Page 6 of Looking Grimm

My breath hitched as I skimmed up Nash’s chest to his face and the sorrowful smile there.

Don’t be sad. Not because of me.

“Whatever you’re planning,” he began, “please be careful. You’ve given enough.”

It was all I could do not to lean on him or pull his arms around me. An odd impulse because I was certain that if he tried either of those things right now, I would throw an elbow into his gut.

I stared at his hand covering mine as I replied, “Nash, I’m never careful.”

“That’s why I’m always worried.”

We stood like that for a few seconds longer before I pulled away and turned, grabbing the liquor bottle on my way past.

Nash’s voice chased me. “You gonna clean the bedroom?”

“Yeah,” I called back as I shoved through the swinging doors and started across the polished bar floor. “Something like that.”

I knew exactly whereto find Ripley Vaughn, having visited his snazzy hotel suite while he was being held captive by Jax and his goons. So, I didn’t bother with the overly helpful bellman or the clerk at the front desk of the Elite Inn & Suites, instead walking a beeline through the lobby and down the lower-level hall toward room 113.

Arriving before it, I gave a hard knock, then immediately thought I should have called ahead. Ripley was suspicious as hell on a good day, and more so since his abduction. I was as likely to be greeted with a smile as a face full of toxic fumes, if he answered the door at all.

“Rip, open up!” I shouted at the tiny peephole. “It’s me!”

The sound of a chain lock clattering preceded the latch clicking and the door swinging inward to reveal Ripley in a band tee shirt and striped pajama bottoms. The darkness of the room behind him and the bird’s nest of black hair on his head made it clear I had arrived before his morning alarm.

His eyes narrowed, the solid white one ever-unnervingas he scowled at me. “‘Me’ could be anyone, you dumb fuck.”

I crossed my arms and leaned against the cold, metal doorframe. “Yeah well, I don’t have one of those names you call out in a building full of people. Like pulling the damn fire alarm. Everyone clears out.”

“I wouldn’t mind that.” He tipped his head in a slight nod, and I noticed the scars marring the skin between his collarbones, a permanent reminder of the lengths Jax had gone to keeping his mouth shut and powers at bay for two long weeks.

Ripley leaned forward to glance up and down the corridor outside his room before asking, “What do you want?”

I gestured to the path ahead that his scrawny body currently blocked. “Can I come in?”

With a grunt, he stepped aside, allowing entry and a clear view of the hotel room. The lights were off, shades pulled across the windows, and a Maggie-shaped lump occupied one of the double beds, nestled in a pile of stuffed animals.

Closing the door, Ripley came up from behind me. He stabbed a finger at the zombie girl’s prone form, then raised that same finger to his lips in a call for quiet. I nodded understanding and followed his lead to the small sitting area where he directed me to sit in one of the padded armchairs.

He didn’t join me immediately, moving instead to the kitchenette where an electric kettle and coffee mug waited on the counter. I watched as he rifled through a box of teabags and pulled one out, then dropped it in the cup. Steam wisped into the air as he poured from the kettle, filling the mug and giving the bag a bouncing dip before carrying it to the loveseat across from me.

Holding the drink with both bony hands, he peered at me through the darkness. “You look like shit,” he said at last.

I snorted and gestured to his bedhead and sleep-smudged eyes. “Then I’m in good company.”

“You reek of booze.” He carried on as though I hadn’t spoken. “Must be coming out of your skin at this point. Diluting your damn blood.”

“I get it,” I said through clenched teeth. “And I happen to be sober at the moment, but it won’t take much to convince me I shouldn’t be.”

“You think I should take it easy on you? Don’t hurt your feelings or you’ll throw yourself down another bottle?” He scoffed. “Go ahead.”

Heat rushed my face. “Hey, I saved your life, you ungrateful bastard. The least you can do is—”

“Not coddle you,” he cut in sharply.

In the bed, Maggie stirred at his raised tone. He glanced back and waited for her to still before turning and adding, “From what I’ve heard, Nicholas has done more than enough of that.”

I didn’t say what I wanted to, that he should have saved Donovan. That he surely could have done more than leave my human brother to fend off the bloodthirsty shapeshifter on his own. That I wanted to blame him, despite remembering vividly what a sorry state Ripley himself had been in that night.

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