Page 26 of Looking Grimm

The force that had plastered me to the wall relented, and my weight fell to my feet. I swayed forward, then steadied, while Ripley collapsed beside me.

Blinking found my eyes inexplicably dry yet watering. I had to wipe them to focus on the Everett twins sprawled on the cracked ground in front of us, unconscious.

I snorted and smirked. “Go, me.”

Ripley gathered himself up and stood, dusting his hands over his dark clothes. His typically sour expression returned as he beckoned to me. “All right, Larry. Grab Moe and Curly and let’s go.”

“Why Larry?” I protested.

Ripley sighed noisily. “Because Moe and Curly were brothers. Like these blighters.” He waved toward the twins.

“Wait, really?”

“Yes. Can we go?”

I couldn’t carry them both. Not at once. But Ripley offered no assistance on the first or second trip to the car, merely walking alongside while I dragged first Ethan then Ezrah to the Porsche and piled them beside it.

The duffel bag Holland had given me was stuffed behind the driver’s seat. I dug it out and dropped it on the pavement beside the brothers. Crouching to unzip it, I pulled out both antimagic collars and their remotes, then handed the remotes to Ripley.

His lip curled as he took them and slid them into his hoodie pocket.

I crept over to Ezrah and Ethan, fastening the steel rings around their throats. Checking the duffel found the pistol inside. I left it untouched, closed the bag, then tucked it back behind the seat.

When I turned to face Ripley again, he made no effort to mask his disdain.

“They won’t both fit in my tiny ass trunk.” I gestured to the tilted forward driver’s seat. “One’s gotta go in here.”

Ripley leaned around me to inspect the cramped space the manufacturer graciously referred to as an “occasionalseat.” Watching him try to puzzle through the logistics was a humorous reminder of why I had borrowed Donovan’s car for my previous abductions.

“You’re joking,” he said at length.

I raised a brow. “Do you have a better plan?”

He hissed an aggravated sound. “Fine. I’ll go around. You push, I’ll pull.”

The Three Stooges jokes should have continued as we stuffed Ethan Everett’s body behind the front seats of the coupe. His limp form bent and flopped, arms and legs going a dozen different directions as I leveraged all my strength to lift and push him through the vehicle.

On the passenger side, Ripley grabbed him by the shoulders, shirt, and even his head at one point, and heaved backward.

“This is absurd,” he said between labored grunts. “And you’ve been parking this tin can outside the hotel?”

“It’s the only car I’ve got,” I replied.

“It’s bright bloody red!” Ripley exclaimed. “How’ve we not been raided yet? Christ.”

With the first twin wadded into the allotted space, I flipped the driver’s seat into the upright position, not much minding if I smashed wayward fingers or toes in the process.

Before I exited the car, I pulled the release lever in the floorboard to pop open the front trunk. I grabbed the remaining Everett twin under his arms and started lugging him around to the hood of the car.

The movement felt familiar, echoed from another dark night in this same parking lot. It didn’t fully register until I propped the unconscious man against the Porsche’s front bumper and peered into the trunk cavity.

Moonlight pooled across the gray upholstery, outlining the dark stain where Donovan’s blood soaked into the carpet. In the day, I imagined it was a brownish color, but here it looked inky black and deep like a hole I could crawl into. Grabbing the trunk lid, I slammed it closed and spun to put my back to the car. My breath hung in my lungs.

I never cleaned it. Told Nash not to. It was the last shred of denial I could store and ignore. Another grave I could visit, though I didn’t want to go there tonight.

Ripley approached and stopped at the side of the car. He looked at Ezrah leaned next to me, then the now closed trunk hood.

“What’s all this, then?” he asked. “Stuff the poor sod in there, and let’s go.”

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