Page 92 of Servitude to Serpents

I’m going to be sick.

My legs feel like Jello as I step away from him, away from the desk. “Tell me. Say it.”

“Mind yourself,” Stuart snaps. “Your disobedience won’t be tolerated anywhere else.”

Master’s eyes leave mine as he takes a deep breath, and I’m begging silently, begging him not to do it.

He can’t.

He can’t.

My tears break free from my eyes, falling in rivulets as the wordBloomdrifts off his silver tongue. With it, my world is sent pivoting for the hundredth time this week, plummeting.

Again, I fall deeper.

Harder.

I’m shaking my head, a sob lodging in my chest, and those hands… Those phantom touches are dragging me under the water. There’s the smell of the sea, the taste of it on my tongue as I turn, slamming past Stuart as I bolt from the room.

“Let her go. She won’t leave,” Master commands. I hate how right he is. My body cramps, my being thrumming with exhaustion and aches. I don’t make it far, running blindly through the halls. I hadn’t eventriedto escape.

I’m gasping, sobbing, my cheek pressed into another expensive hallway runner as I die inside. I waste and whittle away as reality batters down on me. The clouds part long enough to wipe away my decision, stained glass casting rainbowed jewel tones around the hall. Time passes, and soon enough, my sobs are coming silently. My body trembles as something else burrows in my chest, something I borrowed from my master…

Anger.

I’m fucking angry.

That’s when my blurry eyes catch the silvery gray, reinforced double doors in front of me. I’d know this room anywhere. It’s the one we spent days in, one I stalked outside of, begging, pleading for him to come out, where he hid while I fell apart.

I can’t go back.

Snakeskin boots fill my vision, the sizzling bite of a prod, the way the metal would scratch my core as he worked it in. I stumble to my feet, my hands bracing the silver door before I flip open the panel beside the cold metal. I punch in the code I’ll never know if there’s any significance to.

I see the other day for what it was.

I think clearly for the first time since I buried that tire iron in the woman’s skull.

When my hands failed me as I tried to pull myself back up on the banister, it was the world trying to spare me this final wound. It was a mercy that he tookfrom me.

I sob, but the sound isn’t broken. It’s angry as I enter the metal-tinged air of the cavernous room. The handgun I jerk out of the display is nothing special. I pick it because it’s the one he taught me to load and unload. He can’t send me back there.

He fucking can’t.

He can’t save me time and time again, only to throw me away.

I won’t let him.

Suddenly, I don’t feel the ache in my body, the pain in my throat, and I'm running. Not away; I would never run away from him. I'm runningtowardhim. I don't slow down when I barge through his office doors, finding the room empty. My legs burn as I run toward the foyer, catching sight of Master at the front door. He's tailored, regal, and silently punishing as Stuart lets another man in. The one here, no doubt, to take me away.

My hand trembles, seeing as I only have one to work with. My fingers slip the first time I try to cock the gun, but I don’t miss the second. The sound cuts the casual conversation in half, severing it as everyone's eyes find me at the top of the stairs. Everyone can look. They can gawk at me like I'm crazy, floor-length dress plastered to my clammy sin as I lift it. I’m aiming it at the only pair of eyes I care about, the wide ones of my master.

Basilisk.

Stuart takes a step toward me, his hands raised, as if he could talk me down, of all people. Fuck him.

Master quickly recovers, because of course he does, cool and indifferent in the face of my undoing. But this time is different, becauseI know,I know he loves me. The room's sudden uproar halts as he climbs the stairs, stopping everyone with a single raising of his palm. So much confidence, so much power. My knees wobble in the presence of it.

Suddenly, my quiet resolve and anger slip, and I’m crying again. I don't wipe or blink the tears away as they blur my vision, because it'sokayto cry here, because this is likely mylast chance.

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