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It took another two months before contact was made. A letter arrived at the post office addressed to us right when we were starting to settle into our new life.
Congratulations on your new home and business success. Let’s get drinks sometime!
Very short, very puzzling, as Grayson prides himself on being.
We could perceive the letter as a threat. They want us to know they’re keeping tabs on us. And after Brewster’s unfortunate accident, I doubt I’ll ever let London pour me a drink. Or the note could be a hint to London’s future plans for the chemical compound she stole from Alex. I’m sure London has questions in need of answers. Or…
Perhaps London and Grayson just have no friends, and this is simply a friendly greeting card. Maybe they really want to stop over for a friendly get-together and then a friendly murder spree.
The fact remains that, whether we’re friends, adversaries, nemeses, competition…it’s all the same, really. Friends, like enemies, can rarely be trusted, and plotting against the couple helps Alex and I stay ahead of them. Everyone needs a rival, after all. Rivalry keeps us sharp, prevents tedium.
Regardless, we have no choice but to be prepared. We have the word of a methodical serial killer to go on, who, by his own admission, likes to play games.
How do we know the relocated remains won’t appear on the news one day simply because the duo become bored and want to spice up their twisted love life?
Since Alex is big on contingency plans, in the event this day comes, we do have a strategy in place. We kept my loft in Tribeca, for one, because Vanessa wouldn’t hear of me not maintaining a residence in the city. I stay there when I visit the queen bee.
And for two: Our emergency funds are stashed there. If we ever have to flee the cottage quickly, the loft houses everything we need. Passports. Cash. Suitcases packed with clothes and essentials. A one-hit pit stop to freedom.
I still don’t accept the idea of running, but Alex insisted we at least have a backup plan.
I’ve been more focused on dissecting the details, working out the puzzle. Grayson doesn’t do anything without forethought or purpose. I started with the Rolex he embedded in Alex’s leg.
Why that pocket watch?
Did he merely pick one up at a pawnshop on his way to torture Alex?
Or does it harbor more significance?
What I found could change the dynamic, altering the status quo.
The antique timepiece was registered with collectables insurance. The value of the watch is in the high four figures. Well, it was, before Grayson welded the chain ribbon, thereby diminishing the value—but the price alone wasn’t substantial enough to be the sole reason as to why Grayson chose it.
Simply stated, the watch held meaning.
I was able to trace the owner through the insurance registry, unveiling a whole new twisted maze—one I have no doubt Grayson wants us to wander into, where a trap awaits.
But, I have already followed one white rabbit down a hole, altering my life forever. I’m more than apprehensive to stumble down another. Alice does learn some lessons from Wonderland, after all.
Such as how it wasn’t Time’s cruelty which trapped the Hatter in a perpetual mad tea party. Rather, it was the murder of time which imprisoned him in a punishing loop. Yet, even in a nonsensical realm, the Hatter realized he couldn’t beat Time to escape his punishment.
Alex didn’t.
By smashing his pocket watch and a room full of clocks, Alex deceptively thought he could escape his tormented reality.
That freedom came later, once we bled for each other, after we drew blood for each other.
I can no longer loathe Alex for what he did to me, just as he can no longer loathe my nature.
With the aid of a compound he engineered specifically to help regulate my brain chemistry, in time, my emotions did taper. The overwhelming extremes leveled out, the highs and lows more comparable to the swing of a pendulum. I never returned to my base level of shallow affect, but I also don’t suffer the crazy-inducing emotional onslaught, either.
Alex is the only one who takes my feelings to shattering heights.
Our night together under the waterfall did unlock a chamber, some dormant part of my mind, that awoke an emotion strong enough to alter the chemicals of my brain. And despite every rational cell in my body trying to deny it, and in spite of Grayson’s claim it can remake us…love is the only possible explanation.
I fell in love with Alex at Devil’s Peak.
I fell in love with the devil himself.
