Falling For Fear (A Grim Awakening Book 4)

by Michelle Gross

  “Are you sure?” I lifted my eyebrow at her. I saw her throat swallow. She was nervous. Extremely nervous. My protective instincts—the human part of me that Fear always tried to snuff out—came to the surface.

  “Please,” was all she offered.

  “Sure.”

  I followed her back to her place knowing full well that this was most likely some sort of trap set up by some sort of demon that had a vendetta against me. Not only did I piss a lot of people off when I was more Fear than myself—or when he crawled out to play himself and I blacked out, which hadn’t happened in decades considering I know to take care of his needs to keep him from doing so, but I also had to deal with all the trouble Fear had caused while he was merged with Marcus.

  When I entered her small home again, the emotions in the room hit me full force. Someone was fucking pissed as hell—I tasted vengeance. I smiled, someone was out to get me. Levy turned around to face me quickly, face full of regret. “I’m sorry—”

  “You’ve done enough,” a female voice spoke right before I saw her appear behind Levy. Her hands were around her neck within a heartbeat—I heard the snap that I’ve grown accustomed to over the centuries. Levy dropped to the floor. Dead. My eyes darkened on the woman before me. Fear, on the other hand, was knocking against my insides screaming, “More, more, more.” He loved a good killing, more so if I—we were the one doing it, but he also enjoyed when people like this woman before me came for payback.

  “Sure, okay,” I started, “I feel like murdering someone today.”

  Her lips tipped upward into a snarl as she studied me, then it became a smirk. “You’re Fear now, right?” It was more confirmation than question.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  My choice of words made her smile wider. “Then you know who I am,” she told me, the smile disappearing into a look of pure hatred. “And why I’m here.”

  Shit no. Fear didn’t share memories or anything with me. Our relationship was strictly me trying my damned best to keep him from coming out by feeding him. I tilted my head at her and squinted my eyes with a smile. “Jog my memory?” Inside me, Fear grew quiet. Something told me he remembered her.

  “You kidnapped my daughters a very, very long time ago,” she told me. “Sibyl was kind and gentle, Tera, strong and independent. They both died soon after you took them from me.”

  I didn’t even know what to say to her. I understood why she was pissed, but her hatred and disgust of me was rolling off her in waves, giving me a high. Tasted exquisite too. Her loathing of Fear had been festering for a very long time, that was probably why. Without thinking, I inhaled sharply, breathing it all in and her eyes pinched together.

  “You—” She glared. “You’re not even listening, instead—are you?” She realized what I was doing, although I couldn’t help it when she was practically giving it to me—her hatred. Even underneath it, I could feel her fear there, whether it was for her deceased daughters or because of me, didn’t matter.

  “Pardon?” I turned my head, offering my ear, and her face turned red with anger. “It’s hard to concentrate when your revenge is giving me a high. I mean, you have no fucking idea how good it tastes.” Fear roared with laughter—he was enjoying this.

  She blew out of her nose and I spotted something in her hand. Too late. The whip wrapped around my arms. I hissed because whatever magic she had on it was shocking the hell out of me. “You’re coming with me. I’ll show you exactly how it feels to be taken against your will. I’ll kill you over and over like I do her.” Inside me, Fear went completely silent, then I felt it—his exhilaration. What was his deal? My skin started rippling as I changed into Fear’s form. This whip couldn’t hold me.

  “No,” Fear told me. “Lethertakeyou, lethertakeyou, lethertakeyou.” What the hell? His excitement was overflowing, so much that I couldn’t help but be affected by it. Now I was excited about something that was probably going to be my own pain. But if I refused to let her take me, I’d risk him coming out and me disappearing until he decided to let me back out. My skin rippled with unease, that was the worst feeling. Being nowhere. Yet still existing.

  I sucked in a breath and watched the woman that thought she really had me trapped with this measly whip. “Good.” She smiled. “It’s best not to fight.”

  ______

  “Cozy place you have here,” I said.

  She placed large shackles on my wrists and ankles before porting us to her house. I let her to satisfy Fear. I was a tad curious as to why he wanted her to bring us here. Did he want to bring the fear out of her? I’d admit, that didn’t sound like a bad idea considering how good her other emotions tasted. I looked around her home, if this was her home. “Nice chains you got there. And those are some decent swords. I’ll admit, though, I’m a gun guy—or was, actually, but I guess I still am considering I blow the brains out of demons a couple times a month.”

  She turned around and hissed. “Quiet.”

  I did just that all for one second before looking across the room. “Is that a torture chamber?” I asked. “That’s fucking hot as hell. Can I use it sometime?” She backhanded me and I looked right back at her. “I’d make your pain feel good.” My eyes were heavy, I had no doubt they were going red. Her raw anger was waking the monster in me, bringing it to the surface—not Fear—the monster he created in me, the one I tried to deny until it came to moments like this.

  “See that.” She pointed to my face. “I want you on your knees screaming and begging, not that look you’re giving me now. You filthy beast!”

  “When I get my hands on you…”

  “You’ll what?” She glared. “Kill me like you did my daughters?” Fear was strangely quiet this whole time.

  I shrugged. “You can’t even kill me.”

  “Finn! Jack!” she yelled. “Go get her out of the dungeon. They’ll suffer the way my daughters did.”

  With her words, Fear’s eagerness flew into me.

  Chapter Three

  Molly

  “Get up,” one of Lorraine’s bitch boys yelled right before opening my cell door. He grabbed me by the arm and yanked me to my feet. I threw a punch and brought his head to my knee in the process. He hissed. I dunked just as the other one tried to grab me. He got my hair instead and pressed me into him. I glared at him right as the other one returned the punch I gave him into my stomach.

  Ow, shit.

  You’d think after all the times I’ve been beaten, tortured, killed, and there’s just some you refused to let cross your mind, I’d be accustomed to pain, but I wasn’t. I still wanted to cry like a little baby every time, although I never did… except on the inside anyway. Where all these pricks could never see.

  And he kept on punching me in the stomach until I threw up what tiny bit water I was fed today on him. It was all fun and games for them until that happened. Now he was pissed and started punching me in the face.

  “Stop,” the one holding me said. “Lorraine’s the one that wants to make her hurt.” I laughed. Funny words because she had been making me hurt for a very long time now.

  “Let me give y’all some advice,” I said as they dragged me by the arms up the stairway. I let my legs dangle as they did, already too tired to fight what was about to happen to me. She kept me in the dungeon, so I was filthy and probably stunk but if I did, I had already grown custom to it. “Being someone’s little bitch only gets you in trouble in the long run.” I nodded my head once. “Take it from someone who knows.”

  “Shut up,” one of them told me.

  “When you’re dead because of her, I won’t even get to say I told you so.” Lucky for them, they could die. Unlike me, who kept coming back to life after dying.

  One groaned. “She never fucking shuts up.”

  The other laughed. “Lorraine will silence her soon.” He gripped my hair and pulled my head back so he could lean over it. “Maybe we can convince her to clean her up just so we can have a go at her.” He licked my face and panic gripped me. S
top, Molly. I took a deep breath. What a slap in the face every time this happened. The body I stained my soul to get, became a means to torture me. You’ve been raped before and you always come out of it with your mind still intact. I was a survivor. Nobody in this house could fucking break me.

  When we left the dark stairway and opened the door to the room she always tortured me in, I had to close my eyes from the brightness until my eyes adjusted. “Finally,” Lorraine said, “we are all together.”

  We? I opened my eyes and immediately noticed the man next to her in restraints. I squinted my eyes at him as he studied me. Something about him was familiar… very distant in my memory. Sandy colored hair and almond colored eyes. Those eyes… those eyes. My own eyes widened when I recognized him.

  The boy. Ryan. FEAR.

  Oh, no. No. No. No.

  I jerked my head to the side, letting my black hair fall over the side of my face. Did he recognize me? Did Lorraine already tell him who I was? There was no way Fear wouldn’t know. I started kicking and trying to pull back. I didn’t want to go any further. “Still feisty after that beating we gave you?” one of them said to me.

  I wasn’t even looking at Lorraine, but I could hear the static coming off her whip as she used it. I glanced up to see it around Ryan/Fear’s neck. He didn’t even flinch, instead, his eyes were on me again. “Mind telling me why you need her?” he asked.

  She arched a brow at him. “Are you truly not bothered by the pain?”

  He laughed. “I feed on it. Even when it’s mine.” He looked back to me again. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  My heart plummeted into my stomach. No, she couldn’t tell him. Not if he didn’t know. Why the fuck was I so terrified? I didn’t know. I just didn’t want to fall into his hands, but then how could he be any worse than what I’ve already been through? Easy, Fear knew me. He’d weave his way into my mind and destroy me like he did everything around him. My mind was the only thing I had left. Once that was gone, I wouldn’t be able to bear the eons I had left to live.

  She circled her wrist and swung the whip across his stomach. It tore his shirt, blood pooled. Still no reaction. He sighed. “Is this really how you expected to hurt me? With a whip? If you want, I can show you how to use it properly.” Lorraine’s face was blood red. I’ve never been able to crawl under her skin like that, and believe me, I’ve tried.

  This wasn’t good. Lorraine had no idea—yes, she did—who she was dealing with. She must have a death wish. She was going to die by his hands, and I very much didn’t want to land in them afterwards.

  So, I screamed. And screamed. Like I was possessed, I bit into one of the guy’s arms that held me and didn’t let go until I was thrown into the floor. “Bitch!” he yelled just as they both came down to reach me. Good, good. I needed one of them to kill me, so I’d be dead until Fear was gone. I just needed to provoke them to.

  I laughed and spit in their direction. “You can’t kill me. Only Boss Lady’s allowed and you both follow her every word like good little doggies.”

  “You little—” His boot landed on my throat, adding pressure.

  “Finn!” Lorraine yelled. “She’s trying to ruin my plans for them. I won’t allow it. They’ll suffer together like my daughters did.” I would have rolled my eyes at her if I could. Her daughters didn’t die together. One chose death and the other died by Fear’s hand.

  “Told you.” I grinned up at him and I saw the wheels turning in his head. He didn’t like the truth about himself.

  “Let us kill her,” the other one spoke up next to me.

  “Shit!” I couldn’t tilt my head to see what was happening, but something about Ryan’s voice hadn’t sounded right. “No, no, fuck no!” he yelled. What. The. Hell. “I’ll do it, shut the hell up!” Even the two bozos next to me went still.

  Lorraine snapped, “Don’t you dare play games!” This woman was killing me. Did she honestly expect she could hold her own against him? Those shackles were still on him because he hadn’t decided to take them off yet. Losing her daughters had truly messed her up in the worst way. I would feel guilty about it if she hadn’t been torturing me for months! I thought my part of delivering them to Fear had been paid in full with the many times she had killed me already.

  “You!” he hissed at Lorraine, maybe, I couldn’t see with a boot pressed into my throat. “This ends, because of you, I—” his words cut off and I heard his shackles fall to the ground.

  “Get him!” Lorraine yelled. I heard her shuffling backwards or maybe she was running toward him—I extremely doubted that. One took off running and a second later he was thrown against the wall. Mr. Boot-In-My-Throat finally moved next.

  Oh, no.

  I didn’t even look back in that direction. Everyone over there was already goners. Not me. I was crawling on all fours to get to the guy he slung across the room. When I did, I searched his pockets until I found a knife. He couldn’t know that I was immortal, could he?

  “Told you so,” I couldn’t help but say to the dead man that couldn’t even hear me now.

  “Molly.”

  Fear’s words sent a shiver up my spine.

  No way in hell.

  I closed my eyes and slit my own throat.

  Chapter Four

  Molly

  I startled myself awake with a jolt and immediately knew I was no longer at Lorraine’s. I was on a couch. I looked around. This place was… warm. I couldn’t help but notice. And cozy, I also couldn’t help but notice. I perked up for a moment, this couldn’t be Fear’s home. It was too homey and less monster-cave. Then I glanced down at myself.

  “No.” I whispered. “No, no, no, no, no!”

  Fear’s mark. I was covered in them. One on my chest. One on each of my wrists. Two ripped through the pants I wore. Even my back felt tender, there too? My heart plummeted. I was covered in red X’s.

  The front door opened and I jerked back in the cushion. Ryan entered and I brought my hands out in front of me. He studied me a second. “You’re finally awake,” he said nonchalantly. He wore a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt, tattoos covered both arms. He had clearly changed since being Fear.

  “Why?” I whispered first. “Why!” Then I screamed.

  He grabbed his chin and studied me some more. “I’m just as surprised as you.”

  I gave him a dubious look. “Don’t play games with me, what are you going to do with me?”

  “I don’t know what he—I plan to do to you.” I visibly watched him shudder as he closed his eyes. When he looked at me again, they were red. “Okay, maybe I do know what I want to do to you, but I don’t know why I marked you. Or what’s so appealing about you to hi—me. Me.”

  This time I studied him. He clearly said my name at Lorraine’s, yet looking at him right now, it was almost like he didn’t recognize me. Something was strange about the merge… it was almost like he was two different people. He walked over to the table—the kitchen and living room were one giant room. A fireplace rested to my right and… animals? He had animals hung up on the wall? I squirmed uncomfortably. No doubt, he was Fear.

  “Do you know my name?” I tested.

  He pulled out a chair and sat down before looking back over at me. “Not until you tell me.” See that there? Something was fishy about him. Could two people merge without becoming one? The wheels inside my head were turning.

  “Like I’m telling my kidnapper my name,” I replied.

  He exhaled and got right back up from the chair. “Don’t make this hard on yourself. Those marks.” He pointed all over me and smiled. See, now that looked like a Fear smile! “Mean you’re mine. It’s safe to say I didn’t fucking bring you here, but now that you’re here, I might as well make use out of you.”

  I hope he felt the murder coming from my eyes. “I’ll die before I let you touch me.” I got up and ran for the door. He was there before I was, slapping his palm against the door. When I met his eyes, they were burning red and a bit of fear crept up my
back.

  “Let me give you some advice. Don’t challenge me because it only makes me want to accept.” Then he brought his face next to mine, he inhaled, and I pushed him, but he didn’t budge. I stepped back, flushed with embarrassment. What the hell? “Damn, that’s good,” he muttered.

  “Don’t sniff me!” I smoothed my palm down over my hair as I glared at him.

  He smirked and it wasn’t something I was used to. Fear had always been Marcus to me—an angelic pretty boy that had an attitude that was no different than the Devil. He’d been beautiful, skinny, and terrifying despite his feminine looks. Ryan… he… he was a man. The ones that were grown right. Wide shoulders, muscular arms, and the tightness of his t-shirt only proved how right I was with how perfect he’d grown down here in the Underworld. He was so much bigger than the boy I killed forever ago. This Fear, I didn’t know how to look at him. I didn’t want to look at him as anything other than the monster he was. Even if I had a soft spot for Ryan’s life I stole—the guilt just never went away.

  Only the terrifying truth was—guys like him were the reason I craved this body. I all but shut down those thoughts.

  “Then you better hope your fear doesn’t taste this good the next time it seeps out of you for a second, or else, I’ll keep raping your emotions just so I can taste it again.” His eyes held mine. He wasn’t kidding. It made my blood boil. “What’s your name?” he asked again.

  I turned and headed back to the couch. “Whatever you want it to be.”

  “Okay,” he answered right away. “Blue it is.”

  I couldn’t help but look back. “Blue? Why Blue?”

  He walked toward me and the hairs stood up on my arms as I waited for him to finally admit that he knew who I was. Instead, that moment never came and he grabbed a few strands of my matted, dirty hair. “Because of your hair. It’s so black that the underneath lighting it looks like the midnight sky. Although, I’d imagine it’s much more noticeable when washed.”