I stood there, watching him take a drink with my breath latched in my throat. An eternity passed while I waited for his reaction. Would he notice something was off? If he so much as suspected that I’d tampered with his drink, he’d be the one killing me.
“Why are you standing around staring at me? You’re like that fucking Bastion,” he snarled after downing half the poison, cinnamon clinging to his upper lip. “Always staring like a fucking creep. Get the fuck back to the kitchen and make that ham, Clara.”
“Sure, babe. Coming right up.”
I practically skipped back to the kitchen. He hadn’t detected anything was wrong. Now to wait.
In an attempt to calm myself, I sat at the breakfast table and flipped through old pictures from past Christmases, back when my mom was alive. Before Hogan had turned into a completely different person.
An older picture buried deep in my camera roll caught my attention and I paused to admire it for the first time in what had to be years. I was sitting in my mom’s lap beside the tree, giggling as I held upBarbie and the Nutcrackeron VHS. I was seven at the time, and my only problem in the world was that I couldn’t marry the Nutcracker from the movie. That was back when we still lived at the cabin my parents owned in the mountains.
I’d begged my dad not to sell it after mom passed. It was old, and the one road leading to it through the pass often got snowed in, so dad had put it in my name. I’d kept it a secret from Hogan, who thought that my dad had gone through with putting it on the market.
I still hadn’t brought myself to go up there yet. Not when there were so many memories there. So many good Christmases. I still wasn’t ready to deal with just how cold and empty it was now.
An angry, pain-laced scream followed by the crash of furniture had me leaping out of my chair, doing a sweep of the counter to make triple-sure that I’d hidden the bottle of antifreeze. On the next breath, Hogan stumbled into the kitchen.
“What did you do?”
If I hadn’t just spiked his eggnog with a cup of antifreeze, I would have figured he was drunk. All the signs were the same. He was swaying, like he could barely hold himself up. His face was bright red, his eyes blood-shot and filled with violence. His breathing was labored, and the veins in his brow looked fit to explode. Any moment he’d pass out. Only this time, he wouldn’t wake up.
It would be so easy to blame his death on alcohol poisoning. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Hogan loved his booze. No one would question it. They especially wouldn’t question his sweet, obedient fiancée and high school sweetheart.
I turned the faucet on, pretending to brush the frost off the ham like the good little wifey I could have been—If he hadn’t turned into the monster he was today.
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about, babe,” I smiled sweetly before humming along to the Christmas music. “Are you alright? Having heartburn again?”
“This isn’t heartburn, you stupid bitch.” He was frothing at the mouth now.
Fear started to set in as I questioned the dosage of poison I’d given him. A cup should have been plenty.
“Babe, w—why don’t you go lay down? You’ll feel better in the morning.”
He stumbled toward me, arms outstretched, a black sort of hatred in his eyes that told me if I let him get his hands around my throat, he wouldn’t let go until I was dead.
“What did you put in my drink?”
My feet shuffled backwards. “N—nothing! Just some food coloring, everything else is your usual drink—”
“Stop lying you fucking cunt! You put something in it!”
Chapter Four
Clara
Hogan’s angry words came out slurred, almost indecipherable now if it weren’t for the fact that I had lots of practice listening to his drunken tirades. His speech grew sloppier by the second, and as he lumbered toward me, he started to sway dangerously.
I didn’t believe in shit like God—sure, I was a big Christmas fanatic, but for sentimental reasons and how I associated it with a life I’d never get back.
But in that moment, I prayed to God or whatever was listening that Hogan would drop dead before he could get his hands on me.
That look in my fiancé’s eyes, the one that revealed all the ways he intended to hurt me, reminded me that even if God was real, he wasn’t going to save me.
Clara saves herself.
Hogan lurched forward and made a swipe at me with his meaty arms. I shot to the other side of the kitchen and grabbed the large meat cleaver from the knife block.
Hogan snarled, flecks of antifreeze froth and saliva hanging from his chin in disgusting tendrils oozing all over his “Hogan’s Happy Hogs” polo shirt. “Why are you fighting back? You should know by now how useless that is. I always win,baby.Know why?”
