Horror Game? Looks Cute novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Grover at the Back Door

"Later," Garvan said.

We were back in the Bear House kitchen, and I had asked him the same question six ways.

"What were the words?"

"Later. Not today. Please."

"You can't just say you've read them and then make pancakes."

"Watch me."

He cracked an egg.

I let him.

I was learning that when Garvan went quiet, he was holding a door shut with his whole body, and pushing it never helped.

The afternoon passed with a second bread delivery and a jar of plum jam I was allowed to open.

We also had a long argument about whether a sealed cellar counted as a bug.

By dusk the argument had turned into something else.

His hand kept finding the small of my back whenever he reached past me for a spoon.

I kept letting it.

Someone scratched at the back door.

It wasn't a knock.

It was a weak, dragging scratch, low to the ground.

Garvan had the iron skillet in his hand before I turned around.

"Who is it?"

"It's Grover." The voice was thin. "Please. Open the door."

We opened the door.

Grover half fell across the threshold, with the nurse holding him up under one arm.

His lip was split, and one eye had swollen shut, purple and glossy.

There was blood down the front of his security jacket.

"Dex," I said.

"Mari got cut down at noon." Grover let the nurse lower him into a chair. "She told him about you. And the Bear. And him."

He looked at Garvan, then at the skillet, then at the flannel shirt.

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