Page 131 of Grim

It feels lonelier.

I curl into the spot where his body used to be, and I sob. Hard.

For Seek. For Kane. For myself.

And for all that good hurt, which still hurts all the same.

I do not hear Asher enter.

The silence left in Seek’s wake suffocates. It clings to the wallpaper and pools in the floorboards. It consumes and distracts.

I sit against the wall, my back pressed to the peeling paint, my knees drawn up like a shield from all that exists outside myself. The book lies in my lap, the spine worn, the corners soft, its weight unbearably light for something that feels like it holds the last real thing I have left. My hands won’t let go. My fingers press so tight against the cover I worry the binding will give.

My cheeks are wet. My eyes pour forth a duality of emotion. One half of it feels the ache of loss, the sadness of a good thing now gone. While the other weeps in a joyous melancholy, where the heart can celebrate sweet surrender. I let out a sigh that releases some of that miasma of feeling.

“Where’s the boy?” The voice comes from the doorway—gravelly, thick, low, and lazy.

I don’t look up.

“I heard you talking in here.”

“He’s gone,” I state numbly.

“What do you mean, gone? Like back into the walls? Has he blended with the ether? Or did he piss off to haunt the attic?” Asher asks.

I shake my head. “Gone,” I repeat. “Really gone. Crossed over. Or moved on. Or whatever the technical term is.”

His eyes bulge slightly, and then booted steps cross the floor—deliberate, unhurried. A sigh. Then the creak of worn leather as he sinks down beside me. He smells faintly of smoke and paper. Not unpleasant.

“That’s not … that’s not a thing,” he mutters. “There are rules about this, you know? Whole bloody chapters. Reaper rule number nine:‘No soul can cross after its portal window has closed. Decisive action is required from the reaper to prevent consequences that ripple into eternity.’”

“Haven’t read that book.” I state the obvious because the obvious is all I have right now.

“Well, you’ve read plenty of others,” Asher mumbles appreciatively.

The closest thing to a compliment I’ve ever heard from the brute.

He glances at the old book in my lap. His voice softens, just a notch. “That one was always a bit of a gut punch.”

“He wanted to hear it,” I say, voice wobbling. “Said it made him feel real. Didn’t peg you for much of a reader.”

“Stick around a couple of centuries, you hear a story or two.”

There’s a weighted silence between us, the space between chapters.

Then, finally, Asher speaks again. “And now he’s gone.”

“Yes.”

“Peacefully?” There’s something cautious about the way he asks. Like he’s never had the chance to see it done that way.

I nod. “I think so. He wasn’t afraid at the end. He was ready.”

“No one should be able to do what you just did.”

“And yet here we are.” I sigh, feeling Seek’s burden lifting slightly. “His spirit is at rest now.”

Another beat of silence.