Grim Read Online Free PDF

but when he caught her staring, something like guilt flashed across his face. That conflicted feeling flooded into her stomach again, making her nauseated.
    Then he helped her to her feet and, though he didn’t say anything, Erika found herself reassured by his touch. She knew that he watched her in the dark, his hand still on the crook of her elbow, and something told her that he could see her far better than she could see him. He seemed to be measuring her up.
    At last, he opened his mouth. “Do you trust me?” he asked.
    Erika hesitated. She wanted to trust him, but the thought of giving up control terrified her. Unusual, since she had always lived her life as the one willing to be molded.
    â€œYes,” she said, surprised to hear herself.
    â€œDo you know why?”
    The silence hung heavy. Erika could feel Jeremiah’s breath on her forehead, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore. Something crackled in the distance.
    â€œNo,” she said. Her voice had dropped to a whisper.
    â€œI’m not going to hurt you,” he told her.
    â€œI know,” she said, sure that she did know. Afraid not of him but of what she allowed herself to do when he was there. She felt like she was drunk or dreaming, going through motions without sense telling her to stop.
    Jeremiah pulled something out of one of his pockets and took a few steps back. Erika followed him without a question. His hand never left her arm.
    A click punctured the dark.
    Jeremiah dropped his mouth to Erika’s ear. “There’s someone behind you,” he said, “who wants to kill me.”
    Erika saw his hand flash up and almost screamed, but he yanked her close so that her mouth filled up with his jacket. His hand, fisted around a pocketknife, slammed into the tree beside them. The blade sank in up to its hilt and stuck. Jeremiah gripped Erika tighter, then drove her up against the tree as well, until her shoulders dug hard into the rough bark. Now she couldn’t scream if she wanted to, because his free hand pressed against the back of her head and she could only think of how it felt like he cradled her, just a baby scared by too much sound and too much dark, and how he smelled of chocolate and oranges, and how the shape behind him — a shadow blacker than the trees, the size of a man — twisted and churned like cloying smoke.
    â€œI’m sorry to drag you into this, Erika,” Jeremiah said, his voice a whisper but loud in her ear.
    Her knees buckled and Jeremiah had to hold her up, refusing to let go as she started to slip, pushing her harder against the tree like he wanted to shove her all the way through, but the more he tried, the more Erika realized that it didn’t matter, because there was no earth for her to fall to, since the forest had dropped away, the whole forest, except for the skinny tree that made up her entire world, and the black, empty air rushing past them both. She thought about the smell of the sap biting into her throat, and tried to place it because it was so, so important. Sharp and smoky. Hickory. She could feel hickory bark sliding through their skin. When she started to fall, Jeremiah fell with her.

Shawn stayed out late, and came home to find Rebecca’s Mustang sitting in the driveway as if it had never left. House lights glowed through the curtained windows of the first floor. Shawn locked his own car on his way up the front steps. As he let himself into the house, his cell phone rang.
    â€œYou had better be on your way home,” Matt said when he answered.
    â€œI’m just going in.”
    â€œGood. Rebecca’s a wreck. She wouldn’t let me stay over there, but I put Megan to bed before I left.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œWhat’d you say to her?”
    â€œI didn’t say anything.”
    â€œDon’t lie to a cop, Shawn.”
    â€œShe wants our dad to be at the service.”
    Matt fell silent. “That’s between you