Gods, how could I be so naive?
How could I believe that Midnight had really come for me?That our love, the passion and intensity between us, was real?
Images of the clocktower training sessions, my body pressed against Finis Tower window the night of the ball.The damned graveyard.The lecture hall and the depravity of that bone.
But it’s not even the sex.
It was her.
The way she helped me heal wounds.Gave me the strength to be confident.To stand up to Ignatius.The way she spent weeks searching for those celestial runes.
The late nights, warm arms and subtle glances.
All of it lost.
My tenure.Gone.
Demonic magic.Gone.
Midnight.Gone.
My cheeks feel wet.I let the tears flow, expelling the last of who I was.Let the memories leak from my mind and spill onto the damp stone floor.
I curl into myself.My arms clutch my knees to my chest and I scream.
I scream for everything I’ve lost.For every woman trapped by their parents.For all the versions of me I was forced to bear, and all the versions I’ve had stolen.
On and on, I let it pour from me.For the girls told to be something they hate.Groomed for a life they never chose.
My throat stings, raw from expelling ugly truths.But still I continue.
I bang my fists against the damp stone over and over, one hit for every time Ignatius hurt me.Again and again, I slam them down until my skin splits and blood leaks into the grooves.
I cry for the daughter he lost.The father I never had and the woman I’m not going to become.
I have no soul.No demon power.I am not a contract, nor a human, nor an angel.My entire life was engineered for me.
I no longer know what was real or who I am.
Was Midnight real?Or was she manufactured for me too?The horror of that makes my insides crawl.We felt real.Our relationship consumed me in an ineffable way.It had to be true.
I have been stripped, without my consent, of everything that meant anything to me.
There may be nothing left of me, but this is where I draw the line.
Ignatius made a mistake.I might be imprisoned and he may take chunks of my power, but I am keeping score and I will settle the tally.
I sit up, a calmness settling in my gut.Not filling the void exactly, but hardening it.A resolution.A decision.
There is nothing more powerful than a woman in possession of a decision.
So for the first time in my life, I decide to choose what I am.
I take in the cell, looking for anything I can use as leverage.There’s nothing other than the chains bolting me to the floor, the barred windows and the iron bars keeping me prisoner.
I might not have access to the runes, nor my demonic magic, but perhaps I can use other things.
The sound of muffled footsteps trickles into focus.It’s not Ignatius, but the stride is confident.
