Page 12 of Grim

MyHandsAreTied

M y 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.

But who isn’t these days?

I close my eyes and press harder into the granite, like if I push hard enough, I’ll fall through time and land in a moment where things still make sense. Or at least where the scariest thing I have to face is Mom trying her hand at social media or a tuna casserole.

“This is just a mental episode,” I murmur aloud to the resting soul beneath me.

“Like that time I mixed two medications by accident and spent an entire afternoon convinced a spotted sloth was whispering secrets to me.” I exhale a humorless laugh, brushing my hair out of my eyes. “The sloth was so smug about it too.”

But that’s the thing about my brain: it’s never been particularly kind. It bends, breaks, and performs its little circus tricks. Some people daydream. I hallucinate men in black suits with sharp smiles and colder hands who tell me I’m on borrowed time.

I’ve had worse breakdowns.

I just can’t think of any off the top of my head.

It’s fine. I’m fine.

I sigh, rubbing my temples.

I focus on my breathing and take stock of what’s real to help ground myself.

Beating heart? Check.

Air in my lungs? Check.

Shaking my head, I run my fingers through my hair. Just another delightful episode of my brain pulling a David Blaine on me.

But if that’s the case, why does this one feel different?

My gaze drifts down to the name carved into the cold granite beneath me, and my carefully constructed sarcasm falters.

Dad.

I still feel it—that place, that lonely in-between. I still smell my dad. I feel that warmth. I know what I witnessed. It was no dream.

And then there was him. That voice, deep and silk-wrapped, curling around my bones like smoke.

I didn’t even catch his name. But his presence is tattooed behind my eyes now—each word he spoke, each touch, each unbearable moment where I should have panicked but didn’t, where I should have screamed but stayed silent.

I still feel his lips against mine. Warm and certain.

What bothers me isn’t that I died. It’s that when I did, someone was there—and he knew.

He’d expected it. He’d caught me. Like it was routine.

Like I was on some schedule.

Nine days.

That’s what he said. I have nine days left. My expiration date is stamped on the inside of my chest like I’m nothing more than a carton of milk waiting to sour.

I close my eyes and grip the headstone tighter, fingers pressing into the carved edges of my father’s name. “It’s stupid, right?” I whisper. “That I’m sitting here, mourning a man who’s been gone for two years while obsessing over a hallucination of a man I met for maybe three minutes.”

But even as I say it, I know it’s a lie. Because it wasn’t three minutes. It was a lifetime. A thousand years in the dark with only the memory of his voice keeping me tethered to something that wasn’t madness.

I run a hand down my arm, skin rising with goose bumps that have nothing to do with the cold. My heart flutters, soft and fragile, the same way it always does before something inside me breaks.

I am not the same Rue I was before this. Something has changed—shifted. And no matter how hard I try to shove it into a corner of my mind and label it Delusion , it keeps crawling back.

This is real.

He is real.

“Could really use some good fatherly advice right now, old man,” I say weakly. “You would’ve laughed at me, you know. Said I was being silly. Called me kiddo and told me to lay off overthinking before I gave myself an aneurysm.”

I squeeze my eyes shut tighter. “I miss your voice. I miss the way you smelled—salt, motor oil, and stale coffee. I miss your ridiculous dad jokes—and, no, I don’t mean your clever dad jokes and the way you always ruffled my hair, no matter how many times I told you it was annoying because you somehow knew, deep down, I really liked the gesture anyway. ” I smile at the memory.

“Hey, Dad, what did you think of my poem? I know we were rudely interrupted, but now that I’m stable, I’d love your feedback.”

I take a beat after asking the question, once again giving room for my father to answer. And after the events of the past hour, I am more hopeful than I’ve ever been that he just might. But it is not Dad’s voice that breaks the silence.

“Miss me, ma chère ?”

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!” I scream, clawing at my chest .

He’s back again.

Leaning against my favorite tree as if it owed him rent. That insufferable smirk plastered across his too-handsome face. Green eyes glinting like mischief-made flesh.

“Boo,” he says flatly, with all the smugness of a cat who just knocked your grandmother’s urn off the mantel.

“How long have you been standing there?” I question, suddenly self-conscious.

“Long enough,” he answers cryptically.

“No.” This isn’t happening. “I-I don’t believe in you!”

“And yet here I am, Mayday. Back to ruin your fragile little reality again.” He winks while pushing himself off the tree, stalking over to me.

I continue to shake my head back and forth. This is still the dream. Or the start of a new one. It has to be.

“This isn’t real,” I snap. “You’re not real. You’re … a hallucination.” Albeit a much more pleasing one on the eyes than the sloth, but still.

He sighs dramatically. “So, we’ve only reached denial in my absence? Lovely. Let’s not linger here—it’s terribly boring. At least bargaining offers a little bit of flattery.”

“Don’t come any closer.” I hold up a hand like I’ve got divine smiting powers. Spoiler: I do not.

“Or what?” He chuckles. His voice is pure, unfiltered mockery.

Lunging forward, I try with everything I have to shove him. My hands slam into his very real, very solid chest beneath his expertly pressed suit. He tenses, his eyes going wide for a half-second, like my touch just rewrote a law of physics.

All previous cockiness is gone, replaced with something akin to shock or edginess. As someone who is perpetually nervous, I easily spot this characteristic in others. But why is he nervous? I’m the one being haunted by a lithe interloper in my family’s cemetery.

He clears his throat and steps back. “Um …” His lips press into a thin line before he regains his composure. “It would be better if, during our interactions, you could refrain from … contact.”

“Your rule or mine? ”

“Mine. Trust me, it’s for your benefit.” The derision in his tone borders on offensive.

“Wow. You are allergic to sincerity, aren’t you?”

He has the audacity to look bored. “Can we move this along? I have another case and would like to get you safely restrained.”

“Excuse me?”

“Not like that,” he says, already walking toward the house. “Though I do appreciate your enthusiasm.”

“Hey!” I yelp as he opens my back door like he owns the place. “I—I didn’t invite you in! You don’t just walk into someone’s home!”

He lets out a comically exaggerated sigh, looking up at the sky, like he’s personally requesting divine intervention to deal with me. He mutters something under his breath that I don’t catch, but I’m pretty sure it’s rude.

I cross my arms. “If you’re going to insult me, at least have the backbone to say it loud enough for me to hear.”

His grip tightens on my banister before he turns toward me, his eyes nearly flashing.

“Rue,” he says slowly, like he’s explaining basic math to a toddler, “I am not a fairy, or a vampire, or some whimsical chimera dreamed up by your feeble mortal imagination.”

Rude.

“I am your reaper.”

“Reaper?” I ask, stomping past him toward the dining room.

“Yes,” he answers condescendingly. “And you and I are going to become really close.”

“Until I die again in nine days,” I say bitterly.

“Correct.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We will have plenty of time to get into all of this because, as I thoughtlessly mentioned in our initial meeting, you have nine days left to live. And now, because of my loose lips and some fine print in my job description, until that time comes, you are under my care.”

“I don’t need a ghost guide for my final chapter,” I insist, crossing my arms across my chest petulantly.

“I am not a ghost, Rue.”

“Pale enough to pass for one,” I snipe, deciding on petty insults to lessen the anxiety this conversation is causing me.

“My skin hasn’t felt the effects of the sun for centuries. What’s your excuse?” he throws back at me.

“I like to read,” I reply smugly.

“Ever heard of an Adirondack chair?” The way he draws out the syllables of Adirondack makes me wish there were one here that I could throw at him.

“Anyway,” he continues, “I have a case I have to attend to, and I cannot have you getting into any trouble while I’m away.

Any chance you keep a couple of pairs of handcuffs around here?

” He eyes me up and down. “Nah, you don’t seem like the type. ”

“Hey!” I shout defensively.

“Oh, I do hope I’m wrong,” he purrs, stalking toward me and backing me into a dining room chair.

I fume, “You’re disgusting.”

“You’re not the first to say so. Though most people use slightly more creative adjectives. Now, until I return, you be a good girl and stay. Right. There.”

Oh. Oh. He did not. I feel heat rise in my face—not from fear, but from rage.

“Good girl?” I repeat, my fists clenching.