Page 15 of Grim
Depends on what I do when I get there.
Name:Rue Chamberlain
Age:26
Diagnosis:Unknown heart disruption
Status:Premature crossover in progress
Last Words:Mayday.
I nearly drop my tombstone when I see her photo.
I know her.
The girl from that community center in New Orleans. She was there while I was handling a reap. Not my own case. It was actually a cleanup from my former junior reaper, who left half the soul flailing and screaming in the body. It was a mess. I remember threatening to shove the whiny reaper wannabe into The Nothing for such a heinous mistake when I sawher.She was talking to someone about a du Maurier novel, and it caught my attention. Well, that, and her contrasting orange-and-black hair and that long black dress with green combat boots.
Her eyes stopped me. Not because they were beautiful—though they were—but because they held something I could not recall seeing before. Her stormy-grey eyes were steady, unafraid, and as she looked right at me, I felt it rattle something loose in me. A thread pulled taut across ages, finally giving way.
Okay, she didn’t actually see me, but seemed tofeelmy presence. Most can’t. We are trained to slip in and out undetected. Some say that very few can feel us, and when she looked right at me, mere inches from my face … I don’t know … it was an unsettling moment that I’ve been trying to forget. And now she’s my next case.
Big D’s threatening directive plays in my mind. Failing to cross two souls in a single day would be unprecedented for me, and not without its consequences.
But something in me—something buried and rusted over from centuries of blind obedience—doesn’t seem to care about that right now.
Maybe it’s instinct. Maybe it’s idiocy. I’m not sure I know, but the feeling hits me like a slap across the face and cannot be denied.
I’m tired of being a lackey for the bureaucrats of the OtherWorld, and there is something different about this soul, I could sense it even in that briefest of moments.
I grit my teeth and vanish in a pulse of light, knowing full well thatthis is going to come back to bite me.
Stone-Cold
Thirteen Minutes Before the Present
Iinhale sharply as I come to. Looking at my phone, I notice I’ve been asleep on the couch for over an hour. I wish I could say it helped, but it didn’t. The silence settles in around me, heavy but familiar.
I pass through the kitchen, my socks whispering over the tiles—and pause.
All the cabinets are open.
Plates are stacked in strange little towers, teacups balanced like they’re part of some abstract sculpture. It’s not my handiwork, and while Mom is known for her theatrics, she’s more “crushed velvet and socio-commercial criticism” than “poltergeist performing art.”
I sigh. “I’m not in the mood for you today, asshole.”
Something whooshes by my left ear, and a ceramic plate shatters against the wall with theatrical flair.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I mutter, flipping the ghost my most expressive middle finger. “We get it. You’re very scary!”
I’ve grown up with this ghost. As a child, it was my imaginary friend. Never could see it or hear it, but they would make themself known. As I grew, I heard from them less and less. Then my parents split up, and Mom and I moved to Chicago. I would come down here during my dad’s offseason, and it was rare that the ghost wouldpop up. But since Dad passed two years ago and I moved down here permanently, the jerk has become a daily nuisance.
I make my way toward my bedroom, which is on the main floor now because the stairs and my body no longer negotiate terms. So, now, I try to limit the times I have to exert myself on those stairs. The last thing I need is to get dizzy and fall. It has happened before.
I enter my newly appointed first-floor bedroom, hopeful I’ll return to a normal baseline after some rest. My body aches, and I feel the tightness in my chest. I press my hand just below my collarbone, rubbing in slow circles, as if I can ease the pressure lodged there. It doesn’t help much. It never does. But the motion is muscle memory now, an old habit at this point.
Inside my room, I close the door with a soft click and lean against it. The wood is cool against my spine. I close my eyes. Just breathe.
The exhaustion isn’t just physical; it’s cellular. Fatigue that hits marrow deep. It never leaves.
