I’ve Got You

CHAPTER 10

Feeling rather proud of himself for the days effort, but still shaking from left over adrenalin, Grimm gazed at the items he had retrieved from the gift shop as they sat atop his desk. He smiled to himself, hoping the pocket game would keep Dorian occupied for at least a little while. His muscles ached, it was a great way to get back in to shape,he mused. But it came at a cost, every time he attempted to close his eyes and rest, he was plagued by images of snarling, foaming mouths, reddened eyes, and the heavily pregnant woman dropping to her knees while rasping for her last breath. He did not envy Sasha for having to be the one to shoot the pregnant woman. He shook his head, as if trying to shake the hold the ghastly image had on his thoughts. It had become quite late and Grimm was considering leaving his office and turning in for the night when a frantic knocking shook his door in its frame. The only person Grimm could expect to be coming to him at this time of night would be Lieutenant General Yarran. Though he was not one to sound quite so frantic. Pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance at his unknown visitor he let out a weary “Yes?” to beckon them in. Without a moments hesitation the Door flung open and Dorian threw himself towards Grimm. Grimm barely even had time for surprise to register before Dorian, with teary eyes was tugging at his arm, pulling him to his feet. “Mum can’t walk anymore!”.

Grasping Dorian’s hand and following him out into the corridor Grimm followed Dorian’s gaze and his stomach flipped. At the other end of the corridor, Eris stood, hunched over and clinging to the wall for support. She swayed as if dizzy, her wavy red hair was a mess and clung to the sides of her swollen face, slick with blood. Her mouth hung slack as she gasped and trembled with every sob that wracked her tiny body. She made a sound, something akin to relief when she spotted him. Grimm was vaguely aware of Dorian’s grip becoming tighter as he wept beside him. “Get back in my office” Grimm rasped, his mouth becoming incredibly dry. Dorian did as he was asked, when Grimm heard the door shut behind him, he made his way over to Eris as quickly as his suddenly weak legs would allow. Kneeling on the ground beside her he attempted to pick her up when she stopped him. “Just help me walk” she struggled to say. “He made me...” she lowered her voice and tried again “I wet myself” Grimm rolled his eyes and scooped her up in his arms, she was too weak to protest. Looking at the state of her and how severely she’d been beaten about the head, Grimm wasn’t at all surprised that she’d lost control of her bladder. She resembled something out of a slasher film. His face heated with anger, James was a dead man. Her head lolled back against his chest as he carried her, she had passed out, as if she had used every last ounce of strength she had left to crawl and stumble her way to his office, and was finally spent. Her mouth still hung open and as Grimm gazed down at her swollen and bloodied face he noticed the absence of one of her bottom teeth. He swallowed hard. Despite everything he had seen that day, the image of a battered, limp Eris was the one sight that would haunt him for as long as he lived.

“You’re a brave young man Dorian, you know that?” Grimm praised as he set Eris down on the bed, she was drifting in and out of consciousness but too weak to move. He set about removing her soiled clothes and cleaning her up. Dorian said nothing, he just stared at his hands, fighting back tears. “Did you- did you see what...” Grimm trailed off, finding himself unable to ask if Dorian had been forced to witness this level of violence. Dorian shook his head “she was fine when she put me to bed. She woke me up like this.Told me we had to see you and we had to be quiet so we didn’t wake Dad. I thought she was just happy you were back, then when we moved into the light I saw”. His head gestured over to Eris’s still form on the bed, but he couldn’t drag his eyes up to meet the sight of her. Grimm gently dabbed at her face with a cool, wet towel. Her right eye was swollen almost completely shut and the blood vessels in her left eye had burst, leaving the whites of her left eye an angry shade of red. The pupil of her open eye didn’t retract when he shone his pen light into it. She had a concussion. His heart caught in his throat as she watched her eyes roll back and forth as if she was struggling to stay alert and awake.

“I’m gonna have to put you in the shower Eris… you can’t go to sleep just yet. You have a pretty bad concussion. Can you handle that?” she said nothing for a long moment, then whispered

“I smell” Grimm smiled

“You do”. Eris choked on her laughter and instantly curled in on herself, crying out in pain and cupping her injured jaw.

“I let it slide before, Eris, but I can’t let this continue. He’s going to kill you... I’m going to have to drag Yarran out of bed for this, and he will throw James In the holding cells below the building. Please don’t argue with me on this anymore than you already have.” Eris nodded once through her pain, seemingly ready to accept that she needed to be free of James before he killed her. “Dorian?” Eris mumbled weakly through bloodied lips. Dorian walked to her side and rested his head on her bare stomach. Eris stiffened, putting her hands on his head she whispered. “I know you love your dad, baby, I’m so sorry., but I can’t-”

Dorian nodded, refusing to speak, he understood what needed to be done, but he still loved his father and still felt as if he was being taken away from him. “I’m sorry” Eris sighed for a second time. “I’ll call Yarran in a little while. I’m gonna have to get you in the shower first, then I’ll go down to the store rooms to find fresh clothes.” Grimm said, avoiding meeting her gaze as best he could. “Dorian could you stay here while I help your Mum get cleaned up?” Dorian shook his head as he stepped away from the examination bed “I don’t want to be alone”. Grimm pressed his lips into a thin line “fair enough. Let’s go”.

***

Grimm paced back and forth in his room quietly, careful not to wake Eris and Dorian as they slept curled around each other on his bed. His initial intention had been to wake Lieutenant General Yarran as soon as Eris had fallen asleep, but a nagging voice in the back of his mind had been screaming at him to pay James a visit first. In the last hour the nagging voice had reached a fever pitch of screaming at him to act. But truthfully, Grimm wasn’t sure what he would do if he did confront James first, he wasn’t sure how far his rage would take him. Would Eris forgive him? Would Dorian?. Eris mumbled something in her sleep, giving Grimm pause, he peered at her in the dim light, her face was looking worse, more swelling, more discoloration. Once resembling a porcelain doll, she now resembled something out of a nightmare. Kneeling down beside the bed, he hesitated for only a moment, swallowing thickly before grazing her forehead with his lips and pressing his cheek against hers. He stayed like that for a long minute before ruffling Dorian’s hair and marching for the door.

Having memorized Eris’s room number and floor since the night he performed the welfare check, Grimm had no trouble and took no time finding it. Seeing the door had been left ajar -probably so as to avoid alerting James to Eris’s escape- Grimm slid in, shutting the door loudly behind him and flicking the lights on. James lay sprawled out on the larger bed, he threw the pillow over his face in response to the harshness of the light. “Get up” Grimm rasped. His voice startled James, he shot upright, eye lids heavy, still groggy and trying to make sense of the behemoth of a man glowering down at him. “The f**k you want? We’re sleeping!” he grumbled, rubbing his eyes, Grimm laughed without humor. “We? Who is we? Your wife and son are in my bed. You’re the only person sleeping here”. The words took a moment to register in James’s tired mind before he glanced around him in a panic. The panic only lasted a short moment before it was replaced with a cold, threatening rage. “You’ll bring her back here if you know what’s good for you”. The threat made Grimm smile despite himself. “I don’t think I will Mr Winter. Nor will I bring Dorian back. You may not have hurt Eris in front of him, but that boy is eleven. And because of you he was forced to half carry his own mother to seek medical help, she was closer to a corpse than a living person, you know that? You’ve screwed the poor kid up for life. As for Eris, I watched my father murder my mother. I will not see it happen again. Not to Dorian, Not while I have anything to say about it”. James stood up, sticking his chin out in defiance

“You don’t have anything to say about it”. Grimm smiled, gazing around the room his eyes rested on a medium baseball bat in the corner of the room, assuming it belonged to Dorian, he picked it up, and in one fluid motion, he swung downwards. The bat shattered Jame’s left knee, he dropped, clutching his leg and screaming. “Actually I think You’ll find I have quite a lot to say about it”. It gave Grimm a great deal of satisfaction to see James cowering and crying at his feet, but it wasn’t quite enough to satiate the nagging voice that was still baying for blood. Grimm wrenched James up by the hair with one hand and hammering down heavy punches on James’s exposed face with the other, blood coated his knuckles as he pummelled James’s face by, warping it into an unsightly mess. James clawed at him desperately, finding a fistful of Grimm’s messy black hair and yanking at it. Grimm let go, but James stayed on him, recovering quickly, James sent out a lightning fast jab that flung Grimm’s head back. They traded punches and kicks for quite some time, the whole while, Grimm growing more murderous with every passing second. Finally he saw an opening and tackled James to the ground, straddling James, while he flailed beneath him, Grimm’s hands went to his throat and he began to squeeze. James’s struggles became weak and feeble. His face turned pink, then red, and finally a deep shade of purple. He began to drool as he gave up on his struggle, with barely enough energy to attempt to gasp for air. Grimm put his lips to James’s ear as he continued to watch the life leave him and whispered “I hope hitting her was worth dying for”. No sooner had the words left his mouth, Grimm found himself being hauled off of James by the scruff of his shirt and thrown against the wall. Held in place by Lieutenant General Yarran himself. Breathing hard, the murderous fog over Grimm’s mind began to dissipate. “Sir, I can explain” he exclaimed, both hands up in surrender. They both looked down at James as he lay bloodied and gasping for air on the floor. Grimm could barely contain his satisfaction at the sight. “Explain” Yarran ordered. Grimm nodded “I think you should see what he did to his wife”.