𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 - JJ Maybank

Chapter 125: Death and Guns

My voice ripped from my chest as I screamed for JJ.

The knife pressing right against my throat was all I could feel. The throbbing of my arm, the aching of my bones, the sand glued to my skin—all of it was suddenly nowhere to be found. Oh, how I wanted it back. It hurt endlessly, but it meant that I wasn't yet numb to it.

I was now.

"Gracie!" His voice tore through the streets, winding through the narrow alleys and searching for my ears.

He was close.

I felt sick to my stomach.

Pure desperation forced his name from my chapped lips and my body to jerk violently against Groff's grasp. I was running on instinct alone.

So was JJ, as it seemed. He came racing into the courtyard, throwing the doorway closed behind him with reckless, almost animalistic, abandon.

His brain was locked in on one thing: finding me.

Mine was on another: survival.

I could see the moment he realized what he had walked into.

His face, once filled with determination, dropped to one of terror. It only got worse when we made eye contact.

I knew I looked petrified.

The feeling was so raw, cutting through my flesh, that there was no world in which it was not painted across my face.

"JJ!" Groff exclaimed with glee that verged on psychotic.

When my voice followed his, repeating JJ's name for what felt like the billionth time, it was weaker, more desperate. But it hurt far more than the screams that cut like glass as they tore up my throat. The defeat felt like blood on my tongue, metallic and burning, coating my teeth in a thick liquid that left a stain even after it was spat out.

JJ acted quickly; he raced forward, hands still grasping the cloth-wrapped crown. "You let her go!" His voice was rough with anger.

"Stop right there!" Sharpness against my throat growing sharper forced him to do as he was told.

God, he was so close—mere feet away. The need for his arms wrapped around my worn-down body burned through my soul until it felt charred.

My hands tightened their grip around Groff's forearm, desperately attempting to pull it from my skin. But I was too weak. My right arm was practically limp from blood loss, but even if it weren't, Groff was crazed. He was so sick for the crown that no measure of strength could force him away from me.

JJ stayed strikingly still, not even shifting on his feet. I could tell that he was terrified; any move could spell out my end.

"Shh..." I hadn't even noticed the pitiful whimpers that had crawled from my mouth until the maniac's gruff voice had ordered me to silence. "You know what I want," he told JJ. I could feel his breath against my cheek as the words left him, warm and taunting.

His free hand jutted out, palm stretched open, begging for the crown.

JJ's breathing grew sharper, puffing in and out of his lungs quickly. "Just let her go." His voice was practically at a whisper, but the anger that laced it demanded attention.

"You could've stuck with me, JJ. Think what you could've had."

I had always assumed horror movies played up the crazy intonation in the killer's voice, but here, with my life in the hands of a greedy madman, it was as clear as they had made it seem.

JJ's jaw clenched, eyes darting back and forth from me to his father, then dropping to the crown.

"But now, you... you're going to get nothing. Nothing."