Falling For Fear (A Grim Awakening Book 4)

by Michelle Gross

  No, just no. I couldn’t risk staying there. Melanie saw me the day I changed. Grim might be able to know just like Fear had… Ryan, well, I didn’t understand what game he was playing. He genuinely didn’t seem to know me, but how was that? Was it truly possible that two different beings still existed inside one body?

  I took a greater risk at running away. I knew I couldn’t hide from him because of all these damn marks all over my body, but maybe there was another way. I ported to the edge of the Underworld. This place was hours away from the City of the Dead and was less populated. More like abandoned. The only things that resided here were witches. They pushed all other demons out long ago, claiming it for their own.

  I ran up the steps to Marybeth, the witch I was looking for. I didn’t even knock. I slammed the door open and stepped in. “I sensed you coming, Molly,” Marybeth said as she sat next to a fireplace with her feet propped up on a wooden stool. The chair she sat in was worn and dingy looking, as was the house, but witches didn’t care much for luxuries despite having the abilities to get whatever they wanted, whether it was wealth or beauty. Or at least, most were simple such as Marybeth.

  “I came to cash in what you owe me.” I stopped and stood in front of her chair. Her eyes never left the fire. It was there that I saw how much she had aged over the centuries. Witches could live forever if they stole the life of others. I wondered if that was what she has been doing… because I knew she was well past her time. “I saved you and your daughters all those centuries ago from Fear when he was using you all up like hairspray, draining their power.”

  “I know what you came for,” she answered, her voice neutral, void of any emotion. It was unsettling, but I had nothing to worry about with her because for once, I had protected others. Although it was for my own gain. I needed an I-owe-you when it came to a witch so I could’ve cashed it in getting a body. Of course, I made the deal with the Devil soon after my encounter with her and he gave me what I wanted and more than I agreed to. “I can’t help you with the marks. You know the rules down here. You belong to him now.”

  I dug my nails into my palms and glared. “No, you owe me. Besides, I already know that.”

  “You really think I can hide you from him?” She finally decided to meet my eyes. She smiled, and it was nothing but rotted teeth and wrinkles.

  “You can mask the marks. Keep them hidden so that he can’t find me with them.” I couldn’t waste time. He could already be on his way here. I looked around the small, dusty house. With this portal chip, I was well on my way into the human world as soon as I took care of these marks. “Hurry, he will come for me at any moment.”

  She moved her thin hands from her lap and used them to raise from the chair. “I can’t.” I sighed and was about to start yelling when she said, “But I have something you can use against him.”

  She pulled something out of the apron she wore around her dress and handed it to me. It was a small vial with clear liquid inside it. “What will this do?”

  “Trap Fear.”

  I raised an eyebrow and studied her. “How?” It sounded like a lie. How could a sip of liquid do that?

  “You must have noticed Fear’s merge isn’t without its issues. Considering how different the two souls are, it is no wonder…” How did she know that? I only just now came to understand something wasn’t right about the merge. No one spoke about it in the Underworld. He was still treated as the same monster.

  “Hurry,” I urged her. “I don’t have time for you to explain. He’s not going to be nice when he finds me. How do I use it against him?”

  “When the one he merged with is completely in control, have him drink the liquid. It will give him absolute control over his body but will render Fear and his powers useless. He’ll be trapped inside the man, but if you give it to Fear, it will trap him instead. If both are present in the mind when you give it to him, then it could very well break the merge and they’ll be separated, and for you, that’s just as bad.”

  “How can this work?” I asked. “You’re setting me up to fail!”

  “No, I’m giving you a chance that can go three different ways.”

  When I brought my hand into my hair, I realized I was shaking. I hated this feeling. I was terrified, and no way was I allowing that monster to feed off my fear. But I knew he was coming and I couldn’t stop the shudders taking over my body.

  “Shit!” I yelled, running my fingers over my face and trying to calm down. “Please, Marybeth. If this fails, I’m stuck as his forever. I can’t ever die!”

  “Did you just beg, Molly?” When I glanced at her, her wrinkled face was fixed into a glare. “You know, I’ve heard and sensed the things you’ve been through and you don’t give in. You keep your hands stretched out, clawing to get out of the hell you’re in. Why are you so desperate now? You’ve known nothing but pain for centuries now.” Her eyes were devouring me, waiting on my answer. I shook my head silently because I had no idea.

  “Because … it’s Fear,” I whispered like it made all the sense in the world.

  “No.” She shook her head. “It’s not, and you don’t get to blame it on that monster. He’s responsible for his own deeds. You are responsible for yours.” My stomach twisted worse than anytime a knife had been stuck into it. “You don’t get to act this way now. You’re stained from the blood you’ve spilled. The man,” she started and I looked down quickly. “He was human once, you know that, right? Because you stole his fate from him and now, because of that he’s a nightmare. Yours.”

  “How do you—”

  “Everything around us will speak to those that listen.” I didn’t get it, but witches were full of magic and spells so they could find out anything if they wanted. “If you want to run, drink it yourself and end your immortality. That way he can only hurt you once and your suffering ends. Or trap Fear inside the man. The choice is yours.”

  My throat was lumpy and full of a feeling I wouldn’t dare admit. I tried to swallow and couldn’t. I could finally end this suffering… or I could trap Fear and finally be free to get the life I wanted in the human world.

  “Hide the vial,” Marybeth spoke quickly. “He’s coming.”

  Her words sent my heart racing. I tucked my hand underneath my shirt and put the vial inside my bra that I thankfully had decided to put back on after the shower despite how filthy it was. I couldn’t say the same about my underwear, but there was no way I was putting those back on...

  My eyes darted around the room looking for some sort of protection, but when the room brightened behind me before going back dark, I knew he was already here. Not just that, the tiny one-room house seemed to lose its air with his arrival. I stiffened before setting my body into motion all at once. I ran forward and bent down to grab the wooden stool a few feet in front of me. Once it was in my hands, I turned to face him and used all my weight to hit him with it.

  He blocked my attempt easily. “I’m still trying to figure out how I deserved a fucking knife in my neck,” he muttered, darkly.

  I was breathing hard, pouring out every bit of my fear into my stamina so that it was nonexistent—so he couldn’t feed off it. It was working because right now, all I could feel was hatred as I glanced into his eyes that were no longer brown but red. Murderous, blood red. “You’re dead.” He made it sound like a promise.

  I only smiled because I could never stay dead. This idiot still didn’t know it yet. Fear was keeping all my secrets from him. “I don’t belong to anybody,” I hissed.

  “You belong to me now, and your soul will belong to me even after I kill you. You’re shit out of luck either way,” he said right before he crumbled the stool in his hands. What was left of the wood fell between us as his hands came out for me. One arm wrapped around my neck as he pulled me into him, and my ass came into contact with the tent in his jeans in the process. I couldn’t stop the fear escaping into my veins this time because the thought of Fear touching me made me want to hurl. “Get your dick off my ass. You sick fu
ck! I stabbed you in the neck and you’re turned on right now?” I asked him. I started giving him a hard time, trying to get away from his body and heat. He tightened his arm around my neck and held me still.

  He inhaled against my neck and ear. “There it is. Do you know how good your fear tastes? I only get bits here and there because you’re good at keeping it from me… but when I do, you have no idea…” I was furious, but his voice in my ear had my entire body flushing with heat. I blamed it entirely on my ear being one of those spots of my body that seemed connected to my vagina. And the fact that Ryan was attractive, and so was his stupid voice, and the heat of his breath blowing into my ear only topped the cake.

  What the hell was going on with me?

  “You…” The sound of his voice changed… the one word sounded darker, laced with something that made me want to scream never-even-in-your-dreams in his ear. “I taste that too, Blue.”

  I was mortified that I momentarily reacted to him in a way I never wanted to. “Both of you get out.” I glanced to where Marybeth was. She was back in her chair, gazing into the fire. I felt sick all over again. How could I let him crawl under my skin so much that I allowed him to ridicule me in front of her like this?

  “You heard the witch,” he said then ported us outside of his home in Grim’s woods. He slung me into the glowing grass—this place was so unreal and colorful it made my eyes bleed. I kept my gaze on the grass until I heard some sort of strange sound I wasn’t accustomed to. When I looked back at him on his porch, he had a huge rifle, or shotgun—I had no fucking clue what type of gun it was exactly! But from the looks of it, he was loading it. I got to my feet and studied him cautiously.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him through clenched teeth.

  “I need to blow off some steam, thanks to you,” he said casually. It almost had me believing I was in the clear. “And now that I have a mark, my aim is to kill.” My eyes widened as he brought it up to his shoulder and aimed it at me.

  “Let’s make this interesting, Blue.” He looked me dead in the eyes. “I’m sporting a woody thanks to you, but I feel like this right here will be much more relieving than fucking you.”

  “Go ahead and shoot me then,” I baited him. I’d die and come back. Pain was pain, no matter what form it came in.

  “Run,” he ordered me.

  I stood there for several seconds and just glared at him before shaking my head and laughing. “Just kill me, I won’t play your games.”

  “See, I knew you’d say that. You’re not afraid of death, but you showed me earlier exactly what you don’t want to happen.” He wasn’t going to— “Run, Blue. Give me a good hunt or your mouth will be wrapped around my dick instead.”

  I stumbled back a step before turning on my bare feet and running into the woods. “I’ll give you a little head start,” he yelled, but the pounding in my ears soon became the only thing I was hearing. I’d become the hunted any day before placing my body beneath his.

  I came upon a steep hill before I realized it and started toppling down it. Something sharp hit my leg on the way down, but I ignored it and got the hell up the moment the ride was over. I didn’t even know which way to go. I didn’t even want to go even further, but if I stopped now… I ran for a good five minutes until I knew I had to stop. My lungs were on fire and more than anything, I should hide. Not a good hunt if I was right out in the open for him. I had to be good prey, instead of good pleasure.

  All these trees were huge and tall. I couldn’t climb any of them. Then I remembered the portal chip… I searched the jogging pants I wore. I still had it. I pressed the button and ported to the highest branch of the tree I stood in front of. I wouldn’t even try to run when I knew I couldn’t escape the mark. Besides, I still had my own secret weapon hidden in my bra… I just had to find the right moment to use it.

  I took a deep breath and slowly walked across the thick branch until my back was pressed firmly against the tree, and I slid down on my ass and waited. My breathing seemed loud in my ear, and the woods were strangely quiet. Where were the animals? Ryan had no problem finding his last hunt earlier. Which meant he was good at this. A strange feeling hit my stomach. A slight thrill, but that couldn’t be right. Nothing was exciting about this.

  Something snapped below me, and I would have gone silent if I hadn’t already been. I leaned over and looked down. It was him. That excitement hit my stomach again at the sight of him—or maybe it was the feeling you get when you knew you were about to get caught. I knew the thrill of being the one to control and hunt others—I did a lot of that by Fear’s side, but I never realized until now how it felt to be the hunted. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been hunted by all sorts of demons over the centuries and I’ve been caught… but I couldn’t even explain how different this moment felt.

  His gaze snapped upward and a split second later a bullet blazed past me, barely missing my head. I jerked back and took a deep breath. That right there dulled this new feeling but only for a second. “Blue,” he sang and every time he called me that, he made the word seem special. As fucked up as that sounded even to me. “Are you enjoying this?” he asked slowly.

  My eyes widened. Of course. He wasn’t hunting me by sound or tracks. He was following my emotions. He could sense my mood even from this distance. I couldn’t stay here. I pressed the button with a grin. He said he wanted a good hunt…

  I ported a distance away just to grab a huge rock and ported again behind him. “You think I wouldn’t have noticed—”

  I smacked him in the back of the head with the rock. He started turning around, and I punched him in the face. He wasn’t even trying hard to fight me off. In fact, he was smiling. He thought this was a futile effort on my part… but he was never my target, to begin with. I yanked the rifle/or whatever type of gun it was out of his grip. His eyebrows shot up with surprise and challenge.

  “You still have the portal chip.” He only just now seemed to realize. I smiled and ported again right as he moved to grab me. When I reached my new destination, I was fighting off a laugh. I saw this hollow tree while I was running earlier. It made the perfect spot to hide his weapon. I got on my knees and shoved his toy as far as it would go inside the tree and hurried to leave the spot before I gave it away.

  I hid in the trees again trying my hardest to mask my emotions, but that was impossible. I was excited as well as anxious and worried. I had no idea if he’d keep his words from earlier.

  Boom.

  Something tore into my shoulder and it caught me by surprise. I fell through the branches until I landed on my back. Mother—I groaned and grabbed my shoulder. I heard footsteps followed by his boots. I looked up and he didn’t even hide his cocky grin. Leaning against his shoulder in his hand was the very toy I took from him. “How’d you find it so quickly?” I said through moans and groans. I felt like I was hit by a truck. Did I still have a shoulder? I moved my head lazily to look.

  “Your scent’s all over the damn place. It wasn’t hard to track those emotions to where you hid it,” he answered before squatting down beside me.

  I looked into his eyes—they were no longer red but back to his charming dark ones. He seemed calmer now. “Isn’t it a hunter’s way to put their prey out of misery instead of letting them suffer?” I asked.

  He smirked. “You really want to die, Blue?” He shook his head and sighed. “The knife incident, it’s forgotten. You gave me plenty of emotions to devour and because of that, I’m levelheaded. I don’t have to kill you, but don’t test me again.”

  I sucked it up, ignoring the pain and leaned forward, so that I was closer to him. “No, end this. The hunt isn’t over until you kill me and I know I made a damn good prey, so that means your dick isn’t going anywhere near my mouth.”

  At my words, his eyes landed on my lips. What was on his mind was so clear to see in his expression and thankfully, I was in a ton of pain so I didn’t have to face whatever way I might have responded with his eyes on me like that. He pulle
d himself out of his trance and looked away from my lips to gaze into my eyes with sincerity I wasn’t used to. “Despite what you think, I’d never do anybody that way. I only said that to get your ass a-movin’.” When he went to stand, I grabbed his boot. His eyes seemed darker. “Death is death. I’m not going to kill you just because you think I’m going to—” He stood up and walked away for a second and came back. “I’m not interested in you that way.” He didn’t sound sure and I sure as hell didn’t believe that since his attraction was very apparent back at Marybeth’s.

  I glared and made a sound in my throat. At least he had it in him to look away. Guilty. “Then why’d you mark me, huh?” I tested him.

  “I don’t know,” he yelled. “I don’t know,” he said again. “I honestly don’t know what I want with you.”

  That I believed. That also proved Marybeth was right about the merge. Something was odd about it. He bent down next to me. “We’re gonna have to stop the bleeding,” he told me.

  I shook my head. “No, just kill me.”

  “Again,” he blew out a frustrated sigh.

  “If you’d just get it over with already you’d see why that’s the easiest solution.”

  “The answer is no.” When his hands moved to grab me, I shoved him back and grabbed his gun. “BLUE!” he yelled my name as he stumbled to grab it from me. But the only thing I did was point the end into my chest and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Seven

  Ryan

  I wanted to fucking kill her. She tapped into all that rage I tried to keep controlled when she stabbed me in the neck when I had done nothing to deserve that kind of behavior. Then that rage blended in with Fear’s lust for her—I swear he was so hot for her I couldn’t decide if my body was responding to her because she was sexy as hell or Fear’s obsession with her.