Page 4 of Looking Grimm

Briggs bobbed his head, then replied, “The Capitol needs people like you, Fitch.”

My features pinched. “People with my skillset? I’ve heard that before.”

Maximus said the same right before he asked me to kill eight people to ensure the success of his all-important vote. Spouting something about the wheels of progress and using innocent blood as the grease. I may have inferred that last bit.

Despite my obvious disdain, Briggs forged on. “You possess a unique and versatile power, and you wield it well. You could do so much good—”

“I’m not coming back to the Capitol.” I cut him off. “It’s not for me.”

The investigator’s eyes lined with crow’s feet. “Perhaps it could be for your father, then.”

“Fuck,” I blurted on a burst of air that was almost a laugh.

Briggs looked startled as I explained.

“My father wouldn’t even recognize me anymore. I am as far from the man he wanted me to be as I can get. He’d disown me if he could. Posthumously.” I leaned over the bar,both arms outstretched as I peered down to where Nash had found one of his recipe books and was busily notating.

“Nash,” I called over, my voice a whine. “Can I get a drink?”

His chest heaved with a snort. “Sorry, busy minding my damn business.”

I growled and hooked my fingers over the opposite side of the counter. “Fine, I’ll get it myself.” With a push off my stool, I climbed onto the bar, then shimmied across on my belly. Weeks of little sleep and lots of alcohol had made me awkward and graceless, and I nearly kicked Briggs in the face as I maneuvered to stand on the back side.

I felt Nash’s judgment as I snagged a bottle from the highest shelf I could reach. I bit out the cork top, then spat it onto the anti-fatigue mats underfoot before putting the bottle to my lips and drinking until I had to pause for air.

Briggs looked stunned when I rounded on him.

“You want something?” My gesture to the shelves behind me failed to tempt him as I tipped the liquor back again.

“Fitch, are you all right?” Briggs’s forehead scrunched, digging trenches in the space between his brows. “Is there something you need to talk about? The Capitol employs several competent therapists…”

A shake of my head made me wonder if the booze had made its way inside my skull. My brain felt like it was sloshing. “Therapists aren’t prepared for my kind of confessions, Briggs,” I said. “I need a fucking priest.”

To the older man’s credit, he didn’t flinch. “Is there any way I can help?”

Hell, no. I had that answer chambered and ready to fire.

I didn’t want help. Not the personal or professional kind. And I didn’t want the sympathy of a man who hadn’t known me in over a decade, which meant he didn’t really know me at all. I told Holland once that I killed the Fitch Farrow she used to know. I destroyed him when I forged a stronger version of myself. Though I didn’t feel very strong lately.

Help was what got Donovan killed. What Holland accused me of never giving her. Help was what I asked Grimm for when the investigators were closing in. When Ripley’s life hung in the balance of Jax’s fucked up game.

Help was what I hoped for—waited for—after the Bloody Hex took away my family and my home.

I’d learned not to count on help because it never came.

What I wanted was peace, but I wouldn’t have that until Grimm and the rest of the gang were gone. So, rather than my kneejerk response of a hard no, I told Briggs instead, “Not unless you know where to find the Bloody Hex.”

I meant it as a joke, mocking my own inadequacy as much as anything, but Briggs perked up. “Are you looking for them?”

I nodded.

“What would you do if you found them?” Briggs asked.

Not rejoin them, that was for damn sure.

“I would destroy them,” I replied.

“On your own?”

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