Page 51 of Looking Grimm

She flew backward, propelled by feelings more than force. Magic sprung loose from my fingers and slammed into her, driving her back until she hit the sink counter again. This time, I heard something crack.

The wall behind the sink shook, and the mirror slipped off its hook, falling onto the polished brass faucet with a shattering crash. Isha’s body bent, then contorted at an impossible angle. Her top half folded over into the sink basin, and her bottom half went limp. Everything fell in a thumping, clunking, glittering spray of broken bones and glass.

As shocking as the commotion was, the silence that followed was infinitely more so. I stood, gawking at the madam’s crumpled body. Her head twisted toward me and her dark eyes were glassy. Gone.

A cold chill gripped me, so abruptly frigid that I shivered.

“Ish?” I asked the quiet.

No response.

My hands trembled as I stared down at them, aghast.

I didn’t mean to hurt her.

Didn’t mean to kill her.

Didn’t want to be here.

So, I left.

As I sped outof downtown, Ezrah Everett’s corpse bounced along to every turn like he was shaking with laughter.

“You’re a killer,” he’d said.

He was right.

I drove because I didn’t know what else to do and kept going because I didn’t have any reason to stop. I followed highways that were so dark the Bronco’s headlights were almost snuffed out by the starless night. I bumped along country roads where only swaying grass and infrequent trees kept me company. I made it all the way to the coast and gazed across the water, haunted by my dream to take that stupid houseboat and sail away from here.

I drove until the gas gauge tipped over to empty, and a familiar two-story house peeked over the horizon. The Bitters’ End stood, its whitewashed exterior aglow in moonlight, and I drove toward it like a lost doglimping home.

The engine sputtered, nearly dry, as I coasted into the gravel lot. No cars and no customers were no good at midnight on a Friday, but I was too relieved to care as I spilled out of the Bronco and dragged myself to the front door. I was about to let myself in when a handwritten sign hung at eye level stalled me.

Out of Business.

Disbelieving, I jiggled the knob and found it locked.

I knew things were bad, but not this bad. Why hadn’t Nash told me?

I could have opened it anyway. Deadbolts weren’t difficult to maneuver. But invading that space felt like desecrating the grave of something I’d helped kill.

Because I was a killer.

“F-fuck,” I stuttered, staggering back.

Standing in the grass in front of the porch, I scanned the house with its curtains drawn and lights off.

Isha had it all wrong. Nash’s life was measurably worse because of me. I wasn’t protecting him from anything. In fact, coming here now, chauffeuring a corpse in a wanted vehicle right after having murdered Isha with my hot temper and absent self-control, the only thing I might be able to protect Nash from was myself.

It was a long walk around the Bitters’ End to the bluffs that bordered the ocean. My feet felt heavy, weighing the rest of me down so by the time I made it there, I was slouched, huddling inside my shirt and trying to maximize its meager protection from the whipping wind.

Several dozen feet below, waves crashed onto jagged rocks. Leaning forward, I looked down. The water was black, breaking in white crests and rolling with foam.

Maybe I should have stayed at the Blooming Orchid and waited for Grimm like I’d planned to. Then I could have seen his face when he discovered what I’d done. I should have finished what I started rather than running away. But I was slowly realizing when I put Isha’s dead body behind me that I wasn’t only trying to escape my guilt.

I was afraid to face the man who’d ruined my life in more ways than I could count. The person who broke then remolded me into a soldier for his war. Common sense told me Grimm couldn’t hurt me. His power was another illusion meant to deceive, but I’d spent too long convinced that defying him would lead to my death to easily overcome it now.

Dying seemed inevitable. Everyone died. Everyone I loved, I lost, and it was only fitting I should join them. On my own terms. Not running and hiding from the Capitol, not waiting for one of Grimm’s minions to cut me down for bragging rights.

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