Grayson didn’t say a word. He didn’t even spare me a glance.
He just lifted her up and carried her away, leaving me alone in the wreckage. Alone with the mess she had forced me to make.
I told myself it was protection. That I was reacting to things I couldn’t quite see. A nightmare bleeding through the edges of waking life.
Funny how easy it is to lie to yourself when the truth is tapping politely on your skull, waiting to be let in.
Hours pass, and my feelings just keep getting more tangled. Adam didn’t explain what happened, why we came here, or why he’d showed up covered in blood.
Grayson didn’t ask a thing. Not about the mess, not about me. It makes me think this isn’t exactly new territory for him.
He didn’t ask who I am or why I’m here.
Grayson showed me to my room and left me there. No one’s checked in since.
The room itself feels nothing like the rest of the house. Everything out there is dark, almost-black, sharp and modern. In here, it’s all sand-beige and calm, like someone tried to build a little piece of heaven inside a storm.
There’s a huge bathroom and an even bigger closet. The clothes inside are expensive, clean, and picked with actual taste. Whoever stayed here before me knew exactly what they were doing. Or someone wanted them to.
My movements in here are still mechanical, numb even, no matter how surprising this place is.
I took a shower to get rid of the smeared blood Adam left on me, then pulled on a pair of joggers just to feel a little more human.
My mother’s face keeps flashing through my mind. The way she fought for air while his hands crushed down on her throat, the panic in her eyes shifting into something else when she understood what was happening.
I keep wondering if she actually knew. If she felt that exact moment when everything slipped away.
Some moments I hate him for it. He had no right to choose how her story ended. That makes him a sick bastard, no way around it.
Then there are other moments, when he feels like the only person who ever tried to pull me out of the mess I was born into. The only one who reached for me when everyone else stepped back. And the only one who actually did it.
It’s twisted, I know. Like trusting the same hand that ruined everything in the first place. Like biting into something that looks perfect, only to taste the rot underneath, yet somehow still wanting another bite, because for a moment it felt like the first good thing I ever had.
I didn’t cry again. I keep thinking I should have—any normal person would, right? Watching their own mother die and then falling apart for hours after. But nothing comes out. Not even a burn behind my eyes.
All I’m left with is this tight knot sitting in my stomach, like something’s wrong with me for staying dry-eyed. I keep askingmyself why I can’t cry, why my body won’t do what it’s supposed to do.
It’s probably the shock, or whatever people say in situations like this—but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like I’m failing at the one reaction everyone expects.
After hours of lying here, thinking in circles and staring at the ceiling like an idiot, it hits me. If I want answers, I’m gonna have to go to him myself.
I step out of my room and into the long corridor, doors lining both sides. I already know which one is his—Grayson pointed it out earlier, “in case I had to know.” Whatever that means.
I head that way and almost bump into a maid. Out of habit, I keep my eyes down and don’t say a word.
“Welcome, miss,” she says, warm and polite, then continues on like nothing happened.
I freeze for half a second.
Did she … actually greet me?
“Thanks,” I murmur to myself.
I keep going until I’m standing outside his door. My pulse jumps, but I push past it and knock.
“Come in.”
I push the door open, and the room hits me all at once. It’s huge, the kind of space that feels even bigger because nothing’s out of place. Everything is black or close to it, matching the rest of the house. Clean lines and not a single thing that isn’t necessary.
