Chapter 14
Grayson
A little further. Just a little fucking further , I begged my legs to hold.
I slinked into the shadows, dodging another stupid agent that walked like she had a stick up her ass.
Former military. I waited for her to pass, keenly aware of the overly eager agent I slipped past earlier at my back, heading my way.
He had to be brand new. No other agent had searched with such vigour.
It had been thirty-nine seconds since I passed the rookie. At the pace he was walking, it would take him roughly twenty seconds to catch up to me, enough to spot me where I crouched. That left me with four seconds to disappear into the alley, after stick-up-the-ass was out of sight.
I counted down the steps until she would disappear around the corner.
Three… two… one. I sprinted across the street, counting down the seconds before the agent behind me would be able to spot me.
And four… three… two… I turned into the alley, out of his line of sight. And one.
I just needed to make it through the building at the end of the alley. Then I could relax.
I reached the door and picked the lock with practiced movements. Picking locks had become so natural to me, I could easily do it with my hands tied behind my back.
Or shaking like a madman.
I silently clicked the door closed behind me, moving as swiftly as my struggling legs would allow across the abandoned warehouse. A light had me swiftly stepping behind a wooden crate. I sighed soundlessly as the two agents moved closer, blocking my way.
Exit Plan B, it is.
“Split up,” one whispered to the other. “I’ll sweep the lower floors, you take upstairs.”
I waited for the agent to move past me and up the stairs before I followed behind him. Fuck. Could my legs even handle Exit Plan B at this point?
I had to get my shit together.
At the top of the stairs, I kept close to the left-side wall in the hallway, where I had cleared a path of all noisy debris earlier, for exactly this reason. Rule three. Preparation always saved my ass.
The agent’s boots crunched over the floors as he swept the offices, but my steps were silent behind him.
He moved into an office and I shot forward. I had to get past him to the last office, while I still had control of my body.
I froze as he came out the office, having not searched it as thoroughly as the rest, stepping right out in front of me. I had instinctively reached for my knife, my mind effortlessly playing out three different ways to kill him silently. Lucky for him, he had his back to me.
I stepped around the agent as he turned to look behind him. I had already mapped the debris on the floor and found the quietest spots to place my feet as I moved. I backed into the office he just swept and swivelled behind the wall as the agent righted himself and continued on.
My jaw clenched, the irritation starting to take over. It would be so much easier to just slit his throat and be done with it. For once I didn’t have the energy for games. I wanted to get the fuck out of here before I lost my shit.
Ava’s smell bombarded me and I spun around, sure she was behind me.
Nothing.
Fuck.
The agent had gone into the office next to me, and I made it to the end of the hallway and slipped into the last office.
By his pace, I had less than two minutes to get out.
I opened the window and swore as I got onto the ledge. This was going to be a fucking bitch.
My shaking hands gripped onto the side of the building, my fingers hooking painfully into the crevices of the stone.
I climbed slower than usual, closing the window with my foot as I went.
I willed my weak knees to just shut the fuck up and do what they were supposed to do—free-climb the building to the roof.
When I reached the top, I pulled myself over the ledge and rolled onto the roof, just lying there for a second, catching my breath.
If Hunt saw my weak ass now…
But fuck him too. This had been one of the worst days of my life.
I was barely holding it together. My whole body was vibrating, even my teeth chattering like I was in shock.
The sound triggered another memory, and I knew if I looked to my right, Ava would be lying there, shaking, curled into a ball in her sleeping bag.
I clamped my eyes shut instead. Get up, asshole. You’re not done yet.
I groaned and pushed myself off the floor. Could I even do the next part right now? I took a deep breath, hoping it’ll strengthen my muscles.
Fuck it. If I die, I die.
I broke out into a sprint, making sure I gained enough momentum before leaping off the roof and into the air. The next rooftop came up beneath me, and I rolled to break the impact as I hit it.
I panted loudly, the adrenaline shooting through my veins, giving my body the boost it needed.
My hoarse laugh filled the silent rooftop. I made it.
I ran across the roof to the fire escape and leaped down the metal stairs, fully using the adrenaline-high to get the fuck out of Dodge.
Crossing the street, I melted into the crowd that was rushing home. A woman gawked at me, and I smiled politely, keeping pace next to her. Two blocks further, I slinked into the shadows of an alley. I typed in the password on the keypad and the door to the warehouse clicked open.
I sighed in relief. Almost there.
I moved through the dark building by memory alone, until I reached my car.
I made it.
I collapsed against the side of the car, but pushed off it again, falling forward on one knee, just in time to hurl my guts out. Since when was I the type to throw up?
“Fuck!” I screamed to the heavens. I severely underestimated just how hard seeing her, touching her… breaking her, would be. Nausea rolled through my body again.
My girl. My princess.
I fell backwards, collapsing against the car, pressing my palms into my eyes.
I had just said the vilest things to my baby, and I could never unsee the utter devastation on her face. It was seared into my fucked-up head, to be played again and a-fucking-gain like a child’s favourite movie.
Breathe, Grayson. Breathe, you fucking prick. It had to be done.
At least I had something else to drive me crazy, other than the video of that piece of shit railing my Ava.
How could she do it? How could she stomach another man inside of her, when I still couldn’t even touch my own cock without seeing her face in front of me?
The anger came flooding back, replacing the burn in my chest.
She should be punished. For allowing another man to touch what I had made mine so thoroughly.
I should have showed her just how easily her body could blur the lines between pain and pleasure.
I should have made her cry and clench her teeth against the pain all while begging me not to stop.
She was mine. He didn’t deserve to touch her!
The shit’s name was Kyle, for God’s sake!
I had to kill him for it. Kyle. For daring to lay his slimy hands on someone so perfect. Someone he could never be worthy of. Someone who didn’t belong to him in the first place.
Breathe, fucker.
I had killed him hoping to replace the image of them fucking on the beach with the sight of his blood pooling at my feet.
A fucked-up coping mechanism I’d employed over the years to keep from going completely psychotic from my relentless, perfect memory.
A strategy I’d used with that pig-faced Digger, too.
The memory of his screams had drowned out the memory of Ava’s screams in the forest that day.
The same went for Shaun and Wesley. Shaun’s lifeless, handless body beneath me, had replaced the endlessly looping footage of him hitting my girl.
Only this time, it hadn’t worked. The memory of Kyle’s blood all over my hands and shoes had done nothing. The moment I’d laid eyes on Ava again, all I could see was her desperate struggle to unbutton the bastard’s pants. His disgusting mouth all over her perfect tits.
I pulled air in through my nose, out through my mouth. Like I was taught. I couldn’t lose it again. Not like I did after leaving Ava in that vault.
“Grayson? Are you there? Grayson, please answer me. Please.” Her voice echoed off the warehouse walls as if she was right here.
I clamped my eyes shut against the onslaught of emotions that accompanied the memory of her trembling voice.
I’ve always had an exceptional memory. But for the first time in my life, it was a curse.
Never had I any regrets of having the memories of my mother’s and sister’s death.
It was the driving force behind my anger and retribution.
Remembering the small, insignificant details that others would forget immediately, helped Hunt’s father to find the bastards responsible. So, I gladly burned in those memories.
But the brutality of the memories of Ava was something else entirely.
The lines of my girl’s smile, her smell, her fucking taste, was so vivid in my mind it blurred my reality.
My senses were so agonisingly filled with the phantom of her, I wanted to scream.
My mind refused to let go of her. It insisted on replaying everything over and over and fucking over again, to the point where she appeared as a ghost in the room with me.
It was the worst those first few days after leaving her.
I barely had my shit together enough to kill Anderson.
While I was down in that basement with him, she was watching me from across the cold room. Only, she was sitting on my bed in the cabin, ragged and scared to even breathe.