Chapter 9
Chapter nine
JUDE GRAVES
The limo smells like old leather and Nolan’s obnoxious cologne. The city blurs past the windows in streaks of neon and brake lights, everything bleeding together like one long, shitty dream I can’t wake up from.
My head buzzes—not just the drugs. This is something deeper. An old ache that’s been chewing at my heart for years that just found a fresh place to sink its teeth. Anxiety has my heart racing.
Micah slides in beside me, hoodie pulled up, hair wrecked, eyes ringed with the same bone-deep exhaustion.
Nolan’s in the front seat, barking into his phone.
Adriana scrolls beside him, lips tight, then suddenly punches the stereo.
Some rap track explodes through the speakers, bass so loud it rattles my teeth.
I can’t make out the words. My head won’t cooperate.
“Ten o’clock,” Nolan says over the noise. “Here we go.”
Adriana laughs. “Play the part, boys.”
They don’t know. Thank fuck for small mercies.
They don’t know the name lodged under my tongue, burning, refusing to leave, no matter how many pills I swallow. I glance down at my phone—missed texts stacked in the group chat from Finnick and Kami. Worry, jokes, check-ins.
Four friends. Stupid chemistry. Stupid luck. And now half of us are trapped in a nightmare that the other half doesn’t even know exists.
Micah looks at me. He knows I won’t text back. “Hey,” he murmurs. “You okay?” Sympathy flickers in his eyes, and it hurts because I don’t deserve it.
“Yeah, man,” I whisper. The lie tastes familiar. Easy. The truth is too heavy—I don’t have the strength to choke it down. I squeeze my eyes shut and feel the world tilt, like the ground might finally give up on me.
The limo slows. The building looms ahead. It’s a brick-and-glass penthouse stacked on top of the city like a crown made of money and crime. Women in tight dresses. Men wearing watches expensive enough to erase people. It’s beautiful in the way rot always is when it’s dressed well.
The perfect place for monsters like Nolan and Adriana.
And me.
My chest tightens. Emma looked beautiful, just like I remembered. Seeing her out here in this city, where I’ve been used and hollowed and turned into a weapon—
I can’t let her in.
If Nolan or Adriana ever figured out how much power she still has over me, they’d kill her without hesitation.
Micah’s hand finds my arm, steady.
I swallow. I’m not okay. I never will be.
The door opens, cold air slicing across my face.
Music pounds somewhere overhead. I step out into the light and the lie, my pulse already stuttering.
The elevator doors slide open upstairs, and it hits me all at once—bass thudding like a heartbeat, lights strobing, bodies pressed too close together.
The air is hot and slick with perfume, sweat, and the sharp chemical bite of drugs.
My stomach turns before I even step inside.
I hate it here.
Micah’s beside me, hands buried in his pockets, eyes scanning like he’s trying to map the exits. Nolan’s already halfway through the crowd with an arrogant grin, Adriana gliding behind him in red silk that catches every light.
We’re led toward a back room separated from the wildness out there.
Inside, everything goes quiet except for the bass bleeding through the walls.
A man sits at the center of it all. He’s pale and quiet in a way that makes my skin crawl.
Alexei Morozov. Salt-and-pepper hair combed back neatly, a dark overcoat draped over broad shoulders, even though it’s warm as hell in there.
His eyes are that steely gray you see in old portraits of generals: calm, bored, and capable of terrible things.
He doesn’t wear a gaudy chain; whatever money he has is parked behind an invisible wall of taste and menace.
Nolan slides in, hand outstretched. “Alexei,” he purrs. “Good to see you.” The two of them smile, and my stomach drops. I’ve seen that smile on men who decide who lives and who’s disposed of.
“This,” Nolan says, spreading his hand toward us like he’s introducing livestock, “is Jude Graves and Micah Prescott. The voice and the heartbeat, so to speak.”
Alexei’s gaze crawls over us with a clinical calm. He nods once. “I know your music,” he says, his accent sliding over the words. “You boys are very talented.”
“Yeah,” I sigh, the sound hollow.
“We’re able to run a lot of product through their tours,” Nolan continues. “Once we partnered up, their careers blew up and so did our operation.”
Adriana’s smile flashes. “Everyone loves a damaged boy,” she says, her auburn hair cascading over her shoulders. Green eyes glinting like a goddamn predator. “I know I do.”
My jaw clenches. I want to reach across the table and splatter that smile on the wall. “Being Nolan’s dog has had its upsides,” I mutter.
Alexei tips his head, the tiniest of motions. “How so?” he asks.
A smirk tugs at the corner of my mouth. “I’m confident I can kill anyone,” I say flatly.
Adriana’s nails dig into my arm. The pressure is a warning wrapped in fake affection. “Come on, boys,” she croons. “You look like you could use a little help relaxing.”
I glare at Alexei until Adriana turns me, leading us out of the room. We end up on a low couch near the window, city lights pouring in. My pulse is off-beat, my hands cold. Adriana crouches in front of us, voice dropping into that syrupy tone that always means trouble.
“You’ll need to be sharp tonight. Friendly.
Fun. Like old times,” she says. “Listen, Alexei is important to Nolan. I saw you try to alpha him in there. Don’t do that.
” Her fingers work—the flick of a lighter, the rustle of foil, the soft clink of glass.
The smell hits me first. Chemical, clean, promising.
It’s the scent of everything I know I can’t live without.
Micah’s staring at the table, jaw locked, shoulders twitching like he’s trying to outrun himself. I see the tremor in his hands. I feel the one in mine.
Adriana glances up, her lipstick smudged slightly. “Ready?” she asks, smiling like she already knows the answer.
And all I can think is: I saw Emma tonight.
The thought detonates in my skull. My chest caves. The sound of my own heartbeat becomes unbearable.
I inhale, and the meth enters my system, devouring my body, mind, and soul. Then the heat hits, spreading through my veins, setting my insides on fire, and my mind splinters. The high crashes in waves: warmth, then nothing. Everything, then, a vicious electricity.
Her eyes. Her voice. Her name is like a wound I keep picking open.
Help, baby, I’m bleeding to death.
“Falling Down” by Lil Peep & XXXTENTACION blares through the space, and my world fades. I’ve avoided his music for years because...because it reminds me of her. Fuck.
It’s Micah’s turn now. I hear him cough, and Adriana laughs softly, sliding closer. Her perfume is sweet enough to choke on. Her hand finds my thigh, nails dragging gently, possessively. I nearly cry, because I know what’s coming.
She looked so scared for me. And I couldn’t even say a fucking word to her.
I’d just stared at her. The only person I’d ever hold on for, even knowing my days are numbered.
The sounds around me start to sharpen. Micah sinks back into the cushion beside me, gone in the same way I am.
My head tips against the couch, and my blood catches fire.
The couch dips hard to my left, and then Adriana is moving, a blur of dark hair, swinging a leg over my hips to straddle me right there in the middle of the crowded room.
Micah’s hand, resting on the couch beside my thigh, twitches. The leather groans again, dipping further, and a burst of high, melodic laughter cuts through the bass. That’s when I saw her. Another woman, with platinum-blonde hair, was now perched on Micah’s lap, giggling with Adriana.
No. No. Please not Micah tonight. I’ll take it all. Please just fucking leave him alone.
Every time she does this, I go numb. It’s not exactly pleasure...it’s paralysis. The vibe changes dramatically as the song ends, another taking its place.
“In My Room” by Insane Clown Posse dominates the space.
The shift is fucking jarring. I feel her hands on my belt, and my gaze is unfocused with the alcohol and meth.
I’m so goddamn high, like every time she climbs on top of me.
I’ve never moved on from Emma. No woman has ever made me feel like she did seven years ago. Adriana wouldn’t ever let me, anyway.
The vibe doesn’t just change with this song.
It shatters. Reality narrows to this couch, to the weight on my lap, to the bass thumping through the floor and up into my bones.
The strobing lights and swirling bodies in the room force my heart into overdrive.
This isn’t real. But my body doesn’t care.
It responds with a primal, eager jolt, blood rushing south.
God, this song is so weird.
A low, guttural groan comes from beside me.
Micah. Adriana answers it with a slow, deliberate roll of her hips, grinding against the now-straining hardness in my pants.
Oh, fuck. The friction is electric, even through the layers of fabric.
Her palms come up, planting themselves firmly on my chest, fingers splaying wide as if claiming territory.
And then she sinks onto my cock, and I let my eyes flutter shut, surrendering to the sensation like I always do. The music is so loud. My hands find Adriana’s thighs, tightening. But it’s not because I love it, it’s because I don’t really want it. Whatever.
She rolls again, a smoother, more practiced movement this time, and a breathy moan escapes her lips, tickling my ear. She knows. She knows exactly what she is doing, the precise angle and pressure to make my vision blur at the edges. How can I find pleasure in someone that I hate so fucking much?
She laughs and begins moving faster, establishing a rhythm that syncs perfectly with the pounding beat.
The pleasure builds into an unbearable pressure, a knot tightening at the base of my spine.
My eyes roll back, a cocktail of meth and hate and sheer, twisted desire pulling me under.
My grip on her hips tightens, guiding her, meeting her movements with thrusts of my own.
I fucking hate her. I just want to kill her.
She shudders, and I am so ready to get this shit over with. The music peaks, people cheering at something across the room, and the lights strobe so fast it feels like I’m disappearing between flashes.
Whether I want it or not, euphoria crashes through me.
My jaw locks, a strangled sound catching in my throat.
Every muscle in my body goes rigid, my arms tightening around her, holding her hips down against mine as the world dissolves into a hot supernova of release.
It’s a long, wild wave that seems to pull everything I have out of me, leaving me hollowed out.
I hate myself. I hate myself. I fucking hate myself.
For a moment, there is nothing but the aftershocks and the deafening music. Her hands relax on my shoulders, her weight settling fully onto me. Her voice is muffled against my neck as she laughs, a lazy, satisfied sound that is echoed by the woman on Micah.
The room spins. The lights strobe. The music pounds so hard that it’s a sledgehammer against my senses. When Adriana finally shifts her weight and lifts off me, my pulse is a wild, thundering drum solo in my skull. My hearing flickers in and out like a dying signal.
I melt back into the couch. My hand moves on its own, dragging across the cushions until my fingers brush the sweat-damp fabric of Micah’s shirt at his shoulder. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move. He just sits there, slumped forward, elbows on his knees, head hanging low between his shoulders.
He doesn’t need to look at me, and I don’t need to say a word. We’ve been here too many times to pretend any of this is new.
We each buckle our pants back up, motions sluggish and a little clumsy.
I drag in a breath, and it burns. Emma needs to stay away from me.
Because this is what’s left of me. This is all I’ve got to offer.
A body that doesn’t know how to stop shaking.
A mind that can’t shut up long enough to sleep.
Hands that only remember violence and needles and intimacy born of control.
I press my palms over my eyes until the colors come.
Reds and golds, like sunset bleeding out.
For a fleeting moment, it reminds me of a summer I never wanted to end.
Nolan’s laugh suddenly cuts through the space, that cruel, booming sound I loathe with everything in me.
He’s always winning when it comes to his deals. And me? I’m just his prize dog.
Still performing.
Still owned. Still fucking leashed.
I lean back against the couch, staring out at the skyline through the window.
The city’s glowing and alive. Every light out there feels like a version of me that could’ve been.
One that didn’t lose everything. One that never met Adriana.
One that didn’t ruin Emma or break her beautiful heart.
My eyes sting, but it’s not from the drugs. Not entirely.
The party roars on, and I sit in the middle of it all, trying not to feel. Trying not to think about how she looked at me like I was worth saving. Because I know the truth. I was.
Once.
But that version of me died a long time ago, somewhere between a trigger pull and a kiss that tasted like fucking poison.
The night blurs when more alcohol and drugs enter my system. One minute I’m on that couch, the next I’m being dragged through the penthouse by the back of my hoodie. The hallway tilts, lights streaking like someone smeared the world. My pulse is slowing, too heavy, too thick.
I’m scared.
Micah’s ahead of me, stumbling down the stairs, eyes glassy and red.
Adriana’s talking to someone, her laugh sounding like broken fucking glass.
We end up in the back of the limo again.
The doors slam shut, and the bass from the party fades into the distance until it’s just the sound of tires on wet asphalt.
Micah slumps beside me, head against my shoulder, breathing shallow. Nolan’s on the phone, voice confident and amused. Adriana hums along to whatever song’s playing softly through the speakers, pretending she didn’t just pretty much assault me again in front of a room full of people.
My stomach twists.
I wish Emma didn’t fucking see me tonight. Because she’s not safe. Not from this. Not from them. Micah mutters something I can’t quite understand.
I’m so fucking sorry, man.
The lights outside smear past, and I stare until I can’t tell if what’s burning in my chest is guilt, or the last of whatever’s left of my soul trying to claw its way out.