Page 57

CHAPTER 57

REDLEY

“Fuck, my cock is so hard.”

I refuse to acknowledge the psychopath at my side as I stare down at the remains of the Big Bad Villain in my life, the man who took away all the people who loved me. He may not have started this, but he surely enjoyed his part in it.

I’m worried whatever I did to Carver will seem like nothing but hypocrisy compared to what I have in store for Wolf. He’s every bit the killer his father was. He’s just not as cruel, not as personally responsible for my pain. It shouldn’t matter. I know this is a double standard, but I guess that doesn’t matter either. I won’t be with him, but I care far too much about Wolf to cut him apart slow and painful. He doesn’t deserve to profit off the Littles any longer, but he’s right. I love him.

“You liked that, huh, Muffin?” he asks with a wickedly sexual tone.

An excited chill runs down my spine as I relive it. I’ve spent so long focused on this revenge, and I always thought Wolf’s kindness to me that night would interrupt the eventual pleasure of spilling this blood, but it turns out this is the purest form of enjoyment I’ve ever experienced, better than sex with Wolf because I don’t feel like a filthy little betrayer. And I am turned on.

“You know I killed your father, right?” I ask as I look at him, and find nothing but intense yellow eyes and a look of hunger.

“I killed your bitch, Granny.”

“Shut your mouth, Wolf, she’s buried right there.” But my chastisement is only halfhearted. Of all the things I’m angry and hurt about, Granny’s death has fallen very low on the list. I guess in reality, you don’t have to mourn and grieve people who treat you terribly if you don’t actually want to.

“And you dumped his guts on the ground.” He shrugs.

A smile passes between us, and I’m so high off finally killing Carver, I nearly forget this isn’t some lovely little moment between Wolf and me. We’re not a couple. Never going to be one. As I’m turning over my conflicting emotions, Wolf looks back at the grave I was in the process of digging up, and the reality of the situation comes flying back to me.

“Oh.” The weight of the realization nearly takes me down.

“What?” he asks, expression falling as he processes my reaction.

“You’re here for the deeds.”

A long moment of silence stretches between us.

“I’m not here for the deeds. I’m here to save you. Fuck the deeds, Redley, they’re all gone. It’s just us. I don’t care about anything but you.”

I swallow hard. “I really wish I could believe that.”

He takes one last long look at me, the silence passing only so he can decide something. Wolf places a kiss on my lips.

“You do whatever the hell you want with those damn deeds if they’re even in there—burn them, sell your land, I don’t give a damn—but once you do it, come find me because I’m tired of waiting for what I actually want in life.”

“And what the hell do you want, Wolf?” I ask.

“I want you.”

He jogs off before I can respond, and I sit on the ground beside the dug-up grave and his father’s dead body for a very long time before I begin to even consider the idea that he left me alone when I know he never does.

The sun is about an hour from setting when I decide it’s now or never. Even if he is waiting in the woodline for me, I’ll have to leave for the night eventually, and if he was lying, he could just come back then. Hell, he could have just killed me for them, but he didn’t.

If he’s trying to screw with my head, it’s working. I finish carefully clearing away the bits of dirt and rot from the lid of the coffin before cracking it open. The old metal lid breaks, brittle and rusted from the time underground.

It’s a good thing I’ve seen so much death, or the sight of the bare skeleton might upset me. They only had natural fibers back in the day, so whatever they buried him in is long gone. His bones are oddly pretty, eerie, sure, but striking, and I'm relieved that great-great-granddaddy doesn’t stink anymore. Thick fear fills my throat. What if the deeds are just as rotten?

At first, I’m disappointed. There isn’t anything in here but some old bones, and if there was at some point? Well, they're long gone. At least I killed Carver. At least I know now that I’m done, and I can leave. What Wolf does here doesn’t matter because I don’t have it in me to act against him. As I'm taking a second look just to be sure, I spot something near the foot bones. Down in the bottom of the coffin sits a small and feminine metal box. On the top, the name Netta is carved into the finish.

I pull it out, wiping off dirt, dust, and flakes of rust before flipping open the little latch, and then the lid. Sure enough, the deeds are inside, but it’s only one deed, along with a letter from my great-great-grandma.

To whomever finds this deed,

If you’re my kin, I’m hoping you do right by us.

If you’re the one who did my Clarence in, may God curse you to hell and more for what you’ve done.

And if this Devil Wolf was real, well God help us all.

Netta

I unfold the deed next and blink rapidly as I read it. This can’t be right. This has to be a mistake. To my understanding, I’ve only ever owned two large properties, Granny’s and my parents', and while they take up nearly half the mountain…

There’s no way. The deed, singular, has to be wrong because there’s no way I own this whole mountain, the whole town of Grimm Groves. Why would we let other people build and settle on our land for free?

I’m forced to wonder just how much old Badgley was able to convince Netta of. Clearly, she never fully trusted him, but he shaped the entire history of our mountain and family. Was it one of the Littles who pieced out our land and let people settle here, or was this something the Badgleys made happen too?

I just don’t have all the answers, and I don’t care anymore.

The man I wanted dead is gone. I can’t kill Wolf for anything, and I’m done. I left that big-wide world for my small-town justice, and now I have more than what I needed. It’s time to get the hell out of here and see what else the world has to offer.

“I’m getting the fuck out of Grimm Groves,” I tell the mountain air. “I don’t care if any or all of it’s mine. I’m done.”