tricks of time ― grayson hawthorne [the inheritance games]

007. SHARING BEDS LIKE LITTLE KIDS

I hear him shout something out as he begins to follow me, but I'm too fast. I slam the bedroom door shut in his face, locking it.

I see the doorknob rattle before it stops momentarily.

"Leah, open the door," Grayson says as he pounds furiously on the door. I look around the room frantically.

"You will open this door right now," he says from across the door.

"Oh, I will, will I?" I say. I could almost picture his face.

"Please." Grayson's tone made it seem like he found the word painful or distasteful— or both.

I owed him nothing.

"I don't trust you," I said through the door. The pounding on the door went silent.

And then suddenly, there was a click. And Grayson was standing right in front of me.

"Did you just pick that lock?" I ask him unnecessarily, considering— I saw what I saw. He doesn't say anything, but I see the bent bobby bin in between his fingers and my thoughts are confirmed.

"You need to suck it up," Grayson tells me.

I feel my nostrils flare. "Suck it up?" I repeat.

"This is normal. You're going to get death threats like this, and you're going to be called the worst names imaginable. But, you want that money, don't you? How could you not?"

"If I leave Hawthorne House before the year is up, the money goes to charity. If I die, it goes to charity or my heirs." I paused. "If I die, the foundation goes to the four of you."

He rubbed his jaw. He had to know how that looked.

"So what if you're lying to me?" I asked him intently, crossing my arms across my chest.

"My grandfather should have left it to us all along." Grayson turned his head, forcefully pulling his gaze from my skin. "Or to Zara. We were raised to make a difference, and you..."

"I'm nobody," I finished, the words hurting me to say.

Grayson didn't move at first.  I could see his chest rising and falling with every breath he took. Eventually, he nodded his head. "I don't know what you are anymore."

He paused for a moment. "If you were smart," he warned, "you'd stay away from the  game."

He  looked at me straight in the eye. "From  me." Raw cold emotion  slashed  across  his features, but he masked it before I could tell what, exactly, he was feeling.

"I destroy everything I touch."

I walked up to him, closer, and closer, so much so I was trapping him against the door.

"I don't care, Grayson. Because if you're gonna play that game, I will too, and you're not going to win."

I hear running footsteps, and I immediately back off him.

"Leah!" I hear Alisa's voice growing closer and closer.

"You can't— oh, lord, what happened here?"

"Grayson picked the lock on the door," I say in a steel tone.

She tsks at him. "God, Grayson, you always manage to make my life just a bit harder, don't you think?"

Grayson's face stays blank as Alisa pouts while she thinks. "Well Leah, best you stay in someone else's room till then, don't you think?"

I furrow my brows. "Why? Security here is...top notch. It's not like someone is going to storm in and kill me," I say, completely hypocritical to my argument just minutes ago.