Kiss of the Succubus
Copyright© 2015 by Totzman
Chapter 6: Fall From Grace
Horror Sex Story: Chapter 6: Fall From Grace - A serial killer who targets beautiful young women leaves their bodies naked and drained of their blood. Detective Grace Harker suspects the culprit may be a sinister but charismatic vampire named Lukas Balko. As she tracks Balko down, a seductive succubus lures Harker's husband and other hapless men to thier demise.
Caution: This Horror Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Consensual Rape Coercion Hypnosis Heterosexual Fiction Horror Mystery Crime Paranormal Vampires Cheating Rough Humiliation Sadistic Torture Oral Sex Anal Sex Pregnancy Voyeurism Slow Violence Prostitution
The world stopped. Grace was frozen, and felt reality slip away. They key dropped from her hand and she didn't even hear it hit the floor. Panic stabbed her like a knife to the heart.
He was here. The man of her nightmares, the man who vowed to destroy her and everyone she ever loved, he was here, in the one place she was sure she'd be safe from him.
"Hello, Grace," he said, mocking her. "I hope you don't mind. I let myself in."
He held up the skeleton key, and rested it on the end table beside him. They key she'd given to Daniel Becket. The man she'd been praying would have killed Balko by now. Lukas grinned when he saw the hope drain from Grace's face.
"Oh please!" she screamed. "Don't kill my daughter! You can have me! Don't kill my daughter!"
Kayla screamed, and burst into tears. She hid behind her mother's legs, peeking around them at the evil man she knew only wanted to hurt her.
Lukas laughed.
"Oh Grace! Are we truly playing this game again?" He rose from his seat, and stepped towards her. "It's over for you. You have nothing else to fight me with. Isn't that right, Mr. Becket?"
Grace looked into the living room, and saw Daniel Becket seated on the sofa. He stared blankly at the wall in front of him, unaware of anything around him.
"What did you do to him?" Grace asked, incredulously.
"Oh, just a little basic hypnotism. One of my specialties," Lukas chuckled. He placed his hand on Grace's cheek, and she was too frightened to pull away. "It's time for us to end this game, Grace."
Grace shook her head.
"Please don't hurt my daughter, please don't hurt my daughter." She was sobbing, on the verge of hysterics.
"Grace. I have no desire to hurt your daughter. It's you I want. If you'd like, I will make you one last bargain, for the life of your daughter."
"Anything, anything!"
"Surrender to me. Your body and soul. Tonight."
"You can have it! If you swear to me you'll let Kayla go!"
Lukas smiled. A genuine, grateful smile.
"Splendid. Meet me down by the shoreline, at midnight tonight. No tricks. No games. Just you. And I swear on the souls of every victim I've taken your daughter will not be harmed."
"I'll be there," Grace assured.
"Good. I'll see you then." He patted her cheek. He turned to Daniel, who still sat on the sofa, motionless. "Come, Mr. Becket. You need to get ready. I'll need you to be the best man."
He didn't appear as though he would move anytime soon, but to Grace's surprise, Daniel immediately took to his feet, and followed Lukas out of the cottage. He was little more than a zombie, obediently following Lukas' commands without a thought in his mind. Both men exited through the front door, when Lukas turned back to look inside.
"Oh, and Grace?" he added. "When you come to the beach tonight, come naked."
He grinned, and shut the door behind him.
Grace screamed. She didn't care that he could certainly hear her; she screamed, and picked up the easy chair with both hands and smashed it against the wall. Again and again she bashed it, breaking it apart, until it was in pieces on the floor. It wasn't until she noticed Kayla's crying that she finally stopped.
"Mommy, are you going to die like Daddy?"
Then, it was Grace's turn to cry. She held her daughter for a long, long time.
"Trick or treat!"
Linda Perry opened her front door and gasped at the costumed youngsters in front of her.
"Oh my goodness! What scary looking monsters!"
The children giggled. Linda took a few pieces of candy from a bowl and dropped them into each of the childrens' treat bags.
"Don't eat too much tonight!" she said.
"We won't!" the children said. They thanked her and scampered off into the night. Linda shut the door and set the bowl of candy aside. She considered settling down on the couch next to her husband to watch a scary movie with him, but decided against it. She just wasn't ready yet.
She was about to return to the kitchen when she heard a knock at the door. Linda picked up the bowl of candy and answered. There was only one person on her front porch, and it looked to be an adult in a devil costume. The costumed person said nothing.
"Well? Are you going to say trick or treat?" Linda asked.
"Tell me something, Mrs. Perry," the visitor said. "How does a devil earn her horns?"
Linda looked at the devil skeptically.
"Who are you?" she asked, sharply.
The visitor removed her plastic devil mask.
"I go by a lot of names," Gabby said.
Linda's face turned to a scowl.
"You're the woman who slept with my husband."
"Indeed," Gabby said. "Is Adam here? I'd like to speak with him."
Linda fumed. "You need to leave now. I don't want to see you here again."
She went to shut the door, when her husband appeared.
"Honey, what's going on here?" Adam asked. He turned to see Gabby, and his face sank. "You. What the hell are you doing here?"
"It's nice to see you too, sweetheart! I've missed you!"
Former Officer Adam Perry trembled. "You need to go. I'm probably going to jail because of you."
Adam Perry, the officer who'd given Gabby the Harkers' safe house location the day of Ted's death, and tearfully confessed to his captain a week later, backed away. Gabby stepped into the house.
"But I'm worth it, aren't I?" Gabby asked. "Be honest, Adam, you still want me. You'd do anything to get me back."
"Get out of our house!" Linda demanded.
"What do you want?" Adam asked, a hint of curiosity in his voice surrounded by fear.
"Adam!" Linda screamed.
Gabby grinned. "I want you to get your gun, and shoot your wife in the head."
Adam's face went pale white.
"I'm calling the police!" Linda said. She ran to pick up the phone, only for Adam to take it from her.
"Let me handle this, honey." He turned to Gabby. "I can't shoot my wife." He sounded almost apologetic.
"Oh, but you can," Gabby said. "Because I asked you to. Admit it, Adam. You'd do anything for this!"
She opened her red cloak, and revealed her naked body for him. Adam's eyes went wide upon seeing her beautiful large breasts again.
"Why are you doing this?" Linda cried.
Gabby looked at Linda and smirked. "Because Mrs. Perry, I've been asked to do something very important tonight, by someone very important to me. And I need to know I won't fail. I need to know I've grown powerful enough, to completely mindfuck any man I choose. I need to know that I can make a man do ANYTHING I ask of him. I need to earn my horns, as it were."
"Please just leave us alone," Linda sobbed.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Perry, but it has to be you." She turned to Adam. "So darling, I need to you to do it now. Get your gun. Shoot your wife here. And this body is yours. All yours."
Adam felt his spirit drain from his body.
"I- can't. I had to turn in my gun when they took my badge."
"Use your rifle then."
Adam didn't respond.
"Adam?" Linda cried. "What are you doing? Let me call the police!"
"I'm getting my gun," Adam said.
He hurried upstairs, and Gabby turned to Linda and smiled wickedly. "He's made his choice."
Linda shook her head disbelievingly. "Adam would never shoot me!"
"We'll see."
Adam hurried down the stairs, holding his rifle, and he aimed it directly at Gabby.
"Get on the floor, now!" he demanded.
Gabby didn't flinch. She stepped towards Adam, slowly, and smiled up at him.
"Baby. You're aiming at the wrong bitch," Gabby said. "Point the rifle at your wife, and shoot her."
Adam's hands shook. He trembled as Gabby stepped ever closer to him. She pressed her index and middle fingers to the barrel of the rifle and nudged it to the left, so he was aiming at Linda. Linda screamed.
"Adam! What are you doing? Shoot her! Shoot her!"
"I'm sorry, Linda!" Adam sobbed.
Gabby crept up the steps until she was at Adam's side. She whispered into his ear.
"Go on, Adam. Pull that trigger. You know you want to. Shoot her and you can have me. Remember me? How my pussy felt when you were inside it? How good it felt?"
Adam nodded.
"It can be yours again," Gabby said. "All you have to do is shoot her. Do it. Do it now."
Gabby grabbed Adam's groin through his pants and squeezed it. Sweat poured from his brow as he kept his rifle trained on his wife.
"Adam! Don't listen to her!" Linda sobbed. "Put the gun down and call the police!"
"She's nothing to you," Gabby whispered. "I am your everything. Shoot her."
Panic gripped the frightened housewife. She couldn't run. She wouldn't leave this woman alone with her husband.
"I can't believe you would do it. You won't do it!" Linda cried.
"Do it, Adam," Gabby whispered. "The sooner you do it, the sooner we can make love."
Thoughts raced through Adam's mind. He saw his wife, his loving wife. And he felt Gabby, squeezing his cock through his pants. He remembered the sex. The hot, tantalizing sex, the mind-blowing orgasms Gabby had given him. How he wanted them again. Gabby unzipped his zipper and reached inside.
Linda raised her arms and dropped them to her sides. "Adam, if you love me, you won't shoot."
Gabby giggled, and as she tugged Adam's erect penis, she whispered, "shoot her now."
Adam could take no more. He squeezed the trigger.
Gabby Becket earned her horns.
She scoured the house for supplies. There was no food in the cottage, but Grace wasn't hungry. She checked the mantle above the fireplace where her grandmother used to keep a bottle of holy water, but it was gone. Her grandmother's Bible and cross were also missing; Grace wondered if Nora or one of her other relatives had taken them long ago as mementos, or if Balko had Daniel remove them. Either way, Grace found nothing immediately ready she could use to fight Balko.
She did find her grandfather's pocketknife. He'd sat in his easy chair while he used it to carve countless wooden figurines, now Grace would use it to carve the broken pieces of his easy chair into stakes.
She spent the evening carving two sharpened spikes, hoping she would not need more. The well pump behind the cottage still worked, allowing Grace to retrieve some water so she could give Kayla and herself a much needed bath after their long trek through the wilderness.
Kayla slept on the sofa nearby with her teddy bear still under her arm. She'd held onto Bernie for the entire trip from Shady Woods to here; a surprising feat for the four-year-old. Grace pondered the young girl's future while she whittled the wooden chair legs into points. Perhaps a loving family would adopt her. Perhaps she was too young for this experience to imprint into her memory. Perhaps Kayla would grow up, and have a normal life, her dead birth family a forgotten past. Or perhaps, she and Grace would both survive this night. She touched the pointed tip of the stake, and imagined the possibilities it would bring.
With both stakes carved into formidable spikes, Grace set them aside while she searched the house for more potential weapons. While searching, she noticed the skeleton key still lay on the end table next to where the easy chair had been. She didn't know if Balko had forgotten it or had intentionally left it there, but Grace did not touch it. She kept looking.
Searching the dirt-floored cellar, she found her grandfather's old tool chest hidden beneath the stairs. It contained a sturdy mallet she could use. She also found a grill lighter and a can of kerosene, though she was unsure either of those would do much good against Balko. She took them upstairs anyway.
With her supplies gathered, Grace laid them all out on the kitchen table and stared at the arsenal before her. She wasn't certain she would even use the weapons. She had to consider the possibility that Balko had won. Surrendering herself to him peacefully might be her only chance to save Kayla. She'd been prepared to do that, until she saw the catatonic stare in Daniel Becket's eyes as he walked out of the cottage. The vow she'd made to him would not leave her mind.
She stared at the pile of stakes and the mallet on the table, and back at her sleeping daughter. Had she gathered the tools to save her daughter, or the ones that would spell her demise? She wanted to do whatever it took to save Kayla, but there was always the chance Balko would break his word and kill the girl anyway.
Watching her daughter sleep so peacefully made Grace crave some rest herself. The linen closet contained some clean bedsheets, so Grace took the liberty of fixing her grandparents' bed with them. With the bed made and ready, Grace carried the young girl to the bedroom, and curled up under the covers next to her. With just a few hours until midnight, Grace soon fell fast asleep next to her daughter for the last time.
"I'm not gonna do it I'm not gonna do it I'm not gonna do it!"
He had a death grip on the steering wheel. Sweat gushing from his brow, Joe plowed down the empty road towards his damnation.
You will do it, Joe. You are Mine. You will do as I command you.
"NOOOOO!" He screamed.
He'd been unable to get Gabby's taunting whispers out of his mind, and they seemed to grow ever more insistent the closer he got to his destination. Each time he tried to turn around, Gabby's voice would coax him to continue, threatening to strip him of his sanity if he did not show her complete obedience.
Just keep going, Joey. And then you'll be free. Free from your cage, free to enjoy My body however you please. Just do as I say and I will always be yours.
"I- I can't do this!" Joe whimpered. His pants were stained with his own blood; most of it around the upper thigh area where Big Al had cut him. His shirt collar was drenched with sweat, while his penis ached to be free of its prison.
Yes, you can. Just follow My voice, and you'll do what you're supposed to do.
He actually felt reassured by her words. That terrified him more than anything. He actually found it comfortable to simply give in to her, and let her have control. Every second that passed he felt his own will slip away.
He passed through another intersection, not recognizing the name on the street sign.
"Where the hell is Harmony road?" Joe screamed. He picked up the map resting on the passenger seat, the one he'd painstakingly copied from the one he'd found in Grace's purse before planting the original in Grace's car for her to find, as Gabby instructed. It seemed like an innocuous task, but once he'd done it, he found it more difficult to resist obeying her other instructions and a slippery slope began. Joe was no longer in control of his own actions. Gabby was his puppet master now; her word was his unquestioning command.
Keep looking, you'll find it.
He kept his eyes on the road, barely blinking as the adrenaline in his system powered his body. He spotted it at the next intersection, and pulled a sharp right, loudly squealing his tires as he did. He sped down the country road, heart racing, still clutching the steering wheel as if the fate of the Earth depended on it.
"I'm not gonna do it I'm not gonna do it!" He repeated endlessly. Gabby responded with loud, contemptuous laughter.
She'd been standing at the street corner for nearly an hour with no potential customers in sight. Her high heels were making her feet ache, and her g-string was riding up between her butt cheeks uncomfortably. One thing she was certain of: Grace Dwyer was not cut out for this line of work.
Still, she had to admit she looked good. The fishnet stockings she had on were sexy, and the leather miniskirt made her ass look fantastic. She actually found it a bit flattering to get the occasional catcall from passing motorists, but that was not why she was here.
Grace took a cigarette from her purse and placed it to her lips. To be honest with herself, she didn't actually enjoy smoking. It was more the appearance it gave her that she found appealing. She liked the way she looked when she smoked, and the dirty looks her teachers in school used to give her for it made it all the better.
As she lit the cigarette, a light brown Oldsmobile pulled up to the curb. It stood there idly for several moments. Grace took a puff of her cigarette while she waited for the driver to work up the nerve to roll down his window.
Slowly but surely, he did. Grace realized the window was not an automatic, and the driver was leaning over the passenger seat and rolling the window down manually. Grace sauntered sexily towards the car and leaned over to face the driver.
He looked like he could have been a schoolteacher. He had on a black sweater vest over a white dress shirt, and brown slacks that hadn't been in style since the eighties. He looked to be in his forties, with male pattern baldness setting in leaving a shiny glow across his large forehead.
"How you doin' sweetie?" Grace asked. She took a drag of her cigarette and smiled at the man.
"Uh, good," the man replied. He glanced up and down the road nervously. Grace gave him a reassuring smile.
"What can I do for you tonight?"
The man leaned in closely, trying not to be overheard.
"Could- we just go for a drive?" he asked.
"Sure thing, cowboy." Grace opened the passenger door and climbed into the man's passenger seat. She crossed her legs and looked him in the eye.
The man swallowed and put the car into drive. He took off down the road, watching the rear view mirror intently.
"You got a name, sugar pie?" Grace asked.
"Uh, yeah. It's Sam," he said. "You?"
"You can just call me Sunshine," Grace said. She tapped her cigarette into Sam's ashtray. "So where we going?"
Sam made a left.
"Well, I was thinking, maybe we could go to my parents' house. They're not home, so we'll have the place to ourselves. Is that okay?"
"Fine by me."
"Okay, good. I've never done this before, so I don't know the, you know, rules or whatever."
Grace chuckled.
"Don't you worry about a thing, baby doll. I'll take real good care of you."
Sam gulped. He headed further south, into the seedier part of town. A gunshot rang out, and neither he nor Grace flinched at the sound. He pulled up in front of a dilapidated old house, with one of the windows boarded up with plywood and the remaining windows covered in sturdy steel bars. It didn't appear the lawn had been mowed in some time. The man turned off the engine.
"Well. Here we are," he said.
He got out of the car, and Grace followed him up the concrete walkway to the front door. There was little that frightened Grace before Kayla was born, and she had no qualms about following this man into his ramshackle living quarters. He fumbled with a set of keys and unlocked the door. Glancing up and down the street, he quickly ushered Grace inside.
The interior of the house was as attractive as the outside. Winding cracks weaved their way through the walls, causing loose bits of plaster to crumble to the floor.
"My room's upstairs," Sam said.
"Lead the way." She'd gotten good at pretending her customers didn't repulse and horrify her.
Grace followed him up the stairs, which creaked with each step they took. When they at last reached the top, Sam led Grace to a bedroom at the edge of the hall.
Papers were scattered around the room. A stack of porn magazines rested on an end table by the window, along with a greasy bottle of lotion. Sam took a seat on his bed and looked up at Grace.
"So, uh, you ready to do this?" he asked.
"Money first, hun. Sorry, a girl's gotta stay in business."
"Oh, right," he said, digging out his wallet. "How much?"
"Depends what you wanna do. What are ya into?" she asked innocently.
Sam cleared his throat. "Well, I was hoping I could- lick your legs up and down..." He stared up at Grace expectantly. She didn't react. " ... lay on the floor while you walk on top of me..."
Grace nodded.
" ... stick your feet in my mouth and wiggle your toes..."
"Uh huh," she said, still smiling.
" ... let me jack off into your panties..."
Grace nodded again.
" ... then you put the panties on and walk around the room in them..."
"Anything else?" she asked.
" ... and then stick your tongue in my asshole."
Grace cracked a smile, impressed by his imaginative request. Sam looked visibly relieved she hadn't run from the room screaming.
"So how much would that be?" he asked, fidgeting.
"I'd say, oh, two fifty ought to do it." She batted her eyelashes, making him blush.
"Er, okay." He opened his wallet and handed her three Benjamins. Grace stuffed them into her tube top. While he waited for his change, Grace instead produced from her tube top a badge.
"Not your night, sweetie. You're under arrest."
Sam's face sank. "Ah, shit." He got up from his bed and hurried over towards his desk.
"Come on, let's take a walk," Grace said, beckoning him towards her.
He reached into the top drawer of his desk and produced a .38, and aimed it at Grace. She took a step back.
"Easy there, cowboy. All you've got is a solicitation charge. No need to turn this into a felony."
Sam fumed.
"Shut up, you lying bitch! Get on your knees!"
Grace's face sank.
"You really want to kill a police officer? There's a team of cops watching this house right now."
Sam shook his head. "I can't go to jail. Get on your knees."
Grace's heart raced. No john she'd busted had ever been this desperate to resist an arrest. A thought occurred to her that Sam had skeletons in his closet he did not want discovered.
"All right, I'm getting on my knees," Grace said. She readied herself, eyeing the open door that was only a few feet to her right. She dragged her right foot behind her, and as she slunk to a kneel, she bolted, hurrying out the door before Sam could react.
"Bitch!" he screamed, and fired at her. The bullet whizzed past her head as she sprinted stocking-footed down the hallway, leaving her heels behind. Sam ran after her, firing his gun haphazardly as she ducked and scurried down the stairway.
"Get back here, bitch!" he screamed. Panicking, he ran after her, not bothering to shoot as he stumbled down the stairs in pursuit.
Grace reached the base of the stairway and realized that if she went for the front door she would be an easy target when Sam came down the stairs. Grace instead bolted around the corner and headed for the back door. She heard Sam's footsteps pounding down the stairway while she raced for the exit.
Fiddling with the doorknob, Grace quickly twisted it open, and scampered down the back steps into the back alley. She'd only made it a few steps when Sam was on her, and grabbed her by her hair.
"No, please! I have a fiancé!" Grace cried, while Sam held his gun to her head.
"Get in the van," he hissed.
To her shock, a white windowless van was indeed parked nearby. Sam pushed her towards it and unlocked the back hatch.
As if the thought of being dragged away in a van wasn't terrifying enough, Grace was shocked to find the van filled with cattle prods, leather restraints, and devices for sexual torture. Sam wrestled Grace inside. As she struggled to break free, he took something hanging from the van's wall and dropped it next to her. Grace turned to see it was a black leather spiked collar.
"Put it on," he ordered.
Grace examined the collar, and gasped at the sharp, bloodstained metal spikes that lined the inside. She recognized the shape of those spikes, the marks that had been found on the necks of nearly a dozen murdered young women over the past fifteen years.
"Oh my God," Grace exclaimed. "You're the San Amaury Slasher."
"Nice to meet you," Sam said. "Now put it on."
Trembling, Grace took the collar and wrapped it around her neck. She didn't lock it closed, but already she could feel the sharp spikes poking her neck.
"Lock it shut," he ordered.
Grace turned onto her back and looked up at Sam, who stood over her with his gun to her head. She could see a dildo sporting razor sharp spikes mounted on the wall behind him, but it was just out of her reach. But she did have a weapon of her own. The switchblade, the one her partner had given her, was strapped to her inner thigh. Benny had given it to her before her very first undercover assignment.
Carefully, Grace lifted her skirt, and grabbed the blade. She lay between his legs; if she were quick, she only needed to thrust upwards, and she could sink the blade right in his scrotum.
"Do it," he demanded. "Lock the collar closed."
"Okay," she said.
With one quick thrust, she swung the blade upwards. If she'd been a little faster, just by a second, Grace was certain she could have landed the blade directly into his balls. But she hadn't been. He'd seen what she was trying to do, and he'd grabbed her wrist and twisted the blade from her grasp before she could react.
"Too slow," he teased, taking the blade from her. Grace grunted, trying to reacquire the blade, but he pulled it out of her reach.
"Don't move!"
Sam turned to face Officer Benny Mitchel and Detective Joe Pratt as they rounded the corner into the alley and faced him with their guns drawn. Sam immediately opened fire, hitting Benny square in the chest. The bullet bounced off his vest, only for Sam's second bullet to land just above his sternum. Benny fell flat on his back, and Joe jumped clear just in time to dodge Sam's third bullet.
"Benny!" Grace screamed.
Sam pulled Grace into a sitting position and knelt behind her, putting one arm around her neck and his gun to her temple when Joe edged back into view with his gun trained on Sam.
"One more step, she's dead!" Sam warned.
"Dwyer, you all right?" Joe asked.
Grace nodded.
"Give it up, there's no way out of this!" Joe shouted.
"Oh, I know," Sam said. "Just let me kill her. Let me kill one more bitch, and I'll give myself up. How about it?"
"Drop the gun or I drop you!" Joe shouted. "You've got three seconds. One! Two!"
Sam looked at Benny, choking on his own blood on the ground.
"I guess he'll have to do," he quipped. Sam dropped his gun and released Grace. He held his hands in the air.
"Get on the floor! Face down! Now!" Joe ordered.
Sam lay face down on the floor of the van, while Grace hopped out. As Joe read Sam his rights, Grace hurried to Benny's side.
"Benny, you hang in there! We'll get you an ambulance, you hear me? We'll get you-"
Grace awoke. Benny's dead eyes burned into her memory, just as they had in countless dreams before. She had to look around the room a bit to remind herself where she was. The bedroom of her grandparents' cottage. She took a deep breath, and waited for her pulse to return to normal. Turning over in bed, she saw Kayla was gone. Grace sat up with a start.
"Kayla?" she asked.
She looked to the floor. Bernie lay there untouched, but there was no sign of her daughter. Fearing she'd slept through her deadline, Grace jumped out of bed and hurried down the hallway, looking to the grandfather clock. It was ten minutes to midnight. She breathed a sigh of relief.
"Kayla?" she repeated. She knew the girl was likely sleepwalking, but the discomfort was all the same. Hurrying from room to room, Grace checked every closet and under every piece of furniture.
"KAYLA!" she screamed. She glanced out the back window, and to her surprise, she found her. The young girl stood at the edge of the cliff, staring off at the ocean. Grace hurried towards the back door.
Don't.
She heard Lukas' voice.
Stay away from her. Or I will make her jump.
Grace caught a glimpse of the hallway mirror. Balko's face materialized in the mirror, and stared at her.
The time has come, Grace. You will come to me, now.
Grace backed away, but Balko's leering visage stared right at her.
Now, Grace. You haven't much time.
Balko's face dissipated, and Grace's reflection appeared in his place. She peered out the back window again, and saw Kayla stood firmly in place. Balko no doubt had the power to make her jump if he wished.
Grace picked up one of the wooden stakes. She could bring it with her, and likely fail to get it anywhere near Balko before he sent Kayla over the cliff's edge. Sobbing, Grace snapped the stake in two, tossing the pieces to the floor. She slumped to the floor herself, and buried her face in her hands.