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sixteen

W hen I opened my eyes, it was with immediate disdain for the sunlight pouring in through the enormous window. The brightness stung, and for a second, everything was disjointed. The room felt unfamiliar, my body stiff, and mind foggy. I didn’t know where I was or how I got here.

Then it hit me.

Memories crashed down over in a wave—Grim collapsing, his skin marked with something unnatural, the unbearable stillness of his body. I sucked in a breath and bolted upright. I was still in the clothes I arrived in, every seam digging into me as a reminder.

But I didn’t remember lying down. I didn’t remember falling asleep.

I threw the blankets off. “Grim!”

His smooth voice came from the bathroom doorway. “Great, you’re awake.”

Adjusting the cuffs of a crisp button-down, he looked perfectly intact, as if he hadn’t crumpled to the floor the night before while I watched in horror, powerless to do anything but wait.

I rose from the bed slowly, my movements tight. “You collapsed,” I said, my voice a bit raw.

He didn’t respond. His jaw ticked. Just a flicker of something behind his eyes, then he went back to buttoning his shirt, unbothered. As if I hadn’t been one breath away from calling for an ambulance and explaining that Death incarnate was having a seizure of some sort.

“You fell asleep in the chair,” he said at last, quiet and unreadable. “I tucked you in. That’s it.”

“That’s not it.” I stared at him.

“We’ve got a lot to do today.”

“I saw marks on your body, Grim. Something was wrong with you.”

“I’m fine, Astoria.” His voice was sharper now.

Heavy. Deliberate. Each word was a brick in the wall built between us.

He disappeared back into the bathroom and shut the door behind him.

No explanation. No opening. Just silence.

“There’s coffee and some breakfast for you on the buffet,” he called through the door, as if that closed the matter.

It didn’t.

But I wasn’t going to keep talking to a locked door.

The scent of fresh coffee lured me over, and despite myself, my stomach growled.

A tray of pastries, fruit, sausage, and bacon waited beside a steaming pot of coffee, cream, and mugs.

I tore into an almond croissant, swallowing it in three angry bites and chasing it with a long gulp of black coffee.

I needed the strength. Because clearly, this wasn’t going to be easy.

Grim reemerged a minute later, fully dressed and looking annoyingly perfect in a tailored suit.

Ignoring me as he poured himself a cup of coffee, he plucked a blueberry from a small dish and popped it into his mouth.

“You’ll find what you need in the bathroom,” he finally said.

“There’s a dress and shoes. We leave in thirty minutes. ”

I stopped mid-bite of a second croissant. “Where are we going?”

“You know,” he said, glancing over with bored menace, “I’d rather taste your mouth than let that question decay between us again. At least it would shut you up.”

“Go ahead, then,” I said, low and bitter. “Take what you want. Like you always do.”

His expression faltered—just for a second. A flicker of something unguarded passed through him, a crack in the dark. “We are going to a funeral,” he said, the words landing gently, as though they weren’t meant to bruise.

Then, as quickly as it had come, the softness vanished.

“You’ve got twenty-six minutes.”

I set the half-eaten croissant down, appetite hollowed out. “Is this how it’s going to go?” I asked, voice cool. “You throw orders at me and expect obedience. I don’t have a choice?”

He turned away, his gaze slipping to the window. “You made the deal, Star. You want my help? This is me helping.”

“Have you helped, though?” I said sharply. “I’m still a ghost. A name that won’t stay in anyone’s mouth. A face moving through time without trace.” I didn’t wait for a response. I pushed past him and stalked into the bathroom. The door shut behind me—without my touch. Magic. Of course.

Then, the click of the lock.

“Locking the door doesn’t protect you from me,” I called, stripping the sweat-damp shirt from my skin.

His voice came through, low. “No. It protects you from me .”

I froze, hand tightening around the fabric.

“Is this funeral going to break my curse, Grim?” My voice cracked, my frustration brimming. “Is it mine?”

He didn’t respond, but I could hear him breathing behind the door, his silence as much an answer as anything.

And somehow, that made everything worse.

The drive was brief, but the world beyond the window felt suspended in time, muted and spectral beneath a heavy shroud of snow. Frost clung to the trees like lace spun from bone, and the sky pressed low, a smothering gray that swallowed the horizon.

Atop a distant hill, a church emerged from the haze, ancient and half-forgotten.

The paint peeled, and the once-white facade had yellowed with memory and weather.

The crooked steeple pierced the clouds. At its peak, a tarnished brass figure caught the light in brief flickers, part saint, part sentinel.

Grim eased the car into a slow crawl behind a solemn procession of vehicles. The chapel’s doors yawned open as mourners moved up the slope in quiet pilgrimage, dressed in black, their shapes stark against the snow.

Tension crawled along my spine as Grim parked the car on a narrow patch of snow-packed gravel. We joined the flow of mourners at a distance, hanging back since we didn’t quite belong. Just two specters at the edge of something sacred.

Grim’s silence was louder than the gentle wind as we climbed the path toward the mouth of the church.

The weight we both carried followed us in.

Inside, the air was thick with incense and old wood.

Grim’s hand brushed the small of my back, a quiet pressure that urged me forward.

I let him guide me to the end of a weathered pew, where we sat, outsiders still, tucked into the corner of grief not meant for us.

Some wept softly, their sorrow threading through the smothered hush.

Others whispered behind gloved hands, their voices feathered with reverence or speculation.

The air itself seemed to hold its breath.

Grief hung thick, not loud or showy, but bone-deep.

It seeped into the walls, into the wood beneath our feet, into me.

A hush so saturated with mourning it made my skin crawl, as though it knew something I didn’t.

A photograph of a young woman sat on an easel. Pale-pink roses curled around the frame, laced with baby’s breath. “Who is that?” I questioned, my eyes fixed on her serene face.

“You don’t remember?” Grim’s voice was soft, but there was something in his tone that tempted me to meet his gaze.

I studied the photo, searching for any flicker of recognition, but nothing came. The pressure in my chest tightened.

I didn’t recognize the deceased woman, or her name scrawled beneath it.

“Phoenix…” Grim’s voice slid through the air, low and coaxing, and the word hit me with a punch to the gut. In an instant, my mind snapped back to a decade ago—too many years spent buried under rain and distance, all to avoid this exact moment.

Her face, young and terrified, flooded my memory. Her father’s blood spread out on the grocery store floor, soaking into the tiles as I stood frozen in the next aisle. I saved the old woman and he died in her place.

“Why the hell did you bring me here?” I hissed, my voice sharp and angry, but it didn’t match the twisting panic in my gut. I stood to leave, but before I could make it anywhere, Grim’s strong hands pulled me back into my seat.

“You need to understand.” His words were short and measured.

I didn’t care. “I agreed to give you my soul. I agreed to break the curse.” I yanked my arm out of his grip, cold steel flashing through my veins.

“Astoria…” His voice cracked with something raw, and for a moment, the hard mask he always wore slipped. But he didn’t need to physically hold me here. I stayed, rooted to the pew, the weight of this place pressing down on me harder than any of Grim’s demands.

The church loomed around us, its old wooden beams creaking under the weight of history.

Sunlight barely filtered through the tall, arched windows, the gray light casting a muted pall over the room.

The air stunk of incense and dust, stale from the years the building had spent holding in grief. Every breath felt heavy with it.

The man at the front was fumbling with his notes, his voice nervous, shaky as he spoke about Madison’s life.

“Madison was a troubled child,” he said, followed by a heavy sigh.

“Her mother left them when she was young. Her father… Jason did his best. Played both parts. He died on vacation when she was just a kid.”

Her cousin (the man speaking) didn’t know Madison.

Not really. He spoke in vague terms, dancing around the parts of her life that had been lost to everyone.

It made my skin itch to hear it, the way they glossed over the years she spent alone after her father died—alone, trying to figure out where she fit in a world that had already chewed her up.

And the guilt in the air. It was thick. Heavy. Pressing down on my chest too, just like it had pressed down on hers.

Her grandfather moved slowly to the front, his frail legs shaking beneath him. His tear-streaked face was pale, his eyes lost in the fog of grief. The whole room was watching him now, holding its breath as he tried to speak.

“She never… got a chance,” he croaked, his voice breaking under the weight of the years he’d spent mourning his granddaughter.

The sound of his broken words echoed through the cavernous room, bouncing off the high walls.

His wife came forward, her hand on his shoulder, muttering something into his ear before she took the microphone.