Page 119 of Like Grim Death: Part One
“You’re Rain’s dad, and you don’t fuck that up.”
He’s perfectly still. I see it, the moment it changes. His thoughts. His lips press together, determined.I won’t. I will not.
I bring my hands to either side of his face, gentle with my fingertips on his bruise, and I turn my head, so my mouth is over his ear. “You’re going to go upstairs. You’re going to find Sid, and you’re going to show her just how much you love her.” I drop my fingers to his bandana, twining it around my fist until my knuckles graze his throat.“Go.”
Then I release him all at once, stepping back, and Cain shoves him forward but puts the monitor in his hand too.
He seems dizzy, off balance as his hands drop to his sides and he steadies himself on his feet. I know it’s still there.The want.But he locks eyes with me and he doesn’t ask for his phone again. But surprising me, he says, “You can’t keep making my problems yours.” He runs the back of his hand over his nose, fist clenched around the baby monitor, then drops his arm to his side. “You’re not looking in your own backyard, Mav.”
My throat feels constricted with his words and I don’t want this conversation. I don’t want him to turn his love on me. No. Fuck that. I can handle myself. I can handle Ella, our small family.
“Go inside.”
He shakes his head once, sniffing. “I’m serious. I’m not good at this feeling bullshit like you are, this pep talk thing you just did.” He nods his head to where we just stood, all three of us so close together, trying to work through this. “But something is off with you too, and something is off with your girl. Stop getting mad and wanting to beat everyone up andfigure it the fuck out.”There’s some sort of warning in his words. But then he just walks past me, shoulder checking me as he heads inside his house, leaving me and Cain out here to save him from himself and hope to Satan the initiate isn’t just a dead body in the trunk.
The rest of the shit he said to me?
Yeah. I’m not fucking going there tonight.
Sid is sleeping.She’s curled into a ball, sheets up under her chin, baby monitor close to her face on the nightstand. I smile in the darkness of the room, the bathroom light on and the door pulled almost closed. I wonder if she kept it that way so when she wakes to feed Rain she can see. Or maybe… just maybe she kept it on for me.
I dismiss the thought almost immediately, smiling a little but it feels painful. Nah. Not for me.
Maybe she’s scared of the dark now, like Atlas.
My mind flickers to his dad’s voice in the room where Sevryn walked out of, before the rest of the rituals. Was Adam supposed to be the pep talk? The cheerleader? Is he toeing lines too, since Samson’s murder, for his son’s sake?
I decide I don’t care enough right now to give it any more thought. After yesterday and last night, I’m fucking drained, and all I care about is right here. I don’t want to think about the ceremonies Sevryn and I had alone. I don’t want to hear his screams inside my head or see the movie that played out for me, a personal film of all my deepest fears.
I lock the door to mine and Sid’s bedroom, just for now, and swipe up the monitor on the nightstand, gripping it in my fist and heading toward the bathroom.
The itch is still there, under my skin, the reason I called Nikita, but I try to hang onto Mav’s words.
“You’re Rain’s dad, and you don’t fuck that up.”
Fuck.Want and rage and self-loathing crawl beneath my skin, and I flip off the bathroom light before I open the door because I don’t want it to wake Lilith. I catch sight of the blood on the back of my hands before I do though, and I put down the monitor immediately, on the black tile of the double sinks in my bathroom. Like I’m not worthy of touching it, anything connected to Rain, not when I’m like this.
It’s not just Sevryn’s blood. There was a murder too, between the two of us.
I know it’s all part of the demonic dance ofOrtus.
It happened inside Sanctum. I don’t even know who the man was, and from the look on Sevryn’s face, neither did he. We didn’t ask questions though, and that’s what they wanted to check. Was I doubting? Was I doubling back? Did I still have it in me? Since I let Elijah know I didn’t enjoyMonday’slap dance,I don’t think Mikhail was too happy with me, the way he egged us on.
Luckily, I didn’t see any more of her.
Now I have to tell Sid, don’t I? I mean, there’s a hickey on my neck, just under the edge of my hoodie.
Fuck.
It wasn’t only Elijah who watched me the past couple of days. Callum and Adam were there too, and Mikhail for the murder.
My skin crawls, and I want a hot shower. I took one at Sanctum before I would let myself come home to my wife, but clearly I didn’t do enough. I want to scrub off the dealer’s blood, and I want to drain my own Malikov blood.
Before I can close the door to the bathroom, startling me from my thoughts, I hear something.
Holding my breath, my pulse quickens, and for a second, I wonder if I’m imagining it. Fear slides beneath my skin, like ice. I blink, scared I’m hallucinating and I’ll do something… horrible, if I am.
But then I hear it again.
