Currency in Flesh

Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

E ight Months Ago

“You fucking need me!” Sean shouted into my face, his spit spraying my cheeks with the force of his fury. “You think anyone else is going to hire a dumb cow like you at this point? I can end your so-called career in a single phone call. You’re thirty-five years old with an M.A. in communications. Fucking useless.”

I don’t need you, I wanted to scream right back, I don’t need your company or your money or your business connections. It was true. Probably. I could work in so many different fields with my degree and experience, and I truly didn’t need him to vouch for me. I’d landed my current position without even using my married name. I’d applied as the old me, Grace Torres, and when I submitted my paperwork the following week, I giggled and used my left hand to push my hair from my face. Silly me, it’s still so new! The massive diamond spoke volumes and nobody pressed me for any more answers. Grace Schafer was just as good in their eyes.

People knew that name. Sean Schafer. They knew his face from the TIME 30 Under 30 list, recognized the severe brow, the well-trimmed sandy-brown beard. Nobody knew Grace Torres. Grace Torres had been a clever but unremarkable woman with unremarkable, divorced, working-class parents. Grace Schafer wanted to be anything but. I thought of my mother, raising me on her own after my father took off, leaving nothing to me but the hint of red in my hair. My mother had been a saint, but I didn’t want to be like my mother. I didn’t want mediocrity and a second job to put my kids through college. I wanted success, stability, and a fucking Roth IRA.

I backed up slowly, doing my best not to anger him further. It was stupid. I should have known that taking a later flight home from my conference in Austin would piss him off. He didn’t like surprises, or to come home to an empty house and a bare dinner table. I glanced over at my luggage, where it still sat beside the front doors. I was tired and hungry and jet-lagged, and all I really wanted was a shower and to go to sleep. “I’m sorry, baby,” I said instead. “Let me go make you something to eat.”

I was a shitty cook, but our kitchen was, of course, top of the line and I paid well for an actual cook to prep and store meals for the week. I slunk into the kitchen before Sean could say anything more, hoping I could at least hide out in here until his temper cooled. I took out a sous vide chicken breast and threw it in a pan with a couple strips of roasted bell pepper and gathered what I needed to make a salad. As I mixed spinach, feta, red onion and dried cranberries I thought again about how I thought my life would go, and how glad I was that it had yet to pan out. I had always wanted children, wanted to see myself reflected in big, round eyes and know that something I did would live on after me. But my body had failed me, or perhaps had protected me. Infertility was a blessing and a curse.

I tried to look happy as I exited the kitchen. Sean paced before the bay windows, an empty glass in his hand and a scowl on his lips. “Can I make you a drink?” I asked. He didn’t even look at me, just held the cup in my general direction. Setting the bowl of salad in the center of the table, I let my fingers brush his as I took Sean’s glass.

I poured him a drink, twisting an orange slice around the rim before dropping it into the amber-colored whisky. Watching the fruit sink into the liquor reminded me of drowning. How quiet would it be, to descend into endless darkness, to just let go? I shook my head, trying to clear my mind of the image. Was it Sean’s face I pictured, or my own? It didn’t matter. When I stepped beside him and handed him the drink, he stopped me before I could walk away. His hand around my wrist was firm, pulling me closer until I could feel the heat of his body against my own. “Baby,” I tried to keep my voice light, “the chicken will burn.”

He drained the cocktail in a single, long pull and set the glass haphazardly beside a fern in the window ledge. His fingers were chilled from the ice, grazing my thigh as he pulled my skirt up and palmed my ass. Again, I let out a casual giggle. “At least let me turn off the stove,” I said with a flirty smile. This was all an act. Every single minute in his presence I was performing—I should’ve won a fucking Emmy. He looked at me from beneath a hard brow and pulled up the other side of my skirt, daring me to protest.

I learned a long time ago not to tell him no. My ass sat beside the fern and the empty glass as he fucked me. I could smell the orange, but as he zipped up his trousers the sweet citrus faded into smoke and burnt oil. He was gone before the smoke detector went off.

My heart beat a frantic rhythm within my chest. When my eyes snapped open I expected to be in my cold, sterile kitchen looking down at a pan filled with smoking char. Instead, I found myself back in the Underworld, tangled in silk sheets with my hair curling around me in soft waves. I hated that fear accompanied so many sensations for me. The smell of cigars made me flinch, I couldn’t wear lace lingerie anymore without wanting to claw off my own skin, smoke made me press my thighs together to keep out the memory of that violation. I sat up, unwilling to fall back into memories of my shit marriage.

My wrists were not chained this time, and I was dressed in a plush robe that tied at the waist. The room was less dark than it had been, though there were no visible sources of light. Looking around, I tried to recall how I got here, but could remember nothing save for the feel of Lady Cora’s tongue against my neck. A flush of heat reddened my cheeks. I shouldn’t have any reaction to the thought outside of disgust, but it wasn’t disgust that I felt between my thighs. The scent of smoke had dissipated, and I felt like I could think a little more clearly. Lady Cora had said she wanted me to learn to bite, what did that mean exactly? Did she expect me to join her in torturing the people doomed to an eternity in the pit?

I didn’t think I could. Wanting someone to be punished and wanting to punish them were two entirely different things. There was a reason I had planned to disable Sean’s brakes or to plant poison in the vents of his Bentley. I didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to see him die. I wanted to get a phone call or visit from the authorities and fall to the floor in feigned sorrow. I wanted to dab my nose with a handkerchief and ask in a teary voice, what am I supposed to do now? I wanted to sign my name one last time as Grace Schafer as I collected the life insurance settlement and took ownership of all our marital assets. Could I have done it if my only choice was to look him in the eye as he died? I honestly didn’t know.

I rose from the bed, dropping my bare feet to the warm wood floor. I wasn’t sure what exactly I was supposed to do here if Lady Cora wasn’t around to tell me. Without the need to eat or take care of bodily functions, what else was there to do on my own? Past the bed, the room opened up slightly and I saw a comfortable-looking armchair with a small table beside it. As I got closer, I could see a little stack of books as well. They were vaguely familiar titles, poetry by famous dead women, gothic horror, a smutty vampire book. I fought the urge to smirk. Of course, Lady Cora would choose to provide me with smut, darkness and feminist poetry. Taking a seat, I picked up the vampire novel. If I was to have nothing else to do, at least I’d waste my time on something titillating.

Four chapters in, just as things were beginning to get good, I heard the sound of heels from behind me. My stomach did a little flip, but I shook the sensation off. I was the captive of a stranger who was clearly dangerous. Whatever effect she had on me wasn’t based on attraction, it had to be fear.

“That is a good one,” Lady Cora whispered near my ear. Her words flowed over my skin like honey—thick and warm. I realized too late that I hadn’t responded, nodding to try and disguise my distraction. “Have you read it before?”

“No,” I replied, trying to keep my tone neutral. “I watched a few episodes of the TV show, but I didn’t have much time to read, and what I did manage was usually for work.”

“I am rather surprised. You seem like the sort of woman who reads.”

“I did when I was younger,” I began. I wasn’t sure why I found it so easy to fall into conversation with her. It would probably be smarter to keep my distance, maybe she would lose interest. But then what? I was as good as dead already, wasn’t I? “I read a lot growing up. My mother didn’t approve of most television and I enjoyed the escape of books. I used to really love fantasy novels.”

“I am happy to provide any you desire, marigold. There are many things to be learned from books.” She walked around the chair, nails dragging along the velvet as she passed. Even without touching me, she made my skin erupt in goosebumps. It was disarming, always feeling slightly out of control.

“You keep talking about things I need to learn.” My voice came out snappier than I had intended. “To what end? Why bother teaching me anything at all?”

“Do you think I enjoy my duties?” She didn’t look at me as she spoke, instead looking at what appeared to me as a wall, though I’m sure to her it was nothing at all.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “You seem to be bored, but you were perfectly content to—” I swallowed. “Deal with that man.”

“My true responsibility is keeping balance. All life possesses some measure of power. There must be a balance within that power. I may not be fair, but I am just. I take no pleasure from knowing there are people who do terrible things to the innocent or the weak. What I do here is to restore the power they have unrightfully taken. I do not deal solely in corrupted souls, I also care for those which are bright and pure.”

“That doesn’t sound any better. You have to interact with bad people while also watching good people die.”

“I do not see life and death in the same way you do, Grace. Life is brief and fleeting, while death is eternal. Life, I suppose, is simply a test to see how you are destined to spend eternity.”

“But don’t people make mistakes? Can’t they grow? Become better? I don’t see how it’s fair or just to torture someone forever because of mistakes they made when they were young and stupid or in circumstances beyond their control. People in bad situations are driven to do bad things all the time, it doesn’t make them bad people.” I spoke with more conviction on behalf of humanity than I’d have thought myself capable of.

“Bold of you to assume I cannot tell the difference.” I felt her gaze when she turned back to face me, hot on my skin even beneath the robe. She was right, I was making assumptions without knowing anything.

“How can you tell?” I asked, genuinely curious. “How do you know when someone is truly unworthy of redemption?”

Lips drawing back as though my words had caused offense, Lady Cora grimaced. “I do not provide redemption. What is done is done. I direct those who deserve reward to the isles, and those whose souls are unremarkable to the meadows. There is no redemption involved. But I can take a soul in my hands and feel its weight, its worth. The balance lies in making certain there are enough people worthy of the isles without allowing the pit to overflow.”

My brows drew together. “Can it do that? Overflow?”

Her low chuckle was cold. “Not in a literal sense. But there have been times where the centuries of darkness have spilled into the world above. My goal is always to keep the balance. I can choose to repay those in the pit for what they have enacted in their lives, just as I repay those who inhabit the isles. But when I am through, I destroy what remains in the pit, because there will always be more evil. Good is far less common.”

“So do you enjoy it?” I asked.

There was a momentary distance to her eyes that I couldn’t interpret, a pause I didn’t understand. “Sometimes. I enjoy knowing that in my own way, I am serving justice to those who have earned my wrath. But I do not enjoy seeing the consequences of what they have done. I do not enjoy welcoming good people to my realms before their time. I do not enjoy seeing how many children walk the isles, or how often their parents fail to join them in the end.”

My hand lifted to my stomach, but I dropped it just as quickly. I didn’t have any children walking these lands, and I never would. I guess that was some sort of blessing. Lady Cora’s eyes snagged on my middle as though she had seen the small motion, but she didn’t ask. Changing the subject, I met her gaze. “And I’m here as a distraction, then? Something to keep you from having to focus solely on the balance of good and evil?”

The small muscles beside her mouth tensed before she spoke. “If that is how you would like to see yourself,” she said. “I would hope your opinion might change with time.” She held out a hand, and I took it before I could second-guess the action. Without letting go of my fingers, she ran her other hand down my body slowly, and I couldn’t help but to shiver.

My eyes pressed closed as I tried to shake the sensations building in my core, and when I opened them, her impossibly green irises met the soft brown of my own. There was a heavy pause where neither of us moved or looked away, but I broke the moment to look down to where I was now clothed in a black knee-length dress with an intricate leather corset belt drawing in my waist. My forehead creased in confusion, but when I looked back up, Lady Cora wore a small smile. “I assumed you would prefer to be clothed to visit the meadows.”

“And the corset?” I asked.

“I like your body in it.”

There was a glint of challenge in her eyes, so I took it. “You’ve never seen me in a corset, how would you know?”

“I have seen you many ways in my imagination. I am glad to see the reality is just as divine.”