Page 14 of Grim

CaptiveAudience

W hile Death spends his free time on mindless hobbies, I have taken the downtime of my last half of a millennium very seriously. Passion and productivity lead to perfectionist pursuits, and I don’t do anything half-cocked.

Upon returning to Rue’s bedroom, I admire my craftsmanship.

My Shibari training really shines through in the gentle yet effective nature of each of her restraints.

She’s sleeping when I arrive. I take a moment to write my successful post-case report on my latest crossover before tucking my phone in my pocket and clearing my throat.

Her eyes open with a start, and she sucks in a breath as she sees me. She tugs against her arm restraints. “Oh good, you’re back. Untie me now, asshole.”

“In a minute. We still have plenty to discuss, and I imagine you’ll be easier to converse with when you’re a captive audience.”

“Wow, you come with dad jokes now too? You’re the whole package, aren’t you?” she quips, her sarcasm cutting through the tension like a well-sharpened blade.

“Drink it in, ma chère .” I meet her sarcasm in kind. Speaking of drinks, a thought occurs to me. “Would you like a sip of water?”

I can tell from her expression that she doesn’t want me to help her, but given her current state, she smartly weighs her options and reluctantly responds with a, “Yes.”

I retreat to the kitchen, bringing back a glass of water, which I help her to drink. Her restraints allow me to sit on the side of the bed without the possibility of much physical contact.

As the first sip dribbles down the side of her face and she coughs, she glares at me. “I appreciate the gesture here, Clara Barton, but do you think you could at least hold my head up?”

Leaving my face an expressionless mask, I run my fingers to the back of her head. The tactile sensations of the warmth of her scalp, mixing with the gentle tickles of her hair running through my fingers, almost overwhelm me. I remain stoic, though inside, I am a volcano. Molten.

She drinks, and then I pull my hand away, her head dropping back onto the pillow awkwardly.

“Owww! Dick.”

“Sorry,” I concede. “No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.”

There is a moment of unnavigable silence before she changes the subject, asking, “How did that ‘work matter’ go?”

“Quite well. Most souls are content to move past this plane of existence.”

“As long as it’s their time,” she deadpans.

“Time answers to no one. You got it.”

“So, where do they go?” she asks, and I can feel her energy shifting from resistance to a desire for understanding. That’s a promising development.

I explain the basics, as I’ve done countless times before. “Your physical form remains here while your spirit essence moves into the OtherWorld. I and many other reapers are tasked with shepherding those souls to that place.”

“OtherWorld?”

“Yes, as in not this world. Not the Earth realm, but rather what lies beyond. Not here, but there. Does that make enough sense?”

“Sure,” she concedes. “Go on.”

“Everyone begins in AfterLife Processing, or ALP. Every spirit goes through Intake, Instructions, and finally Assignment. That’s where souls are given jobs and levels in the bureaucratic hierarchy based on a series of mostly arbitrary factors.

Administration in The Nothing is mind-numbing torture.

Research and Development in the Vast Library is rather peaceful. You get the idea.”

“And what about me, personally? Where am I going?”

The vulnerability behind her eyes undoes something in me. Not interested in dwelling on whatever this feeling is, I take myself off the bed and sit in the chair by her desk. “Above my pay grade, Mayday. Don’t know. Don’t care.”

“That’s pretty bleak. Are you really that cold? Did death make you that way?”

“I can’t afford to care about every soul’s story. Life matters to the living, but cosmically speaking, it’s only significant to the individual. We all go in the end, and the closing curtain drops when your story is told for the last time. So, live a life worth talking about. That’s all you can do.”

I notice Rue pale visibly on the bed. Her voice takes on a defeated edge as she admits, “Too late for me at this point, I’m afraid.”

I sigh while contemplating my response to this piteous remark. Finally, I make a decision. I’ll be here for eight more days, so we might as well make the most of it. “Why haven’t you done more with your life?” I ask.

Rue seems to measure the question as her next words cut right to the heart of the matter.

“I inherited a heart condition from my father called arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, or ARVD.”

“I’m familiar with the disease. You had a fifty-fifty shot of carrying the genetic marker.”

“Well, Doctor, my dad one hundred percent gave it to me. I’ve had heart palpitations and an irregular heartbeat my whole life.”

“You’ll forgive me, I hope, and I know I don’t know you that well, but”—I pause before finishing—“it suits you, Mayday.”

“What does?”

“An irregular heartbeat. You strike me as someone who marches to her own rhythm. Quite literally, it would seem.”

“Yeah, well, it’s also limited me physically for most of my life, so it’s more crawling, less marching.” Her voice, though tinged with self-pity, carries a note of resilience that is both inspiring and hopeful.

“Sounds like you inherited an excuse to me, Mayday,” I challenge, intrigued by her defiance in the face of adversity.

“An excuse so powerful that it killed me before my time.”

“Already told you, that’s not what happened,” I tell her, then recall my earlier conversation with Big D. “But I did find out what caused that first stoppage.”

“Tell me.” Her quick reply and firm tone leave no room for discussion.

So, I tell her what D told me. “You had a bout of acute stress cardiomyopathy. Otherwise known as takotsubo or broken-heart disease.”

I wait for her response, try to read her reaction in her face, but get nothing. So, I press, “Wanna talk about it?”

“Not with you, my own personal demon.”

“Eat your heart out, Depeche Mode.”

She giggles. It’s not an altogether-unpleasant sound.

“Suit yourself.” I get back to the topic at hand. “It’s a fascinating physical condition. Your heart literally changes shape. Got its name because it looks surprisingly similar to the misshapen pot used to trap an octopus.”

“Why would someone want to trap an octopus?”

“Have you ever eaten fresh octopus?”

“I don’t eat anything that can be mistaken for a pig’s anus.”

“Don’t know what you’re missing,” I reply dryly.

“Meh, we all gotta live by a code, Kane. That’s part of mine.”

“You really haven’t lived.” I laugh lightly, though her response indicates she’s much tetchier on the subject than I imagined.

“Fuck you.”

I cut off my laughter and bring the subject back into focus. “So, what’s got your heart so stressed that a pretty young woman like yourself has had it so broken? Twice?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she dismisses.

“Oh, Mayday, I’m an expert on heart trauma.”

“I’m sure you are, Doctor .” She emphasizes the occupation.

I correct her without thinking, “That knowledge has nothing to do with my medical training.”

I see the spark of intrigue alight behind her eyes, and I inwardly curse myself for my repeatedly loose lips. Before she can pry further into my comment, we are interrupted by a loud crashing sound from down the hall.

“What was that?” I ask, startled.

An intruder would not be an ideal development right now.

“The house ghost,” she answers plainly.

“There’s an essence in this house? How do you know that?”

“They leave cabinets open, knock dishes off counters, cause low-key, general mischief. After a while, I figured out it wasn’t just the wind.”

“Interesting. You’ve got a lost soul trapped here already.” I mutter this more to myself, then glare at the undead woman tied to her bed. “If I untie you, are you going to behave?”

“No,” she replies candidly.

Well, at least she’s honest.