Page 63 of Looking Grimm

“Shit,” Nash muttered.

I could have moved them. Another day or time, it would have been a small matter to pull the rocks in or push them out, three or five at a time. Now, though, even the thought of magic made my brain squeeze dry.

“Let’s check the front.” I started that way. “Come on.”

Rather than follow or even respond, Nash grabbed hold of one of the small boulders, digging his fingers around it in a scrabbling effort to gain purchase. While he got his grip, he spoke in a low voice. “We need to get to the garage. My car’s in there. Keys, too. We could drive away. Besides, if they think they’ve blocked this, they’ll be expecting us to double back.”

The ominous “they” remained a mystery. There could have been ten people outside, twenty, or the whole damn gang wielding pitchforks and torches.

I killed Avery. That realization trickled in as slowly as everything else. I killed Avery so he didn’t kill Nash, and so Nash didn’t kill him. I should have been proud. His death combined with Isha’s made for some serious “take back your power” self-improvement bullshit. But if anything, I felt weakened by the loss. Everyone was going away. Leaving me.

I glanced over at Nash prying rocks loose and causing more to pile into a heap at his feet. No light penetrated the wall of stone.

Distant voices clamored at the other end of the house. They echoed off the high ceilings of the entry hall where Avery’s corpse told a brutal story.

“What’s taking so damn long?” someone unseen shouted.

“What the fuck?” another called back.

“He’s dead!” a third chimed in.

Clammy sweat prickled at my temples.

“Nash!” I whisper-shouted, crowding close in case he’d somehow missed the sounds of the new arrivals. “Nash, they’re inside.”

He set his jaw, pulling stones and heaving them aside. I barely dodged one dropping on my toes. He was sweating, too, from the exertion. I had to wonder how early this morning the gang had been at it, burying us in stones stolen from the rocky coast, or if they had some kind of rock-o-mancer who fabricated the stuff.

The racket in the entry hall increased, and I heard feet rushing upstairs. They would search the whole building and, unless we were prepared to bail out a window, a conflict was inevitable. I couldn’t carry on with this clinging numbness. Not helping was not an option.

Nash’s back muscles strained as he pulled another stone through the doorframe.

This time, I snapped his name.

When he turned around, his wide brown eyes showed a sinking sort of fear I’d hoped to never see there.

“Gimme the go juice.” I motioned toward his sweatpants pocket.

He clapped his hand over the potion bottle inside, and his eyes darkened. “You’ll bleed out. I’ll take it.”

The fear didn’t lessen. And, while he acted ready to pop the cork and down the thing like a New Year’s toast, he didn’t pull it out.

I pushed as close as I could, standing firm despite my wobbly legs. With both hands out of commission and my magic beyond reach, I needed him to facilitate this.

“And do what?” I glanced at his fingers, rubbed raw and leaking fresh red that added to the drying brown caked on his knuckles from caving in Avery’s face.

“Hulk smash?” I asked. “You might get two of them. Or three. Then we’re fucked.”

I arrived at the conclusion he should have. Maybe he knew it when he grabbed the magic adrenaline in the first place but didn’t want to admit it.

“It has to be me,” I said.

Nash’s hard glare went soft, almost sad. He shook his head. “It doesn’t always have to be you.”

A new barrage of conversation pricked my ears to the front of the building once more.

“He’s gotta be in here somewhere,” a gruff voice declared.

Another male fired back, “You wanna look around or…?”

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