[tw: gun, blood, gore]

I LEFT THAT BOX EXACTLY WHERE IT WAS, EXACTLY HOW IT WAS.

Oren was taking Ave to the Hawthorne foundation, for training with Zara, since she was to inherit it. But why I was called, I had not a clue. 

Throughout the drive, my mind kept going to the box. To what was inside it. Cotton, ash, and fabric. All drenched in blood. The only way I had identified the ash and fabric was because some managed to escape the clutches of the crimson liquid and seek refuge and the side of the container.

Why did a five-year-old have all of that in her puzzle box?
Why did a five-year-old have the ability to make that puzzle box in the first place?

Just who are you, Sarina Elizabeth Salva?

The scenery went a blur as we neared the foundation. The building was another architectural beauty that signified grace and power. Hmm, now who does that remind me of?

I stepped into the lobby of the Hawthorne Foundation. The walls were a light silvery-gray, and dozens of massive black-and-white photographs hung on them, seemingly suspended midair. Hundreds of smaller prints surrounded the larger ones. People. From all over the world, captured in motion and moments, from all angles, all perspectives, diverse along every dimension imaginable—age and gender and race and culture. People. Laughing, crying, praying, playing, eating, dancing, sleeping, sweeping, embracing—everything.

This place was like a museum to every moment in history, the present, and maybe the future.

"Ms. Grambs." An assistant greeted, "I believe you are here to meet with Mr. Hawthorne and your sister?" I simply nodded and let him lead the way, my mind too entranced by the beautiful photographs. The man led me to a conference room, lined with maps: first a world map, then each continent, then broken down by countries, all the way down to states and towns.

And in the middle, sitting in a chair was my dear Avie. And Armani lord too, I guess.

I walked up to her, wrapped my arms around her waist, and leaned down to place my chin on her head, "Hey, nerd." I nuzzled my dolled-up face against hers, taking in her giggles. 

"Hey, dork," she pat my arm as I pulled back and took a seat beside her.

"What are you guys doing?" I asked as I propped my elbow on the table and placed my cheeks on it. I glanced at Grayson, giving him the gift of acknowledging his existence, even if for the briefest of moments.

"Charts," replied Avery, "What are you doing here?"

I was about to give her a lazy 'dunno' but Pretty Boy beat me to it, "Your sister is here as per my aunt's instructions to give her some insight on the matter of analytics and statistics of the Foundation."

"In short," I pouted at him, "I'm in detention. Or worse, math class." I made a little show of me shuddering at the mere thought of logistics and mathematics. Avery snorted and smacked me, causing me to lose balance on my elbow and hit my chin on the table, "Ow!"

Grayson's lips twitched up. Oh no, that devilish smirk on a pretty face was never good news.

"Well then, Doll," And he's using the nickname. I knew there was no escaping this—him when he said, "You might want to get comfortable. We have a hundred and fifty-six charts to go through..."

"And they all have your name on it."

·······•✦•······

"Hawthorne," I groaned as I slumped my head onto the table, "have mercy on my poor soul!"

That silver-eyed bastard was clearly enjoying every moment of this. 
My ADHD could not bear a second longer of this torture. The numbers in my head started to look like brownies or chicken nuggets. The pie charts looked more like pies than charts.

"Now, now, Dolly," the amusement was practically oozing from his voice, "You haven't told me why the scattershot approach won't work, yet." 

"What haveth I done to deserve this level of loathing from thy heart?"

"Stealing away my inheritance and owning my house and family?"

"..." A beat of awkward silence later, my shoulders dropped into a shrug, "Fair enough."

Avery rolled her eyes, "I get why a scattershot approach won't work," She said. "Big problems require big thinking and big interventions—"

"Comprehensive interventions," Grayson corrected. "Strategic."

"But we also have to spread our risk."

"With empirically driven cost-benefits analyses."

"And a fifteen percent discount on all free items costing a hundred bucks," I curved my lips into a mocking smile, "because let's throw in mumbo jumbo nonsense and call it a conversation, hm?" Yeah, I was a little cranky from doing all that maths and logical shit. The only time I ever actually liked maths was in arts, but that's a story for another day.

Pretty Boy set down a few maps and papers, "Ms. Grambs," he was looking right at me with that godforsaken, elegant, shit-eating grin of his, "Homework."

"Fuck you to the depth of fucking hell, Hawthorne."

Suddenly, his phone rang, and he glanced down at the screen. "Nash," he informed us.

"Go ahead," Ave told him, "Take it." Someone remind me to thank her later because the minute the door closed behind Pretty Boy, I abandoned the mountains of paper faster than Ricky Grambs could run to get milk. "Freedom at last!"

"Math isn't that bad, Leena," Avery grinned as she got up to circle the room, taking in every little detail and aspect.

I followed her. Charts and logistics may fly right over my head, but maps were my thing. The visualization, the building, and the making? Now we're talking. 

I came to a stop in front of the very last map on the wall. Unlike the others, this one had been hand-drawn. It took me a moment to realize that the map was of Hawthorne House and the surrounding estate. And it immediately caught my eye. The geography of the estate, from the northern forest, called the Black Wood to a small creek that ran along the western edge of the estate.
Not a creek. It was labeled The Brook.

Blackwood and Westbrook.

"Avery," that electric feeling in my body. The rush in my veins. I knew this. Was this why my head hurt whenever I heard those names? What would Winchester and Davenport be then? Winchester. Winchester. Winchester. "Boom," I muttered.

Ave quickly caught on. We were so absorbed that we didn't notice the door swing behind us.

"Arlene." Grayson spoke behind me.

"What?" I said, unable to fully tear my mind from the map—and the implications.

"That was Nash."

"I know," I said. He'd told me who was on the other end of the line before he'd answered.

Grayson laid a hand gently on my shoulder. Alarm bells rang in the back of my head. Why was he being so gentle again? "What did Nash want?"
"It's about your sister."

·······•✦•······

"I thought you said you'd take care of Drake." My fingers tightened around my phone, and my free hand wound itself into a fist at my side. "For fun." 

God. Goddammit, I wasn't there with her. 

I'd called Alisa the moment I'd made it to the car. Grayson had followed and buckled himself into the back seat beside me and Avery sat shotgun. I didn't have the time or mental space to dwell on his presence beside me. Oren was driving. I was pissed as hell.

Drake was here. In Texas. When Nash had called, Libby was safely inside, but Drake was spamming her phone with texts and calls, demanding a face-to-face.

I remember holding a gun. I remember holding it to his head.
I remember a pair of arms pulling and pleading with me to lower it
To let it go.
I almost did.
That night I almost let the bullet go.

"I'll handle this, Arlene." Alisa recovered almost instantly. "The firm has some contacts on the local police force who know how to be discreet."
Right now, being discreet wasn't my priority. My priority was Libby and Libby my dear sister only.

"Does my sister know about this restraining order?" Asked Ave, who was equally pissed as me.

"She signed the paperwork." That was a hedge if I'd ever heard one. "I'll handle it, Avery, Arlene. You two just lie low." She hung up, and I let the hand holding my phone drop into my lap. I cursed under my breath. 

What was I doing? Wasting time with maths, logic, and shit with a Hawthorne where I really should've been home, with Libby. I should've dragged Ave home with me.

"John," my voice was shaking with fury, "John hit the gas or I swear to god I'm gonna climb over and drive the damn car myself." I was panicked. I didn't notice how my tone had changed. All I could feel and think about was Libby. And how much I wanted a bullet in that asshole's head.

"Libby has her own security detail. Drake wouldn't get a chance to hurt her—physically." Avery herself was barely holding it together.

"Nash is with your sister." Grayson spoke for the first time since we'd entered the car. "If the gentleman so much as tries to lay a finger on her, I assure you, my brother would take pleasure in removing that finger."

"Gentleman,"  I scoffed, my nails digging into my palms, "If that asshole is a gentleman, I'm a fucking zebra." 

"Drake isn't a gentleman," Ave told Grayson. "And we're not just worried about him getting violent." We were worried about him being sweet, worried that, instead of losing his temper, he'd be so kind and tender that she'd start to question the fading bruise ringing her eye.

"If it would make you feel better, I can have him removed from the property," Oren offered. "But that might cause a bit of a scene for the press."

The press? My brain clicked into gear. "There weren't any paparazzi at the foundation." Ave had noted that when we'd arrived. "They're back at the house?"
The wall around the estate could keep the press off the property, but nothing was stopping them from congregating, legally, on a public street.
"If I were a betting man," Oren commented, "I would guess that Drake placed a few calls to reporters to ensure an audience."

My nails turned my skin so red they looked close enough to draw blood, "Oh that motherfucker..."

There was nothing discreet about the scene that greeted us when Oren pulled up to the drive, past a verifiable horde of press. Up ahead, I could see Drake's form outside the wrought-iron gates. Two other men were standing near him.
Even from a distance, I could make out their police uniforms. And so could the paparazzi.
So much for Alisa's friends on the police force being discreet. I gritted my teeth and thought about the way Drake would guilt Libby if there was footage of him being dragged down the drive.

"Stop the car," I snapped.

Oren stopped, then turned around in his seat to face me. "I would advise you to stay in this vehicle." That wasn't advice. That was an order. An order I wasn't going to follow. Even if I felt a familiar set of hands wrap around my wrists as they did so much these days,

I reached for the door handle, not waiting or caring. I could always apologize to John later. Right now I had to clean that shit bag's mess.

And not even a step out and the entire paparazzi was on me. Flashes, so so many flashes. My eyes started to sting. But not at the same time. As if I was just out of practice. 

And then, I couldn't recognize the person who had my voice. I couldn't recognize the power. The threat. Who was I at that moment, I had no idea.

"Anyone reckless enough to even look in the direction of that pathetic, empty shell of wasted potential, I will make sure you'll never hear a word again—metaphorically or otherwise because Tobias Tattersall Hawthorne chose me as his successor and rewrote his will for me. And trust me, I know exactly why."

The audible silence before the deafening roar of questions, blasting of cameras. Pandemonium. And yet I caught it. I don't know how, but I caught the movement in the bushes. Oren did too. But I was quicker. I caught the sound of reloading, I caught the rustle of leaves. 

I caught the sniper in the trees.

Aiming for someone who wasn't me.

"GRAYSON!" 

·······•✦•······

What just happened?
Was this really the worst week of my life?

Fucking hell, not only did I get choked by my law firm's receptionist, but now I'm on the ground, bleeding with a bullet in my stomach.

It all happened so quickly. I had managed to push him out of range just barely. Oren tried to shield me but he was a moment too late. 

Getting shot was—is a weird feeling.
I've heard people say that you feel no pain because of the adrenaline and shock. But I felt it. Oh, I felt everything. It was as if my entire body was covered with feathers, each attached to my brain, more sensitive than the other. I could—let me warn you, this gets a bit nasty—feel my pulsing flesh, cling around the foreign object in my body. The blood oozing out like sap from a decaying tree. It was stinging and yet, true to said people, it didn't hurt as bad.

What hurt more was the spinning of my head and the fact that I could practically feel the fear wrap around my heart and squeeze it so tight, I almost forgot how to breathe for a moment.

And yet, to the depths of my being, I knew.
I knew my face was as calm and blank as a piece of paper.

Oren's voice was muffled by the ringing in my ears. I could make out him kneeling down and pressing a cloth on my wound. Hard. It hurt like a bitch and I let out a pained groan. 
My mind refused to focus on the pain, instead it did the weirdest thing.

It gave up control of my body.
My mind gave up control of my body.

My hands slipped behind Oren's back, snaking around to find it. I grabbed it.
And before anyone could speak, move, or even react.

I shot the leaves.

That hung in the air for a solid moment. A loud thud sound with my labored breaths. And the fact that my hand held the weapon, completely straight, unmoving, still in a state.

I just fired a gun like it was a child's toy. 

Chaos. Chaos everywhere.

My eyes shut close, slowing and relaxed, like I was taking a nap in my bed, not succumbing to unconsciousness. I felt his arms around me, pulling me against his rich, pristine suit. I was sure my blood would ruin that perfect fabric. I couldn't help but feel a little guilty.

"Arlene," why did his voice sound so nice? It felt like clouds. Annoying rain clouds that would cover up the sun and make the sky grey. And yet protect you from the heat and give you sweet rain. "Arlene, don't you dare close your eyes, do you understand? Don't you dare leave me, Doll."

I let out an incoherent mumble, subconsciously leaning into a warmth I should've despised.

My last words to the plane of the conscious:

"That man isn't dead."

·······•✦•······

a/n: holy- we're at five hundred reads!! Thank you so much, people!!