“Correct me if I’m wrong, but he was counting on you to develop feelings for him. You would’ve never broken the law for him, if it was not the case. You had to help him get another captive and kill all those people. You would not have done that, if there weren’t immense feelings for him.” She was quiet for a while. “He’s the clever one, isn’t he? The mastermind behind the group?”
I clenched my jaws together and stood. “I’ve had enough.” She knew nothing of us. She understood nothing. I turned and walked to the door.
“He got what he needed from you. And then he abandoned you. He left you to take the fall. All according to his plan.”
My feet stopped moving, my fury blinding me. “Don’t you say another fucking word,” I whispered through clenched teeth.
“I’m sorry, Ava. I do not wish to upset you, but time is of the essence. There is a man’s life at stake, and you are our only lead. You can still save his life. If only you face the truth.”
I spun to her. “The truth?” I laughed. “You want therealtruth? That man is already dead, and he deserved to die. And Grayson and I? We loved each other. No, weworshippedeach other. There was nothing truer than what I saw in his eyes when he looked at me. Nothing more real. This…” I waved my arms over the place. “This isn’t real. What you’re saying isn’t real. But whatever was between me and Grayson, I had never experienced anything truer than that.”
Fuck.I had let his name slip.
“I am his and he’s everything to me,” I whispered to myself as my fingers found his scars again to remind myself. I shouldn’t let these people get in my head.
Doctor Aspen smoothed her already perfect grey hair back. So similar to how Grayson would pull his hand through his hair that I almost smiled. She sat up straighter when she looked at me again.
“He clearly made you feel loved. And maybe it wasn’t a lie. But you’re a smart girl, Ava. Think about it. Look at the facts. You’ve been here for seven days. Agent Becket had been hunting these people for two years, but he could never find anything solid on them, because they arethatgood. The FBI call themThe Apparitions. In and out of maximum-security fortresses without leaving so much as a strand of hair behind. Until a week ago, most agents didn’t even believe in their existence.
“So ask yourself, if he loved youthatmuch, why hasn’t he come for you? This place would be nothing for them. Why isn’t he here?”
Her words sucker-punched the air out of me. It shattered my last pretences. It shattered that fantasy of hope I’d been feverishly clinging to.
I balled my fists against my eyes and wailed. Because I realised it’s what I’d been doing all these days, staying in my room, watching the grounds through the window.
I was waiting. I was waiting for him to come get me. I was searching for him behind every tree, every bush I could see. Waiting for him to saunter across the lawn, smirking up at me, in a manner that said,You didn’t think I’d really leave you, Princess?
But he hadn’t come.
Doctor Aspen was right. It would have been a piece of cake for him, but he hadn’t come back for me.
I was suddenly right back in the forest, sitting in front of that stream, listening to Grayson’s plan to fuck my life up.
I looked up to her, my mind in absolute pieces. “He’s not coming, is he?”
It was Grayson who had locked me in that vault. It was Grayson who left me there. And he wasn’t coming back for me.
There was pity in Doctor Aspen’s eyes too. Just like Agent Becket. “No, Ava. I don’t believe he is.”
Wherever Grayson was, he must’ve beenthrilled. It had all gone according to his plan. A plan he had the balls to tell me about, then smugly watched naïve little Avaplay it out.
I sank back onto the couch and stared out the little window, letting it sink in. Taking in what I’d been desperate to deny. What I knew from the moment the vault clicked shut behind me but couldn’t face.
“Oh, you stupid fucking whore.”
That dead bastard had been right to laugh at me. Charles had been right. I was so fucking stupid. It was all a lie.
My mind spiralled out of control as my body became locked in place. I could hear Doctor Aspen calling to me, but she was too far away, and she didn’t matter. I was too busy replaying every single second with Grayson that was burned into my soul, trying to find the omens of his betrayal, finally seeing what I ignored and turned a blind eye to. Finally paying mind to all the times that little voice had warned me, the dark feelings that had clawed at my ribs, everything in me coming to an abrupt stop at one specific memory.
The pomegranate wasn’t edible.
It wasn’t fucking edible.
A coldness burned in my chest, spreading through me, burning through all the memories, voices, feelings and my trusting innocence, until there was nothing left but calm, quiet, raging. Like the undercurrent of a frozen lake.
I snapped my gaze to Doctor Aspen, who was watching me with intense concern. It was dark outside. “I want to speak to Agent Becket.” My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, tasting like the ashes of hell.
Doctor Aspen pulled out her cell phone without a word, her eyes never leaving me. “Agent Becket? Ava would like to speak to you.” She handed me the phone.
