Sweeter Than Sin

by Amelia Wilde

  Hades climbs in behind me, brushing aside the dress, and gives my shoulder a glancing push. It takes me backward onto the seat. Good thing, because I’m frozen now.

  The vehicle pulls away from the curb. It’s enormous. Big enough for a man like Hades to look comfortable in the seat across from me, and big enough to fit what must be his dog. Only his dog would be this big, coat shiny and teeth shinier.

  “Conor,” he says. “Come here.”

  Conor turns in his spot and goes to him, putting his head on one perfect pant leg. But it’s not only Conor that comes close. Persephone curls up at Hades’ side. Her body eases into his. One of the stems on my bouquet snaps from holding it too hard. I want to scream at her not to get so close to someone so deadly, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Her nose brushes his cheek and she tilts her head to kiss the side of his neck.

  They are both fully dressed. Hades’ eyes are on me, tracking, watching as if I might throw myself out of the moving vehicle at any moment. But the way Persephone touches him is so shockingly intimate. How can she do it?

  How could you?

  I know the answer, but it hurts too much to think about it. I was being toyed with. It’s nothing like the dark current that goes between them, taut and unbreakable. Hades lets out a breath and runs a hand over her hair, and I swear, I swear, his pupils retreat. There’s more blue around his eyes. Goose bumps rush from my wrists to my shoulders. The careful blank wall I’ve been holding around my mind snaps back into place. Even that wall can’t keep out the slow leak of emotion. No—no. I won’t feel it. I’ve been an empty shell since that window broke behind me and I’ll never be anything else again. His hand works at the back of her head. Pins fall like raindrops. The careful style comes to pieces and her hair spills down her back in bronze curls.

  “I want you out of that costume,” says Hades.

  Me?

  No. Her. And looking at her now—I’ve seen her before. I’ve seen a version of her before. Where?

  “It’s not my favorite,” answers Persephone. “But I’m not undressing here.”

  A low laugh. “You will if I undress you.”

  Not me, then. Why would he even notice me? Why is he here? Heartbreak taps a finger against the glass of my mind. It’s nothing. It won’t get through. “We’re not alone,” scolds Persephone.

  “When have I ever given a fuck about that?”

  “Such language.”

  “Such language,” he repeats, and from the corner of my eye I can see how his hand has gone around her neck, how he’s kissing her. The air is hot, scorching my throat, and a crack appears in the glass. The slow drip of my thoughts gets louder and louder. I saw her in a painting. The woman in the painting in Zeus’s closet must have been of her mother. They’re so alike. Those paintings. They were of Zeus’s family, his brothers—and a sister. It’s a fucked-up calculus that plays out in my head.

  “Are you really his brother?” I blurt out. Because if he is, and if that woman in the painting was his sister, and this is her daughter, then—

  “Tell me.” The excruciating sharpness of his voice draws my attention back to his face again. “Do I look like Zeus? Anything like him?”

  It’s hard to swallow. “No.”

  “There’s blood spilled between us, but we don’t share any, if that’s what you really want to know. But I don’t think it is.” And I don’t care.

  “Where are you taking me?” My own voice is too loud, almost panicked, but I’m not panicked. I’m not anything. The options are limitless, at this point. He could take me to the train station and back to his mountain. I’d just be another man’s property then. Fine. It doesn’t matter. Or he could take me to the airport. Anywhere.

  He kisses her again, then breaks it, the movement desultory.

  It doesn’t seem to have affected him at all. It’s Persephone who’s panting in his hands, her leg hooked over his, eyes still closed. “Back to Zeus.” His tone says obviously. His tone says where else?

  More cracks, spidering out, and I’m just now realizing how far away I’ve pushed the world since the tires on that van blew out underneath us. Since that mirror rose up to meet my head. “You don’t have to do that. You could take me to the airport.”

  He laughs, and it’s the opposite side of the coin from Zeus’s laugh—dark and cruel, a sound edged in pain, nothing hiding it. “My home has already been damaged enough by my brother’s tantrums. I’m not going to put his runaway whore on a plane.”

  Persephone opens her eyes at this and glares at Hades, one small hand reaching up to turn his face toward hers. She doesn’t say a word. They only look at each other. My jealousy is deep enough to swallow me whole. I wish it would.

  He leans in and kisses her again, so vicious it’s almost a bite, but before it’s over it’s turned soft somehow. Impossible. This man could never be soft. All the things I’ve ever heard about him jostle in my mind. That he’s a killer. That he hurts people. Ruthless. Unforgiving. But seeing him now, I know there’s one exception, and it’s Persephone, and I will, never, never be that exception for Zeus.

  I clear my throat, warnings beating their fists on the glass shield that’s become my mind. It distorts everything, rendering it silent and impassable. I should be running. Or screaming. Opening the door and tumbling out onto the street should be better. They both look at me, Persephone resting her head on his shoulder, a certain pity in her eyes.

  “We can’t take you to the airport.” Her voice is so soft, and I just—I can’t fathom it, how the two of them can be together. I can picture her in a white dress, in a field of flowers. He would never belong there.

  “Why?” I only need enough money for a plane ticket. That amount would be nothing to Hades.

  He’s only slightly less vicious this time, voice even. “I owe him.”

  I can’t imagine this man owing anyone anything. “For what?”

  “I ruined one of his shirts.” Persephone’s hand, already tucked in the front of his suit jacket, tightens. “Now we’re even.”

  6

  Brigit

  The SUV pulls up to the curb in front of the brothel. I wasn’t paying attention. I wasn’t looking during the long drive back.

  And now there’s no more time.

  I feel the distant urge to argue, to demand more answers, but it’s so far away. The most I can muster is a quiet “Don’t do this.”

  I hate myself.

  Hades doesn’t seem to hear. He opens the door and lets his dog out first. Before he can reach back for Persephone she’s scrambled across the open space toward me. It strikes me how ridiculous I look, with this bouquet and this dress and this hair. I don’t look like myself. I’m not myself. I may never be myself again. She takes my hands around the bouquet. “Listen.” I can’t do anything but listen. “He wouldn’t have sent us if he didn’t care.”

  I’ve never heard a laugh so hollow as the one that comes out of my mouth. “How could you say that?”

  A frown flickers over her face, and she turns her head slightly away from the flowers. “I promise you. If you were anyone else, he would never—”

  “Persephone,” says Hades, and she reacts without hesitation, dropping my hands and going to him, and this is all so wrong, how could she, how could they, I would rather be on the street, I would rather be hunted down by my uncle than be brought back to this man, I can’t stand it—

  Why is Hades pulling her out of the way, stepping in front of her? His face betrays nothing, not concern or fear, but his dog moves in front of both of them, hackles rising. I can’t breathe. If only breathing were optional. A light summer breeze carries in the sound of the front doors of the building bursting open, and then—

  It’s not the first time I’ve seen Zeus outside in the sun, but it is the first time I’ve seen him moving like this, quickly, focused, so focused that Reya is running to keep up with him. She pulls at his elbow, trying to stop him, saying something. Frantic. She’s frantic.

  And that’s w
hen the thick glass blocking everything out, keeping all of my feelings away, shatters. Break in case of emergency. The golden-eyed man stalking toward the SUV with his jacket unbuttoned and his face unreadable is an emergency. If he’s not, then I don’t know what is.

  My body breaks itself out of its deep freeze as he’s taking the final steps to the SUV and I run, like a fool, like an animal, toward the door. My foot twists under me. One shoe comes off. And I end up with my back against the door. Only I can’t open it. I don’t have any free hands. I’m too busy holding the bouquet.

  Zeus wrenches the other door farther open, pushing it back with one hand, so hard that something inside of it snaps. The metal groans, and I scream. I can’t get out. “Get out of the fucking car.”

  “No,” I howl back. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I hate you.”

  He laughs, the same delighted, rolling laugh he uses in the club, and cold rushes over my skin. “You’re going inside. Get out of the car.”

  “It’s not a car,” I scream back at him. It’s the screaming I should have done back in the cathedral. It’s the meltdown I would have had if I’d had the luxury. “It’s not a car, it’s a death trap, and I can’t get out. I can’t even open the door.”

  “Sweetheart.” I hate him, I hate him. “The door is already open. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

  The horror of the last day is a crushing wave and I gasp for breath like it might be actual water. It chokes me, burning its way down into my lungs, and I can feel my knees starting to go. I sink down onto the floor of the SUV in a cloud of tulle and lace. This is it. This is the end of the fantasy that I could ever have saved myself. This is the end of imagining the nightmare scenario and a woman who could overcome it with grit and in bare feet if necessary.

  I danced with him.

  I told him I cared about him.

  And his devil of a brother brought me back here for what? For what? The screaming starts up again but it can’t possibly be me. I can’t make that inhuman of a sound. It turns into words in my mouth. “I’m not your whore,” I spit at him.

  He blinks. That? That’s what’s going to get under his skin? A sneer curls the corner of his mouth. “You’re no prostitute, Brigit. You’re property. My property. Didn’t you know?”

  It’s so egregious, so awful, that I throw myself forward, knees or not, leaping for him.

  I’m going to kill him with this bouquet.

  He stops it in mid-swing, with one hand, and rips it apart. Petals burst out from the arrangement, fluttering down, and the rest of it goes flying into the street. And I’ve been so stupid. I’ve been so foolish. Because in my attempt to murder him with plants I’ve put myself in his reach.

  He did this on purpose.

  The gown, so heavy and caging, is nothing to Zeus. Neither are my fists. But I try, I try. My arms burn from throwing punches that don’t land, each of them swatted away by one of his huge hands. He’s already smiling. He’s already smiling like he didn’t need anything in the world other than for me to get out of the car. “I’m not going with you.” The howl echoes down the street. It’s noon, so there’s no one to watch, not that I can see, only Hades and Persephone. She’s taken his hand. I take one last swing at Zeus’s face and he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder, one arm banded across my waist.

  The contact with my stomach drives the rest of the breath from my lungs. It’s quiet out here when no one is screaming. It’s only now, in this moment, that I feel for myself how hard he’s breathing. The smile, the laugh—it was all a front. My fists have a mind of their own. I pound at his back.

  It does nothing.

  “The uncle,” he says.

  “Taken care of,” answers Persephone.

  “Are you sure?”

  “He didn’t make it all the way up the stairs.”

  Shock descends. I was being led out of the church by a killer. I thought she was gentler than Hades. I’m so stupid. I’m so stupid. And she’s so matter-of-fact. I am slung over a man’s shoulder like the property he says I am and there she is, coolly saying that there is no pulse. My uncle—she killed him. It was her. I wait for singing relief but there is none. She didn’t kill my father. He still exists. What’s to stop him from coming here again? I don’t even know how he got to me the first time. Or who—or why.

  And I’m out here in the open.

  We’re just standing here, like there’s nothing to worry about. I don’t mean to thrash but I do in a last bid to get away, to run. Open skies are dangerous. Open sidewalks are dangerous. There is nothing safe here. Nothing and no one.

  “Good,” Zeus says. He moves toward the front doors. Reya’s gone back to keep the door open, her jaw set. I don’t want to go in. I don’t want to stay out. “Stop kicking. You’re not going to get free with that pathetic kick.”

  I kick harder. He stops on the stairs, turning back, and I’m still trying to find my voice. The screaming was so short-lived. But even if I screamed again, who would help me? No one in the world.

  “You’ll stay for dinner.”

  “The fuck we will,” says Hades.

  “Your plaything looks pale underneath her makeup, Hades. Ask her if she wants to get on the train.” Zeus is stepping through the front doors, almost out of earshot, when Hades’ low curse follows us in. “We have things to talk about,” Zeus sings in reply. “Once I’m finished with Brigit.”

  7

  Brigit

  I catch my breath halfway to the elevators and resume my struggle but it’s as pointless as ever. The numbness comes in waves, and when it’s gone, the pain is so bright and immediate that it reminds me of grieving my mother. I keep waiting for it to subside but it never does. My foot catches the elevator door and I try to hook my toe around it and pull us back.

  Zeus has none of this. He unhooks my foot, takes us into the elevator, and flips up several layers of tulle to deliver a set of stinging blows to my ass. It knocks a panicked cry out of me. “That’s better,” he says. “I’d rather hear that than your useless arguments.”

  I grit my teeth against the possibility of tears. “Why.”

  “Why what.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I claw at the back of his jacket, knowing that he won’t feel it. My nails can’t cut through the fabric. I wish they could. I wish they were on his bare skin. I wish— “I don’t want to be here.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I don’t.” A sob hitches at the back of my throat but I don’t let it out. “I’d rather be anywhere else.”

  “You were somewhere else, sweetheart. I don’t think Persephone’s strong enough to take you out of a church all by herself.”

  “I didn’t want to come here.” He sets me back on my feet at the same instant the elevator stops. The doors slide open. Zeus puts a hand on the back of my neck and guides me forward. He’s hardly using any force and my feet go forward. No. Fight him. Don’t give into him. But I do. With every step, I do. My knees are jelly. I only have one shoe. The dress feels like quicksand, ready to pull me into the floor. Oh, fuck, I can feel the earthquake coming. When it finally arrives it’ll tear me apart. “I don’t want to be with you.”

  It becomes more impossible to focus with every step so I’m surprised, I’m foolishly surprised, to find that the elevator has let us off in his bedroom. I turn around to make a run for it and his hand moves down to my shoulder and pulls me back. He just carried me up here and still shock strokes its fingers down my throat. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand to have him touch me.

  But he is.

  He forces me back and back until I’m standing at the foot of the bed.

  Someone is crying.

  Someone is ugly crying, in huge, gulping gasps. I can’t fathom who would make that sound. I can’t fathom it until the sensation catches up with the sound and I realize it’s me, my stomach heaving, crying so hard I’m on the verge of being sick. I haven’t cried like this since my mother died and even then I only let it happen
once in a bathroom at the funeral home that smelled like baby powder and hand sanitizer.

  That’s why it’s so hard to see.

  My eyes brim with tears and the salt burns my skin, acid rain in miniature. The front of my dress is soaked, hot with the tears, and I feel crazy. Unhinged. Detached from the world. If I could float up through the ceiling and into the center of the sun, I would. Better that than having to stand here in front of this man who hates me. Or worse—who doesn’t care about me at all.

  I wish for the bouquet. At least it was something to hold on to during whatever comes next. But we’re here alone. No Reya, no other girls, nobody but us. “If you’re going to fuck me then just do it.”

  “I’m not going to. Don’t worry your pretty head.”

  It stings. It shouldn’t.

  Zeus steps closer, going down on one knee, and my body recoils, trying to hide at the foot of the bed. He puts a hand in the front of my dress and yanks me to standing, and then that hand is on my chin, tilting my face down. He swipes at my tears, again, again, and then pulls an honest-to-god handkerchief from his pocket. At the sight of it I burst out laughing. He ignores it and dabs at my eyes until the tears have slowed enough for me to see his face.

  And it is devastating.

  I have seen him angry. I’ve seen him furious. But I’ve never seen him sorry. It cuts through his eyes, razor sharp. Sorry? I don’t believe it. I don’t believe the dark circles or the anxious set to his jaw. The things he said—the things he did—

  “Why are you looking at me like that? How do you look like that?” I suck in an enormous breath but it does nothing to relieve the hunger for air and peace and safety.

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.” Hands on my face, so I can’t look away. His voice distorts and I miss what he’s saying, the words fluttering away like birds set loose from a cage. Zeus shakes me. “Brigit. Listen.”

  “I can’t hear you.” My own voice sounds strange, alien.