Chương 24: Caught

Hazel panicked and flopped back into her shadow, while Grim threw on a sweatshirt, with sleeves long enough to cover her arm.

"Grim?" Chloe asked from outside the door.

"Are you okay?" Grim opened the door.

"What do you want?" The little gremlin opened her mouth to speak, but then ducked underneath Grim's arm before she could catch her. She walked into her room and looked around.

"Where are they?" She said as she checked underneath her bed.

"Get out," Grim said as she tried to grab her, but she jumped onto her bed to dodge her.

"I heard you talking to someone. Who was it?" Grim sized her up. If she jumped onto her bed, Chloe would probably have enough time to jump off and get away from her. She was almost definitely faster if she tried, but she didn't want Chloe to get hurt by falling or something. If she had another arm, she could probably grab her and safely balance each other, but she didn't. There was another option: Chloe had made a mistake. She was standing on her blanket. Grim gripped onto the edge of the fabric and heaved.

Chloe flailed her arms to catch her balance, but the terrain underneath her was shifting too fast. As she fell and bounced off the springs of her mattress, Grim jumped up and covered her with the blanket. With Chloe's arms partially restrained, Grim sat on the Chloe burrito. She looked ridiculous with only her face and frazzled hair sticking out.

Chloe laughed as she tried to squirm free but Grim was too strong, before she'd affixed more shards to herself, she might have been able to get away but as it was, she was strong enough to keep her pinned.

"Let me go! This is unfair, you're not allowed to trip me," Chloe whined.

"What? Of course I am, you jumped on my bed. Now out," Grim said, smiling. Chloe squirmed some more, "Not until you tell me who you were talking to. I heard someone else speaking."

"I wasn't talking to anybody, I was watching a show on my laptop." Chloe looked over to her laptop, it was closed. She pursed her lips as she scrutinized Grim's face, looking for lies.

"It didn't sound like a show, it sounded like there was someone in here."

"That's not my problem."

"It will be if I tell Louis and Jin you've been sneaking people over," Chloe said, a mischievous smirk on her face. Her smirk died when Grim got up and let her go. She unrolled her from the covers so she could move and jumped off her bed. Tension filled the room as Chloe realized she said something wrong, but didn't understand why. She should've, but she didn't. That was fine, Grim didn't mind. She was just a kid.

It was a good reminder; she didn't have time to be play fighting with her, she should be looking for a place right now.

"I don't care. Go," Grim said, her good mood gone. She got up slowly, as if she was afraid she would bite. Her brows furrowed as she hung her head low, "What did I do?" Chloe whispered.

"I'm leaving, Chloe. They don't care what I do. If you want to try and get me in trouble, go ahead."

"I was just joking, I wasn't actually going to."

"That's fine. I'm not mad at you, I've got other stuff I need to do today so, if you don't mind," Grim pointed to the door. Chloe didn't move, "Are you really? You've been treating us like garbage when we didn't do anything. Do you think I want you to leave?"

"Well, no—" If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"—Then stop acting like it. I'm mad too, okay?" Grim shook her head, "Why do you care?" Chloe squeezed her hands into fists and took a deep breath, "Because I'm losing you, too. Do you remember when you used to let me sleep with you?" That had been years ago, she'd been having nightmares, and she'd passed the age where Jin was particularly caring. Chloe would come and snuggle up to her and they would fall asleep.

Her nightmares had lessened, and it had been a routine for them for a couple of months until Chloe abruptly stopped one night without explanation. She wouldn't admit it but she'd been a bit disappointed, but it wasn't like it was ever going to be a permanent thing.

"Yeah?"

"My older sister was a Witch," Chloe said. That was new, she'd never heard of that before.

"Like before?" She nodded, "Back then I couldn't tell what was real or not. I'd be alone in my room and I'd hear a creak from the hallway, and I'd think she was here to take me back, but she never came. When I'd finally fall asleep, I'd see her, for real, and she'd be calling out to me, to save her. I heard her screams every night."

"What happened to her?" Chloe ignored her, "She was part of a Coven, that responded to incursions. One day, her alarm goes off and I get such a bad feeling I clung onto her legs, trying to stop her from leaving. So she pulled me off and locked me in my room, and used one of her Boons on me that put up an illusion of her in my vision. She wanted it to keep me company while she left." Grims stomach sunk. She didn't like where this was going.

"She never, she never..." Chloe started heaving trying to get the words out, her eyes filled with tears. Grim grabbed her and sat her down on her bed, her arm around her shoulder. She pulled her in closer, squeezing her gently, "It's okay. You don't need to say it."

"No! I do," Chloe took a deep, shuddery breath and swallowed.

"It was the Endless Hunger incursion. Her entire Coven went missing." Grim blew out a breath, 'missing' was a pleasant lie for what had actually happened. Hunkering in the bunker was one of the few times she'd seen Louis scared. They'd had to stay there for almost two weeks.

"It wasn't until the Hunger was full and it left that anyone found me. I only survived because … Mr. Muffin was locked in there with me. I was in there for two weeks and she was there the whole time, watching me out of the corner of my eye. Watching what I had to do to survive. But even after they found me, she never went away. She's still here," Chloe pointed at the doors to her closet. Her dresser was beside it, but otherwise it was empty.

"Do you see her? She's right there. She's been watching this whole time, always watching." There was nothing there; her room was quiet besides the sound of Chloe's burgeoning panic attack. Now that she'd said it, she felt something else in the room. It was hard for her to explain, but it was there. She'd gotten used to seeing strands, and she felt the slightest presence of one, hanging off Chloe.

There wasn't any way for her to interact with it, she had no authority, but at the very least she knew she wasn't making it up. Something was there, but it shouldn't be.

"It should've ended when she died," Grim said. Chloe was quiet for a moment, and the both of them knew what she was going to say next, "I don't think she's dead." Chloe looked at her, her sadness gone except for the smudges of her makeup.

"Fuck."

"Yeah," Chloe squeezed her back in a hug.

"I used to pretend you were her, you know? But now you're acting like her, coming home hurt and keeping secrets from everyone. I don't want you to end up like her." Grim sighed, "I can't promise anything. There's things I need to do and the things I'm doing aren't safe."

"She said the same thing," Chloe said, hollow.

"What was her name? Tell me about her." Chloe looked at the closet, to where her sister was watching. It sent a chill up Grim's spine as she did so.

"Petra," Chloe said. The next hour Chloe spent telling her about her sister, how she was an A-rank and was supposed to be invincible. She bragged about all the cool Boons she had and after that was finished she told Grim about her life before. How it was just the two of them, her parents had been Witches before and had died in a joint mission raiding a Gate World. It had actually led to the creation of a rule where married Witches with children couldn't raid together anymore. To prevent what had happened to them.

When the time had passed and Chloe had run out of things to say, they spent a couple minutes just silent, enjoying each others company. Grim had been neglecting them a bit, and she still hadn't apologized to Jeremy properly either. He'd avoided her whenever they saw each other in the hallways. That wasn't right. She was better than Jin and Louis and she wouldn't just leave them alone. It's not like she had anything to lose. If she fucked it up she was leaving anyways, why not try?

Besides, there was something Jeremy might be able to help her with.