by Elena Monroe
My name, who I was, the monster inside me, what I do for the Clave… was all in the off limits box—the same box I even hid from myself, so showing it to her was going to be hard.
“It’s not who I am anymore,” I said it as almost a murmur, instead of a confession.
“Then who are you?”
My hands grazed her hips, keeping her in place. Normally this was the part that made people run, and normally I didn’t stop them.
“A monster, Abigail.”
“What kind of monster?”
She didn’t even fidget or flinch at my words. There was only pure curiosity in her eyes, trying to figure me out. “The kind that goes bump into the night. The kind that doesn't get saved in the end.”
“Love is universal. It finds that one person who loves all the parts you don’t.”
Abigail was an optimist, and I didn't see that coming. She was surrounded by so much bleak shit I figured she saw shit half empty just like us.
Instead, she saw all of us only a shade of black that wasn’t that dark after all—not as dark as we all saw it: obsidian. To her, we were simply soot, something that wasn’t permanent and only half as bad as you thought. A little oxygen, and you’d feel brand new again.
Being optimistic might not save her when she witnessed the parts of me that people didn’t want to love.
Khaos did this thing for me back when we entered into our jobs at the Clave to make shit easier, since I didn’t get reasons, photos, or even information that would probably help create a clean kill. The app tracks other phones, and phone numbers aren’t hard to find if you know where to look.
Staking out the Staples Center with a crowd leaving on a Laker’s victory would be much harder without it.
“So who are we looking for? What do you need me to do? Do you talk? Should I not talk?”
It wasn’t hard to see the wheels turning so fast it seemed like rapid fire combustion.
I wasn’t used to having company on killing sprees, and her million questions were breaking my concentration. All I needed was her to see my monster live and in action before committing to that smile with the twinkle in her eyes around me.
“Chadwell Thorne. I don’t know anything else. I don’t want to know anything more.”
She perked up, like his name triggered the reaction. “Wait. I know him. He’s Oscar’s best friend.”
Standing up, her chest brushed mine, forcing my eyes to look down the few inches between us. “Well, he fucked up someone. Clave doesn’t handle threats to their best laid plans very well.”
I checked my phone, making sure my mark hadn’t skipped out the back or made a break for it. He was still in his courtside seat, enjoying his swan song.
Abigail’s wheels were turning again, trying to help any way she could. “You could use that, knowing him. I could distract him.”
I was worried about her loving my monster when she was offering up her help on a silver fucking platter.
Slinging my arm around her, both in ski masks, I let myself do something I typically don't: I laughed. Nothing was ever truly funny enough for me to laugh, a real hearty laugh at my life in this moment.
It was a moment I would mark in my memory, whatever room was left up there, that I fell for Abigail even more.
Yanking my door open, I reached under the passenger seat to grab my favorite gun: a matte black Glock with the silencer right by its side. Twisting it onto the end, I tried to focus on the task at hand, not Abigail, brimming with so much anticipation to meet my monster she was bouncing on her toes.
“No mask. That’ll give us away.”
With my hand out, I snatched the pink ski mask from her and tossed it on the seat before I waved her forward. Making sure only to follow six feet behind her, enough to leave room and not seem like we were together.
She was making my job look easy as she shuffled through the crowd that was pouring out of the doors. She waved to who I suspected was the target: Chadwell.
I watched, from a safe distance behind, his joy to see her and the name Oscar blooming between them. I hated Oscar and Chadwell all the same. Both of them had lost their privilege to enjoy Abigail.
Once I had enough of watching her smile for those assholes, I walked up behind him, holding the gun in its ready position before I hugged the trigger back and it sunk into his skull.
Nothing I did left the hope behind that you could be saved. If I couldn’t be saved, then no one else deserved that hope too.
Finding Abigail’s eyes in the chaos that was breaking out when his body fell, I expected to see a look of horror or even panic, but I came up empty.
She was stoic, controlled, and a kind of calm I only ever found at the bottom of a pill bottle.
Taking her hand in mine, I pulled her along with me, while trying to single handedly tuck the gun into the front of my pants. She was still stoic, unruffled, and unconcerned that a guy just dropped dead in front of her. I was impressed, but kind of terrified too.
The priest who made her into her own kind of monster was dead, so I couldn’t thank him for the bride to my Frankenstein.
I didn’t feel bad enough to regret killing him.
Once we reached my car, I watched her closely when I closed the gap between us forcing her back into the car door until she was pressed against it.
“Were you hiding a monster this whole time?”
Abigail massaged her lip between her teeth. “You never asked if I had a monster too. We all build walls around our trauma. That trauma turns into little monsters.”
If her words could knock me over onto my ass and make it literal when people say fall head over heels, that would be the only sign I needed to give in to her.
Pulling out the pack of cigarettes from my hoodie pocket, I placed it between my lips and fished out the lighter. I never smoked, but this moment called for something between whiskey and Xanax.
Leaning against my car, I took a big inhale when Abigail pulled the smoke right from my fingers before bringing it to her mouth.
I fell for her the minute I saved her, and now our monsters had just fallen in love too.
I knew the second I gave in to loving Abigail I had to figure out a way to be together—rules or not.
No one was going to pick a better girl than her. Not the Clave, not my parents, and not some fucking outdated rules.
We had matching monsters, and that was all I needed to accept the love she wanted to hand over to me.
After I dropped Abigail off, I headed straight for my parents' place tucked into the hills of Hollywood to hash out whatever they needed me to do in order to get the stamp of approval.
Pulling up to the house, with the gothic and haunted vibes it threw off even from here, it wasn’t hard to miss all the cars. This many cars screamed something was happening—something I didn’t know about. Jogging up the steps to the mini mansion sitting on the hill, I barged in like I still lived there.
Breezing by the dining room no one used, I came to a halt when I saw a full table out of the corner of my eye. Stopping in the entry way I stared at the Clave members, including the 4 horsemen, eating dinner with my parents.
Khaos perked up from what looked like doodling on his place card, most likely dicks and turning the C in chaos to a K instead. “Thank god. Finally, someone who gets my humor.”
“What are you guys doing here?” My voice was flat and uncaring, even if they did explain.
Vic looked disrespected the most and said, “We have meetings every month; you just never attend them.”
“Yeah, they look so much fun. I can’t believe I don’t attend.” Looking right at my parents, I titled my head cueing the need for privacy, while walking upstairs to my dad’s office.
His office was a terrifying place when I was a kid. All the dark woods, all the old books, the big desk… and when strangers appear in my childhood home, that’s normally where they disappeared to.
It was a place of seriousness.
Closing the door behind m
e, I rounded a chair in front of the desk after my dad sat in his respected seat behind it. My mom draped herself to his side like a cape.
That’s the thing about the Clave and their rules: There’s always a sensible woman behind a power hungry man. That’s who you needed to convince: her, my mom.
“I have a dilemma… I need to explore something outside the rules.”
They both looked at me through hooded eyes and pensive stares, waiting for more to go on.
“The marriage rule. I need to explore something with someone who isn’t part of all this.”
My father twisted his head to my mother, because he even knew that’s who I was appealing to. Not him. Not the Clave. My own flesh and blood.
“The rules don’t change for even a Rothschild. You will marry Jessica in three years, regardless of however you choose to spend your time now.”
“That rule is fucking ancient, and you know it. I was already forced into a life I didn’t choose and have made me death, and I can’t have one thing in return for doing your bidding?”
“You used to be so much better behaved than this…” She used her tongue like a lash, pretty much the only way she knew how. And people wondered why I was fucked up.
Mommy issues.
“You mean powerless,” I gritted out.
She perched on the desk in a closer proximity to me when she responded to my insult. “And that’s what you’ll stay if I decree it.”
My body was still, but there was a war sounding off inside my body. I could feel my medications melting off my nerve endings, and a kind of focused pain was motivating me to think the cruelest things I ever had.
She was forcing me to choose her or Abigail between all the bitchy words.
My mother wasn’t winning that battle inside my head. In fact, I’ve killed her a few times already since sitting here.
Standing up, I made sure to maintain eye contact. Even with my flexed jaw, lips flattened into a line, and my fists tight enough to hurt, it was crystal fucking clear she wasn’t going to help me be happy.
Slamming the door behind me, I heard her whine to my father without me present, “I told you it would work. Dr. Lancaster is the best, and for the right amount, he’ll do anything.”
I stomped my way downstairs, not out of a tantrum, but because the sheer weight of my steps were more impactful while this angry. Headed out the door in a hurry, I jogged down the steps only to have Khaos interrupt my love affair with my anger.
“Didn’t go well?”
Spinning around to face him, I threw my hands out to my side, too pissed off to talk the way he wanted.
“No one has ever married outside the rules. Only my dad, Krosby the fourth.”
He spoke, and a light bulb sparked alive inside of me. “Your mom wasn’t his chosen?”
It was something you would assume automatically, but because his dad married her and produced this knucklehead, we all assumed she must have been worthy somehow.
Apparently not.
“Hell, no. He was doing Clave business in Paris when he met her. She was reading tarot cards on the Le Nemours when he noticed her. She’s everything the Clave hates: independent, into the occult, asks too many questions, and more importantly too honest with me.”
“Why did they allow him to marry her then?”
“There’s a loophole for everything.”
Even if there wasn’t a loophole, I was going to find a way to be with Abigail. I wasn’t giving up the way she accepted all of me: Jason, Grimm, my monster.
I was going to find the loophole or kill everyone trying.
GRIMM
Abigail had avoided me successfully for a few days.
Normally I wouldn’t think much of it, but I had grown accustomed to her presence, her pussy, her insatiable need for answers.
My short, curt answers never seeming to be enough had me hearing her in my head when she wasn’t around. Her perfume lingered on my pillows. The way we recklessly fucked with no real concern for consequences.
Was she avoiding me just so she wouldn’t have to break my heart?
Was it just a taste of my own medicine?
Was she making sure I knew that we were equals… because I knew. I’m pretty sure she owned my ass as much as I owned hers at this point.
Control didn’t leave room for these kinds of trivial questions. I was still out of control.
Texting her for the twentieth time today, I wrote: You better be at the office today. I’m not playing. Enough sick days.
It didn’t matter what tone I used; nothing would push Abigail into doing something she didn’t want to do. The only time she did what I said was in bed, ending in pleasure for the both of us.
Like some kind of kismet, I downed my hot coffee and headed for my front door, where Abigail was pacing. She hadn’t even touched the doorbell yet; she was just standing there contemplating maybe not talking to me at all.
My mouth hung open in dismay. It had been almost a week of her silence after she watched me kill someone who actually deserved it. I curated that moment to make sure it was someone guilty, making sure not to bring up her past, innocence, or suffering under the label of guilty. Now she was here seemingly summoned by me missing her.
“Can we talk?”
Pushing to the side, I let her walk by me inside. She stopped at the kitchen table, with her hands bracing her weight on the chair when I wrapped my arms around her without thinking. I wasn’t lovesick, but I was something pretty fucking close if it meant acting before thinking.
Manipulating her hair to one side, I kissed her exposed neck when her soft voice spoke up. “I think I’m pregnant. I’m late.”
Just like that, I halted every movement, freezing. “What?”
I couldn’t help but look at her differently. She wasn’t my Abigail anymore. She was carrying my baby. I was sharing her before she even had the chance to really be mine.
“I haven’t had a period…”
She trailed off, like I knew the logistics of pregnancy and periods. That was shit I avoided by not having steady girlfriends.
I wasn’t the kind of guy to go buy ice cream, tampons, and watch movies that made people cry. I lived in this century. I knew the dramatics, but I wasn’t occupying that kind of place in someone’s life.
“It was a couple times, Abigail. Pregnancies don’t happen so easily. I’m sure you’re fine.”
Spinning around in my arms, she looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “I can’t have an abortion, Grimm. I’m still Catholic.”
“No one is asking you to.”
…yet. I wasn’t asking her to yet.
I knew the rules better than anyone, mainly because I supported this one in particular.
No distractions.
No wives.
No kids.
If I abided by it, I wouldn’t be in this position right now.
We weren’t fortunate enough to be rewarded the ultimate gift of life: ending the loneliness.
Wrapping my hand around the back of her neck, I held her close, letting her cry it out. Her head tilted up, trying to find what I was thinking.
Good luck.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“That you’re gonna hate me when I tell you go to the doctor and get this confirmed. You’re gonna hate me when I make you choose me or this baby. You’re gonna hate me when I tell you the Clave won’t let this happen.”
Lifting her legs up until her ass was on top of my kitchen table, I pressed my mouth to hers while she was still shocked.
Her hands were on my chest, she pushed me back, and I let her. Good, she needs to hate me in order to abandon what’s mine growing inside her.
“What are you doing? Why won’t they let this happen?”
Proceeding forward again, I pulled her ass to the edge of the table, settling between her legs and letting her feel how hard I was, knowing no matter, in this moment, she was mine.
Finally.
I need her to read bet
ween my words and take my actions instead.
I need her to know what I want and what the Clave wants are two different things.
“You aren’t chosen for me, therefore I can’t have you. Not for long at least. I don’t have any control over the rules, Abigail.”
“You’re death, a horseman… you know things. Your last name is Rothschild. You basically own the world. How can you not do anything? Do you not love me?”
She shifted so quickly from despair to anger that if you weren’t looking closely you wouldn’t have seen it.
“We haven’t… I haven’t. Fuck, Abigail.”
Words escaped me as I stepped back, giving us space, hoping that was where I would find the words again. I couldn’t make my brain spit out what my heart felt; all the relinquishment of control had my sanity spinning. I couldn’t form a fucking sentence if my life depended on it.
“Do you love me, Grimm? We knew this wasn’t just friends.” Her almond eyes were glowing, and her hands fisted the bottom of my shirt, dragging me back between her legs. “Grimm…”
She had met the monster, knew about Jason, and fell for all of me.
She knew about the Clave.
She let me wreck her pussy more than once, and now it resulted in me sharing her with a fetus. Although, I still wasn’t convinced a few times had gotten the job done.
That’s when it dawned on me: If she was pregnant, she would be mine. Beyond free will, she would be bound to me forever.
It was the only thing that made sense. It was the only loophole for our relationship to survive, her being mine, pregnant.
My hands cupped her face. “It was terrifying, exhilarating, overpowering, but never just friends.”
My mouth kissed every patch of skin down to her cleavage pushed up in this dress. Letting my fingers get caught in her panties, I pulled them down her legs before settling back up against her.
“Grimm… What if I love you and you don’t love me?” She wasn’t getting the reaction she wanted from me. Three words, that was what she wanted.
She wanted me to cry with her or hate it all enough to remove her from my life. She wanted hard truths.
