Page 10 of Looking Grimm

One name would have been more than enough, but that wasn’t what I wanted to know. Why him? What made him worthy? Chosen? And where was everyone else? It would have been too convenient to find them all here, but didn’t they care about celebrating their newest member?

“What’s this?” I flicked a finger at his tattooed hand, pinning it, skull side up, to the asphalt beside him.

I smirked. Guess I had a little juice in me, after all.

Charlie’s head rolled toward his splayed, plastic-wrappedhand, then back up at me. “You know, man,” he sputtered. “You’ve got one, too.”

My pride rankled at the comparison. “Big difference,” I said. “I earned mine.” Leaning farther over him leveraged more weight on his chest and made him groan. “What’d you do?”

“Nobody’s doing anything yet. We’re holding formation. Biding time.”

If that didn’t sound like Grimm’s militarized bullshit…

“Biding time for what?” I snapped.

“The war.”

I barked a laugh. “Not gonna be much of a war with his four fucking people.” I didn’t include the dozen or so peons clinging on since the recruitment rally debacle. No sense in me counting them because I was certain Grimm didn’t.

“Four?” Charlie echoed. “I think it’s more like forty.”

I whistled, and an inkling of genuine concern worked its way into my mind. If that was true, Grimm’s forces now outnumbered the investigators. I could have made a few jabs about quantity versus quality, but I didn’t have much nice to say about the Capitol these days.

“Well, how’d you do it?” I asked though I wasn’t certain I wanted to know. “How’dyouearn the Hex mark out of forty-some-odd people?”

Charlie’s receding hairline scrunched. “What do you mean? We all have them now.”

Anger flared like a striking match, lighting me up on the inside and making me feel like I could breathe fire. It was an insult. A slap in the face. The incorporation of what had once been elite. People used to fight for the honor that was now being given out like hand stamps at the county fair. Donovandied for it.

Of all the vitriol I wanted to spew, the only thing I managed to get out was a muttered, “You don’t say.”

“Yeah. You just go to that tattoo parlor and ask, and the nice lady hooks you up.” Charlie wiggled under the sole of my shoe. “But you know this stuff, right? You’re top brass. Marionette?”

I worked my jaw and glared down the street to make sure no one was closing in on what I wanted to keep a private conversation.

“I’ve been out of the loop for a bit,” I said, “but I think it’s time I got back in.”

Charlie gave another struggling squirm. “Well, it’s a…” His voice sounded strained, wrung out of air as I shifted more of my weight onto him. “It’s an honor. You’re the first of the higher-ups I’ve met, and I gotta say I’ve always been a fan.” His ensuing smile was weak but genuine.

Safe to assume then that they weren’t talking about me. At least not in the circles Charlie traveled in. It was hard not to see it as another slight, or maybe Grimm was controlling the narrative, pretending his prodigal son hadn’t ventured so far from home.

Charlie’s amiable expression faltered as he asked, “Would you mind letting me up now?”

So, he hadn’t taken Donovan’s spot. Not officially. But the tattoo staring up at the sky bugged me all the same.

“Sorry, Charlie,” I replied. “That’s not in the cards.”

It must have confused him when I lifted my foot from his chest, but I didn’t leave him wondering long. Pivoting, I moved my raised boot over his face, then braced to drive it down.

Charlie yelped, and Ripley’s voice rose over the sound of the other man’s sharp cry.

“I thought you were joking!” he exclaimed from where he stood on the sidewalk, quickly closing in. “Taking a piss. You’re taking the piss, all right.” His volume dropped to a grumble as he gestured to Charlie. “Let him go.”

I paused, poised to deliver the blow. “He’s seen me now. I have to kill him.”

Ripley gave a shove that knocked me off balance. I staggered aside, leaving Charlie flat on his back and whimpering.

Ripley’s shaggy hair had fallen in his face, and he blew out a breath to clear his line of sight to me. I hardly needed the added view of his scorn. “Everyone’s seen you, Fitch. You’re the poster child for crime. And what did he do, anyway?” He bumped Charlie with the toe of his ratty Converse. “It’s not like you to take a life unless you’re told to.”

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