Apocalypse Betrayal: In the Arms of the Illusionist

The horde hit. My touch starvation flared, a burning ache beneath my skin. The infected pinned Gemma, our water elemental, inside the mall.

The whole crew waited on my boyfriend to lead the extraction. Instead, I gripped the hem of his shirt. I needed his touch to anchor me. Neon text scrolled across my vision.

The system chat. [The female lead is waiting for rescue, and the toxic sidekick just wants to get laid!] [Good thing our boy is smart.

He makes Caspian use his illusions to play standin every time. She has no idea!] [Caspian is MIA today, so Griffin has to step up. It makes him late and Gemma gets hurt.

When Griffin takes over the base later, his very first order is tossing this psycho into the slums to die of dehydration.

Karma!] Griffin’s fingers hooked his collar, popping the first button, ready to play the cure.

I shoved hard against his chest. "You—you already helped me last night," I stammered. "I don't need it." Chapter 1 I bit hard on my lower lip and kept my eyes glued to the floorboards.

Heat crawled up the back of my neck. "After everyone crashed last night. You knocked—" My voice cracked. My cheeks burned. His jaw clenched tight.

A dark shadow crossed his face. "It wasn't the scheduled time yesterday. Why did he—why did I help you?" "You said you were worried you wouldn't be around when the withdrawal hit.

You wanted to get ahead of it." A bulletproof excuse. But the crease between his brows only deepened. The glowing comments flashed in my memory. The slums. Searing dehydration.

My fingers shook as I reached up, shoving the button back through the buttonhole of his shirt. "Forget about me.

Go get Gemma." I pushed at his chest. "She's a girl trapped in a mall with a horde outside. She must be terrified." Gemma was a water elemental.

In the apocalypse, clean water meant absolute power. While I scrubbed myself with the meager rations Griffin saved for me, she looked like she just stepped out of a shower.

Every single day. She even conjured fresh water to brew Griffin his favorite tea. Then she'd shoot me that pathetic, apologetic smile. "Sorry, wifey.

I don't have enough energy left to make any for you." And Griffin was the heavy hitter. The apex predator of our crew.

He once carved his way through a horde singlehandedly, dragging back enough supplies to keep us fed for weeks. Meanwhile, I was the useless, unpowered girlfriend.

The walking red flag. If he even glanced at Gemma, I'd go feral for days. Fullblown obsession. Not anymore. I couldn't afford it. "Go," I urged him again.

His eyes narrowed, drilling into my skull. "You're acting—" A fist pounded against the wood, cutting him off. "Boss!

Leave her!" a crew member yelled through the door. "The biters breached the city limits!

If we don't roll out now, Gemma is dead meat!" The hesitation vanished from his face. "Stay here. Wait for me," he ordered. Then he bolted.

I lied. "He" never came to my room last night. I figured he was already dead, torn apart in the horde. The withdrawal clawed at my insides. A phantom itch buried deep in my marrow.

The room spun. But those damn glowing comments cut right through the fog, thriving on the drama. [OMG!

Gemma got surrounded but Griffin made it just in time!] [She twisted her ankle and HE PICKED HER UP. I'm screaming!] [Holy crap, look at Hazel's feed.

The horde is right outside her place. Is she gonna die?] My nails dug into my palms. The old me would have lost her mind over the bridal carry.

The new me only cared about that last comment. Guttural snarls bled through the walls. The frantic scraping of boots and rotting flesh against concrete. We were off the grid.

Up in the hills. Why was the horde here? Every nerve ending in my body caught fire. The withdrawal was peaking.

I bit down hard on my tongue, tasting hot copper, forcing my brain to focus. I gripped the combat knife Griffin gave me and backed into the darkest corner of the room.

The snarling rattled the door hinges. I squeezed my eyes shut. And then— Dead silence. It was severed by a brutal, unnatural quiet.

When the door finally clicked open, my head snapped up to find "Griffin" standing in the doorway. Frost practically rolled off his broad shoulders.

My breath caught. "Why are you back? Weren't you getting—" He crossed the room in two strides, dropped into a crouch, erasing the space between us.

I could smell the damp earth and raw ozone clinging to his jacket. The rough, calloused back of his hand brushed against my forehead. Icecold. My muscles locked.

This wasn't Griffin. It was Caspian. The illusionist. My fingers strangled the hilt of the knife. He didn't even glance at the weapon. He just reached down.

His cold fingers slid against mine, rough skin dragging against skin, before interlocking our hands tightly.

A sudden, soothing chill chased away the tremor in my bones. "Worried about you," he murmured, a low, gravelly hum that vibrated right through me. "Thanks," I breathed out.

His expression was hard to read in the dim light. "Don't mention it." His gaze dropped to my mouth.

He asked calmly, "Do we need to kiss today?" When the treatments first started, holding his hand or leaning into his chest barely took the edge off.

The ache ran too deep in my marrow. So I demanded his mouth. The most feral time, I pinned him against the glass of the window, devouring him for three solid hours.

I thought he was Griffin. That delusion gave me the right to be entirely selfish. But now? "N—no need," I stammered, yanking my hand back as if I had touched a live wire.

His fingers froze midair.

A dangerous, dark crimson flared in the depths of his eyes. "Baby doesn't want to touch me today," he murmured, his voice dropping a full octave. "When did you figure it out?" I shoved myself deeper into the corner. "Caspian.

What are you doing?" The corner of his mouth tipped up. He leaned in, the rough denim of his jeans caging my bare knee.

The biting chill radiating off his body was absolute poison. "Mm. Baby finally said my name." He extended a hand toward me.

The tendons in his wrist shifted visibly under his skin. "For your reward—" he breathed. "Want to go see how Griffin is holding up?" Chapter 2 Caspian hauled me over his shoulder and strode out the door.

He handled my weight like I was a stray kitten. Back at the base, he played the quiet, scrawny wallflower. A total background character. I thought about the horde outside.

The brutal, unnatural silence. My pulse hammered frantically against my ribs. Was he an Apex Infected?

The next second, he dumped me into the passenger seat of an SUV. "We're driving?" I hesitated. He cocked a dark brow. "You want me to sprint across the city carrying you?

Baby, are you trying to kill me?" The drive was deeply unsettling. The streets were a ghost town. Not a single biter in sight.

Yet the perimeter of the mall was completely barricaded by a writhing wall of infected. Caspian bypassed the slaughter entirely, leading me straight through a rear loading dock.

We slipped inside, hidden behind a few metal shelves, completely undetected just as the familiar voices of our crew echoed down the corridor. "Boss, that's a TierSeven energy core you just looted.

You're seriously giving it to Gemma?" "He spoils her rotten.

If I twisted my ankle, Boss would just look at me and say, 'Walk it off.'" The guy perfectly mimicked Griffin's deadpan growl, sending a roar of laughter through the group.

My fingers clamped around the hem of my shirt. The phantom itch flared, dragging a humiliating memory to the surface. A crew dinner.

The withdrawal had hit me hard, shaking my hands, blurring my vision. I reached out just to brush Griffin's knuckles under the table.

He yanked his hand away like I was the one infected.

Right in front of everyone. "Can you read the room?" he snapped. "You're embarrassing yourself." Gemma had chimed in instantly, oozing fake sympathy. "Griffin, don't be mean.

Hazel is sick. She literally can't control herself." The touch starvation mutated inside me right after the initial outbreak.

It happened exactly when Griffin first awakened his powers. He became a god overnight.

The top five survival zones were locked in a bidding war for him, throwing weapons, rations, and women at his feet. I fell into a brutal fever.

When I woke up, the skinhunger was hardwired into my nervous system. At first, the guilt wrecked him. He turned down every scout.

Before every supply run, he would drag me into our bedroom, press me flush against the door, and devour my mouth until I couldn't breathe. But survival strips away sentimentality.

People mutate. He didn't need a sick liability anymore. He needed a weapon.

Someone like Gemma, who could stand shouldertoshoulder with him in the blood and the dirt. "If Hazel hadn't delayed the deployment, Gemma wouldn't have blown out her ankle—" A heavy palm planted squarely between my shoulder blades.

Caspian shoved me forward. I stumbled out from behind the rack, skidding right into the open. Ten pairs of shocked eyes snapped to me.

I threw up a stiff, painfully awkward wave. "Hey. Good afternoon." A low, vibrating chuckle ghosted across my ear. "So cute." My stomach dropped.

If Griffin saw Caspian standing right behind me— "Relax," Caspian's velvet voice brushed directly against my mind. "I threw up a veil. I'm a ghost to them.

Only you get to look at me." I dragged my eyes forward. Gemma was practically fused to Griffin's chest, looking pale and fragile.

But the second she registered my face, the frail act shattered. "How are you not ripped to shreds?!" she shrieked. A heavy quiet suffocated the aisle.

Realizing she had completely dropped the mask, Gemma immediately softened her features, forcing a panicked tremor into her voice. "I—I just meant… Hazel, you don't have powers!

Running across the city alone, what if you ran into the horde?" Her eyes locked onto mine, searching for cracks. "Is the safehouse okay?" I gave her a flat nod. "Perfectly fine." Chapter 3 Gemma looked like hell.

The crew moved in, sweeping me for bites or scratches. Only when they confirmed I was totally clean did they let me step closer.

Gemma suddenly limped forward, throwing her weight onto her good leg to block Griffin like a human shield. "I'm so sorry, Hazel. I twisted my ankle.

Griffin was just worried about me, that's why he—" Her eyes swam with redrimmed, weaponized tears. "He slaughtered so many of them. He's exhausted.

Please don't start a fight with him today." The adrenalinefueled high of the room instantly flatlined.

I scratched the back of my neck, playing the picture of total understanding. "Oh, you blew out your ankle?" I tilted my head. "Griffin is a dualclass. Healing and Lightning.

Just have him rub your arches. You'll bounce right back." "Good girl, baby." Caspian's velvet voice purred directly into my mind. "That TierSeven core can cure your withdrawal.

Want to test him? See if he'll hand it over?" I shifted my gaze to Griffin. "Griff. You looted a TierSeven core, right?

I want it." Energy cores only dropped from the brains of the infected. TierOne was garbage. TierNine was godlevel. So far, no one had even survived seeing anything past a Nine.

Griffin had leveled up with terrifying speed. He had hoarded a massive stockpile of loot. Since I was powerless, he'd toss his leftovers to the crew. Especially to Gemma.

I practically handed my boyfriend over on a silver platter. Asking for a piece of loot was the bare minimum.

Gemma ducked her head, shrinking into herself. "If Hazel wants it… just let her have it." Griffin's jaw locked. "I gave it to you.

It's yours." He looked up at me, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "She's injured. She needs the energy to heal.

If something were actually going on between us, I wouldn't do it with a damn audience. You literally told me to come save her.

What the hell are you trying to start now?" The neon text exploded across my vision. Pure toxicity. [God, the audacity.

A literal zero asking for a TierSeven drop!] [Not satisfying enough. In a real apocalypse, the dead weight gets cut first!] [Gemma is an absolute angel.

Thank god Griffin is protecting her, or the psycho would steal all the hightier loot!] The low rumble of Caspian's laughter abruptly vanished.

Outside the steel doors, the eerie stillness shattered. As if triggered by a tripwire, the horde slammed into the barricades in an absolute frenzy.

Every drop of blood drained from the crew's faces. But deep in Gemma's eyes, a flicker of dark, unnatural crimson flashed.

A scout's voice cracked, raw with panic. "The emergency broadcast just hit the radio… An Apex Alpha just spawned in Baltimore.

They can't even calculate how long this surge will last!" My lungs seized. We were in Baltimore. "Strip the shelves and rally at the exit!

Now!" Griffin barked, his voice slicing through the rising panic. Cold sweat slicked my skin. I chalked it up to the adrenaline spike.

I snatched a tactical duffel from the floor and started stripping the aisles. Canned goods. Medical tape. I shoved everything inside blindly.

The metal groaning against the weight of the horde grew deafening. "Caspian," I whispered to empty space. "Are we actually going to make it out of here?

If I knew they were going to frenzy, I never would have come." Griffin and Gemma playing house wasn't worth my literal life. "You're not dying," his voice cut in. Hard and absolute.

I shook my head. Going MIA must have scrambled his brain. A frenzied horde. An Apex Alpha. Either one was enough to wipe me off the map a hundred times over.

I let out a shaky breath. "Don't panic. If they break through, I'll make Griffin grab you too." I gave that man three years of my life. He'd owe me that much, wouldn't he?

I shoved another row of cans into the duffel. Then, the crash. A brutal palpitation ripped through my chest. My vision blurred at the edges.

Ice water flooded my veins, followed by a sickening wave of vertigo. Caspian had only linked our fingers today. A cheap fix. It didn't cure the starvation. The withdrawal was back.

Tearing me apart from the inside. He didn't notice the tremor in my hands. He snagged the heavy strap of the duffel from my grip, scoffing. "You trust him that much? Hazel.

When you had me pinned against the glass, tearing my mouth apart… didn't you say I was the only one you wanted?" The low rumble of his voice abruptly snapped. "What's wrong with you?" When he caught me, the bonedeep chill radiating off him felt like a spring in a scorching desert, instant and devastating to my senses.

Every ounce of my remaining logic evaporated. My hands locked around the back of his neck, burying my face into the crook of his shoulder, rubbing against him with a broken sound.

Caspian completely froze. A ragged growl ripped from his throat, barely sounding human. "Hazel. I'm not Griffin." I knew. But I couldn't form words.

I could only claw at him, trying to fuse our bodies together. The relief was so intense, it made my eyes sting. He tried to reason with me. "Look over there.

He's taking care of Gemma." When the skinhunger hit this hard, nothing mattered but the cure.

I lunged, trying to get my mouth to his neck, but he blocked me, ducking my clumsy kiss. Frustration flared. Tears welled up, stinging my hot eyes. "You used to let me kiss you.

Why not now?" I felt his Adam's apple bob against my fingertips. "Before… I used an illusion. I made you think I was him." I mumbled, lifting my hand to poke his collarbone.

I jabbed a fingernail against a tiny, pink birthmark hidden there. "I'm not confused," I murmured against his pulse. "You have a mark right here. I used to bite it all the time.

And every single time I did… you made this low, broken sound in your throat for me. You don't remember?" Chapter 4 "Isn't Caspian the illusionist?

Why not have him use Griffin's skin to help her?" "If Hazel doesn't figure it out, it proves she's just faking the illness for attention." Griffin had been silent.

His lead scout had pressed harder. "Boss, it's the apocalypse. You've done enough for her.

You can't be her personal human rescueinhaler for the rest of her life." That night, when Caspian had showed up wearing Griffin's face, I hadn't held back.

I had initiated everything. I had grabbed his hands. I pulled his mouth down to mine. Finally, I shoved him onto the mattress and rode him for the whole night.

I used to be so pathetic. Desperate for Griffin to notice me. Throwing tantrums just to get him to hold my hand for five minutes to stop the shaking. Then I realized.

The person didn't matter. The fix did. Griffin never actually helped me. He’d barely tolerate my touch for five minutes, then make an excuse and bolt.

Caspian, that first night… that was the first time I felt human since the outbreak. After that, I pretended. I played along. I let him "fix" me again and again.

Caspian's grip on my wrists turned to iron. The warm brown of his eyes abruptly saturated into a terrifying, solid greywhite. Then, the color snapped back.

The corner of his mouth quirked up. It wasn't a smile.

It was a threat. "Baby," he drawled, his voice dropped an octave. "You always knew it was me?" I leaned in, brushing my burning lips against that tiny pink mark on his neck.

The withdrawal stripped away all my filters. "Always. Remember that supply run? You and the crew looted that variety pack? Griffin only uses bareskin.

But you… you wanted to try every single kind. Every night after you came to my room, I’d lie there wondering—Which one is he going to pick tonight?

How long is he going to last?" He gently stroked my hair. "Good girl," he hummed, the low vibration radiating through my skull. "Lied to me for that long, did you?" Suddenly, he moved, dropping lazily onto a stacked crate.

He looked up at me, a dangerous, magnetic smirk playing on his lips. "Want something, baby? Come take it." He stopped touching me.

The sudden loss of that cool anchor made the skinhunger flare violently. I clawed for him, rising onto my tiptoes. He leaned his head back, letting my burning skin just graze his.

Panic surged. I grabbed his collar, yanking him down hard. He let out a low chuckle, finally dropping his head. But he just brushed his lips teasingly against the corner of mine.

No contact. Just the freezing chill of it. "Caspian…" my voice broke, sounding like a sob.

A primal darkness flooded his eyes. "Ask nicer." I bit hard on my lower lip, my eyes stinging as I stared at him in pure desperation.

He sighed, the low sound vibrating with pure surrender. His hand clamped around the back of my neck, pulling me down, and he finally took my mouth. At first, it was slow. Torture.

A leisurely graze. I couldn't take it. I was so desperate that I clung to his shoulders, biting and kissing him.

He stilled for a fraction of a second, and then—every last ounce of his control shattered. He pulled me tightly into his arms.

He kissed me like a man dying of thirst who had finally found water. Fast, hard, desperate.

The low, frantic snarling outside the metal doors had completely stopped, and neither of us noticed. I squeezed my eyes shut, sinking into that blissful, dark chill.

In a haze of raw relief, I felt his focus shift. He slid his gaze just past my shoulder, locking onto the shadows nearby.

Chapter 5 Griffin had been standing in the shadows for god knows how long. Caspian’s mouth curved into a wicked smirk against mine.

He shifted his weight, caging me in, using his broad shoulders to completely block Griffin’s line of sight. He deepened the kiss. A brutal, provocative claim.

Then, he activated his veil. He erased us right in front of Griffin’s eyes.

His teeth grazed my earlobe. "I don't want anyone else looking at you," he breathed, the acoustic rumble sending a shiver down my spine. "Let me stay with my baby. Always.

Okay?" My vision swam back into focus. We were in a secondfloor office. Caspian sat opposite me, looking at me with deep grievance.

The withdrawal had hit me so hard I completely blacked out. The last two hours were a total void.

He lowered his dark lashes, radiating pure, calculated heartbreak. "If you won't admit it, I get it." He sighed heavily. "After all, I can share you with Griffin.

But he could never handle me. You always have to prioritize his feelings." A cold sweat prickled my scalp. I dug through the fractured memories. Only flashes remained.

Only the memory of his mouth, and that tiny pink birthmark. Deep in the haze of the fever, right as the high peaked… I think I promised him something.

I scrambled to change the subject, shoving my trembling hands into my pockets. "Stop talking crazy. I need to check outside.

They probably left us behind." I had been MIA for two solid hours. I cracked the office door. A scout was frantically pacing the corridor.

His head snapped toward me. "Boss!" he bellowed down the stairwell. "Hazel is up here!" Chaos erupted. A stampede of heavy combat boots pounded up the metal stairs.

The crew swarmed the landing. Pure panic spiked my adrenaline. I whipped my head back to check on Caspian. Empty air. He was already cloaked. I let out a jagged breath.

A towering shadow eclipsed the fluorescent emergency lights. Griffin stopped dead in front of me.

His voice was a flat, terrifying zero. "Who are you looking for?" I kept my eyes fixed on the zipper of his tactical vest. "No one. It's past extraction time.

Why hasn't the convoy rolled out?" The scout piped up, out of breath. "The horde just backed off, out of nowhere.

But when Boss realized you were gone, he completely lost his mind." Lost his mind? I finally met Griffin's eyes. His expression was incredibly dark.

His jaw ticked violently, and his brutal gaze dropped straight to my swollen, bruised lips.

He stared at my mouth like it was a crime scene. "Why did you break formation?" he interrogated. His tone was pure ice. He sounded like he was interrogating an ignorant prisoner.

The old me would have weaponized her tears. I would have latched onto his arm, practically purring an apology, begging for his warmth. Especially after dark.

Not anymore. "I didn't ask you to hold up the convoy. If you didn't want to wait, you should have just left." The air pressure in the hallway plummeted.

Gemma pushed through the crew, dropping her voice into that sickeningly sweet register. "See? I told you Hazel was just wandering around. She's perfectly fine.

Griffin, please don't be mad at her." The glowing neon text hijacked my vision. [Gemma is literally the sweetest.

Can the toxic sidekick just die already?!] [Let the stupid psycho rest while she can.

Once she gets sold to the slum brothels, she won't be getting any sleep!] [Griffin went absolutely feral.

He slaughtered half the block out of pure rage and scored another TierSeven drop! I wonder who he's gonna give it to?~] I stared dead at the glowing words.

A sudden, terrifying realization crashed over me. The chat claimed to be omniscient. They saw everything.

But they thought I was just "resting." They had no idea about the touchstarvation. They couldn't see Caspian's cloaking. They had a blind spot. Griffin didn't say another word.

He just shouldered past me, his combat gear scraping against the wall. After his heavy footsteps faded down the hall, I felt a solid weight in my cargo pocket.

I dug my fingers in and pulled it out. A TierFive energy core.

Caspian's invisible chin hooked over my shoulder. "He handed Gemma a TierSeven, but you only get his TierFive leftovers?" he mocked, his hot breath tickling my ear. "I would never do that to you.

I'd rip the Apex Alpha's core right out of its skull for you." I shoved my elbow back, blindly hitting Caspian's solid chest. Earlier, I asked Griffin for the hightier drop.

He handed Gemma two TierSevens without blinking, but tossed me a TierFive like a stray dog. A dull ache settled behind my ribs. But no tears came. No shattered illusions.

The crushing agony was gone. He didn't understand the silence. When a girl stops throwing a toxic tantrum, it isn't personal growth. It's apathy. Chapter 6 Gemma took shotgun.

Right above the glovebox, the faded "Hazel's Passenger Princess" sticker peeled at the edges. I had forced Griffin to stick it there before the world ended.

He used to ruffle my hair and call me a brat. Gemma's face flushed with an apologetic look. "Sorry, Hazel.

Griffin told me to sit here." She made a show of unbuckling her seatbelt. "Do you… want to trade?" Griffin opened his mouth, but I didn't give him the chance.

I yanked the backdoor open and slid into the back. His jaw locked, his expression darkening like a thundercloud. The drive back was suffocating.

The radioactive tension in the car practically choked the air out of the cabin. The second we hit the safehouse, the reality crashed over me. Caspian was gone.

I whispered his name into the empty air, over and over. Total silence. A hollow, twisting panic carved out my chest. I was a zero. A useless liability.

Trying to track down a cloaked illusionist in the apocalypse was a death sentence. The bedroom door swung open without a knock. Gemma strolled in and started packing Griffin’s gear.

She folded the heavy quilt, hugging it. When the outbreak had hit, he had risked his life to go back for it, swearing we were endgame. Now Gemma held it like a damn trophy.

Pure exhaustion washed over me. I dug into my pocket, pulled out the TierFive core, and tossed it onto the mattress. "Perfect. Give that back to him while you're at it.

I don't need it." I was done playing the pathetic, begging girlfriend. Gemma's fake smile shattered. She snatched the core off the bed.

Right before she walked out, she shot me a look so dark and venomous it made the hairs on my arms stand up.

After Griffin moved out, the whole base held their breath, waiting for me to crack and crawl back to him. It made sense.

In a world where power was currency, a zero like me was dead meat without a heavy hitter. Better the devil you know, right?

I finally grabbed a stash of hoarded snacks and marched out of my room. A handful of crew members trailed right behind me, eager to play peacemaker.

They were suffocating in the toxic crossfire and just wanted us to make up. Halfway down the hall, I froze. A sound bled through Griffin's cracked door. A woman's voice.

High, breathy, and dripping with raw need. The glowing neon chat exploded across my vision. [This scene is so hot! Griffin's Adam's apple bobbing while he takes her?

I'm seated!] [OMG, Griffin is thoroughly testing our baby Gemma's limits!] [Hazel needs to screw off!

When she was dragging Griffin into bed, Gemma never peeped on them!] That glitch hit me again. The blind spot. Half the crew was standing two feet behind me in the hallway.

The chat had zero clue they were there. The guys exchanged incredibly awkward glances.

No one dared to meet my eyes. "Hazel… it might be a misunderstanding," a scout whispered, desperate to defuse the bomb. "You gotta trust Boss." The wet, rhythmic sounds echoing from the room turned explicitly filthy.

The evidence was literally screaming in my face. What misunderstanding? I didn't storm in. I didn't scream. I just turned on my heel and walked away.

The crew practically tripped over themselves following me, too terrified to speak. Back in my cold room, I slid down the door until I hit the floor. Caspian was still MIA.

Meanwhile, the glowing chat was still losing their minds over the smutty scene. The sickening feeling in my gut twisted tighter. Who the hell was actually writing these comments?

Noon the next day. The door shoved open without a warning. Griffin stood in the frame.

The tips of his ears were flush, and his collar was popped open, putting an absolute masterpiece of fresh, dark hickeys on full display.

He didn't even try to hide the bite marks tearing up his neck and collarbone. Bile surged up the back of my throat. I shoved past him, desperate to get out of the room.

His massive hand shot out, his fingers wrapping around my wrist like a steel vice. He shoved a heavy tactical bag against my chest. "For you." I glanced down.

It was packed to the brim with preapocalypse rations and rare canned goods. Hush money. Way more expensive than a TierFive core.

Chapter 7 I shoved the heavy canvas back at him. "Keep it." He didn't take no for an answer.

He slammed the bag against my chest, his brow furrowing deep. "What the hell are you mad about now? I thought we fixed this last night." Pure annoyance coated his face.

The classic 'stop acting crazy' look. I threw the bag straight at his feet. Cans and supplies hit the floorboards with a heavy thud. "Is this how you get off, Griffin?

Humiliating me?" I snapped. "Screwing Gemma to gaslight me into forgiving you? Congratulations, you nailed it." I met his dark, angry gaze headon. "We're done, Griffin.

We're breaking up." The annoyance vanished. "What the hell does Gemma have to do with anything?" He stared at me, totally blank. "You came to my room last night.

You initiated everything. You even ripped open the bareskin pack. Your favorite kind…" Griffin didn't lie. Even if he got caught cheating, he'd own it straight to my face.

A sudden realization clicked behind his eyes.

All the color drained from his face. "I was trashed last night… I thought it was you." I ripped my wrist out of his iron grip. "You don't get to take her to bed and then play the victim," I said, my voice dead flat. "Drunk or sober, you crossed the line.

You did it. We're done. I'm stepping aside." The crushing weight in my chest evaporated. I finally breathed.

I stepped around him and headed for the door. "What if I told you I got played?" he rasped. I froze