Page 84 of Looking Grimm

“You may be interested to know that I’m ending things with Preston,” she said.

Her casual tone threw me, braced as I was for a doom and gloom discussion of my not-so-bright future. I glanced at the diamond ring glinting on her left hand. She fidgeted with it, spinning it absently around the base of her finger.

All I could manage in response was a barely audible, “Oh?”

She nodded. “I think I’d like a chance to have something more… meaningful.”

“You deserve that,” I said. I meant it.

“So do you.” Holland’s attention drifted again to Nash and Briggs. “Though, it looks like you may already have it. He’s not just a bartender, is he?”

I took the chance to stare at Nash, looking him over from his tousled ginger hair to his plaid shirt. I ended on his face, with his warm brown eyes and the dimples he got every time he smiled. He was gorgeous, and he took care of me, and I would never know how I got so damn lucky.

My cheeks warmed with a damning blush. “I think he’s my boyfriend.”

“Youthink?” Holland teased.

I crossed my arms and shrugged. “It’s taking some getting used to.” I ducked my head into my shoulder, waiting for the heat and color to fade before I muttered, “Look, if you’re gonna arrest me—”

“I’m not going to arrest you,” she cut in. “I just… I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”

Strain cut lines across her face as she considered. Finally, her head tipped toward me, and she fixed me with an earnestexpression.

“What doyouwant, Fitch?” she asked. “I’m open to suggestions.”

I couldn’t remember the last time someone asked me that; at least, someone with the ability to provide what I asked for. It felt too dangerous to hope for much beyond survival, and I could hardly ask for forgiveness. At the end of everything, so much had changed, but a few things remained the same.

I was still a villain in the Capitol’s eyes; still the murderer Marionette to any stranger on the street. Holland was right in that I wasn’t safe here. Even if she set me free, my steps would forever be dogged by do-gooder citizens with an axe to grind.

Watching Briggs and Nash carry on, I remembered what the older man told me:“You are a remarkable young man.”It was familiar.

I’d had a similar conversation with Isha months ago, before Donovan’s twentieth birthday. I told her what I would do if I had the same freedoms as my human brother. What I wanted for Donovan was the same thing I wanted for myself; the thing Isha informed me I could never have.

“I want to be unremarkable,” I said.

Holland frowned, confused, until I explained.

“I wanna leave this town and everything in it. Be an unremarkable man with an unremarkable life.”

It sounded like bliss.

She started to protest with a meandering, “I don’t know how…” Then her brows arched up in realization. “The safehouse. The one I lined up for Donnie…” She flashed a briefly remorseful look before concluding, “It’s yours if you wantit.”

The declaration stole my breath, leaving Holland ample time to tag on, “But that means you’d have to give it all up. Your name, your reputation…”

My propensity for bad behavior.

“I’m trusting you, Fitch,” she continued. “This deal is for the man I saw here today. That’s who I’m willing to send into the world. Am I making myself clear?”

I nodded long before I found my voice, and my head kept bobbing until I thought to ask, “Can he…?” I looked over at Nash. “Can he come with me?”

Holland’s grin held a hint of mischief. “That’s between you two. Asking him to move in with you would make things pretty official.”

My blush returned with fiery intensity. I stared at Nash so hard he must have felt it because he glanced over his shoulder, questioning at first, then easing into a smile.

I couldn’t wait.

It ended the wayI knew it would. Death was the conclusion of every story. But, as I stood near the pile of turned dirt marked with a shiny new headstone, I wondered how I’d managed to survive the end of my story and start a new one.

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