Page 17 of Looking Grimm (Marionette #4)

Letting myself in the back door of the Blooming Orchid, I nearly collided with BDSM Liv who was necking with a john. The short, balding man had a handful of Liv’s ass and his face buried in her ample cleavage, and was undisturbed by my arrival. Liv, though, locked up stiff.

Her heavily shadowed eyes stretched wide as she looked at me like I hadn’t been all over and under her in recent weeks.

“Evening, miss,” I said, effecting an almost Southern drawl. “I’m here to see the man of the house.”

In response, Liv peeled herself off the john and darted around the corner out of sight. The thunder of her footsteps ascending the stairs told me everything I needed to know. She was running to the madam to play the human version of an intruder alert.

The john stood, scowling. He adjusted himself, then shot me a look. “What the fuck, man?” he growled.

“I wouldn’t wait up if I were you,” I told him. “It’s about to get loud in here. And not in a fun way.”

Rather than heed my warning, he grunted and grabbed at his crotch again. “Yeah, whatever.”

Walking forward, I glanced across the tattoo parlor and found only one chair occupied and a single artist at work, neither of whom I recognized. The tattoo gun hummed in the background as I followed Liv to the upper level. If she was going to cry wolf, far be it from me to make her a liar.

My heart thudded slow and steady as I climbed. There were plenty of rooms to explore, but I knew the one most likely to contain what I searched for. Straight ahead, Isha’s door loomed. Grimm would be inside, reposed in the madam’s bed like he had been the last time I barged in. But tonight, I hadn’t come to talk. I’d given up on reasoning with him, just like I had with Holland. People only saw me the way they chose to, and only used me as long as I was useful. It was like I told Ezrah. I wasn’t the only one with no time for useless things, and I had no use for Grimm at all.

I tested my fingers, sending magic crackling between my digits. Isha and Grimm had scarce moments to prepare, and I would use that to my advantage. I’d been imagining this moment, or some version of it, for years.

Arriving before the door, I heard nothing from inside. Not even a whisper. I was prepared to unlock it, or rear back and kick it down, but a check of the knob found it unlocked, so I let myself in.

Isha’s room was always dark and smoky. Burning incense thickened the air with notes of sweet spice and created a cloud that gave the canopied bed and draped windows a mystical feel. I stood in the doorway, spotting the madam and BDSM Liv standing beside the armoire and staring at me.

Liv’s face paled, and she cast a glance at Isha, who fluttered her manicured fingers in a dismissive motion.

“Fitch.” Isha smiled through the succinct greeting and walked forward.

Frowning, I scanned the space again. The bed was empty, and the bathroom door stood open to reveal a vacant interior.

Before Isha made it all the way to me, I stopped her with a question. “Where is he?”

Liv skirted past the madam and me, exiting the room without so much as a squeak. In case Isha got the same idea to leave, or someone else tried to invade, I moved aside and swept a hand toward the door, closing it and setting the lock.

Isha’s dark eyes settled on me, her expression practiced and pleasant. “I don’t know who you mean,” she said.

“You’re a smart woman, Ish,” I countered. “Don’t insult yourself by playing dumb.”

Finishing her approach, Isha reached toward my face, gingerly brushing the cut on my forehead. “What happened here?”

Pain pulsed from the gash. I’d managed to clean up most of the blood, but the wound twinged in response to her touch.

I huffed a breath. “Tree jumped out in front of me.”

Putting her hands on me was akin to sinking in her claws. A gentle touch near my wound turned into her hand cupping the back of my neck, then her other arm curving around my waist. In her stilettos, she was as tall as I was and able to meet my eyes with a sultry stare.

“Do you want me to make it feel better?” she asked .

She wasn’t always like this. In fact, I thought we’d grown past it. I thought we had a rapport that went deeper than what sexual favors she could offer. But she insisted it was business, that fucking me was a job she’d been hired to do, and I knew exactly who she worked for.

I caught Isha’s forearm and twisted it away from my side. The sudden movement made her bend to relieve the pressure, and her brows furrowed.

“Where’s Grimm?” I asked in a growl. “I know he’s been staying here.”

She pinned me with a look of warning, and I released her, satisfied my point had been made.

Stepping back, she smoothed her palms down her sides. “Someone has a one-track mind.” She sniffed. “Fine. What do you want me to tell you, Fitch? You can see for yourself he’s not here now.” She gestured to the room.

I crossed my arms. “Know when he’ll be back? I’ve got all night.”

“You’re welcome to wait. Far be it from me to stop you.” She wouldn’t stop me because she couldn’t. Isha was smart, and she knew better than to pick a fight she couldn’t win.

Padding across the dense pile rug, I rounded the bed and flopped down onto it despite the thought of laying in Grimm’s cum-stained sheets making me want to gag.

Isha climbed in opposite me. She crawled across the feather mattress to sit with her back against the carved wooden headboard. Opening the bedside table, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes. I forbid myself from asking for one or even getting my own out of my pocket as we fell into silence.

Without me looking her way or saying a word, Isha lit two cigarettes and handed me one. I took it, grudging but also relieved, and dragged down a deep inhale.

Isha sighed through a wisping trail of smoke. “Then we’ll wait.”

Eleven years earlier…

Donovan stretched out on the fainting couch across from me, trailing his finger through the velvet upholstery to draw stick-figure pictures. I slouched, picking at the frayed cuff of my shirt sleeve while the endless buzzing of the tattoo gun rang in my ears. It reminded me too vividly of the stinging, burning feeling of the needle digging into my hand, drawing the skull and thorny vines now permanently inked there.

My tendons seemed to pulse at the memory, and I curled my fingers into a fist.

I didn’t want to be here.

I found a loose thread in my shirt fabric and pulled it, unraveling a small patch of the faded gray sweatshirt that was nearly worn through. I hadn’t grown much since the Bloody Hex took me in. There was barely enough food to sustain me at the size I was. What little we got, or I stole from the motel vending machine, went to Donovan. He was an inch taller in just a few months, and his feet were filling up his sole pair of tennis shoes.

At home, we’d had plenty of everything. Clothes without holes and shoes that fit. Three meals every day, with favorite dishes brought back on repeat. As much as anything, I missed my mom’s cooking. I hadn’t eaten anything that didn’t come from a package in months.

The new hole in my sleeve was almost in the right spot to wiggle my thumb through. I stretched and worked it out, so focused I didn’t notice the madam approaching until she lowered herself onto the sofa beside me.

“You’re quiet tonight.” Her leg brushed against mine as she crowded in.

She always wore so little clothes. Everything was lacey and cut low or high to show as much of her tawny skin as possible. I tried not to stare as she reached over with a small cloth in her hand and touched it to my swollen lip.

Rubbing alcohol, I knew, from the smell and the sting. A year ago, I might have flinched from the pain, but such slight discomfort had become relative.

My injuries were from an argument with Grimm before we got here. He’d decided the best way to shut my mouth was to punch it, and I was bound to end up missing teeth if I didn’t learn better.

Avoiding the sight of the madam’s plunging neckline, I looked around her at Donovan, who was busily brushing the velvet into dark and light stripes.

“You can talk to me, you know,” Isha said. “About anything.” Her hand moved to cup my sore jaw as she seemed to study the bruise developing there.

I wondered what I could really tell her. About Grimm and the others. About my family. About being trapped here, there, and everywhere. But that wasn’t what she meant. She was just like them, and she already knew.

“You’re handsome,” she cooed, leaning so close I thought our lips might touch. Then she pulled back and smiled. “I bet you hear that all the time. Such a pretty boy.”

My mother told me I was handsome. She made a fuss especially when we got dressed up for Capitol events, putting me in starched shirts with button-up collars that choked me and shiny shoes that pinched my toes. The girls in my class at school blushed and smiled when I waved at them, so they must have thought I was cute, too. But Capitol parties and high school were part of an increasingly distant past. I hadn’t felt anything but dirty and ugly for a long time now.

Isha leaned forward and set the rag on the low coffee table. Then she drew closer, pressing her body fully against mine. She was warm and smelled like cloves and something else that tickled my nose. I started to shift away, but she draped her arm around my shoulders and tethered me to her.

I met her eyes at last, swallowing past the lump that had formed in my throat. She felt good. She looked good, too. Of course, I’d noticed, but I didn’t think too much about it. She was a grown woman, after all, as old as some schoolteachers I’d had.

“You know what I do, don’t you dear?” she asked. “What we do here?”

The angle of her gaze indicated the floor above us, an area I had yet to visit. I’d heard the men bragging, saying crude things and words I’d been told I should never use to describe a woman. I understood why they came here week after week, and I also understood they left happier than when they arrived, like when they got drunk but different.

I nodded mutely.

She touched my face again. Her fingers were soft and smooth as they caressed my cheek. “Would you like to do those things?”

I blanched as something tingled low in my belly. Breaths crowded in, making me feel a little dizzy as I stammered through a reply. “I haven’t ever… you know.”

Her burgundy lips formed a smile. “Of course, you haven’t. You weren’t a man, then. But you are now. You should enjoy the things men do.” She spoke like it was a secret, the dirty kind.

Leaving my face, she slipped her hand between my thighs and curled her fingers around the bulge in my jeans.

I didn’t feel like a man; I felt too much the opposite. More like a small, helpless child, overpowered and overruled at every turn by people meaner and more domineering than I could ever be. A man wouldn’t have bruises on his face from Grimm’s angry fist. He wouldn’t spend his days hungry and his nights in bed while his little brother sobbed against him, crying for Mom and Dad.

Donovan needed me to be a man. I needed to be, so I didn’t have to worry about the other, real men hurting us anymore.

Sweat prickled at my temples. I glanced upward as though I could see through the ceiling to the area above. Then I remembered Donovan, a few feet away and possibly watching this whole scene. He’d been joined by another woman who worked here, a redhead in a black bra and panties. She had tugged my brother onto her lap and listened while he explained his drawings.

Isha must have caught my attention drifting because she leaned into my line of sight. “Don’t worry about Donnie. My girls will take care of him while I take care of you.” She stood, then turned and held out a hand for me to take. “Come along, little love. Let me teach you some things.”

Half an hour dragged by in tense quiet. Every second was haunted by memories of this place and of time spent with Isha. I needed to focus on Grimm, but there was a more immediate enemy right in front of me.

“Did you ever care at all, or did you just fuck me because Grimm told you to?” The thought slipped out of me, full of spite.

Isha stared back blankly. “What brought that on?”

It started that night when she led me to this very room and gave me an education in meaningless connection, in exploitation. She taught me things, certainly. She showed me how to give all of myself to someone without giving anything at all. Or maybe I’d given so much over the years that I had nothing left, even for myself.

I laughed bitterly, thinking of Nash confessing his feelings for me, and how the idea of something as genuine as a relationship felt foreign. I should have been desperate for it, lonely as I was, but love was a language I didn’t speak.

“You really messed me up,” I told Isha, almost laughing at how pathetic it all was. “You trained me like I was one of your whores. Now I don’t know how to be anything else.”

She stared at me, unmoved. If anything, she looked a bit perturbed. “I didn’t train you or teach you anything you didn’t want to know.”

When I opened my mouth to argue, she clucked her tongue in a call for silence. Our cigarettes were both spent, and now she busied her hands fidgeting with a tassel on the corner of an embroidered throw pillow.

“You’re a powerful man, Fitch,” she mused. “You were powerful then.”

The way I came into the gang was no mystery. I was sure Grimm spread the word to Isha of exactly how dangerous I was. An accidental killer at only fourteen. But that accomplishment—and I hesitated to call it that—never earned me respect. Only fear.

My head shook long before I spoke. “I was a kid who lost everything. Then you took all that I had left.”

I consented to all of it. Grew to ask for and expect it. I even learned to enjoy it. Looking back, though, I realized Isha was no better than Avery, leveraging her age and authority over me. I didn’t really have a choice, only the illusion of it.

“I gave you experience,” Isha argued, visibly bristling. “I gave you pleasure without unnecessary entanglements.” She pulled the pillow to her chest like a shield. “Love makes people weak, and you needed to be strong.”

I pushed off the bed and stood, trying to settle the angry energy humming inside me.

“ Grimm wanted me to be strong,” I said. “I just wanted to survive.”

Isha caught my gaze while maintaining a self-righteous smirk. “You did better than that.”

That only showed how little she knew because I was objectively worse. Worse for having to grow up too soon and being defined by what other people wanted to make of me. And I wasn’t strong, either. Not lately.

Leaning over the bed, I planted both hands on the mattress and glowered at the madam. “Tell me where he is.”

“You know I can’t.” She turned and rolled off the other side, standing so her sheer lace gown fell smoothly over her hips. With her back to me, she moved into the bathroom, flipping on the light and starting to close the door.

I caught it with a wave of force and flung it open so hard the handle sank into the interior wall.

Isha’s dark eyes flashed with fear as she whirled around.

I beat her to speaking. “Because it’s Grimm above all else, right? It always has been.”

She retreated into the en suite, stopping when she ran into the sink counter. The absent light cast her features in shadow.

“You’d give up me, you’d give up Donnie,” I continued, “just to save your own skin. Just so Grimm doesn’t get mad.” With every word, I came closer until I stood in the bathroom doorway, barring her inside.

Isha pushed away from the counter to stand straight. Tension strung her body tight. “What would you have me do, Fitch?” she asked. “I don’t have the same luxury as your bartender friend, keeping you in his hip pocket. He could break ties with the gang because he had your protection.”

The mention of Nash startled me. Our city was small, and our criminal social circle was even smaller. It wasn’t unlikely that she knew him, or at least knew of him. But the details about him banning the Hex from the bar must have come directly from Grimm.

But it wasn’t her knowledge of Nash or his recent break from the gang that troubled me the most.

“That’s not…” I frowned. “What do you mean?”

My confusion seemed to embolden her. All sense of alarm wiped from her face, replaced by a cold fury I’d only seen a handful of times.

“I’m aware I’ve been replaced,” she snarled. “Is that why you want to know if I care about you? If I love you or ever did? You think he does? You think you love him?”

Her wrath swayed me back, but I kept my feet firmly planted as I replied, “I want to.”

The madam pressed forward. “And that’s made you weak.” She gestured to me. “Standing here sniveling, I’ve never seen you so defeated, and the battle hasn’t even begun.”

I wasn’t sniveling. Not even teary for once, but the accusation stung. If I shifted, I could have glimpsed myself in the gilded mirror on the wall behind her—see what she saw—but my eyes stayed locked on hers.

“He cares about me, Ish,” I said. “More than Grimm ever cared about you.”

She tossed her head, and her black locks brushed her bare shoulders. “Of course, he wants you to think that. Nicholas needs you. So long as you stand in the way, he’s safe from Grimm’s wrath. I’m sure he’d say whatever it takes to keep you close.”

Her confidence shot holes through mine, and I felt myself shrinking from her accusations.

“It’s not like that…”

The sound of her laughter echoed in the tiled room. “Whatever you say.” She gave a flippant wave. “But consider what you’re about to do. If you eliminate Grimm, your would-be lover won’t need you anymore. He wants to run an honest business. How can he do that with the likes of you lurking about? ”

I blinked, almost disbelieving, but not enough to outright reject what she said. It hurt, like Holland’s nonchalance about the danger I was in. Nash may have been one of the only people who cared if I lived or died. To think he only felt that way because it served him, to think he was using me, too…

“Stop it,” I told Isha. “You don’t know…”

She kept smiling like she was enjoying this. And she knew me too well not to go for the kill when she said, “Soon, he will be rid of you, and you will be alone.”

“Stop!” I repeated, my voice leaping into a shout.

“It’s the way of the world, Fitch,” Isha insisted, matching my volume and fervor. She was fully in my face now, white teeth somehow sharp behind her soft lips as she snapped, “Everyone needs something. Until they don’t.”

I wanted to get away from her, to escape the truths I couldn’t accept but also couldn’t deny. I wanted her not to be so cruel. Not to ruin the one good thing I had left in my life.

Grimm wanted me dead because he couldn’t have me anymore. Isha just wanted me miserable.

If it would have done any good, I would have covered my ears to block her out. But her words were in my mind now, fueling fears that had plagued me. I was already so alone, so dreadfully lonely, and I believed killing Grimm would fix that. Without him haunting me, I could have peace. I could have a relationship with someone who loved me. Unless that someone was like everyone else in my life, destined to tire of me and leave.

Isha’s smug look was more than I could stand, so I shoved her. I put my hands on her chest and pushed. It shouldn’t have been hard enough to hurt her.

She flew backward, propelled by feelings more than force. Magic sprung loose from my fingers and slammed into her, driving her back until she hit the sink counter again. This time, I heard something crack.

The wall behind the sink shook, and the mirror slipped off its hook, falling onto the polished brass faucet with a shattering crash. Isha’s body bent, then contorted at an impossible angle. Her top half folded over into the sink basin, and her bottom half went limp. Everything fell in a thumping, clunking, glittering spray of broken bones and glass.

As shocking as the commotion was, the silence that followed was infinitely more so. I stood, gawking at the madam’s crumpled body. Her head twisted toward me and her dark eyes were glassy. Gone.

A cold chill gripped me, so abruptly frigid that I shivered.

“Ish?” I asked the quiet.

No response.

My hands trembled as I stared down at them, aghast.

I didn’t mean to hurt her.

Didn’t mean to kill her.

Didn’t want to be here.

So, I left.