Hades was speaking in garbled Cajun French. Something about his mother. But he wasn’t speaking about her. He was talking to her. Apologizing. Apologizing like a little boy.
Then he cut off abruptly.
There came the sound of heavy breathing in the dark.
I waited with my own breath suspended for him to go back to sleep, like he always did when he woke himself up with a nightmare—at least every other night.
However, that night a lamp flicked on, sending a warm light into my cage. I sat up to find Hades sitting at the side of the bed, panting like he’d just run a marathon.
Tonight’s nightmare must have been even worse than usual.
“Hades?” I asked before I could think about calling out to him.
His head whipped to the side. Not toward, but away from me—as if he couldn’t stand the sight of me seeing him like this.
“Go back to sleep,” he ordered, his voice strange and harsh.
I followed a routine.
-Eat.
-Watch Hades underworld it up.
-Eat.
-Shower.
-Watch Hades fuck yet another woman in his endless string.
-Don’t die.
-Watch Hades shower.
-Go to bed.
-Get woken up about every other night by one of Hades’s brutal nightmares.
-Go back to sleep, and do it all again the next day.
Weeks had passed in this manner.
But I couldn’t get back to sleep, even after he turned off the lamp and the sound of the bed creaking told me he’d laid back down.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Mama Fairgood’s terrible death. And the weeks that followed my own mother’s death…
“Hades,” I said again, wondering if he was awake too.
“Go to sleep,” he growled. “You do not want to know the consequence for disobeying me.”
No, I didn’t. But…
“I can help you,” I told him in the dark. “I can help you with the bad dreams.”
CHAPTER 11
HADES
“I can help you.” The offer came soft and unexpected in the darkest hour of night. “I can help you with the bad dreams.”
