Page 19 of Looking Grimm

It didn’t matter that I hadn’t killedthisinvestigator. I’d done plenty to earn this fate.

“Is that a warning, or are you giving me a head start?” I asked. It took twenty minutes to drive from the Capitol to the Bitters’ End. Make that fifteen for patrol cars with sirensand lights flashing.

“Don’t run, Fitch,” Holland said. “If you’re innocent, you don’t need to run.”

I scoffed. “Now,thatsounds like bullshit.”

“Don’t run,” she repeated.

“I really didn’t do it.”

That was the last thing I wanted her to hear before I hung up.

With the call ended, I put my phone back into my pocket and found my hands trembling. I kept pacing, fueled by anxious energy that had my bare feet pounding against the floorboards. I pulled at my hair again, wadding handfuls and tugging until my scalp stung.

If I waited here for the Capitol’s justice, it would be swift. Without the evidence to convict me, they could lock me up in Thorngate to await a trial that would never come. I would be collared, and caged, and stripped of my magic. In a cell. In isolation. Indefinitely.

Breaths came quicker until I was gasping. I couldn’t fill my lungs no matter how hard I tried, couldn’t stop my heart from racing. Dizziness rushed my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to anchor myself in the moment.

The investigators had already traced my phone. They were on their way, and I was wasting precious time.

Pulling my cell from my pocket again, I dropped it on the table beside Nash’s forgotten drink. I didn’t know what was in the glass, and I didn’t care. I snagged it and tipped it back, swallowing without stopping until I’d finished the whole thing. It tasted like brandy with a sharp kick of citrus and something that made my tongue burn.

Alcohol, yes, but alchemy, too, flooding my brain withmuch-needed calm. I looked at the empty glass while the suddenly mellow tone overtook my panic. Apparently, Nash had intended to self-medicate with magical tranquilizers and changed his mind. His loss, my gain.

My flurried thoughts filed into line, and I found that I could focus on the options available to me and consider a strategy.

I had to run. Staying was not an option. If Holland got me in custody, I would never breathe free air again. But unless I intended to live in hiding indefinitely, I needed a way to clear my name or at least a worthy bargaining chip.

There was one person Holland wanted behind bars more than me. One cause for which she had proven consistently willing to compromise everything else. It was the only point we seemed to agree on.

I needed to find Grimm.

Fortunately, I was already on that path. Unfortunately, my first, frankly pathetic step toward the top of the Bloody Hex’s food chain had been answered with a declaration of war. I’d dipped a toe in deadly waters and been dragged into their depths. But it was my only recourse: tempting Holland’s attention away from me by offering a bigger, better catch.

I set down the glass, then gave my discarded cell phone a fleeting glance. Nash’s calm-down juice helped me think clearly, but it failed to put a damper on the sorrow eating up my insides. I didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to run from an end that felt inevitable. Didn’t want to feel like this anymore.

I couldn’t stall any longer, so I turned and walked toward the entry hall where my car keys waited in a bowl by the door.

Fifteen minutes wasn’t long enough for explanations or even goodbyes, so I stopped at the bottom of the stairs andshouted up.

“Nash, I’m going out!”

His bedroom door swung open, and he stepped onto the second-floor balcony, holding my boots. “Not barefoot, you aren’t.” He dropped them over the railing, then turned and disappeared back into his room.

I flinched when the shoes landed with a clunk beside me. I owed him better than this. He was due a warning about the cops about to invade his business or an apology for the havoc I’d brought into his life. At least I could have given him my reason for leaving.

But I didn’t know where I was headed or if I would be back, so I left it at that.

My world had becomevery small, my circle of confidence smaller still. With Holland and the Capitol cut out, and the Bitters’ End added to places now closed to me, I could think of only one safe place to hole up.

I stood outside Ripley’s hotel room door with my hands clenched at my sides while I glared at the peephole.

“No chance, Farrow,” the accented voice came through muffled but clear enough I couldn’t mistake it. “I saw the news. Consider your welcome here worn out.”

“I didn’t…” A frustrated grumble ate up my protest. “Rip, I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“You know it’s bad when Nicholas runs you out,” came the muted reply. “That man thinks you hung the moon.”

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