The Red Right Hand

Hell is Empty

"It seems, you've mistaken me for someone who cares
I'm just a dirtbag, under the weather, and overrated."

--Bradsucks

He watched her as she chained smoked on the balcony, the smoke drifting away with the night. The morning hours had begun to bleed into the dulling shades of midnight, the nightscape melting away before her. It was almost beautiful, like a tragedy written by the hand of an ill fading muse, marking the death of a golden age. He could recall a time when her age was still ripe, her days still long, and her nights spent in his company. Only now, she was merely a shadow of the girl she once was, a ghost of the woman he loved, and somehow, still did. Only she wouldn't have him now, or ever again.

She finally turned to him, her face burdened by time, shadowed in the paling moonlight that dueled with the colors of the growing morn. Her expression held no emotion for him, not even hatred. Her eyes once fiery and bright, now sheltered in a cold ocean of rue that they never seemed to drift from.

"Creeping through the shadows, Slade?" she finally asked, placing the cigarette to her lips.

"I couldn't quite get to sleep tonight, I see the same of you, Addy."

She turned from him, she hated when he called her that. "I have a lot on my mind. Every piece needs to be placed just right."

"I know that," He stepped into the night air, the wind brushing his face with its cool grace. "We've come a long way, you know?"

"We have," she nodded, her smoke sailing into the wind.

"So when is the demolition?"

"2 days," she tapped her cigarette, and looked off into the garden below, "The Wayne Foundation is eager to tear that relic down. Ironically, it was Bruce's great grandfather who built it."

"Little did he know he was setting the stage for the city's most exciting era."

"The Waynes' have been the ones to single handedly build and dismantle this city, Bruce is only doing what's in his blood."

"And you are only doing what's in yours."

"And what would that be?"

"Using the Waynes to keep your hands clean."

She looked at him smugly, the lines on her face telling. "Darling, our hands have never been clean, but, I️ find it precious that you think they are." She stubbed out her cigarette and threw the butt to the garden, her husband watching disapprovingly. "Did you have a nice dinner?"

Slade raised his brow curiously, apprehension guiding his tone, "It was fine, but I️ suspect you don't really care?"

She smiled condescendingly. "I️ don't, but you're little indiscretion has cultivated a few of her own, and they have all led to some needless complication. First with was that bore Rancid, now the Hood. She truly is your daughter."

He frowned, he hated when she used his daughter's integrity against him. "If I️ didn't know any better, Adeline, I'd think you were jealous," and in a sense she was. Rose was the daughter Adeline never gave him and couldn't. Rose may not have been perfect, but she was still his little girl, not theirs.

"Don't mistake my disdain for your little bastard as flattery, Slade. I'm more overcome with the fact she's still breathing and our son's not."

"I️ miss him too, Addy," Slade grimaced regretfully, and he meant it. "But what happened to Grant is not Rose's fault."

"No, it's not," Adeline agreed, "it's yours, and I️ will never forgive you for that." Her eyes lit up with loathing and disgust, some of which she held for herself. "And I️ will never forgive you for replacing him with the product of the woman you were going to leave our family for."