Table of Contents
Chapter l
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part Two
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Part 3
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Part 4
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Naomi Grim
Book One of the
Final Breath Chronicles
Naomi Grim
Book One of the The Final Breath Chronicles
Other books by V.B. Marlowe:
The Shadow Pines Trilogy
The Dust Trilogy
The Everly Girls Series
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2017 V.B. Marlowe All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be copied or reproduced in any matter whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Printed in the United States of America.
Cover Design by
Marlowe Blue Publications
Contact Me:
Twitter:
Naomi Grim
Book One of the
Final Breath Chronicles
Chapter l
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part Two
Kennedy High
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Part 3
Repercussions
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Part 4
The Rebellion
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Part 1
The Assignment
Chapter l
Screeching tires, followed by the sickening sound of metal colliding with something solid, prevented me from almost dozing off. I had been propped up against a nearby pine tree when I heard the crash. My dispatching device had directed me there, to Saint Paul, Minnesota. Falling asleep would’ve been a drastic mistake.
I peered from around the thick trunk of the pine and sucked in a breath at the gruesome scene. Although I was used to witnessing death and lifeless bodies, it never got any easier to look at it. I’d known from the winding roads that an accident would likely take place. Spring showers had made the ground slick, which didn't help.
“Where is she? Where is she?” screeched the blond girl, Haley. “Aiden, do you see her? She flew headfirst through the windshield!”
I grabbed the scythe lying beside me and stood, preparing myself.
The kid called Aiden had gotten down on all fours and was feeling the asphalt for his glasses. “No. I can’t see a damn thing.”
After brushing the damp soil from my clothes, I emerged from the shadows.
“Jessica!” Haley sounded more urgent.
The dying girl, Jessica, lay sprawled on the concrete. She was obviously the one, the Fated, I was sent there to retrieve. She had that beautiful death glow about her.
Silent as a ghost, I stood over her. Thankfully, I was invisible to everyone except the Fated when I was in full-on Grim mode. Jessica’s green eyes met mine and widened. She was definitely the one.
“Jessica!” Haley screamed, running to her best friend’s side. She knelt, squeezing the girl’s limp hand.
But Jessica’s gaze didn’t leave mine. She squinted, releasing a raspy grunt. She was fighting hard, but it was no use. When your time is up, your time is up.
What a terrible way to die. Thrown from a car. Skin ripped and gashed by jagged pieces of glass. Landing on the hard cement. Bleeding to death on the road. I cringed at the sight of the bright red pool that had formed around her head, soaking her brown curls.
I wondered what it felt like to bleed. My father thought death was a beautiful thing, but I never saw it that way. Nothing was worse than watching a Human take their final breath.
Jessica’s lips trembled as if she were trying to say something.
“Call nine-one-one!” Haley yelled to Aiden as he crawled over to them.
It was useless, but of course they had to try to save their friend. I would be long gone with Jessica’s life by the time an ambulance arrived.
A long bloody gash stretched across the side of Aiden’s face. He moved slowly, as if something else was hurting him from the inside. Haley held her side, but she was too concerned about Jessica to worry about her own pain.
I had been following this trio of friends for almost two weeks. At the time of the accident, they had been coming home from a study group. I’d been watching them in the library until my dispatching device transported me to the side of a dark deserted road, where I’d waited. They seemed like good kids. I’d grown a little fond of them. They were good-hearted and genuinely cared for one another. The Fated, the one who was to die, had only been revealed to me a few moments before.
With my scythe in my right hand, I held Jessica’s stare and squeezed my left fist tight. Something warm formed underneath my fingers. Her life was in my hands. I opened my hand, and a black stone that looked like a lump of coal rested in my palm. The lifestone.
Haley was hysterical as Aiden yelled poor directions at the nine-one-one operator.
My job was done. I closed my eyes and waited to be taken back. A transporting chamber magically appeared, as it always did when a job was complete, and I stepped inside. The chamber looked like a large bullet-shaped elevator. A strange sensation flowed through me as I became absorbed in a whirl of invisible wind. Transportation back to my dimension only took seconds.
When I opened my eyes, the transporting chamber opened, revealing my kitchen. The chamber was how we traveled from home to our assignments. It took us from the kitchen to anywhere we needed t
o go and then back to the kitchen again.
Paradoxically, the chamber also served as our pantry. I stepped out and almost collided with my younger brother.
“Hey, Sis. You were gone a long time,” Dorian said. He shoved a handful of chips in his mouth, and hadn’t bothered to turn around. No one could sneak up on a Grim.
“This one took longer. She was a fighter…” I swallowed the lump in my throat. In my sweaty palm was the lifestone. I just had to hand it over to my father, and he would turn it in to Mr. Dunningham, our ruler, for a nice sum of money.
Dorian left the kitchen and headed for his bedroom. I trudged along behind, my sneakers squeaking on the hardwood floor. Looking at the back of his head, I realized my little brother had suddenly grown taller than me.
The scent of cinnamon, fresh-cut flowers, and laundry detergent greeted me. Home. It always felt good to return. Our house was located in what Humans would call a middle-class neighborhood in an alternate dimension, which existed on an undetectable world separate from Earth. But our life closely resembled that of the Human world, and we even did many of the same things, such as eat, sleep, love, and raise families. But Humans didn’t know that we existed.
As I walked down the hall, I looked around me. The home I’d been raised in consisted of four bedrooms, a living room, one bathroom, a modest dining room, my father’s study, and a rather big kitchen. (Because of the extra-large pantry a.k.a. transporter.) The living room was the most-used room in the house and was decorated beautifully by my mother. Picturesque canvases hung on the walls, and at night, a fireplace increased the coziness of the room. It was there, on Sundays, that my father usually spent his time playing chess with my brothers.
I was the only girl. Living in a male-dominated household sucked. When Mother was around it wasn’t so bad. Then it was the two of us against them.
Dorian entered his bedroom and sat at his desk, then adjusted his microscope lens. “I don’t know why Humans bother. You can’t fight death.”
“It’s in their nature, Dorian. Most people don’t want to die.” Images flashed: the dead girl, her pleading eyes, her broken body. My body shuddered at the memory. I didn’t tell my brother that death made me sad—he would just tease me and call me weak. “There was…um, a lot of blood, though.”
He looked up. “Yeah? How’d she die?”
In a horrible accident, lying in a pool of her own blood.
Instead, I said softly, “A deer ran into the road. Her friend hit it, and the girl was thrown from the car.” I didn’t add how awful it was to watch her die and her friends crying.
He nodded. “Nice. I love the bloody ones. Dunningham will be happy with that. What happened to the deer?”
I shrugged. I hadn’t thought about the deer. I didn’t even see it after it was hit. “I guess it kept going but it’s probably dead too.”
I went to my own bedroom to hang my scythe on its hook. I’d missed the comforts of being in my own room, but that was the Grim life. A quick glance in the mirror told me that my long ebony hair was still windblown from the trip and that circles had developed under my sable eyes. My skin looked pale and my clothing rumpled. Aside from that, I had my mother’s cute upturned nose and Father’s long legs. And I’d always been a good runner.
I ran a brush through my hair and slipped off my T-shirt, shoes, and then tugged off my jeans. Digging around in my dresser, I found a comfy old sweatshirt and PJ bottoms. Much better.
After changing my clothes, I tiptoed down the hall to Father’s study. I didn’t want to disrupt him if he was concentrating on something. He sat at a large oak desk, his broad shoulders hunched over a book. Biting my lip, I watched him for a few seconds. He ran his fingers through his charcoal hair, which was always cut short.
“Hello, Darkness. You made it back.” Darkness was my parents’ pet name for me. If we were Human, they would probably call me Sunshine or some other silly name.
“Yeah, Father.” I walked to his desk and handed him Jessica’s lifestone.
After taking it, he opened a silver box and placed the lifestone inside. “Good job. How old was she?”
“Seventeen.” She had just turned seventeen the week before. I’d even had to endure her very rowdy birthday party. I had to admit, it had looked kind of fun. Grims never had parties like that.
Father smiled. “So how many years does that make for you?”
“Four hundred and thirty-two.” I was only sixteen, so I had a long way to go.
Father made a note on a page in his notebook, where he kept track of our years.
That was how it worked, being a Grim. We not only collected lifestones—we collected years of life.
When we brought back a lifestone, Mr. Dunningham paid us. That was how we survived in our world. The younger the person, the more money we got. The person’s age also was added on to our own lives. For example, Jessica just added seventeen years to my life, so it was a catch twenty-two. The younger the life, the fewer years, but more money. The older the person, the less money but the more years a Grim received.
It was all we knew. We were Grims by birth. We had done nothing to earn this job, and there was nothing we could do to escape it. I didn’t think we were monsters. We were just doing our jobs, what we had to do.
We were born into the business. And yeah, it sucked. Although death was a necessary part of the cycle of life, Grims didn’t cause deaths—we were just there to pick up the lifestones. It was a common misconception that we collected souls. Souls were totally different. What happened to a Human’s soul was between God and Satan. It had nothing to do with us.
I lifted the picture of my mother from the desk. She had the same features as all the Grims—black hair and black eyes. Our family in particular had pale skin, but Grims came in all colors.
When duty called, we had to leave our families and follow the Human who was about to die. Sometimes we could be gone for weeks or months. At that moment, my older brother Bram and my mother were away on assignments. It was rare that our entire family was ever together at once.
“You miss her, don’t you?” Father asked.
“I do. It feels like I haven’t seen her since forever,” I answered wistfully.
Mother had been on an assignment for two months at a military camp.
“Well, she actually came home last week, then she got called out again. But I think your brother will be back later tonight,” Father said, as if Bram were a suitable replacement. Bram had just turned eighteen and thought he ruled the world.
I rolled my eyes. “Great,” I muttered. I had actually been looking forward to a Bram-free night.
Father turned his attention back to his book, so I left him alone. I wanted to catch up on some reading before dinnertime.
***
Father had made salmon and steamed vegetables for dinner that night. We were all seated at the table and Dorian was retelling a story about how he’d discovered yet another new life-form. According to him, he had done an experiment with a beetle and turned it into some sort of mutant. Dorian was pondering what he should name the mutant-beetle when a familiar bumping sound let us know that Bram would be coming through the transporting chamber at any moment.
Bram entered the dining room and threw his scythe to the carpeted floor. I waited for Father to say something about Bram’s disrespect toward the sacred scythe, but he only looked concerned. As Father’s Golden Child, Bram got away with a lot more than Dorian and I. Bram towered over the rest of the family, being even a few inches taller than Father. His body was lean and toned from working out consistently, and he kept his dark hair in messy spikes like most guys his age did.
“What’s the problem, son?” Father asked, putting his fork down.
Bram’s eyebrows lowered as he scowled. “It was a suicide.”
Suicides were no fun. We got almost nothing for those. When a person committed suicide, it wasn’t really their time to go, so we weren’t prepared in advance. If the person took their own life before
we could get to it, then the lifestone was virtually worthless.
I never understood why a Human would do that. Human life seemed pretty nice. What could be so bad that someone would want to die? So many of the Fated I’d met had wanted to continue living but couldn't. It didn’t seem fair. I concluded that suicide was one of the things about Humans I’d never understand.
“Waste of time!” Bram growled. He jerked out a chair and shook the entire table as he sat, almost spilling my glass of water.
I touched the rim of my glass to keep it from tipping over. “Calm down, Bram. We all get those occasionally.”
He glared at me, and I looked away. I knew better than to talk to him when he was angry.
Bram and Father were alike in so many ways. For one, they both hungered for money and power. They’d do anything to stay in Mr. Dunningham’s good graces. All they cared about was moving up in society and living in some stupid mansion in the Upper Estates.
I couldn't care less about those things. I didn't see what the big deal was. I felt as if we already had more than we needed, even where we lived in the middle of Nowhere.
Really. Our colony of Grims lived in a world named Nowhere. It was just that, too—nowhere. Our world served as our waiting area as we traveled back and forth between the world and home.
There were three sections of Nowhere. Litropolis was the lower end, and the people who lived there were poor. Mr. Dunningham rarely gave them assignments. It was sad because they died early for lack of earned years, and the Grims who didn’t live there wanted nothing to do with them. We lived in a small city called Farrington, the middle-class zone. I loved it here. Farrington was a quiet city, filled with gothic homes; small shops where we could purchase food, clothes, and luxury items; and a few restaurants. Everyone knew everyone in Farrington.
I loved our home, complete with its sharp pinnacles, rounded windows, and intricate geometrical designs. The buildings in Farrington reminded me of the European cathedrals I'd seen in books. Some of our buildings even had towers.
Even though all our friends lived in Farrington, it wasn’t good enough for Father or Bram. Mother once told me that a Grim man’s worth was measured by his riches and his home. That was the reason Father would never be satisfied until we made it to the Upper Estates, where Mr. Dunningham and all his favorite families lived. They had thousands of years and anything they dreamed of and desired. They looked at us like we looked at the Grims of Litropolis, like we were nothing.
Naomi Grim: The Final Breath Chronicles Book One Page 1
