He was playing with me last night. He was being relatively gentle.
“You’re. Never. Going. Home.” Luther Hades doesn’t bother to raise his voice. He lets the words cut me like the small knives they are. “Not ever. Our agreement will never expire, not until you take your very last breath.”
“Or until you take it from me.” I shouldn’t say it. I know I shouldn’t say it, but it slips out on a wave of homesickness and regret.
A moment’s pause, and then—
“That’s right.” His grip doesn’t loosen, but I think I heard a note of tenderness in his voice. Tenderness. Either that or I’m still half-asleep. “Let’s go.”
He walks away without looking back, and I want to throw myself into the darkest corner of the room and stay there until he forgets about me. Obviously, that’s not an option, not with Conor stalking across the middle of the room. It’s dangerous to be near Hades. It’s more dangerous to be left in an empty space near his dog. And I know he won’t forget. He won’t leave me behind. He made that clear last night. Very, very clear.
As much as I hate Hades—and I do hate him, for what he did to Decker and for the fact that he’s exactly as evil as my mother always said he was—there is a part of me that wants to see what happens next. A part of me that won’t sit down and shut up now that I finally have a chance to do something other than roam my mother’s fields. We’re headed toward a logical conclusion. A terrifying logical conclusion. My heart thrums in my throat. The waiting will be awful. But if he throws me down outside this train car and has his way with me, I’ll be wishing I could go back in time to when it was all shrouded in mist, part of the future.
So I follow him.
I catch up as Hades steps down off the car. Conor’s footfalls are close behind me. The dog’s nose brushes the back of my dress, and my legs tense, ready to run. But running is the last thing you should do in front of a wild animal. Conor isn’t a wild animal, not really, but the back of my neck bristles like he is.
The platform outside is not just a platform. I get an impression of high ceilings and dark marble, a cavernous, echoing space. And then I get an impression of something else, something that needs a second look. Hades holds his hand out. The movement doesn’t make any sense. What is he doing? What does he want me to do?
Oh.
He’s offering me his hand. Conor bumps me to the side to get out, sending me into the doorframe.
Hades glares.
“Is it that you want to fall onto the tracks? I can promise you it wouldn’t be a pleasant escape.” His voice is so light and so cutting all at once.
“No, I don’t.” I put my hand in his.
The touch is electric, bordering on a firestorm. For all he touched me last night, the only thing I had under my palms were Hades’ clothes. His hand is so big, and mine so small. It feels like putting my hand into an alligator’s cage. Utterly reckless and dangerous if the alligator is in a bad mood. Hades is far more dangerous than any of the animals I’ve read about or seen outside the fence, except for his own dog. Is that what this is? A warning? Or my own body tricking me into thinking a monster might not be so bad after all?
He tugs, and I step down. He doesn’t seem to care that I’m not wearing shoes, or else he hasn’t noticed. All around us, black-clothed men step into place in a loose circle. They’ve left enough space to make it seem like we’re walking alone, but we’re not.
We’re very far from alone. I’ve only ever seen the train station in the city, which was an antique design built before all the skyscrapers went up. At least that’s what one of the placards on the wall said. This station doesn’t have any placards. That doesn’t seem to matter. It’s busy. Nobody spares a second glance for Hades’ dog, which must mean they’re used to it. I don’t know how they could get used to a dog that size—one that’s obviously a killing machine. I want to keep my eye on him, but the people demand my attention. So many people.
What did I expect when he threw me over his shoulder? An empty room at the center of the mountain? This isn’t it. Far overhead, the ceiling moves smoothly over us in a high arc. The rock is a matte black with streaks of gold painted onto it. No, not painted. In an instant, it clicks into place. Hades didn’t hire artists to come hang from the rock, carefully imitating seams of precious metals. They are seams of precious metals. He’s carved his train station out of his own riches.
“Close those lips or I’ll be forced to put something there,” he says lightly, but I hear the promise in his tone.
“I….” What’s the use in apologizing? There is none. I think—and I could be wrong—he likes it when I’m a little insolent. Probably because that’ll give him an excuse to punish me later. A full-body shiver rocks me from head to toe. Who has thoughts like this? Not me. I can’t let myself sink into that kind of depravity no matter what happens to me here. If I do, I’ll never be the same. And if I’m going to hold out any hope of escape, I have to keep myself intact. As much as I can manage. “This is huge.”
People pour out onto the platform from doorways gashed into the walls. They keep their heads low. Their eyes flicker in our direction, but the looks are glancing, temporary. These people head straight for the train, as quickly as they can. No wonder. I only wish I could ask them where they’re going and why it looks so simple for them to leave.
As if he’s read my mind, Hades laughs. “They’re not leaving, so wipe that precious expression off your face. They stay on the mountain, just like you will.” The trap of his hand closes over mine.
“You keep people here?”
Hades looks at me like he’s never seen a person quite as dense. “Who do you think works in the mines or staffs my home? Commuters?”
“They all made a deal with you?”
His eyes narrow. “Did you think you were special?”
Maybe I did. Maybe some sound he made last night gave me the idea his cruelty is hiding something else.
I must have imagined it.
The way he’s looking at me now, eyes harder than diamonds—no. I’m like everyone else in this station. I’m his property too. My heart aches for them and for me. I was desperate enough to throw myself on his mercy. They must’ve been too. It’s a cold comfort.
“You’re nobody,” Hades says simply. I already know it. I’ve been bracing myself to hear it all along, but tears prick the corners of my eyes. “You’re nobody now, and when I’m done with you, you’ll still be nobody.”
Then he lifts my hand to his lips and brushes them across my knuckles.
He drops it before I have a chance to react.
“Keep up with me. I don’t have all day.”
10
Persephone
The mountain is much farther from my mother’s fields than I thought. Nothing drives the point home harder than walking up the wide stone steps to a set of massive double doors that look like they’ve been carved from the same rock as the rest of the train station. Those doors swing open as Hades and I approach, Conor right behind him, and it’s only after a few seconds that I see the men holding them ajar. They both keep their eyes on the ground as we pass through and enter what can only be described as a capital city.