Page 2 of Looking Grimm (Marionette #4)

I was running out of non-plaid options when raiding Nash’s wardrobe, leaving today’s ensemble a bottom-of-the-barrel grab of an oversized sweatshirt and Crayola red gym shorts. After stopping in the bathroom to splash water on my stubbled face and drag a comb through my tangled blond locks, I stumbled down the spiral staircase and padded barefoot into the bar.

The Bitters’ End wasn’t open at such an early hour, so I didn’t expect customers. But, even if I had, I never would have expected the towering man in a business suit who stood by the counter. He turned to my approach.

“Briggs?” The name squeaked out of me.

Nash bustled by, pushing a mop across the already spotless wood floor.

I caught him with a mental loop and dragged him back a staggered step. “Since when are investigators welcome in here?” I hissed.

Nash’s amber-brown eyes fixed on mine. “Since you nearly became one.”

Bristling, I released him and faced the older man watching me with the most pleasant expression his sharp, sternly-wrinkled features could manage.

Despite Briggs’s apparently good humor, I found myself immediately suspicious. Had Maximus or Holland sent him here? It would be quite the knife to bury in my back: ordering my arrest at the hands of my father’s old partner. And Briggs had always been a company man, I didn’t doubt he would follow a command once given, even if it pained him.

I walked forward, sober enough to keep a straight line and upright posture as I came up to the line of barstools where Willem Briggs stood, offering a handshake.

“Fitch.” His smile eased my mounting anxiety. Clasping my hand in his, he pulled me against his chest for a back-thumping hug.

I remained rigid, suspicious, and self-conscious about my disheveled appearance. My bathroom sink brush-up had done little to mask the days since my last shower and the liquor already on my breath.

When he released me, I pulled back, fussing in vain over my baggy, borrowed clothes.

He didn’t immediately speak, so I found myself filling the silence. “How’d you find me?”

Briggs sat on a leather-topped stool, then gestured for me to do the same. “I’m an investigator, Fitch,” he replied. “It’s my job. And it helps that you drive a flashy car.”

I thought of the Porsche 911 in the gravel lot out front, its trunk stained with blood from hauling Donovan’s corpse across town. Nash had offered to clean it for me, but I couldn’t get my head around the idea of wiping away the last remnants of my brother, gruesome though they were.

Down the bar, Nash had given up mopping and pushed through the double doors to the back side of the counter. I watched him with suspicion as he retrieved a notepad and pen from his apron pocket and began writing.

Briggs continued, “Though I will say being an investigator hasn’t done me much good getting information about you, or why you simply disappeared a few weeks ago. I must admit, I feared the worst.”

“Thought I died?” I mused bitterly.

He chewed on his thin bottom lip. “Actually, I feared you’d been enticed back into the ranks of the Bloody Hex.”

So, I was better off dead than a criminal. That was the Briggs I knew, all right.

My apathetic expression prompted him to explain. “Change can be hard, and this level of reform must feel impossible some days.”

I wanted to laugh. Sure, I wasn’t murdering people by the dozens, but I’d hardly cleaned up my act. Donovan’s death had turned me into a rage-fueled alcoholic camping out in Nash’s bedroom. Not because we were dating, or even fucking lately, but because I’d quite literally set fire to everything else in my life. I had nothing and no one else.

I found myself watching Nash again as he took inventory of the shelves of bottles that emptied much more slowly than they used to. His business had yet to recover from the loss of the gang’s patronage. I was beginning to fear it never would.

Briggs prattled on, and I tuned back in as he said, “I even asked Maximus about the plan to make you an investigator, but he pretended not to know what I was talking about. Strange times.”

Probably because Maximus had been stowed away in the Bitters’ End cellar while Grimm was playing house in illusion. Maximus had no plans to make me an investigator. He’d said so himself. There were “too many chinks in my armor,” which was a tactful way of saying I was damaged beyond repair.

Nash made his way toward us, but his notetaking had stopped during the lengthy pause. When he hovered too long with the pen poised about the lined pad, I snapped my fingers at him.

“Mind your damn business, barkeep. I see you snooping.”

Nash’s bearded cheeks flushed. He clicked the pen and tucked it behind his ear before stalking off to the end of the counter, as far as he could get from us.

On the stool beside me, Briggs observed Nash’s hasty departure. “You know, I spoke to him a bit before you came down,” Briggs said. “He seems concerned about you. Is he a friend of yours?”

“Probably wishing he wasn’t about now,” I said in the same low voice.

Nash’s concern had given out after the first week or so, which he’d spent begging me to eat, then sitting on the bathroom floor with me when I drank my meals instead, only to puke them up into the toilet in the wee hours of the night. He made sure I showered, sobered me up, then repeated the cycle… until he stopped.

He still held me in bed and stayed nearby anytime he caught me crying but had otherwise given me space. I didn’t remember asking for his absence but, in many ways, I supposed I’d demanded it. I pushed, hoping he would push back, but every step felt like it was driving him down until he was pinned under my feet, below me when I wanted him beside me.

Guilt was a feeling I didn’t have room for, so I pushed it aside and shook myself before facing Briggs again.

“Listen,” I cleared my throat. “I appreciate you coming out here. I would also appreciate it if you didn’t tell anybody about this. Flashy car or no, I’m trying to lay low.”

Briggs bobbed his head, then replied, “The Capitol needs people like you, Fitch.”

My features pinched. “People with my skillset? I’ve heard that before.”

Maximus said the same right before he asked me to kill eight people to ensure the success of his all-important vote. Spouting something about the wheels of progress and using innocent blood as the grease. I may have inferred that last bit.

Despite my obvious disdain, Briggs forged on. “You possess a unique and versatile power, and you wield it well. You could do so much good—”

“I’m not coming back to the Capitol.” I cut him off. “It’s not for me.”

The investigator’s eyes lined with crow’s feet. “Perhaps it could be for your father, then.”

“Fuck,” I blurted on a burst of air that was almost a laugh.

Briggs looked startled as I explained.

“My father wouldn’t even recognize me anymore. I am as far from the man he wanted me to be as I can get. He’d disown me if he could. Posthumously.” I leaned over the bar, both arms outstretched as I peered down to where Nash had found one of his recipe books and was busily notating.

“Nash,” I called over, my voice a whine. “Can I get a drink?”

His chest heaved with a snort. “Sorry, busy minding my damn business.”

I growled and hooked my fingers over the opposite side of the counter. “Fine, I’ll get it myself.” With a push off my stool, I climbed onto the bar, then shimmied across on my belly. Weeks of little sleep and lots of alcohol had made me awkward and graceless, and I nearly kicked Briggs in the face as I maneuvered to stand on the back side.

I felt Nash’s judgment as I snagged a bottle from the highest shelf I could reach. I bit out the cork top, then spat it onto the anti-fatigue mats underfoot before putting the bottle to my lips and drinking until I had to pause for air.

Briggs looked stunned when I rounded on him.

“You want something?” My gesture to the shelves behind me failed to tempt him as I tipped the liquor back again.

“Fitch, are you all right?” Briggs’s forehead scrunched, digging trenches in the space between his brows. “Is there something you need to talk about? The Capitol employs several competent therapists…”

A shake of my head made me wonder if the booze had made its way inside my skull. My brain felt like it was sloshing. “Therapists aren’t prepared for my kind of confessions, Briggs,” I said. “I need a fucking priest.”

To the older man’s credit, he didn’t flinch. “Is there any way I can help?”

Hell, no. I had that answer chambered and ready to fire .

I didn’t want help. Not the personal or professional kind. And I didn’t want the sympathy of a man who hadn’t known me in over a decade, which meant he didn’t really know me at all. I told Holland once that I killed the Fitch Farrow she used to know. I destroyed him when I forged a stronger version of myself. Though I didn’t feel very strong lately.

Help was what got Donovan killed. What Holland accused me of never giving her. Help was what I asked Grimm for when the investigators were closing in. When Ripley’s life hung in the balance of Jax’s fucked up game.

Help was what I hoped for—waited for—after the Bloody Hex took away my family and my home.

I’d learned not to count on help because it never came.

What I wanted was peace, but I wouldn’t have that until Grimm and the rest of the gang were gone. So, rather than my kneejerk response of a hard no, I told Briggs instead, “Not unless you know where to find the Bloody Hex.”

I meant it as a joke, mocking my own inadequacy as much as anything, but Briggs perked up. “Are you looking for them?”

I nodded.

“What would you do if you found them?” Briggs asked.

Not rejoin them, that was for damn sure.

“I would destroy them,” I replied.

“On your own?”

The pain of loss resonated as an ache that settled in my chest and stayed there. Hell, it lived there now, filling up the absence. A part of me was gone, the last shred of family I’d so desperately clung to while trying to prevent the reality I faced now. On my own.

Briggs spoke again. “I would like nothing more than to rid this city of that band of brutes. Maximus seems to think a direct attack would yield too great of a loss. He calls it prudence; I think it’s cowardice. But for an undertaking like that, you would need the full force of the Investigative Department—”

“The investigators don’t have what it takes,” I said. “Trust me.”

He didn’t argue, just watched me with intrigue as he asked, “What do you think it takes?”

Killer instinct. Or, in the absence of instinct, conditioning. It would take someone who wasn’t bound by the law or the need to see justice served by conventional means. Cops and wannabe heroes didn’t fit the bill. Taking down the Bloody Hex required the flexible morality and self-reliance of…

“A villain,” I said.

“But you aren’t that anymore,” Briggs said. “You don’t have to be.”

I gave the bottle I held a swirl, then watched the liquid inside tunnel down. “It’s the role I play best. Everyone seems to agree.”

“I don’t.”

It was an objectively stupid opinion. And an ignorant one, besides.

“You saved lives, Fitch,” Briggs protested. “ My life. Nancy’s life—”

“And I took three times as many,” I replied. “I’m ‘one of the most prolific killers in modern history.’” That quote came directly from the radio broadcast that went out to the public while I was in prison. I’d been proud of the fact then, wanting to share it with Grimm to prove my worth. I’d spent too long trying to please him. Too long believing I could.

Briggs shifted on his barstool, unnerved by my honesty as I tagged on, “I’ve got a hell of a resume, and I think that makes me the right man for the job.”

“What do you need?” Briggs asked.

I needed resources. Put traffic cam Felix on the case to track cars and give me addresses. A few of those antimagic collars would level the playing field of me against all the Bloody Hex could throw my way. I was relatively certain I could make quick work of the new recruits, though even that was a numbers game. Picking them off seemed the best approach, working my way up the food chain until I reached Vinton, Avery, and Grimm.

Apprehension crept in, worry that I would start something I couldn’t finish and leave havoc in my wake. I didn’t mind dying, but I didn’t want to make a bad situation worse.

“Just point me in the right direction,” I said at length. “You point, and I’ll shoot.” I aimed a finger gun down the bar at a distant nothing and pulled the imaginary trigger. “Sic ‘em, boy.”

I’m not an attack dog.

I used to believe that. Now, I wasn’t sure.

Briggs frowned. “Vigilante justice, then?”

Nodding, I set the liquor bottle on the counter. “With a dash of the Capitol’s aid.”

From his suit coat pocket, Briggs produced a slim, silver case. He took out a slick, black business card nearly identical to the one I’d received from Holland months earlier. “Make a list of what you need.” He slid the card across the bar. “I’ll see what I can do. ”

I snatched it up, less eager and more afraid I would change my mind. No sooner did I have it tucked away than did Briggs swing his leg around the barstool and stand. He offered his hand for another shake, and I grasped it firmly.

“Take care of yourself,” he told me.

If only he knew how abysmally bad I was at that.

I watched him go, then took another swig of liquor and wiped my arm across my mouth.

Nash walked up beside me and rested his recipe book on the counter.

“I don’t think you’re a villain,” he said. “For whatever that’s worth.”

“Should’ve known you were listening,” I said with a deflating sigh. “Nosey fucker.”

He stepped closer and rested his hand atop mine. The touch sparked longing in me. Our friends-with-benefits arrangement had been downgraded to platonic roommate status since Donovan’s death. More specifically, since I came onto Nash in the shower having just finished scrubbing my brother’s blood off my skin, and he turned me down.

My breath hitched as I skimmed up Nash’s chest to his face and the sorrowful smile there.

Don’t be sad. Not because of me.

“Whatever you’re planning,” he began, “please be careful. You’ve given enough.”

It was all I could do not to lean on him or pull his arms around me. An odd impulse because I was certain that if he tried either of those things right now, I would throw an elbow into his gut.

I stared at his hand covering mine as I replied, “Nash, I’m never careful. ”

“That’s why I’m always worried.”

We stood like that for a few seconds longer before I pulled away and turned, grabbing the liquor bottle on my way past.

Nash’s voice chased me. “You gonna clean the bedroom?”

“Yeah,” I called back as I shoved through the swinging doors and started across the polished bar floor. “Something like that.”