Cover

Dedication

For my father, Thomas Lux, whom I miss

Epigraph

And in the lowest deep a lower deep

Still threat’ning to devour me opens wide,

To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav’n.

—JOHN MILTON

What makes bitter things sweet? Hunger.

—ALCUIN, ADVISOR TO CHARLEMAGNE

BEFORE

PEYOTE

YOU ALREADY HAVE A lot of ideas about Hell. It’s amazing what Dante and thousands of years of folklore can do to a place’s reputation. I mean, I’m not going to lie to you: it is Hell. It’s not fantastic. But let’s see if this is relatable: You’re late to your aunt’s boyfriend’s birthday brunch because your alarm was on mute even though you know you turned it up the night before. You barrel onto the subway, managing to squeeze yourself between the woman blasting a Techno for the Lonely playlist and the man who farts every time he sneezes, and, just when the lights of the station are out of view, the train lurches to a stop with a death rattle and goes dark. The woman elbows you in the gut as she hits Replay, and the man’s snot tickles as it sprays your cheek, and you think about how you don’t even like your aunt’s boyfriend or even your aunt and you hate brunch, and what do you say? I’ll tell you; I’ve heard it a million times. You say, “This is Hell.”

Well, you’re right. That’s Hell. At least the top floors of it. Your priests and grandmas have good intentions—the ones who don’t wind up here—but their job is to keep you decent above ground, and if they said Hell was a never-ending brunch, you would be out there stealing and raping constantly.

Up here it’s not the fire-and-brimstone thing you think it might be. It’s music that’s too loud, food that’s too rubbery, and kissing with too much tongue. Doesn’t sound that bad, right? But don’t forget: it’s forever. I mean for-all-time forever. Not a lifetime. That’s a pebble compared to what I’m talking about. Hell is agitation for eternity. You can’t possibly fathom eternity; your little mortal brain would explode. A century feels like an hour, less with each millennium. With endless time and no peace, everyone breaks eventually.

I was about to break too. But then I got a promotion.

PART I

PEYOTE

“PEY, TEAM MEETING IN five,” KQ said, rapping on my desk. I jerked up from my screen. It was already ten o’clock.

“Right, I’ll be there. Thanks!” I replied, but she was knocking halfway down the row, her knuckles creating a muffled echo. I grabbed my notebook and my pen case, freed a mangled Cup O’ Noodles from the back of my drawer, and went to the kitchen.