Chapter 13
ADA
Twenty-three years old…
I raced through the woodland to stumble upon the tall iron gates of Bartholomew Cemetery, welcomed inside as the old hinges screamed from misuse.
An ominous fog swallowed me whole as I skirted between marble towers and ornate monuments. The Halloween celebrations had overflowed into the graveyard, partiers twisting into distorted figures as if calling forth the dead.
It had been three years since I had last seen Greyson, but being in his presence again tipped me off my axis. I wasn’t prepared, and so I was thrust back to that night—the night he broke me.
Since then, my haunting ghost with the missing face had become emboldened.
He was set on protecting me and guarding against evil, not realising that he was the very definition of the same.
What he gained in power, he claimed in possession of me, my consciousness, my life.
And I had no one else to blame but the real boy who abandoned me.
I was already distracted and confused with the warped environment when a tremendous roar sounded through the forest, the prolonged howl as potent as the crack of thunder.
With the added stimulus, I became further disoriented and collided with a hooded figure. I crashed to the ground, my hands outstretched to catch my fall.
A shrill, distorted hiss came from the pale fucker, their silver eyes swirling before they moved on…without offering a hand, I might add. The stuck-up asshole.
I swept off my grazed palms, then kept going deeper into the burial grounds to escape the encroaching monster. My skin prickled from the crisp air, the light breeze feeling like a caress against the back of my neck—he called out.
Two words that had me undone.
“Little rabbit?”
Close. Way too close.
Greyson thought we were playing a game. I wanted no part in it. Yet, there I was, baiting the apex predator like I wasn’t giddy at the thought of him catching me.
“You know what it does to me when you run, Ada,” he said, his voice full of dangerous lust and longing. “You should know by now. You can’t outrun the devil.”
He finished with a maniacal laugh that pissed me off.
My teeth clenched together, the enamel cracking under the pressure as I forced myself not to reply. I wanted to cuss him out, give him all my venom so he could fester in my hate.
But that was what he wanted. If I opened my mouth, it would surely be my surrender, which I refused to give.
Puffing from exertion, I hid behind a tree, attempting to clear my head and find a solid escape route—his voice carried over the distance to my position.
“It’s been a long time, Ada…Three years since I tasted that pussy…Three years since I felt you wrapped around my cock…Three years that I’ve been without you, deprived of you. So tonight is your reckoning, little rabbit. Be prepared, ’cause you’re going to be fucking punished.”
His words were potent poison, laced with the promise of euphoria, highly hazardous, and impossible to ignore. It had my mouth running before I could stop it.
“I don’t need you anymore, Greyson! I found someone better! Someone who fucks me so good that I forgot all about you,” I goaded.
“You’d better be lying, Ada. Or you’re going to regret it. If some poor soul has really touched what’s mine, you’ve just signed their death warrant."
This fucking asshole. “Go to Annika and get your dick sucked by her, you disgusting pig!”
“Annika? Why would I go to that delusional bitch, when I have you right here?”
Unwarranted tears lined my lashes as that tormenting scene played back on repeat. Despite the lapse of time between then and now, the pain was acute, the ache in my chest thriving due to the presence of the perpetrator himself.
And as fate continued to fuck with me, the mist parted across the expense of lined headstones as Greyson’s bright eyes sparkled in the moon’s reflection.
“You chose, Greyson,” I said. “You chose, and it wasn’t me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? YOU LEFT ME!”
“I SAW YOU!” The scream ripped out of me, causing my frame to tremble—from the cold, from memory, from the restraint I held back from committing homicide. “That night, I found you in your dad’s office, Annika on her knees, sucking you off. I saw you.”
I couldn’t see his full face behind the mask, but his muscles snapped taut, his hands bunching into fists as he crept forward.
“For fuck’s sake, is that it? That’s the reason you ran?”
“Is. That. It?” Oh my god. I’m truly going to murder him.
“If you just spoke to me then, I wouldn’t have been without you for fucking years, Ada! Oh, you’re definitely getting punished!”
“Fuck you!”
In between our interlude, Greyson had inched forward, stalling just out of arm’s reach. And the idiot didn’t stop to think that I was the one who orchestrated this dance.
As expected, he lunged, hooking his granite arms around me. I swiftly twined my fingers in his hair, ripping his head to the side and took aim.
“I fucking hate you,” I whispered before attacking. My teeth sank deep into the base of his neck, his life force pouring between us like a red river of ownership.
He had once taken mine into his body with the promise of forever. Now, I stole it back, condemning his previous vow and reclaiming my own.
Greyson stumbled back, his grey eyes wide with thrill. “I was expecting another knife. When did you turn into a feral demon?”
“When you fucked someone else,” I said before I spat his own life force at him.
My sick satisfaction was short-lived as Greyson smeared the blood down his chest before his hand lowered to the thick imprint of his cock, pressing hard against his tight jeans.
“Haven’t fucked anyone but you, little rabbit. I waited then, I waited after…but I’m not waiting anymore—”
That was enough of that.
I clocked him in the jaw, his ruined mask sliding off his face from the impact. Then I bolted, knowing I was running out of energy and time to escape that psychopath. I could hear him charging behind, grumbling and angry. Well, get in line, asshole.
I managed to lose him on a winding turn and found my first reprieve of the night.
An ancient mausoleum made of white stone stood tall before me.
Intricate designs of gold wrapped around the wide pillars as an avenging angel stood guard out front, its staff stretching up to the darkening sky in worship and warning.
The iron door was slightly ajar, as if welcoming me in for sanctuary and somewhere to hide. I took the opportunity and entered the extravagant tomb, immediately transported into another time.
The inside was one large room housing a stone coffin in the middle, the outline carved into a crude replica of a man and woman I assumed to be husband and wife. But that wasn’t what made me pause.
The mausoleum was scattered with lit candles of various lengths, the subtle flames causing iridescent shadows to dance along the walls littered with trinkets.
Photos, urns, charms and jewellery—all chosen from a past not yet forgotten, and memorialised by those left behind. It felt familiar and strange, as if I was in a place of acceptance and belonging.
I was so engrossed in my exploration that I didn’t feel his approach until it was too late.
I flinched with shock, and a surprised screech rose up my throat, only to be cut off by one of his large hands latching over my mouth—his grip severe as his fingers dug harshly into my cheeks.
Greyson’s front was lined against my back, so close I could feel the impressive imprint of his hardened length digging into my ass.
I inhaled deeply, trying to reestablish equilibrium as his lips traced the curve of my neck and shoulder.
“Do you surrender, little rabbit?”
I struggled, but didn’t get far, Greyson’s arms lowering to anchor around my body. He was made of stone, unmovable.
“If you don’t get your hands off me, I swear I’ll kill you.”
Greyson chuckled, squeezing so tightly I thought my rib cage would break. “Trust me, dear Ada. Where one of us goes, the other will follow, even in death. But if you do decide to end us, at least we won’t have to go far.”
I puzzled over his meaning until he tipped his chin towards an engraving across the stone wall, the name inscribed: Carmichael.
“This is where we’ll lay to rest, Ada. In our family tomb. You and me forever.”
“There’s no forever for us, Grey. There’s not even a past. You only know how to hurt, how to cause pain.”
“You’re going to listen to me, and listen good. Father wanted me to propose to Annika…Instead, I chopped off her fucking finger.”