Page 17 of Grave Curse

He rolled his eyes. “You don’t get to claim old-maid status until you’re like eighty, and probably not even then. But you are unattached and on your own in the world, and that’s exactly what I need to execute a plan I’m cooking up, and I wanted to see what you think about it.”

“Me?” That was so out of left field I couldn’t help but stare. “What plan are you talking about?”

“I had a long talk with Tyr, and I gotta say, it was pretty damn enlightening. He told me Hades would use you to get Tyr to do what he wanted. Is that how you read the situation back then?”

My mood dropped like an elevator with a cut cable, and suddenly all I wanted to do was hit something. Such was the effect that monster had on me. “Yes. So?”

“So, here’s the idea. Why don’t we try to use that against him?”

I scowled, because just talking about that devil in human skin killed all the light in my world. “What the fuck are you talking about, Romeo?”

“Just hear me out, okay? We’ve been going over Hades’s weaknesses, but he doesn’t really have any, other than his blindness to his flaws. So let’s use that. He wouldn’t suspect a thing if you—a female who lived in his household from the age of five until almost adulthood—suddenly showed up on his doorstep, humble, hat in hand with some sob story asking him to take care of you. There’s a good chance he’d buy it because one, you’re a woman and he’s incapable of seeing any woman as an actual danger to him, and two, he’d see it as an opportunity to steal you away from Tyr. A winning move, or so he would think. Meanwhile, we would have you on the inside getting the intel we need to sink that fucker. Now, we—”

“Enough.” Shaking. God, I was shaking so bad it was a wonder the whole shop didn’t quake with it, but it wasn’t out of fear.

No.

Rage like I’d never felt before burned through me so intensely it almost—almost—blotted out the soul-deep sense of betrayal drilling a hole right through the center of my heart.

Tyr… how could you?

I knew he didn’t give a shit about me; all the times I’d been punished for his actions had shown me that. But at least I’d thought he understood my damage. My pain.

Clearly he didn’t understand a thing.

Or…

Maybe it was worse than that.

Maybe he understood just fine.

He just didn’t care.

“You…” I heard myself panting with my fury, my throat so locked up it made the breath whistle in and out of me. Little spots danced on the edges of my vision, and dimly I realized I was on the verge of hyperventilating. “You two want me to… to crawl back to Hades? FuckingHades?”

“Okay, wait—”

“You two geniuses put your thick heads together trying to figure out that monster’s weaknesses, and all you could come up with was how you guys coulduse me? Goddamn it.” The words seethed out of me as I rocketed around the counter and headed for the door. There was only one thing left to do—feed Tyr his ass with both hands for daring to think I could be used as a fucking pawn in his nightmarish game with the man who’d been my de facto stepfather.

I made it across the street in record time. Only vaguely did I register Romeo following me with ridiculous words that urged me to stop my warpath. No way was I stopping. Not even the arrogant gods who’d forged me into the person I was today could stop me. As far as I was concerned, the gods only had themselves to blame for whatever I did to them.

And I planned to do so, so much.

I stalked past the three flagpoles in front of Ride Or Die Choppers—the American flag, the state flag of Illinois, and the Gravediggers logo, a skull with a scythe threaded through a black eye socket. I never saw the showroom windows, as big as cargo bay doors displaying the flashiest choppers the world had ever seen, each one custom-made in the fabrication shop and machine shop out back. I didn’t look at the bikes spotlighted like works of art inside the showroom, or the people who were milling about as they considered buying one of these artistic beauties.

I didn’t care about the fucking bikes.

All I cared about was destroying the source of pain and betrayal shredding my insides to bloody pieces.

“You.” I burst into Tyr’s office without knocking, and sank every ounce of anger and hurt I had into that one word. I was so insane with rage I barely noted the look of surprise in his whiskey-colored eyes. “You thought it would be a good idea tosend me tofucking Hadeslike a broken waif begging for help so that he would take me in? What’s next, Tyr? Pimping me out to him? Encouraging me to fuck him the same way he liked to fuck my mother—get me so goddamn high on smack it’d be like fucking a corpse, because that’s the wayhe fucking likes it?”

“This is on me.” Romeo’s voice came from behind me when I paused for breath, and only then did I realize I was screeching at the top of my lungs. “I had an idea after our talk, but it hit wrong—”

“Get out.” Tyr’s icily measured tone was somehow worse than my screaming, so it came as no surprise to hear Romeo leave the room and close the door behind him with a smart click. Then Tyr’s full attention fell on me like a ton of bricks. “Ginger—”

“No.” I didn’t even know what I was sayingnoto. No to his bullshit. No to his stupid plan. No to his existence on earth. Just… fucking…no. “You know what that beast did to me. To my mother. You know he as good as killed her with that shit he pushed on her, until it was all she wanted in life. Remember when he hit me with that cue ball? I nearly died that day, but instead of taking me to the hospital Audrey told me she couldn’t because Hades might get locked up for child abuse, and she’d miss her fuckingmedicine. That’s how he got off, Tyr. And in your infinite wisdom, you thought it’d be a great idea to send me back into that hellhole? To that monster? How could you?How fucking could you?”

“Think it through, Ginger.” He kept on with that icy control that sounded like an overly calm, condescending parent talking to a tantrum-prone child. “I did everything I could to get you and your mom out of my uncle’s clutches, remember? And when we found your mom’s body, I got you out of Hades’s house within minutes. I hid you with my siblings for a year so he couldn’tget to you. I had you bunk up with Hel until you could support yourself and find your own place. Remember?”

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