CHAPTER 1

Agatha sat at her desk with a fresh paper cut blooming to life on her finger. She promptly moved her finger to her mouth and sucked at the blood, trying to keep it from dripping onto her pristine white desk. She rolled her eyes, of course a letter having to do with her mother would not only cause her an emotional toll, but a physical one as well.

She removed her finger after a few moments and her eyes drifted, noticing the flow was stalling. She sighed as she reached for the paperwork anyway. She shouldn’t care if she got a little blood on it. Her eyes widening slightly as she took in the letterhead.

Winston H. Hughes. 

Her father’s attorney. 

Her father had been sick most of her life and her mother had never allowed her much time with the man. Always pushing her from the room, telling her that she was making him sicker. Her mother loved to remind her of her many flaws, and often. Evanora Harkness had taken great pleasure in reminding Agatha’s father too.

Her mind started to process the words on the page. He had died, and it was a while ago. Her chest tightened minutely. She hadn’t known him well, but she had always hoped to. As a child, she had had fantasies of her father finally standing up to her mother and taking them both away from her and her abuse – but that had never come to pass.

And now he was just… gone.

She sat back in her chair as her free hand came up to rub at her temple.

… he suffered a stroke…nothing more could be done…

Agatha’s blue eyes continued to follow the flow of words as she felt herself drifting before being brought back to earth with a jolt. He had left her money. A great deal of money. Her lips began to curl up at the corners. Oh how she bet her mother had loved that.

She shook her head. He had finally done it. She sighed letting her injured finger lightly run over the words inheritance . She looked around her small home. She had done well for herself all things considered. When she had left home at sixteen her mother had told her that the girl she was running away with would never last, that she was doomed to be wicked and evil forever. Her mother had a flair for the dramatic whenever she could insert her religion into any situation. 

Agatha set the paper down as a particular piece of information appeared on the page, she needed to travel to Salem. She cringed. She hadn’t been back in years and for good reason, mostly to avoid her mother and all of her church buddies in the backwoods town. Her teeth lightly bit at her lip. There was no way she could pass up this amount of money, as well as it had been her father’s parting gift, the freedom and security she had always craved. 

Leaving at sixteen had been hard. She had been so in love with her girlfriend at the time that she had missed all the red flags. Her girlfriend had been 18 at the time, just on the right side of legal and had taken her to college with her, but as the year wore on, Shannon had decided that she didn’t want to play at domesticity any longer, that Agatha’s love and devotion had become tiring and boring. So she turned to drugs, parting and other girls, many other girls.

Agatha snorted at the reminder of the anger she had felt from discovering she had been gifted an STD from one of Shannon's flings. A young Agatha having no previous inkling that her high school sweetheart could ever fathom cheating on her. She had confronted her and when her ex hadn’t seemed to care about what she had done, she fled their apartment and ended up crying on a bench at the university. Luckily for her, Lilia Calderu, the head of the business department, had been leaving her office hours and came upon Agatha. The child without a jacket, crying her heart out on a bench. 

Agatha had thought her whole world was crumbling, intense physical reactions to fears of needing to return home had her nearly vomiting on Dr. Calderu’s expensive red bottom shoes. She had gagged just as the woman approached her, luckily she had only dry heaved, her eyes lifting to a well put together Sicilian woman with curly dark hair. Lilia’s eyes had gone wide and as she shook her head thinking Agatha must be some hungover college student, and turned to leave, Agatha's pitiful sorry had her closing her eyes, gritting her teeth, and turning back around.

Lilia had sat down and at first was silent. Agatha’s breath slowed down moment after moment at the intrusion of her previous solitude. When she eventually grew quiet, she crossed her legs and stared down into her lap. She moved to warm herself with her hands when the professor dropped her expensive burberry jacket across her shoulders. Agatha’s eyes went wide.

“I know being a student is expensive, but you really need to wear a coat, dear. You can’t do anything with all that education if you freeze to death, honestly. Who raised you? Wolves?”

Agatha snorted, attempting not to smile at the rare kindness being shown to her. “I’m… not a student.” She glanced back toward her apartment just off campus. “My girlfriend is. I work at the library in town.” She subconsciously pulled the coat tighter around her. “I didn’t make the grades she did… but I didn’t want to be without her so, I just tagged along.” Her voice trailed off at the end as if she were not contemplating her choices.

Lilia narrowed her eyes and Agatha thought she was about to rip the coat from her shoulders and dive into a long lecture about Agatha’s “lifestyle” but the woman surprised her. “Where is your partner while you are shivering out in the cold?”

Agatha swallowed the bile that threatened to try and spill from her lips. Once it was under control she tried to give the simplest version of the story she could. “She appears to be busy with every other girl on campus nowadays.” She sighed, she looked off into the woods stretching beyond campus. 

Lilia nodded. “Ah. Right. I’ve had one of those relationships. Best to not overthink the ending, it’s not that interesting, even once you find the answers.” She stood and Agatha rushed to stand and carefully remove the professor’s coat. 

“Thank you for letting me… borrow this for a moment. I should get back and… figure out what’s next.”

Lilia’s hand raised. “Put the coat back on. Let’s go collect your things.” She turned and pointed where Agatha had looked before, knowing well where the slightly off campus students lived. “This way, isn’t it?” She motioned for Agatha to follow along. The girl quickly pulled the jacket towards her chest as she fell into step behind Dr. Calderu.

***

Agatha’s eyes watered at the memory. Lilia had taken her into her home. She had quickly used her skills of sizing people up to peg Agatha for the business major she was. Getting her well connected within the department, and giving her every resource to apply for grants until the university was practically paying Agatha to go to school there. Under Lilia’s direction, she soared. Making a name for herself in the department and beyond, and Lilia couldn’t have been prouder to be her mentor. 

Lilia had tried many times to pull Agatha from her thick outer shell, but the girl had kept her feelings well under wraps. Only letting little pieces of her story dribble out over the years. Lilia was more than willing to let her go at her own pace, and unravel the mystery that was Agatha Harkness piece by piece. 

When Agatha graduated, she had a fulltime job all lined up. She excelled at the fakeness needed to succeed in the profession, and as quickly as the power came, she began to hide behind it like a wall. 

As she now sat in her home office as she looked at the awards she had received over the years. Her campaigns had taken her around the world and through many industries – including sports, entertainment, politics and fashion. 

She rolled her shoulders to try and dispel the lingering discomfort from reliving such a vulnerable time in her life – and why she aimed to never be that vulnerable again. She watched as a few snow flurries drifted past her window. Heading home around the holidays was something she never thought she would do again. But as she watched the snow begin to multiply, she knew it was time to act. To solidify her mother’s place in her life – officially dead to her after the money came through. 

Evanora could move to a retirement home, an expensive one, and spend all of her remaining days, far far away from Agatha. Never to darken her life ever again.

***

Agatha scrolled on Facebook checking out the latest ads and trends hitting her feed. This app really was dying off, she had started to pull facebook ads in the years prior, moving her clients over to more lucrative spaces like Tiktok and Instagram. 

She let her mind wander as some of her personal algorithm filled her feed. Hot women, that she admired and spent way too much time online appreciating their work, came and went in waves. Her mind sharpened as an idea dawned on her. If this was the last time she was ever going to see Evanora Harkness, she was going to make it count. She was going to make it hurt.

Agatha opened the first group that came up for her, her local buy nothing group. Because while she had left behind her poverty years ago – she was still that thrifty little poor kid at heart. She scanned the page and debated giving away her extra blankets to a woman collecting for a local animal shelter that had just had a fire. She had always loved animals, but the only ones she was allowed to have were the outside dogs, cats and horses on her family's broken farm. She made a quick note of the woman’s post and a reminder to collect some blankets for her that weekend.

She opened a new post and let her cursor blink at her while she thought about how to go about this. She knew this space probably wouldn’t be the avenue for this endeavor, but maybe she could get a good laugh out of the post.

“Greetings All, I seek someone to follow me on the road home for the holidays as somewhat of a stand-in woman in my life, to piss off my deranged mother. I can promise you front row seats to a family drama more interesting than reality shows and Christmas movies combined. An all expenses paid trip to my hometown with me for a week. I know this is last minute, but if you want to do something interesting with your holidays – give me a shout.”

She rolled her eyes – it wasn’t her best work, and yet, she hit post. She let herself pick up her laptop as she decided some hot chocolate and some very strong alcohol must be in order for reading through the comments that were sure to come. 

She tilted her head as she found the expensive chocolate powder in the kitchen and wondered if this was more of a weed situation. She shrugged and continued on with her drink, grabbing a bottle of bourbon – she could get crossed, that seemed like a good evening plan. She had done it before with a good amount of success.

She stirred her drink and placed it in the microwave, her eyes moving back to her laptop that sat on her island counter. A man had responded – because of course one had. She leaned over as if she was luring her chest in his face, fucking with him. Well, if he could have seen her. She let her eyes take in his photo. Ah, so not even a man that would have been in her league. 

She snorted and ignored the message. She heard the ding of her microwave and returned to get her drink, grabbing her laptop. She wandered into her living room and pulled out a bluntfrom her cabinet drawer. She sat in her recliner and set her laptop on her lap, took a sip of her drink and set her mug back down, staring at her weed. Her eyes landed on the lighter she needed across the room. She rolled her eyes. A ping had them drifting down to the post, a new man, better looking this time, was shooting his shot.

“You’re stunning, Gorgeous. I would love to accompany you home for the holidays.”

She groaned. “Well, apparently literacy is dead.” But what had she expected? That there might be some woman, some hot woman, that would want to accompany her home just to help her piss off her mother? Maybe she could settle for a stupid man, maybe there would be one that could piss off her mother even if for a brief moment Evanora would think that Agatha had been “Cured”.

She moved her laptop and went to retrieve her lighter. Upon lighting up, she walked over to her window, cracking it open with force. She held the smoke in her lungs for as long as she could before she let it trickle out slowly. She let her eyes follow the trail of smoke as it blew towards her neighbor’s window, her lips ticking upwards into a smirk. 

Mrs. Heart was going to have a field day when she figured out what the smell was and where it was coming from – but Agatha knew the woman would give it a good two hours before she would be able to identify the smell and come stomping over in the snow to confront her about her life choices. She swore it was as if her mother were around sometimes.

She smiled as she saw Mrs. Heart’s nose scrunch up in disgust through her partially open kitchen window. Coughing quickly as the smell must have hit her. Her voice growing frantic as she shouted for her husband to come quickly, a skunk must be outside! Her desires firm that he needed to go chase it away before it got in the house. 

Agatha chuckled as she heard the man complaining loudly about how he didn’t want to get sprayed either. As they argued, Agatha took another long drag of the blunt and closed her eyes, letting the smoke fill her lungs and relax her body… and her mind. Both enjoying the moment of stillness.

A ping had her eyes flashing open, the smoke leaving her mouth in a whoosh that sent smoke billowing from her window. She turned and set her joint down on an incense tray, as she made her way back to her computer. Her eyes ready to pop out of her head when she saw the most beautiful woman she had ever seen respond with a large photo of herself in a revealing black swimsuit. 

“Oh, I’m all for pissing off mother’s. Give me a call. (or like a DM).”

Blue eyes scanned for a name. Rio Vidal . Ah, she loved a bilingual girl.

She snorted after her eyes had devoured the picture. Had this woman really just posted a photo like that on the Buy Nothing page? She moved to hoover her cursor over her name and hesitated before clicking on messaging her. Her self preservation attempting to kick in.

What if she was a psycho? Is this how she wanted to die?

She looked at the woman’s photo once more, and raised an eyebrow, happy with what she saw.

Honestly, how could she be mad at it? What a way to go.