Page 8 of Grim

FreeWillComesataPrice

The Present. Again.

I ’ve earned my stripes. Stitched them onto my coat through centuries of servitude. But I’m feeling reckless today. Culmination of ages of mind-numbing repetition perhaps, but I’m not following the ledger this time. I’m not crossing Rue Chamberlain. Not yet anyway.

Not because I care or because I’m some sentimental fool.

I’ve been going through the motions for centuries, and I want to see what happens when the motion stops.

So, here I am—ankle deep in weeds, standing on soggy soil outside a Victorian manor house that looks like it was sketched by a madman with a laudanum addiction. The place looms against the dark ominously. The kind of house that feels like it’s watching you back.

Behind it, the family cemetery broods. Wrought iron fencing curves around the graves like ribs around a broken heart.

The headstones are crooked, leaning into the earth like they’re trying to lie down for good.

Moss and time have all but eaten the names off their faces.

Ivy curls upward from the roots, as if it were trying to pull the dead back down.

The air stinks of damp rot and copper, like something freshly unearthed and bleeding. Thunder grumbles above me, not a warning, but a witness .

“Damn it,” I mutter, crouching beside the collapsed woman. “Of all the places to drop, you pick your own graveyard. Poetic, I’ll give you that.”

I have a moment of clarity. A thought whispering that I should complete the job and move on. Clean extraction. Business as usual.

But I don’t.

Instead, my hands move on instinct, and I press them against her chest, just over a vertical scar that peeks from the edge of her dress.

Her curls tangle in the mud. Her lips are blue. Her pulse is gone. Her soul is already half out the door, slipping past the threshold.

And I know what I’m supposed to do.

Fate and Time drew up the schedule. The Weavers wove their thread. Big D sent me with full clearance to collect her soul, by force if necessary. I am a reaper—an entity tasked with the collection of souls at their appointed time. But it isn’t her time. Not yet.

I’ve reaped thousands of souls over the centuries, each of them slipping through my fingers like sand.

I don’t feel them anymore. Not really. Not since I stopped letting myself.

But this one? This one I remember . The girl from the nursing home.

Orange-and-black hair. Combat boots and a du Maurier quote that’s been stuck in my head like a splinter.

So, I allow my doctoral instincts to take over and do what this place has told me never to do again. I plant my hands, fingers locked, elbows straight, and I start compressions.

“Come on, sweetheart,” I grit out through clenched teeth, finding the gait with practiced ease. “Don’t be stubborn.”

One hundred beats per minute. A rhythm older than belly dancing. Older than me.

I should walk away. The Weaver Sisters will feel the ripple.

Time will scream. Fate will snap. I should care.

But I don’t. I’m tired of being their blade.

A good boy on a chain who jumps and speaks on command.

I want to do something because I want to .

Because I can . Because maybe centuries of taking orders is long enough .

I’m going to climb that mountain because it’s there. That’s why.

Her lips are going paler, and her face goes slack.

Shit.

“No. Not today,” I growl, angling her head back.

I press my mouth to hers on instinct, simulating a breath, then another. And another. And then I feel it.

It’s not the movie-magic kind of jolt. No dramatic gasp. No spark of divine light.

But resistance .

I feel her breath ghost against my lips. I pull back at the sensation, then watch her soul absorb back into her physical form seeing color return from her grey. That’s new. Then—her eyes snap open. They are blue-grey storm clouds, unblinking and unnerving.

She stares, not with fear, but curiosity. Like something deep in her knows that something changed.

I stand, brushing at the grass stains on my Italian slacks. Grass stains are the least of my worries now. The Sisters are going to metaphorically flay me if I’m lucky. Flay me literally if I’m not.

“Perfect,” I mutter. “Resurrect a girl, ruin the tailoring. Is nothing sacred anymore?”

She blinks once, twice, before trying to sit up.

“W-where am I?” she asks, voice thin and frayed.

“Backyard,” I say. “Yours, specifically. The cemetery’s got great ambiance. Five stars.”

She manages to right herself and looks around the graveyard like it might give her answers. Her eyes come back to me, locking with mine in a very unsettling way.

“You’re staring,” I tell her.

“Who are you?” she asks.

“Dr. Kane Deveraux. Former physician, current reaper. Enchantée .”

“Don’t see someone like you every day,” she says, voice steadier now.

“I hear that a lot,” I sigh. “Usually right before the screaming.”

She doesn’t scream.

“I died,” she says slowly. “I felt it. I was gone . And now I’m … not?” Her voice trembles with confusion.

I don’t answer right away. Because the truth is I don’t have an explanation. I don’t know what happens to a person whose body perishes without a reaper on hand to shepherd the soul. Uncharted territory for both of us. I can’t let her know that though.

“Look, Mayday,” I mutter, pinching the bridge of my nose so hard that it would bruise if I still had the ability. “Your heart tried to clock out early. We don’t do incomplete stories.”

“You must be mistaken,” she states and I can practically see her mind racing to connect the dots. “I have a heart condition, ARVD. We knew this would happen eventually.”

“And it will happen eventually,” I reply, probably a little more stoically than necessary. “But this isn’t that. Something else stopped your heart just now. A broken heart, I’d guess by all the funereal crying you’ve been doing.”

“That can’t be right,” she mumbles, blinking.

“Don’t interrupt. The reports are never wrong.

” I sigh through my teeth as I try to construct this.

“My bosses have a real flair for drama, but what they don’t have is patience.

They spend eternity spinning everyone’s threads into this big cosmic tapestry, and when someone starts pulling on loose threads—well, let’s just say things get tangled.

Chronology slips. Realities buckle. People start remembering parallel timelines, and it becomes an absolute PR nightmare. ”

She tilts her head like I just started speaking another language. “Spinning threads. Tapestries. Is this a joke?”

“No, and stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I just sprouted a second head.”

She lifts one perfectly judgmental brow. “You’re the one who was on top of me in a graveyard. Tongue down my throat, no less.”

“That was CPR,” I deadpan. “And if I recall, it saved your tragically short life, so maybe dial back the outrage.”

She crosses her arms and scoffs, “So, how did you even know I was out here?”

“Because,” I say slowly, dragging the word out like a lit cigarette, “I was the one assigned to your case. ”

The look she gives me could curdle blood. “Repeat that.”

“I have been assigned to you.” I enunciate, as if perhaps the temporary crossover affected her hearing.

“As in separate your soul from your body, escort you to the OtherWorld, toss you into the great cosmic filing cabinet. You were dead. The problem is, you weren’t supposed to be.

And that”—I wave a hand at the situation like a magician performing the world’s saddest trick—“is a violation.”

Her eyes narrow. “Punishable by you?”

“No,” I grit, already regretting this conversation. Why didn’t I just follow through with proper protocol? “Death is upper management, the final decision maker. I’m a middle-tier executive. Logistics. Paperwork. Corporeal separation and spiritual delivery.”

I lean against a headstone and pull out my flask, letting the burn run straight down my throat.

Her stare sharpens. “If you’re here to steal my soul—”

“I don’t steal anything, Mayday,” I snap, offended. “I’m not a thief. I’m a courier with a clipboard and a deadline. I escort. I transition. When I’m feeling gentlemanly, I hold the door.”

“But you brought me back,” she says. And the shift in her tone—gentler now—catches me off guard. There’s no bite. No sarcasm. Just confusion. “Why?”

Because I was tired of being a scalpel when I could be a stitch.

What I say instead is a bit of a shifting of the truth. “Because you jumped the queue. And line jumping pisses off the Weaver Sisters. Trust me, you do not want them in a bad mood. Fate may start cutting threads.”

She swallows. “So, when am I supposed to die?”

“I can’t tell you that,” I reply automatically, eyes fixed on the rusted cemetery gate like salvation might be hiding behind it.

She waits. So, I add, “When mortals know their expiration date, they start acting like every moment is a ticking bomb. They burn too brightly. They try too hard. Or worse, they don’t try at all. ”

“But I want to know,” she says softly.

It’s not defiant. Not even desperate. It’s just … real. And something about that makes this harder .

I close my eyes for a breath that doesn’t quite come. Centuries of this gig, and I still can’t find a script for moments like these. No rulebook for the pause between a truth and the ache it will cause.

My voice comes out quiet. “Knowing changes people.”

“Tell me anyway,” she says, finally standing.

The words are small for the weight they carry.

I look at her. She’s not glowing, not fragile, not half draped in angelic light, the way some mortals imagine they’ll be after near death. No. She’s sharp around the edges. Bright and breakable, but not broken. Her eyes still haven’t stopped staring into mine, like they’re hunting for something.

I don’t want to say it. I shouldn’t. No good can come from carrying the weight of that knowledge.