Page 33 of The Ripper

With one hand, she pressed the gauze onto the wound with a force I wouldn’t have given her credit for, while her other hand reached for the sewing kit on the counter.

“Can you put pressure on that for me?” she asked.

I would do anything for you.

I nodded, then placed my palm over hers, savoring the feeling before she pulled it away to thread the needle.

“We have got to stop meeting like this,” I joked as I admired her.

How was she even real?

She didn’t answer my comment, but a small smile betrayed her thoughts for a second before she put on her stern face again. I bit the inside of my cheek when she poured some more alcohol on the open wound and prepared to stitch it up.

“That’s what you get for playing hero,” she said as the needle pierced my skin.

“I’m not the hero, Snezhinka,” I groaned at the pain. “I’m the villain.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Not in my story,” she whispered, so softly that I might have imagined it.

I didn’t say anything after that, and neither did she.

After she finished stitching me up, she bandaged the wound, then stood up, took off her gloves and started cleaning the utensils and the sink. Her movements were now rushed, frantic even, as though she was finally realizing where she was, who she was with, and what she was doing.

With difficulty, I got up from the floor, still dizzy from the loss of blood, and swore as the pain spread through my arm. I stepped closer to her, and for the first time, she flinched in my presence.

I thought I would love to see her scared of me, but I fucking hated it, because that little jump broke my stupid heart in half.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I told her, using the softest tone I could muster.

“You’ve been stalking me for years,” she replied as she packed everything back into the kit, doing everything in her power not to look at me.

I tried to suppress the grin her words brought out of me, but my mouth moved before my brain could get involved.

“I don’t see it that way,” I explained as I leaned against the counter and took another sip of vodka.

“Then what the fuck do you call what you’ve been doing,G?” she pronounced the letter mockingly. “You’ve been sending me food and pictures of—”

“Grimm,” I said.

She froze, her hands shaking as she finally raised her eyes to look at me. Fear and excitement played on her face, her expression a mix of the two emotions as she seemed to put everything together now that she had all the pieces to the puzzle.

“What?” she asked, her voice unsure.

“My name,” I explained, “is Grimm.”

She blinked, her anger slowly subsiding as I looked at her with the gentlest expression I’d ever given anyone.

“Do you mean that you’re the…? No fucking way,” she began pacing the floor, her bare feet slapping against the marble as she ran her fingers through her hair.

My eyes fell briefly on the tattoos on her wrists, and she seemed to notice, because she suddenly hid her arms behind her back.

“Yes, I’m the guy in the Grim Reaper costume whom you danced with at that Halloween party, I’m the guy you met on the plane whom you clung to when you were scared, but beyond those two, I’m the man who’s watched you from the dark since the first time I saw you.”

“This is crazy,” she whispered. “What am I supposed to do with this information now? Why did you even do all that stuff? How the… I have so many fucking questions that my brain is about to explode,” she spoke so fast I could barely register everything.

She was overwhelmed, confused, and slightly furious.

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