Instead, her lips nipped at mine, until I knew the fragile cut was ripped open again. I tasted the metallic blood on my lips when our mouths finally connected. If I could taste my own blood, I knew she could, and if she could, she didn’t give away any hints of disgust when she shoved her tongue into my mouth further.
I was sinking into a black pit, waiting for more of her to send me over the edge. Her hand worked my length between us, and I grabbed her ass, pushing her further into me, begging her to sit on me the way I wanted. My hand snaked up to her throat, and my fingertips pressed into her skin as her lips sucked the blood off my tongue.
“Abigail…” I groaned, hoping she would hear the desperation in my voice.
I felt her swallow against my hand, and her voice practically melted over my anticipation: “No, this time, you get to enjoy it…” Loosening my grip, her lips kissed down my body, and her hands moved to work the band of my pants and boxer briefs down far enough to give her unfettered access to me. Her tongue ran down the length of me, over each bar sitting in my skin. “I wanna taste all of you…”
The piercings, the blood… I was a full mouth of metal.
“My blood, my dick… what’s next, babe? My soul?”
“I only eat hearts. Yours is so sweet, and it evaporated like cotton candy on my tongue.”
Heart eater.
Her mouth closed around me, turned up into a smirk at her own words, and her lips pushed down on me sending the calming sensation over my body. I was floating and nailed down all at the same time. With her, I didn’t have to choose one or the other.
My hand was on the back of her head, determining the pace made my body anxious to overdose on her.
No pain needed.
It still came as a shock to myself having Abigail touch the parts of me shrouded in mystery that required an ounce of blood, a single tear, constraints, and safe words to see past. Abigail didn’t just see past it. She dragged my ass out and demanded different things.
The most shocking part wasn’t not needing pain to get off with her, but the fact that I met those demands.
I would be kidding myself if I said I didn’t have it bad for Abigail. Those feelings were alive and well, just as much as the tumor upstairs.
Both were fighting for space in my head. I didn’t think with my heart; that shit wasn’t necessary for any part of living as a Clave member.
She had me disregarding everything just to make sure she was okay, protected, and safe from threats.
She was the sole reason I dragged myself into that fucking building.
She was the ultimate Xanax, the ultimate cure for my loneliness.
None of that mattered. Abigail hadn’t met the monster, not actually. She only took glimpses here and there. It was like looking at an appalling photograph. You see it and quickly look away, because if you stare too hard, the discomfort may be contagious. Abigail needed to look directly in the monster’s eyes and tell me she loved that part of me too before I admitted to feeling anything.
Those feelings would live and die with me if she couldn’t love every part of me.
GRIMM
The texts had become more frequent, like they knew I had reservations about my role here and was driving home how much they didn’t care.
They were going to force me to suck it up, even though nothing had changed except for my lack of fucking dedication to my job lately.
Abigail was still my assistant. I knew whatever parts of me shivered when I used that word hated she wasn’t mine the way I wanted her to be.
I was testing our boundaries that we abolished when she voted for transparency to feed her need to know everything.
The office was fucking boring, as per usual. I had no reason to avoid the place anymore. Chicago happened, sex with Abigail kept happening, and the threat of Oscar has taken care of. All the buffers between us were not doing much to keep us apart now.
Especially now, with Abigail standing in front of me in a pink fucking ski mask, I wanted to chuckle, but that wasn’t the majority of feelings rumbling inside me.
She looked beautiful wrapped in all this danger.
Most girls wouldn’t be caught dead in a ski mask, but Abigail gave me no push back when she braided her hair to one side, and her lashes gave her a feminine touch to something typically considered hard.
My car was parked near the exit of a parking structure down by the Staples Center, waiting for the next disposable victim.
Chadwell Thorne
1111 S Figueroa St
The Clave was growing more balls with every new address. This was the first address not in the comfort of someone’s home.
Public.
Daring.
I didn’t care enough to have hard limits. If they sent how they wanted them executed, I would probably comply with that too.
Abigail was comfortable in the seat next to me when I tugged her braid playfully and gave me a reason to keep staring, when she asked me, “Why don’t you like to go by Jason?”
Abigail was cursed with horrible timing when it came to asking me personal questions.
Leaving her in the car, I perched on the hood of my car, waiting out the fucking Lakers game that the next target was enjoying without any clue he was about to make it his last.
Death is always a surprise.
I’m always a surprise.
Abigail followed suit, stopping in front of me, close enough for our chests to touch with every inhale and exhale, and she asked me one of the most personal questions she could.
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.