Our tongues tasted the same.
“The red paint is blood, little sinner, and we’re going to drown the whole world in it.”
24
Azrael
February 12th, 2023
Her mind was fractured in a way I had anticipated but didn’t think I would witness for quite some time. She was more willing than I expected, especially at the mention of pretending. Which was good because if she still had an imagination, she stillfeltthings. It was something I could work with. A little red flame I could fan, and perhaps that also meant that her mind was capable of creation, just like mine.
The little mouse had had her nepotism in her household with her twin holding all the glory until the mysterious death of she and her mother a year before she met my softest brother. Her stepbrother beat the life out of her for years, and the rumors were he sexually assaulted her too, but those were not confirmed.
The daffodil had her brain washed and her innocence stolen from her at the ripe age of 26 from her own father for four months, but she didn’t remember that, and after coming to this church, I wondered if there weren’t other things she couldn’t remember of her precious secret childhood.
The rose, well, she was simply unloved. Burdened with being born simply to benefit her mother’s life, only for that mother to send her a man to pose as a half-brother to form a sexualrelationship with her in an attempt to destroy her from the inside out.
Butmyslave? If contests for tragedy were a thing of this world, she would surely win it.
How was it that we all managed to find such broken tragedies? It was as if our own psychosis called to them in a way the universe couldn’t ignore as Greyson would say.
My lip curled. I didn’t believe in the things he did. I thought it was weak, the way he thought, but he did bring something important to our family.
I just hadn’t figured out what that important thing was yet.
I admired the little sinner as her head rested in the antlers of my cane almost perfectly, her fingers digging into her thighs ever so slightly. Just enough to turn the very tips white. She liked the talk of blood and that was very dangerous indeed.
Could I use her as something more than just a cache of information? Perhaps a weapon. If she still felt things, yet wasn’t allowed to show them, what could that do to a person?
Perhaps turn them into something just like me.
After another moment of study, I released her chin and stood, watching as she returned to her normal state of being, although the exhaustion was weighing on her motions.
Straight spine, relaxed arms, knees spread, hair falling over her shoulder softly, her chin down.
There were rats in her hair, tangles, Thomas couldn’t be bothered with brushing them all out. Perhaps I could make a complaint to his father that mypropertyhad been delivered less than perfect.
But would that get her another lashing?
My eyes lowered to the lashings on her chest. My teeth ground together, my hands tightening as the scars on my own back burned with a phantom pain.
2011
They had put me in a leather mask lined in bars across my mouth because they were afraid of my teeth.
They had put me in a straightjacket, pinning my arms to my ribs so tightly that I couldn’t feel my fingers.
They weren’t trying tochangeme, they were trying to shift my belief system. Force me to obey, to conform to their precious ideology. Two weeks here, and I already had them terrified.
She led me down a dark, concrete hall, the floors damp, my bare feet slapping with each step. When I tried to slow down, tried to force them to quiet, she shoved me forward, earning a snarl.
I would learn. I always learned.
We came up to the dark purple door, the paint old and chipping around the edges, and she pushed me inside.
I knew what this room was, I had already been here once before, and I knew I would come again. They couldn’t handle what I had to say. My tongue had always been a viper, but this time, those on the other hand couldn’t handle the truths I spat.
One of the orderly’s with her grabbed me by my neck and forced me to my knees in the center of the room. It looked like a cave in here. Jagged walls, dirt floors. Although they had modified it with different sized shackles hanging from the walls. They wouldn’t chain me up though, for they had other ideas.
