65. Harlow
HARLOW
I know I won’t find peace at the bottom of a wine bottle, but I will at least find a temporary escape.
When I fled North Hold, I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t go back to South Hold and face the chaos, or to the boarding house and face Henry. So I went to the only place I could think of, the small two-bedroom apartment Bea had set up for me and Aidia, right before Rafe killed her.
It took half of the first bottle of wine stolen from Bea’s secret stash to even get myself to go inside, but once I was in, it wasn’t as daunting to be there as I expected.
The space was a dream—not a real place my sister had a chance to inhabit. I have no memories of Aidia here. It’s just a place where I rented out hope for a short time.
After my sister died, Bea kept paying for the space. It’s right across from her bar, and I think she was hoping I’d move in so she could keep an eye on me. Even now, I can only vaguely remember the conversation we had the first time I ventured out after recovering.
I drain the last of the first bottle of wine and place the empty bottle on the side table. Then, I cross the room and yank the darts from the bullseye on the living room wall.
Turning back and crossing the room, I lob all of my darts in quick succession. One misses the board entirely, lodging itself in the wall just beneath it. The rest stick at the very bottom of the bullseye.
The apartment door creaks open, but I don’t turn. I know it’s Bea.
“You always were terrible at darts, Low,” she says.
I shrug a shoulder. “Imagine how insufferable I would be if I was good at everything.” I turn slowly and take in her appearance.
She’s wearing a tight pair of black pants and her signature button-down, which is open enough to show a glimpse of her cleavage.
I’m sure the bar was an absolute madhouse given the day’s events, but Bea looks as fresh as if she just started her shift.
Her short hair is still immaculate, and her brown skin has a golden glow, as if she were blessed by Harvain.
It’s actually offensive for an ex to be so beautiful, but that recognition is more a habit than backed by real emotion. It’s not like how I feel when I look at Henry, when it feels like the Divine have conspired to make a man so devastatingly handsome that I can hardly breathe when he looks at me.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
Bea crosses the room, grabs the second bottle of wine, and uncorks it. “I saw the light on when I stepped out for some air.”
She takes a sip of the wine straight from the bottle and moans in satisfaction. Then, she hands me the bottle.
“Big day,” she says.
It’s an invitation to tell her everything, but I am too tired to relive it all. “Henry lied to me.”
Bea arches a brow. “Well, he is a man.”
I take a long gulp of wine to try to wash down the lump in my throat. “He’s twice-blessed—by Elvodeen…and Polm.”
Bea reaches for the bottle, and I reluctantly hand it back to her. “And he used it on you?”
I nod.
“How?”
My mouth is dry and the wine hasn’t helped at all. “I’m not certain, but I think when I was losing it over my parents letting Rafe kill Aidia.”
The crease in Bea’s brow softens. “Low, I’m?—”
I hold up a hand. “I can’t do that now. I’m here to make a plan.”
She nods, then takes a long gulp of wine and hands it back to me. “Okay. What kind of plan? ”
I don’t even know how to articulate this. I need a plan to escape my husband, or to stay with him forever, or to keep being the Poison Vixen, or to make peace with Kellan, or to fix the madness in me that saw Aidia for six months after she died—the same madness that longs to see her still.
“I don’t know what to do now,” I say. “I can’t stay at South Hold.”
“Of course you can’t,” Bea says.
“Henry lied, but he also killed Rafe. Violently.”
Bea purses her lips. Her ability to remain unfazed by truly unexpected information is born out of years of bartending, and I’ve always found it comforting to know I could never tell her the craziest thing she’s ever heard.
“So will you go back to Mountain Haven, then?” Bea asks.
I don’t even know if that’s what I want. I only know that being here in the city feels like too much with all I know now.
“Are you in love with him?” Bea whispers the question, like she’s trying not to scare off a wounded beast.
I want to tell her it’s a stupid question—to deny it loudly and repeatedly. I want to tell her that loving him is the most foolish, reckless thing I could do.
Instead, I say, “But what about the Poison Vixen? What about the women who need us?”
Bea sighs and takes the wine from my shaking hands, then sets it on the table beside me. She places her hand on my shoulders and faces me head-on.
“I think you needed the Vixen just as much as those women did—but you deserve some peace, Harlow. I have never known you to have any—not until now. That feeling that’s so uncomfortable—that’s safety.”
I stare at her, barely breathing.
“I meant what I told you before you left for Mountain Haven,” Bea says.
“There are more women who want to help—who might find healing through it the same way that you did. You’ve always been so Divine-damn bad at taking help, but Josie and I have been planning for this for a long time because we saw how it helped you.
We all have scores to settle. This network has given me purpose and it’s helped Josie heal.
This isn’t something you need to do alone. ”
For so long, I was focused only on myself. It didn’t occur to me that other women might be healed through this same empowering violence.
“I have only ever asked you for what I knew you could give me,” Bea says. “Let us pick up the slack for a while. Take care of yourself. Figure out what you want, and you can come back when you’re ready and we’ll always be happy to have you.”
She doesn’t wait for me to answer. She leans over and kisses my cheek.
Then, she turns and walks to the door, pausing in the threshold. She doesn’t turn to face me as she says, “And stop stealing my favorite wine.”
Bea closes the door behind her and leaves me alone with my ghosts.
I place the last beloved bottle of pilfered wine on the side table and walk into the bedroom that was supposed to be Aidia’s.
The bed is covered in a thin white sheet, as is most of the furniture. Only the antique vanity is unveiled. I sit down in front of the mirror, place my head in my hands, and the sadness rises like it’s waited all day for this exact moment.
I break down into body-heaving sobs. I cry for my sister, for myself, for the person I might have been if my life had been just a little bit less cruel.
I cry for all the times I wanted to and couldn’t.
Most of all, I cry for all the times I believed I was weak, when I was just broken under the weight of my grief.
It’s unclear if it takes moments or hours for the years of twisted-up emotions to come out, but the streets grow silent and the midnight bells ring.
When I finally glance up at the mirror in front of me, I know I will find my sister looking back.
She’s standing behind me, her face illuminated by the sunstone streetlight pouring in through the bedroom windows.
Her skin is no longer bruised. She looks radiant in a simple midnight-blue wool dress, with her black hair loose around her shoulders.
“You’re not real,” I say.
The corner of her mouth quirks up. “I know.”
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
“But you wanted me to be,” she says, her voice so gentle.
I nod. I did. Even though I know she’s not real, I wanted to see her again. Even if I’m just talking to myself, it feels good to think of how she would make my worries feel lighter.
“Is this about that husband of yours?” she asks.
I nod.
“You’re in love with him?”
I bite my lip. “He killed Rafe.”
Aidia laughs, loud and sudden. “Bleeding woods! Now I’m in love with him, too. I guess I’ll have to fight you for him.” She beckons me toward her with both hands. “Come on, let’s go. I know you have more experience rumbling with people, but I’m pretty scrappy. I think I could still take you.”
When I don’t rise to her taunting, she sighs, and her face softens. “What are you so afraid of, Low? Henry knows who you are.”
I cock my head. That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.
“He’s who you deserve,” Aidia says. “You have made yourself into my monster, into a monster for the women of Lunameade. You deserve someone who will be a monster for you.”
And Henry has done that. He recognized his mistake, and he tried to bring me peace.
“I know you love to run, Low. But as long as you’re looking for a reason to, you will find it.”
I look down at my hands for a long moment. When I finally meet her lilac eyes in the glass again, she’s right behind me.
“It’s always going to feel safer to be on your own because a lot of people abandoned you,” Aidia says. “But if you run, you’ll be abandoning yourself along with them.”
My throat is so tight. I’m afraid to let Henry love me. Afraid that he will stop. Afraid that I will learn to need him and he won’t be there.
“I just want—” My voice cracks, and I take a deep breath. “Certainty.”
Aidia smiles sadly and reaches for my shoulder. I can’t feel her touch, but it’s still nice to imagine I can.
“Too bad, little Low. Life doesn’t grant us that.”
I’m gripped with the irrational terror of losing her forever. I want to grab her, to make her stay with me. “I don’t know how to do this without you.”
“Sure you do. You’ve been doing it for half a year. You protected all those women from their husbands. You protected the city from our parents. You fell in love with a man who looks like he was sculpted by the Divine.”
I laugh, and Aidia grins widely.
“Seriously, please tell me his cock is super bent or small or something. It’s a Divine crime for a man to be that good-looking,” she says.
I bite my lip to keep from laughing.
She rolls her eyes. “Of course he’s perfect. And you deserve to let him love you. You deserve someone looking out for you. And from what you’ve said, it sounds like he deserves some color in his world.”
“But I need you, Aidy.” I sound so young.
“No, you don’t.”
“This can’t be the last time I see you,” I plead.
“It needs to be. It’s time to move on.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. I refuse.”
She cocks her head, and a hint of a smile plays across her lips. “You can. Do you know how I’m certain?”
I wait for her to say the words that are summoned from somewhere inside my head.
“Because when I say it, you will say your part, and then I will be gone, but you will know I’ve left you with my blessing,” she whispers.
I thought I spent all my tears earlier, but fresh grief makes my eyes burn. I blink to clear my vision so I can look right into her lilac gaze.
“My heart,” she whispers, the words like a spell rending me from my history, casting me into my future.
I stare at Aidia’s face that is so much like my own, trying to burn every inch of her into my brain forever as I say, “My bones.”
I draw in a tight breath, and tears pour down my cheeks. I rest my head on my forearms on the tip of the vanity and sob, “Our blood.”
I know she’s gone. I know it’s not really Aidia. I know it’s just my fractured mind grieving. But it still feels good to have this conversation with myself, because even when I look up into the vanity mirror and see that she’s gone, I know in my heart that she would approve of my decision.