Page 81 of Looking Grimm

As he shrunk away, I towered over him. “I thought I was nothingbuta killer,” I said.

“Tothem!” Grimm exclaimed. “Not to me! To me, you’re—”

“A traitor?” I cut in. “A disappointment? A mistake?”

This was it. A moment twelve years in the making. Nothing and no one stood in my way. Grimm would die the way he always should have: groveling and begging for the mercy he never gave me.

“Fitch…”

Usually, I hated the way he said my name, but this was different. It had none of the usual disdain, none of the sharpness.

He shifted again, starting from his feet and movingupward. His hair shortened, and the signs of aging left his face until he looked younger than me. More than that, he lookedlikeme. We had the same sharp nose and hollow cheeks, but his hair was dark and his eyes were doe brown and pleading as they fixed on me.

Donovan.

I should have been furious, but the sight of my little brother tugged at my heart.

My shoulders slumped through a long exhale.

“Hey, Donnie,” I said quietly.

Of course, it wasn’t him, but damn it if I didn’t want it to be.

He relaxed, too, taking on that slouch he’d picked up during his teen years. When he smiled, it was so nearly right that I couldn’t help myself.

I stepped forward and threw my arms around him, pulling him in close. My chin rested on his shoulder, and I let my eyes flutter closed. I didn’t hug him enough when he was alive. We used to all the time when he was a kid, but things changed. We changed.

After a few seconds, I gave him a squeeze.

“Thanks,” I whispered. “For letting me see him again.”

I slid my left hand up to palm the back of his head, pinning him against me. For this, I didn’t need my own magic. Grimm had given me a power I could use against him; the same power Donovan had employed to earn his way into the gang.

The Bloody Hex was meant to be a curse bestowed on our enemies, but I knew it was a curse on us, as well.

Tingling heat raced down my arm to thread between my fingers. Grimm struggled in my grip as I bound him up withmental ropes, feeling his hair grow to the usual shoulder-length locks. His beard filled in against my cheek, and I held him tighter still.

My tattoo pulsed as it pushed energy through my skin.

Grimm garbled an indistinct sound, then went rigid as warm blood began to flow out of him.

When I released him, he sagged against the desk, leaking bright red from his eyes and ears. His eyes rolled to white as he slumped forward and crumpled to the floor in a thrashing convulsion. I moved aside, dodging his flailing limbs and a growing puddle of blood.

I retreated all the way to the displaced rolling chair. I dropped into it and tucked up with my knees beneath my chin and my arms hugged around my shins. There, I sat and watched the man who raised me—the monster who made me—breathe his last on the slick marble floor.

I wasn’t sure howlong I sat there after Grimm stopped twitching, after I cried my eyes dry and the puddle of blood on the floor turned burgundy red and thick. I stayed balled up in the desk chair until my joints ached and my ass went numb.

It was only after all that when Holland and Briggs barreled through the entry with their pistols at the ready. It took them seconds to spot me, but I said nothing to their arrival.

Holland lowered her gun as she crept closer. Her cracked sunglasses were tucked in the collar of her button-down shirt, exposing her gray eyes to roam the space. She hadn’t seen Grimm yet, and didn’t before she spoke.

“Fitch, where is he?”

I angled my gaze toward the bloody corpse at my feet.

Holland came around the desk with her expression steeled. When she lit on Grimm’s body, she holstered her pistol and crouched beside him to checkfor a pulse.

Briggs arrived hot on her heels, his head swiveling in a thorough search of the room. He spared a glance on Grimm, then came up to me.

---