Every parting gives a foretaste of death. — Arthur Schopenhauer
Ilearned early that poison works best when it’s expected.
Sugar on the tongue. Warmth in the chest. Safety first.
I snorted, should a person ever really have to learn when the best time is to ingest it? Should that even be a freaking thing?
I scowled and stared down at the pink drink in my hand. It could be poisoned and I’d never know, and the last thing I would have tasted would be watered down fruit punch—not even cold. Where the hell are the ice cubes anyways? And why did we plan our wedding so close to every other family event on the planet making this even more difficult? People get pissed and suspicious if we don’t show up, and when we do we’re watched like hawks. My nerves were shot. Two days in a row was painfully too much, even for me.
The backyard was strung with white lights and pastel balloons, the kind that bobbed gently in the breeze like nothing bad had ever happened here and nothing bad ever would. So safe. So cheerful. So taunting.
A folding table sagged under the weight of cupcakes, juice boxes, and a cake shaped like a cartoon dinosaur that probably cost more than the shoes I’m wearing.
Six years old, which automatically makes me feel ancient. I know I’m supposed to paste a smile on my face and be excited over what we were celebrating, but it just feels harder now. Things were easier when I was her age, when I had balloons like this, when I had cupcakes and laughter.
I watched my niece run past with frosting already smeared across her face, her laugh sharp and wild and completely unafraid.
Good.
This was what control looked like.
Normal. Harmless. Unquestioned.
She’d be a force later.
My sister brushed past me, lowering her voice. “You’re staring again.”
“I’m thinking.”
“That’s worse,” she muttered, then sighed. “You didn’t sleep after the reception yesterday?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, visions of us kissing, me shooting Louis, and kissing again filled my brain. He kissed differently when he was drugged; it was less calculated, more real. I liked those kisses the most, and I found myself wondering what sort of kisses he had given to my sister and why it mattered when he was mine now anyway.
Across the yard, men who had killed for this family stood around plastic tables pretending to argue about sports. Their jackets were light. Their weapons hidden. Their eyes never stopped moving.
Infiltration training starts like this.
You don’t test the poison in a lab.
You test it where the world looks safe.
I could test poison here, I wouldn’t.
What? So I was just going to keep testing it on my husband before you send him to the wolves?
He signed up for it.
He knew exactly what he was doing, just like I did.
I had to scream the words in my head so I believed them. “I’m going to go grab some cake.” I left her there with all my emotional baggage and blindly went to the cake.
Even it looked happier than me with its five billion green dinosaur and princess mixed balloons waving around in the air. I grabbed the knife, slammed it into the cake, and took a giant piece then walked away and stood by myself.
Why did I agree to come again? And where the hell was Louis? Shouldn’t he, at the very least, be suffering with me?
It was easier when I was a kid—when the rose-colored glasses were still firmly in place and the world felt loud instead of heavy.
Back then, smiles didn’t cost anything.