Page 1 of Looking Grimm

Eight years earlier…

The investigator and her husband lay dead in their bed. They hadn’t heard me come in. Neither of them stirred from sleep. They would never wake again.

It was the last job I would ever do. I’d come here knowing that, having left a conversation with Grimm where I told him what I’d always been afraid to. I wanted out of the gang. I didn’t want to play the role of Marionette, a murderer providing fodder for the bloodthirsty media. I didn’t want to fear for my own life while ending the lives of others. I didn’t want to spend another night surrounded by men who hurt and hated me.

More than anything, I wanted to go home. But, since I couldn’t return to the house I grew up in, this one would have to do.

I wandered down the long hall, dragging my fingers over framed pictures of the couple now permanently at rest.There was no rush to leave because no one called for help. No one knew I was here except Grimm and, if someone found me after this was done, I hoped it would be him.

His answer to my question—my plea, really—came with a laugh. There was only one way out of the Bloody Hex: death.

I spent the rest of the afternoon forming a plan. When the other men took Donovan with them on a regularly scheduled visit to the Blooming Orchid, I left the motel room the way I wanted my brother to find it. A bag of cash sat on the bathroom counter with my car keys and a note explaining what had happened. Donovan was only twelve and shit at driving stick despite numerous lessons, but I needed to give him a way out. He would manage and be better off in my absence.

Upon reaching the kitchen of the darkened house, I began a slow, methodical search. What I sought was not in plain sight or in a block on the counter, so I opened drawers. They were filled with silverware, plastic bags, and cling wrap. There was even the token junk drawer crowded with plastic cutlery and sauce packets from local fast-food joints. Finally, I found the knives. I rifled through the selection, passing over gleaming chef’s knives and a set of serrated steak knives. A small, sharp paring knife seemed best suited to the task. Tucking it in my hand, I headed down the hall to the master bedroom.

It was always quiet in the suburbs at night. The loudest sound was my heart, betraying fear with its rapid, thundering beat.

My feet thudded dully against the carpet as I turned into the bedroom and found the door to the en suite bathroomwide open. The bathtub inside had jets that were about to be part of a bloody, bubbling mess. Standing beside it, I cranked the water on and gave a fleeting thought to temperature. Warm sounded nice, so I set the knife on the tub’s edge then balanced the knobs while I watched the basin fill.

In the minutes spent waiting, I worried about Donovan. He was so young. Too young to be abandoned, perhaps too young to be entrusted with his own safety. But I wasn’t doing a great job of that myself. I was the reason we were trapped in this endless nightmare. I was the problem. A problem I was finally ready to solve.

My knees went wobbly with anticipation and dread, so I dropped to sitting. Some baser instinct clawed at me, drumming up panic that started me shivering. I didn’t want to die. Didn’t want to leave my brother alone in the world. But the paring knife stared at me from the tub’s edge.

I killed my way into this, and I would kill my way out. This was my last job, and my last victim would be myself.

Breaths crowded in, making me feel like I was panting as I grabbed the knife. It worked this way in the movies, as simple as drawing a bath and going to sleep. I’d seen enough deaths to have ideas about my own. I wanted to go quietly. Peacefully.

Sucking air and fighting tremors that shook my whole body, I hunched over and draped my arm across my bent knee. My gaze fixed on the thin-skinned place at the bend in my wrist. Veins pulsed there, shallow and easily severed.

I forced myself to watch as the tip of the blade dug in. It stung, and I hissed through my teeth. I’d imagined it would go in easily, slicing skin and tendons and life-giving arteries, but my body seemed to rebel. With another gathering of myfragile resolve, I pushed the knife deep then dragged it across, flicking blood onto the floor as the blade cut cleanly through.

Pain screamed up my arm, and I gasped. The knife slipped from my fingers into the bathtub. Swearing, I reached in after it. Warm water splashed up one arm while bright red blood ran down the other. It dripped off my fingertips to dot the tile floor, painting a gory scene. But it wasn’t enough.

Gripping the knife again, I aimed for the same line I’d already cut and forced the blade in deeper. Blinded by tears and crippling agony, I let out a ragged cry.

So much for quiet and peaceful.

This time, I threw the knife and then cradled my wounded arm to my chest. The flayed skin ached as it pressed against my shirt, staining my clothes with a splotch of crimson. Air rushed in and out, water thundered into the tub, and my heart pounded like a war drum. Everything was too loud, too painful, too difficult.

Why was it so hard to die?

“Everyone dies.” I blew out a smoke ring and watched it drift lazily upward. “That’s it. That’s the end of the story.”

I lay in Nash’s bed, stripped to my boxers in a nest of sheets. It was morning judging by the sunlight creeping under the curtains pulled across the wide balcony window. Nash was awake, fully dressed, and sitting at the foot of the mattress while tugging on his shoes.

He didn’t bother turning around to mutter, “That’s a little dire, don’t you think?”

I wasted a scowl on his back. “Yeah, well, I’m feeling pretty fucking dire lately.”

Huffing, I leaned over and grabbed a liquor bottle from the pile on the floor beside the bed. A swig of amber liquid sloshed around the bottom. I scrutinized it for a moment before twisting the top off and downing it. The emptied bottle dropped atop the heap with a clink, prompting Nash to glance over his shoulder.

His ginger brows dropped low in disapproval. “Off to an early start, I see.”

I took a drag off my cigarette, then ashed it into the crystal tray on the bedside table. The dish was mounded with spent butts despite Nash emptying it every chance he got. I certainly didn’t bother. I barely left the bed these days, only venturing to the nearest convenience store to buy smokes by the carton.

Holding the air in my lungs, I spoke through clenched teeth. “You got shit to say? Say it.”

Nash stood and smoothed down the front of his plaid flannel shirt. It could have been the same damn plaid as yesterday, or last week, or last year. They all looked the same. I used to find his fashion rut endearing, but now it grated on me. How could he not change when everything else had?

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