brutal | grayson hawthorne

skeletons and closets

***
Foolish One by Taylor Swift
***

"What?" Liz stares, standing slowly, not particularly liking the look in Eve's eye.

"What did you find?" Eve repeats, harsher this time.

"Did you follow me down here?" Liz wishes she could understand what's happening right now. And what Eve is holding behind her back.

"Are you going to answer or am I going to have to make you?"

"Make me?" Liz sounds amused now. Who does this chick think she is?

"Make you," Eve repeats calmly, moving her hands behind her back, so a handgun is pointed evenly at Liz's chest.

"Oh," Liz hasn't even been shot yet, but she feels her heart stop.

Oh my god. Oh my god, I'm going to die. I'm going to die, and the last interaction I had with Grayson will have been us singing karaoke together. I'm going to die, and my last thought is going to be about Grayson goddamn Hawthorne.

"Okay," Liz puts her hands up, the USB still secure in where her sleeve is folded up. "I think we should all take some meditative breaths."

Eve angles the gun to the wall behind Liz, pulling the trigger to set a bottle of poor red wine to explode behind Liz.

Liz flinches, but doesn't dare turn her head away from Eve.

"Or not," then, "it was empty," Liz isn't a very good liar, but if her life genuinely depends on it, she's going to have to see what she can do. "The wall, I mean."

"Bullshit," Eve bites, glancing down at the opening where the wall meets the floor.

"I swear," Liz lies. "You can look for yourself."

Eve looks wary of whatever it seems like Liz is planning, but Liz doesn't even have to fake the deer caught in headlights look, even if her mind is turning.

I knew she was a fucking snake, is the main thought, even while she tries coming up with an escape plan.

Eve takes the bait, and slowly lowers the gun, so she can move to the floor carefully, keeping an eye on Liz and a finger on the trigger.

Liz figures this as good an opening as any, and she steps forward when Eve's eyes finally move to see inside the wall, lunging to grab the gun from her hand.

Eve's hand instinctively pulls the trigger, but Liz has managed to angle the gun away so the bullet just goes into a random pillar in the cellar.

The two are wrestling on the ground now, and Liz has had to steal enough things back from Jameson when he thought it would be funny to snatch her things from her hands that she clearly has the upper hand here.

"Get off me!" Eve shoves, still having a firm grip on the gun.

"Eat me," Liz snarks, not letting up.

Eve manages to roll them over, banging Liz's head against the hard flooring. Liz's grip on the gun loosens as black dots cloud her vision.

That's when it starts to go dark, but when the doors burst open and Liz can vaguely make out Grayson's voice and Eve struggling against someone, she officially passes out as a deafening crack rings through the air, and she feels an excruciating pain shoot up her shoulder.

***

Liz wakes with a jolt and an aggressive flinch as she feels like her right arm is about to fall off.

"Ow," she hisses, using her uninjured arm to straighten herself into a sitting position on the bed she's occupying.

Grayson's bed.

She doesn't even have to look around to take in the fact that she's in his room.

"You're awake," he breathes. His voice is broken, like he hasn't used it in awhile. "How are you feeling?"

It comes back to her in flashes. Eve. The gun. The fact that her shoulder feels like might explode.

"Oren said it was too dangerous to move you out of Hawthorne House, but it's understandable if you feel like you need a hospital," Grayson is standing at the foot of the bed, staring at her.

"How long have you been here?" Liz stares back. Not how long has she been here. How long has he been staring at her like that?

"Six hours and 34 minutes."

"Eve-" she suddenly starts, not liking all the thoughts running through her head.

"Is being taken care of," he says evenly. Then, "I owe you an apology."

"Say it then," Liz's head may be bruising her skull with how aggressively it's pounding, but that won't stop her from staring Grayson down.

Even if his figure is a little blurry around the edges.

"I'm sorry," she's glad he's amused by her sharpness even in this state. "I should've listened when you warned me about Eve."

"That's the only thing you're sorry about?"

a/n:
cowboy like me