Damnable Grace (Hades Hangmen 5)

Shivers broke along my skin as flashes of Meister tying me down to a chair, hurting me, came slamming into my head. I placed my hands on the sides of the shower and tried to get up, but I could not move. My traitorous muscles had collapsed and left me too weak to move from this spot.

I tipped my head to the spray, trying to wash away the feel of Meister on my skin, to cleanse his memory from my mind. And just as I began to cry harder in frustration, the door to the bathroom opened and the male who had cared for me entered. He darted toward me and bent down, wrapping me in his strong hold. He smelled strongly of smoke. It had not been that strong in the bedroom.

“I fell,” I managed to say when I eventually found my voice. “I . . . I could not get back up.”

“It’s okay, Red,” he reassured me and took me from the shower.

“No!” I protested, managing to add some strength to my voice. “Please.” I stretched out my hand to the shower, yearning to be clean. To feel anything but what I did at present; I felt plagued with dirt, inside and out.

In his arms, my body trembled with cold. “You want me to clean you?” he asked.

I turned my head into his chest to shield me from embarrassment. “Please . . .”

The man took a deep breath, then turned and walked back to the still-running shower. I thought he would stand behind me and guide me as I tried to bathe. I did not expect him to step inside with me, still wearing his pants. He kept me cradled in his arms. He braced my feet on the floor and held me with one arm. With his free hand, he took some shampoo and rubbed it into my scalp. I closed my eyes as he washed away the grime and the dirt. I sighed as his hand ran over my skin, taking away the sweat and stench that I found so abhorrent. Then he guided me as I simply stood under the hot spray. He stayed behind me, a pillar of strength. He never spoke as the last of the suds from the shampoo were rinsed from my body. Not once did he utter a single word, until the water began to cool and he asked softly, “Are you finished?”

He switched off the shower and wrapped me in a towel. He sat me back on the closed toilet seat while he dried my hair with a second towel. I sighed as his hands massaged my scalp. And I opened my eyes. I opened my eyes and found myself face to face with this man. He was not looking at me, so focused was he on his task. A wave of something unknown crashed through me when I realized that, in all my life, no man had ever cared for me this way, let alone a complete stranger.

An angel. The endearment fluttered through my mind.

His dark hair was wet. His pants were sodden, creating a flood at his feet. Mesmerized by this strange, kind soul, this man, I found myself with my hand on his wrist. He froze the second my fingers touched him, but he gently met my gaze. “What . . .” I gulped. “What is your name?”

The man’s dark eyes narrowed just a fraction. He withdrew his hands from my hair. “AK.”

“AK,” I said softly, feeling the strangeness of his name on my lips. Not knowing what else to do, I brought his wrist to my mouth and pressed a single grateful kiss to his pulse. I felt it speed up beneath my lips and heard his sudden intake of breath. “We have met before, have we not?”

He glanced away. “Once.”

“The tree,” I said. He nodded in confirmation. A sudden rush of emotion swept into my heart. “You helped save my Rebekah.” I winced as I fought back tears. Then I remembered his eyes, his hair and his smell so close to mine. “You spared my life when you could have destroyed me.”

Sighing, he reluctantly looked at me. “You hadn’t done shit wrong.”

His words were not a balm, rather a heavy metal spike piercing my conscience. “That is debatable,” I replied.

He studied me, his dark eyes assessing. I swallowed hard under his close attention. I opened my mouth to speak. But the words did not come. I could not verbalize my shame, my utter guilt at being the sister who ensured that Rebekah, from a young age, became the devil-girl all in the commune believed her to be.

In truth, I was the devil’s girl. I allowed men to hurt a child; even worse, I encouraged Rebekah to believe she was evil herself.

What she must have thought of me . . .

“She’s here.”

The blood that ran smoothly through my body became a rushing torrent. I stared at AK. He met my eyes and nodded gently. “R-Rebekah?” I managed to stutter, certain I had misheard.

“Lilah.” AK stepped back. “Your sister. She’s here. She lives here.”

AK held out his hand for me to take. He wanted me to get to my feet. But it was impossible. A million emotions ran through my mind as his words sank in. She was here? Here in this place?

“The devil’s men,” I said, my voice cracking.

AK’s eyebrows pulled down. “We’re the Hades Hangmen. And your sister belongs to one of us now.”

“The man with the long blond hair.”

“Ky.”

Ky. I ran the name through my mind, savoring the familiarity of the syllable in my memory. Rebekah loved him. She had told me so before she was punished.

Image after image of Rebekah filled my mind. Her beautiful smile, her long blond hair, and the devastation on her face as they publicly tried her in New Zion. Her face, as she looked to me with such pained resignation in her eyes. Resolve that this was always how her life would end. And that she was the devil-woman they had made her out to be.

A Cursed Woman of Eve. A truth I had believed for so long. The title that had tortured her life.

“Is . . . is she happy?” I asked. AK nodded, a small smile on his lips, and I could not have stopped the tears if I tried.

“She is,” he said gruffly, and my head fell forward. My wet hair veiled my face as I covered my mouth with my hands. I let the relief pour from my body. She was happy. I had not known. But she was happy. I could not have wished for anything more.

AK left the room. He returned and stood in the doorway, holding some clothing in his hands. I could not read the expression on his face as he watched me. He was difficult to understand, I thought. Wearing a neutral mask that hid his true feelings.

He had erected walls around himself for protection. I knew this because I recognized it in myself. I wondered why.

“Get dressed. And then you need to eat.”

The thought of food caused my stomach to roll with nausea. I shook my head, about to protest when AK said, “You haven’t eaten for nearly a week while you were coming off the smack. It ain’t gonna be easy, Red, but you gotta eat something.” He pointed to me. “Right now you’re a bag of bones.” He stepped away and left me alone. I took the clothes he had laid on the counter. I slipped the long sleeveless top over my head and pulled the soft pants over my legs. The pants were too big, but I was able to tie them around my small waist with the drawstring on the waistline.

Using the wall for balance, I stood and made my way to the counter. There was a new toothbrush on the top, and a comb. I brushed my teeth, and when my mouth was clean and refreshed, I forced myself to stare at the reflection I had been avoiding.

I gasped as I stared at the girl in the mirror. Her skin was dull and gray. Her bones jutted out at odd angles, and her hair hung limply at her sides. Then my eyes fell to the marks on her inner arms. Dozens of marks that marred her pale, freckled skin. I ran my fingertips over the marks. I could almost feel the needle piercing the skin and the heavenly potion slipping like pure sunlight into my veins. My body swayed and my eyes closed as I remembered how it took me away from my pain and my burdens.

I stumbled, and my eyes snapped open. Just at the thought of the potion, my cheeks had flushed. Dread settled in my stomach. I craved the potion more than I wanted food, or water, or anything else for that matter. But then I thought of Rebekah, here in this place, safe and happy, and I made myself reach for the comb. Concentrating on her face, her smile, and the hope that Grace made it to her alive, I ran the comb through my hair until the long red strands were straight and smooth.

Red, I thought as I stared back at my reflection. AK had called

me “Red”.

The color of my hair.

I startled at the brief flicker of a smile on my lips. I was not sure why, but I enjoyed that name for me. Not Phebe. Not “whore” . . . but the sheer simplicity of the name Red.

I opened the door, and, slowly, painfully, I made my legs take me in the direction AK had gone. The smell of food almost made me return to the bathroom to purge. But I fought it, determined to keep moving.

When I reached the kitchen, AK was at a stove, cooking food. I did not realize I had paused in the doorway, captivated by him, until he glanced over his shoulder and froze. He had changed into another pair of pants, and his hair was brushed back from his face.

He was incredibly handsome. I did not understand the flush that came to my cheeks as that thought crossed my mind. Men did not affect me. They never had. Yet here I was, blushing as though I did not know the touch of a man.

“You wanna sit?” He flicked his chin toward a table at the side of the room. I sat down, and AK placed a mug in front of me. I knew the smell immediately.

“Coffee,” he said and walked back to the stove.

“I have never tried it.” I lowered my nose to the liquid, but I had to turn my head away at the smell.