Page 105 of Grim

“Not as badly as he’s been weaving onmyloom.”

“Well, he’s been directingmyplay.”

“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 feelanything 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 andsaw 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 togive anything,” Fate spits like it’s acid.

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

“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.”