by Smoke, Lucy
The closer I got to the light, the better I felt. There was no sound coming from the direction of the light, and Grayson slowly peeked his head around the corner. When he released a heavy breath, relief flooded me. Grayson stepped away from the wall and took my hand, pulling me along with him.
"Come on," he whispered. "This way."
"You know where you're going?" I asked, keeping my voice low.
He nodded once and tugged me after him. We passed a hallway with the lights on, which—when I managed to catch a glimpse—was simply a short little path into what looked to be a lobby. Someone must have accidentally left it on. Grayson pulled me back into the dark. We moved further and further into the building, finding a staircase that appeared to be yet another ‘employee only entrance’ to the second floor of offices. Weren't people sleeping here? I wondered. Living here? Weren't there supposed to be nurses on duty?
Almost as soon as I had that thought, a feminine voice called out and another answered. Grayson froze for a split second before yanking me after him into a small room. I turned around as he eased the door shut behind us. We appeared to be in a break room. A cheap wooden table was littered with sugar packets and brochures for the area. The Railroad Historical Center, the local museum, and two parks. Fascinating, I thought dryly.
I spun to face Grayson as he remained by the door, listening. "We're not going to find anything here," I hissed.
He shook his head and put a finger to his lips. I frowned and moved closer, right up alongside him, pressing my ear to the door as well. I waited for several moments, but no sound came, and I pushed away, sighing loudly. He shot me an irritated look that I ignored. What exactly did he mean by dragging me here in the middle of the night? How would this help find Erika? I paced back and forth across the tile as I waited for him to determine if it was alright to leave.
After several minutes of pacing and complete and utter silence, he gently pried the door open again and looked out into the hall. Looking back, he gestured for me to follow. "Let's go," he said.
I followed him out the door and back up the hall—away from the muted voices I could still hear. We found yet another staircase and took it up to the third floor. This floor, I realized must be where they stored stuff and kept smaller offices for the employees. There were several doors on either side of the hallway—all of them closed. At the end of the long corridor, there was a meeting room. I stopped as soon as we entered, turning to glare at Grayson for wasting my time, but he was already focused on a door to the side of the meeting room. It opened into a much larger office.
"Whose office is this?" I wondered aloud, stopping in the doorway as Grayson headed for the desk.
"The facility manager's probably," he said quietly as he began opening drawers and digging through them.
"What are you looking for?" I asked.
He shook his head as he rifled through papers and files. "I don't know—evidence, maybe—I'll know it when I see it."
I looked around the room, noting the dull, worn carpet and the drab drapes that hung by the window facing out to the front of the building. I moved towards the window, but before I could reach it something sparked my interest. I paused by a tall, floor to ceiling bookcase. No, I thought to myself. There wouldn't be anything here. It was too easy, too plain. Like a Scooby-Doo episode or something.
Still, I found myself running my hand along the wooden shelves. Just as I suspected, though, there weren't any hidden switches or secret passageways. But there was a case wedged between two larger volumes—some old encyclopedias. I wedged my finger between the top of the black, hard plastic case and wiggled it, trying to free the case from its hiding spot. I winced when I tried to pull my finger out and found it stuck. I pulled again, and something dug into one of the tiny finger-joints. After several minutes of wiggling, I started to panic.
"Grayson!" I hissed. "Grayson, help me!"
His head jerked up and he stepped away from the desk towards me. I regretted calling for him immediately. Almost as if in slow motion—the stack of papers and books on the edge of the desk went tumbling over the side. My eyes widened and both of us froze at the ricocheting sound of the books landing on the carpet and spilling across the floor alongside the desk. The sound echoed throughout the room and our eyes went directly to the door of both the office and the meeting room. Even with my finger throbbing and my heartbeat pounding in my chest, I tried to strain my ears.
There was no way anyone would be close enough to hear that...right? We wouldn't be that unlucky, would we? A door closed—the noise much closer than either of us would have liked because as soon as the sound occurred, Grayson jumped into action. Leaving the papers and books on the floor, he hurried over to me.
"My finger is stuck!" I whisper-hissed. Fear pulsed through my veins. What would happen if we got caught? Would they throw us out? Call the cops? Would we go to jail? Or worse? What if they knew exactly why we were there?
"Hold on," Grayson whispered back, grabbing my jammed hand and wiggling.
I hissed at the sting of the friction. Whoever had put the case here among the books had certainly not made it easy to get out again. Grayson looked at me apologetically—his lips twisted into a frown and his brows pinched—right before he yanked at my finger hard. A startled yelp left me just as his other hand closed over my mouth. Our eyes found the open doorway again as the hallway light turned on.
Grayson grabbed me and half lifted, half carried me to a closet door across the room. Opening the door, he shoved me in first before squeezing in next to me and shutting it firmly as footsteps echoed in the meeting room next door.
"Hello?" a quiet, shaky, female voice called out. "Anyone here?"
I held my breath and closed my eyes. Don't open the door. Don't open the door. Don't open the door. I chanted the mantra in my head, hoping against hope that whoever was on the other side of the closet door would just see the books and paper on the floor and assume it had been placed precariously on the desk and fallen over on its own.
I was so focused on not getting caught, that I didn't realize Grayson had reached for my hand in the dark until his fingers twined with my own. I lifted my chin, trying to make him out in the pitch-black space. I was mere inches away from his face and I couldn't see a damn thing. All I could do was feel. We were so close, I could feel the warmth of his breath on my cheeks. A shiver shot down my spine as his other hand wrapped around my hip, his fingers digging into the skin that had been revealed as my shirt slid up.
I opened my mouth...to do what, I didn't know. I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell him to let go or what, but there was a noise just outside the door and instead of pulling away, I snuggled closer, pressing my lips against the fabric over his chest to stifle any sound. There was the low tone of someone cursing and papers being collected. An audible thunk of several books being placed back on the desk made me jump in Grayson's arms. I looked up, my lips brushing his chin. We both stilled.
I held my breath until the sound of the office door closing and footsteps leading away from the room disappeared entirely. Only then did I manage to take my first full breath in what felt like hours. Gasping against Grayson's chest, I reached up and clutched the fabric of his shirt in my fists.
"That was close," I said. When he didn't respond, I tilted my head back. "Grayson?"
"Yeah."
"Are you okay?" I asked. He sounded tense. I could understand being tense in the moment, but he sounded like he was in pain.
"I'm fine." Grayson's palms slid up my sides and found my shoulders.
"Are you sure?" I pressed.
He nodded, his cheek scraping against my temple. "Yeah," he repeated. "But we should probably stay put for a few more minutes—make sure they don't come back."
"Okay..." I trailed off. And there we were, stuck in a closet in a rehab center that we had broken into. I was pressed as close to him as I could possibly have been and—oh! My eyes widened when I realized why he sounded like he was in pain.
I glanc
ed up at him sharply, my cheeks burning red. "Uhhhh."
"It'll go away," he said tightly.
"Um...why is it even...I mean what..."
"It's you," he snapped, "you're just really close and you just—shit—" He cut himself off and if I didn't know any better—and if maybe I could have seen better—I could have sworn that, Grayson Caruso, was blushing. "You smell and feel really good," he ended with a mumble.
I snorted.
"Oh, yeah, go ahead, laugh it up," he said.
I snorted again. "I'm sorry," I said. "But this is too funny." I tried to angle my hips away and he groaned.
"Don't. Move," he urged. "You'll just make it worse."
"Well, since I have you trapped in here with me," I started.
He shook his head, his chin sliding across the top of my head. "No. No talking."
"Oh, I promise this will get rid of your little problem," I said.
"And I promise you," he snapped. "It is in no way, shape, or form...little."
I snorted for a third time. "I want to talk about you and Marv."
He groaned again. "As much as I hate to admit it, you're right, that would make the problem a lot smaller. So, talk away, but I'm not answering you."
"I just want to know, and Marv won't tell me. Why do you hate each other?"
"I don't hate him, Harlow."
"You said you weren't going to answer me," I replied smugly. There was a thunk slightly up and back as Grayson leaned back and bumped his head into the wall. When there was no whine of complaint or further movement, I figured he did it on purpose and rolled my eyes.
"Come on," I pressed forward. "Give me answers. What happened between the two of you? Was it true? You being in Iris?" I clarified.
He remained silent this time and I growled in frustration. I reached up and fisted the front of his shirt in my hands. "Grayson," I whisper-hissed. "Give me something, damn it." After a beat of near deafening silence, just when I thought to hell with it—and him—and was about to give up, he answered.
"It was me," he said softly. "And...I didn't want to do what I did, but I had to."
"What did you do?" Even though I couldn't see his facial expression, I could feel his eyes burning on my face. I wasn’t even sure if he was going to answer me again, so I tried something new. "Why do you hate Iris?" I asked.
Grayson sighed. "It's not that I hate Iris," he finally said. "I don't trust it. How did you feel when they first recruited you? You were suspicious, weren't you?"
"So, that's what you are? Suspicious?"
"Marv has every right to hate me," Grayson replied. "But when he was cut out, so was Iris and yeah, I'm suspicious. I'm curious too. After...the fallout, I kept researching—thinking I could just keep an eye on Marv, but Iris is nearly impossible to learn about unless you're on the inside. I don't like that. They rarely let anyone in. Doesn't that seem odd to you?"
I shrugged against his chest. "I don't know, it seems pretty safe to me. How else do they know who to trust and who not to trust? Anyone who stays can be trusted."
Silence reigned for several long moments. I huffed, turning towards the door—sure I had lost him. As soon as my hand closed over the knob, though, he spoke. "Do you think I can't be trusted?"
My hand turned the knob and the door creaked open. The room was dark, but I could see much better with the moonlight spilling through the window. I turned to face him. "I wouldn't have come here," I said, "if I didn't trust you to keep me safe."
Whether it was the words or maybe the electric feeling under our skin from nearly being caught, it lit something within Grayson. And if I was honest...within me as well. Grayson took one step forward, but I never moved away. He took that as his cue and lowered his head. He paused, just a hair's breadth away from my lips, his hand hovering over my cheek. He wanted to touch me. I could feel it and I didn't want to wait anymore. I wanted to close the distance between our mouths, but my body refused to move. I couldn't do that. I couldn't start something else. Knix, Bellamy, Marv, and Texas were all waiting for me to choose anyway and I couldn't. I couldn't choose. This would just be something more, and I—
Grayson moved forward, his mouth pressing into mine and cutting off my internal argument. My eyes widened before slowly—almost effortlessly—sliding closed. Grayson's hand landed on my cheek, tilting my chin up, my head back as he bit my bottom lip and sucked on it. My heart thudded unnaturally fast in my chest. A chill rushed through my body as I moaned into his mouth.
The feel of him against me burned. His mouth moved against mine, hot and overwhelming and strong. The strength of his kiss ravaged me, left me empty and hollow and filled to the brim with his emotions. Grayson was volatile and such a...fucking asshole, I thought as he pulled away from me, dark eyes looking down at me when my own opened and met his gaze. My lips were wet from his mouth and I gulped at the darkness in his gaze.
The room was quiet save for our heavy breathing. It was as though time was standing still, the universe waiting for us, trying to figure out what we would do next. I couldn't have said. There was no indication, no thought on my part, but when Grayson reached for me again, I went. I couldn't not move into his arms. I couldn't let him be alone in this moment.
Grayson's hands went to my thighs, picking me up and cradling me against his chest. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he took my mouth again, burning against my lips. Our tongues slid together, the same as our bodies did. We were like two ships in the night, crashing against each other and wrecking all of the safety mechanisms that kept us from sinking to the bottom of the sea. I would go, I decided. I would go to the bottom of the sea with him. I had the feeling no one else had ever offered him that kind of friendship. But this wasn't friendship. This was the same thing it was with Knix, with Bellamy, with Marv, with Texas. This was an electric storm, through and through, and we would have to weather it together.
My back pressed into something hard and Grayson's body moved between my thighs like one, giant muscle. He was hard everywhere. Everywhere. I gasped as he pressed up against me. I couldn't let this happen. We hadn't talked. We hadn't done anything but piss each other off. Did he really want this? Or was this spur of the moment? I couldn't do spur of the moment. I needed to know.
I pulled away, panting. "Grayson..."
He kissed me hard, silencing my words. I had to shake him away again. "Stop, wait." God, why was it so hard to keep him from kissing me again? But this time, he paused, his eyes meeting mine.
"You don't want it?" he asked, serious.
I gulped again, swallowing against a blocked throat. "I-I," I stuttered. Between my legs, under the fabric of my pants, I could feel something warm and wet. I shuddered in his arms.
"Babydoll?" Grayson backed up. "Are you okay?"
I nodded and coughed. "We can't do this here," I said, looking to the side, at the door. "Someone could catch us."
I felt his gaze searing against my cheeks and I kept my eyes averted until he sighed and dropped my legs back to the floor.
"You're right," he said. "Let's go."
Grayson grabbed my hand and as if nothing had happened—as if he hadn't just had me against the wall—he pulled me towards the door and back out into the hallway. We headed back through the facility, hearing low voices towards the main areas, but never going near them. We left the same way we managed to get in the first time. It wasn't until we got back to the car, that I realized we had forgotten the case that I had been trying to loosen from the shelf in the first place. When I told Grayson, he shrugged and popped open the driver's side door.
"It was a handgun case," he said.
"What?" I was surprised. "How could you tell that just from looking at it?"
"My father used to have one similar," he said, looking back at the building. "It's interesting that they would have one in a place filled with people they can't trust."
We slid into the car and he cranked the engine. Surprisingly, for an older car, it purred to life with very little sound. I wondered
if this was maybe one of the cars the guys had brought with them. Perhaps something Bellamy had worked on?
I shook my head and focused back on the idea of the gun case. "It was in a locked office," I pointed out, buckling in and turning to look at Grayson from across the console. "It wasn't like just anyone could get to it."
He backed out and turned onto the street but remained silent. I sighed and turned back to the window. I jumped when something buzzed under my butt and reached under my leg, digging my phone out. I gaped at the screen. Seventeen missed calls from all of the guys. Over fifty text messages and counting. I groaned, sliding to the missed calls. Knix was the last one to call, so he was the first one I called back. I put the phone to my ear and winced as he answered.
"Where the hell are you? Are you okay?" he snapped. "And where is Grayson?"
"I'm fine," I immediately replied. "We're both fine. I'm with Grayson." I took a peek in his direction, but he didn’t look at me.
"Where?" Knix repeated.
"We just left the Rehab center—"
"We're on our way, meet us in the parking lot of Hamricks," Knix said, cutting me off.
"O-Okay." I relayed the information to Grayson, who nodded briefly but otherwise stayed quiet. I narrowed my eyes at him. "We'll be there soon," I said to Knix.
"Good." He didn't say anything more—not even a goodbye—before he hung up. Fuck. He was pissed. I'd never seen Knix pissed—not like this anyway.
I groaned, resting my head back on the seat and staring out the window as empty streets passed by. Minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot of Hamricks and got out. Headlights sped around the corner and an SUV that I recognized came to a shrieking halt several feet away from the sedan. Nervously, I glanced over to Grayson, but he was as stone-faced as ever. The driver's side and passenger side door of the SUV popped open and Bellamy and Knix all but jumped out. Bellamy slammed his door behind him, but Knix left his open. I cringed as they rushed over to meet us. Instead of leaping right into a dressing down—Knix lifted me off my feet and held me to his chest. I blinked and looked down, dangling my legs around his knees.