Chapter 7
Hades
In the darkness, I lie in my bed, the covers and sheets wrenched aside. I dream restlessly of my past, as I do far too often.
It’s a warm early evening when my mother hauls her bags down the stairs.
She’s been fighting with my father all day.
My father’s fiery temper usually flares a few times a day, his booming voice sending my mother or one of us boys skittering across the house.
Sometimes it is accompanied by violence too.
Slapping, hitting, and choking come with my father’s reactions to nearly anything. It’s a normal part of the texture of any day. When I go to sleep, I count my bruises and check the spots where my father’s heavy blows have landed, unfazed.
It’s normal to hear my father erupt over the smallest thing. It’s standard to crouch down on the floor, eyes clenched, silently enduring my father’s fists. That’s how it has always been since I can remember.
But today my mother, with her soft voice and her stooped shoulders… she stood up to him. Got in his face, despite his abuse, and wouldn’t back down.
And now she has to go.
“Hades,” my mother coos. There are tears running down her pale, bruise-mottled cheeks. She licks her cracked lips, darting her gaze at my father, who is smoldering as he watches over us.
I’m standing here, blank faced, not able to show her how wretched she’s making me feel. Even on the eve of her leaving I dare not let my feelings show.
Not if I want to keep my father from combusting and pulling my brothers and I into his fury.
My mother pulls in a breath, refocusing on me. “Ye understand, right?”
Her words are more a plea than anything else. My breath catches in my lungs. “When will ye come back?”
“Oh, my darling boy.” She kneels down, pulling me into her arms. My face presses into her long, dark hair.
She smells like soap and heather and very faintly of cheap whiskey. I inhale her scent, as if trapping that little bit of her in my lungs forever could keep her from leaving.
“I don’t know,” she murmurs, her voice filled with tears. “But I need a favor. Okay? I need ye to take care of yer brothers while I’m gone. Be their champion.”
I nod, feeling a strange numbness. I should feel something. I’m sure of that. But I don’t. Or I can’t.
Instead, I feel this dullness where I expect my heart should be breaking.
“That’s enough,” my father says. “Leave the boy alone.”
My mom keeps on hugging me tightly for another half a minute. She whispers in my ear. “I love ye, Hades. And yer brothers. I dinnae want to leave ye— “
“I said that’s enough!”
My mother and I are roughly parted by my father’s big hands. I stumble back and trip as I try to catch myself. I look at my mother, feeling a tear slip down my cheek.
“Ye dinnae have to go,” I tell her.
She swallows and glances at my father, shaking his grip off. “I do.”
My father points out the front hallway, where the open door catches the last pool of sunlight for the day. “Go on, then. If yer going to turn yer yellow tail and run like the coward ye are, now is the time.”
I wrap my arms around my thin frame. My parents stare each other down, their gazes contemptuous. For a moment, my heart rate skyrockets. I can feel the tension in the air.
Something is about to happen.
My father draws himself up a few inches to his full height, like a deadly cobra rearing to attack. My mother flinches.
She sends one last look over her shoulder, her expression tight and drawn. “Remember me.”
“Get. OUT!” my father roars.
And as if his words were some kind of magic, she runs to the door, closing it behind her. She’s gone.
I count to five, thinking that she might turn back.
My father pushes his cheek out with his tongue, looks at me, and smiles without an ounce of humor. “See? Fucking women. They lie and manipulate and for what? They always leave ye in the end. Always.”
“She didn’t leave us,” I say, frowning bitterly. “She left ye.”
His grimace is all too familiar, as are his next actions. “Ye stupid little fuck.”
He reaches out to grab me. My heart rate shoots through the roof as his fingers grip my dirty shirt.
That’s the moment when my eyes snap open. I surge upward in bed, gasping for breath. I’m trembling all over and the sheets around my body are absolutely drenched in sweat. The scars that cover every inch of the flesh of my back ache.
The signs that my father went out of his mind as soon as my mother left are still very much here.
I rub a particularly deep groove that is carved out of my left arm. My father beat me to within an inch of my life more times than I can count. Flayed me with a length of electrical cord that he preferred.
And I took it, knowing that if I was the one to provoke him, he would run out of steam before he could get to either of my brothers.
I pull on a long-sleeved button up, gritting my teeth. My scars are a secret part of me. A sign of my weakness.
They aren’t seen by anyone these days. Not while I am still awake and alive to fight it.
Getting out of bed, I stumble into the bathroom and splash my face with water. It’s the millionth time I’ve had that dream.
When will my body learn that those events, although real, happened so long ago as to be of no real importance? My father has been dead for two years. My mother turned into a walking question mark when she disappeared that day.
Who cares what happened so many years ago? Old feelings echo around in my chest like wandering spirits. It’s up to me to banish them.
I stare at myself in the mirror in the darkened bathroom for a half a minute. There are real things happening right now.
Things that could potentially impact my life in real ways.
After a few more seconds, I unlock my door and pad out into the hallway. My feet automatically carry me to Persephone’s door. This isn’t the first night I have found myself here on her doorstep.
Last night, chased by the same dream, I watched her sleeping. And I felt…
Better, somehow. Or less alone.
Not that I would want her to know that, of course.
I stealthily swing the door wide and look at where she should be sleeping. I’m expecting her to be in the same spot on her side, blankets pulled up to her chin, a restless frown puckering her sleeping face.
But instead, I find the bed bare. There is no one sleeping here.
An instant feeling of anxiety churns in my gut. Where is she? My fists clench and my heart beats hollow in my chest.
No one leaves me.
I’ll hunt her down.
Make her stay.
I whip out my phone, ready to pull up the security cameras. There is a text from Ares.
Tangiers is a go. We’ve established contact with four ship’s captains. How are the papers progressing?
Shaking my head, I ignore the text.
I swipe through several screens until I open the security camera app. I have cameras installed on all my properties; they often come in handy, though I’m not often presented with such an obvious need for them.
It only takes a little bit of sleuthing for me to catch her leaving her room. About five more minutes, and I know exactly where she is.
Sitting by herself at the sandy cove that slopes down from the mansion.
Heading there is a few minutes’ walk. Then again, the furthest point from the house is only ten minutes away. It’s a very small island.
I trudge onto the beach and spot her. She’s still slumped there, staring off over the moonlit sea. The rush of the water disguises my footsteps and allows me to creep up on her.
I’m only ten feet away when Persephone notices me with a start.
“Jesus!” she mutters, her hand flying to her heart. “Someone should tie a bell around your neck.”
I fold my arms, vexed. “What are ye doing here?”
She looks away with shrug. “I’ve been asking myself that since I arrived.”
I walk a little closer, coming around to see her face. “That’s not what I meant, and I think ye know it fully.”
She shoots me an exasperated glance. “If you must know, I came out here to flee. Only to find out that there isn’t anywhere to go but out into the water.”
Her mouth tightens and she looks down, dropping her gaze to the sand. I tilt my head, pursing my lips.
“Ye thought… what, that there was civilization just beyond the house?”
Persephone glares at the sand dunes all around her. Digging her hands in, she raises her hands and lets the sand filter through her fingers.
“I don’t know what I thought. I can’t simply trust that you are going to be truthful. You’re just some psycho that I don’t know. Not to mention the fact that you kidnapped me! How am I supposed to believe anything you say?”
Her voice wobbles and breaks on her last word. I stride over to her, peering down at her. The urge to grab her and shake her is nearly unbearable.
“Listen to me, lass.”
At the sharp tone of my voice, she makes eye contact with me and swallows.
“Ye dinnae make the decisions here. I took that right from ye the second I got ye out of that little nothing town in Louisiana. Now I get to dictate when ye leave. I decide where ye go, what ye do, and who ye talk to. Ye ken?”
Her chin juts out. “You can’t decide everything, Hades. You’re not god.”
Leaning down, I grab her by the elbows and jerk her to her feet. Her pupils contract as her hazel eyes go impossibly wide. Her breath leaves her in a rush.
I can’t help but shake her just a little to make sure that I’m making my point.
“God is dead. D’ye hear me?” I leer down at her face, which is mere inches from mine. “And that means I’m yer only hope now.”
She bares her teeth, her face livid. “Don’t touch me, Hades.”
“I’ll touch ye whenever and wherever I feel like it, lass. And ye’ll learn to like it.”
She fights against my grip, writhing. I pull her closer, gritting my teeth.
“Stop— “
“Let me— “
For a split second, it seems as though she has enough strength to break my hold. But it comes and goes in a flash, leaving me the obvious winner. I grab her and toss her over my shoulder.
“Stop! Hades!”
I ignore her, heading back across the gentle sand dunes toward the trees.
She struggles against me, pounding her fists against my back again. “Let me go!”
“Never. I’ll never let ye go,” I tell her.
A scream erupts from her and her thrashing turns violent. But I just keep going, ignoring her jerky movements. And soon enough, her struggles subside. I release her and she runs away. I watch her as she goes, a dissatisfied frown tugging at the corners of my mouth.