Naomi Grim (The Silver Scythe Chronicles) Part 1 (2 page)

I awoke the next morning to the smell of
potatoes frying. That meant only one thing—Mother was home. Usually
we had fruit and oatmeal for breakfast, but when she had been gone
a while, she’d treat us.

I pulled on my black sweatpants and matching
hoodie. Father would have had a fit if he knew I slept in only my
underwear. Grims had to be prepared for being dispatched at any
moment. I slid my feet into my black flip-flops and ran downstairs,
taking two steps at a time.

Mother flipped potato cakes at the stove. My
brothers sat at the table, already starting their daily reading.
All young Grims had to study the Covenant and other subjects for
hours each day.

"Mother!" I squealed.

She turned slightly, keeping her eye on the
food.

"Hello, Darkness," Mother said as I kissed her
cheek.

I wrapped my arm around her neck. "It's been
absolutely dreadful living with the boys." Mom and I always joked
about how awful it was being the only female in the house when the
other was gone. "I missed you so much."

"I missed you too, my love. Set the table,
please."

After fighting with the boys to get them to
clear their things from the table, I finally managed to set
it.

Father came in, scrolling his finger across his
tablet.

"Uh-uh, not at the table, Nox," Mother
scolded.

"I'm in the middle of some important research,
Eleanor."

Mother set a stack of plates on the table.
"This is the first time we've been together as a whole family in a
few months. Your research can wait."

Father sighed, leaving his tablet on the
counter to join us at the table.

"So, Mother, tell us what happened," Dorian
said.

Mother placed the bowls of food on the table so
we could help ourselves. "I had to follow a family around. Father,
mother, and an infant. I kept wondering which one I was supposed to
take, but there wasn't a glow until the last minute."

It was that way sometimes. Our dispatching
device would take us to a group of people to follow, but sometimes
we didn't know who the Fated would be until right before the end.
That person would be surrounded by faint yellow light. The glow was
how we knew the person was one of the Fated.

"Who was it?" I asked.

"All of them," Mother replied. "The father
drove his family off a bridge on purpose. Just slammed on the gas
and took them over."

There was silence for a moment. Well, except
for Bram's loud chewing.

"So," Mother continued, "I'm not sure how this
will work. The father committed suicide, but technically the mother
and child didn't."

"Three deaths at once. Either way, Dunningham
should be pleased," Father said.

"Why would somebody do that?" I
asked.

Everyone stared at me.

"I mean to their family. Why would someone want
to kill the people they loved? Were they having problems,
Mother?"

Bram scoffed and shook his head.

Mother buttered a piece of bread. "It doesn't
matter, dear. You know we don't get involved in their
affairs."

"What do you care?" Bram asked bitterly. He
always accused me of being too soft. He said I didn't have the
heart of a Grim.

I shrugged. "I'm just curious, that's all. I'd
like to know what would make a person do that. I mean, Father would
never do anything like that to us, right?" It was impossible to
kill a Grim unless their time was up or they had less than one
hundred years, but I needed to know that he would never want
to.

Father cut into his potato pancakes. "Of course
not, dear. There's no point in trying to understand them. Just
collect their lives and move along. That's our job."

Just then, Father's dispatching device rang. I
sighed to myself. We couldn't even have a full twenty-four hours
together.

Father pressed a button and held the device to
his ear. "Mr. Dunningham!" he said, sounding a bit too
eager.

That was strange. When we got an assignment, it
was usually a robotic voice from the system, not Dunningham
himself. There must have been something wrong.

"Okay . . .Yes, sir . . . Sure, I
understand."

Father hung up and looked at us,
wide-eyed.

"What was that about?" Mother asked.

"Mr. Dunningham is going to pay us a visit.
Right now."

I felt a queasiness in my stomach, wondering
which one of us had broken a rule. Mr. Dunningham never came to
Farrington unless he was delivering a speech or someone had done
something wrong and needed to be punished. The last time he came to
our house was almost a year ago. Bram had kissed a girl, and they
had both gotten fifty years subtracted from their lives. Dating and
any kind of physical affection was forbidden until a Grim's
eighteenth birthday, when they were to become engaged. Father had
been thoroughly embarrassed and didn't speak to Bram for two
weeks.

Father hopped up from the table. "Okay, let's
straighten up. Children, get properly dressed. He wants to speak to
all of us. Chop, chop."

My brothers and I went upstairs while our
parents straightened up. "Properly dressed" meant wearing the
Sacred Cloak. We didn't wear it much—only in Dunningham's presence
and on special occasions. I hated it. The cloak was hot and heavy.
Hopefully, Mr. Dunningham wouldn’t stay too long.

"Nice place you got here," Mr. Dunningham said,
looking around as if he'd never been in our home before.

I knew he was lying. Our house looked like a
rabbit hole in comparison to where he lived. I loved our home,
though. We were all seated in the living room on black velvet
couches. The fireplace was ablaze despite the fact that it wasn't
cold out. The reflection of the orange flames bounced off the gray
marble walls.

Mr. Dunningham wore an expensive-looking black
suit, a black tie, and a black dress shirt underneath. He kept his
head shaved completely bald, and he had a gray beard and mustache.
He looked his part— the Lord of Death. I didn't think much of
Dunningham. He'd gotten his position by luck. Being born to the
previous Lord of Death, who had retired years ago, gave him his
power.

Mr. Dunningham's assistant placed his briefcase
on our stone coffee table. She looked to be about twenty, with
short black hair and a much-too-tight black lace dress. Bram stared
at the ceiling, probably trying to make it blatantly obvious that
he wasn't ogling the girl. She took a seat in an armchair in the
corner. Mr. Dunningham sat in Father's reading chair—the one that
no one was allowed to sit in except for him. Mother and Father sat
next to him on the loveseat. My brothers and I sat across from Mr.
Dunningham on the sofa in the order of our age.

"Well, Nox, I have some very good news for you
and your family," Mr. Dunningham began. We all breathed a sigh of
relief upon hearing those words.

"Really?" Father said, sitting
forward.

"Yes. I know you have all been working very
hard. Following the rules." He glanced at Bram. "And being good
citizens. I just want you to know your efforts haven't gone
unnoticed."

"Thank you, Mr. Dunningham,” Father said,
smiling broadly.

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Father was
the strongest person I knew, and it killed me to see him grovel to
this man, but I guessed greed would make a man do
anything.

"With that being said, I think I have a project
that would be perfect for your children. I need several teenaged
Grims."

My parents looked at each other and smiled.
"What for?" Mother asked.

"Eleanor, this job would put your family on the
map."

Father beamed. That only meant one thing—a mass
killing. We'd known a few families who had once lived in Farrington
and had been blessed with the privilege of collecting from a
massive death scene. It was a fast ticket to the Upper
Estates.

"One hundred and forty-eight lives," Mr.
Dunningham said.

Bram sat forward. "One hundred and forty-eight?
We've never done anything close to that before."

Mr. Dunningham gave a half smile. "That's
because I reserve those types of jobs for my special, most trusted
Grims, so consider yourselves lucky."

"We do, we do," Mother said.

"I'm sorry. What's going to happen to claim one
hundred and forty-eight lives?" I asked.

Mr. Dunningham sat back in the seat, stroking
his beard. "Six bombs and a shooting spree."

"In a school?" I asked. My family shot me angry
glances. I shouldn’t have been questioning this. I should have been
thanking Mr. Dunningham for the opportunity.

"Yes, in a school."

There were no schools in Nowhere. When we
weren’t on assignment, Grims studied at home with their parents. My
only experience with schools was when I had to follow one of the
Fated around. They seemed like zoos, but I knew bombs and shootings
weren't normal.

"Is everything okay?" Mr. Dunningham
asked.

"Yes, everything's fine," I
answered.

Mr. Dunningham continued to stare at me. I
shifted uncomfortably between my brothers. He rubbed his chin with
his thumb and index fingers. "This one gets attached, doesn't
she?"

Father gave a phony chuckle. "Naomi? She’s a
little sensitive, but she'll be fine."

"Naomi. What do you expect from a Grim with a
name like that?" Mr. Dunningham commented, not hiding his
disapproval.

My family hadn't followed the norm when it came
to my name. Everyone in Nowhere gave their children names that
meant darkness or death. For example, my best friend's name is
Keira, which meant dark-skinned. My name meant pleasant. Father's
friends had advised him against it, but he had insisted. There was
some reason he wanted to break tradition and name me Naomi, but he
would never tell.

"I like my name," I said softly, as if it
mattered what I liked.

Mr. Dunningham snapped his fingers, and his
eager assistant handed him an electronic tablet. I imagined it had
to be a miserable job working for a dictatorial narcissist who
snapped his fingers at you.

Mr. Dunningham punched in his four-digit code
then began to swipe the screen with his finger. "Ah, here we are,
Family 16747. Brametheus Grim."

I heard my brother draw in a breath and waited
for him to tell Dunningham how he hated to be called that, but he
said nothing.

Mr. Dunningham continued. "Three infractions.
One for fighting in public with a brother Grim. Another for
physical affection—kissing a female Grim at age sixteen.” That had
been my best friend, Keira. Her father had flipped. “And the third
for knocking over a bookshelf at the Documents Library. A total of
seventy-five years have been deleted." Mr. Dunningham looked at
Bram, who looked down at his hands. "You seem to have a bad temper
and a problem with authority, young Grim."

"No, sir," Bram mumbled. But that was a lie. I
remembered each and every one of those infractions. Bram had fought
with a boy named Harken because Harken had stepped on his shoe and
refused to apologize. The Documents Library was a sacred place
where information on every Grim and every death was documented. It
was treated as a church. Bram had knocked over a bookshelf because
he was angry that all the work stations were taken, and he needed
to do some research. Yes, Bram had anger issues.

But Mr. Dunningham wasn't done. He moved to the
next screen. "Naomi Grim, the only daughter of Nox and Eleanor. Two
infractions—twenty-five years lost."

I sank in my seat. I knew my crimes. My family
knew my crimes. Why was he making us revisit them?

Mr. Dunningham continued on with his tirade.
"Infraction number one, making yourself visible to a
Fated."

Yes, that had happened, but I didn't see how it
could have been avoided. I’d been following twenty-eight-year-old
Jennifer Grey. She had a three-year-old son named Ryder. While she
was busy in the kitchen cooking, Ryder was playing in the backyard.
Jennifer had been watching from the window, but I guess, for a few
moments, she forgot. Ryder went through an open fence on the side
of the house with his red rubber ball. The ball rolled into the
street and, being the three-year-old he was, Ryder ran after it,
right in front of an oncoming pick-up truck.

There was no glow around Ryder. It wasn't his
time. I jumped in and moved him from in front of the truck just in
time. I didn't see the harm. He wasn't the one I’d been sent to
collect. Jennifer came out and saw me holding her son. She had
wrapped both me and her son in her arms as she cried hysterically.
Since Jennifer was a Fated, she was the only one who could see me
and everyone thought she was crazy. Still, Ryder was still alive. I
never regretted my decision.

I took a lot of flak for that from my parents
and Mr. Dunningham when I got back. The only reason my punishment
hadn’t been more severe was because Ryder wasn't the person I had
been sent to follow.