Page 25 of Grim

“Let’s get this over with,” she mutters, her voice like frost on glass. “Time,” she calls affectionately to her sister as they lock eyes and smile mischievously. It’s the closest they’ve looked to twins.

The air ripples like a pebble dropped into a still pond. Time raises her hands, and the world around us seems to slow. The flashing lights, the chaos, the movement—it all becomes muted.

And then the fallen bodies glow. Dozens of them.

Men. Women. Children. Writhing and moaning in a sea of fire, blood, and gore, the poor humans glow bright as Fate and Time move through the scene like snakes through sand.

Their ethereal forms bend and twist around the mass of agony.

I can see the power and pressure that Fate’s form elicits from the bodies as Time begins to sing the sweetest, most haunting melody.

Time’s song is overtaken, however, by the souls, now screaming in their mutilated bodies, begging for help.

I grip my chest, my heart beating wildly out of control as a small girl’s voice comes from somewhere in the chaos, screaming for her daddy.

“Shit,” I whisper, my throat thick with emotion.

“Hey. Hey, look at me.” Kane’s voice is soft, but there’s steel beneath it. “Mayday, breathe and stay here. No one can see you while time stands still.”

He releases my hand, and I nearly sob at the loss.

“K-Kane!”

“Rue.” His eyes meet mine, and for once, there’s no sarcasm. No teasing. Just earnestness. “Please, let me do this. Don’t acknowledge the souls. Just soften your focus. This will all be over soon, and then I will get you home.”

I nod, swallowing hard as I step back.

Many of the spirits begin to separate from the bodies, their essences hovering in much the way the old woman did on Kane’s previous reap. It’s simple and haunting and oddly beautiful. But others do not seem to be bending to the pressure of Fate’s swirling energy and Time’s lyrical tune.

Their bodies convulse, and the sounds that pour forth are not of this world.

“What’s happening to them?”

When Kane answers, I realize I asked the question aloud. “They are hesitant. They don’t want to cross over. Sometimes, souls don’t want to let go. Or they don’t know how. Fear. Regret. Love. It anchors them here.”

“Can’t we help them?” I ask desperately.

Asher chimes in, having made his way back to us as Fate and Time perform their opening act, “Some souls may choose to wander, but that option is not on the table for those whose earthly stories end in catastrophe. All of those must be reaped and rent from their mortal casings and crossed over. No alternatives. No exceptions.”

“And if they don’t go willingly?”

I immediately regret asking. Asher’s face takes on a demonic edge, and Kane’s face is painted with a mixture of madness and sadness.

Asher answers with steely resolve, “Then we make them.”

Kane and Asher share a glance, then each draw a hand to their breast pockets.

Kane pulls the shiny black-and-silver switchblade from before, immediately drawing the sharp edge out through the top of the handle.

Asher brings a large hunting knife out of his, the teeth of its serrated edge adding a layer of menace to the already-terrifying instrument.

“Boys,” Fate thunders from above, the noise cracking all around us.

Her sister chimes in, “It’s time.”

They both laugh, causing the air around them to burst into violent fits of thunder and lightning. Rain begins to pour as the Sisters cackle.

Kane slowly removes his jacket, handing it to me, all expression, all feeling gone from his face. “Hold this for me, please. This will only take a minute.”

I take his jacket, noting how much broader his shoulders are than I thought. He rolls his sleeves up, one at a time, the blade glistening in his firm grip as the veins in his forearms throb.

My eyes trail up his arms to the single spot of red I put there what now feels like ages ago. And perhaps in many ways, it was.

“Be careful,” I find myself saying, suddenly very concerned for Kane’s well-being. “Wouldn’t want to mess up your fancy Italian shirt,” I joke to break the unbreakable tension in the air between us.

“If you can,” Kane says gravely, his eyes boring into mine, “look away. If you can’t”—he pauses—“try to remember this is not who I am.”

“Not all of you anyway,” Asher says as he slaps Kane on the shoulder and smirks his devious grin. “Shall we?” he asks, and the two turn toward the catastrophe.

And then there is carnage. Pain and depravity, the likes of which I have never seen.

No one has, not living anyway. It’s unthinkable.

Asher and Kane stalk through the wreckage and the dead bodies.

They deftly move from one wispy form to another, using their blades with stone-cold precision.

But their knives don’t pierce the flesh, nor do they draw blood.

They’re severing tendrils that tether the soul to the body.

Grey and black wisps that wrap around the smoky souls like veins or vines.

The reapers don’t speak. They move with practiced ease. Asher steps up to a body, lifts his curved steel, and makes a clean movement just about the chest. There is a small jolt, the inky tethers separate from the essence, and the soul detaches before rising.

Kane mirrors the motion a few feet away. He doesn’t look at the faces of the dead. His focus is on the exact placement of the blade, the timing of the release. He completes the task without hesitation.

Every time a thread is severed, Fate intones the word: “thread” in a deep, sonorous voice. Immediately after, Time responds with a sharp, high-pitched sound.

The process is surgical. Clinical. The bodies remain untouched beyond the final stillness. Nothing is left behind except silence and order.

I try to look away, but I cannot. I am transfixed by the magic and the mayhem of it. Then it happens.

Kane moves to a body whose spirit won’t separate. The smoke remains tethered to the chest. He steals a glance my way, and I watch as his face drops at the realization that I have not followed his simple instructions.

He mouths again, Look away.

The rain continues to pound, sending diamonds of light popping off his silver switchblade.

I do not avert my gaze. He looks skyward, only to see Fate and Time glaring down at him.

He sighs and returns to the stubborn soul.

He raises his powerful arm up in the air and plunges it into the chest cavity of the young man beneath him.

And then again. And again. Stroke after stroke, Kane destroys this being with an animalistic fury that takes my breath away.

Blood spurts and splashes everywhere, covering his already-soaked shirt in pools of crimson and pink.

He looks completely unhinged. There can be no denying his raw ruthlessness.

Kane continues to brutalize the body below him as small wisps of smoke plume from each new slice.

Despite the brutality of this scene before me, Kane’s power is undeniable.

Then I look up and see the two Sisters singing and laughing, conducting and weaving.

And I realize with my next breath how utterly powerless Kane truly is.

His physical strength juxtaposes with his captivity, and it is impossible not to see a new side to my Grim Reaper—a chained animal, capable of unthinkable destruction .

As Kane effortlessly slashes away and the man’s spirit finally cleaves wholly from his mortal form, I remember what Kane said just moments ago.

“I’m a reaper, not a monster.”

Thoughts race through my head, ramping up my anxiety as I pore through a series of unimaginable scenarios.

He may be a reaper, a cog in this system of beings in the OtherWorld I cannot begin to comprehend, but there can be no denying that this ferocity belongs to a monster.

My mind begins to quiet, and my body stills as one singular thought takes hold. My monster .