Page 45 of Looking Grimm

“I’m alone out here, Holland,” I said, more raw than I meant to be. Without Donovan, without the gang, and having to keep Nash and Ripley clear of danger, I was floundering. I’d never been so isolated.

I chewed my lip before adding, “And I’m not killing your investigators, I swear.”

She gave another sort of grumble, no more comforting than the last. “I wish I could believe you.”

My fingers squeezed the cell so tightly I thought it might break. I pinned it against my ear while my free hand palmed the other side of my head, pushing in until my skull throbbed.

“Then believe me!” I exclaimed. “Please!”

“Vesper is dead,” Holland cut in. “Felix might not make it. Why would you hurt them? They actually liked you. Felixeven vouched for you.”

I pulled my knees up and huddled between the graves while protest built inside me like steam ready to shriek from a boiling kettle.

“Ididn’thurt them!” I shouted at last. “I wouldn’t—”

Again, she stopped me. “If this is how you treat your friends, I’d hate to see what you do to your enemies.”

Damn tears again. Such a fucking crybaby. I scrubbed so hard at my eyes that my bitten-down nails scraped skin. A long moment dragged by while I grappled with the last shreds of my composure.

“I’m not your enemy, Holland,” I said quietly.

“Save the song and dance,” she retorted. “As far as I’m concerned, this is overdue. No one should get away with murder.”

She was a Capitol woman. Like my father was a Capitol man. He believed in justice and right and wrong, and he raised me to believe in it, too. So, I had no further argument because she was right. I’d had this coming for a long time now.

I felt so hollow that even my words seemed to echo as I said, “I hope Felix is all right.”

Holland’s scoffing snort grated on me before she spoke. “Go to hell, Fitch.”

I hung up the phone.

After my talk withHolland, I took the time to rearrange. Now I was driving with obnoxious Ethan strapped upside down to the Bronco’s front fender, and his airheaded brother anchored to the seat beside me, no longer gagged and taking advantage of his newfound ability to cuss me out.

“We’re not telling you shit, you… you piece of shit!” Ezrah sputtered, wriggling against the seatbelt that wound around his slim torso.

The windows were rolled down, flooding the car’s interior with fresh air and the sounds of Ethan’s shrill screams. He got louder every time I hit a pothole, so I aimed for those now, shaking the whole vehicle with rattling jolts over and over.

I steered with one hand, taking turns that led me to the fringes of town. It was dark and unpopulated, somewhere I wouldn’t be noticed by well-intentioned citizens or the Capitol’s trafficcameras.

“If you aren’t useful, then you’re useless,” I told Ezrah, “and I don’t waste time on useless things. So, you may want to rethink your strategy here.”

Ezrah huffed. If his arms weren’t broken and bound up in his seatbelt, he probably would have crossed them over his chest. “We’re dead no matter what,” he growled. “You’re a killer, Marionette. That’s where this has been going from the start.”

His certainty grated on me, and I stomped the accelerator to the floor. “Fair,” I said, raising my voice over the engine’s roar. “Not untrue. But why rush into that? Let’s carpe diem. Seize the day. Or the next…” I glanced at the dashboard clock. “Five minutes.”

The timer was for me, a light at the end of this tunnel of torment. My better judgment screamed at me to stop before I did something I couldn’t come back from, but it was already too late for that.

“Then what, huh?” Ezrah sassed. “You gonna snap our necks and leave us out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“It’s one town, dumbass,” I retorted. “There’s not enough space to have a middle of nowhere. But yeah. A field or something. Let the buzzards find you after you start to rot.”

Ethan’s howls persisted from outside. I wondered if that part of my plan hadn’t backfired, as I felt more bothered by his cries than even Ezrah seemed to be. But when the next fissure in the pavement rattled the car, Ethan yelled, and Ezrah cringed.

I needed him to care. I needed him to worry and hurt. I knew that bond, that sense of obligation, and I could maximize it.

“Actually, that’s not true.” My teeth flashed in a feral grin. “I might snapyourneck, but your brother out there is in prime position for an accident. Maybe I’ll run him into a tree. There’s a big, fat one over there.” I jerked the wheel hard to the right, veering off the road and bumping into a field. Tall grass bent and broke under the Bronco’s wheels, raking over Ethan’s face and making him scream all the more.

It was the best torture I could think of. I would make Ezrah listen to his brother suffer. Watch him die. It was the most vicious agony I knew how to inflict. A reality I would do or say anything to avoid—or undo.

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