Chapter 4 #2
It would have been nice to have had a dad as a child. I used to dream that he was out there somewhere, searching for me, beating down doors to find the daughter stolen from him.
But that was a child’s fantasy. The reality was simpler and uglier: he probably didn’t know I existed. Or worse, he knew and didn’t care.
Either way, I’d stopped waiting for rescue a long time ago.
I grabbed the package I’d prepared earlier and stepped over Cerberus. The solid black Cane Corso lifted his massive head, his dark eyes tracking my movement. I’d had him for four years now, and he was the closest thing I had to family.
I’d named him Cerberus deliberately. People in town called him a hellhound. He was solid black, massive, and intimidating as fuck. They crossed the street when they saw us coming.
Good.
What woman didn’t want a little piece of hell on earth to keep her safe? Heaven was overrated, and with my line of work, I’d never see it anyway.
Besides, it was fitting. Persephone was also recognized for another role: she ruled the underworld.
“Come on, boy. Let’s go wait for Suzanne.”
Cerberus lumbered to his feet and followed me out to the front porch. We sat together in the oppressive heat, watching for the cloud of dust that would signal someone coming up the driveway—the telltale sign of an approaching vehicle on the dirt road that led to my isolated farmhouse.
It didn’t take long.
Harlen Troy’s truck barreled down the road with no thought for my chickens or my dog.
No concern for the dirt and dust that would coat everything in the house because I’d left the windows open, hoping to catch what little breeze existed in this suffocating Texas afternoon.
The truck stopped in front of the steps with a screech of brakes and a spray of gravel.
Cerberus stood beside me, coarse black fur bristling like hackles, a low growl rumbling from his chest. A deep, threatening sound that vibrated through the air, barely distinguishable from the truck’s idling engine.
“Easy, boy.” I brushed a hand over his head, feeling the tension in his muscles, the barely contained violence coiled beneath his skin. But I didn’t disagree with his assessment.
Harlen Troy was a piece of shit who deserved everything that was coming to him.
Suzanne slipped out of the passenger side slowly, carefully, like her body was a collection of broken parts held together by sheer fucking will. She tried to hide the limp, but I tracked every mark on her with the precision of a coroner cataloging injuries.
The bruises on her arms were fresh. Dark purple and yellow, finger-shaped impressions where he’d grabbed her, squeezed her, held her down.
The scrape on her knee peeked out from under the hem of her sundress, red and raw and weeping.
The kind of wound from being shoved to the ground.
The thick makeup she’d used to cover the bruise on her cheekbone was melting in the heat, revealing the mottled skin beneath.
Purple, green, and yellow. A fucking rainbow of violence painted across her face.
Last month she’d had a black eye, the white bloodshot, and the lid swollen nearly shut. The month before that, a split lip that had scabbed over and cracked every time she tried to smile.
Harlen Troy beat his wife like it was a hobby. Like she was a punching bag he kept around for entertainment, for stress relief, for the simple fucking pleasure of watching something beautiful break under his hands.
Not for much longer.
“Thank you, Lettie,” Suzanne said softly as I handed her the basket of lotions she’d ordered from me. Lavender and honey, rose and vanilla. All the pretty scents that masked the ugliness underneath.
Once a month, Suzanne and Harlen came by to purchase my products.
It surprised me that Harlen let her spend the money, but apparently he liked the way the lotions made her smell.
Liked marking his territory with pretty fragrances.
Liked the illusion that he was a good husband who let his wife have nice things.
Suzanne thought it was romantic.
I thought it was narcissism. He liked the way she smelled because in his mind, it confirmed that she belonged to him. That he could mark her, break her, bruise her, and she’d still come back smelling like lavender and honey. Still his. Still broken.
Still fucking trapped.
“There’s a little something extra in there just for Harlen,” I said, my voice too low for him to hear over the truck’s rumble. “Use it just like I showed you.”
Suzanne’s eyes widened slightly, and for a moment I saw something flicker there—hope, maybe, or fear, or the dangerous combination of both. The kind of look a woman gets when she realizes she might actually have a way out. That the cage door might finally be unlocked.
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.