Hades' Cursed Luna novel Chapter 244

Hades

The lab inside the greenhouse was almost... comical.

A sterile glass cube planted in the middle of lush greenery—rows of vibrant flora curling toward the sun, while inside, the scent of antiseptic clung to everything.

The absurdity of it wasn't lost on me.

Inside this box of plastic and steel, surrounded by symbols of life and growth, we were searching for the truth about death.

And murder.

And monsters.

The walls of the cube were glass, perfectly transparent—no secrets, no shadows. Except for the one thing I couldn't bear to look at: the stasis capsule.

She floated in it like a ghost caught in amber. Danielle.

Unmoving. Untouched. Preserved in the exact condition I had found her in.

I tried not to look. Tried to keep my eyes focused on the people in lab coats bent over vials and glowing monitors. Five of them. Each with a job. Each efficient.

And all around them, tacked to the inner glass: photos.

Photos from that night.

Crime scene stills. Blood-smeared parquet. Scratch marks in the ground. Bite radius analysis reports. A burned velvet ribbon that had once belonged to Danielle's maternity gown.

And then—

The earring.

An emerald teardrop, broken at the clasp. A question mark scrawled next to it.

Where is the second?

I touched my ear without thinking.

It was still there. The matching earring.

Danielle's.

The one Eve had noticed. The one I'd forgotten was even still clipped to me.

Why hadn't I taken it off?

Why hadn't I noticed?

I shifted in my chair, jaw tight.

Kael sat beside me, silent as stone. Across the way, the Montegues looked far too comfortable.

Lucinda glanced around the lab, eyes glistening just enough to appear appropriately strained. Felicia sat with her hands folded in her lap, demure and patient. Too patient.

Montegue himself was the only one who looked as disturbed as I felt—but he hid it better. Or perhaps he was just tired of the theatre.

We had fifteen minutes left.

An hour. That was how long the deep-layer DNA trace match would take. It was already 45 minutes in.

Forty-five minutes of silence, broken only by the occasional clack of a keyboard, the shift of someone's breath.

No one spoke.

No one moved.

We were all just waiting for a single vial of blood to confirm whether or not I had spent the last three months loving the same creature that tore my world apart.

I could feel the sweat building at the back of my neck.

Kael leaned in, voice low. "Do you want water?"

I shook my head. I didn't trust myself to drink.

I didn't trust myself to breathe.

My fingers itched with the need to do something—anything—but the only thing I could do now was wait.

The screen in front of the lead scientist pulsed softly. A loading bar. 94%.

I looked at the stasis capsule again.

At Danielle.

At the truth I had sworn to bury her with.

Until now.

And for the first time since she'd died… I prayed.

Please… let me be wrong.

The screen flashed once.

95%.

My breath stilled.

Felicia shifted, her fingers tightening in her lap like she already knew what was coming. Like she'd been waiting her whole life for this moment.

96%.

Kael exhaled beside me. Short. Sharp. Almost a flinch of breath.

I didn't move. Didn't blink.

97%.

Felicia leaned forward now, her body almost vibrating with something between dread and anticipation.

Lucinda dabbed at her eye with a silk handkerchief—tears already forming like she was preparing for the verdict of a courtroom drama she'd rehearsed in her head a hundred times.

98%.

And she had torn my world apart. _{freeωebnovēl.c૦m}