Can I use "instead" without "of"?

Grammarly says no, but I don't trust Grammarly. I was trying to use it in a paragraph for Fahrenheit 451, saying

Nothing makes you think for yourself, instead coaxing you into forgetting about the real issue.

Wouldn't this work when you consider the definition of 'stead', since I'm trying to say that 'nothing' is making you forget instead of making you think? I suppose it's just backwards, but it seems correct.

There's no reason "instead" always has to be accompanied by "of," but you'd have to construct the sentence differently; when you remove "of," the "instead" points to something different. Let's take a simpler sentence:

I ran away instead of talking to you.

You did run away, and didn't talk. The complement to "instead of" is "talking." But you could also say:

I didn't talk to you, instead running away.

Now "instead" modifies "running"; "instead" has been pulled into the service of the positive statement rather than the negative one. This sentence works only because I negated "talk."

Your example sentence is hampered by the fact that the subject is "nothing." It isn't a negation; the concept of "nothing" does in fact do something ("makes you think"). So we run into a problem when we look for a subject for the second half of the sentence: "Nothing" "coaxes you into forgetting"? Oh dear.

The sentence would work if you recast it with a positive subject but with "think" negated:

[Bradbury's dystopian government] never makes you think for yourself, instead coaxing you into...