I'm a killer.
I am a fucking killer.
And men should fear me, because this rage inside? When I let it loose, it transforms into a separate entity.
When I let it loose, I'm no longer in control.
After everything I've been through, you'd think I like being in control, but I don't. It does nothing to make me feel safe or secure. Control is too often an illusion, on the other side of which awaits a steep cliff.
I don't crave control, don't need it… as long as I have enough awareness to keep my rage from overpowering me.
I stand and find my reflection in the mirror. I think I killed myself a little too. I killed the uncertain girl, the sad little victim whose heart was petrified by grief. I don't see her anywhere in my reflection as I study myself.
Other than the fact that my hair is wild with sleep, I don't look any different. I also don't look quite the same.
I tie my hair back and brush my teeth before stepping into one of the less ostentatious dresses. I enjoy them now because of how easy it is for Cal to haveaccess to me. But I really need to expand my wardrobe. It feels weird to dress like a punk fifties housewife when I'm doing something as banal as reading a book.
Cal's singing in the kitchen. I stop long enough to listen, smirking when I realize he's listening toA Killer Playlist. Pride warms my veins, and I shake my head. He's got a good voice, but I'm glad he didn't pursue a career in the music industry.
When I get to the basement door, I half expect it to be locked. It isn't, though. It swings open easily when I turn the knob, letting me view the darkness below. It's lit by the glow of the terrarium, my destination. I don't bother with the staircase lighting as I descend, feeling for each step with my foot. At the bottom, I flip the lights on and let it cast my little prison into view.
I spent months down here, hooked up to machines that are tucked in the corner. Months of being on an IV drip, and it feels like it never was. It's like that hell is someone else's to experience. Or maybe it's just that it wasn't as terrible as my brain tells me it was.
Lying down here waiting for him to come to me feels too close to lying in bed waiting for my foster placement to come to me. It's not that I wanted him to come, but I knew he would. It wasn't every night, or even every week. But it was often enough that I learned there was no escaping it. It was often enough that I learned to quit trying to reason with him, quit pleading for an end to it, and quit saying no. Instead, I just locked myself inside my mind.
I pretended to sleep. I pretended I couldn't feel when he was undressing me, climbing on top of me, and pushing my legs apart so he could sink inside. I pretended that I was nothing in those instances, just a mirage, a ghost who was incapable of feeling the pain or discomfort, the disgust and humiliation.
But Eric whispered filthy things to me that my brain tried not to latch onto. He told me to call himdaddy, to tell him I wanted it, and that he simply couldn't control himself around me. He told me that I was a bitch for ignoring him, a slut for not bleeding enough, and a waste of oxygen because I refused to acknowledge his presence.
What Cal did to me is not at all the same as what Eric did to me for years.
There's a strange level of intimacy to Cal's actions... keeping someone alive so you can use them.
He could have let me die. Even if he didn't want to go to the trouble of replacing me, he didn't have to feed me. The IV drip alone could have sustained me for weeks before my body began to waste away. Instead, this man went to the trouble of learning how to be a pseudo-nurse, placing an IV with nutrients, a fucking catheter, and making sure to monitor vital functions.
He brought me here to kill me, and yet he's never once done anything that makes me believe he would.
I don't know how to contend with the strange swirl of things inside of me.
I turn to the terrarium, watching two of the snakes tangle over one another. They don't seem to be fighting for dominance, just coexisting... doing their own thing, together. Another hangs coiled around the tree, her head tucked against her powerful body, with a fourth coiled just below her. Atop the rock, closest to the heat lamp, the last two lay unspooled, the head of one nestled on top of the other, their beady eyes on me.
I reach for the one that's not resting, her body contracting over one of her co-captives.
Part of me thinks I should feel bad, keeping them inside a glass cage. Maybe we should release them into the wild, give them an opportunity to live the rest of their days in freedom.
They've likely never known freedom, though. They don't know what was taken from them because they were raised in a pit, used as a tool to buy compliance from the larger captives, the ones whodoknow what they lost.
Some of the people who were taken alongside me had glorious lives that were stolen from them. Some had tough lives, ones that were far from perfect, but that they missed all the same.
I had neither of those things because I simply existed, the same way I had my entire life. I'm not a victim who had her life stolen from her to be put into a cage. I was captive all along... born, bred... just like the snakes.
She wraps around my wrist as I draw her to me, not seeking an escape, but exploration. I allow her to twine around me, remaining mostly still as sheslithers higher to my shoulder. I'm grateful I tied my hair back when I thought I was going to be sick, because she doesn't tangle in it, moving around my back instead.
This is the first I've seen them out of their cage, and I'm struck by how long she is... her tail is still wrapped around my wrist, like she's anchoring herself just in case. I'm faintly aware of her tongue flicking out as she waits there, trying to decide her next move.
Her body is strong and cold, but not slimy. It's a thing of beauty as she unravels her tail from my wrist and inches more of her up my shoulder to rest just on the opposite one.
It's silent as I wait to see if she makes a move.
