Grim and Bear It
Chapter Twelve

Rule #7: Reaper manifests are confidential and not to be shared.

- The Reaper Code of Ethics, official handbook. Poppy

Jake still wasn't on my list. I was terrified every new human day that he'd appear, but even more scared that he'd end up assigned to someone else. Just because I was the closest to him didn't mean I got priority. If I had a busy schedule, it was possible another reaper in the area would get him, although it would likely be someone closely related to me. He could end up on anyone's list and I wouldn't know.

I didn't have a stomach anymore, but it still felt like I had swallowed a large boulder. Waiting for someone to maybe die was the worst thing I'd ever experienced. Would Jake have been my reaper partner if I had told him the truth? Would he have chosen to come with me and leave Eliza and his family? Would his company have made being a reaper more bearable or would I still feel this trapped and out of place? Was I the only one who felt like they didn't belong? The moment I was born, even by a surrogate, I was a Grim. Adult reapers were allowed to bring their spouses or a committed partner or partners as long as they were approved by the reaper council. Once born of, adopted by, or committed to a reaper, an outsider became part of the family business.

This was ridiculous to think about. Despite time being completely fluid, marked only by boat rides and playing the violin at a rundown pier, I couldn't rewind the events of the past. I couldn't make this make sense. And anyway, there was no other choice. I was a reaper, end of story.

Just like I couldn't figure out why, despite promising to stay away, I was sitting in the back of an empty church watching Jake listen to a community choir concert. On paper, a reaper in church was incongruous, but in reality we were neutral creatures. We didn't steal souls, we guided them. We didn't work for any specific afterlife location we were like an afterlife waiting room-and our allegiance was to protecting our cargo.

If I tried really hard, I could convince myself that I was protecting Jake's soul, even if it wasn't ripe yet. So I stayed, and I watched as his long blinks turned into closed eyes, and his head dipped. Eliza elbowed him and he jerked awake, looking around.

I didn't need to see his face to know he was exhausted. I could tell by the way the air moved around him, the way he held his shoulders. It may have been years, but I still knew him.

A shadow moved along the outside of the stained-glass window, disrupting the early evening sunlight. Probably just someone walking by, or maybe an animal. I looked back over at Jake whose head was dipping again. I wish I could just walk over there and tell him to get up and go home. He always gave everyone everything before he gave to himself.

He still hadn't learned boundaries. At least, not when it came to committing his time. Not that I had room to talk, but my time wasn't my own.

I was glad I no longer slept. The nightmares would be the worst. I'd seen too much as a reaper, the worst of humanity and of soul eaters. I couldn't even sit in church and not be suspicious of a shadow.

It passed by again.

A third pass. More blue than gray. A fourth pass.

If I had a heart, it would be beating in my throat. I scrambled to my feet and around the back side of the pew, watching the sunny spot where the shadow had been. I wanted to go get my sister, but if she knew that I was here, she'd hand me my ass.

I heard the rustling of someone walking down the aisle and spun to see an aggravated Jake coming toward me, punctuating his silent frustration with each thump of his cane. From the look on his face, I knew he was going to react poorly to me spying on him again. He opened his mouth to speak, but I held up a hand.

"I think there's something out there."

The exhaustion fell from his face and he slipped into Agent Robinson right in front of me. "Let's go," he mouthed.

The moment we were in the foyer and out of earshot of his family, Jake turned to face me. "Why are you here?"

I just pressed my finger to my lips and slid through the door. Jake followed as we crept around the side of the building toward the wall of stained-glass windows. When we reached the corner, I peered around the edge. A large rabbit startled and looked up from the plant it was eating right in front of the window.

Jake pressed against my back and looked over the top of my head. "Ah, yes. A threatening rabbit."

The weight of his body pressed against mine made me forget how to use words. I closed my eyes for a moment, soaking in the feeling. He was so warm. I wanted to turn around, to bury my head between his neck and shoulder, to get lost in the strength of his arms.

He stepped away and I pressed my hand to the brick to keep steady. God, I was so touch starved. How did no one else in my immediate family feel this way? We were never huge huggers. Sure, my parents hugged me whenever I needed, but I loved casual touch. Craved it.

Eliza, Jake, and I were always touching. Hands, heads, legs, feet. If we were hanging out, we always were within touching distance. Even twelve years later, I missed it every day.

Jake sighed and leaned against the wall. "Poppy, I can't be seen talking to you, especially by any supernaturals. If it gets back to SHAP, I'll lose my clearance. I'll be removed as Daisy's future mentor." He looked over at me. "I'm sorry."

"I understand," I whispered, trying not to show how deep his words cut. I studied his face, trying to memorize every curve. "You weren't actually supposed to see me today." "No?"

"I was just...checking on you. You're the one who left early."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, I fell asleep too many times and Magnolia ordered me home."

"Don't get pneumonia on me, again," I warned, recalling when he didn't sleep much before finals and ended up sicker than he'd ever been.

He sighed. "Yeah, I know. I promise I won't." He looked out across the parking lot. "I'm so tired." The words were spoken so softly, I wasn't sure he'd meant to say them out loud. I was sure he didn't mean only physically. I tilted my head. "I'll walk you to your car."

I fell into step with Jake as we walked away from the church and toward the parking lot. He slipped his hand into mine, and the entire world stilled at his touch. God, un life was just unfair.

I squeezed and sucked in a breath. "I miss this."

"Holding hands?"

I nodded. "Also, just touching someone so warm. Human skin is so soft and full of life." I looked down at our hands. "I'm the only reaper I know who prefers to wear their human glamour, even off duty. It just feels more like me." He squeezed my hand and I almost tripped. "Is there anything you like about it?"

I pressed my lips together for a moment, avoiding eye contact. "Is it that obvious?"

"Poppy, you cried for two days over Binx, who I'll remind you was a fictional cat, after watching Hocus Pocus, and then refused to ever watch it again."

"I'll admit, that's on brand for me." I hesitated as we stepped up to his car. "I mean I get to hang out with my family, and that's pretty cool."

He lifted his eyebrows. "Is that it?"

I shook my head. "There's something else." Showing him would require me to release his hand and I hesitated, but he made the decision for me by pulling his away and tucking it into his pocket. My chest hollowed out at the loss, but I covered it by reaching into my cloak.

He sucked in a sharp breath through his nose when he saw the violin. "How?"

"I was allowed to bring one thing with me, so I chose the most precious." The instrument had been my sixteenth birthday present from Jake. When he'd given it to me at my party, our families had lost it saying it was too expensive and that we were too young to be exchanging such big gifts.

Ultimately neither set of parents could bring themselves to take it away from me. Jake had found it in a thrift store and worked extra shifts for weeks until he could afford to have it repaired and restrung. I was also able to return the rental I had for the school orchestra, which made my frugal parents happy. Jake and I swore up and down that we weren't secretly in a relationship-we didn't need the labels to know how much we loved each other-and once the party ended, everyone was mostly appeased.

I slept with it in my bed for the next month and practiced until my fingers bled.

"I thought it was lost forever." Jake reached out and touched the edge of the body, over a decade of unspoken words filling the space between us. "Can you play me something?"

I nodded, the corners of my mouth softening into a smile. "Most humans can't hear it, but I suppose since you can see me, it's worth a try." I lifted the instrument to my shoulder and closed my eyes. I pulled the bow over the strings, the air around us shimmering with fairy lights and the emotional sounds of Tchaikovsky.

I played for him and only him, leaning into the music. Moving with it. There was no self-consciousness, no worry that I'd mess up. The exact notes didn't matter.

It was the memories, the emotions, the way music could say everything I couldn't. The crescendos and the decrescendos, the accidental flats and the changing time signatures, giddy eighth notes and the long heartbreaking pleas trapped in fermatas.

When I finished and lowered the violin, Jake was leaning against his car, staring into me. His eyes shone in the setting sun and he was silent for a long moment, letting the last note fade into the fall breeze. "You're still so talented," he breathed.

Thank god I couldn't blush. I tucked the instrument away. "I use it every day."

He smiled. "Good."

We stood there in silence, knowing that the next words needed to be a good-bye, trying to delay the inevitable. "So..."

He straightened. "So." He opened his arms. "A proper good-bye this time." His voice caught on the last word, and it frayed my non-beating heart.

I stepped into him, tucking my forehead against his shoulder and closing my eyes. His arms wrapped around me tight, his cheek leaning against the top of my head. My imagination had not done a Jake hug justice. He was completely wrapped around me and for the most perfect of moments, I felt human. I was so warm. The spiraling internal clock inside of me quieted and my thoughts slowed and eased away.

Before I even had a chance to daydream about stopping time and never letting go, dread-no, something infinitely colder-shot through me. I pushed out of Jake's arms and threw him behind me as an out-of-control car careened around a line of parked vehicles and straight toward us, a demon I'd recently sliced in half in the front seat. Oh hell no. It was not getting revenge today. I dropped my human glamour, my skeleton being the safest and strongest form, and pulled out my sword.

With two strikes of my weapon, the car stopped dead in front of me, the engine literally cut in half. The crumpled metal spat smoke and fluid in one last visceral attack, then fell silent. A final thrust with my sword through the windshield, and that demon was in pieces again, escaping through a self-repairing tear in the earth. I was breathing heavy, despite not needing oxygen, because I was freaked out. Holy macaroni.

Jake had almost died in front of me.

Worse, he saw me change into full reaper skeleton. I pulled my sword out of the wreckage, replaced my human skin, then forced myself to look at the man whose life I just saved.

"Holy shit," Jake whispered. "You just Edward Cullen-ed me. With a really badass sword."

"I"-I blinked at him-"guess I did? It's been a while since I've watched the movie." Eliza and I had made him take us to the movies three times in one week to see Twilight. To his credit he'd gone every time.

His face went serious, then blank as he surveyed the scene, Agent Jacob Robinson slipping firmly in place. "This is why you've been coming around, isn't it?"

I took a step toward him, but the crease between his brows deepened and I took it as a warning. "Partially."

"Because I really am on your list?"

"No! No. At least, not yet." I shook my head to clear it.

"I'm not following."

"I think you might be in danger and I'm trying to protect you."

"Why now? Why this case?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. I don't have all the"-I flailed my hands near my head-"fancy reaper intuitions that are supposed to help me figure this stuff out. All I know is that you can see me, and I don't know why." "Have you come to visit before? Have there been other times I haven't seen you?"

I pressed my lips together. So many times. I couldn't tell him. Not yet. I just nodded instead.

"How long have you been checking on me, Poppy?" His voice was low but demanding.

I looked at his feet when I answered. "Every few weeks...for twelve years."

He sucked in a breath, reached out, and brushed his knuckle under my chin, then lifted my face until I met his eyes. "Why didn't you ever let me know?"

"I wanted you to live your best life."

"And now?"

"I'm scared," I whispered.

"Why?"

"Because once you die, that's it. You go to the afterlife and I carry on being a reaper and I can never ever see you again, and I don't know how to exist without you, okay?!" I slapped my hand over my mouth.

I don't know how to exist without you? Oh my god. Ground, please swallow me up. The ground ignored my pleading.

Jake's eyes went molten, but the moment we heard a car door close, he blinked and turned into professional Jake. "I need to call this in." He nodded to the wreckage behind me. "Can we meet later and talk?" I didn't even bother to pretend I wasn't going to be there. "Yeah. I get a break around midnight your time."

"Can you replace me?"

I smiled but it was forced. "Always."