A Ruthless Game | Grayson Hawthorne x reader

18

     Did he tell you I killed her?

     Grayson's words echoed in my mind as I started walking back to the dance. On my way back through the hallway though, I passed Jameson.

     "Jameson..." I called to him. "I'm sorry I kissed him. As Grayson keeps ever so kindly reminding me, it was a mistake. I never wanted to hurt you."

     Jameson looked up at me. His eyes shifting from sorrow filled to glimmering. "You know how you can make it up to me, Heiress?" he asked in a playful voice. "Meet me back at Hawthorne House in 45 minutes. You'll know where to find me there," he grinned.

• • •

Just like Jameson requested, I gathered Oren and Alisa and asked them to take me back to the house. I told them my shoulder was killing me, which wasn't a complete lie. How Jameson expected me to know where to find him upon my arrival beat me, but I kept my head held high all the same.

When the SUV rounded the front of the house, I understood immediately what Jameson had meant. Sitting in the yard was a helicopter.

I approached the helicopter and saw Jameson standing next to it.

"I don't want to do this alone, Heiress," he said.

"Then, don't," I smiled at him.

Oren stepped next to me. "Shoulder still hurting?" he asked sarcastically, hopping into the pilot seat. Jameson and I got in the back. Just as we were about to take off, Grayson appeared outside the helicopter.

"Mind if I join?"

Jameson started daggers into me, silently begging for me to turn Grayson away. But I didn't. Instead I said, "There's room for one more." Grayson took the last seat, and the helicopter lifted from the ground. "What are we looking for?" I asked Jameson.

"Just like the library, there has to be a shortcut to finding the clue. If my theory is correct, then the clue isn't carving on one of the trees, but it's visible from the sky."

The helicopter rose for a few minutes then flew over Blackwood. Sure enough, once we were high enough, the shape that trees had been planted in didn't look random. Each tree had been placed in a very specific spot. Together, the trees formed a zero

     8.1.1.0

     "Ha! We did it, Heiress!" Jameson called next to me. "We cracked the code!"

     "Four middle names. Four numbers. Maybe the order we found is them is the correct order. It could be a lock combination," I explained.

"There are dozen of safes in the house. It could also be coordinates, an address...."

"A date," I added. I began rearranging the letters in my head. "November 8th, January 18th, August 11th, and October 18th." I gasped, but Jameson and Grayson both tensed up. "That's my birthday. This has to have something to do with my mother. She always told me- She always told me she had a secret about-"

"It's not about your birthday," Jameson said lowly from the seat next to me. "Take us down," he ordered Oren.

"Jameson, this has to be the answer. Maybe... maybe your grandfather met my mother while she was pregnant...or-"

"The answer isn't a date," he snapped. I took a step toward him, but he only stepped back. Someone reached out and gently grabbed my arm. I looked to my left and saw Grayson standing there with a solemn look on his face.

"On October 18th, one year ago," he started. "Emily died."

Of course she did.

"That sick son of a bitch," Jameson yelled. As soon as the helicopter touched the ground, he forced the door opened and jumped off. "All of these clues, these games, her," he pointed at me. "Just to teach me some sick, twisted lesson." Jameson stormed off into the night. "Congrats, Heiress. You cracked the damned code. You had the great misfortune of being born on October 18th."

•  •  •

     This couldn't be the answer. There had to be more. Surely, Tobias Hawthorne didn't pick me purely because I was born on Emily's death date.

     "I'm sorry," Grayson said next to me. "That it turned out this way. I knew the day the will was read...that all this happened because of me."

     "What are you talking about?"

     "I'm the reason Emily is dead. I'm the reason she was out there in the first place. I'm the reason she jumped."

     "None of this is your fault," I gently rested my hand on Grayson's arm.

     "Emily and Rebecca would visit their grandparents in the summer when we were younger. They would stay over for three weeks, and for those three weeks my brothers and I spent all our time with them. Emily's parents didn't allow her to do all the stuff that we did though. She was forced to stay inside while we played. She would make us get things for her. Whoever had the gift that made her the happiest won. That was always everyone's goal. To make Emily happy. Eventually, her family moved her, and we were able to see her all the time. She became part of us."

     "She dated you and Jameson, right?"

     "She made it a little game, but in the end she didn't want us. She wanted what we could give her. Thrills. Excitement. All things wasn't able to have due to her condition." He was silent for a moment. "One night," he said slowly. "She called me. Said she called it off with Jameson. That I was the only one she wanted. I won, y/n. I won. Or so I thought. That night, we snuck out to this place called Devils Cliff. It's a cliff by the sea. It's one of the most famous cliff diving locations in the world. I- I knew it was a bad idea..."

     "What happened?" I asked carefully.

      "When we got there, she went for the highest cliff. I went for one of the lower ones."

     "She died from jumping off the cliff?"

     "I went to grab towels, and when I came back she wasn't in the water. She was collapsed on the shoreline. Dead." Grayson took a slow, deep breath. "I shouldn't have taken there. It's my fault she's dead."

     "No, it's not. You couldn't have known. Don't blame yourself." I rested my head on his shoulder.

     "At her funeral, my grandfather said none of this would have happened if I had chosen Jameson over her. Protected him, not her. If I put my family first. And I've done that ever since. That's why I was so hard on you when you first got here." Another pause. "All of this. 8.1.1.0. Emily's death date. Your birthday. It's my grandfather's twisted way of telling me... that this is all my fault."