by Elena Monroe
Bo threw a hoodie on in place of his weird-ass dress shirt he had been sporting.
Vic, well, he was perfectly comfortable with just the sleeves rolled up. Perfect cult member first, and everything else second.
Shrugging, I popped an eyebrow. “Well? You wanted this meeting.” I was staring right at Vic when I spoke.
Instead, Khaos sliced the tension the way he had a talent for. “Love? Pregnant? I mean, damn, man. You don’t even date. Really jumped in the deep end.”
Looking up through my eyebrows, I gave him a stern look. He was on my side already, but it sounded like he needed some winning over too.
“Shit happens. Can we move on now?”
Vic stood up taller, no longer leaning against his car, trying to stay quiet. “Shit doesn’t ever just happen to us. We’re above that excuse. It doesn’t matter how badly you fucked up. How are we fixing this?”
I could tell by the look in his eye that he meant Abigail needed to be shipped away or killed. He only worked in those two options.
“Not the way you’re thinking. No one is touching her.”
Khaos was fucking play fighting with Bo, while the grownups talked—distracting, as always.
“What other options do we have, Grimm? Run to our mommies and daddies, hoping they have some mercy? Not really hating breaking this to you, but they’re as merciful as fucking Satan.”
Khaos, being the chaotic mess he was, was in a headlock under Bo’s arm when he spoke up: “There’s always the blood oath. That’s what makes the Clave exclusive, our blood and the four families. Do a blood oath.”
Bo pushed him aside, and I looked to the other guys to tell me that wasn’t a solution, that they had a better idea, or how crazy that was. No one spoke. It was the only real solution to the humanity I stumbled upon.
“You owe me one,” Vic said before disappearing into his car and following the guys out.
GRIMM
A fucking blood oath? That was the solution to me loving Abigail.
It was the loophole I was searching for, hoping for, and nearly giving myself an anxiety attack over.
Of course Khaos couldn’t offer any real information beyond a crazy idea. He didn’t know any logistics or how to even perform the ceremony.
He was just an idea man, while Vic was all about the devil in the details. I was the fixer, and Bo was the kind of creep that made these ideas seem normal, because no one was as mentally scrambled as much as he was.
That's how we gauged ideas by his reaction. Normally everything was a safe bet. When he thought something was a bad idea, it normally was… if the psychopath in the room thinks so too.
We were all in my garage, plotting the rest of the night. We were dedicated to making this blood oath happen before Abigail confirmed the pregnancy and started showing all in the same time frame. I knew better than anyone this was time sensitive, and all around sensitive, when it came to breaking the rules.
I never parked my cars in the garage; it was simply a storage unit connected to my house. Plastic, guns, ammo, rope, trash bags… everything I thought I needed as death, but really all you needed was a bad attitude.
Khaos was putting on black latex gloves when he suggested, “We’re gonna need proof. The Clave isn’t going to lay off without proof she’s not their problem.”
“Proof? We aren’t killing her, Khaos.”
There was no real plan. This was the plan unfolding in front of us all, and it started with proof and moved to death pretty quickly. Getting the four of us to agree to anything would be the true apocalypse. Us charging into the unknown, all our own way of handling control, was the best we could do.
Vic was loading a gun, while adding to the list of do’s and don’ts: “You just need to stay out of the way. If she notices you, it’s over. She needs to think there’s no hope if you want this to look authentic to the Clave. I’ll be the one they ask to analyze any evidence.”
I wasn’t loading anything. I didn’t even need my gun. I just needed to accept their help, however haphazard it would be.
“I’ll stay out of the way long enough to make this work. You just make sure she doesn’t get hurt.”
Khaos’s hand clamped over my shoulder. “Baby mom now; she’s untouchable. Well, I’m gonna touch her a little, but only to scare her. Don’t worry. It’ll only turn Bo on a little.”
Bo was notorious for liking his women; taking a personal interest in the trafficking the Clave had a hand in wasn’t by chance.
Walking past the guys, I left them in the garage to having a smoke, which I don’t normally allow myself until after a mission. It was the same concept as needing a cigarette after sex. A kind of climax that needed you to introduce a downer, only this climax wasn’t shrouded in friction or flesh on flesh.
This kind of climax was all agony.
Vic had the bandana covering his face and a backwards cap on when he appeared by my side. “Really fucked up this time, huh?”
“I don’t need your shit right now,” I said, flicking the cigarette butt into the bushes. Littering my own life.
“I think you do if this is the kind of shit you’re dragging us into. You couldn’t just fuck her, like a normal person?”
Facing him, I fisted his shirt, but he didn’t flinch. “Don’t fucking degrade her down to a one night stand, like you’re used to. She’s more than that. She’s the catalyst we needed to take our power back.”
He chuckled in my face, and I could see the spark in his eye trying to make me feel inferior. “Our power back? We work for the Clave. The Clave owns us, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Your life is fucking fine. You’re a Rothschild; accept it, instead of playing victim all the time.”
I looked at him, so closely I could feel our differences coming to a head and clashing right in front of my eyes.
“Are you fucking kidding me? My last name isn’t salvation. We’re a fucking product they’re gonna use until it doesn’t serve them anymore. It’s not about victim or survivor; it’s control and power.”
“You have no control, and all you do is piss on your power!” Vic shouted into my face, and it almost felt like blows.
Almost.
I couldn’t argue with him. Everything he said was right.
I tried to control every aspect of my life so obsessively that my grip on it all crushed it into pieces, leaving so little control left for me to even hold in my palm.
And all the power I didn’t know we had until Khaos’s confession meant I was pissing all over it.
Bo’s arms were folded, giving our clash of differences some space to breathe. “Is there a problem?”
He was the gatekeeper of violence. Fucking creep.
I heard Khaos mumble an “oh, shit” under his breath, clearly the neutral one.
The four of us hadn’t been on the same page, in the same book, on the same shelf, in a long-ass time.
Abigail wasn’t just a catalyst. She was forcing us to get on the same page, or we’d lose the control and power we all lusted for.
Turning my back on Vic and his assumptions, I pulled on the car door handle and demanded Khaos slip into his driver’s seat. I was too angry to drive or even focus on what was coming next.
Best friend.
Fellow horsemen.
And now the enemy spewing his perspective on me like I didn’t know how fucked up our lives were?
Letting himself fall down into his seat and pushing the start button, he avoided making eye contact. “You good?”
“Just drive. Venice,” I demanded.
The drive to Venice was silent, and my eyes were stuck to the side mirror, watching Vic’s car follow closely behind.
When we got closer to Venice, I had to direct him down every side street until we were in the parking lot of her yellow condo.
“It’s gonna work, bro. She’ll have your bloodline running through her veins after a blood oath. It’s the solution.”
I heard him, but I didn’t care. All I could think about
was Abigail and protecting her and our baby.
Only being at her place a few times didn’t change how aware I was. I saw the double French doors that led to a small patio off Abigail’s room—the way Oscar got in and now the same way we would get in.
Huddling up to the guys between our cars, I said, “There’s a side entrance. We’ll use that.”
Without waiting for any commentary, I led the way around the building in search of Abigail’s room. None of us even knew if Jus was here, but I guess it didn’t matter at this point. It was too late to care now.
Vic’s hand clamped down on my shoulder, forcing me out of his way so he could manipulate the doors open with some sharp movements with the door handles. Standing close by, I shoulder checked him out of my way so I could be the first person inside.
I needed to see Abigail first.
Inside her room, inside her air and space, I already felt the exhale I was looking for. The kind of Xanax feeling only she gave me.
The guys followed me inside with their masks in place to cover who they were, like she wasn’t smart enough to figure out who would be in her room. Abigail was the smartest and strongest woman I knew, who let her monster fall in love with mine.
Bo stood in front of me pushing me into the shadows, while Abigail slept peacefully.
I was forced to trust the other horsemen to do this right… for me, for her, for my unborn baby.
Khaos jumped on her bed, ripping her from her sleep with a jolt. I watched his dirty fucking Vans on her warm white duvet with a phone in his hands shoved into her face. I pushed into Bo’s back, silently demanding he move when he twisted around, giving me the harshest case of side-eye, pinning me to where I stood.
“We need proof of her being scared. Stand down,” Vic said in a hushed tone, frowned out by Khaos.
Khaos was standing over her, with his phone still in her face, and giving her directions to show him more fright, more scared, like he was directing the latest independent film starring Abigail.
“She’s definitely a model not an actress, this one.” He jumped off the bed and continued to film her confused and her now overworking mind that could have been seen as scared, but I knew better. I could tell she recognized Khaos’s voice.
I didn’t see Vic take out the gun, and I didn’t even add up his commitment when he aimed the gun at her bed. He hit my panic button when I fought with the space, the shadows, to get to him. Bo stood strong, bracing me back, when I heard the sharp sound cut through the air and the bullet was already leaving the chamber.
Nothing could describe the kind of horror I felt. I knew this was a bad idea. I knew none of us could see eye to eye in a way that brought us back together. Hell, I even knew if I gave Vic the chance he would push me right off my high horse just to prove I could fall too.
There was no scream.
There was no speaking.
The minutes turned to hours in the heavy air of tension when I slid down the wall, too afraid to look at what Vic had done. My breath was ragged and short, so it shook all of me.
I was going to kill him.
I was going to kill everyone in this room for just being here.
I was going to end myself if Abigail was gone.
The soft sound of her voice trembling as much as I was, made my eyes search between Bo and Vic’s leg for proof she was okay. “Khaos? Where’s Grimm? Why are you all here?”
Bo and Vic stood shoulder to shoulder, making sure there was no way for me to be seen.
Vic cut off anyone else from speaking when he pulled out a knife and I watched him scare Abigail with it as he moved to the side of her bed.
ABIGAIL
I didn't actually believe people when they said you can fall in love with the wrong person.
Not until I fell in love with one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Grimm and I were playing a dangerous game of wits, distracting me from how much I was really getting to know him. The Clave didn't like that very much. They only liked things they could control, and I wasn't one of those women they could bribe, pay off, or both.
I had lived through nightmares, bad priests, and an ex that felt like violating me was his ticket into the elite circle. I let the monster inside me absorb it all up as fuel, and I did my part to control what I could.
I was just out of their reach... until I wasn't.
Grimm knew just as much as I did that he was bringing me too far in, letting me see his so-called monster, and letting me love him anyways. I was something that didn’t belong amongst their perfect bloodlines and thoroughbred behaviors.
It wasn’t that I knew too much. Well, that was half of it, but the other half? I occupied a part of him that was supposed to be dead—his heart.
That’s when things got messy.
And when things get messy, bad things happen, like missing my period for a lot longer than I was willing to admit to Grimm. I didn’t need a doctor’s appointment or to consult the pregnancy tests filling my bathroom trash can to tell me I was pregnant.
Now I had two things in my possession the fathers didn’t approve of: his heart and his heir.
He already had his whole life planned out, down to every controlling detail, when they chose his future wife: the Russian Barbie named Jessica.
Since the ball, I was looking around corners, questioning every watchful eye, and even calling out of work without a real reason. The Clave was my employer, and I was a thief. Having a roommate felt safer than being on my own, but Justice couldn’t really save me.
Grimm helped dig my own grave, and he didn’t even know it.
If wishing yourself dead was possible, I would have done it without thinking when I was shook awake by the three of them standing at the foot of my bed, and Khaos’s voice thick in the air like it might still be a dream.
They weren’t here to talk or hash out things when it came to this mess or even the feelings raging between Grimm and I, even here in the cooker pressure with them.
I could either go quietly or… probably end up dead, leaving Grimm to mourn me silently as my eyes scanned the room for him.
Each of them had a mask on in different ways, and all were dressed in black from head to toe.
Vic had the bandana covering his face and a backwards cap on, to the point just as much he was.
Khaos had a discreet gas mask on in all matte black, holding his phone in my face like the oddball he was.
Bowen had a thick black coat of paint across his eyes and a single teardrop painted on. It caught my attention most because Bowen was drained of emotions and replaced with a creepy vibe instead. I was sure he never cried.
I asked again when no one answered me after shooting a gun at me. I was pretty sure Vic was a clean shot, and it missed me completely, just putting a hole in the pillow next to me. I was still rattling, trying to decide if it was a death rattle or simply adrenaline.
If Grimm wasn’t here, it couldn’t be death… “Where is Grimm?”
Vic stepped forward with a knife slicing through the air. “This is only gonna hurt you a little… Gonna hurt us more to share our bloodlines with some Midwest, middle-class secretary, who ended up knocked up by the wrong guy.”
His hand closed around the knife and opened it to a flourishing line of red on his skin. I watched the knife get handed off to Bo as he took off the black latex glove only on one hand and followed Vic’s lead before he handed the knife to Khaos who finally put down the phone.
“All the pretty ones hurt this much, Grimm?” The chaos in the room was clearly from our Khaos.
Grimm. He could hide his face all he wanted, but my monster hidden inside me would spot him anywhere.
He stepped out of the shadows and took the knife from Khaos before sitting down on my bed next to me, scaring me with his silence.
“Grimm? What’s going on?” I sat up straighter, searching for any hints.
“Give me your hand, Abigail. This is the only solution, the only way to avoid my fate, and for the Clav
e to let us be together.”
I kept my hands to myself, not willing to give him my palm without more answers.
“What do you mean? Why did they cut their palms too?” Looking at Khaos he was squeezing his hand into a cup he stole off my nightstand. I still had to replace the water bottle that was tainted by Oscar, so all I had was a biodegradable cup from Justice’s personal stash.
Grimm didn’t answer. He was too busy cutting his palm. Instead, Vic answered for him, “Rothschild isn’t good enough to overthrow the rules. You need all four bloodlines.”
“You’ll be more powerful than all four of us. Hope you have a strong stomach. Want a Starburst first?”
Grimm took the cup from Khaos’s hand and squeezed his own palm above it, letting his blood drip into the cup the same way the other three did. Setting it on my nightstand, the warmth of his hand touched mine, turning it over in his palm. His other hand pushing the blade into my skin.
He mouthed the words I love you, knowing I would decipher it. As I mouthed the words back, he closed my palm softly bringing the cup under my hand and squeezing.
Tossing the blade behind him on my bed, Vic picked it up. “Can we finish this today? I have shit to do,” he grumbled, tucking his knife wherever it came from.
Holding the cup to my lips, I asked him, “Are you sure about this? Grimm…” My voice cracked at his name, when he licked the blood dripping from my palm still, even though he didn’t cut as deep as he cut himself, just enough to draw blood.
I wanted to tell him I was pregnant for sure; the seven pregnancies test in my bathroom trash proved it.
I wanted to tell him we would find a way for the Clave to accept me.
I wanted to say I love you out loud, even though I knew why he mouthed it: Those words were only for me, for us.
Khaos tossed a Starburst into my lap, landing it on the white duvet and saying, “Catch!” at the same time. It was too late. I already tipped the cup to my lips and tasted the pinch of the four bloodlines slide down my taste buds into my throat.
