His Trouble Maker

Chapter 108

GRAYSON

She must've been in so much pain. | glance over her still coughing in my lap and wipe my fucking tears. |

shouldn't be crying. | keep telling myself that. Over and over. Crying is for fucking funerals and she’s not dead

yet.

I don’t want to see her suffer like this.

But the tears keep coming anyway because | don’t want to see her like this.

| don’t want to see her suffer like this. | don’t want to admit what | already know-that this is my fucking fault.

Every second | hesitated. Every t| said not yet. Every moment | didn’t mark her. Didn't claim her. Didn't put

my teeth in her throat and carve Riot out of her with force and blood and fire. | thought | was protecting her.

Thought | was sparing her from being mine when she wasn’t ready, when | wasn’t ready, when we didn’t know

how deep the damage went.

But now | can see it in her face-the damage’s done. The poison’s taken root. And my hands are just holding the

aftermath.

She looks like she’s being eaten alive from the inside out.

“It’s okay,” | keep saying. “You're okay, baby. I've got you.”

Her eyes flutter open, silver now-silver and shining like the end of something-and she looks atlike she wants

to say something, but she can’t. Her mouth opens. Nothing comes out. Her hand lifts an inch, then drops like the

weight of her own body is too much to carry.

| want to rip my fucking throat out. | want to trade places with her. | want to burn every tree between us and Riot

and drag his cursed imprint out of her by the roots with my bare hands.

| want to go back to the second she looked atand begged-claim me, please, before it’s too late-and do it.

Mark her. Scar her. Make her mine and mine only, even if it meant blood. Even if it meant pain. Even if it meant

breaking the rules we were never meant to follow.

“Don’t go,” | whisper into her hair, even though | know she can’t hear me. “Jess, please don't fucking go. I'll do

anything. I'll kill for you. I'll rip my own heart out and give it to you if that’s what you need. Just-just stay. Please,

baby. Stay.”

Her breath rattles again, shorter this time. Shallow. Her body jerks once, then twice, like something inside her is

trying to

climb out.

Theo's shouting something in the front. Pierce is yelling over him. | don’t care. That's on me. All of it. On me.

After driving for minutes that felt like hours, the truck finally jerks to a stop.

I'm already throwing the door open before Theo finishes yanking the keys

“Help me,” | bark, not looking back.

| hear Pierce stumble out behind me, cursing. Theo's already halfway around the truck, eyes scanning the trees

like Riot’s about to leap out of the brush and rip our throats open.

1/4

10:32 FN, Zy Aug

Chapter 108

He might.

Fine. Let him.

| don’t wait for a consensus. | haul her out of the backseat, her weight limp but jerking like something's crawling

under her

skin.

“Where?” | bark.

Theo jerks his chin toward the treeline. “There's a crawlspace-cellar hatch. Buried.”

“Move.”

| don’t wait. | shove past the ferns, boots sinking into wet ground, her limp body twitching in my arms. Theo said

he’ll check the parameters first while Pierce is followinginside.

“Grayson-" Theo's voice from the stairs, “we need to lock it down. This whole place-"

“I know.”

“We can’t stay long.”

“I said | fucking know.”

There's a slab of concrete at the bottom, a broken cot shoved against the wall. Rusted, stained. Good enough.

| lay her on it. She jerks again. Gasps. Her fingers twitch like they're trying to reach for something that’s not

there.

Pierce stumbles in behind me, dragging two duffel bags and a blanket he yanked from the truck. He freezes

when he sees

her.

“Jesus,” he mutters. “She looks-"

“Don’t say it.”

He shuts up.

| kneel beside her, press a hand to her ribs.

Above us, Theo's footsteps drag back toward the hatch. | hear the door slam shut, then the scrape of something

heavy being pushed on top.

Lockdown.

The light’s dim. The only bulb overhead flickers once, then holds. She moans.

“Grayson.” Pierce again. | turn.

“She needs rest.”

“You don’t know that.”

Chapter 108

Lignore him. | wring out another towel and wipe the sweat off her neck.

But he won't shut the fuck up.

“W-What if she needs Riot to live? Grayson!”

“No.”

He steps forward. “You saw what happened in the truck. You saw what she said. She was talking like-like she

wanted

him.”

“Shut up.”

“I'm just saying, maybe that thing in her, maybe it's what's keeping her alive-"

“| said shut your fucking mouth.”

He squares up. “You're not thinking straight. You marked her without finishing the claim. You let her bleed into

his hands. You didn’t stop any of it.”

My hands curl into fists.

“She’s my sister.”

“She’s mine,” | snarl. “Don’t fucking forget that.”

“She was mine first.”

I lunge.

Grab him by the collar and slam him against the concrete wall hard enough to make his teeth rattle. The cot

jerks behindfrom the force. Jessica stirs. My blood spikes.

“You want to say that again?” | hiss, low. “You want to talk about who she belongs to? You want to throw history

atlike it means something now?”

Pierce's eyes flare gold for a second. “You don’t own her, Grayson.”

“No,” | say. “But I'm the one who's bled for her. I'm the one who didn’t walk away when she started losing

herself. And I'm the one still fucking here.”

“She doesn’t need you. She needs healing.

“She needs me.”

“She needs to live.”

gies

“She is fucking living!” | shout, and let him go. He stumbles, coughs, wipes his mouth, but I'm already turning

my back.

| kneel beside her again, slow. Hands still trembling from the fight I didn’t finish. Jessica’s jaw tics. Her breath is

ragged again.

Chapter 108

Pierce wipes blood off his chin, like for the first tin his life he disagrees with me.” We're going to lose her,

Grayson and we do, I'm going to kill you for it.”

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