by Elena Monroe
My sweats and a shirt were inside, thank god. Being in a towel with Jessica for too much longer didn’t seem wise.
“I have a meeting. Can I trust you in my room?”
“What kind of meeting?”
“One you aren’t invited to. Stay put.” I was hoping she would as I tugged the last piece of my clothing over my head.
Fucking meetings.
Fucking cult expectations.
ABIGAIL
I haven’t had a hangover like the one drilling into my temples since I was in high school and actively breaking the rules. At one time I believed the rules were made only to be managed, twisted and broken.
When you move across the country without knowing a single soul to do something that holds a one in a million chance of succeeding, you follow the rules just in case you need the karma.
Let’s be real: Everyone in LA needs the good karma.
Last night’s activities of couch drinking made it easy to decipher that I couldn’t have gotten into too much trouble.
Right?
Pulling out my phone with my arm still draped over my closed eyes, I tried to keep as much sunlight away as possible. I knew I needed to investigate and groaned out loud.
Holding my phone above my face, I scrolled my texts…Didn’t text my ex. Didn’t send any photos. Didn’t even snap or tweet.
Thank god.
I felt great until I opened FaceTime. Mentally repeating the mantra: Please don’t reveal I spoke to any of my family drunk. Please don’t reveal I spoke to any of my family drunk.
It was worse than talking to my mom or dad drunk… I saw the name saved in my contacts with skulls, stop signs, and five letters spelling out Grimm.
It was so much worse than an ex, a dicey tweet, or talking to your parents.
I FaceTimed my boss while drunk.
Lucky me.
As soon as I mocked myself, my phone came crashing down onto my face, making me flinch inwardly and groan.
See? Bad karma will find you. Always.
Turning over and shoving my face into my pillow, I muffled my own scream. My life was a current wreck.
Even a half scream made my head pound harder. I needed some hair of the dog. Mimosa or screwdriver. Classy, but it was still alcohol in the morning.
Jus was, of course, still asleep. She hadn’t adjusted to adulting too early yet. It was always a mad dash out the door to work, even after months to create a routine.
Anti-establishment was hard to break.
My slippers even felt as heavy as my head, but it was helping me stay planted to the floor. With one eye open, I made it to the kitchen without any real issues or tripping.
Thankfully.
I didn’t go unscathed when my phone buzzed hard against the countertop as I gathered the orange juice and champagne.
My ex had a way of weaseling his way back into my life after going MIA, which was the reason we broke up to begin with.
Oscar (fucking LA parents and their constant need to be unique). Yes, he was named after his dad won his first Oscar the year he was born. Nothing like that constant reminder that a shiny object had more value than giving you a proper name.
OSCAR: Wanna meet up? Dinner? Breakfast?
I was his inconsistent hookup, not really the one that got away, because let’s be honest, he was hot and I wasn’t about to Tinder it up when I wanted male interaction.
Ignoring his message, I poured the orange juice into a flute before I popped the prosecco we had in the fridge already open. Probably from last night.
If I didn’t ignore it before responding, he would be pulling me right back into his hot-guy trap.
A trap I always got caught in.
Contemplating texting Grimm to apologize, I sipped the alcohol, trying to will the hangover away.
After a few sips of courage, I leaned onto the counter, elbows pushing into the surface and pulling up the contact with so many warning signs I felt like an idiot even tempting myself.
ME: I should apologize for yesterday…
I left it simple and short, hoping he wouldn’t respond anyways.
Karma must have really been after me for a past life offense, because the three dots came across the screen before I could even prepare myself to be fired.
GRIMM: Should apologize or are apologizing? Shame.
I tried to not let his message bother me. It was harder than I expected. Long after, I kept re-reading it, until it was burned into my dehydrated brain.
ME: I shouldn’t have FaceTimed my boss… or saw you that naked… chalk that up to be whatever you want.
He didn’t seem like someone who let anyone off the hook without making them feel dumb.
Why am I engaging with him?
He was the kind of guy who ruined your life as simply as he walked into it.
Swiping to Oscar’s message, I forced myself to type out a yes to his request with the word brunch instead. I needed a distraction that wasn’t related to work or the guy I clearly remember seeing naked last night.
Only from his hips up, but something about the V and the veins all pulling your eyes further down had me hypnotized. Drunk or not.
I never thought of Vic as hot. He was clearly my boss and only my boss. He had OCD, woke up before the sun, and was cutthroat beyond belief. Nothing about him had me fanning myself.
Grimm was a whole different animal.
I got ready, dolled up, and cute; seeing an ex was something that required your best foot forward. LA’s standards of beauty made that seem like a red carpet not just your average polish. Ex-boyfriends needed to know how much they made a mistake messing up in the first place.
My chunky striped sweater was tucked into the front of my skinny jeans with some booties as my go-to. I was feeling myself more today with my tousled curls perfectly cascading. I needed this to feel a kind of strength that would keep me from leaning into his smell, those clear blue eyes, and toned muscles that I adored on him.
Oscar was a traditional beauty with his sharp jaw, short blonde hair, and a look right off a billboard for Armani Exchange. He was exactly what you pictured when you thought of LA—a Richie-Rich type, with a name after an award.
Seriously.
He sent me a pin location that popped up in my maps when I clicked it as I sat behind the wheel of my Mercedes. Company car. Secretaries were paid well at the Clave, but not so well that we could afford the same benefits of life as the four men we worked for.
The pin was to the Venice Boardwalk, as if I needed direction. We had a spot tucked away between a pottery house and a head shop that served fish tacos, called Frank’s.
Oscar was manipulative at best.
He knew Frank’s was a soft spot and held good memories, so why not use that to his advantage.
I would have preferred that Grimm and Oscar trade bodies, then you would have the appropriate warning before a guy like him broke your heart. Instead Oscar looked like a wholesome guy with a decent head on his shoulders. Don’t get me wrong, he could be manipulative, savage, unfaithful, no morals, and a decent liar too.
Forgiving him was always my problem.
There was something about a man with horrible attributes that made you feel the right kind of special to fix them.
Damn hero complex.
Being the reason someone changes means you didn’t love them for who they were in the first place. Thank god you can throw a rock and hit as many therapists as aspiring actors.
Pulling into a free spot along the curb, I couldn’t help but picture Grimm half naked in my mind again—all wet, glistening, with his tattoos screaming. He was the opposite of my type, yet he excited me the most.
There was something about him that dug into me and kept my focus hostage.
Oscar wasn’t even there yet, and this was his idea. Let’s add selfishness and disregarding of other people’s time to his growing list of negative qualities.
Nothing I didn’t know already.
I snagged a table and ordered
another screwdriver while I waited. I had time to search Instagram for Grimm.
Did it make me a bad person to be waiting on one guy and searching for another? Probably by some Bible thumper means, but this was LA. Standards and rules were different here.
Oscar strutted in, shooting smiles at the people staring and trying to place him in their heads.
Yes, he was that guy from that TV show that was blowing up and on billboards all down the strip.
Sadly, I was used to this too. The stares, the flirting, the selfie requests, the famous dad questions, and the overlooking of the very average me sitting and waiting on the sidelines of his few moments of fame.
This was typical too.
Frank’s wasn’t super popular, big enough to go unseen, and him making it famous would kill any shot he had at fucking me ever again. He was well aware of this unspoken rule between us.
After a few girls fluffed his ego, he came towards me, with his arms out, expecting me to hug him, when he closed me against his chest anyways. “Forgive me yet, baby?”
Actively trying not to cringe into myself, I let him bear hug me from behind and whisper his not so sympathetic tone into my ear.
He moved around me, dropping to the stool across the bar-style tables and waiting for me to answer. After realizing I wasn’t going to, he said, “Come on, babe. You can’t stay mad at me forever. Come on, look at this pout.”
Oscar had the world’s most compelling pout I had ever seen. He perfected looking guilt-free and upstanding with one easy crinkle of the brows and his mouth turning down.
“Last time we were together, you invited me to a bar… then made out with someone else!”
That was what he wanted to be forgiven for… making out with someone else in a dark hallway of a club and being caught by me, while I looked for a bathroom.
He didn’t deserve to be forgiven at all.
“That was a mistake. I apologized.”
That was right. It was a mistake—one I had made by even letting him be my “boyfriend” in the first place.
Staring at him from across the table, I mentally fought myself whether or not he was worth even the effort of getting naked for. His body was perfect, but could I really ignore his vile attitude for a quickie?
My mind went back to Grimm. Now he was worth the effort. He was also my boss now, so that was beyond the boundaries of secretary duties.
I was staring right at Oscar, but for some reason I just couldn’t swallow down the bullshit he was force-feeding me. He wanted to be absolved for something he wasn’t sorry for, and it made me not sorry for neglecting to forgive him.
Realizing how much I wasn’t even interested in using his body as a sex toy, I stood up from the stool with a disappointed look attached to my face. “You know what? I gotta go. I can’t do this with you.”
“Okay, then go.” His voice was icy now.
Guess I did enough to piss him off to let me leave without forgiving him.
If my life was going to be completely turned upside down, then I was going to purge myself of everything I didn’t need to save from the fire.
GRIMM
Everything is bullshit.
Wanting Abigail when I didn’t know her.
Jessica being told to stay in my room.
Having a secret meeting at midnight when we were already forced to spend three days at the estate.
The hidden hallway wedged behind the bookcase leading into the secret study only triggered by removing Dante’s Inferno was the only way in. Everything the Clave did was soaked in alternative meanings and metaphors, like Dante’s Inferno being the Hell we fear.
Did they hear Shakespeare? Hell is empty because all the devils are here.
Guess not.
The Clave was deaf to anything they didn’t want to hear. All they wanted to know is that we were focused, doing our jobs, and running the LA office the way they wanted. They wanted us to live and breathe the title of being the four horsemen of the anti-apocalypse.
Easier said than done.
We were death, famine, war, and chaos.
We were also humans with human needs, wants, and desires, but we were expected to handle those, to push them to the back.
We all had our own vices keeping us going enough to focus until we turned thirty-five and had more say.
Disposable girlfriends.
Alcoholism.
Adrenaline.
Pills.
Forcing someone in a box only big enough for them to breathe stale air means they grasp at anything else to help fill the void where oxygen should be. It’s shocking how long someone can last right on the edge of living and dying. That was us, on the edge, and sometimes we tipped closer to one or the other.
Our fathers were sitting at the long table, all on one side, all silently serious when the back of my hand hit Vic’s ribs lightly. “You owe me twenty bucks.”
He bet me before the drive down that we were too old for secret meetings. Vic liked to think he had more power than he actually did. They only let him think that because it benefited his own personal war and that, in turn, benefited them.
Vic only glared at me. He took this shit as seriously as our fathers.
“We wanted to check in with you four.” My father normally spoke first. I normally spoke… never.
Bowen was slumped in one of the chairs in the corner avoiding eye contact. Khaos was a kind of angry that made his arms look tense, folded across his chest, and Vic was pensive before he spoke. They were always trying to please them, while I was the black sheep of this fucked-up family.
Cutting Vic off, I spoke out of turn: “Great. Whose idea was it to have Jessica find a bed to sleep in when I know there’s extras?” I was pissed off, in need of more meds hidden in my glove compartment, and hallucinating about my new secretary. I was on edge.
My father’s heavy stare was boring into me and forcing my sloppy posture straight. “That isn’t a business matter. We’ll discuss it later.” Turning his attention to Vic, he shot off names and accounts with us, expecting an update.
Vic was never caught off guard. “He’s in town next month. He likes Grimm best, says he reminds him of his brother. He’ll show him a good time.”
I wasn’t paying attention enough to even know who we were discussing, just that I played some role in entertaining them. I got bored listening to the bullshit about the business and the accounts we oversee. I couldn’t explain what we did if I tried.
All I truly knew was that we oversaw things running smoothly, people fearing Hell and praising God. We took people’s money, got rid of problems, and did mandatory weekends at the estate, like some fucking company retreat.
The Clave was a cult with its hands in so many pies I lost count of what was jam and what was blood on them.
“Are we done here?” I interrupted our four fathers pretty much praising Vic for his sense of leadership.
My father’s cold, semi-dead eyes looked mean under a dropped eyebrow. He wasn’t amused. “Boys, get some sleep. Tomorrow is the hunt. Jason, sit.”
Every time he said my name I felt my soul cringe, trying to make sure it didn’t stick. Pulling out the chair at the long table, I slumped down into it, waiting for whatever remark he’d have now that we were basically alone.
“Why can’t you embrace this life? You have nice things. You need for nothing.”
I muttered to myself, “Exactly…”
His hand slammed down on the tabletop creating even more silence than there was before. I didn’t expect the man so poised and polished to show a crack. We weren’t alone.
“You’ve always been a problem. You have no reason to be so uncompliant, blatantly disregarding what I tell you and sulking like a child.”
My mouth was open and my tongue was between my two rows of teeth pressing down enough to stop myself from even muttering.
I was going to make this so much worse than it needed to be.
Standing up, I went to walk away, just before I felt mysel
f pulled back to the table and knocking my knuckles against the surface. “Don’t ever force a girl onto me, again. As far as I see it, I’m the Grim Reaper for you. Would hate for you to go before you really should, Dad.”
I wished I meant it. I didn’t really know if I had the balls to kill my old man.
Do I want to? Yes.
Would him dying mean less of the Clave in the world? Nope.
There are lines of people, generations, and backups ready to sit in his chair.
Now I had zero reason to be roaming the halls. Pushing the hide-a-door open, I saw the guys all sitting in one of the sitting rooms waiting for me.
Vic handed me a drink, even knowing I didn’t drink, “I actually enjoy this weekend. Can you go back to your one man crusade after it?”
Taking the drink, I didn’t touch a drop. Sometimes holding a drink is all people need to feel more comfortable.
Rolling my eyes to myself, I contemplated how I could have survived this long in this life.
“You can’t be the judge, if these people deserve to die, Vic.”
“That’s why you’re here, Grimm. Why can’t you just accept this is our life? You kill. I start wars…” Pointing at the other guys, he finished: “He deprives people until they beg us for it back, and he brings chaos. We’re balanced.”
“We’re fucked-up monsters pretending this is how the world works anyways, so we might as well jump on board.”
With his hand on my shoulder, I watched the guys paying so much attention to this conversation I could see the worry in their eyes at my push back.
Only Vic knew exactly how against this life I was.
“Monsters rule the world, brother.”
Setting the glass on a table, untouched, I decided to find my car and my Xanax so I could chill out.
I was at a weekend where the elite rubbed elbows, killed enemies, and had dinner after to celebrate the sacrifices made. The heel of my palm hit my head trying to make sense of something I had been doing for years.
Maybe a conscience in a monster just needed time to grow.
Finding my car was harder than I expected. I knew we hid them so when the hunt started no one could attempt to get away, but now I couldn’t get away.
