In Death I Live by Lindsay Becs
GREYSON
A frustrated cursescreams from my lungs as I let Zora go with the very beast who beat me bloody last night. My gut twists with guilt that I allowed him to leave with her instead of putting a bullet in his head like I wanted to.
I had to trust our girl when she locked eyes with me, begging me to stand down and let her go. I just hope that it was to save herself and not me because I’m not worth shit to save.
I type out a quick group text to the boys and then call Dom to let him know what just happened.
“How could you let her go?” he roars into my ear.
“He had a fucking gun on her. If I’d have pulled the trigger, she’d be gone as well as him. I’m praying that she’s as tough as we think she is and can keep herself alive until we can get to her,” I frantically explain to him while I pull on clothes.
“We’ll meet in your room and look at the footage that River has, and then we’ll try to pinpoint where they went. Stay put,” he tells me and then hangs up.
My jaw already aches from how hard I’m clenching it through the pain of my body and the pain of failing her. Again.
Cruz barrels into the bedroom, looking like a maniac with wild eyes and chest heaving. “Where’s River?”
My brows crease, looking at him. “I don’t know. It was only Zo and me up here.” Then the blood drains from my face as the pieces come together. “Oh, fuck.”
“What?” Cruz asks, coming to stand in front of me when my ass hits the edge of the bed. Dom enters next, already yelling, but I don’t hear any of it as blood rushes through my ears. It takes Cruz kneeling in front of me and slapping my face to get me to focus. “What the hell happened?”
“I think they have River too.” I look up at Cruz and then Domonic, both of their faces falling. Cruz turns pale white when it registers. “Zora got a text from River saying he lost his key and to let him in. That’s why she opened the door. It was that giant dude. He put a gun under her chin when I pulled mine on him.” My face pulls as emotion takes me for a second, but I swallow it down. “We have to trust that she knows Shadows enough to keep them both alive until we find them.”
Cruz turns to look up at Dom, who’s standing behind him with a frozen look on his face. “How did they get the upper hand on us? How were they able to get in, get River and Zora and leave? It doesn’t make sense.”
Dom’s chest begins to rise and fall in rapid breaths. “Because we have a fucking rat among us.” He pins me with a murderous look. “If I find out it’s you, I will not be gentle.”
“Fuck you! How can you think that?” I yell back at him.
“Because you checked the cams for River. You told him everything looked good. Zora was locked in here with you. How am I not supposed to think you had a hand in giving Shadows an advantage?”
I stand up to get in his face—pain shooting through me like burning arrows. “I would never turn on them. Or you. If you really think that, then you might as well just end it now.” Taking a step back, I spread my arms out to my sides. “Fucking shoot me right now.”
Cruz stands between us, facing Dom. “This is all fucking bullshit. We don’t have time for this. We need to find them and get them both back before it’s too late. Both of you need to remember who the real enemy is. And it isn’t anyone in this room.”
I lift a brow at Domonic in question. He stares a second and then turns for the bathroom. In the next instant, we hear him throw up. When he comes back, he gives me a side-eye look. “Bad cereal this morning.”
“Yeah.” I roll my eyes.
Dom changes the focus back to what’s important. “Okay, we know they probably have River’s phone and maybe the tablet too. Can we get around them seeing what we do and say?”
Cruz reaches for my laptop on the bed, still playing the movie that Zora and I were watching. He clicks around for several minutes while Dom and I stay quiet, waiting and hoping that he can find something.
“Got you motherfuckers,” he says after what feels like an eternity. Both Dom and I jump onto the bed to sit next to him. “I took the tablet and River’s phone off our synced networks but kept the GPS engaged. I lost the signal, probably because they either turned it off or went somewhere without service. But then I was able to hack into the traffic cams and follow them until they turned off the highway here.” He stops talking and points to a place on the screen. “That’s close to where the GPS was lost too. I pulled up an aerial map, and there’s only this small road that winds back onto an old farm. That has to be where they went.”
“I’m giving you the best damn head when we get them back, you genius,” I tell him as I stand, ready to go get our angel and our boy back.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” Dom tells me, pushing my shoulder until my legs hit the bed, making me sit back down.
“The fuck you talking about? You still think I had something to do with this?”
“No, but you’re hurt.”
“I’m fine,” I grit. “I’m going.”
He watches me, taking in a deep breath and swiping his thumb over his bottom lip. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Cruz stands with the laptop to take with us. We all file out of the bedroom and down the stairs, only stopping when we’re met with Swan.
“What the fuck is going on?” he demands.
“Out of my fucking way, old man,” Dom tells him, anger radiating off of him that his father is putting more time between now and getting them back.
Swan puts a hand on his son’s chest and gets in his face. “I told you not to fuck this up today. Maybe I need to find someone else to take your place here.”
Dom shoves his dad’s hand off him. “Did you already?” he asks him in challenge.
Swan stares at him longer than makes me feel comfortable. “Unfortunately, no.” His eyes flick to Cruz and me. “You’re all becoming more like The Three Stooges than the men you’ve been trained to be. I expect better. You should be better. And this should have never fucking happened!” he screams as his hand locks around Dom’s neck, shoving him into the wall.
I flinch to help, but Cruz puts a hand on my arm to stop me. He’s right; I’m in no state to help this time.
“Let me go,” Dom says through a strained voice while his windpipe is being crushed. “We have a lead.”
Swan cocks his head to the side, thinking about what his son just told him, and then let's go. Dom coughs but quickly recovers with a scowl shot to his father. “Can we go now?”
“I don’t like being made to look like an idiot or like I don’t have things under control. Fix. It.”
That’s enough of that. “Then let us,” I say, pushing past Cruz. Swan lifts a brow at me and then motions with his hand for us to go. We don’t waste the moment and take off.
We’re quick to get inside one of the trucks parked out front and take off in the direction we think they went. We follow the path that the GPS took, the same one we watched on the traffic cams. We turn down the small dirt road and follow it until we come up on a farmhouse with a big barn behind it, everything dark and unlived in for years from the looks of it.
“There.” I point to the same car that they drove to the cabin both nights.
Dom puts the truck in park, and we all jump out with guns drawn. I have a bad feeling though. Something doesn’t make sense. Feels off. It feels like a trap.
Then I hear it. The click. I yell for both Cruz and Dom to get down as the car explodes.
My eyes blink open, hearing Cruz yelling at me to wake up. He sounds like he’s underwater. I groan, turning to my side to hold my head, which is killing me. Pulling my hand away from my head, I see sticky red blood covering my fingers. Cruz pulls his shirt off and holds it to my head while continuing to yell, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. Instead, I close my eyes and let myself float back to where I see Zora.
Our angel is smiling at me. “Hi, angel,” I say, taking her hand in mine.
“Why do you keep hurting yourself for me?”
“I love you, Zo-Zo.”
“I need you to find me first,” she whispers. “I’m so cold.” Her breath comes out in puffs of smoke as her lips turn blue. “Wake up, Greyson. Wake the fuck up,” she snaps, and then my eyes open and I sit up.
“Oh, thank fuck. You scared me for a second there,” Cruz says.
“She’s cold,” I tell him, then shake it off. “Where’s Dom? He okay?”
“Yeah, you saved us all. He’s checking out the house to make sure no one stuck around.” He nods toward the house where I see him crouched and peeking into a window. “You sure you’re alright?”
I nod and then wince. “I’m good.”
The blast and me diving for the ground did nothing to help my already beat and broken body. With a hiss, I push myself up to stand. My arm wrapped around my middle, I head to the truck, pulling myself up inside and lying down on the bench seat in the back.
I try to keep my eyes open, but I can’t. “Cruz!” I call out. “We have… We have to find them. Cold. They’re… It’s cold.”
And then it’s not just cold. It’s black.