Chapter 22
GRAVE
LONDON
I’ve been buried alive.
Panic is a living force inside this tomb with me, my heart thumping wildly—the only thing telling me that I’m still alive in the pitch-black. I brace my palms against the wood and push as my breaths bounce back at me from the crate lid, my chest on fire as the air is sucked away.
Splinters snag my skin. The pain sharpens my senses.
He can’t let me die.
But I’ve watched his videos. I’ve witnessed the lengths Grayson has gone to in order to deliver his punishments.
Dread rises within me, and I bang against the wood, desperate to taste fresh air. “Help!”
A creak from the above sends dirt into my mouth and eyes. I wipe at my face, and my elbows knock the sides of the crate. I sense the sides closing in. The box is shrinking, swallowing me.
Shit.
I push harder against the lid, my forearms burning from the strain.
More dirt rains down. I taste the grit between my teeth and turn my head to spit. Between each desperate breath, I hear the sound of things crawling alongside the box. Moving through the loose dirt, trying to find a way in. Waiting for their food to rot.
Oh, god. I can’t die like this.
The burden of an unfinished life is a dense weight pressing down on my chest. The compression grows unbearable, winding tighter and tighter until I’m hyperventilating.
Each rapid, labored breath is drawn with the awareness that it could be my last. Every gasp is laced with less and less of the vital air my lungs crave.
Calm down.
I chant this in my head as I hold a breath, forcing myself to relax—to still every muscle and organ clamoring for air.
Breathe.
I release a shallow breath. Then another—slow and steady, over and over, past trembling lips. Tears slip from the corners of my eyes. My body tingles, adrenaline flooding my system. After a while, the lightheadedness gives way to a strange, floating calm.
I linger like this for an unmeasurable stretch of time, listening to the rhythm of my slow breaths. The blackness presses in, a cloying, disembodying nightmare. A gauzy fog webs my mind, feeling detached, as I drift between two states. Panic and docile acceptance.
As my thoughts drift further, all the things I’ve put off rise to the surface. Unfulfilled goals. Abandoned dreams. The fragile ache of happiness.
A weak laugh slips free.
I spent years coaching my patients not to chase something as flimsy, as meaningless, as happiness—it’s an idea, not a goal. And yet here I am, staring down death, wishing I’d allowed myself to be a little more frivolous…happy.
But there was never an answer to that question, either—the one everyone asks themselves: What will make me happy?
A husband? A child?
I scoff at myself. I don’t regret either, not really. I never could have given myself to something as demanding as motherhood. Not fully.
Still, the fact that the chance is being stolen from me crashes through my chest, a vicious reminder that I chose Grayson.
I chose this fate.
I draw in a breath, filling my lungs against the weight of it as I blink into the darkness.
Regret is weakness.
And I can’t afford to be weak.
Besides, there are more terrifying realities to contend with than my shallow regrets.
The buried bodies in the backyard—on land in my name. Bodies I always planned to move, to dispose of… and now that choice, too, has been taken from me.
My father’s victims will be found.
Someone will buy my family home, tear it down, rebuild. And when they dig up that dead garden, my legacy will be rewritten as a horror story—not the work I devoted my short, vain life to.
The realization slams into me like a freight train.
Panic claws at my senses. The blackness closes in, every scrape amplified. The phantom crawl of bugs under my skin rips a scream from my throat.
The calm waters of my acceptance rebel.
A storm thunders through me as I crash against the boards. My hands flail, feet thrash. Fingers claw at the wooden deathtrap, raking up splinters beneath my nails. I can almost smell the metallic trace of blood in the thin, musty air, and I become a wild animal, fighting for freedom.
Determined, I kick against my prison—and my foot connects with something.
It doesn’t register at first. The panic has gripped my body and mind in a vice, pulling me too deep, too fast.
I roll to my side and brace my shoulder against the lid, listening. To the sound of my breath, loud and ragged, amplified in the cramped silence.
Think.
Think.
Think.
I’ve analyzed Grayson for months. I’ve been inside his head. I understand him. And that gives me an advantage none of his other victims had—he has rules. And his disorder demands that he obey them.
I take three deep breaths, quelling the dread. Slowing my heartbeat. Reserve oxygen.
Then I carefully use my foot to nudge the object upward. Once it reaches my knee, I reach down and grab it.
A phone.
Oh, my god.
Relief surges through my body. I flip the device open, and the glow illuminates the interior of the box. I sweep the light around quickly, searching for a latch, a loose nail—anything.
“Dammit.”
Even if I found a way out, even if I clawed my way out of the earth…what then? Grayson will be waiting for me.
With shaky hands, I punch in 9-1-1 and hit Send. Three long beeps answer back. The top of the screen flashes no service.
“Shit—” He’s toying with me.
But no, there has to be something else here. Grayson records his victims. He watches them. He gives them choices, dammit. Where are mine?
Static crackles from the device—then: “You once said you disliked people because they’re selfish.
I wonder if it’s more that their selfishness is a reflection of what you dislike in yourself.
” His deep, accented voice fills the dark.
“Something you wish you could change but can’t,” he continues.
“That’s a conundrum, an enigma. You’re full of these little puzzle pieces, London. ”
I study the phone—an old radio model. There’s a single button on the side.
I press it.
“The only thing I want to change is my view,” I say to him, trying to control my anger, the fear. I swallow hard and steady my breath. “If you do this, Grayson… if you kill me, it won’t satisfy you. You know it won’t. It’ll haunt you, and you’ll never be free.”
A long silence follows as I wait for his response.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Grayson is too intelligent to be so easily deceived.
He’s studied me these past few months just as I’ve studied him.
He knows my tells, my lies. My truth. He wants me to play his game, but there’s some bigger part of him that wants me to win.
Where all his other victims failed, I have to succeed.
“You said you’d give me answers,” I try again. “I followed you here. I left everything behind to be with you. You can’t let me go without—” I cut myself off, my hand gripped tight around the phone.
“You wanted to see how far the rabbit hole went,” he says. “Did Alice enjoy her Wonderland adventure? No, she was terrified. And to think, it was all in her mind. The most frightening things in this world usually are.”
“Grayson, please help me figure this out.”
“I don’t have your answers, London. Just like Alice, it’s all in your mind. I’m simply giving you the tools to unearth them.”
Unearth.
I mentally comb over his words, looking for the clue, the piece of the puzzle Grayson is feeding me. Unearth…unearth…unearth.
Dig.
I hold down the button. “Dig,” I say.
He says nothing, forcing me to make the connection.
A tear slips across my temple. Adrenaline courses hot through my veins.
I push the button. “Dig them up.”
I pound on the lid.
“Dig them up!”
He wants me to free the girls.
But his silence stretches out. The dank air clings to my skin, thick, snuffing out my hope. The phone’s meager light begins to die, and I see the faces of my father’s victims. Mocking me for becoming just like them.
Then I hear scratching. The faint sound grows louder, tugging at the frayed edges of my sanity. A hollow thump detonates overhead.
The lid opens. Dirt falls on top of me, but a hand reaches down.
Grayson wipes soil from my face as I gasp in fresh air, starving for oxygen.
“You bastard.” I lash out with a strike toward his face, but he catches my hand, his grip circling my wrist.
“Save your energy,” he says, voice calm. “The first test is always the easiest.”
First test.
Dehydration. Sleep deprivation. Psychological collapse. It all hits me at once and my body gives out.
I fall.