Dark Red by Steve Lacy

Something bad is 'bout to happen to me.

I know what I need to do when we arrive at the house. We both get out of Jameson's car and rush inside. "Jamie. Can you go find Avery and tell her I need to see her but first I need to do something." I tell him running ahead inside. 

"Where?" He asks, grabbing my wrist and turning me around to face him. "I can't tell you until I'm sure. Do you trust me?" I ask him. "More than I trust myself" he replies. 

I press our lips together and run through the door. I run up three flights of stairs, not stopping once to breathe. Once I am almost at my destination Grayson steps in front of me. "Grayson" I warn. 

"No Paris. I need you to listen. I'm sorry." He says, "that all?" I ask out of breath. He takes in a deep breath. "I know I messed up. I trust you and shouldn't have left you out there on your own" he expands. "Great. Thanks" I say quickly and continue running passed him. He follows me, running closely behind. 

"Can you help me find Jameson? We need him for something. It's really important." He asks. "So is this" I yell back to him, still running. "Paris. Where are you going? This floor only has rooms." He asks suspiciously. 

"I- I'm" I stutter. "It's Skye's isn't it. I know you think it was her" he accuses. "Gray, just mind your own business okay?" I stop and turn to face him. "If you really think she's capable of something like that then what are you doing going into her room alone?" He asks.

"Just trust me. Find Jameson, last I checked he was at the front door. I asked him to find Avery" I inform him. "Avery cracked it Paris. She's about to have closure. We just need to find Jameson and somehow get him to agree." He informs. 

"She what?" I gulp. "Go! Go find him!" I yell. Grayson pauses for a moment and then starts jogging back down the staircases.

I reach Skye's room and take a sharp breathe in before knocking. "Come in!" She says without hesitation. 

I open the door and storm in. She seems to be using one of those sticks that produce a smoke that banishes evil spirits. 

"Ava! Hello" she grins a false smile. "Paris." I correct bluntly. "What can I do for you?" 

"I know what you did." I sneer. "And what might that be?" She asks calmly walking towards me. I thought she might've been a little more intimidated but then again she birthed the four strongest guys I've ever met.

I look down at my wound surrounding by large bruising around it. About three months and all that will be left is a nasty scar. "Well, Ava. I'm sorry that had to happen to you. I only hope you recover." She says. "It didn't have to happen. You made it happen." I yell at her. 

"You're smart. When you want to be that is. I didn't peg you as a smart girl." She puts her hand on my face and strokes my cheek, I jump away from her touch. "So you admit it?" I ask. "Does it matter? Nobody will believe you" she says softly. 

I clench my jaw. "And why's that?" I ask, "Because. You're on some really crazy drugs" she says. I furrow my eyebrows. "What do you mean?" I ask, starting to get a little worried. "Well those drugs you've been taking. They do some strange things to your mind. It's a shame. I liked you" she frowns. 

I begin approaching the door and struggle to open it. I realise it's locked with a passcode, she's holding some sort of controller. "Isn't it cool, Alexander made me it a while ago." She smiles. 

"So you're gonna drug me. Then what? Keep trying to kill Avery. I'm going to remember and I'm going to stop you." I laugh, trying to act like I'm not as terrified as I feel. 

"Well, yeah I'll probably go for Avery. Maybe you." She shrugs. "The lengths you would go to for money. Well you're fucking stupid, it wouldn't even go to you anyway" I spit. That somewhat shocked her, never the less she recovers quickly.

"Ava. Would you like a cup of tea? You need to calm down." She says softly. What does she think I'm going to do? "No" I immediately say. "I'm going to make you a cup of tea" she says walking towards the cup she just happens to have on her table. She places something inside the cup which is very clearly a pill. 

"Please, take a drink Ava" she says. "Paris." I correct, "what's your move here? I saw you put that in the mug. I'm not stupid" I grin. "I think you're going to want to drink that tea Ava" she drops her fake smile. 

"No" i insist. "Ava! Drink the tea!" She yells. I jump back a little. 

"Skye!" I smirk, "Turn around" 

She quickly turns around and looks out the window expecting someone to be on her balcony. Oldest trick in the book. I take my chance and grab the candlestick on her fireplace. Suddenly, as I'd hoped, the fireplace opens and I run through the passageway created. 

"Tricked by a sixteen year old. That must hurt" I yell as I bolt through the dark corridors. I expect her to follow me but she just shuts the fireplace, leaving me in pitch darkness. 

I run straight ahead with my hands in front of me, which proves helpful after the few times I almost ran into walls.

I let out a loud yelp as I fall down a literal hole. My ankle throbs and I'm filthy with dirt but I continue running with a slight limp. I reach a winding staircase, I start making my way down it however it seems to be never ending. 

When I reach the bottom I keep walking the same one way. I reach more stairs going up and hear voices coming from the room it leads up to. I don't hesitate before running up the stairs and searching for a door. There isn't a door but there is a small trapdoor above my head. 

I push it up with all my strength and use the banister of the stairs to jump up. I manage to jump high enough to get my hands in. I begin using all of upper body strength to hoist myself up, hanging on purely with the tips of my fingers. 

"Fuck" I yell as I feel my fingers slipping. I feel two hands grab each of my wrists and pull me up. When I get up to about my waist I see Nash and Xander pulling me up. Avery and Grayson stand beside them in some sort of vault. 

Everybody watches me for a minute as I catch my breathe. "I was-" I begin before running out of air. "Fuck me!.. I was... running... for like 90 fuckin... years" I say through deep breaths.

I'm lying on my back sweating every single drop of fluid out of my body. 

Grayson steps towards me and crouches down to look at me, "I spoke to you twenty minutes ago, how in gods name did this happen in twenty minutes?" He asks with wide eyes. 

"Actually 10. I was talking to her for 10" I say, beginning to sit up. 

"As you were" I dismiss waving my hand at them to tell them to continue what they were doing. I stand up and start to walk away up the secret staircase they had clearly entered through. Grayson grabs my wrist and turns me around, his face comes dangerously close to mine. "So it's true?" He asks for only me to hear. I nod, it must be hard for him to believe me right now which I get. 

"Did she hurt you?" He asks, "She tried to drug me, Gray" I whisper. "But she didn't?" He asks worriedly. "No. I'm fine" I confirm with a reassuring smile.

I turn around to limp up the staircase again and when i'm one step up he does it again. He grabs my wrist and spins me around, "yes?" I ask. "You're limping" he states, a little louder now so that everyone can hear again. "I fell in a hole" I smile brightly. 

I'm halfway up the stairs when Nash yells up to me, "You're apart of this just as much as any of us kid" 

I turn around and look at everyone who all has the same agreement on their faces. "God, I thought you were actually gonna let me hobble away there, you had me worried" I say sarcastically as I hop back down the few stairs I had already hopped up.

"Do it! You've waited long enough" I say as they linger rather than unlocking their doors. 

"Your hands if you please" Xander says to Grayson and Nash. They each put their hand out and onto the passcode pad. It makes a loud sound as it begins unlocking. "Three down, two to go" Xander says. 

"Where's Jamie?" I ask, "There was some rather colorful language used when i requested his presence" Xander says. "Did you tell him why you needed him?" I ask. "Oh he knew" Xander says. "He knew Avery was down here and never came?" I ask. 

"Yeah" Xander nods, "That boy and I will be sharing some 'colorful' words." I scold under my breathe. 

We wait another 15 minutes in silence. Grayson is the first to voice all of our thoughts, "He's not coming." I'm sitting on the bottom step with my head in my hands. 

"He'll be here" Nash insists, "Don't I always do what I'm told?" A voice asks. I look up just in time to catch Jameson jump passed every single stair and land on the ground. "Fuck me" I mutter quietly holding my heart. "Maybe later" he says from in front of me not even looking at me. My eyes brows raise at his bluntness. 

"You don't know when to stop. Do you, Heiress?" He somewhat jokes. "I'm tougher than I look" Avery replies.

He places his hand flat on the pad with his initials and waits. Once the bolt sounds he steps away and begins walking towards the staircase I'm sitting on. "Christ. What happened to you?" He asks, only having just looked at me. 

"Where are you going?" I ask angrily. "To hell probably. But for now, probably the wine cellar." He jokes, I don't laugh. 

He walks passed me up to the top of the stairs, at the top there is another trap door above which he jumps through without failure. "For fuck sake" I breathe as I try to pull myself through again. I pull myself up a little and somehow manage to make it up with one without having just ran for 15 minutes straight. 

"Stay" I beg. "I don't know what's on the other side of that door, Paris. But I do know that the old man laid this trap for me" he says. I scoff, "for you? All of this is for you? Of course it is? Why wouldn't it be, I mean everything else is" I scold. 

"That's why just to open that door it needed Avery's face and all four brothers hand prints. But you know it's all about you. You know, you dragged everyone into this and for you to just walk away right at the end is really shitty of you" I yell. 

"He knew that any game he left I would play. Nash might say screw it, Grayson might get bogged down in legalities, Xander might be thinking about a million other things but me? I would play." He yells back. "So yes. He meant this for me. So whatever's on the other side of that door... he knew. He knew what I did and wanted to make sure I never forgot." He says. I can tell he's in a lot of pain. He's breathing heavily and masking it with anger. 

"What did he know?" I ask gravely. "What did the old man know Jamie?" Grayson appears behind me along with Avery. I can hear Xander and Nash also climbing up. 

"Knew what, Jamie?" Grayson asks sternly. "What happened on ten-eighteen." Jameson answers hoarsely. "It was my fault." Grayson steps forward putting his hands on both of Jameson's shoulders. "I'm the one who took Emily there. I knew it was a bad idea, and I didn't care. I just wanted to win. I wanted her to love me." Grayson says. 

"I followed you that night." Jameson admits, "I watched the two of you jump, Gray."

I watched Emily Laughlin die.

"You followed us?" Grayson asks. "Why?"

"Masochism?" Jameson shrugs. "I was pissed." He pauses. "Eventually, you ran off to get the towels, and I..." 

"Jamie." Grayson drops his hands to his sides. "What did you do?"
"What did you do?" He repeats.

"She saw me." Jameson turns from his brother to look at me. "She saw me, and she smiled. She thought she'd won. She thought she still had me, but I turned and walked away. She called my name. I didn't stop. I heard her gasp. She was making this little strangling sound." 

My mouth opens a little in shock and my eyes begin welling up. 

"I thought she was playing with me. I heard a splash, but I didn't turn around. I made it probably a hundred yards. She wasn't calling after me anymore. I glanced back." Jameson's voice breaks. "Emily was hunched over, crawling out of the water. I thought she was pretending." 

He'd thought she was manipulating him. Again.

"I just stood there," Jameson says dully. "I didn't do a damn thing to help her."

I watched Emily Laughlin die.

I feel sick. 

"She collapsed. She went still, and she stayed still. And then you came back, Gray, and I left." Jameson shudders. "I hated you for taking her there, but I hate myself more because I let her die. I stood there, and I watched. "

"It was her heart," I say. "What could you have—"

"I could have tried CPR. I could have done something. " Jameson swallows.

"But I didn't. I don't know how the old man knew, but he cornered me a few days later. He told  me that he knew I'd been there and asked whether I felt culpable. He wanted me to tell you, Gray, and I wouldn't. I said that if he was so damn set on you knowing that I'd been there, he could tell you himself. But he didn't. Instead... he did this."

"He wanted to make damn sure," Jameson says, "that I never forgot."

"No," Xander blurted out. The others turned to look at him. "That's not what this is, He wasn't making a point. He wanted us—all four of us—together. Here."

Nash places a hand on Xander's shoulder. "The old man could be a real bastard, Xan."

"That's not what this is," Xander says again, he is speaking as if he knows this as a fact.

Grayson, who hasn't spoken a word since Jameson's confession, speaks up now. "What precisely are you saying, Alexander?"

"The two of you were walking around like ghosts. You were a robot, Gray." Xander is speaking quickly now—almost too quickly for the rest of us to follow. "Jamie was a ticking time bomb. You hated each other."

"We hated ourselves more," Grayson says. "The old man knew he was sick," Xander admits. "He told me, right before he died. He asked me to do something for him."

Nash's eyes narrowed. "And what was that?" Xander doesn't answer. Grayson's eyes narrow. "You had to make sure we played."

"It was my job to make sure you saw this to the end." Xander looks from Grayson to Jameson "Both of you. If either of you stopped playing, it was my job to draw you back."

"You knew?" Avery asks. "All this time, you knew where the clues led?" 

"You helped me," Avery says. "I told you that I am a living, breathing Rube Goldberg machine." Xander says. "I warned you. Kind of."

"Do you know why your grandfather chose me?" Avery demands. "Have you known the answer all this time?" Xander holds his hands up in front of his body, like he think Avery may throttlehim. 

"I only know what he wanted me to know. I have no idea what's on the other side of that door. I was only supposed to get Jamie and Gray here. Together."

"All four of us," Nash corrects. "Together." 

"Not just the four of us," Grayson tells Nash. He looks towards Avery.

Normally this would make me feel a little left out but this isn't about me. It never has been. And honestly, I'm okay with just being the glass ballerina.

One by one we all drop back inside the trap door, I get in last and Jameson catches me as I drop so I don't injure my ankle further. 

The five all push the door open simultaneously whilst I stand at the bottom of the stairs. When they reach inside there is a small wooden box standing alone with Avery's full name on it. 
She inspects the box for a seconds, "looks like it's your rodeo kid" Nash says. "The letters, Heiress" Jameson can't stop himself. 

She soon realises the letters all peel off of the box. "It's an anagram. Rearrange the letters" Nash explains. 

Avery immediately separates the letters AVERY into A VERY and then starts trying to solve the next words. 

Suddenly it seemingly hits her. "You've got to be kidding me" she sighs. "What?" Jameson asks eagerly. 

A VERY RISKY GAMBLE

Everything ties together. 

"He kept saying that," Xander mutters. "That no matter what he planned, it might not work. That it was..."

"A very risky gamble" Grayson finishes. 

Avery arranges the letters and it unlocks, she opens the box and is met with an envelope placed upside down and on top of it lays a single packet of sugar. 

"I met him," Avery says quietly. "Just once, years ago—just for a moment, in passing."

"He loved anagrams more than scotch," Nash says. "And he was a man who loved a good scotch."

"He would have kept track of you," Grayson says roughly. "A little girl with a funny little name." He glances at Jameson. "He must have known her date of birth."

"And after Emily died... He thought of you" Jameson says watching Avery closely. "And decided to leave me his entire fortune because of my name?" Avery says. "That's insane."

"You're the one who said it, Heiress: He didn't disinherit us for you. We weren't getting the money anyway."

"It was going to charity," Avery argues. "And you're telling me that on a whim, he wiped out the will he'd had for twenty years? That's—"

"He needed something to get our attention," Grayson says. "Something so unexpected, so bewildering, that it could only be seen—"

"—as a puzzle," Jameson finishes. "Something we couldn't ignore.Something to wake us up again. Something to bring us here—all four of us."

"Something to purge the poison." Nash's tone is hard to read.

"I told you, kid," Nash says. "You're not a player. You're the glass ballerina. Or the knife." 
"Avery, there's a letter in there" Jameson points out.

Avery carefully removes the envelope and turns it. All five heads slowly turn around to face me. I look at every single one of them trying to see why they are looking at me. I turn around to see if there's anyone behind me.

Avery stands up from her crouched position and begins approaching me followed by everyone else. 

She hands me the letter, I gulp and look down. 

PARIS RILEY GRAMBS - LAUGHIN

I look up from the letter and everyone is close around me. "Strange, wonder who that could be" I shrug and pass it back to Avery before walking away up the stairs. 

"Pear!" Avery yells to me as I walk up the stairs. "Open it or we will" she threats. 

I groan childishly and retreat down the stairs.

"Okay. But its a typo." I make it known to everyone.

I snatch the envelope and open it with everyone staring at me as I do so.

Dearest Paris.
You're just as much a part of this as anyone else.
Your part of the story is only just beginning.
- TBH

"Oh for fuck sake" I yell. "What?" Avery asks, "I was fine being a side piece in this game" i mutter passing her the letter. They all read it over her shoulder.

"Jamie, Gray, Nash, Xander. I hate to be the one to say it but when my Mom died, she left me a bracelet and like $100. Your grandad was fuckin psychotic" i say laughing. 

"You're a Laughin?" Jamie asks me. "No" I answer. "But it says-" I cut him off. "I don't care what it says. I didn't even know this guy. I don't trust a single word he says" I yell walking out and pulling myself through the trap door. 

I need air. 

I make my way outside the house and take in some refreshing air into my lungs. 

Paris Riley Grambs - Laughin

Laughin

(a/n. Only one more chapter of Part 1/3. Are you excited? I am. I've been nervous about this ending for so long and can't wait to release it. Remember, if you're unhappy with who Paris ends up with in the next chapter, don't worry. I can't tell you much but everything can and will change at some point. There's something for everyone. Thank you so much for all the reads, it's honestly insanity. -May <3