Page 16 of Looking Grimm (Marionette #4)

After my talk with Holland, I took the time to rearrange. Now I was driving with obnoxious Ethan strapped upside down to the Bronco’s front fender, and his airheaded brother anchored to the seat beside me, no longer gagged and taking advantage of his newfound ability to cuss me out.

“We’re not telling you shit, you… you piece of shit!” Ezrah sputtered, wriggling against the seatbelt that wound around his slim torso.

The windows were rolled down, flooding the car’s interior with fresh air and the sounds of Ethan’s shrill screams. He got louder every time I hit a pothole, so I aimed for those now, shaking the whole vehicle with rattling jolts over and over.

I steered with one hand, taking turns that led me to the fringes of town. It was dark and unpopulated, somewhere I wouldn’t be noticed by well-intentioned citizens or the Capitol’s traffic cameras.

“If you aren’t useful, then you’re useless,” I told Ezrah, “and I don’t waste time on useless things. So, you may want to rethink your strategy here.”

Ezrah huffed. If his arms weren’t broken and bound up in his seatbelt, he probably would have crossed them over his chest. “We’re dead no matter what,” he growled. “You’re a killer, Marionette. That’s where this has been going from the start.”

His certainty grated on me, and I stomped the accelerator to the floor. “Fair,” I said, raising my voice over the engine’s roar. “Not untrue. But why rush into that? Let’s carpe diem. Seize the day. Or the next…” I glanced at the dashboard clock. “Five minutes.”

The timer was for me, a light at the end of this tunnel of torment. My better judgment screamed at me to stop before I did something I couldn’t come back from, but it was already too late for that.

“Then what, huh?” Ezrah sassed. “You gonna snap our necks and leave us out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“It’s one town, dumbass,” I retorted. “There’s not enough space to have a middle of nowhere. But yeah. A field or something. Let the buzzards find you after you start to rot.”

Ethan’s howls persisted from outside. I wondered if that part of my plan hadn’t backfired, as I felt more bothered by his cries than even Ezrah seemed to be. But when the next fissure in the pavement rattled the car, Ethan yelled, and Ezrah cringed.

I needed him to care. I needed him to worry and hurt. I knew that bond, that sense of obligation, and I could maximize it .

“Actually, that’s not true.” My teeth flashed in a feral grin. “I might snap your neck, but your brother out there is in prime position for an accident. Maybe I’ll run him into a tree. There’s a big, fat one over there.” I jerked the wheel hard to the right, veering off the road and bumping into a field. Tall grass bent and broke under the Bronco’s wheels, raking over Ethan’s face and making him scream all the more.

It was the best torture I could think of. I would make Ezrah listen to his brother suffer. Watch him die. It was the most vicious agony I knew how to inflict. A reality I would do or say anything to avoid—or undo.

“Yeah, right.” Ezrah snorted, feigning nonchalance despite the sheen of sweat on his face. “You wouldn’t wreck your own fuckin’ car.”

I nodded. “You’re right, I wouldn’t. But this is my brother’s car.” I slapped my palm against the dash. “And he doesn’t need it anymore.”

Ethan bellowed from outside, though he must have been spitting mouthfuls of grass. My hands wrenched around on the wheel, knuckles stretching the skin.

“You’re insane!” Ezrah shouted.

“Yes, and?” I snapped back at him. “Let’s treat this like an improv session. Keep the conversation going.”

Wind whooshed in my ears and chapped my cheeks as I strained to see across the field as the headlights beamed into the growing darkness. The tree loomed ahead, a massive, bare-branched monster that would put a hell of a dent in the Bronco’s front end. And Ethan Everett’s body.

Ezrah squirmed in his seat. After a brief struggle, his shoulders slumped, and his face fell. “Look, just, just get it over with already,” he said. “It’s been days. Put us out of our misery.”

“Maybe I will,” I replied. “Or maybe I’ll seize the next four minutes and make it fucking hurt. First, you can watch your brother die, then we’ll drive around with his corpse as a goddamn hood ornament while I break you into pieces.”

He was tense and trembling. With rage or fear, it didn’t matter. His lips peeled back in a snarl as he said, “You’re a bastard.”

“Yes, and?” I repeated. “Come on, dickwad. Gimme something to work with.”

He knew what I wanted and keeping his boss’s secrets couldn’t be worth all this. I should have told him Grimm didn’t care about him. The gang wouldn’t be bothered to send help or stage a rescue. They were a cruel, heartless bunch and, as we tore through the field with Ethan’s legs kicking the air at the end of the car hood, I realized I was more like them than I ever meant to be.

I’d gone quiet, and Ethan had given up wailing, so Ezrah’s voice warred only with the wind as he asked, “What are you gonna do to Grimm if you find him?”

I chewed my lip, craving a cigarette or the rest of the whiskey Ripley had dumped out. “You said it yourself: I’m a killer.” My tattooed fingers ached as they ratcheted down on the steering wheel. “So, I’ll kill him. But I’m gonna make him wish he’d killed me first.”

He deserved the regrets that plagued me. My guilt and shame should have been his to bear. All the bullshit and baggage Ripley thought I should heap on Nash belonged at Grimm’s feet. Or on his head. Heavy enough to crush him.

I turned back toward the sprawling oak in the near distance. The sight of its broad trunk spurred Ezrah to speak .

“He’s staying at the Orchid. With the madam.”

The confession struck me like a slap in the face. I was being sent back to where I started, where I left Charlie’s body as a message I had hoped Grimm would receive. Little wonder he didn’t miss it dumped at his front door.

“Of course, he is.” I had the information I wanted, but I didn’t slow down. Didn’t steer away. We careened toward the tree trunk at highway speed, and I never moved my foot off the gas.

“If you hit it going this fast, you’ll kill us all!” Ezrah yelped, writhing against his bonds.

Would that be so bad? He wanted me to end their misery. I’d been miserable for half my life.

He cursed me again, shrinking in his seat and away from the tree as it drew impossibly close. Ethan’s shrieks began anew as he was faced with the inevitable.

I had fleeting seconds to decide whether to swerve away, and I wasted them thinking about facing Grimm and getting revenge. For Donovan. For myself. I thought about wanting to die because everyone did. That was how my story would end. It was the only way I would get to truly go home.

I meant to hit the tree. Some part of me needed to. But with no time to spare, I remembered Nash waiting for me to come back, loving me in spite of everything, and I jerked hard on the wheel. The Bronco veered, shuddering and tilting as the tires skipped across the grass.

And then the world exploded .

I came to slumped against the steering wheel. My face and chest ached, and my right eye was gummed closed. Rubbing at it found my forehead sticky with blood from a gash that shot pain through my skull when my fingers brushed across it.

Hissing a breath, I tugged up the hem of my shirt and daubed at my face until I could see more clearly.

The headlights beamed into the darkness ahead, showing swaying grass and a blue-black sky. It was almost serene, far different from the carnage in the car beside me. We’d hit the tree on the passenger side, caving in the door and crushing Ezrah’s bound body. The glass was broken and spiderwebbed from a splotch of blood where his head must have cracked it.

Ethan remained strapped to the hood, twitching. I could have let him live. Could have dumped him here and let him find his own way home. But survival was sometimes crueler than death, so I sent out a probing thought that sunk into his spine and severed it. He fell deathly still.

That bit of magic added a new beat to my thundering headache, and I grimaced.

This was a hell of a way to learn that the Bronco didn’t have airbags. I must have hit my head on the wheel, and the seatbelt was cutting into my ribs. Might have broken a few. The engine sputtered and grumbled. Still running. With any luck, still drivable.

Another flick of magic opened the driver’s door. I unbuckled my seatbelt, then spilled out onto the ground. Finding my feet, I staggered around the front quarter panel and put my quivering fingers to work untying the electrical cords that secured Ethan’s body. When they finally fell away, the dead twin dropped in a heap.

Adrenaline had me shaking and breathing hard as I clambered back into the driver’s seat. I glanced over at Ezrah, who was thoroughly tangled in his seatbelt.

With pain protesting my every move, I didn’t have the wherewithal to deal with freeing him. Fine. He could keep me company. Not that I expected much in the way of conversation.

I leaned back to dig into my pocket for my smokes. My hands were unsteady, which made lighting up a challenge, but a worthwhile one. With a cigarette in my mouth and the nicotine hitting just right, I could think clearly. More than that, I remembered what Ezrah had told me. Grimm was staying at the Blooming Orchid, keeping Isha’s bed warm.

At this time of night, the Orchid was bound to be bustling with all manner of clientele. It was also as good a chance as any to catch Grimm at his new home. Turning the rearview mirror, I checked my reflection for the second time today. No improvements. If anything, the bloody gash on my head worsened an already bad situation.

I didn’t need to look pretty for Grimm, but I didn’t want him to watch me drag ass into the whorehouse, battered and half-dead. Not that he hadn’t seen me that way and worse over the years. He never seemed to mind.

Cranking the wheel all the way to the left, I shifted into drive. The Bronco made a gritty, crunching sound as it pulled away from the battle-scarred tree. When the car rolled forward, the front right tire bumped over Ethan’s discarded body, and the back end followed suit.

In the passenger seat, Ezrah’s head bounced along to every ridge and divot as I retraced the tire tracks through the field. Bumping onto the edge of the road, I stepped hard on the gas. The Blooming Orchid was about fifteen minutes from here, but I bet myself I could make it in ten. Then I could park the Bronco curbside, dead body, dents, and all, strut up to Grimm and finish what I’d started the night my parents died.

I’d come so close before and failed. This time, I felt better about my odds due to one critical difference: Donovan wasn’t around to stop me.