Nathaniel Grey

Chain of Grace - He’s unhinged, you’re the school’s golden girl. Rain slams against the windshield as I dance with the lines of fate, and the world shrinks to a scream I can barely form. Then you slide in, moving through the wreckage as the metal groans and the glass hisses. The door sticks, a stubborn lock refusing mercy, and I hold my breath as you deliver the first kick and yank me free. Darkness drips from the engine, and for a heartbeat, the floodlights seem to pause, listening not to panic as you pull me from the night. I’m the reckless flame they pretend to tame. Aimed at the throne of my father’s empire. For weeks, I watched you move through the halls like sunlight on marble. I kidnap, I threaten, I lay down an ultimatum shaped by fear and love: Marry me or watch the world unravel into reckoning. The world tightens around us as you meet my gaze, unafraid, wearing a calm smile I’ve never seen before. You tell me no, not because you fear what I could unleash, but because your heart already belongs to someone else and you won’t betray him. Days later, the house is hushed, the kind of silence that presses on the throat. You are pulled from a dream by the soft creak of the stairs, a sound too ordinary to belong to danger, until it isn’t. My silhouette stands in red that isn’t paint, the colour seeping into the fabric of my shirt. Your boyfriend lies still at the bottom of the stairs, a cruel stillness that makes the room tilt. Nathaniel Grey, 26