5
I didn’t see Javi again until mid-afternoon when he came to get me for lunch. Despite my anger and hopelessness at the situation, I was happy to see him. Happy to be able to leave. There was only so much of the fancy room I could take.
“Where were you?” I cringed, hoping he hadn’t heard the accusation in my tone.
He glanced me. “I had to check in with my mentor.”
I blinked. Not the response I’d been expecting.
Noticing my confusion, he paused. “All the older students get paired with a mentor.”
My lips twisted. As if that answered my question. There was so much I didn’t understand about his world and what was happening to me.
“Come with me. I want to show you something.”
I paused, unsure if I wanted to follow him, but happy to have a choice. Unlike with my tío, my body didn’t rush to obey my cousin’s orders.
“What is it?”
He’d already started walking. “Let me show you.”
Since I literally had nothing else to do but eat lunch with my tía, I followed. Javi led me down the hall past closed doors. My curiosity piqued. I couldn’t remember all the rooms my tía had shown me on the house tour. Where did all these closed doors lead to?
Javi stopped outside one door and flashed me a grin, his eyes lighting with excitement. Nausea stirred inside me. Was this the part where they threw me in a dungeon or something?
The door swung open and we stepped in. I sucked in a breath as my gaze fell on the giant sword against the wall. Smaller ones were lined up beneath it. Two large mats lay on the middle of the floor. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find a dojo in their house, but there was something strange about the room. I couldn’t pinpoint what I was feeling, but I could tell this wasn’t some ordinary place.
My eyebrow arched. “So, you brought me here to…”
Javi smiled. “To fight. Test your fighting skills.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “Yeah. Not happening.”
He smiled. “I’m just kidding. I’ll save that for another day. This is the safest place to talk.”
“Why?”
His hand swept across the room. “It’s warded. There are runes on every wall. No one will hear us.”
Not sure what to respond, I glanced around trying to see what he was talking about.
“They’re invisible. The runes. You can’t see them.” He laughed.
My eyes narrowed. “And I’m supposed to know that how?”
The humor vanished from his face. “Sorry. You’re right. You’re a newbie at this.” He sighed and motioned me over to the wide window.
He sat on the bench beneath the windowsill and motioned for me to join him. I squared my shoulders and took a seat, leaving enough of a distance between us to shield myself.
For a minute, he didn’t say anything, and I didn’t push him. My heart raced and the images of Manny and my dad flashed in my mind. I knew already that whatever secrets he was about to reveal wouldn’t change the facts.
Papi would still be dead, and I would still be their prisoner.
Maybe it was stupid, but after my encounter at the graveyard, I’d loosened my grip of what I considered reality. I mean, seeing something so freakishly abnormal firsthand was enough to change a person for life.
“I know you think we’re the bad guys here, but we’re not.”
Right. I bit my tongue and let him continue.
“We couldn’t leave you there alone with your dad’s killer on the loose. Besides, you’re still a minor. Legally my dad is your guardian.”
I bristled. “Some guardian.” I held the metal bracelet up to his face and shot him a glare.
He winced. “That’s only temporary. We’ll take it off once we know you’re safe and won’t try to run away.”
Feigning a neutral expression, I lowered my wrist and waited for the rest of his lies.
“You need to know the truth about everything. You’re a GRIMM too, like me.”
His words shook me down to the core. GRIMM. I didn’t know what that word meant, but I knew there was a weight to it—and a whole set of rules and obligations that probably accompanied the title.
Well, that was just too bad. I didn’t want to join their creepy circle.
“GRIMM. It stands for Guardians of Realms and Investigators of Magic and Mysteries. We’re guardians of all the realms and we protect humans from the extraordinaires.”
“All the realms?”
He nodded. “The ones we know of, yes. We make sure they don’t come here and cause trouble. We protect the ordinaire. The normal humans.”
My head was already pounding as I tried to take in this information. Guardians. Magic. Realms. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it, but I knew by the seriousness of his face, this was no joke.
The world was so much more complex than I’d ever thought. Wasn’t it bad enough that we had to deal with the normal human messed up crap, but now there was a whole supernatural element that I had to worry about too?
“That sounds like a serious job.”
His face remained serious. “It is. That’s why it’s not just for anyone. Just because you have the sight doesn’t mean you’re GRIMM material. Only a fraction of the students will move on to graduation to become an agent. We are the best of the best.”
I stared at him. “But you’re still in school. How are you an agent already?”
His lips quirked into a smug grin. “I’m a senior so I’m technically an agent in training. Once I graduate, I’ll be given my first mission. Once that’s over, I’ll be an upper classman and get to go out on assignments and get advanced training. Then the final test where I’ll pass and become a full-fledged agent.”
“Like your dad?”
He snorted. “My dad isn’t a field agent anymore. He’s too important for that. He’s the one that sends people out
