Welcome to the folk(s?) I met at Twin Cities Con! :D I'm honored to have you.

For my faithful subreddit reader(s?):

I had the most amazing time at the convention. I got to meet Amir, Blake, Viv, Joel, Kimiko, and Erika. My experiences with each exceeded expectations I couldn't even begin to have imagined.

I have been in Minneapolis since Monday and my one regret is not starting my vacation with the convention. I am dead on my feet. I'm dead off my feet.

Actually, I'm just plain dead.

Viv took a video of my hardcover copy of the fic I took with me to get signed. (She flipped through it!!!)

I asked Amir what the strangest thing he's signed was. He came back with a Transformer. I'm like ... wellp. About to surpass that. He told me "well let's see the fucking thing" as I was pulling it from its crocheted pouch, and then he spent a little time trying to read the back cover (I screamed "No! Don't read the back!" and then he flipped through the pages and I yelled, "No! DON'T READ THE INSIDES!").

At least the other lovely folks in line behind me got a kick out of my terror! LOL

Blake read the back cover copy of it (after I had a small panic about that and then he said he didn't want to make me uncomfortable--dude must be protected AT ALL COSTS!!!!!!).

Erika asked who the pairing was and then made a request about Charlie for the next story. :-o So I'm gonna have to figure out how to make that happen.

And Joel ...

Well, Joel opened the book to chapter 11 and did a dramatic reading of the last few sentences of the first scene and like almost the entire second scene.

Hop on back to chapter 11 for a moment. See what he freaking read and why I was literally screaming the whole time. LOL

Thankfully he didn't get to chapter 20 or 22. My ghost's ghost's ghost would be dead from that!

Just for clarification, while I think it's pretty clear how I feel about Val, I fkn adore Joel.

At some point in a future blog update, I'll share the photos I got as well as some pics of my new prized possession--that signed copy of my fanfic. :) :) :)

Without further ado, chapter 16.

Chapter 15: Call and Response

Grace had vague recollections of falling asleep on her mattress. She roused definitely not on her mattress.

This thing she had been sleeping on was a bit on the bony side.

And breathing steadily.

Uh oh.

She opened the eye closest to his chest just enough to see swaths of red.

Shit.

Wait. What?!

And then she noticed Alastor’s right hand resting lightly on her upper back, the left in a death-grip around her right bicep.

The fear of what was waiting for her when he woke froze Grace in her spot. That’s a problem for future-me.

She forced herself to fall back asleep, waking again when he stirred beneath her. Before he could say or do anything in complaint or anger, Grace whispered, “I’m so sorry,” and tried retreating from his embrace.

The filter was off his voice. “Don’t be.” He finally released her arm in favor of resting his left hand just below his right on her back.

Grace had never been more confused.

“How did you sleep?” she asked.

Naturally, he didn’t reply. Why are you so tight-lipped about everything? What do you gain from letting nobody in?

“How is your leg?” he asked, the radio filter back on; business as usual.

And why are you obsessed with my mystery injury? Grace wondered if he’d had something to do with it. Could this be the manifestation of guilt? That couldn’t be possible. If Grace took anything away from her hyperfixation-with-serial-killers phase, it was that psychopaths and sadists—people like Alastor—felt no guilt.

“It feels okay.” But it hadn’t been the pain that had caused her problems; it had been the weakness. One, she had no desire to let on any potential vulnerabilities. Two, she hadn’t tested it yet that morning. Obviously, since she hadn’t left his embrace.

Finally she craned her neck to meet his gaze. He looked downright content. “Tell me a secret.”

“Ask nicely,” he scowled.

Waking to find Grace draped across his body was fine and yet that perturbed him?

Oopsie.

Grace noted his reply was not, in itself, requested politely. She threw in a pleasantry but couldn’t quite make her tone match it: “Please tell me a secret?”

He laughed and replied, simply, “No.”

“I didn’t say it had to be one of your secrets. I’m sure you know tons of things about others. Demons I don’t even know and will likely never meet.”

“I can make Husk shake in his shoes.”

“How’s that a secret?”

He shrugged beneath her. “Not many people know that about him.”

“I literally saw it for myself after he scratched your arm.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“You owe me a different secret.”

Alastor laughed. “I owe you nothing.”

“Do you think I’m pretty?” That would be a secret and she knew he wouldn’t reply honestly, whatever the truth may have been. Well, if he thought her unattractive or ugly, knowing his disposition he may actually have stated as much just to hurt her feelings.

Instead, he looked at her in silence. Rather than answering her question, he pulled her up along his chest and kissed her softly, briefly on the lips.

“No, then?” Grace assumed. Otherwise he would have said ‘yes’ rather than trying to distract her with affection that was clearly just for her sake.

“I don’t think I can answer that in a way you’d understand.”

Grace frowned. Asexuals gonna … asexual, I guess?

Alastor took her face in his hands, manipulating her pout back into a smile. “But that helps.”

Her smile grew beyond his fingertips and she asked before she could stop herself, “Do you know that I find you attractive?”

He nodded, just the tiniest little motion, panic filling his eyes.

“It’s okay.” It wasn’t okay. “You don’t have to do anything with that information. I just thought … you should know … there’s someone here who genuinely cares about you.”

“Why?”

“I get the feeling like you think there’s nobody who’d miss you if you disappeared. I would.” I think I might love you.

“That’s not what I was asking, but …” Alastor ran his fingers through Grace’s hair. He sounded so baffled when he finished the statement: “Thank you.” After a moment, he followed his mystified gratitude with a request. “Would you join me for lunch sometime in the near future? I know a nice place—”

“Is this ‘nice’ like where we ran into Mimzy? Or actually nice?”

His eyes gleamed. “It’s probably what you would consider actually nice.”

“And it’s not in Cannibal Town?”

“What if it is?”

“I can’t eat meat.”

Alastor bristled. “Will you join me if I can find something you would consider actually nice that serves dishes you would not consider objectionable?”

“Well now, Mr. Smooth-Talker.” She snorted, but couldn’t withhold a smile. “How can I say ‘no’ to an invitation like that?”

After another couple days and once Grace was able to comfortably ambulate independently, Alastor escorted her out to lunch.

The restaurant he selected for them had all of one option that was vegetarian; the falafel. And even then, Grace assumed some sort of meat would be sneaked into the recipe. Her tongue would be the judge of that. And then her stomach, when she inevitably threw it up.

Alastor requested a spicy jambalaya with venison dish.

Grace’s stomach turned for a few reasons with his choice but she kept her expression as neutral as she could, studying the table as she asked, “So, you like spicy foods?”

Her phone vibrated in her purse. Buzz buzz buzz

“Quite a lot,” he replied. “The spicier, the better.”

Buzz

She asked, absolutely not in any way, shape, or form, fishing for information from him, “What’s the hottest pepper you’ve eaten?”

Buzz buzz

“Carolina Reaper.”

Buzz

“Shit! And that didn’t burn your whole face off?”

Buzz

“Not at all. On the contrary, it was delicious.”

‘It was delicious.’ Grace swallowed hard; the way he’d said that was painfully sexy even if that hadn’t been his intent. That’s never his intent, Grace. It will never be his intent. It inherently can’t be his intent, she chided herself.

Buzz

Barely able to control the tremor in her voice, Grace replied, “Good to know.”

“Why do you ask?”

She struggled to suppress a devious smile. “No reason.” She knew some recipes she could make to test that theory about a man’s stomach being the way to his heart.

Buzz buzz

Alastor’s eyes darted down toward her handbag from his side of the little wrought iron bistro table they shared. “I can hear your phone buzzing in your purse. It’s really quite annoying.”

“Yeah, well, so are the messages I typically get,” Grace scoffed.

“Pick it up!” he snapped.

“I’d really rather not.” She already knew who was texting and what he wanted from her.

Alastor’s agitation with the buzzing was showing clearly in his reddening cheeks despite his perpetual smile so Grace pulled the phone from her bag to silence it.

She opened the screen to find what she expected: message after message from one of her least favorite demons.

It didn’t seem to matter to that pea-brained, putrid polilla demon that Grace never replied. This was a version of the same old shit he’d been doing since the day of their regrettable meeting at Vee Tower. Most days, his texts would get increasingly vulgar. These were actually some of his cleaner ones, disturbingly enough.

And suddenly the phone was missing from her hands.

“Hey!” Grace yelped.

Alastor had snatched the phone right from her grip; not only did he have no respect for other souls’ privacy, but apparently he also took exception to others having any personal boundaries. Others, namely: Grace. “The screen is cracked. Why?”

He swiped up and down a bit, his smile contorted in disgust as Grace tried to grab her phone back from him. Alastor pushed her back by her shoulder.

“Gimme that!”

The more he scrolled, the more frustrated he seemed to get. “What happened to those messages? Where did they go?”

Grace stood, leaning on the table to see her phone screen. “You swiped out of the texting app and opened Facebook.”

One of the least surprising things about Hell when Grace first arrived was discovering that Facebook existed there, too. Undoubtedly, Zuckerberg would join them there when he died—should it turn out he was, in fact, not an android as was the going theory around the time Travis murdered Grace.

She sat down.

Alastor leaned back in his chair, perplexed. “I thought there’d be pictures of faces on Facebook. It just seems like it’s nothing but—ugh—videos.”

“Yeah,” Grace said with a chuckle. “Once upon a time, people had the patience to read. Then we got pictures and nobody wanted to read anymore. Then we got videos, and now nobody has the patience for photos.”

And yet he continued scrolling, as if mesmerized by a train crash. “What is all of this?”

She shrugged, assuming he was asking about social media in general. “Garbage.”

“Who are all these people?”

“Creators and influencers,” Grace answered. She only followed those people as she’d not had any friend requests on that app; she was far more popular prehumously.

It was actually kind of cute how befuddled he was by all of this even if it did remind Grace of their age difference.

No. We’re not all that different in age. We’re just from different eras.

Because that made the whole thing less disturbing.

“What are they creating?” Alastor asked, obviously unimpressed thus far.

“All that garbage you’re looking at. There are literally people whose so-called creations are just videos of them reacting to other people’s creations. I even saw a video that was like … creation-inception.” It had been so stupid and yet, in sheer boredom and loneliness, Grace had watched it from beginning to end, envious she had nobody to do that sort of stuff with.

And feeling somehow less alone at the moment with Alastor criticizing the very same things she always did about social media.

He glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. Grace supposed he didn’t understand the context in which she’d referred to ‘inception.’ Nonetheless, she didn’t elaborate. He didn’t ask.

“If they’re not creating anything of value but are called influences, who are they influencing?”

“Nobody, really. The popular influencers are influencing a lot of nobodies.”

“So then what’s the point of all this?” He gestured in disgust at her phone.

“To be honest, I’m not sure.” Finally she snatched her phone back from him, turning it off completely. “But considering this is Velvette’s domain, what else would you expect if not inane, vapid shit that does nothing to contribute to society?”

Even though he never stopped smiling, something in Alastor’s expression indicated Grace’s last remark delighted him.

But then he commented, “You didn’t reply to Valentino.”

Grace dropped her gaze. The fact that Alastor saw any of those messages was nothing short of mortifying. But at least he could tell she hadn’t replied, so that was something. Thankfully he didn’t seem curious as to why she kept them. Maybe he didn’t realize they could be deleted.

“No.” She tucked her phone back into her purse. Maybe she’d find a hammer later and use it on her phone to take out her disgust with Valentino. And then burn her purse for having touched the phone that contained those abhorrent messages.

The Radio Demon is fucked up that he can’t see what’s right in front of him.

That had hurt Grace to see. Alastor looked indifferent as he’d scrolled by that message so there was no telling if it had struck a nerve. How many people had asked him what was wrong with him? How many women before Grace had looked upon him as broken or dysfunctional—and not because of the whole cannibal, serial-killer business?

Maybe the former had been a contributing factor to the latter.

She exhaled quietly, now revolted in herself for feeling the way she did about him. All he probably wanted in his life was to be left alone. Not quite like a plant or a robot. Certainly he still needed touch. Friendship. Affection. Maybe even love.

“He’s one of the worst demons in Hell,” Grace added in the ensuing silence, assuming Alastor wanted to know why she hadn’t replied to Valentino.

“Oh, my dear, I’m afraid that title belongs to me.”

Almost as if proving his point, a demon dog without a leash or owner wandered over, growling at the pair. Alastor growled right back, his sclera going black and antlers growing an additional couple feet.

The dog whimpered, tucked tail and retreated.

Alastor glanced at her tentatively as he returned to his normal state. Undeterred by the display, Grace reached across the table and put her hand over his.

He didn’t recoil. He didn’t look bothered by it in the least.

His gaze trained down on their hands. “Why aren't you afraid of me, Little Fawn?”

Because I’m head over heels in love with you. 

Whoa. 

Shit. 

That escalated quickly! 

At last check just a few days ago, it was only ‘I think I might love you.’ But she knew sharing that with him would accomplish nothing. “I’m pretty confident nobody here can kill me double-dead.” Grace lifted her gaze to meet his. She couldn’t read his expression, more so than usual.

He took a deep, trembling breath. “I could protect you, you know.”

“Excuse me?”

“I can be that scary dog privilege you’ve longed for.”

I knew that was going to come back and bite me in the ass! She pulled her hand from atop his. “I assume there’s a price for your services.”

“Grace, sweetheart,” he chuckled deeply, “I can’t very well offer them free-of-charge, now, can I?”

There were repercussions, she knew, and as much as she loved Alastor, she was hesitant to give away her freedom, even if it was to him. She needed a solid clause to his contract and that would not come to her overnight. “I need to think about it.”

“Don’t take long. The next Extermination Day is right around the corner,” he warned. “And you wouldn’t want me rescinding my offer.”

Chapter 17: Obsession: Not Just a CK Fragrance

Stay sane, deer friends!