I dropped down onto my ass on the couch’s arm when he stalked closer to me, stopping right in front of me in all his tattoos and height, trying to scare the truth out of me. But, it’s hard to scare someone who has locked eyes with the Devil and survived it. Grimm was practically an angel in comparison.
His face was tight with tension. “What do you wanna know? I’ll pretty much tell you anything at this fucking point.”
His fists were still tight and knuckles still devoid of color. I tilted my chin up to meet his gaze. “I don’t know… Tell me anything. Something personal. It’s weird if I’m the only one…”
“I’m in a cult. I’m one of the four horsemen. I kill people for the Clave. I borderline torture the women I’m with to get off. What else?”
“Wait. Back up… like the biblical horsemen?”
He wasn’t in a joking mood, so I knew he was being serious, but this was a lot. Not just in a cult, cool. Killing people? And he thought he was bringing forth an apocalypse?
“Not like that. We’re each a horseman: death, famine, chaos, war. That’s our purpose in the cult to fulfill our roles. I kill. That’s the kind of monster I am.”
My posture wilted, and my shoulders caved in at his confession. It was hitting me like a ton of bricks, and as if that wasn’t enough, I’m pretty sure he just became hotter.
Being in a cult? I can deal with that.
A killer? Not gonna lie, it was inspiring that same kind of heat to bloom in the pit of my stomach. Most men wanted to be the kind of tough to actually go through with hurting others when they’re wronged or pissed off. Grimm did that.
A horseman? He lost me with that one, but it was okay because my two feet were still firmly placed in trying to not be turned on by his blood-lust hobbies.
The real problem was how special Grimm was making me feel with all this information that I knew hadn’t poured from his lips to anyone else. Just me. It was obvious this was the first time with that poorly constructed delivery of blunt force trauma.
“So Khaos is obviously chaos? Vic is war? Bowen is famine? Who decides?”
I wanted to savor him trusting me enough with the information, but my head was spinning and it needed to find some kind of control.
“The Servants of Patmos decides with our parents. It was a private boarding school we all attended to prepare us for this life. I’m pretty sure I said enough, Abigail. What did the priest do to you?”
I stilled in a way that I even wondered if I was still breathing and living. My voice cracked and barely made it out of my throat. “Confession, penances, immersion therapy, chastising, writing out the Bible until whatever demons they saw in me faded enough to make it stop.”
Yanking me up by my arm, I felt like a ragdoll as he circled me, looking at every inch of skin exposed in my tank top. I suddenly felt naked and vulnerable, and the heat I once felt was now bile trying to come up instead.
Moving around me, he lifted my tank top up my back and every part of me turned to cold, hard stone in his grasp. I could feel the tears well up in my eyes, and the scars that had finally lightened up tingled with everything I pushed down after I compartmentalized it away.
The scars on my back had only lightened up after rounds of topical meds and dermatologist appointments that made up my entire high school experience. I could still see them in the mirror though. All the faded raised lines overlapped and congested my back.
Grimm’s hand barely touched me, but I could feel his touch hovering, silently, as he looked me over.
“Is he in jail? Dead? How long did this go on for?”
Now I could clearly see how he felt. His head was spinning too, and he wasn’t concealing it anymore, not with angry fists or anger that shook him.
“Better part of a year. When your dad single-handedly blames you for his failures, shit happens. This was my own personalized shit.” I tried to not let my voice get bullied by the tears now dripping down from my lashes. It was hard to keep a calm tone when someone like Grimm was staring into your darkness, your depths, your crucifix hanging upside down on your wall.
“Why didn’t you testify?” His words were still sharp and blunt.
“He didn’t molest me or rape me. Those kids had it so much worse than me. I could deal with the bad shit. Those kids needed the same shit they force fed us: confessing his crimes, taking this justice as penance, immersion therapy by living as those kids the rest of your life, and chastising for hating every minute. That’s what that trial was.”
Letting my tank top drop back down to cover my back, I felt his arm wrap around my chest, holding me to him while the tears shook my body. No matter how much you process the bad shit, it always stings having to remember it. Wounds faded, but memories didn’t. They even outlive you sometimes.
“You’re beautiful, Abigail.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe I modeled to build my confidence after everything, but in reality, it was just to hear those words. When I finally did, I didn’t know if I believed him.
“You don’t have to say that.”
Manipulating my hips, he turned me around to face him, and I thought he would argue with me. Instead, he threw me over his shoulder like a ragdoll who only weighed a few ounces. My hands were on his back, and I pleaded with him, “Grimm, put me down!”
“Which is your room?”
He didn’t actually wait for a response before he pushed open the door to Jus’s room. Barely taking in her aggressive choice in decor, he stomped away in the other direction. All I could see was his ass and back muscles peering through his white fitted shirt. Without warning, he tossed me onto my bed before ripping off his shirt when my eyes were level with his crotch. Those sweats were making it obvious his dick was awake and aimed right for me.
His lips nipped at mine like I was fragile. I wasn’t. I didn’t break under the whip, under my dad’s betrayal, under the pressure to say I was violated by a man of the cloth, or the pressure cooker Grimm forced me into the minute I started on his desk.
I was choking on the one thing I thought cured me: control… until Grimm made that seem fragile too.
GRIMM
Most people would have looked down and saw Abigail as weak, maybe even broken. Maybe even an easy lay, because only a few minutes ago she had thick tears rolling down her cheeks.
All I saw was this strength in her I envied.
She had gone through as much hell as I had, and somehow she managed to keep her head on straight.
Granted, mine was fucking contaminated with a tumor pressing on who knows what and probably feeding into the parts of me my monster liked.
You had to envy someone. You had to praise them and take them for who they are in order to get a hard on like I was sporting.
Abigail’s shorts were the thin cotton that you weren’t made to leave the house in. I could feel how fragile they were in between my fingers when I tugged them down to her ankles. It didn’t sound like she meant to moan my name when it slipped out.
Her nipples pressed against her thin tank top, making it obvious how sensitive she was to my touch when my fingers skimmed her skin and watched her hips lower down to her bed. She was begging for control when her entire body was betraying her by just being this turned on.
Good, I wanted her to feel just as crazy as I did for her.