Grim Girl

by Nicky Graves

  Grim Girl

  Reaper Files

  Nicky Graves

  Grim Girl

  By Nicky Graves

  Published by Nicky Graves at Pierced Heart Publishing

  Grim Girl is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Nicky Graves

  Edited by Amber Barry

  All rights reserved.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  To Earthlings everywhere. We’re all in this together.

  Contents

  Books by Nicky Graves

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Chapter Preview of Grim Life

  Thank you!

  Books by Nicky Graves

  Grim Girl

  Grim Life

  Grim Lost

  More Grim books to come.

  Prologue

  “Supreme Elder,” the assistant said as he rapped on the open door to the chamber. The thick wooden door absorbed most of the sound of the assistant’s annoying habit of knocking in quick succession.

  The Supreme Elder glanced up from the tome he had been paging through. The ancient book’s pages were yellowed and cracked from time; the fragile binding held together by age-old waxed threads. Scrawled on the fading pages was a language that only few could read.

  “What is it, Tate?” the Supreme Elder asked as he carefully closed the worn leather cover and rested his hands on his carved wooden desk that had weathered over millenniums of work.

  The Supreme Elder sat back with a sigh as he waited for the eager new assistant to compose himself enough to speak. He wished he hadn’t had to kill the last one. Unfortunately, he had had no choice. The man was too smart for his own good.

  The new assistant didn’t have that problem, the Supreme Elder thought with another long-suffering sigh.

  “Get on with it, Tate,” he said. “I have pressing matters that need my attention.”

  “I know, sir,” Tate said, dropping his gaze to the floor before lifting it back up nervously. He straightened and adjusted the standard-issue black robe that was a size too large for him and scratched at his newly growing beard.

  “Sir,” Tate said after he cleared his throat, “Rossen said the stone finally arrived, but it’s unstable. He wants to know what to do with it.”

  “Did he say how long we have before we need to find a host?”

  “Six weeks at the most.”

  Six weeks? That wasn’t nearly enough time to find a suitable host. While there were several reapers who were strong enough, he wanted to be careful in the selection. He needed someone who could host it but was too weak in mind and body to use it.

  “How long before a new reaper gets chosen?” the Supreme Elder asked.

  “Boomer Jones was the last reaper chosen. That was seventy-five years ago.”

  “So, another twenty-five years until the next choosing,” the Supreme Elder mused.

  It would be too late. He thought about using Boomer for a moment, wondering if the newest recruit would be a candidate for hosting. But the more he thought about it, the more he decided against it. Boomer was known to the Elder Council as one of the most undependable reapers. No, he needed someone new. Someone moldable. Someone he could use as a puppet.

  A new reaper.

  He’d just have to summon a reaper twenty-five years early. It was highly irregular to call a chosen reaper before their time. The last time it happened was recorded nearly three thousand years prior. And it meant a sacrifice to cast such a spell.

  The Supreme Elder opened the book, carefully turning the pages to find the right passage.

  “Have a seat, Tate,” the Supreme Elder said.

  The assistant scurried to one of the old leather chairs sitting across the desk and perched on its edge.

  The Supreme Elder nearly thought to use Tate as a host and save himself the effort of a complicated spell. But Tate wouldn’t work. He was loyal to the Elder Council to a fault.

  No, he needed someone untainted by the reaper world.

  “Sir,” Tate said hesitantly, “do you think the master will be displeased?”

  “You know as well as I do that the master wants to host the stone himself. He will be very displeased.”

  The Grim Reaper was displeased with most things. When the Guardians of Life had wrenched the stone away from the Grim Reaper over a thousand years ago, the master had sworn revenge. But the Guardians slipped into obscurity, taking the stone with them.

  But now, with the stone back in the reaper realm thanks to a few of the Supreme Elder’s personal scouts, the Grim Reaper would finally be able to regain the stone. But to blatantly give it to him would cause a war amongst the worlds and would split the Elder Council into splinters.

  It was not worth the risk.

  Instead, the Supreme Elder would wrap up the stone as a gift for the master to find and take back. And if the wrapping happened to be a new reaper, too weak and untried to use the stone, so much the better.

  The Supreme Elder found the passage in the tome and began reading the ancient text.

  Tate leaned forward, looking down at the book as the runes glowed and began to lift off the page and then swirl in the air. When they began wrapping around the assistant, Tate looked fearfully at the Supreme Elder.

  “What’s happening?” Tate whimpered.

  “It’s time the master takes back his full power,” the Supreme Elder said. “He has been suppressed by the Elder Council and the Guardians of Life for too long.”

  The assistant wilted to the floor as his life essence detached from his body, glowing as it lifted into the air.

  “Your sacrifice will not be in vain,” the Supreme Elder said, catching the essence orb in his hand. “The master will be pleased.”

  1

  I never thought about death. And I never expected to meet him.

  I slung my backpack over my shoulder and closed my locker door, finding myself facing the most terrifying student in all of Cloverfield High School. Chloe Dashwood.

  With a blonde, manicured arched brow, she raked her icy-blue gaze over me. Her pinched, glossy lips told me she found fault with everything about me.

  “A ponytail and jeans,” she sneered. “How original.”

  To her, brown hair was gross, as she had told me several times over. And the fact that I preferred jeans and T-shirts instead of the latest trends in fashion was a personal affront to her.

  I turned to ignore her, as was our ritual since our lockers were unfortunately next to each other, and bumped into Dane.
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br />   He grasped my arms to keep me from bouncing off his towering athletic frame.

  “Sorry, Riley,” he said as he let go of me. He ran his hand through his light, sandy hair that he kept at a longish, windswept length. “I didn’t mean to run into you. You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said and stepped to the side.

  “Ew,” Chloe said, fumbling in her purse. “You touched her.” She brought out sanitizer and grasped his hands to squeeze a large dollop of gel onto his palm.

  Dane glanced at me with an apologetic look as she scrubbed his hands. I wanted to ask him why he hung out with her, but it was rather obvious. In terms of looks, Chloe had won the lottery. Blonde hair fell in soft waves. And she had a body that none of the guys at Cloverfield High School could keep their eyes off of. Plus, she was a cheerleader with enough social clout to be a total bitch and get away with it.

  I rolled my eyes and escaped as quickly as I could. I knew there would be a tsunami of insults in her barbed-tongued arsenal.

  Just around the corner, I found Larue in the hallway with a dazed look as she clasped her books against her chest. I glanced back to see who she was staring at. Finn Jordan. Football player and friend to Dane and Chloe.

  “Why are you staring at Finn like he’s a fairy-tale prince?” I asked.

  She blinked her denim-blue eyes at me and flicked her stick-straight, dark honey-colored hair off her shoulders. “I am not.”

  “You totally were. You’ve had a thing for him since freshman year.” I had no idea why. They were total opposites. She was the smart one. The bookish one who loved to be inside reading. He was . . . not.

  Larue stepped over to her locker and opened it. “If you must know, he asked if I would be his lab partner.”

  Being lab partners with Larue would earn Finn an easy A. I kept my thoughts to myself. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but I suspected Finn was just using Larue. But she had to be partners with someone, so what harm would it be if it was Finn? As far as I knew, Chloe was only territorial when it came to Dane. So, Larue should be okay.

  Larue pulled her backpack out of her locker and shoved a pile of books into it, making my backpack look like it was empty. She heaved it up on her slim, willowy shoulders. The bag probably weighed three times more than she did.

  She grinned and sighed, “I’m lab partners with Finn.”

  I smiled for her. “How about I buy you a latte at Zero’s to celebrate that it’s Friday and you’re about to have the hottest lab partner in school?”

  A blush grazed the tops of her cheeks. She shifted her backpack and began to walk to the parking lot. “Maybe you and I can start our history project while we’re at Zero’s.”

  “Latte first,” I said, hoping to stall the project.

  The fact was, I was tired. It was the beginning of my senior year of school, and for the past few weeks I had grown restless. I chalked it up to it being my last year at a high school I hated.

  But there was something more. Something inside of me was anxious. Changing. A nervous energy stole my breath at times and wound my stomach into knots.

  “What’s wrong?” Larue asked. “You looked worried.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you have another run-in with Chloe?”

  “Every day.”

  “What did she say this time?”

  “Same as always. Hates my hair. Hates my clothes. Hates me. Even had to sanitize Dane because he might have caught my cooties.”

  “She used to be nice.”

  “That was before she got boobs. Ever since fifth grade when all the guys began drooling over her, she’s thought she’s better.”

  Larue gave a nod. “She hasn’t been the same since. Why would Dane get your cooties?”

  “I don’t have cooties,” I said with a laugh.

  “I know that. But why would Chloe think you gave them to Dane?”

  “I tried to run away from Chloe and ran into Dane. He grabbed my arms to keep me from falling over.”

  “I wonder why they aren’t going out,” Larue said.

  “If it was up to Chloe, they would be.”

  “He always stops at her locker to talk,” Larue said. I could tell by the way her lips pressed together and the way her eyes scrunched into a squint that she was puzzling over something. “But he never asks her out. Why not?”

  “Because she’s a witch.”

  “Then why stop at her locker and talk to her?”

  “I don’t know. You can figure it out at Zero’s,” I said, hurrying her far away from school.

  It was Friday, and I had the whole weekend to be Chloe- and school-free.

  Rolling over in bed, I glanced at my phone and winced when I saw how early it was. A wave of nervousness wormed through me, and I shoved out of bed.

  This wasn’t the first time I had felt this way, but it was the first time the feeling had woken me. And on a Sunday, no less.

  For a while, I had thought the nervous energy was because it was finally my senior year of school. But I’d been in school over a month and the energy hadn’t stopped coming. It felt like I was awaiting something terrible. Something worse than a trip to the principal’s office. Like it was pulling me, wanting me to go somewhere.

  Several times I had wondered if something was wrong with me.

  When Larue and I had talked over lattes, she said it was the jitters. I still hadn’t picked out a college while everyone else had a mapped-out plan of their future. But I knew it was more than that.

  The pull grew stronger, urging me to leave the house. My skin prickled, and I knew I had to follow.

  I yanked on a pair of jeans and an old boyband T-shirt that would give Chloe verbal ammunition for the rest of the semester if she saw it. I covered it up with a warm hoodie and tossed my brown hair into another ponytail. Maybe she was right. Maybe I was a fashion flop.

  Quietly, I crept out of my room and avoided the creaky stairs as I headed to the first floor. It’s not that my mom would care I was heading out at five in the morning, but she would ask me where I was going. I didn’t have an answer to that.

  Standing in the cool fall air, I started down our walkway, the need to move increasing with each step. Without conscious thought, I turned right and followed the sidewalk. It wasn’t until I was a few blocks away that I realized I was heading downtown. I didn’t know why, though. It was almost as if this feeling building inside of me was leading me there.

  I paused at the intersection with the highly anticipated new stoplight and pressed the walk button. I’m not sure why I waited for the little man to light up, indicating I should cross. It wasn’t like there was traffic at five in the morning in my puny town of Cloverfield, Illinois.

  But still, I waited. It seemed like the thing I should do. It kept the nervous energy at bay. Impatiently shifting my weight from one foot to the other, I glanced at the shop window behind me, noticing a very puffy pink dress that I’d rather die than wear. However, with the chilly September morning air, I wouldn’t mind the extra layers, even if they were putrid pink.

  As I waited, a large truck pulled up to the red light. The driver was eating something that looked to be a breakfast burrito, making me wish I had eaten instead of taken a walk.

  Down the road, I watched a car race to make the light as it finally turned from green to yellow. The light switched to red, yet the car still kept its speed. The truck driver, distracted by his falling-apart burrito, rumbled into the intersection. The nervous energy grew stronger.

  Instinctively retreating from the curb, I flinched as the car smashed into the side of the truck, the hood crumpling on impact. The airbag exploded like a gunshot. And then silence.

  For several seconds, I stood and gawked at the wreckage. My feet rooted to my spot on the concrete. It wasn’t until the truck driver hopped out of the cab and raced around to the crumpled car that I shook myself into action.

  He saw me running toward him. “Call 911.”

  I quickly called and gave the dispatch
er all the information I could while I watched as the truck driver ran to his truck and grabbed a crowbar. He wedged it into the buckled door and heaved, but the car door didn’t budge. He attempted several times without success.

  In the distance, I heard sirens. I backed away to the sidewalk as an ambulance, squad car, and fire truck arrived at the scene.

  A woman appeared next to me on the sidewalk. “What happened?”

  “An accident,” I said. “The car ran a red light.”

  “I hope the person is okay,” she said. “Looks just like my car.”

  It was an unremarkable, standard sedan, so it seemed reasonable that she might have the same.

  I tried to pay attention to the accident scene, but there was something about this woman that made me turn my attention to her instead. Just like her car, there was nothing remarkable about her, but still, I couldn’t help but stare. She looked a bit lost and confused.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, wondering if the accident had shocked her.

  “I’m fine,” the woman said, and then she paused to look down the sidewalk. Her confused expression turned more troubled.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “I’m Sharon,” she said, focusing on me and holding out her hand.

  “I’m Riley.”

  “It’s nice to meet you.”