Page 22 of Grim

But then she slips.

The wet grass betrays her, slick and treacherous. I see it unfolding before it happens—her heel skids, her body twists, and her head angles hard toward the sharp granite of her father’s headstone.

And without thinking or planning, I move.

I lunge. It’s a reflex. Something ancient in my bones that predates protocol. My arms catch her mid-fall, fingers curling around her waist like the most natural thing in the world.

And then everything stops. Because I’m holding her.

I’m holding her.

I freeze. My hands—dead hands, hands that have touched hundreds of souls and never once a living body—are full of her.

“What the fuck?” I whisper, staring down at the impossibility.

She gazes back, her eyes wide as her breath hitches in her chest. I instantly release her as if I’d been burned, and she drops the last inch to the grass with a thud.

“You have got to be kidding me!” she shouts, smacking the earth in frustration.

But I barely hear her. I’m staring at my hands like they betrayed me.

I shouldn’t have been able to touch her.

Reapers can’t touch the living. It’s rule one. Basic metaphysics. The ironclad law of the OtherWorld. We pass through. We guide. We never touch. We can’t.

Except …

My fingers still remember the curve of her hip. The heat of her. The weight.

I reach out without thinking, kneeling beside her, and run my hand gently along her cheek.

Soft. Warm. Real.

It’s impossible.

“This can’t be happening. There’s no w—OW!”

Her fist collides with my jaw before I can finish the thought.

“Don’t touch me!”

I stagger back, hand cradling my cheek. She’s glaring up at me, radiating fury, and I don’t even blame her. I’m too busy panicking. Not the mortal kind—the cosmic, existential kind. Thewhat does this meankind.

She can hit me. I can feel it. I can feel her.

And that means something iswrong.

“I—” I start, but my voice is hollow. I inch away from her, walking backwards in a cautious retreat.

“Hey!” she calls. “Where do you think you’re going? You can’t just leave!”

“I have to check something,” I mutter, more to myself than her. “I have to—fuck.”

I reach for my Tombstone Phone and press the Home button to initiate an immediate transport out of here. In order to transport between realms, an OtherWorlder needs to be situated in a location on Earth where someone has died or been laid to rest. So my current surroundings are super helpful for this hasty retreat.

I broke something tonight. Not just protocol. Something far worse. I’m just not sure what.

I am fairly certain though that Time and Fate are going to want my head for this.