Chapter 40 Grim
She was mad. And she had a right to be.
But not about what she was mad about.
At the same time, I couldn’t seem to make myself talk again—to apologize for leaving her on her own without a word, a phone call, a drop-by check-in.
An explanation…
Because this, her reaction, was exactly what I’d been hoping for.
That she’d assume the worst about me and dismiss me.
I’d been gambling with the hope, too, that she’d been right about something she’d said.
That maybe the fate that I’d explained to her was imminent, the certain death I’d told her was coming and the powers that be involved in it, had somehow changed their mind.
Or even that, when I’d saved her the last two times, that had triggered a glitch in the “system,” allowing her to skate free.
None of that had happened. Fate had called again, summoning me to her side.
And now I had her well-earned resentment on top of the knowledge her number was still up.
Gripping the steering wheel tight, I ground my teeth and forbade myself from setting her straight.
While I’d expected her to be mad that I’d vanished from her life entirely, and even that she’d figured I had better things to do, never once had it ever crossed my mind she’d assume I would save her to preserve a possession. An object. A car.
I couldn’t stand it. Even though, for her sake, I tried to.
“Grim,” Helena said as I kept my gaze steady on the road, my name coming out as a soft sob.
“I’m sorry. I’m… still angry, but I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.
I’m… frustrated. I’m tired. Exhausted, actually.
And, yeah, I’ll admit it. I’m deeply hurt.
That probably doesn’t mean a lot to you.
Who knows? Maybe I’m not even an anomaly.
Maybe you have girls all over the world. ”
What the fuck?
“It’s my fault for reading into things,” she said. “I always do that. I always think things are way more serious than they are.”
What was she talking about? How much more serious could you get than death?
“Especially when…” she said, hiccupping between those quiet little sobs. “After…”
She trailed off, and I let her. But I also passed up the entrance to her apartment complex.
Helena didn’t say anything, the sobs turning into snuffles.
I kept driving, at war with myself over what to say, the heart I didn’t have in flames. But why all the internal strife when I’d already decided what I was—or rather wasn’t—going to do?
“Where are we going?” she asked at last. “Since I’m not dead, I have work tomorrow—and a big afternoon storytime. Families are still on vacation, and it’s going to be packed. I have to get up early to get more glue sticks, too, for the craft.”
I stayed quiet.
“Or do I have it wrong?” she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Maybe… maybe you’re tired, too.”
Tired. I was tired. Until I met her.
“Before,” Helena said after several beats, “when Cedric came to the library. You used your scythe on him. You could do that again and this would all be over. I know Cleo will cover the storytime—she knows how to work the popcorn machine, and I just saw my parents and my entire extended family, so that helps with timing.”
This conversation—if you could call it that—kept delivering one more painful blow after another, each more brutal than the last. The worst part?
Well, one of the worst parts. She thought these things about me not because of me, though my actions hadn’t fucking helped.
She thought them because of others. How they’d treated her.
Those people who shriveled in her light.
All those assholes she’d dated, making herself small for their comfort in the process.
How many of them had used her?
I wanted to kill them. All of them.
And what did it say about me that I did want to try to get some names out of her?
Probably a reaction to examine. Later.
“I don’t deliver death,” I reminded her. Maybe my murderous self, too.
“You don’t save people, either,” she said, “but here we are.”
Ouch. Deserved… but ouch.
Spotting what I’d been hunting for, the entrance to an open cemetery, I turned off the main road and onto its drive.
“That what you want me to do?” I challenged.
Helena got quiet again, her face turned toward her window as we passed stone markers, gravestones, aboveground tombs, and sepulchers.
“What are we doing here?” she asked.
“I want to show you something.”
“In a graveyard,” she replied, her voice deadpan—like she didn’t really care about the answer. Like she figured she’d inadvertently given me an idea, and that I had decided to scythe her.
“This place is ancient,” she said. “They haven’t buried anyone here in years.”
“I know.”
“You couldn’t pick somewhere they’re more likely to find my body before I turn into a moldy crouton?”
“I’m not scything you, Helena!”
She folded her arms. “Then what is this about?”
“You,” I said as I neared the rear of the cemetery, a Victorian section with several elaborate and freestanding mausoleums. I slowed as we neared one that would do—an ornate and elegant hut-sized stone sepulcher.
Only when I put The Judge in park did Helena glance my way again, questions swirling in her red-rimmed but still gorgeous eyes.
“It’ll only take a few minutes,” I promised, killing the engine and yanking the keys free.
“What will?” she pressed.
“At this point,” I said, dissipating into smoke, “what do you have to lose?”
I reappeared at the threshold of the mausoleum’s iron doors, the lock of which I undid with vapors.
I glanced back at Helena once, then slipped inside.