Page 17 of Grim

Grim wasn’t thinking about the Reapers. He wasn’t thinking about Reyes. He wasn’t even thinking about Brick.

He was thinking about her. The nurse with the steady hands and the soft voice. The one who said his name like it wasn’t something broken. The one who touched him and made him forget how to breathe.

Sophia.

He swung onto his bike, engine roaring to life beneath him.

He didn’t know her. He didn’t trust her. He didn’t want to feel anything about her. But he knew one thing with absolute certainty:

If the Reapers were coming for her, they’d have to go through him first.

And he’d kill every last one of them before he let them touch her.

Chapter 5

Sophia

Sophia’s shift ended at six in the morning, but the hospital never slept.

The ER had been slammed, multiple trauma alerts back to back, short staffed, half the night shift pulled into rapid response. When the call went out for ICU support, she’d been the closest critical-care nurse available. She didn’t hesitate. She never did.

Crisis sharpened her. It always had. Some nurses froze when things went sideways, but Sophia moved faster, steadier, the kind of calm that made other people breathe easier. She’d thrown on gloves, stepped into the chaos, and helped stabilize whoever they shoved in front of her until the ER team could catch up.

That’s how she’d ended up in the middle of the La Luna mess and treating the one they called Brick. That’s how she’d ended up meeting him.

And she hadn’t expected him to linger in her head. Not after a night like that. Not after blood and chaos and adrenaline. But her mind kept circling back anyway, to the way he’d gone rigid when she touched his wrist, to the sharp, assessing way he watched everything, to the stillness that didn’t belong in a room full of panic.

Her nurse brain tried to frame it clinically, trauma response, hypervigilance, but that wasn’t the whole truth.

Something about him had hit deeper, unsettling and unwanted, like he’d looked at her and seen more than he should have. She didn’t know what to make of that. She didn’t want to. Not when she was this tired. Not when her patient was fighting for his life.

But the memory clung to her anyway, stubborn as the smell of antiseptic on her scrubs.

She was always the one who kept moving, kept giving, kept holding everything together. Nights like this reminded her just how heavy that role really was.

Sophia sank onto the small rolling stool beside the empty trauma bay, her hands still trembling from the rush of the night. The room smelled like blood and antiseptic, sharp and metallic, clinging to her scrubs and her skin. The adrenaline that had kept her steady through Brick’s collapse drained out of her all at once, leaving her hollow and shaking.

She should go home. Shower. Sleep. But instead she found herself checking the monitors, straightening the supply cart, making sure the next bay was stocked. Busy hands were easier than a quiet mind. She’d learned long ago that motion kept her steady. Stillness let fear creep in, and she refused to give fear that kind of space. It was easier than going home to silence. Easier than admitting she was tired too.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, a text from her mother, another from Miguel. She didn’t open them. She didn’t have the energy to be needed again.

Her milagro charm pressed warm against her chest, a small weight she clung to without thinking. She’d whispered ándale, mijo to Brick earlier, the same way her abuela used to whisper to her brothers when they were hurt. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud. It had just slipped out, instinct, comfort, habit.

She rubbed her palms against her thighs, trying to ground herself. She’d held so many people together tonight. She always did. But right now, she wasn’t sure how much she had left to give.

And the worst part? No one ever noticed when she was the one unraveling.

Except… her mind flicked back to him, the man with the haunted eyes and the quiet stillness. The one who’d looked at her like he saw something she didn’t show anyone.

She didn’t know why that thought steadied her. She didn’t know why it scared her, either.

The ICU hallway hummed with low voices, beeping monitors, and the soft shuffle of nurses moving from room to room. Sophia rubbed her eyes as she finished charting, exhaustion tugging at her bones. Reyes’s vitals had been unstable all night, blood pressure dropping, oxygen fluctuating, heart rate spiking without warning.

He hadn’t woken once. She hated the way his hands had trembled even unconscious, like his body remembered fear his mind couldn’t voice. She hated that she couldn’t help him more. And she hated the way she kept checking on him, more often than protocol required, as if some part of her sensed he wasn’t just another patient.

She fixed what she could. She always did. But some things — some people — slipped through her fingers no matter how hard she tried.

“Long night?” Amanda asked, leaning against the counter with a coffee.