Destroyed Destiny (Crowne Point #4) - Mary Catherine Gebhard Page 0,116
forever.
I was free, and Atlas was chained.
I couldn’t breathe. He gripped my face. I could see the words in his head, what he wanted to say, but Beryl Crowne was only a few feet from us.
Watching.
“She’s free from me, from the Crowne world,” Beryl drolled. “I can’t promise what will happen when the police arrive and there’s no one to blame for her lover’s death.”
Grayson gritted his jaw, eyes flashing back to mine. “Go, Snitch.” He pulled me closer to the arched, ballroom entryway.
“Leave you?” I blinked as tears filled my eyes. “For how long? I told myself I would never leave you again. That I would never let us be separated again. It was a mistake the first time—”
He cut me off, gripping my face and dragging me closer. “What did you say, Story?”
I blinked, taking in large lungfuls of air. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You said our fate isn’t forbidden. Our destiny is divided. We haven’t found the right path.”
“I was fucking wrong!” I screamed.
“I’ll destroy it,” he said, voice shaking. “We’ll destroy it. Crowne Hall isn’t safe. Not yet.” He dug his thumbs into my cheeks. “I will make it safe.”
The way he spoke, the deadly determination in his voice, I knew this wasn’t a promise for him to come back to me.
It was a goodbye.
“I see the pain in your neck and the weight on your shoulders, Grayson!”
“And I saw the rust on your heart, Story!”
My mouth parted. “It isn’t the same,” I whispered.
“You can’t take someone else’s struggle; sometimes people are destined for pain. Isn’t that what you said?”
“It isn’t the same.” Tears clogged my throat, my voice messy and ugly. “I can’t. I can’t leave you. I can’t—”
“I can’t leave, Snitch. I couldn’t make it perfect. I tried so fucking hard.” He held me tight, as if with a hug he could engrave me into his soul, then whispered, “Find Lottie. She’s in the tunnels getting help.”
No.
I can’t fucking leave him.
I knew we only had five minutes, but I couldn’t process anything. Not the advancing pain in my abdomen, letting me know that another, much more urgent clock was ticking down as well.
“Story!” Grayson gripped my cheeks. He lowered his voice, until only I could hear. “Go to the tunnels. Find Lottie.”
“Come with me, Atlas,” I begged.
Everything was foggy.
This wasn’t happening.
This couldn’t be happening.
We couldn’t have lost.
“You promised you wouldn’t miss the delivery. You promised.”
Grayson dropped to his knees, pressing his head to my stomach. A single second spanned a lifetime. “This was always how it was going to end,” he said.
Then he stood.
His jaw tight, eyes dark.
Panic seized my lungs and I doubled over in pain. I gripped his bicep as another contraction hit me.
Beryl laughed, and Grayson flexed his fingers into a fist.
“I should have ripped him out of you,” he growled. “I should have fucking ripped him out of you when I had the chance.”
The sirens grew louder.
“The weight is too heavy for your shoulders,” I cried.
“My shoulders will get strong. Now leave, but do one thing for me.” He shoved fabric into my hand, wet and cold. “Survive.”
His green pocket square, sticky with blood. Inside, bloody and cold, wrapped around my locket, was the final coin.
How—what—I couldn’t ask him, not with Beryl watching our every move.
He turned from me.
“Grayson, you survive too. You promise me. You survive too.” He wasn’t responding, and the longer I went without a response, the higher my fear rose. “Grayson?”
“Leave, Snitch!” he yelled, and I jolted, running out of the room, pausing only to give one last look.
“My song will wait until you return, Atlas.”
I ran to find Lottie; the last thing I saw was Grayson standing tall before his grandfather.
A fault line formed along my heart at exactly 2:02 in the morning. With every beat, I felt it digging. I swallowed, throat dry, as I left the love of my life forever.
Sixty
STORY
Lottie was waiting just outside the entrance to the tunnels.
“Where is Grayson?” she asked.
I rolled my lips, shaking my head, unable to say the words. The realization dawned on Lottie slowly as her mouth parted. Grayson Crowne was out doing what Grayson Crowne did best—sacrificing himself.
The gravity of the situation was apparent in the low way she spoke, the tight draw of her brow.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea, but I don’t have any ideas left and she—” Lottie broke off on a breath. “She was the only person home I could think of…the only person who isn’t them.”