Page 133 of Grim

Silence folds between us again.

I lift my head at last. “I’m not her.”

“Maybe not.” He stands now, slowly, deliberately. “But you’re starting to sound like her. And those who sound like her usually end up with the same bloody epilogue.”

“I’m not afraid of endings,” I say, facing him fully.

“You should be,” he replies instantly.

“I’m afraid of not being remembered.”

“We’re all forgotten in the end, Rue. Merely a question of how long it takes.”

“Wish I’d left something behind. Some words echoing after me somehow.”

The tension in his shoulders eases by a fraction. “You’re exhausting, you know that?”

I smile faintly. “So I’ve been told.”

Asher continues to stare straight ahead, not at me. His jaw is clenched, thumb picking at a fray in his glove.

“You gonna go softly?” he asks tentatively.

I shake my head and answer plainly, “No.”

“No?” he asks, eyes turning toward me. There’s a crease between his brows, like he can think his way to the center of my truth.

“I’ve been told it’s much better to rage.”

“No offense, sprite, but you don’t seem like the rage type.”

“When faced with that good night, Asher, I plan to ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light.’”

“Fucking poets,” Asher mumbles. “Making it harder doesn’t make it any more meaningful, Rue. There’s a certain power in knowing when to give up, to simply give in.”

“And when that moment arrives, I’m sure I’ll be ready. But that’s not now. And it won’t be anytime soon either. Perhaps I won’t go at all. Seek’s gone. Someonehas to look after the house now. Remember her stories. The love and laughter that my father and our family poured into these walls.”

“I’m afraid that’s not an option. If I have to, I can make you. I will make you, if need be.”

My mind flashes back to the catastrophe, to Asher and his bowie knife in the field, cleaving souls with ruthless precision. He’s not lying, and I know it.

“I thought all souls were given a choice.”

“They are, unless they piss off three of the pettiest, most powerful creatures in existence.”

I roll my eyes. “I won’t give those girls the satisfaction. Punishing souls for believing in their dreams. Death eviscerating beings for clinging to memory. No. If I can’t take control over thewhen, I can still have something to say about thehow.”

I rise defiantly from my spot on the floor, firm and resolute. “I’m going to bed. I need my strength for tomorrow. I’ve got a story to finish writing.”

The clock strikes a discordant note. The gong sounds off somehow. I flick my gaze to a smug-faced Asher.

“You won’t make it until the morning. You will be gone before the rise of the sun.”

I look outside, staring down at my family’s cemetery plot mournfully. Then up to the sky, seeking solace. All I find is grey. “There’s no moon tonight.”

“Now that’s poetic,” Asher says with a mixture of derision and futility.

I grab my notebook and pull it tightly against my chest. I hold it against the spot where Seek once laid his head. The same place Kane once kissed me. Where every story I’ve ever lived or loved echoes faintly in the final beats of my fragile heart.