Call Me Grim by Elizabeth Holloway

with a bright smile. “I was a little worried you wouldn’t.”
    “Of course I came.” I shrug. “I told you I would. Not to mention, I had a fight with my mom and needed some fresh air anyway.”
    “I just thought, after you were late to the nursing home…”
    “Well, I didn’t want to go to the nursing home. Your headache sort of made me go. Not to be insulting, Aaron, but you’re a little creepy.” I rub my arms and look over his head at the dark ribs of the bridge. “And so is this bridge.”
    Aaron chuckles. “This place is a bit eerie, but I’m not so bad…once you get to know me.”
    I disagree. The more I get to know Aaron Shepherd, the creepier he becomes.
    “So why here?” I ask.
    “Well, I live close to this bridge, and it’s a place I knew you’d know. Plus it’s away from town and prying eyes.”
    “It’s probably a busy place for you, too. All those suicides.”
    “Um.” Aaron runs a hand through his hair. “Well, that has something to do with it too, I guess. Let’s get away from the bridge. It’s freezing.”
    He strolls the last few feet of the bridge, jumping from tie to tie like he could cross it in his sleep. He meets me at the entrance, and then motions for me to follow him. I have to jog to keep up with his long strides. We step out of the wind tunnel created by the ravine, and the chilly breeze disappears. Away from the bridge, my tightly coiled muscles relax.
    I lower my hood. Even in the dark, I don’t want hoodie hair. I use my fingertips to comb through the tangled mop on top of my head and glance up at Aaron.
    His cheeks flush a deep crimson as he drops his gaze to the ground at his feet. Whatever he’s searching for in the gravel must be hard to see, because it takes him a while to look up and meet my eyes again. When he does, he peeks at me through his lashes and smiles.
    My stomach summersaults, and I restrain a stupid, middle-school giggle. Now it’s my turn to blush but, thankfully, he doesn’t see it. He’s turned away.
    “So, you can feel cold?”
    “I felt your punch, didn’t I?” He rubs his chin and winces. “I have a bruise.”
    “Yeah, but you’re the Grim Reaper,” I say. “Aren’t you, like, supernatural and all-powerful and stuff?”
    “Ha! I’m powerful, but not all -powerful. And I’m not the Grim Reaper. That’s Abaddon. I’m a Grim Reaper. There’s a big difference.”
    “What? There’s more than one?”
    “Oh, yes. I don’t know exactly how many, but there has to be a ton of us. We each work a small territory.” He picks a dry leaf off of his sleeve. “I work Carroll Falls, plus a few miles outside of town.”
    “Still, even as a Grim Reaper, and not the Grim Reaper, you were invisible to that secretary. And you walked through the freaking door.” I almost add his ability to predict my impending death, but that’s an area I’m not quite ready to face. “That counts as supernatural and all-powerful to me.”
    “Well, trust me, it’s not.” His eyes grow dark for a fraction of a second, then his lips spread in a bright smile. “I have those powers so I can do my job. I’m invisible so I can escort a soul to the Gateway without being seen. I can walk through walls because some people, a lot of people, die where it’s not easy to reach them.”
    A thought flickers through my mind: me, dead and cold and squished between a smoking pick-up truck and a twisted Honda. I bet it would have been hard to reach me there. I shudder.
    “Oh, and I can run really fast too,” he adds with a wink.
    “So you’re not all-powerful, but you have supernatural powers?”
    “That sounds about right.” Aaron’s perpetual grin falters for a moment as he crumples the leaf he pulled off his shirt and flicks it to the ground. “My powers are the tools I need to do my job.”
    “Yeah, tools for your job,” I say dismissively. “And you bruise and feel cold, so you’re not dead.”
    “Nope. I eat and sleep and everything. I’m as