Beta. Reaper

THE BIRTH OF GREY

For the third time that day, I felt the cold whisper of Death hovering around me. Goosebumps coated my skin and I rubbed vigorously at them. Looking around, I tried to catch a glimpse of him but save for the shiver racing down my spine, there was no sign of him. I felt the cold breathe down my neck like he was leaning over me and my head whipped back immediately to look for him.

Members of my lunch table, sometimes referred to as my friends, stopped their irrelevant chatter to stare at me. A brunette who was new to our table asked “Are you okay?” Her brows were creased with concern but for a second, I bristled with indignation. That question had become a staple in my life and I was tired of hearing it.

“I’m fine,” I answered. Thankfully, the irritation I was feeling did not resonate within my voice. She looked at me with doubt flickering in her eyes as I rubbed at my arms as if I had rolled around in poison ivy. The cold began to recede and I let out a sigh of relief.

I was looking around to be sure Death really wasn’t hovering near me when Brody, a pack warrior in training, asked the offensive question again.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He shifted uncomfortably when I passed him a stern look. I was his Beta not his child.

“What do you mean am I sure, Brody?” I kept my tone light and cheery to avoid letting on about how pissed I was. 

I smirked in satisfaction when his face started to turn a tomato red with discomfort as I fixed my eyes on him until he could no longer look anywhere close to my face. Everyone at the table started to feel the blazing heat of my stare down as they stared to fidget with Brody. 

“It’s just that you seemed off – unlike yourself – for a while there,” He muttered and I fake laughed cheerily which heightened the tension in the air.

“Do explain how unlike myself I was,” I pressed his discomfort. It mounted and if I wasn’t so pissed off at the busy bodies trying to constantly interfere with my life, I would have let the case slide.

‘They are only showing concern like a pack should,’ My wolf cautioned me.

‘There is a fine line between showing concern and waiting to see me crumble. These people have long crossed that line,’ I replied Hera, my wolf.

‘What are you talking about?’ Hera wondered

‘They’ve passed the point of showing concern. Right now they’re all waiting for me to crumble so they can calculate how long I was able to hold on under the heavy weight of grief,’ I answered and she began to contemplate my words. 

“Never mind that now. I’m sorry if I have offended you,” Brody answered with a ting of annoyance.

“Next time, Brody, don’t ask me if I’m sure of my state of mind or feeling after I tell you about them. I am not a liar,” I answered offhandedly. He apologized again and the once silent table went up in a ruckus of tall tales, gossip and sport talk.

“You’re such a meanie, Kelly,” I could almost hear Ken whisper in my ear. It was what he would have said to me after I so harshly rebuked our pack member.

“Brody,” I called suddenly and Mitchell, a cheerleader, paused in her enrapturing story about her grandma’s collection of jewellery that had silenced the whole table.

She looked to me and immediately looked away, pretending as if she wasn’t going to listen in on what I had to say. I noticed the excitement in her eyes in the split second she had looked at me and it made me want to laugh. Mitchell was human and the biggest gossip that ever walked the earth. No doubt she was waiting for me to start a quarrel or fight with Brody so she would have a juicy story to tell during cheer leading practice.

Brody who had been picking at his almost raw steak looked at me wearily when I called his name, also expecting me to lash out again. I had really been a meanie.

“Thanks for your concern,” I smiled genuinely at him and a deep sense of calmness washed over me when I saw the excitement twinkling in his eyes.

Maybe I was wrong in judging my pack mates. Defensiveness had woven itself around me like a thick skin that no hurt could pass through and maybe in my grief, I had started to paint people who were simply trying to be there for me in a bad light.

I closed my eyes and breathed out deeply, expelling every form of bad energy clustering in me. I was a firm believer in the good the world had to offer and I wasn’t going to let it change even after all I had passed through. Ken wouldn’t want that. He used to say to me “Kels, there’s no mistaking that there are bad and evil people in the world, but good always trumps evil and you have to see that good if you don’t want to be a bitter person. You’re a little sunflower, Kels. Sunflowers are not bitter so look at the good in the world, not the evil. “

The words of my late twin were still replaying in my head when I entered my car at the end of the school day, preparing to head back to my empty and echoing house. 

“Hello,” I said to the presence of darkness that covered the interior of my car. It was the same presence I had felt moving along with me throughout the day and I could freely acknowledge it, alone in my car, without risk of more questions and concerned looks.

“Hello, Kelly Black,” The darkness resonated around me. A small whirlwind swirled the darkness about and a person materialized from it. This time, the Grim Reaper was dressed in regular dark jeans and a dark hoodie.

“You’ve been following me around,” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” There was no shame or anger in his words. It was a simple resignation.

“If I ask why, will you say it’s because you find me intriguing and you want to understand my magic even though I have none?” I asked, starting up my car.

“You know my reasons already. They have not changed,” He dismissed with a wave of his hand. “You drive really slowly,” He added as an after thought.

That was the exact opposite of what Ken and everyone else used to say. I had to watch my driving because one time Ken commented on how I would kill an old lady and leave her grandchildren in tears with my reckless driving. 

“I don’t drive slowly, I just don’t pop in and out of places, thank you very much,” I snipped. The darkness laughed heartily and I was grateful the crankiness that followed my sleepless nights wouldn’t cause the Grim Reaper to use his scythe on me.

“Your sass is almost more intoxicating than your fear. No one ever dares speak to me like that, not even the Lord of Darkness, “ He commented. My grip tightened on the steering at the mention of the Lord of Darkness. It wasn’t a topic I was used to and the unfamiliarity of the grounds I was walking on did not escape me. Any small slip and I could fall into a pit of darkness I didn’t understand.

“If you’re going to be hanging around me can you at least tell me your proper name?” It was then that the familiar grip of confusion started to wrap around me.

‘A proper name?’ The thought whispered around me. “I have always been known as the Grim Reaper but I suppose my name could have been Death at a point in history,” He said with a slight frown.

“Grim Reaper is more of a title than a name, I’d say,” I mused. “No one names their kid death and that’s too scary. I think I’ll call you Grey,” I pronounced with a satisfied smile.

‘What are you doing, naming Death?’ My wolf whispered in surprise. She was still huddled inside me, completely terrified of this predator that could destroy her without a backward glance.

What was I doing naming Death? Well I was trying to attach something less scary to this being who was plaguing my existence. If I thought of him as Grey, a being with beautiful eyes, maybe I could hold on to something less sinister to dream about as regards to him.

“Grey,” He tested the name out carefully like it was his hourglass, made from the most delicate glass.

“You know, for your eyes. They’re grey and kind of nice,” I answered with a blush. Out loud, my reasoning sounded stupid even to my ears and I wondered just how idiotic they sounded to him. He had tried to make my head blow up like a balloon when I mentioned the look of his eyes the last time.

“I guess I can permit it,” He whispered. The cold lessened a little bit at that point. Was that awe in his voice?

I parked my red Chevrolet that had once been Ken’s in the driveway of what had once been my parent’s house. Death, now Grey to me, and I stepped out of the car. He politely stood behind me as I fumbled with my house keys, suddenly nervous for no apparent reason. 

I opened the door and rushed in and in a moment of perceived genius, I quickly slammed the door in the face of Death wondering if it would keep him out. Slowly, eerily, darkness started to pass through the cracks on the door like dark smoke, and finally, the darkness joined and out of it came Grey. 

“Well that was rude,” He commented.