Chapter 198
Grayson’s POV
“So this is how we all end? How we’re going to die?”
Those were her first words since I’d told her about our inevitable fate. Her first words in the last 3,502 seconds—yes, I’d been counting. My brain seemed incapable of doing much else except tallying the hours, minutes, and seconds until our doom.
I guess I was permitted to be a tad dramatic.
“Are you going to do something? Anything?” she repeated. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it sliced through the heavy silence like a blade. I turned to face her; my movements were still sluggish, though the effects of whatever drug Liam had used on us were starting to wear off.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked tiredly, meeting her gaze. Her glare was sharp enough to cut.
“Anything. I mean, you’ve gone missing more times than I can count, and you always come back alive. You’re supposed to be invincible.”
Her words hit me like a slap. I forced myself to look away from her accusing eyes and stared at the cold, gray walls of our prison. “I’m not invincible,” I muttered. “I’m just a person.”
She let out a short, humorless laugh. “If it was Ava you were trapped here with, would you just be sitting there, like you’ve given up on the world? Or would you be trying to get us the hell out of here?”
Her words twisted my stomach painfully, and I closed my eyes as if that would shield me from the raw wound her mention of Ava left behind. Guilt swirled inside me, black and suffocating. I wished she’d drop it, let the subject rest. But Elaine didn’t stop.
“Really? After everything? You’re just going to give up like this? Grayson Blackwood. Does that name mean anything to you anymore?”
The truth? No, it didn’t. Not anymore.
There had been a time when that name meant something. When I believed I could do anything, be anything. I had once sworn I wouldn’t let myself fall. I had told myself I wasn’t standing at the edge of a cliff anymore, but firmly on solid ground. And yet, here I was, not just falling, but having already hit rock bottom.
She went quiet, and the silence stretched so long I thought maybe she’d given up. But then, her voice came again, breaking through the stillness like a crack in ice.
“Do you know why I never liked Ava?”
I turned toward her. She wasn’t looking at me. Her gaze was fixed on some distant, invisible point, her expression unreadable.
“At first, it was because of her features, obviously,” she continued. Then she let out a bitter laugh, shaking her head. “I didn’t understand why someone would be created to look so…perfect.”
I didn’t respond.
“Maybe I would’ve let the jealousy go,” she went on, her voice softening, “but then you changed for her. She got the version of you that had been mine. You were my cousin, my family. We were happy, and then things changed. You changed, but she came out of nowhere, and suddenly, you were hers. The Grayson who had been my cousin, I never got to see him anymore, but you let her. You picked her every single time. And I resented you for it.”
My throat tightened painfully.
She shook her head again, her movements jerky and uneven, like she was fighting to hold herself together. “I was hurt when I found out about the fire sixteen years ago,” she whispered. “I couldn’t believe you’d done something like that. But I wasn’t mad at you.”
She turned to me then, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. “I don’t even know why. Maybe I should’ve been furious that you started the fire that killed my parents and ignited this constant hatred for the world in me, but I wasn’t. I just…hated that even after everything, after all you had done to me, you still couldn’t find a place in that cold heart of yours for me.”
I listened to how much damage I had truly done to her, in the past and in the present.
“The more I realized you didn’t care about me—not really—the more it broke me. And that’s why…” Her voice faltered. She swallowed hard before continuing. “That’s why I became this version of myself. The one you can’t stand. The one I don’t even like. I was miserable, Grayson. And I wanted everyone else—Ava, the Omegas, everyone—to be as miserable as I was.”
Her voice cracked on the last word, and she buried her face in her hands, her shoulders trembling.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, the words so quiet I barely heard them. “I’m so sorry for everything.”
Her hands dropped to her lap, and she looked at me with tear-streaked cheeks, her voice trembling with pain. “I can’t believe Liam is actually doing this to us. To me.” She paused, her lips trembling. “I’m not going to have a baby. I’m not going to have a family. Nothing was ever real. No one…no one really loves me.”
And for the second time in two weeks, my heart shattered.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
I had thought I was protecting myself by building walls around my heart, by shutting people out. I believed it was the only way to survive, to endure. To escape the pains of my past. To escape the memories and all the mistakes I had made. But I hadn’t thought about anyone else.
Liam was right. Elaine was right.
I had turned into my father.
All this time, I told myself I was different. I wasn’t like him—cold, ruthless, incapable of love. But I was wrong. I was him.
And because of that, I had destroyed everything: Elaine, Ava, myself.
I didn’t deserve to survive this. Not after everything I had done. But Elaine—she deserved better. She deserved more than this.
My jaw clenched, and for a moment, I couldn’t bring myself to speak. But then I did.
“I’m sorry, Elaine. For everything.”
I didn’t let the words hang in the air; I couldn’t. I couldn’t afford to linger in the depths of guilt or remorse. Not now. My apology wasn’t enough to erase the damage I’d done, and I wasn’t about to pretend it was. But those words—they were all I could give her in that moment.
As the silence settled between us again, I realized how utterly pathetic I’d been. I’d sat there, accepting my fate, resigned to the idea that this was how it would end. I hadn’t even tried to fight. She was right—if it had been Ava trapped in here with me, I would have moved heaven and earth to find a way out.
Something shifted inside me, sharp and electric, like a switch flipping in my brain. It wasn’t just guilt—it was something stronger: a surge of defiance, determination, life. My will to fight clawed its way back to the surface, and I grabbed onto it with everything I had.
The drug Liam had used on us was still coursing through my veins, dulling my movements, but I forced my body to push past it. Every muscle screamed in protest, but I didn’t care. I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms, willing myself to move faster, to shake off the lethargy that had held me captive for too long.
Elaine, her movements still sluggish but improving, watched me as I pushed myself up from the cold, metallic floor. “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice wary but edged with curiosity.
I didn’t look at her immediately. My eyes scanned the vault, taking in every detail, every potential weakness. “This vault,” I said, my voice steady but low, “can only be opened from the outside.”
Her brow furrowed as she followed my gaze. “So we can’t get out?”
I glanced back at her, then returned my attention to the room. The heat in the vault was becoming unbearable, the metallic walls radiating warmth that made the air heavy and stifling. The sharp, acrid smell of gas was stronger now, curling in the back of my throat and setting off alarm bells in my mind.
The scent wasn’t just a warning—it was a countdown.
I took a slow, measured breath, my eyes narrowing as I focused on the details of our prison: every panel, every seam in the walls, every faint glint of metal that could be used against itself. “The gas,” I muttered more to myself than to her, “he’s trying to kill us slowly, suffocate us with heat and fumes, then set it on fire.”
Elaine’s voice broke through my thoughts. “Grayson, what are you planning to do?”
I didn’t answer immediately. My mind was racing, piecing together possibilities, calculating risks. I wasn’t sure if any of it would work, but sitting still wasn’t an option anymore. My gaze fell on a vent near the top of the wall, one small enough that it might have been overlooked in the vault’s otherwise seamless design.
If the gas was coming from there, then maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t impenetrable.
“We’re getting out of here,” I said firmly, my tone leaving no room for doubt.
I staggered toward the wall, ignoring the way my legs threatened to give out under me. I reached, my hands brushing over its surface as I searched for anything I could use. My fingers found a faint seam where the vent was embedded, and I pressed against it, testing its strength. It didn’t budge.
Elaine had moved closer now, her movements still slow but determined. “That’s not going to open without tools,” she said, her voice tinged with frustration.
I didn’t respond. She was right, of course, but giving up wasn’t an option. Not anymore. My mind raced, considering alternatives. The room was sparse—nothing but metal and heat—but there had to be something.
Then, suddenly, a faint hiss of gas filled the air. Every second felt heavier, the heat pressing harder against us, the smell of gas growing stronger.
I glanced at her, and she met my eyes. I didn’t need to say it out loud, because she already knew: “We don’t have much time left.”