Chapter 106
Chapter 106
GRAYSON
The plan is to get out of here as soon as possible.
Watching her tied down, still groaning through gritted teeth, slick with sweat and blood and breathless agony–made Pierce almost fucking kill me.
I looked at Jessica.
She was writhing, arms stretched above her head where I’d tied her–God, her eyes. The black was leaking back in again. Her throat arched as she whispered things that weren’t hers. Riot’s words, curling like smoke from her lips.
“Untie her,” Theo said. “We need to move.”
“She’ll break someone’s spine,” I snapped. “You didn’t see what she did before.”
“Then sedate her.”
“She begged me not to. She said-”
I stopped. I couldn’t repeat it. The way she whispered “kill me” like it was a favor. The way she told me to claim her or let her go to Riot. The way her wrists bled just to get to me.
I moved to her. Knees in the dirt. Pressed a hand to her face. She flinched like I burned her. Her eyes rolled back.
“Jess,” I said softly. “I’m here. We’re getting out. Just hold on.”
“Don’t want to,” she slurred. “Just want you inside me… please… please…”
Pierce turned away. Theo cursed.
“Sedate her,” Theo said, quieter now. “You said it yourself. You can’t claim her. You can’t fix it. She’s too far gone-”
“I fucking said no.”
Pierce moved again and I nearly tore his throat out.
“She’s my sister,” he snapped.
“She’s mine,” I growled. “You don’t fucking understand what that means.”
Her skin burned under my hands. Her pylse fluttered too fast to track. I pressed a hand to her face. She shuddered. Gasped.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t let them knock me out. Please. Please don’t take me away from you.”
I swallowed.
Pierce threw the sedative at me. “Do it, or I will.”
10.31 Fri, 29 Aug
Chapter 106
I caught the vial, Held it in my palm like it weighed fifty fucking pounds. I could barely breathe.
Her lips cracked. “Grayson?”
“Yeah, baby. I’m here.”
“Then don’t let me sleep. Don’t let me go.”
My hands shook.
Behind me, Theo muttered, “We don’t have time.”
I lifted the vial, really planning to use it on her but one looked in her eyes and I couldn’t. So, I stood. Dropped the vial. Shattered it against the floor.
“You’re insane,” Theo hissed.
“I said I’m not sedating her.”
“She’ll kill us all.”
60%
“Then let her start with me.”
I tore through the belt with my claws and caught her before she crumpled, her body soft and twitching in my arms. Her breath stuttered against my collarbone. The heat of her–God, she was burning up. Like something inside her was cooking her alive. Her skin stuck to mine. She whimpered once, low and broken, and curled into me like instinct.
Pierce slammed the back door open. “We’re not going to make it if we stand here arguing.”
We moved.
I carried her through the trees, heart a war drum in my throat, each step louder than the last.
The truck was parked behind the slope. Mud–caked, engine already ticking. Theo opened the back door. Pierce threw a blanket down over the seat like it would fix anything. I ignored them. I ducked in with her in my arms and laid her across the seat as gently as I could.
She moaned. Tried to speak. Her eyes rolled. The black was back.
I brushed hair off her face. “You’re okay,” I lied.
She twitched.
Her mouth moved.
“I can feel him,” she breathed. “Inside me.”
I looked away. I couldn’t hear that right now. I slammed the door shut.
Pierce jumped in front. Theo started the engine.
I climbed into the back beside her. Pulled her into my lap. Held her too tightly. I didn’t care. She was shaking so violently it
ማር
10:32 Fri, 29 Aug
Chapter 106
rattled through my bones.
“Go.” I barked.
The truck lurched forward. Tires kicking up
avel and dirt, engine roaring through the silence like a warning. Riot was
behind us, I knew it. I felt it. Like claws dragging down my spine.
Jessica shifted in my arms. Her fingers dug into my chest.
And then she looked up at me–eyes black, mouth cracked, voice not hers.
“You should’ve marked me when you had the chance.”
“What’s happening to her?” Pierce screams.
She lunges across the seat like an animal, feral, claws out, jaws open, knocking my shoulder out of place with the force of her. She hits the back window, fists slamming into the glass hard enough to spider it, blood smearing across the pane.
Theo yells, “What the fuck is happening?!”
“She’s shifting–but it’s not right!” I grab her waist, try to haul her back, but she kicks me in the ribs and I see stars–my lungs stutter, and then she turns, face twisted into something halfway between herself and something I don’t fucking recognize.
“Jessica-!”
She’s sobbing. Laughing. Growling. Her face splits open in a scream that rattles the goddamn frame of the truck.
“STOP THE FUCKING CAR!” I shout.
Theo slams on the brakes, the tires shrieking across gravel and mud. The truck skids sideways, door flinging open from the force of her body hitting it again. Pierce yells. Jessica grabs the seatbelt like a tether and tries to climb out.
“Jess!” I lunge, grabbing her around the waist, dragging her back, but she bites me–bites into my arm, straight through the muscle, and it’s not her. Her eyes are black. Her voice is Riot’s. Her mouth spits his words through her teeth–
“She’s not yours.”
Islam her against the seat. “Yes the fuck she is!”
She claws at my chest, hands scrabbling, nails slicing through skin. My shirt rips open. Blood floods between us. She growls into my mouth as I grab her jaw to stop her from tearing my throat out. “It’s not you,” I pant, breath shaking. “You’re not him–Jess–fight it–fight it!”
“Grayson!” Pierce’s voice is distant, panicked, like he’s watching a horror movie through glass.
Jessica rears back and vomits blood. Dark, thick, laced with black smoke, Her whole body shudders. Her limbs crack, reform. She convulses. Sobs. Then stops.
Still.
10:32 Fr, 29 Aug
Chapter 106
Silent.
And for one fucking second I think she’s dead.
“No–no no no-“I shake her, grip her face, slap her cheek. “Jess–baby–breathe–breathe-
Then her eyes open again.
Not black. Not brown.
Silver.
And she smiles. Dripping blood. Lips cracked. “I’m going to kill every last one of you.”
Theo opens the door, aiming the gun. “Get out of the way–Grayson–get out!”
“No!” I spread my arms over her body, shaking, panting, barely upright. “Don’t you fucking touch her!”
“She’s gone!” Theo’s voice cracked as he raised the syringe, arm cocked, needle glinting in the dark. “You’re not thinking straight, Grayson. She’ll kill us–she’ll kill you!”
“She’s not!” I roared, but I saw his finger twitch. The second his muscles shifted, I moved.
I lunged across her body–over the heat, the blood, the snarling girl who used to be mine—and caught his wrist mid–air.
I didn’t think. I didn’t blink.
I ripped the sedative from his grip, turned, and slammed it into her throat.
Jessica choked, back arching like a live wire had been shoved down her spine. Her eyes flared white, then black, then wide. Her lips peeled back in a snarl, but I held her down, gutted, while the plunger sunk into her skin and her pulse fluttered under my hand.
“No–no–Grayson!” Theo grabbed my shoulder like he couldn’t believe what I’d done.
“You think I wanted to?!” I snapped. “You think I fucking wanted to sedate the only girl I’ve ever-
Jessica twitched once.
Twice.
Then went still.
The truck was dead quiet, except for the breath shaking out of me.
Theo’s voice was ragged. “You said she wasn’t gone.”
“She’s not.” I looked down at her, bloodied, ruined, unconscious in my lap, and my hands wouldn’t stop trembling. “She’s still in there. But if she shifted with that thing in her, she’d never come back.”
Chapter 107
