Page 12 of Hades

Last month, when Harlen had been too sick to drive, Suzanne had come alone. She’d limped up my porch steps with a black eye and bruises circling her throat like a necklace. I’d given her a choice.

A small vial. Clear liquid. Odorless, tasteless when mixed with alcohol or food.

A poison so strong that even tiny amounts caused a wave of symptoms. It would start with burning in the mouth and throat, tingling that spread like fire through the gut. Nausea, weakness, muscles that refused to work. As the poison moved through the blood, the heart would begin to beat wrong. Breathing would become harder, the lungs fighting for air. The victim would stay awake through most of it, knowing their body was failing them, feeling the burning and weakness and irregular heartbeat that made it seem like it might stop at any moment.

And then it would.

I’d shown her how to use it. How much to add to his whiskey. Just enough to make it look natural. Like a heart attack. How to make it look like anything but murder. Anything but the justice it really was.

How to make it look like God finally decided to take out the trash.

“Thank you, Lettie,” Suzanne said again, her voice barely above a whisper. Soft and broken and grateful in a way that made my chest tighten.

Harlen honked the horn, and she flinched. A full-body jerk like she’d been struck, her shoulders hunching, her head ducking instinctively. The reaction of a woman who’d been trained through violence to respond to every sound, every movement, every shift in the air around her abuser.

I watched her walk back to the truck, her movements stiff and painful, each step measured and careful. She climbed into the passenger seat, and Harlen peeled out without a word, without even looking at her. He just gunned the engine and tore down the driveway, sending up a cloud of dust that coated my porch, my dog, and my skin.

I waved goodbye with a smile on my face. Pleasant and neighborly and completely fucking fake.

The smile turned into a sneer the moment they were too far away to see, my lips curling with disgust.

“Think she’ll do it, Cerb?”

He answered with a loud bark, sharp and certain. A sound that said yes, she will, and she fucking should.

I smiled. “I hope you’re right.”

Suzanne had that look in her eyes. The look of a woman who’d finally reached her breaking point. Who’d finally realized that the only way out was through a grave.

His, not hers.

I hoped she had the courage to follow through. I hoped she’d pour that vial into his whiskey and watch him convulse and die and finally, finally be free. That she’d watch the light leave his eyes and know she’d done it. That she’d saved herself when no one else would.

But hope was a dangerous thing. And I’d learned long ago not to rely on other people to do what needed to be done.

If Suzanne didn’t kill Harlen Troy, I would.

Eventually.

One way or another, that motherfucker was going in the ground.

“Let’s finish dinner before her highness wakes up,” I told Cerberus, tapping the outside of my thigh to signal him to follow.

His nails clicked against the hardwood floor, a rhythmic sound that echoed through the quiet house. I moved around the kitchen humming, and Cerberus tracked me for a few minutes before he finally settled in and laid his head down on his paws. His eyes were closed, but his tail thumped softly against the floor, letting me know he was aware of his surroundings. Always listening, always ready.

Always protecting.

Just like me.

“VIOLET!”

My mother’s voice cut through the silence of the past few hours, and Cerberus sighed, then blew a snort through his nose. A sound of pure canine disgust that made me smile despite myself.

I glanced over my shoulder at him. “I know, boy. But she’s my mother.”

The words tasted like ash in my mouth. A justification I repeated every time the voice in my head whispered how easy it would be to add a little extra jimsonweed to her tea. To let her slip away in her sleep, peaceful and unaware, her heart slowing and stopping while she dreamed of whatever the fuck she dreamed about.

But she was my mother.