Page 18 of Looking Grimm (Marionette #4)

As I sped out of downtown, Ezrah Everett’s corpse bounced along to every turn like he was shaking with laughter.

“You’re a killer,” he’d said.

He was right.

I drove because I didn’t know what else to do and kept going because I didn’t have any reason to stop. I followed highways that were so dark the Bronco’s headlights were almost snuffed out by the starless night. I bumped along country roads where only swaying grass and infrequent trees kept me company. I made it all the way to the coast and gazed across the water, haunted by my dream to take that stupid houseboat and sail away from here.

I drove until the gas gauge tipped over to empty, and a familiar two-story house peeked over the horizon. The Bitters’ End stood, its whitewashed exterior aglow in moonlight, and I drove toward it like a lost dog limping home.

The engine sputtered, nearly dry, as I coasted into the gravel lot. No cars and no customers were no good at midnight on a Friday, but I was too relieved to care as I spilled out of the Bronco and dragged myself to the front door. I was about to let myself in when a handwritten sign hung at eye level stalled me.

Out of Business.

Disbelieving, I jiggled the knob and found it locked.

I knew things were bad, but not this bad. Why hadn’t Nash told me?

I could have opened it anyway. Deadbolts weren’t difficult to maneuver. But invading that space felt like desecrating the grave of something I’d helped kill.

Because I was a killer.

“F-fuck,” I stuttered, staggering back.

Standing in the grass in front of the porch, I scanned the house with its curtains drawn and lights off.

Isha had it all wrong. Nash’s life was measurably worse because of me. I wasn’t protecting him from anything. In fact, coming here now, chauffeuring a corpse in a wanted vehicle right after having murdered Isha with my hot temper and absent self-control, the only thing I might be able to protect Nash from was myself.

It was a long walk around the Bitters’ End to the bluffs that bordered the ocean. My feet felt heavy, weighing the rest of me down so by the time I made it there, I was slouched, huddling inside my shirt and trying to maximize its meager protection from the whipping wind.

Several dozen feet below, waves crashed onto jagged rocks. Leaning forward, I looked down. The water was black, breaking in white crests and rolling with foam .

Maybe I should have stayed at the Blooming Orchid and waited for Grimm like I’d planned to. Then I could have seen his face when he discovered what I’d done. I should have finished what I started rather than running away. But I was slowly realizing when I put Isha’s dead body behind me that I wasn’t only trying to escape my guilt.

I was afraid to face the man who’d ruined my life in more ways than I could count. The person who broke then remolded me into a soldier for his war. Common sense told me Grimm couldn’t hurt me. His power was another illusion meant to deceive, but I’d spent too long convinced that defying him would lead to my death to easily overcome it now.

Dying seemed inevitable. Everyone died. Everyone I loved, I lost, and it was only fitting I should join them. On my own terms. Not running and hiding from the Capitol, not waiting for one of Grimm’s minions to cut me down for bragging rights.

Nash might not have been using me for protection, but I wanted to give that to him, and this was the only way I knew how.

My toes teetered on the cliff’s edge as the wind swirled around me.

I never did learn how to fly. But I could fall.

The waves would drag me under, and I would drown in bottomless black. It sounded scary, but I was already scared. At least this way, I knew it would end.

A chilling breeze swept up from behind, swaying me forward. I almost let it tip me over, but a flash of panic drove me backward.

I swore and reset my feet, grabbing my wrist and rubbing my fingers across the old scar there. If I hadn’t failed at this before, who might have lived? Dozens of investigators? Isha? Donovan?

“Fitch?”

Nash’s voice carried on a current of air to my ears.

I didn’t turn around. I wanted to do this for him. He’d be better off with someone else, or even alone if that’s what it came to. I couldn’t love him the way he deserved, and I wouldn’t stand in the way of his happiness.

“Fitch, what the hell?” Nash called over. “It’s freezing out here. Why didn’t you come inside?”

If I was going to jump, I needed to do it. Get it over with. But throwing myself into a watery abyss while Nash watched felt cruel. And moving any farther away from him when I wanted nothing more than to leap into his arms was impossible.

I stood as though I were mired in place until Nash arrived at my side. He wore a heavy canvas coat, and a fringe of ginger hair peeked out from under his stocking cap.

“Not so close to the edge.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “What if you fell?”

When he caught sight of my face, all sense of scolding left him. His grip on my elbow tightened, fingers digging in.

“Fitch,” he said, then repeated more forcefully, “What if you fell?”

I drew a shaky breath. “Let me do this. If I’m gone, you’ll be safe. Do you know how many lives I could have saved if I had just… died?” Tears snuck in, threatening to choke me. I was so tired of crying.

“Don’t talk like that.” Nash tugged on me, but I stayed firm .

“Even Donnie,” I continued. “He’d still be here if I… if I—”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Nash argued. “None of it. Donovan wouldn’t want you blaming yourself…”

God, he looked scared. Gaping while his hand wrenched tight around my arm. “Were you gonna jump?” he whispered.

My lips pursed, and I swallowed hard.

Nash stepped in front of me, putting himself in the narrow space between me and the bluff. The sight of his boot heels so near the crumbling edge of the cliff prompted me to retreat. I pulled him forward in a series of staggering steps, assuring myself he was far from danger before I could breathe enough to speak.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were closing the bar?” I asked.

He took a moment to reply. “How could I? You don’t answer my calls.”

The burner phone felt heavy in my pocket, full of unheard voicemails and unread texts. He should have been mad but, instead, he sounded resigned, and I hated that.

“Fitch, what’s going on?” he asked. “I saw you on the porch. Why didn’t you come in?”

He’d seen? How? Probably a hidden camera. Everybody had the damn things.

“You deserve better than me,” I muttered.

Nash’s eyes flicked aside, then sharpened in a scowl. “Can we talk inside? Away from—” he nodded toward the bluff— “that?”

My shoulders slumped, and my head hung low, muffling my voice as I said, “I warned you I’d ruin your life. ”

“Nothing’s ruined,” he replied. “Just different. And to be honest, I was ready for a change.”

The wind rushed by again, and I stuffed my hands in my jeans pockets to warm my numbing fingers.

Nash sighed and released his hold on me. “Don’t move,” he said sternly. Shrugging out of his coat, he threw it across my shoulders, then tugged the collar closed under my chin.

The residual heat in the garment eased the tightness in my chest. A last, lingering chill rattled my teeth as Nash took off his beanie and pulled it down over my ears.

Stripped down to one of his many flannel shirts and khaki pants, he ducked into my line of sight and asked, “Better?”

Tears broke free like they’d been frozen in my eyes. Now that I was thawing, they were, too.

Nash swiped his thumb through the moisture on my cheeks. His gaze traveled upward, and his fingers chased it to graze the knot on my forehead. “What happened to your head?”

“I wrecked the Bronco,” I said.

“Oh.” His face scrunched, and he looked me over in what I knew was a check for more injuries. Little chance of finding any with his coat blanketing me.

“There’s a dead body in it,” I added, my voice monotone.

“Oh,” he repeated. He’d gone very still, one hand resting on my shoulder and his eyes unfocused, lost in thought.

“It’s Ezrah Everett. I left his brother in a field. He’s dead, too.” I rambled on, unprompted, narrating the events as though they’d happened to someone far removed from me.

When I fell quiet, Nash fixed me with a look I couldn’t quite decipher .

“Not friends of yours, I take it,” he said.

It struck too close to Holland’s sniping comment about my friends and enemies, and I snapped, “Most people know better than to be friends with me. Rarely ends well.”

He didn’t react—barely blinked before responding, “Then I guess it’s a good thing we’re more than friends.”

It made me angry, like everything did. I wanted him to be angry, too. Pissed off at me for dodging his calls while his business failed, for showing up here with all my baggage and bullshit. Turning aside, I looked across the rippling ocean waves.

“Nash…” I flexed my jaw. “You shouldn’t be here right now. I wanted to be alone.”

“You want me to leave?” He raised a ginger brow.

I couldn’t bring myself to say anything in response, so I stood there, bundled in the coat that smelled like him while tear tracks dried on my cheeks.

After a lengthy pause, Nash shook his head. “No, you don’t.”

“Holland doesn’t believe me,” I said, spilling over with more of the secrets I’d been keeping. “About the investigators. They’ll find me eventually.”

Nash’s head bobbed. “I know you’re scared—”

“I killed Isha,” I interjected, needing to say it now or risk not saying it at all. “It was an accident…” Tears leaked out like a faucet with a slow drip. “She was saying things about you, about us…”

I felt silly to mention it, and I might have guessed he would ask before he said, “What things?”

Inside the coat, I wrung my hands together. “That you’ll leave me. ”

Nash hummed a low note. His hand stretched toward my side in an invitation to closeness that I didn’t want to refuse. Rather than let myself be reeled in, I squeezed my arms around my middle and wished I could disappear.

“She said as soon as Grimm’s gone, you’ll get rid of me, and I…” I choked on my own pitiful admission. If this was how I felt at the thought of losing him—frightened and lonely and so very weak—maybe I was in love, after all.

He grabbed me and stepped forward to wind his arms around me. With my head tucked under his chin and that firm, soothing pressure binding me up, I felt safe, and as near to peace as I’d ever been.

“I could never leave you, Trouble,” Nash whispered. “I’d miss you too much. My bed’s too big without you in it. I hate when you aren’t there. That’s why I want you to come home. That’s why I’ll wait for you. Because if I get to have you at the end of it all, I’ll be a lucky man.”

By the time he finished speaking, I had run out of tears. I stayed tucked with my face pressed against his shoulder while I drew wavering breaths. I couldn’t comprehend everything he said and hesitated to believe it, but I wanted to.

His response to my confessions shouldn’t have been a surprise. I’d sat across the bar from him and admitted to as much and worse over the years. He never blamed me, never turned me away, and never left. He poured me another drink and nodded along. I’d thought he was just doing his job but, looking back, there was far more to it than that.

He paid attention to me. Genuinely listened to whatever shit talk, drunken ramblings, or corny pickup lines tumbled out of my mouth. He stood up to Grimm for me, and that might have been the bravest thing I’d ever seen anyone do. I wanted to protect him because he protected me. And maybe, just maybe, I could do a better job of that by staying alive.

I was ready to go inside—to leave this place what I’d planned to do here—but a bit of unfinished business nagged at me.

Pushing back from Nash, I wiped my face on the scrubby sleeve of his coat and muttered, “About the dead guy in my car…”

He nodded without waiting for me to finish. “I have a plan for that.”