Page 135 of Grim
“I don’t care for it,” I cut him off. “As I was saying, things would all be so much more pleasant for so many more if they simply embraced that which is unavoidable. Tonics, regimens, ‘practices.’” I air-quote, thinking of all those tiresome yoga poses and bendy meditators. “I’ve watched empires rise and fall on nothing more than the desperate need to live a little longer. But in the end, the clock always strikes.”
I wait for Kane to argue, much preferring a conversation to mere monologuing, but he offers me no joy, so I continue on a sigh. “Immortality. Longevity. All these pathetic pursuits to extend their days, to run from that which is sure to catch all in the end. Man is free, Kane. But it is their futile attempts to change the unchangeable, their sad insistence onhope”—I mutter the word as if it’s gone sour—“that becomes the very shackles of which Rousseau spoke metaphorically and of which you now find yourself quite literally bound by.” I wave my hand lazily in his direction.
“Where is she?” he asks with forced calm.
“Back,” I say simply. “For a time. Until her proper TOD in which she will be escorted, willing or not, to ALP. She’d make a good fit here but …” I trail off and shrug my shoulders. “I think one of my brothers may have an opening. I know Famine needs a new assistant.”
“Don’t,” he grits out, his voice desperate. “D please, I don’t—why are you doing this?”
“I’m a fair boss Kane, I allow things to slip by without saying much. I can turn a blind eye to workplace fraternization even if it’s grounds for serious punishment, Kane. I gave you two plenty of latitude. But that little mortal coming to my party and embarrassing me in front of my subordinates? What did you think I would do?”
“So, you’re trapping me, exiling her, all because of your party?”
“Sounds kind of petty when you say it like that—”
“Because it is!” Kane yells. “She is a living, breathing human and you’re treating her like…like…”
“Like she’s a recalled product? That’s because she is. Kane, the only thing special about her is her ability to stick her nose in where it doesn’t belong and taking my best reaper with her. Consider this your correction whack on the snout.”
His fingers twitch against the chair. “Give her time. Take whatever you want from me. Just let her live.”
Oddly enough, the sentence pierces deeper than expected. For a single unwanted moment, I feel a pull on a string that hasn’t been plucked in longer than I care to think about. I shove the memory aside.
“I think,” I say instead, “if you listen closely, you might hear the chiming of her family’s Hermle clock now. One hour less. Tick. Tock.”
He struggles, predictably. The bindings hold. He slumps back, and the sound he makes is one I know well. It isn’t the scream of a fighter or the silence of defeat; it’s that brittle, tired release of someone who’s realized he’s no longer in control of anything at all. It’s the kind of exhale Cobain released near the end of that haunting rendition of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night.” The sound of release, of giving up. No, not giving up. Giving in. Which is what we all must do in the end anyway.
“Time,” I begin again, annoyed by Kane’s romantic insistence that these mortal moments matter somehow—that she matters—“wasn’t made for beings like us. It was made for the mortals. To keep their minds from unraveling. To trick them into thinking they can measure something immeasurable. To give order to their chaos.” I raise a brow, watching the storm churn behind Kane’s eyes. “Did you even read yourReaper Regulations Guidebook?”
He says nothing. Pity. His body is slack, then slowly, he stiffens.
Kane lifts his head and speaks with deliberate, pointed calm, like he’s moving his queen for the first time in a chess match. “Rule number eighty-eight,” he intones, voice steady, “‘Wherever possible, meet each soul with mercy. Better to help a soul float across the threshold as on a cloud than to cleave it from its spot.’”
My jaw tics once. That word—thatname—landsbetween us like a splintered relic from an ancient place, sacred and reminiscent of past pain.
“Well,” I say slowly, “look at this insolent little teacher’s pet.”
I can hear the shift in my voice before I feel it. I can feel the temperature of the room drop by several degrees as something tightens behind my sternum.
“Was that meant to impress me? Quoting outdated regulations, like a schoolboy hoping for extra credit? You must have studied under an earlier edition and never adjusted to the subsequent updates. Bad reaper.”
Kane stares straight ahead, unblinking. “You gonna punish me, D?”
I pause.
There’s something in the tone. The lazy casualness of someone who knows they’ve already struck a nerve.
I don’t care for it.
The force of my next words cracks the molding of his chair.
Unfortunate. I really liked that piece.
“You do not speak of Mercy here,” I snarl, the syllables tearing through the space like a blade through silk. “Not anymore.”
The window to the right of me explodes outward. A gale of glass and energy bursts across the room in a sudden shock wave.
“She—that—has been written out of the story. Banished from the narrative. Stricken from the record.”
