Page 111 of Servitude to Serpents

My eyes leave her face, focusing on the way my blonde hair twists between my scarred fingers, weaving silky strands. Twist, pull, and weave. Twist, pull, and weave.

“Men like him, whobuywomen… They are masters at pulling those feelings out. Manipulation to them is as easy as breathing. It comes so naturally, so smooth, that you don’t even—”

Neither of us noticed Agent Benigno moved before he slaps down a stack of pictures in front of us. I flinch, my eyes going wide as my mind tries to make sense of the piles of gore laid out in front of me. The social worker gasps, gagging asshe quickly gathers them up, only serving to spread them all out before she tucks them to her chest. Even with the pictures hidden, I can still see them, like I never looked away.

“That is what the man you’re protecting is capable of. The women who came before you, that was what you were on the fast track to ending up like. That’s what he did domestically, for fuckingfun. Those pictures were his, by the way, found in that fucking house. Shall I show you the drone footage of lifeless families, fucking hospitalsdecimatedbecause of the illegal weapons he panders? Surely, you have a conscience!” He yells, and I scream, actually scream.

Everything hurts.

Most of all, my head.

My body trembles violently, and my teeth chatter because he’s lying. Warrick…my Warrick would never do that to me. He wouldn’t. I blink rapidly, trying to dispel not the tears, but the images of the women, their bodies muddled and blown apart, trying to reason the same man who held me…loved me, the one who washed, fed, and dressed me up, could do those things. That Basilisk and Warrick are one and the same. His tear-soaked face flashes behind tightly squeezed eyes as he strikes me with the whip, the sound of the cane hitting my hand, the way I begged him to stop.

I sit there, panting, strange, choked sounds leaving me as the social worker argues with him. Over me. Like I’m not a person capable of intelligent thought. Has my mind truly gone that far off?

“We are running out of time, Ms. Durian. Despite starting off as an unwilling participant, she's currently behaving like a damn girlfriend. She grabbed a gun to help him get away! She’s a girlfriend protecting a dangerous man who kills for sport. Indiscriminately. Fuck your kiddie gloves! Have you any idea how many years we’ve searched for him? How many men have lost their lives for getting too close?”

Is that what I am? Masters’ girlfriend? My heart gives a treacherous little flutter.

I watch as the woman pales, showing the first signs of her anxiety I’m sure has been riding her from the moment she was given this assignment. She holds out herhand to him, my own panic lessening as the room quiets. “Chloe,please, people are going to die. I can only do so much if you won’t help yourself.”

“There is a huge difference between how victims and accomplices are treated,” Agent Benigno warns behind her. “It’s time to make a move, kid.”

I run my thumb over the white lily on my wrist, feeling the prod scraping my insides. I’m finding it, the will to talk. Not about Warrick, of course, but about the rest. Like maybe if I spew the agony, the vitriol, I can make them understand that everything…. Each side can be real at the same time. He can be a horrible monster, he can do terrible things and love me, and he could hurt and balm. Smooth and grating. I’m finding it. I can feel the weight of his gun, the trust in his eyes, the desperation, the longing when he handed it to me. He handed it to me, all because I asked. He trusted me time and time again, despite all his damage and misgivings.

My mind is certainly horridly twisted, but it was real.

It was fuckingreal.

It was real when I shot them, the exhilaration, the relief. That woman at the estate… My hands aren’t clean, and I don’t think I want them to be. I don’t want to go back to feeling helpless. I like the version of myself that isn’t, the version of me all those terrifying people made.

Like my Master, my Basilisk can be both, so can I.

I lift my eyes, my lips parting to speak, to finally fucking speak when I’m cut off by the door opening, another agent shuffling through. She never once glances my way; I’m furniture after all, barely sentient. She leans in, whispering something to the two of them, and something about the action sours my empty gut. It has been days now since I’ve seen him, and food is back to having no taste. My world is cast in black and white.

Like dying but being forced to breathe anyway.

The idea is an alluring one, but his tormented eyes, swimming with hurt hazel ones, stop the thoughts before they take root. Even now, I can’t leave him. Not really. I hope he knows, even if I never see him again. He can’t leave me either. I couldn’t stomach it. Oh, how the idea makes me want to scream. His hurt is mine, his anger and rage. HisI love yousbelong to me. New tears swim in my eyesas Ms. Durian turns to me, coming to my side again in a way I’m sure is meant to be comforting.

I lean away.

“Chloe, your parents are here to see you.”

I stop breathing.

“I don’t—”

The door opening cuts my words off, and whatever tension was building in the room doubles on itself as my willowy wraith of a mother walks in. The dark bags under her eyes are poorly concealed, her face thinner than I remember it. My father clears his throat, adjusting his suit as they’re hurtled inside. The sound of shuffling and awkward murmurs fill the place where a tearful reunion should be, but there’s none of that.

Of course, there wouldn’t be.

My father’s public appeal, the only one in the entire three years I was gone. My mother’s absence far before that. The pictures of her Warrick showed me. The years of silence, trailing off the years of screaming and tears that proceeded it. Guilt, hate, and regret are so palatable, it twisted the dynamic of a family. I see it the moment my father’s eyes finally lift to mine, but I’m not paying attention to him, no… All my focus is on her.

Waiting.

Watching.

For what?