Page 143 of Grim

These words belong only to her.

“Did we miss it?” Fate barks, materializing in the room and drawing my attention momentarily away from Rue.

“Did we make it?” Time chirps.

“Of course we did.”

“We’re right on time,” Fate’s sister concludes with a smirk in her voice.

Big D laughs at the Sisters, beaming at their entrance.

The powerlessness that I’ve been wearing like a blanket since entering this room lifts slightly as a bone-deep anger begins to bubble over. Each tickle of their amusement adds immeasurable fuel to my burning rage.

Daryl’s voice booms over all other noise. “The climactic action. The big finish. The storm after the calm. It all leads to this.”

He sweeps his arm toward the screen, and all our eyes pore over the vision of Rue in the rain before us. Visible yet impossible to touch.

Rooted to the most towering place in my home feels like a fitting spot for Rue’s Last Stand. I do what I imagine many souls do when face-to-face with the end. Fears are generally best conquered with others. And there is no greater fear than the unknown. Though I do know thatsomethingawaits beyond this earthly realm, what it will mean for me, or even what’s left of me, is a complete mystery.

Faced with the yawning abyss, I seek connection. Solace through symbiosis. And I know to whom I wish to be connected with in this moment. Though I know in my head it’s futile, I seek my voice again. “Kane?”

“’Fraid not, love. It’s just li’l ol’ me.”

I do not know where he came from. He simply appeared, and his sonorous voice somehow fills all the open air around us. There is little of the smug brashness in his tone. Asher’s voice carries the weight of the moment with appropriate reverence.

He is almost kind when he asks, “Will you cross willingly then?”

“Asher,” I rasp, voice raw, “no.”

“Shame that. Would have been a lot easier that way. And there’s no otherRuerunning around to give you a second chance at this later. So, it’s the easy way or the hard way,” he says, resting his hand on the pommel of his bowie knife.

Flashes of his speed and brutality from the catastrophe fire in my brain, but I will not be moved.

“For a life I fought so hard to live, the only way to honor that legacy is resiliency to the last.”

“In spite of its utter uselessness?”

“No, Asher. Because of it. Because the life I was living had so much more story to tell and the love I just found is far too young to die. So, if my truths have to conform to that bleak reality, then Fate and Time can extend someextra comfort where I’m concerned to answer for their cruelty.”

“Still determined then?”

“Resolute. Let them know that for a life snuffed out with wax to burn and a love that could have burned forever, I fought to the bitter end. I refused to let go.”

Asher’s face seems to indicate he’s coming to grips with the reality before him. A look akin to pride flashes as he quotes The Bard, “‘It is an ever-fixed mark.’”

“‘That looks on tempests and is never shaken,’” I continue the line with a stone-like set to my voice. I square my shoulders and face my reaper. “So, bring on the fucking storm, Asher.”

Right on cue, the wind returns on a howling cry, the rain intensifies to a lashing ferocity, and the sky illumes with the staccato crack of lightning and thunder.

Asher remains silent in the ensuing torrent, but he slowly begins to unsheathe his blade.

And then I feel it. Again.

It.Theit. The cessation of a beating heart. It doesn’t hurt this time. Because when everything hurts, there is nothing to compare the pain against. It just is.

And I simply am … dying.

Before I lose the last breath I have, I sing my final notes. Though my cadenza is not belted to the back of the balcony, but rather a softly whimpered, “Mayday.”