Only You (Greyson #1)

Exception*

Chapter 45

Claire

I woke up as if was an emergency, as if sleeping had become a dangerous thing. My heart beats fast and there is a buzzing in my brain and together they are as panic with jump-leads. Only now my brain is as a flat battery, the exertions of the night being a marathon of erratic problem-solving. I looked around this strange room. It looked like an expensive New York coffee shop. There are flowers, beautiful paintings, leather chairs and soft music. On the wall was a plasma screen and the bed was so comfortable. "Tristan?"

I could feel a needle in my arm pumping something warm into me. I saw a heart monitor methodically beeping.

My body hurt as I tried to sit up.

I looked out a nearby window to see beyond the horizon, the sun illuminated the shimmering haze of pollution. In the far distance, the silhouette of the skylinepierced through the warm glow like a jagged mountain ridge. Millions of lights caused the dense mass of skyscrapers glitter. 

"Hey!" I shouted. I was in a hospital. Tristan was shot by that crazy woman. "Hey! Anyone!?" What happened to him? I know she shot him in the back and point blank in the head. Did she ... did she kill him?

I heard footsteps quickly approaching as a heavy-set nurse in blue scrubs walked in to check on me,"Whats going on?"

"What happened? Where is...", I felt as if I was going to throw up. "Where is Tristan?"

"Ma'am, I need you to calm down", she said coming over to the bed to restrain me. I didn't even realize I was fighting back or trying to tear the tubes and needles away from me until I felt a throbbing pain in my arm. Another nurse came in to restrain me and it wasn't long before I felt something prick at my arms. My body's turn to warm jelly. I fell back on the bed as my eyes became heavy until darkness took over.

When I opened my eyes again it was night. "What will it take?" A voice said making me jump. I turned my head to the window and saw Tristan's mother standing with her back towards me staring out the window.

"What?"

"Name your price", June said bashed in moonlight. She looked stoic and exhausted with deep bags under her eyes. She was dressed smartly and loose fitting white pants and a black blouse.

"I don't know what you're talking about about", I admitted confused. I looked around the room to see if Tristan was here. I saw nothing,"Where is Tristan? Is he okay? What happened?"

June raised her hand as if to silence me,"Your price, please".

"I don't have a price", I confessed. Why wasn't she answering my questions about Tristan?

"If you don't tell me a price now you're not getting a penny. We know you're not really married and now that Tristan  is...is... I don't want you selling your story to the New York Times and ruining our family name. So name your price and let's go our separate ways".

"What happened?" I said as my voice broke. June didn't answer me only staring blankly into my eyes. I couldn't tell her she was being protective of Tristan or just a cold bitch. "I don't want your money".

I saw a small smile appear on her face as she crossed the room and exited through the door without a single word. The tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down my face. I feel the muscles of my chin tremble like a small child and I look toward the window, as if the light could soothe me. There is static in my head once more, the side effect of this constant fear, constant stress I live with. I hear my own sounds, like a distressed child, raw from the inside. It takes something out of me I didn't know I had left to give. That's the way it is when people are hard. It's like a theft of the spirit, an injury no other person can see.

Tristan

I lay in bed quietly, keeping my eyes closed, matching my breaths to the beeping of the machines that surrounded the bed, the only indications of my heartbeat, my existence. My legs were numb. Curiosity slowly pried open my swollen eyes to meet a dismal view of a magnolia colored hospital room, the door a navy blue.The hospital room is a concrete pen with a window the size of a biscuit tin lid. Was a stagnant smell, like the room had been cleaned with plain water instead of disinfectant. The bed sits low to the ground, the frame baring the signs of rust and the mattress worryingly thin.

Six surgeries, four needs in my vein, and one tube down my throat kept me alive. I could feel my brain working slower, my hands and legs felt disconnected. I was being kept halfway alive by my parents who wanted me to stay this way. This way they could control Greyson oil.

I had no idea what was happening to Claire. And they limited who could see me to just them.

Claire...

It killed me on the inside to think what was happening to her. I would have rather died than being this debilitating state for the rest of my life.

I heard the sound of heels quickly clacking down the hallway. Here we go again.

"Tristan", a familiar condescending voice said as I closed my eyes pretending to be asleep. "It's your mother. I came to sit with you, darling".

I heard a chair being dragged across the floor.

Shit.

She was going to stay which meant I really was going to go to sleep. The only person I was awake for was Katie. And when she got over the initial shock of me being paralyzed and knocking on death's door her company was well appreciated. The only person that could top her would be Claire. "I know you can hear me. So, I'll be brief and let you rest. Your father is going to be stepping up into your position. Hopefully, the broad can see your grandfather in his old age made a terrible miscalculation".

I opened my eyes and stared daggers into her eyes. She was dressed in a pink a-line dress with a black blazer and pearls dripping from her neck, ears and hands. If I was a fraction of myself I would kill her right now. These past few weeks I'm seeing everyone's true colors. My mother was a gold-digging, money-grubbing or who would bury all of her children if it meant keeping her lifestyle and Noah was actively wishing death on me. Not that he wasn't when I was fully mobile. And my father for all his,'hey buddy' bulshit not once came to visit me. "Your wife. Well, ex-wife, I presume now left just as soon as they discharged her. But, you know we will always take care of you".

Bitch.

My loving and doting mother stood up wafting the room with the smell of her white diamond perfume as she left.

Hate and enmity welled up in my heart, fury itself burning in me. I said in my hate for a good portion of the day. I normally only killed people Society did not justly punished. But I swore to myself, if I ever walked again my parents would be the exception.

How would I do it?

Well...

Probably in the most painful way possible. Just shooting someone isn’t really enough, when you could do so much more. No classy in pulling a trigger. You shoot someone, they suffer for a few minutes and die or don’t feel any pain at all. No I want it to hurt. First, I would probably lock her in a remote location. Scaphism is interesting but might not work and will be hard so I wouldn’t. Plus, it might not be a real execution method. I would tear her fingernails off, then tear her teeth out in the most painful way possible. Then tear her eyeballs out, and cut her fingertips of. Maybe, tear her toenails off and cut her toes off. I would definitely have to lock her in a room, tied to something, while water drops on her.

It would give me a chance to look into Chinese water torture until she die.

I would give her Drano to drink so she should slowly bleed to death or die of thirst, whichever happens first. If it takes long enough, I will make sure it is extra cold and dump a bucket of water on her.

Then make a necklace out of the fingers and toes and send it to dear old dad.

Then I'd sandpaper his genitals.

Or better yet destroy his precious Greyson oil.

Yes.

The only way to make him feel any kind of pain was to hit him where it hurts the most his wallet. If I ever got out of this I would make sure he didn't have a single penny to his name.

I fell asleep to that happy thought.