Lessons in grey shadows.., p.40
Lessons In Grey: Shadows of Sin, page 40
My eyes widened, the anger boiling under my skin. I shoved myself to a stand, the world swaying around me, and ripped the door open. “Fuck you,” I snapped.
Jeremy pushed himself up, the phone to his ear, guilt in his eyes. “He told me to ask.”
“That was directed at him,” I replied coldly.
He pulled the phone away, offering it to me. “He wants to talk to you.”
I held his eyes, refusing to look at that phone, my grip tightening around the neck of the bottle, my jaw working painfully.
After a few seconds, Jeremy sighed and put it back to his ear. “I told you, she’s not doing it.” His eyes flicked down to the bottle and back. “She’s drinking.”
I gaped, my heart stuttering. “What the fuck?” I breathed.
Jeremy shook his head. “It’s not me—”
I shoved the bottle into his chest, forcing him back a step. “I took more anti-depressants, you absolute dick,” I breathed. “I’m not suicidal, I’m fucking angry.”
The elevator dinged.
Jeremy closed his eyes. “I shouldn’t be in the middle of this, you both need to talk to each other.”
“You put yourself in the middle of this when you answered the goddamn phone,” I snarled, tears pouring down my cheeks. “I told you not to do it.” The absolute nerve of him to bring Jeremy into that conversation. I wanted to fucking scream.
“I have to, Emily,” he pleaded as the gate opened. “Malachi is my boss, and I need to know what’s happening if I’m to keep you safe.”
“You had no right to ask me that,” I seethed.
He looked guilt-ridden. “It was Greyson, not me, he’s worried.”
My chest felt like it was about to explode, my mind spinning and hazy, the world tipping on its axis. Too much alcohol, too many pills, too many emotions. I needed to fucking sleep.
“What’s happening?” Ash asked, worried.
“Ask Matthew,” I stated coldly. “Grey’s giving him all the information.”
“Emily,” Jeremy tried. “That’s not true.”
I shoved past him. “Matthew knows he’s in Ireland!” I shouted. “I didn’t even know he had left fucking Africa!”
“Malachi told me—”
“Shut-up, Matthew!” I screamed, Sirius meowing loudly at my feet as I headed for my room. “It doesn’t matter! At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter! I’m not a part of your stupid fucking world. I’m not a part of any of this. This is exactly why I fucked and left,” I stated, turning back to the room at my bedroom door. “I made it very clear that I didn’t do this bullshit, and now look. I wish I had never let him get in my head.”
Everyone went silent, my heart thudding.
Ash stepped forward, worry in her eyes. “Emily.”
My eyes went wide, disbelief coursing through me. “I told you I didn’t want to talk to him,” I breathed out, shaking my head, horror filing me. “I told you.”
“Emily, wait,” Ash started after me.
I shut the door behind me and flipped the lock, covering my face and sinking to the ground a sob cracking through me. Goddammit. I told them. I tried to tell them. Why did they have to keep pushing?
43
Emily
February 21st, 2022
The Christmas decorations had long since been taken down, and on Valentines Day, Matthew, Jeremy, Ash, Syn, and I had spent the day going through mom and Charlie’s boxes, hanging up pictures and paintings, going through the clothes, putting things in a Salvation Army pile and whatnot.
The loft was now covered in pictures of family, including pictures of Ash and Syn, Jeremy and Matthew, and various pictures of me with all of them.
I had pictures of Grey too, but those had yet to be hung.
I felt guilty about that, but not as guilty as I should have felt.
We still hadn’t talked. He talked to Jeremy and Matthew, told them everything he wanted to tell me, but the routine remained the same. No texts to my phone, two calls to me in the last month, and nothing else.
I hadn’t wanted to learn how to live life without him, but here I was, forced to out-run the toxicity that had been our relationship. I suppose it was good in a sense.
Maybe when he came back, it’d be less toxic to the outside world. Less need, less craving.
But the pain in my heart at the thought left me breathless. I liked how we were. I liked the feeling of never getting enough. I loved it.
I wanted to drown in it.
Two months gone and I was starting to remember how life had been like without him. Only I was healed a little more now. Losing Charlie and my mom didn’t hurt so much. I wasn’t living with my dad. Jordan was dead. My life was normal.
It was mundane and predictable, and I was settling.
Although I was drinking more than what they thought was acceptable, it was fine for me. I wasn’t hurting anyone. It was better than being suicidal, although they seemed to think I still was. Jeremy checked on me often, asking how I was doing, what my thoughts were. Ash was tiptoeing around me, despite Syn urging her to stop, and Matthew? I wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing. I thought he had started pulling blows during training, going easy on me, but he assured me that I was just getting better.
It was easy to drown myself in training when I had nothing else to do during the day but schoolwork from my night classes and drink.
Today, however, Jeremy had called in because we had a guest coming.
They wouldn’t tell me who, although I knew it wasn’t Grey. They would be acting far more nervous if it had been him.
My guess was Malachi. I hoped I was wrong. I truly did because if it was Malachi, that meant Grey might be in trouble, and I couldn’t handle that guilt on top of everything else.
He was in trouble and here I was, refusing to answer his phone calls, refusing to talk to the others about him, because I didn’t want to fight with him.
Yes, it had gone from me not wanting him to feel guilty to just not wanting to fight with him. I knew he felt guilty, I could feel it in my soul. How could he not with me ignoring him and Jeremy reporting to him everything I did?
It was fucking ridiculous.
I strummed my guitar, shivering as I sat on the balcony, staring out across the city, humming nonsensical tunes to music not yet written.
“Hey, he’s almost here,” Jeremy said from the doorway.
I continued to strum. “I’m being childish,” I told him, my eyes falling to the strings, my fingers bright red. It wasn’t uncommon for it to be this cold in February. The snow had finally come, sticking around for some time now. Christmas, while it had been better than last year, had lacked its normal cheer this year. It snowed the day after Grey had left. How was I supposed to feel happy about that? He was supposed to have been here for that.
“Yeah,” he said on a breath.
I stopped, shooting a glare at him.
He shrugged, walking up to the railing only to turn and lean back against it. “I’m not going to lie to you, we made a pact.”
My eyes narrowed and a strummed another chord. “You’re supposed to make me feel better.”
“There is no making you feel better, Emily, you’re holding onto that anger with a vice grip. You don’t like that he left, you don’t want to fight with him, everything you’re feeling is normal, but you won’t listen to us tell you that it’s normal and that you should fight. It is childish. You’re being a child.”
I stood with a huff and headed inside, the warm air sending a shiver down my spine. “Grey and I didn’t reach the end of the seventh season of Doctor Who before he left. In the last episode of that season, he regenerates,” I explained, setting my guitar on its stand as he shut the door behind us. “I hate it. I hate endings. I hate that he hated endings and in the end, he gave this brilliant speech about how he would always remember when the Doctor was him, and the first time I watched it, I sobbed like a child because it was the end of everything. Everything important, everything good, everything…” My heart thudded, the tears filling my throat.
I cleared it and shook my head, turning on him. “I wasn’t ever going to watch it again. I made the step in rewatching those seasons with him, but I was never going to watch that last episode, I wasn’t strong enough. I know it sounds stupid to most people. How could anyone mean that much to someone, especially if that person is someone fictional, but that’s the point.”
Jeremy’s eyes shifted into something like pity.
“It’s fictional, it isn’t supposed to end. That stupid fictional person kept me alive, gave me hope, a friend. His speeches, his quotes, the way he saw the world and went about it, it made sense to me, and then this stupid fucking guy shows up at a random gas station, and I’m drunk and going through shit, and I decide to talk to him, and he’s him. He’s that fictional character but with a lot more tattoos and a cigarette in his mouth and molded out of bad decisions and clever words. He made sense to me.”
“He’s not dead, Emily.”
“Neither was the Doctor!” I snapped. “But to Clara? Sometimes fictional people are the only family you’ve got, and it’s so hard to explain to people who haven’t experienced it, but whether it be a book character or some nutty fucking alien with two hearts, the experience, that feeling, it’s the same. He hated endings. That’s why he ripped out the last chapter of the book. This,” I said, gesturing to everything, “it’s the last chapter.”
He straightened, his brows furrowing then. “Emily, what are you talking about?”
“I will always remember the person I was when I was with him,” I said, my eyes filling, my insides shaking, my panic growing and growing, “and I hate him for it. I do. I really, truly do.”
Jeremy took a step forward as if he could see the panic that shook through me. “He’s coming back, Emily, why are you talking as if he’s not?”
Because it was easy to believe all of the shit he said when I could look him in the eyes and see the truth behind his words, but anyone could write a text. Anyone could make a call and say important things, and make it sound good, but the eyes never lie, and it was getting harder and harder as the days went on to remember that he cared for me. That he gave a single fuck about me. That out of every other person in all the world, I was important enough for someone like him.
I worked my jaw and shook my head. What was I saying? Why couldn’t I stop? I needed to take more medication. I needed to take control over my mind again. Why couldn’t I control it? It was my mind. “He should have remained fictional,” I said just as the elevator dinged.
I glanced towards it and turned then back to him, quickly wiping under my eyes. “Are we giving everyone keys these days? That’s such bullshit.”
His eyes flicked to the gate and back. “It’s Grey’s key. You have a key, I have a key, and Greyson has a key.”
My heart slammed painfully, my eyes widening. “You told me it wasn’t fucking Grey.”
His shoulders fell, guilt touching his eyes. “It’s not.”
And despite myself, that little piece of hope inside of me that I thought I had gotten rid of, it shattered.
The gate slid open, and I turned, finding Malachi walking out of the elevator, hat in hand, coat draped over his arm as if he had just walked out of an old mafia movie. He smiled brightly. “Emily, you have such a lovely home.”
I rolled my shoulders, my anger falling into a soft smile. Deep breath, be a good host, try and control your mind. “Thank you. Would you like a drink?” I asked, heading for the kitchen.
“If you wouldn’t mind. What is your selection? Good afternoon, Jeremy.”
“Hey, boss.”
I opened the cabinets, taking my time in looking through the bottles just to get my mind in order, my thoughts straightened out. “Reds, whites, scotch, all top quality. Nothing under $500.”
“Such divine taste, I’ll take your best quality red, thank you. May I ask where Ash and Syn are? I was hoping to meet your friends.”
I pulled out my most expensive bottle of red, one I hadn’t actually touched yet. “They’re still in classes,” I told him, pulling out two glasses. “They might join for dinner, but they’ve been spending more time together as the year comes to a close.”
“Graduation is coming up soon, is it not?” he asked as I poured the two glasses, sliding one over to him and keeping one myself.
I nodded as Jeremy took a seat one stool down from him. “Yeah, they’ve discussed a lot about moving this summer.” They wanted to start their lives when classes ended. They wanted to start a family, get married. They wanted a house.
They didn’t want to stay in the city forever. I was happy for them. I encouraged them to be together, to go on more dates, figure out their plans. Ash has been by my side since we were kids, she deserved this. She deserved to just be with the love of her life.
Besides, I was fine. I didn’t need them looking after me all the time. I needed to get out on my own too, start that company, have a life outside of them.
Outside of this.
“Ah, young love, such a beautiful thing. Rae and Jack have discussed tying the knot, so to speak, but in this line of work it’s hard to find the time.”
I took a long drink and lowered my glass. I could imagine. How was she doing it? Was she like me, not wanting to get involved in the depths of this world? Or had she dived in headfirst without a thought? “So, what brings you by? Any news on Louis? Am I allowed to ask?”
He laughed. “Oh, Emily, yes, you are allowed to ask. Ask anything you want but I am, in turn, allowed to decline an answer. Now, we have a promising lead, and I do apologize for how long this is taking, but Louis is proving to be a slippery fish. He managed to escape Azrael’s grasp and that is an entirely impossible thing to do, I’ll be honest with you, but trust me when I say that we have it handled.”
I watched him for a long time before I straightened. “I’m having a difficult time with trust these days. I’m sorry he escaped your grasp. That must be a difficult blow to confidence among your criminal friends.”
“Emily,” Jeremy warned.
Malachi held up a hand, silencing him. “It’s alright. Greyson told me you were having trouble adjusting.”
Irritated disbelief flooded through my already fucked up emotional state. I laughed and finished the glass. “That’s great. That’s just perfect.” Everyone knows about my issues. Everyone knows that I’m pathetic. I bet Rae never had these issues. I bet she was mocking me about how fucking pathetic I was. Did they all know about my meds? Did they all know about my ‘suicidal tendencies’?
“That drink isn’t meant to be glugged,” Matthew commented.
I shot him the deadliest of glares before turning back to the cupboard.
“Emily, that’s all he said, I assure you,” Malachi spoke as I grabbed another bottle, “and it’s perfectly natural. Everyone experiences self-doubt when away from their partner, everyone.”
“Malachi, don’t.”
I poured myself a tall glass and took a drink. I closed my eyes, letting the buzzing take affect before I turned to him. “Thank you for coming, I appreciate the update, but I will not be speaking to you about my relationship or lack thereof. In my opinion, it’s tactless. The world doesn’t need to know my business.”
“You made that difficult when you stopped talking to Greyson,” Jeremy stated coldly. “You’ve put us all in the middle of it with your insecurities. Which isn’t your fault,” he added, “but it’s not ours either.”
The guilt felt overwhelming. I felt as if I were drowning in a sea of pointlessness and narrow-minded thinking of my own making, and I couldn’t stop.
Maybe I just needed to up my meds again, maybe that was it. Up my meds and everything would be better.
My eyes found his. “I told him when I first met him that I don’t do love. You can remind him of that when you talk to him again. And then tell him that his inevitability has an end, and it is here.”
His eyes widened. “Emily don’t do that. He’s going to come back and you’re going to feel like an idiot for all of this. It’s going to suck and then it’ll get better, I promise.”
“He’s right,” Malachi agreed softly. “A lot of emotions are running high right now, which I understand, but you have to understand the gravity of the situation. We are hunting a very dangerous man. Greyson is doing everything he can to keep you safe, and while I would much rather him be here with you, exploring your newfound love, everyone else is busy. All I have are he and Azrael.”
“And I would have understood that more had he not made it obvious that he’d rather text them than me.” God, it sounded so childish saying it out loud.
Malachi’s eyes furrowed. “What does that mean?”
I straightened, glancing to Jeremy and then to Matthew, finding both men avoiding my eyes in guilt. I laughed. “Holy shit, nobody told him? All of you have told him everything about me but you haven’t told him that?”
“It’s not drama he needs to be involved in,” Matthew stated.
I pointed a finger at him. “I swear to God I’ll put you on your knees during the next training session.”
Malachi’s brows lifted in joyous surprise. “You’re training? Oh, that is wonderful, good for you.”
I turned back to him. “Thank you, I needed something to fill the time. To answer your previous question, since nobody in this line of work actually cares about privacy, Greyson has been texting and calling them nonstop since he left. I’ve gotten exactly one text from him and three phone calls. I’m allowed to be angry, and I’m allowed to not want to fight with him while he’s supposed to be focusing on hunting down this guy. I’m glad you stopped by, I’m glad you’re alive, although I expected nothing less, but if you don’t mind, I need to take a bath.”
With that I headed for my bedroom, my main priority getting to my medication. I didn’t need a bath, but if it got me into the bathroom with nobody breaking the door down, then good.
“If he hasn’t texted you, it’s because he’s scared.”
I stopped at my door and turned on Malachi, confused at his words. “What does that mean?”
