his brows, but the woman he was using as a shield remains unscathed—if you exclude the fake blood splattered on her face.
Because testosterone has controlled my anger, I move through the maze like I’m on a mission, hopeful I won’t confront a perp made of cardboard. I want him to be real, and for his veins to bleed red like mine.
With each perp I take down, a little piece of anger and the guilt I’m struggling to move past shifts a smidge. I feel like I have a purpose, and that a lie did not squash my entire existence.
As I near the halfway point of the test, I replace the perps’ faces with the bastards I’ve chased over the past fourteen years. I make the game personal, and that ensures I play it to the best of my ability. I don’t miss a single target, and I save over a dozen innocents.
I’m in the last phase of the stimulation when I replace the image of the final cutout with that of my father. His familiar grin and icy-blue eyes barely register for a second, but the guilt they instigate nearly makes me drop my gun.
I love my father, and he loves me, so why would he do what is being accused?
It doesn’t make any sense, and it makes me feel more conflicted than I’ve ever been.
I’m drawn from my thoughts when Macy announces over a speaker above my head that I have nine minutes left on the clock. If I end the game now, I will hold the course record.
Competitive is my middle name, so after taking in the perp’s dark eyes and stubble-covered chin, I kill him with a direct hit to the heart.
I won. The game is over. But the instant the light flicks on, the truth crashes back into me.
This isn’t my reality. I didn’t save Cameron, and I didn’t find her, either.
Crouching down, I fight to replenish my lungs with air. I can’t breathe with the weight on my chest. It feels like it is crushing me, and not all of it centers on Macy’s admission that Cameron wasn’t kidnapped. It’s the fact I’d even considered placing my father in one of the perp’s shoes.
He’s meant to be the good guy, the anchor of our family.
I’ve looked up to him for decades.
That’s done with now. I don’t know if I can ever forgive him for this.
The scent of Macy’s body wash announces she’s behind me a second before her cautionary tone. “You need to forgive yourself before you can consider forgiving your father.”
“I can’t,” I murmur, the truth more crushing than my guilt.
This isn’t how it was supposed to go. I am supposed to save the victims and then take the bad guys down. I’m not meant to look the other way because they’re related to me.
Proof this woman knows how to coerce me out of the darkness shines through when she murmurs, “Then maybe you should retake the test. You might feel different if you get a perfect score this time around.”
I’m as competitive as I am cocky, and that, along with the adrenaline still surging through my veins, has me pushing my anguish to the back of my thoughts for the second time this morning.
When I twist to face Macy, she gives me her handwritten score of my run. She marked it with a red felt pen, the score at the top closer to a B than the A+ I usually strive for.
“Seven out of ten?” My voice is lofty with shock. “I took down all the perps with eight minutes left on the clock. How is that anything less than a ten?”
“You didn’t take down all the perps.”
I snap my eyes to hers, ready to call her out as a liar, but then I remember she is the only person being honest with me, and I need to cling to that faith more than anything else.
“You said there were six perps.”
Macy arches a dark brow, looking smug. “I said six perps entered the mirrored house. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t already someone dangerous lurking in the shadows.”
I track back over the past thirty minutes before murmuring, “The stroller was empty, wasn’t it?” I didn’t hear any cooing or infant cries. I saw a stroller and instantly brushed off the woman behind it as innocent.
Nodding, Macy moseys to a bench beside the stimulator, digs her hand into a bag, and then holds out a bottle of water in offering. Stimulators like this don’t just make you sweat under the collar. They suck the life right out of you.
I accept the bottle before gulping half of it in one go.
When I join Macy on the bench, our shoulders touching, she asks, “Feel better?”
I snort, acting like I hate how well she knows me.
It is all a lie. “Yeah.” I rake my eyes over the setup that returned some epinephrine to my veins as a reluctant smile tugs at my lips.
“Though I should probably tell you if this is your idea of therapy, you’re shit out of luck.
The Rogers don’t do therapy.” My grin vanishes. “Well, not as far as I’m aware.”
Macy doesn’t tell me I’m wrong or remind me of all the wonderful things my family has done for me or given me. She patiently waits for me to stop acting like our therapy session isn’t exactly that—therapy.
Everyone in this industry knows an hour or two at a gun range is the best therapy any agent can get. That’s why Macy brought me here. She wants to help me—even though my healing might hurt her.
I stare at my hands while flexing my fingers before finally admitting the cause of my angst. “I hate that Cameron’s fear stems from my father’s threat. That she’s been looking over her shoulder for years because of my family. She had to live in the shadows, never really free, because of me.”
“You didn’t do this, Grayson.” Macy’s eyes speak the words she will never say.
Your father did. “And Cameron chose—” When I glare at her, silently warning that I’m not in the right headspace to place the blame for any of this on the shoulders of a victim, she swallows before changing the direction of her focus.
“You can’t carry all this burden. You shouldn’t be carrying any of it. ”
“It’s hard not to. If I’d been smarter, and if I had pushed harder… maybe I would have unearthed the truth years ago. Perhaps then Cameron could have had a real life.”
“You’re acting like she hasn’t lived, but she has, Grayson. Maybe not the life she would have lived if she had been with you, but she has lived.”
And there stems the catalyst of my anger.
Cameron has lived.
My father has lived.
Everyone has lived… except me.
And perhaps Macy.
I peer at Macy in confusion when she murmurs, “It’s not too late, you know.
” She nudges me with her knee like my daft face isn’t cute as fuck.
“If Cameron is who you truly want, and a life with her is your objective, you’re still in with a chance.
” When I scoff, confident that the bridge is beyond burned, she talks faster.
“You’re Grayson Rogers. You don’t give up. It isn’t in your vocabulary.”
“Yeah, but this is different.” And weird as fuck to be talking about it with you.
Pursuing Cameron is the appropriate choice. A member of my family put her through years of misery. She deserves a happily ever after more than anyone, but it is hard to remember my responsibilities when the woman seated across from me deserves the same level of happiness.
The thought of anyone else but me filling those shoes for Macy swamps me with jealousy. Thinking this way is incredibly selfish, and acting like my past promises are irrelevant is wrong, but I can’t demand honesty if I’m not ready to follow my own advice.
I owe it to Cameron to fix my father’s mistakes, but I wonder if I’m wasting my time. If she wants to forget, maybe I should as well.
“What do you want to do, Grayson?” Macy asks, peering up at me with beautiful glistening eyes.
“What I want doesn’t matter.” I should stop there, but my heart continues talking. “I doubt she wants anything to do with me after everything my family put her through, so why bother?”
Macy shrugs. “You won’t know unless you try.
” She stands and dusts off her bottom as if she were sitting on the ground instead of on a bench.
“You don’t need to make a lifelong commitment, but talking is a great starting point for any relationship.
” A flare of hesitation crosses her face before she tucks it back away.
“I should probably pee before we head out. I saw the public restrooms near Cameron’s apartment. I’d rather pee my pants than use them.”
I grimace in agreement before shadowing her to the bathroom, still unwilling to let her out of my sight so soon after she gave me my first gray hair.