Page 69 of Fallen to Thievery
Ihadresignedtomy fate.
After a long night of pacing, prayers and desperation, I could see it. I had clarity. I couldn’t have it both ways. So, I had to go home and let go. I had to forget about Grayson. If I was being honest with myself, I already knew why Grayson had captured my attention. He was the complete opposite of me. He was free and wild and acted on his impulses without fear or guilt. Besides the killing, of course, he was someone I had longed to be, in the darkness of my room, when no one was looking.
And for a few moments, with him, I had been that. In his presence, I could let go without judgment.
But that’s the thing. Grayson’s way of life was an illusion. It was unsustainable. The robber always gets caught. Bonnie and Clyde never made it out of their getaway car. And this was no different. This life? It was all astunningfool’s paradise. There will always be consequences and Karma, no matter how fast and how far you run. Grayson might ignore it, be blind to it, but I shouldn’t be.
Then there was Grayson himself. He was dangerous and brutal, and I had only narrowly escaped it. Yes, he was exciting and challenging andhad me questioning my sanity. And yes, even when he threatened to slit my throat, I knew he wouldn’t kill me, but would killforme, if only I asked. But what if that changed? Because Grayson was impulsive and unpredictable. He marched to the beat of his own drums. And if that beat turned against me, he would have no issue marching right over me. Was he even capable of real love? Selfless love? He had closed himself off to it a long time ago.
Not even I was delusional enough to assume that we could live happily ever after. This was not a fairy tale. I was not the beauty that could change the beast into something resembling a human being. No matter how tame Grayson was acting at the moment, I couldn’t lose sight of that.
So, I had accepted my fate. Had I not begged and pleaded with the gods to let me get home? It was for my own good. Home was safe.
There was a knock on my door. Grayson came in the room and sat on the chair, not on the bed like he did the previous day. He was deep in thought. I could already feel the gap between us widening.
I continued brushing my hair, waiting for him to speak. I studied every inch of him. Not wanting to forget a thing about him. I wished I could take a picture to keep with me. I had decided to let go of him, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t haunt me. That I wouldn’t summon his ghost to torment myself. That he wouldn’t always lurk in the back of my mind, waiting for the quiet of night to step forward and devour me. Piece by piece with memories and anguish and even little depraved pleasures. But I knew if I held on long enough, I would survive him. I could survive the ghost of him.
“It’s time we start talking about what you will say when you get back.”
I nodded and waited. There was no doubt that he already had everything planned out.
“I will drop you off on the outskirts of town at about midnight, so no one sees us together. You will have to walk the rest of the way home, is that okay with you?”
I nodded. It’s not like I haven’t walked across town at night when I couldn’t sleep. Bentley Cove was so peaceful at night.
“You will tell the police that the day of your kidnapping we drove for a whole day in a car. You were blindfolded. You never saw the car, but you would have to think of how the inside of the car felt and smelled and sounded, to make it believable to yourself. If you believe it, they’ll believe it. To explain the scratch on your arm, you will say you tried to run when the car stopped, but you ran into something because you had a blindfold on. You will tell them that you were taken into a room where you stayed this whole time. You can describe your room in the cabin if you want, but it had no windows. And you never saw anyone’s faces. You will tell the police that your kidnappers promised to let you go, if you didn’t see their faces. So you never tried to look. They never came into the room except to bring you food, twice a day. Close your eyes, Ava. I need you to visualise this,” he said, and I obeyed. “It’s tedious, but it’s always the little details that will give you away. You need to make this as real in your mind as you possibly can.” He continued, “Someone would knock on the door, and you would have to face the wall away from them, so you couldn’t see them. They would open the door and place the food on the floor, then take your old dishes. Samewith your laundry. You had to place it by the door. You never knew which one of the three robbers brought the food.”
“No,” I interrupted. “I could tell you apart by the sounds of your footsteps after the first day.” I peered at Grayson through one eye. He was smiling, finding it amusing.
“Okay then. So you could tell by their footsteps that it was always the same one who brought you food.”
I nodded, satisfied.
“They made sure you had all necessities to survive but never more. You never left the room, and they never bothered you. Until today. One came in, in the same suit they used to rob the bank and put a blindfold on you. He said you were going home. You were taken to a car, drove a whole day, and was dropped off. You were told to count to two hundred before taking your blindfold off, which you obeyed.”
Grayson and I went over the story again and again. Each time adding more detail and colour to it, to ensure the picture in my head was clear and realistic. Like a memory would be.
By noon I was thoroughly exhausted. But our memory was done. Grayson had told me to get some rest, and that we were leaving at three that afternoon in order to be at Bentley Cove by midnight. I obeyed and took a nap until he woke me at three. The gods only knew what I would have to go through once I was home. The police would be relentless. At least for a while.
Grayson loaded our bags into the trunk. He stilled when he caught me staring at him. His eyes softened and he took a step closer. He smoothed a hand over my hair. “You ready to go home?”
I nodded.
He sighed, looking a little conflicted, tracing a finger over my jaw. “I can trust you, right?”
My heart squeezed. I understood why he asked, so I held out my pinkie. “I will forever keep you and your family my secret. You have my word, Gray,” I pledged.
He twisted his pinkie with mine and just stared at me while his eyes stormed.
“Will I ever see you again?” I dared to hope, holding my breath.
He swallowed hard and my stomach dropped as he clamped his eyes shut for a moment. “Only in another life, little witch,” he whispered. He used my pinkie to pull me into him. His strong arms wrapped around me as he buried his face in my hair. He held me tight, and I clung to him like I might fall into a million pieces if he let go.
But he did let go. And somehow, I stayed intact.
It was time to go home.
The road was long. The landscape around us changed more and more as we left Frostford Forest behind us. Neither Grayson nor I talked. Neither of us addressed the gaping hole that was forming between us. Neither ofus tried to stop it. We let it bleed, let it burn. Because it was the right thing to do.
