Free Grim Love - A Novella by Grae Lily Page B

might be possible. She
exuded happiness. It wasn’t as easy as they imagined, though.
    Not long after she'd been assigned to Sam,
she went with him to his son’s house, knowing chances were that
their meeting would go wrong, and it did. After seeing his father
drowning his sorrows in a bottle for well over a decade, he wasn’t
willing to forgive. His father hadn't been there when he needed
someone to be there for him because his mother died. Sam dealt with
it better than Evangeline thought he would. It would have been easy
enough for him to try to rid himself of the pain by drinking again,
but he didn’t. Instead, he accepted the decision, certain he’d have
done the same thing in his son’s position, and moved on, knowing it
remained his only option.
    Soon, the time would come when his son would
go to him, ready to let the past go, and they'd have the chance to
enjoy some time together before, to no one’s surprise, Sam found
himself dealing with liver failure, thanks to all the drinking he’d
done.
    Evangeline stood next to his son at the
funeral. No one knew she'd been the one to thank for Sam sobering
up, and they didn’t know that she'd taken him to the world of the
dead. Saying goodbye then, Lucius had to pull her away, telling her
to go to Jasper. She cried herself out on his shirt.
    A week later, she had someone else to look
after. She never forgot Sam, though, or the other people that she'd
been assigned to because it wasn’t unusual for her to get the
difficult cases - the ones who were in the same position as Jasper
had been and she knew she couldn’t save them all.
    Sapphire Rose had been the hardest one to
deal with because she reminded Evangeline so much of herself at
that age. For a while, she thought she’d even managed to convince
Sapphire that she had a chance to be something, but in the end,
another hit took her life and Evangeline had to guide her to the
afterlife. They’d gone in silence, neither of them knowing what to
say to the other, yet that hadn’t stopped Evangeline from sending a
blessing her way, wishing she could have done more to help.
    “There's always a possibility she will be
blessed in the afterlife.” Gabriel gripped Evangeline's shoulder.
“You never ask for the easy jobs and I’ve always liked that about
you.”
    “Lucius wanted you to talk to me, didn’t
he?”
    “You know what’s coming.”
    Jasper's getting old. Evangeline knew that
would happen. It wouldn’t be long until it was his turn to be
guided to the world of the dead, but at least this time, it would
be from his own body aging not from something tragic. She blinked
away tears she wasn’t going to let fall. “Of course, I do.” As she
turned to look at Gabriel, she managed to push aside her feelings.
“We always knew it would happen. It’s been fifty years, so I’m not
going to complain.”
    “From the beginning, I knew I wanted to offer
Jasper a job when his time came and that's something I still want
to do, if you’re willing to teach him how to be a guardian?”
Evangeline couldn't speak. “Evie?”
    “I…” She shook her head. “You want Jasper to
be a guardian? My Jasper? He won’t be going to the world of the
dead without me?”
    “Yes, I want your Jasper to be a guardian, so
he won’t be going to the world of the dead without you. Since
you’ve been doing so well, we wanted to extend your contract.
Lucius likes having a guardian reaper to work with because you can
see so much more than he can, and I like that you take on the jobs
that remind you of the person you once were. I know, it’s not an
easy thing to do. I know that from experience.”
    Although Evangeline had worked with Gabriel
for almost fifty years she’d never asked him about his life or how
he became the leader of the guardians. That's something she would
change in the future, but right at that moment, it seemed hard
enough to find the words she needed to thank him for everything.
She’d be able to continue her