Page 62 of Looking Grimm

“Fitch?”

His voice chased me because I didn’t stop, dripping water and tears and blood all the way to the bathroom. He bounded off the creaky mattress to come up behind me.

“Where’ve you been? You’re wet. Are you okay?” Questions and statements pelted me, and his proximity got my hackles up.

I didn’t want him to see this, didn’t want him to know, didn’t want him to worry.

“Back off, Donnie.” I flicked my fingers toward him. It was a shove more than a strike, but it didn’t take much to double him over.

It knocked the air out of him, too, but he gathered enough breath to snap back at me. “Fine! Dick.”

It sounded almost foreign in his childish voice. His balls hadn’t even dropped, and he was trying to cuss at me.

I glowered at him while standing hunched over and gripping my thigh. “You wanna talk tough, you’re gonna have to do better than that.” I huffed a breath. “Pull out the big guns.”

Donovan’s face scrunched. His cheeks puffed with building momentum before he spouted off, “Fine, fucker!”

My head rocked back in an exaggerated nod. “There we go.”

Mentioning guns seemed to make my leg ache more, and I groaned through the last few steps into the bathroom.

I barely rounded the door before shoving it closed andletting my back slam against it. My knees buckled and I slid down to the tile floor, immediately creating a puddle of rainwater swirled with diluted pink. The tiny room housed only the shower tub and toilet, but it was the towel bar on the wall I needed.

Tugging the pair of bath sheets off the rack, I hastily wound them around my thigh. They smelled like bleach, and I half-expected them to sting my open wound but, aside from the pressure mounting as I tied the thick fabric into a knot, nothing changed.

It was quiet and dark because I hadn’t bothered with the light switch, and every rattling breath echoed off the walls.

A timid knock shook the door, and I braced my good leg against the tub enclosure.

“Fitch?” Donovan’s voice was muffled by the barrier between us.

I mopped my face then my hands on the tail of a tied towel. My lack of response prompted Donovan to repeat my name, then chase it with a sheepish, “I’m sorry.”

I was sorry, too. I could write lists and maybe even books of all the apologies I owed him, but I settled to say instead, “Don’t talk like that, okay?”

He was quiet for a few seconds, then grumbled, “You say that stuff all the time.”

“Youdon’t.” He still didn’t agree, so I prompted him again. “Okay? Say okay.”

A long sigh petered out of him. “Okay.” He paused. “Will you come out now?”

My leg throbbed and so did my head. I was bone-tired, wet, and chilling, and the cold seeping in through the grimy tile floor was doing me no favors. But I couldn’t drag myragged ass out there and into the bed that sounded amazing right now. Not while I was leaking blood like a faucet and Donovan’s concern was so fresh in his mind. I needed to wait him out, at least.

“In a little bit,” I replied. “You should go to bed, though. It’s late.”

My chest rose and fell more steadily as I waited for him to move away. The television droned in the background with a laugh track from some oldie sitcom. Fabric swished against the other side of the door, and I glanced down to see little fingers slip under the gap at the bottom.

Like a damn cat, this kid. Wouldn’t give me a moment’s peace.

I heaved a breath of my own and resolved to ignore Donovan’s hand until I saw it stretching toward the watery blood puddle in which I sat. I stopped it short by placing my own fingers atop his.

“Can I wait for you?” he asked softly.

The knot suddenly in my throat made my voice rasp as I answered, “Sure, Donnie.”

Nash led me toward the back of the building. He hadn’t expressed a plan, but the deep furrow of his brow and the speed and purpose of his strides put my fears at ease. I studied his profile as I shuffled along, warring against churning nausea and thoughts that didn’t piece together quite right.

My breathing seemed loud, eclipsing all other sound untilwe arrived at the back door. Nash tugged it open inward to reveal a wall of craggy gray rocks. They looked like the stones that bordered the bluffs: sun-bleached and crusted with salt. They were large, too. Not one was smaller than my head, and they were piled in layers judging by the lack of light seeping in between them.

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