Page 28 of Grim
Big D continues, “And in this particular case, Kane, how do you think her renewed heart will fare? She now carries our infinite energy within her. How do you think she’ll handle all of that with her—quote—‘pesky’ heart condition?”
The reality of the rest of Rue’s mortal days slowly begins to dawn on me. The potential to spiral, for her body to give out again. The impulse to do something rash or to do nothing at all. All those possibilities flash before my mind in progressively more depressing images.
“You intervened. Now there is no backing out. You wrote yourself into her story, fool. Now you have to make it to the epilogue. She’s your case. You gave her that time; now you get to guard it.”
“She’s not a case; she’s more like a problem,” I mutter.
“Call her whatever you want. Just don’t call her to the OtherWorld early.”
“You have got to be joking,” I say more to myself than to the boss.
D leans back, completely unbothered. “Did you hear aknock, knockbefore I said it?”
“No.”
“Did anyone walk into a bar?”
“No.”
“Did I preface by saying,Have you heard this one before?”
“D, in the name of all the spirits in the OtherWorld, I know you weren’t joking. It was a figure of speech. How can you have been around for millennia and still be so dense?”
“It’s a gift.” His deep voice rattles my bones and grates on my nerves in equal measure.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I feel a very human urge to hyperventilate wash over me. “How? Just how?” I ask weakly.
“Frankly, my Kane, I don’t give a single, solitary fuck.But you’ve managed to snag the attention of the Sisters, and if you think what I have in store for you is bad—”
“What do you have in store for me?”
“If this mortal affects the natural order of life and death for others? If she manages to sculpt an image outside of Fate’s design? Clerical, Kane. You’ll be seeing your way to half a millennium in Clerical. So many crossovers. So much paperwork. So little—oh wait,all the timein the world.” He laughs, the sound pressing on my last nerve. “And that’s to say nothing of what the girls have planned. They can be quite”—he pauses, searching his mind for the right word—“creative.”
My stomach turns at the alarming infusion of danger and sensuality in his voice.
“What am I supposed to do with her? What am I supposed to do on Earth for nine days?”
D tilts his head, his smirk sharpening. “Knock, knock.”
I take a deep breath, preparing to indulge him. “Who’s there?”
“Not my fucking problem,” he bites and snaps his fingers.
Instantly, I’m ripped through the OtherWorld and dropped back into the damp, moss-smothered silence of Rue’s family cemetery.
Of course, it’s raining again.
Of course.
MyHandsAreTied
My head rests against the cool, curved stone of my father’s grave as the breath leaves my lungs in one long, deliberate stream. If you listen closely, I swear you can hear my soul fraying at the seams on the sound. Maybe that’s a little dramatic, but frankly, if there’s ever been a time to lean into melodrama, it’s after you’ve flatlined in a graveyard and woken up with a reaper’s mouth on yours.
I press my palm to my chest, fingers splayed across the aching drum of my ribs, waiting for that steady thump-thump of betrayal to answer me.
You live. For now. I say the words in my head, matching the rhythm of my once-again-beating heart.
This is totally fine. I’m just a bit unraveled. Maybe a touch out of my mind.
