Falling For Fear (A Grim Awakening Book 4) Read online

  “Please, Claude. Let’s stop. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Whatever it is, I’m sorry.” She reached for his hand and for a second, I thought he was going to let her pull him in, calm the beast inside him, but his knife was also in his hand and once he realized that, he growled and jerked away, thinking she was trying to take it from him.

  “Don’t play your games with me,” he said right before he smacked her across the face. Then he was climbing over top her. My eyes followed the knife. He was so mad, I was afraid he would accidentally cut her with it, so I ran to him and pulled on his shirt again. He hissed and shoved me aside again. Mom grabbed the knife from his hand and everything flew out of control. He went to take the knife from her the same time I grabbed his side again—he jerked his hand back with the knife.

  “Dad—”. I didn’t get to finish the word. Something stung my side. I looked down the same time Dad did. The knife was embedded into my ribs. His eyes told me that it was a mistake, but he was insane and carrying a knife around to threaten Mom was proof of that.

  “Molly!” Mom screamed just as I fell to the ground. She was on her knees beside me, her hands shaking as they hovered around the knife. She didn’t take it out, but she was crying and screaming.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Dad told her.

  “Call 9-1-1!” she screamed at him and when he didn’t, she stood and he grabbed her shoulders.

  “You can’t call. Do you want to send me away?” he asked her.

  “We don’t have time for this. If she doesn’t get to the hospital, we are gonna lose her! You’ll lose me if I lose her!” she threatened him, but it didn’t work.

  She screamed and begged and pleaded with him, but he held her there in the room while I bled out. His own flesh and blood. She kept telling me sorry repeatedly. When my pain stopped, he led Mom out of my room where I stood above my dead body. I could hear her cries as I stood there trying to understand what was happening. A figure stood beside me, beckoning to me with a light—a passage—but a gunshot echoed through the house. I ran from it and found myself in the living room where Mom’s lifeless body lay with Dad’s gun in her hand.

  Dad dropped the phone cord he was yanking out of the wall and ran to her, and this time, he cried. And cried and cried as he clung to her body, something he didn’t do for me. She rose like me, dead—as a ghost and when she saw me, she came to me crying, wrapping her arms around me. The light came for me and the dark figure stood next to me once again. His presence called to me, trying to trick me into the passage, but Mom wanted to go so she tugged us toward it. Right when she began to take us inside, I jerked away from her. She screamed my name, but I ignored her, the same way Dad ignored me all my life, and the same way she did when she refused to take us from this house.

  I wouldn’t leave this way—so I ran.

  ____

  I stood outside Dad’s cell and watched him. He was alive and I was dead. As a ghost, I was stuck the same and I clung to nothing but my anger and hatred. The lights flickered because I made them. He stayed cold because I made sure of it, but I could never hurt him.

  And, I wanted to hurt him.

  The most I’ve managed to do was push him once, and sometimes I was sure he could hear me when I called to him, because he sat on his bed cupping his ears, rocking back and forth telling the voices to stop, but since he was always crazy, I could never be sure it was my voice he heard.

  A prison wasn’t only a place for bad people. I walked the halls and I saw things that made my skin crawl. Demons stood behind prisoners, bending down to their ears, I could hear the evil of their voices but I couldn’t make out the things they said, but I was sure that these people were being controlled by the monsters that spoke in their ear. And those voices were what put them in this place.

  I would wait by Dad… wait for his monster, the one that whispered in his ear like so many other men in this place, but it never came. Dad was his monster so none came for him.

  Until one night, the scariest one of all came for him. Even the demons that lived in this place like me hid from him, but I refused to leave Dad. One by one, the horned devil would enter each cell, I’d hear their terrified screams, then nothing. On to the next, he’d go laughing and speaking with a smooth, beautiful voice, unlike his physical appearance. I didn’t know what he was doing to them. I stood outside Dad’s cell and waited for him.

  Dad sat on his bed, rocking, cupping his ears and screaming it was coming for him—and it was.

  A long, black tail swayed behind him, shiny and smooth like the horns on his head. His skin was pale and his eyes blood red. He stopped in front of Dad’s cell not paying attention to me. “No!” I screamed at him.

  He finally looked back at me and grinned. “What did you say little ghost?”

  “This one is mine,” I told him, pointing toward Dad in his bed.

  He arched a brow, studying me curiously. “No, it’s not.” He turned toward the cell and slipped through the bars like a ghost.

  I was furious, my skin burning with my anger. I clenched my fists and screamed. Every light in the place shattered. He looked back at me the same time Dad looked up and saw him. Dad’s eyes widened and he tried pressing himself further into the wall away from him.

  “No, no, no, no,” Dad whispered, then he screamed.

  “Do you want me to kill him… what’s your name?” he asked.

  “Molly,” I seethed. “And no, I want to kill him.”

  “Too bad,” he answered and turned. “His self-loathing and regret are beautiful… and his mind is a chaotic mess. I’ll take it from him.” And he did. He sucked the life out of Dad and once he was done, he dropped Dad’s body back on the bed and turned. I looked at his lifeless body and sighed. “You were only wasting away trying to hurt that man, he was already killing himself on the inside. I could make use of you, Molly. Come with me and live like the living instead of the dead.”

  I snarled and walked away from the monster who killed my revenge.

  Now, I had nothing left in this world to cling to.

  ____

  My ghost days became invading people’s homes and becoming a voyeur. I was fascinated by all the things I would have been able to do if I had still been alive. I would have been an adult already and being fucked against the dryer looked like it felt good. Or at least the woman in front of me that day made it seem that way.

  I even started possessing women just so I could experience what it felt like, but being dead was a bitch, and she refused to give me any kind of feeling other than my own hate. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t taste anything. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Even when I possessed a body.

  A hateful ghost made a powerful poltergeist. My body even began to change, I looked less like a little girl and more like a monster. I was rotting away, becoming a plague for humans when the demon found me.

  “Molly, I see you’ve graduated to a poltergeist.”

  I ignored him because he entered the house I was currently giving hell, putting the woman through turmoil as I drained the life out of her and tore apart her family—it was what I did as a poltergeist. Destroy families.

  “Go away, I’m busy.” Even my voice was changing. I sounded nothing like a girl.

  “Come with me and I can give you what you want.” His words didn’t affect me because he couldn’t know what I wanted. “A body. One that feels.”

  And I stopped everything I was doing to the woman of the house and turned around to face the horned devil. “How can you do that?” I asked.

  “I’m powerful. I can do anything and I could use something like you.” Maybe he was the Devil.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  “Fear.”

  I woke with Ryan’s finger pressing into my forehead. I grabbed my head and leaned away from him. He was standing above me, eyes red, expression dark. “What are you doing?” I croaked, still feeling out of the place from memories I didn’t want to keep.

  “So, that’s how you became so d
estructive.” He took his finger to my ear and traced the edges. What was he talking about? Did he— “The man was your dad.” He studied me as I pushed away from him.

  “You aren’t Ryan.” My foot found his chest and pushed him further away. He let me and plopped down on the couch next to me. “Were you inside my head?” I asked, feeling exposed to the enemy. “You were the one that planted the memories in my head to begin with!” I accused him.

  “You were bad before you met me, Molly.” He snatched my foot out of nowhere and I yelped as he yanked half my body onto his lap at once. I raised up on my elbows and glared at him, but made no move to get away from him.

  “Your point?”

  “You keep trying to blame me for the evil inside you.” His hand slid over the jogging pants I wore and I closed my eyes and forced no reaction. This wasn’t Ryan even if he looked like him. Stupid body, do not respond! “You’re good at that, Molly, blaming others so you can ignore the things you’ve done.” I couldn’t force myself away from the truth of his words, though.

  I sighed, still not opening my eyes. “And you’re doing what you do best, getting underneath people’s skin. Although you didn’t have to get underneath my dad’s, you just had to let him see you and what was left of his mind broke.”

  “Marcus was my biggest mistake, but he did know where to find the best places for fear. Every emotion I took from your dad was worth that trip. Plus, if Marcus hadn’t taken us there, I would have never encountered you.”

  I finally opened my eyes. “I should have taken my afterlife when I had the chance because my worst encounter was you.”

  He grabbed my hips and forced my attention on him. “You never met me, not really. Just bits and pieces. I didn’t want the things Marcus wanted.” I rolled my eyes and his fingers dug deeper into my sides. I hissed. “Every emotion on you is worth savoring,” he told me and I closed my eyes again, but my damn insides were quivering.

  I knew this was Fear… why was I responding? I had to get rid of the problem. “Why do you look like Ryan right now?”

  “You’re fond of his looks… he knows and I know you want to fuck him, but he keeps holding off… so I’m going to.”

  “Why?” I said quickly. “You obviously marked me for some reason, so why all this waiting. Why not just do what it is you plan to do to me instead of worrying about who I want to fuck.” I knew his answer already, I just needed to hear him say it.

  “Burying myself in your cunt is exactly what I want,” he said as he moved one of my legs off his lap and placed it behind him so that he could climb between them. “Along with your fear, hate, anger, everything. I want all of them.”

  He climbed above me and I didn’t fight him. My thoughts were whirling, a jumbled mess. I didn’t want to look up at him either because I knew my body would betray me completely, but the moment his hand slipped inside my pants, I reacted, pushing at him. I didn’t want this with him. I’ve despised him for so long. That didn’t change just because I found out Fear wasn’t who I thought he was. He also wasn’t the one I could keep blaming for my own actions. He was right, I was bad long before I crossed paths with him, but ultimately our meeting led to Ryan’s death. Everything always came back to Ryan and I didn’t know why. I didn’t care about my past life, and I didn’t feel much guilt toward the things I’ve done for Fear… just that one. Ryan.

  Even now, my body burned for him and his body was right above me, his fingers wandering right where I’d beg him to take them, but he wasn’t present here. Just his body, one that was filled by Fear. And I didn’t want Fear. He had nothing to offer. Everything he had, I carried on my own. We were alike more than I liked to admit, but I was admitting it now and I didn’t want his wickedness. I wanted something good. I’d take pain and pleasure—everything with it, as long as it was from Ryan.

  I grabbed his hand and tried to pull it out of my pants. “Stop!”

  He bent down next to my ear and whispered, “Why? You want this.”

  No, I wanted Ryan. “I want nothing from you,” I spat.

  He lifted his head and met my eyes. “Even pleasure?” He didn’t give me a chance to respond and he was flipping me over onto my stomach, his erection pressing into my ass. When I tried to raise up, he pressed his palm into my back and held me there. “Of course, I don’t need your permission to take it.”

  I took a deep breath, feeling my disgust and rage bubbling to the surface. “Oh, I know, and it’s the very reason I don’t want to give it to you.” I tilted my head slightly, trying to look back at him. “Just know, taking it from me doesn’t mean I give it to you. You’ll never taste any pleasure coming from me, my body won’t respond.” And it wouldn’t, now that I came to terms with what I wanted, I’d shut myself down mentally if I had to. “Ryan, on the other hand, I’ll let him have it all.”

  He stilled above me. “Your repulsion for me,” he lifted himself off me, “strangely doesn’t taste good.”

  I raised up on the bed and scowled. “You disgust me!”

  He sat on his knees and just looked at me. “You think Ryan would even want anything to do with you if I hadn’t marked you?” he asked. “What about if he knew you were the ghost-girl that killed him and treated him like a pet when he was controlled by the demon Marcus made him?” I flinched.

  “I know!” I hissed. “I know… I stole his life, and now I want his new one.” I shook my head in astonishment. “But the moment he learns who Molly really is…”

  “You’re terrified… I can taste it.” He inhaled before closing his eyes. “Even that doesn’t please me.”

  “What?” I glared at him. “Are you going to get rid of me now that my hatred of you no longer pleases you?”

  He moved from the couch and backed away, oddly strange. “I still want something from you, Molly… I just don’t know what it is anymore.”

  Then he left.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ryan

  I found myself in a bed full of women and men. One of them mumbled something under her breath while I tried to untangle myself from all the limbs on top of me. “Fear?” one of them whispered in that throaty voice that told me Fear had done something pleasurable last night. Which was weird as hell if you knew him. I mostly woke up surrounded in death and carnage when he came out… not something like this.

  Don’t get me wrong, Fear enjoyed sex, but he liked it with pain. And he loved to take women in fear of him, but this…

  “Where are you going?” someone asked me.

  “Come back.”

  Jesus, what the hell?

  I grabbed my discarded clothes all around the room and ported to my living room.

  “Ryan?” Molly’s voice caused me to jump, I still hadn’t wrapped my head around those voices calling to me adoringly from Fear’s doing. Sure, I could make women like that, but Fear, he made them run away screaming.

  “Are you still wearing my clothes?” I asked.

  I took her in as she stood at the fridge with it open and a bottled water in her hand. Her dark hair was tossed over her left shoulder and she looked beautiful. What was most surprising was that I hadn’t woken up next to Molly… Fear had come out for her.

  “At least I have some on.” Her eyes fell on my shirtless chest and unzipped jeans. I quickly threw on my shirt and zipped my jeans up, strangely feeling bad that I came home like that.

  “Looks like Fear had a lot of fun without me last night,” I told her and her eyebrows slanted. “Did he… come for you last night?” I had to know. I was kind of afraid to know, but furious at the idea that he did all at once.

  She nodded. “He did.”

  My blood ran hot. I was across the room within a breath and grabbed her arms. “What did he do?” I never felt so possessive before, but I hated the idea of Fear having her instead of me.

  “He wanted inside me, but I refused.” Despite everything my body must have done the night before, the words “inside me” shot lust into my system.

  I shook my he
ad. “Fear doesn’t take no for an answer.”

  “He did last night,” was all she said and closed the fridge door. “He did,” she said again with a hint of irritation this time. “And he got what he wanted from someone else.”

  You are what he wants, I wanted to tell her, but I didn’t. I couldn’t believe Fear.

  Fear… what are you thinking? I asked him.

  I’m thinking I want her to fucking crave me like I do her… I was stunned at his admittance to me. It’s strange, her hatred of me doesn’t appeal to me anymore… but her lust does. Lucky for me, she already wants you, so I can still have it.

  I smiled. I think that means she’s mine, not yours.

  Smell that? he asked and I took in a breath and breathed in Molly’s anger. She fucking hates me, but now she realizes I’ve gone and fucked someone—a lot of someone’s because she didn’t want me and it was your body I used and it’s eating her alive. Damn, her anger tastes good right now, doesn’t it?

  I found myself agreeing with him.

  “Why are you smiling like that?” she asked me, and I turned to look at her. Her eyes were wary, but hinted with anger. The longer she stared at me, the stronger it became too. “Seriously, you were just staring at nothing with a creepy ass grin on your face…” Her eyes darkened. “Are you Fear?”

  “No, but he was telling me about what he did last night… I think you missed out.” I couldn’t believe I said that, but when her eyes looked more like lasers and steam might as well been blowing from her ears, I was glad I did.

  She’s so fucking jealous right now. I told Fear and he laughed in my head with me. I shouldn’t be so pleased with her like this… jealousy was a dangerous emotion because it meant attachment, but for some reason, the idea of her attachment felt good. I couldn’t remember a time I found myself so damn happy and devious at the same time.

  “Are you jealous, Blue?” I stepped toward her and her eyes darted for the hallway. She was planning her escape. She wasn’t ready to admit anything to me yet even though she knew I could taste them all.