Page 40 of Grim

Tock,Tick

B ig D doesn’t need to raise his voice. He never has. His anger comes wrapped in velvet and nails, slow and inevitable—like rot or taxes.

“To quote Ricky Ricardo,” he says evenly, “you better tell me what the fuck you’re up to.”

I don’t flinch, though my spine tightens. I give him a smirk anyway because, if I’m about to be flayed, I should at least go out in style. “I’m fairly certain that’s not how the quote goes, sir.”

His eyes narrow to slits. “Do I look like I give a shit?”

One clawed finger—growing by the second—pierces a piece of parchment on his desk like a skewer through meat. “Why don’t you tell me what the fuck this is?”

I lean forward on the balls of my feet to get a closer look, not at all interested in stepping any closer to him in this state.

“That’s a sheet of paper, sir,” I state plainly. “Good texture, recycled stock, strong gra—”

“Look at it, you fucking idiot!”

I step forward with measured strides. “Okay.”

I pluck the sheet off the desk, careful not to graze the talon embedded in it. The paper tears near the edge where his nail was. As I look up at him, his nail retreats, and his slithering tongue morphs back, and he closes his mouth .

“Uh …” Clearing my throat, I read the information. “It looks like an intake form, sir. Sent to the desk of AfterLife Processing immediately following a successful crossover.”

“Well, what do ya know? The doctor can read.” Big D’s eyelids close to razor-sharp slits. “Impressive.” He pauses, clearly waiting for me to do something, then groans. His voice takes on that petulant-child tone. “Read the name, Kane. And the date.”

I scan the paper more closely and realize that this is from Claire Simone . My brain short-circuits. If my blood wasn’t already cold, it would be now.

This shouldn’t be possible.

“ Típota den eínai adynato ,” I mutter out.

Big D’s head snaps up. “What did you just mumble, reaper?”

“Nothing is impossible.”

“In Greek?”

“Yes.”

“Why Greek?”

“What? I don’t know. The language fit the mood. I know ten of them. Might as well use them. I’d hardly say that’s important right now, sir.”

“Important? No. Annoying? Yes,” Big D deadpans, his thin eyes cutting into me from across the desk.

“So, she,” I pause and look up, “crossed over? One hundred years after her portal closed?”

“Yes, Kane, she did. And now you’ve got a lot of fuckin’ splainin’ to do.”

“That’s the quote, sir.”

“Shut the fuck up, Kane.” His booming voice rattles me into immediate compliance. “Now, explain to me how a soul who missed her portal window by a cool century managed to cross over like she had the line-skip ticket at an amusement park!”

How can I answer that? I know what I saw, but it doesn’t make any sense. Either way, telling him it was Rue seems unwise.

“I made contact,” I lie easily. “Her soul connected. An opening appeared, and she moved on.”

“Right.” Big D sighs audibly as he falls back into his leather chair, the frame groaning in protest .

He reaches across his desk and grabs a human skull off the corner. The top of the skull is cut off and hollowed out, and inside … more Twizzlers.

“Nana,” Big D says softly as he looks at the skull, “I’ve been good to him, and he’s repaying me with lies.”

I close my eyes. I would rather him just punish me than make me witness him talking to his skull.

“Sir, I’m not—”

He holds the skull to face me, two pieces of the candy falling out in the process.

“Don’t lie to Nana,” he warns while gesturing to the skull.

“Sir—” I stop as he raises a brow in warning.

“Kane, I’ve been a fair boss. I’ve treated you well. I feel like when you’ve asked for things, I’ve done my best to deliver them. So, tell me”—he pops a Twizzler into his mouth and spins it around his tongue—“why do you hate me?”

“Sir, I can assure you, I do not hate you.”

“But you must. Because you brought this mess to me.” Before Big D can say anything else, a gust of shadow splits the room, and with it comes the arrival of Time and Fate, flanking him with amused looks on their faces.

The ground shakes, and smoke coils into the office, causing D to lean back and groan.

“Wonderful,” he mutters. “Now I get to deal with the Sisters too.”

“Kane.” Time smiles cooly while plucking a Twizzler out of Nana and biting into it. She curls her lip before finding a wastebasket to spit it into. “That is atrocious. Why would you put that in your mouth?”

“I like them,” D mutters while taking the candy back. “Don’t touch Nana without asking.”

“Can we get back to the problem here?” Fate huffs. “I am very mad at you, boy.”

“Not as mad as I am,” Time hums while standing next to her sister.

Fate is thin with sharp features and a cold demeanor while Time is curvy with her golden complexion and warm aura.

It’s a trap. Time still oozes sinister ruthlessness.

They are both vicious. While Fate is all about instant gratification, Time loves to watch the slow torture unfurl for the souls unfortunate enough to cross her. Like me currently.

“Oh, I don’t know about that, big sister,” Fate says in her silken voice. “This lowly soul shepherd has had his hands in my clay.”

“Well, he’s been messing with my perfectly crafted sheet music.”

The Sisters face off, yelling at each other over Big D’s head.

Fate continues, “He’s been chiseling my marble.”

“And he’s been choreographing my dance.”

“Not as badly as he’s been weaving on my loom.”

“Well, he’s been directing my play.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Big D rises slowly, deliberately, like a storm building behind stained glass. His voice doesn’t boom. It seethes. “Enough with the bickering and the metaphors. This isn’t a poetry slam, and you weren’t invited, ladies. Show my office the respect it deserves.”

The Sisters stop mid-spit, jaws snapping shut with audible clicks.

And like vultures sensing meat, all three turn to me.

It hits like a wrecking ball to the chest. Their attention isn’t just a stare. It’s pure suffocating judgment.

“You tampered with the weave,” Fate hisses, eyes like shards of lava rock.

“You rewrote the tempo,” Time snaps, her voice bending in unnatural time signatures, like it’s folding over itself.

“You disobeyed a direct order,” Big D adds much too softly.

I don’t flinch. I’ve taken their orders.

Followed every celestial command for hundreds of years—through plagues and wars.

I’ve watched massacres unfold in crimson horror, taking the breath from thousands at a time.

And I have heard desperate tyrants begging for one more breath of their own.

And I have faced it all with efficient, dutiful professionalism. A good soldier to D.

And what did it get me?

Nothing but eternal mundanity. So, one time? After endless cycles of clockwise, I decide to try the other direction. What began as an impulsive moment to feel anything after countless moons of nothing became more than I’d ever felt in any of my days.

Because Rue isn’t just another soul waiting to cross over into the AfterLife. She’s the soul that I didn’t know I’d been waiting forever to find.

She was the girl in the community center—black dress, orange-and-black hair, green combat boots, and a du Maurier novel. She didn’t plead or scream or bargain. She just looked up and saw me . And despite trying with everything I have to stop her, she’s found a way through my walls.

I look up, chin high. “This is old news,” I say. “Yes, I gave her nine day—”

“You have no authority to give anything ,” Fate spits like it’s acid.

“Her time was up,” Time says, eyes glowing too bright. “And you pulled her from the threads. You ripped her loose.”

“And now look at all that’s unraveling. You save one, and look.”

“I intervene and give one human her allotted days, and what? The universe you so carefully constructed starts to crumble? I think that sounds like a you problem.”

“You aren’t paid to think,” Fate huffs. “You aren’t paid at all, so be grateful you still exist.”

“Fate isn’t your domain, reaper,” Time says.

“It’s mine.” Her sister emphasizes, then continues, “And Time is none of your concern.”

“It’s mine,” Time parrots her sister’s earlier refrain.

“When mortals take their fleshly experiences too seriously, there are ramifications. And when they start intervening in the stories of lost souls, there are severe consequences.”

“Punishment,” Time interjects. “Cross over on our clock or face an eternity of regret.”

“A forever of stuck-ness.”

“Mortals move on our terms, or they remain.”

“On our terms.”

“No second chances. No do-overs.”

“And no meddlesome nobodies altering our perfectly crafted world order. ”

“No one, reaper. Not a single, solitary soul.”

“Not you. Not Rue. Not Cindy Lou Who.”

I hold my tongue. I want to voice my disdain. I want to live in Rue’s reality—a world where one mistake is not an eternal sentence, a universe built on forgiveness and growth.

I want to, but I dare not. This is not Rue’s realm. I would only be signing my sad existence away to ages of pain and ruin.

“Did you have something you wanted to say, reaper?” Fate goads me.

“Does the cog in my perfectly tuned clock want to use his pathetic little voice?” Time piles on.

“That’s enough,” D says, his voice barely audible as he flicks some dust off the skull.

“My sister is right,” Time states, ignoring D. “You’ve forgotten who you are, who runs this show, and who holds your leash. We say bark, and you say …”

The silence stretches for ages. The outer limit of my humility stretches near oblivion. The best I can do in this situation is maintain this lie and play my part. I can keep Rue safe by being the source of the Sisters’ ire and playing at obedience.

Knowing I’ve accomplished all I can in this exchange, I swallow the last vestiges of my pride and softly murmur, “Woof.”

The Sisters laugh while clapping and bouncing up and down.

“Good boy,” Fate declares.

“Now get back to work and supervise that pasty pest until she’s ours.”

“And no more interventions from that importunate unfortunate, Kane. Or you both will pay.”

“Are we clear?”

I grit my teeth, holding back a sea of invectives and insults. “Crystal,” I manage to push the word past my locked jaw.

“Good,” the Sisters say in unison.

“Then we’ll see you both at Big D’s ball. At least we know you can’t get into trouble there,” Fate finishes.

“Oh, we shall see about that.” Time smiles. “ Something tells me Kane may already be in more trouble than he’s letting on.”

“His eyes do have that sparkle, don’t they, sis?”

“They do, Fate. They really do.”

“We’d better be wrong, of course,” Fate says, boring her gaze deep into me. “Or you’ll Rue the day, reaper.”

With that, they both laugh and then disappear.

“Well,” D says, his voice sounding like a tombstone tipping over, “isn’t this going to be interesting?”