Fragments of gray, p.1
Fragments of Gray, page 1
FRAGMENTS OF GRAY
Golden Bay Beach Series: Book Two
HOLLY CASTE
Copyright @2023 by Holly Caste
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, stored in or introduced into retrieval systems, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner/author; except in the case of a brief quotation embodied in critical reviews and other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Editor: My Brother’s Editor
Cover Design: Kylah Cover Designs
Contents
Dear Reader
1. Grayson
2. Emma
3. Grayson
4. Emma
5. Grayson
6. Grayson
7. Emma
8. Grayson
9. Grayson
10. Emma
11. Emma
12. Grayson
13. Grayson
14. Grayson
15. Emma
16. Grayson
17. Emma
18. Grayson
19. Emma
20. Grayson
21. Emma
22. Grayson
23. Emma
24. Emma
25. Grayson
26. Emma
27. Grayson
28. Emma
29. Grayson
30. Grayson
31. Emma
32. Grayson
33. Emma
34. Grayson
35. Emma
36. Emma
37. Emma
38. Grayson
39. Emma
40. Grayson
41. Emma
42. Grayson
43. Grayson
44. Emma
45. Grayson
46. Grayson
47. Emma
48. Grayson
49. Grayson
50. Grayson
51. Emma
52. Emma
53. Grayson
54. Grayson
55. Grayson
56. Grayson
57. Emma
58. Grayson
59. Emma
60. Grayson
Epilogue
The Following Spring
The End
Resources
Afterword
Dear Reader
Hey! Thank you so much for picking up my book! Before you dive in, please check out the trigger warnings:
Explicit language, detailed sex scenes, grief/loss, physical violence, suicidal ideation, addiction/overdose, leaving toxic purity culture. Talk of: grooming/sexual assault of a minor, gun violence
Although Fragments of Gray is part of an interconnected series, the books need to be read in order. Anything Rae Touches must be read first. If you haven’t read it yet, you can click here to download a copy.
As with my other books, this story isn’t for everyone. The characters are flawed and the journey is raw, but I promise there’s a happily ever after!
Dedication
For those who grew up too soon, yet still believe in a happily ever after
ONE
Grayson
WINTER
I have every intention of dying alone,
with nothing and no one attached to my name.
Jaded, stunted, and calloused—I now see life for what it is.
The pain of the world consumed me.
Crushed me.
Until I became nothing but fragments of a person.
Chewing on my pen cap, the taste of plastic coating my mouth, I reread the latest poetry that popped into my head.
It’s stupid, writing my pain onto these pages for someone to read once I’m dead and buried, but at least it keeps me occupied while I wait for my time to come. I don’t care when or how it happens, as long as it’s after my parents are gone so they don’t have to grieve for another child.
I’ve been floating in this bizarre limbo space since I was ten years old, with no drive or ambition to chase after a faraway dream. I’ve just been watching the time pass slowly, my vision fogged over from the trauma.
The world keeps spinning while pieces of me are stuck between memories of tragedy and disaster.
My soul has been at a standstill.
I scribble the words down in my brown, leather-bound notebook while I stretch out my legs in my car.
Writing has always been my outlet, even before I sunk into my rabbit hole of isolation and suffering.
I write to remember.
I write to forget.
Prose, flashbacks, the scraps of my creativity come in. It’s all laid out in my notebooks.
For years, I kept my thoughts and feelings locked up tight. There was a time when I wouldn’t speak. The only words I let out were on paper. “Too much trauma too young,” the shrink told my parents.
My mind flips back to a time I’d much rather erase from my memory—the day my sister, Cara, was murdered. But it’s always at the forefront, reminding me why I hate the world so much. Why I hate society. Why I hate being forced into surviving, fighting, and carrying on.
Glancing at the time on my phone, I let out an aggravated sigh, knowing that I have several minutes to kill before my next task.
Getting antsy, I decide to turn to another page and write down a glimpse of the past that’s been living in my head, hoping that by letting it out, it’ll stop eating me alive.
I’m ten years old, sitting down at the kitchen table working on my latest superhero story while Mom makes herself coffee. With my pen to paper, I just started writing the part of the story where the superhero fights the evil villain when Mom interrupts, wanting me to find out what Cara and Rae—my other sister and Cara’s twin, want for breakfast.
After huffing and puffing, annoyed to do this simple task, I eventually peeled myself away from my notebook and bang on their bedroom door, asking what they wanted to eat.
Cara wants yogurt and strawberries.
Rae wants nothing.
After relaying the message to Mom, I sit back down to write. Getting sucked into my story, I don’t realize Cara and Rae are in the kitchen until Cara starts peeking over my shoulder. I never hide what I’m writing from her. She’s always supportive and loves my work—or pretends to at least. I’m in fifth grade, and she and Rae are in ninth, so I doubt my stories are even borderline good. Still, Cara acts like they’re phenomenal.
“Never stop writing, Grayson.” That was the last thing Cara said to me, aside from a quick goodbye before she and Rae left for school.
I glanced over at Rae when Cara said that to see if she’d say anything similar. Rae’s too busy fidgeting with her choker necklace.
With an immediate pinch in my heart, I stop writing, not ready to go down that road. Thought I was. Guess not. Giving up on any efforts to write more tonight, I toss the pen and notebook on the passenger seat.
My leg bounces up and down, pissed I even began unboxing those memories. If I could black out the last decade of my life, I would.
No one knows that during these long, tiring years of misery, there’s been a storm brewing inside of me. A dark, ominous typhoon that’s been growing deep within my soul.
I had no idea where to let my anger out until recently.
Picking up my phone, I shoot off a text.
Here
Shutting my headlights off, I lean back against my car seat. There’s one dim streetlight at the corner of the Mighty Glass Bar’s parking lot. I made sure to park far away from it, just like I have every night this past week.
No one has walked outside yet, but in a few minutes, someone will. The fucking idiot hasn’t caught on that I’ve been watching him from the other side of the lot for the past seven nights. That right there tells me he’s a shitty drug dealer.
The image of both of my sisters suddenly pops into my head.
My relationship with Cara was one out of those picture-perfect family books. Everything was always at ease.
Our brother-sister bond was one that I had hoped to have with Rae as well. As a little kid, I thought Rae was cool as fuck, and even though we were always distant, I looked up to her.
Until I stopped.
The day Cara died was also the day any hope of me and Rae having anything resembling a significant sibling bond vanished.
Cara’s death was the turning point for both me and Rae. She spiraled into drugs while I recoiled into myself, shutting down.
Ten years since Cara’s been gone.
Ten years of agony. My world was completely shaken up, flipped upside down, and slammed onto the ground.
Nothing, and no one, ever felt safe again.
I once lived in an imaginary universe where heroes would swoop in and deliver justice, restoring everything back to its original state. Naively, I believed that villains would never cross my path—they were something made up or lived nowhere in sight, never to touch my life.
But now I know the truth.
My attention goes back to my phone, waiting for it to light up.
My breathing is calm, my heart strumming along as if I’m sitting on my couch reading a book. I might even say that I’m bored. I should probably feel some twinge of apprehension, fear even. But I don’t, and I won’t.
Terror lived deep within my bloodstream for many years. But then I got older.
And now it’s turned into rage.
910-555-7498
ok
Turnin
The shithead dealer sniffles as he rounds the building, checking his phone.
My heart rate picks up only a notch.
I’ve been studying this dealer for a week, watching him stumble out of the bar when someone pulls up to this lot in the middle of the night, noticing how he bullshits and laughs with the addicts. Once he gets his money, he ambles back inside until a little while later when he’s back for another deal.
I paid attention to where he might keep a gun hidden on him, and I haven’t noticed anything. A knife maybe, but he talks with both of his hands.
I’ll be fine.
The moment he lifts his head and sees me, a fire fueled by wrath runs up and down my spine. Anger powering enough to snap every bone in his body pumps through my veins.
But I keep it all inside.
Tamed. Controlled. Restrained—until the time comes.
“Hey,” I mumble, nodding my chin upward.
“What’s up, man?” He slurs his words.
“How much?”
He opens his jacket to sift through the baggies in his inner pocket. Even though it’s dark, I catch a knife case hooked onto his belt. “You want a gram?” he asks, bringing my attention back to his face.
Intensity builds around my joints.
“Yeah,” I say calmly as I begin balling my fist, letting all my rage flood into my arm and down to my hand.
He goes to pull out a small baggie from his pocket. “It’s gonna be—”
My fist connects with his nose before he finishes his sentence. A shocked look flashes on his face as blood trickles down.
“What the fuck?” He blinks, stunned.
Adrenaline explodes in my body and before he can regain his composure and reach for his knife, I drive my fist into him again.
Heat courses through me, and I sense myself smirking as the guy falls to the ground.
I keep going for good measure, hearing a crack in his ribs when I kick him.
“Stop!” he screams, and he continues to fish for his knife.
Crouching down onto the cement, I jam my arm up against his throat, cutting off his airway. His hands automatically fly up, abandoning the search for his weapon. He coughs as his feet push against the ground, trying to squirm away from me.
This right here is my outlet for my anger. I’ve been waiting to beat the shit out of this guy for a fucking week. All my pent-up aggression goes straight to his face when I punch him again.
I raid his jacket, stuffing whatever drugs and cash I can into my jean pockets. Then I reach down and take the knife from its case.
“Look, man, I don’t want any trouble—” he pleads with me, the sound of his voice grating against his semi-compressed throat.
“Then you shouldn’t have sold this shit to my sister.” Seething with fury, it takes every ounce of my control not to drive this blade into him right now as I think back to a few weeks ago finding Rae milliseconds away from death in her bedroom.
She overdosed because of this motherfucker right here.
And if we didn’t already have Narcan in our house, she would be dead, and I’d be doing much worse to this dealer.
Lucky for him, she lived.
Beads of sweat coat my skin as the tendons in my hand flex, turning my fist white as I tightly grasp the weapon.
“I-I’m sorry, man—”
“Shut the fuck up.” Before I let my emotions fully consume me, I swiftly hop to my feet. He doesn’t expect it, and when the air is fully allowed into him, he violently draws it in. My foot flies into his abdomen one last time to make sure he doesn’t have it in him to follow me back to my car. He groans in pain, rolling back and forth in a fetal position. “Get a new job. You suck at this one,” I say, then start walking to my car.
The knife is still in my hand as precaution, but I don’t foresee him getting up any time soon.
The burst of adrenaline still floods my body. My veins buzz as I try to steady my breathing.
Still feeling the rush, I sit back in my car. Driving off, I can feel the satisfaction settling into my bones.
Thing is, I was a kid when Cara was killed. But I was an adult when Rae overdosed. I might not have any control over what happened in the past, but I sure as hell am going to have control over what happens in the present.
Hell will freeze over before someone I care about gets hurt again.
TWO
Emma
SPRING
The sound of seagulls squawking outside wakes me up. I quite literally lift my head out of my book and readjust myself on my bed.
I must’ve fallen asleep while reading again.
If it were one of my romance novels, I could easily pull an all-nighter getting wrapped up in a steamy love story, but my overpriced textbook for statistics class is a lot less riveting—so much so, that I got coaxed into taking a late evening nap rather than learning about variables.
The warm sea breeze from my open window tickles my nostrils and the salty air has me alert enough to push off my mattress. My bare feet touch my dusty-pink rug, then onto my hardwood floor as I pad across my room until I reach the window. Now that it’s mid-April in North Carolina, I can finally leave it open to let the air float through.
As I gaze out at the ocean, a sense of tranquility swims through my bloodstream. My home life might not have always been peaceful, but at least where it’s located is soothing.
There are two sides to Golden Bay Beach: the south side where tourists thrive off of the shops, attractions, and Adventureland amusement park, and the north side where well-off families keep their luxurious houses hidden between sand dunes and tall beach grass.
It’s quaint and quiet on this side of town.
“Emma,” Dad’s voice crackles through the intercom that’s built into my wall. “I expect dinner at six thirty.”
Well, at least sometimes it’s quiet here.
Before trudging downstairs to our kitchen, I take one last look out the window. Where our home is planted is beautiful. Nothing but the endless ocean in front of me, the outline of the pier at Adventureland in the distance to my right, and the lighthouse off to my left. We’re the last house on the north side, the only ones that live in the small inlet.
Our home is close to the water but raised on stilts. If we were up any higher, we’d probably reach the heavens.
“Emma?” His voice comes through the speaker once more, this time causing me to jolt from the volume.
Peeling myself away from the scenery, I scurry toward the intercom.
“Sure thing, Dad. What would you like?” I ask.
“Shrimp scampi.”
“Okay. I’ll start it in a minute.”
Grabbing my statistics textbook and highlighters off my bed, I neatly place them on my desk, next to my Bible that Dad got me shortly after my thirteenth birthday. I was told to leave it out, so it’s been sitting on the corner of my desk for years. The same birthday he also adorned me with a purity ring, which sits like a weight on my finger.
