Page 120 of Vain
I frown. When I look up, I see a gun pointed at Marley. I scream as a bullet rips through his leg. I yank myself free and run to Marley as he collapses on the floor.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I scream at Greyson, who looks down at us, the gun still in his hand.
“You can’t leave me.”
Marley squeezes my hand. “Tilly, listen to me. You need to get out of here. Run. Now.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I hiss
Greyson beckons me toward him. “Come on, Matilda. It’s time to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. What the hell is happening?” I sob.
“It’s only for a little while, just until things calm down. Don’t worry, I have a plan.”
I shake my head, trying to make sense of what’s happening, but nothing seems real. “What plan?” I take off my hoodie and tie it tight around Marley’s injured leg, making him groan.
“You weren’t supposed to see this part. I tried to get you to lie down but you wouldn’t listen. Don’t worry, it’s not fatal. Hurtslike the devil though, doesn’t it?” Greyson grins at Marley, lifting his hand to show his own bullet wound. Blood pumps steadily out of him, running down his hip and leg.
“In hindsight, I should have aimed lower, but I wanted it to look authentic,” he says, tapping his head with the gun.
“Tilly, please run,” Marley whispers.
I can’t. I won’t. I try to remember what you’re supposed to do in situations like this, but I’m not sure there’s a manual for when the man you’ve loved as a father for twenty-odd years turns on you. All I can think is to keep him talking until the cops get here. But then it dawns on me.
“You didn’t call the cops, did you?”
He grins, slowly sliding down the wall, his gun still in his hand. “No. Not yet. That comes later. See, Cliff out there was my patsy. I hired him myself for just this occasion. Can you guess why I picked him?”
“He used to work for Cox Security,” Marley guesses.
“Ding, ding. I’ve dumped the car I borrowed, but that thing sure caused a nice distraction.”
“None of this was Daniel or his team. It was all you?”
“Daniel was a pathetic waste of space.”
I close my eyes at the choice of the wordwas.
“You don’t need to worry about him anymore.”
“And my mom?”
“Don’t you mention that woman to me. Not ever,” he snarls, making me rear back.
“Greyson, you’re scaring her.” Marley tries to defuse the situation.
Greyson looks at him with a blank stare before he shakes his head. “I apologize. Honestly, this whole thing has been exhausting. All I wanted was you close. I can’t bear the thought of you leaving me. I won’t survive that, Matilda.”
Marley’s breath hitches. “Did Andrew Summers stalk Matilda?”
I freeze as I realize that this isn’t a sudden moment of madness. He’s been the bogeyman all along.
“No. Please, no.”
“You were going to leave me. I had to make you stay. Andrew was a sycophant who used to follow you around, begging you to notice him while he sniffed your underwear like the creep he is. He said he was your stalker because it’s his one claim to fame, and I let him because it suited my needs. You came home to me. And you stayed home. It was just the way it should be.”
I flash back to last night when he said something similar and shiver at how naive I was. But Jesus, I’d give anything to be her right now. “The Post-it notes?”
