Mary appears again, in the corner with the shadows where she always does. She’s here to remind me how much I need that vial, how desperate I am to make everything disappear. My gaze flicks from her to Valeria.
"If I didn't have somewhere to be," she says, almost to herself, stopping in front of me, head tilting slightly, "I'd stay. Spend some… quality time with you."
“Fuck you, you motherfucking cunt,” I blurt, the words raw and venomous, the memory of her pussy still clenching around me burning like acid in my brain.
Her eyes move over me with that particular hunger, ownership. The satisfaction of a collector regarding something that has been sufficiently reduced.
“You're at your most beautiful like this. Do you know that? When there's nothing left but the essential thing."
I look at the wall above her head, jaw locked so tight it hurts.
"Sophia," she says.
My eyes drop to hers involuntarily. She sees it. She always sees everything.
"There it is." Soft. Almost tender. "That response. That's what I wanted to see." She tilts her head the other way. Studies me. "Tell me about her."
“No.”
"Hmm." Valeria looks at me for a long moment. Something working behind her expression that she's not showing me yet. "And where did you meet her?"
I press my mouth together.
"Nazareth." Her voice drops to the frequency she reserves for the end of things. "Where did you meet Sophia?"
The craving is strong. Too strong. My heart’s beating impossibly fast. Chest tight. Barely able to breathe right. I fight it, teeth gritted, but my eyes keep flicking to her hand. She sees that too. Holds it out to me.
My body leans toward it before my mind can stop it.
“You see, Nazareth. I always have what you need.”
An animal sound rips from my throat, nostrils flaring, pulse racing.
Valeria rolls the vial gently across the floor toward me. It stops just within reach of my free hand.
The temptation is excruciating. The need claws at me from the inside, screaming that one hit will make the voices stop, will make the blood on my hands disappear, will let me forget the weight of the karambit and Sophia’s ruined eyes for just a little while.
I look at Mary again. Still standing there. Quiet. Aware. Haunting. I didn’t kill her…I didn’t…
Did I?
My head starts to hurt, flashes of her dead body, thepoker, the blood, my hands. It’s all a mess, distorted, and I close my eyes, fighting against it. It’s too much. Too real.
“Jesus,” I moan. I hold out as long as I can—seconds, minutes, I don’t even know anymore—but the craving wins. It always wins.
With a growl, I snatch the vial with my free hand, shaking so badly I almost drop it.
The needle slides into purple skin, bruised by weeks of this same betrayal, and the warmth floods in almost immediately—thick, treacherous, seductive. It spreads through my veins like liquid fire, pushing the sharp edges of the horror back just enough to breathe.
The room softens at the corners. The stone walls stop pressing in quite so hard. The blood on my hands feels farther away.
For one blissful, shameful second, the craving eases. The warmth floods my veins almost immediately, spreading, dulling the sharp edges of the horror, pulling me under into that false, treacherous peace.
I hate how good it feels. I hate how my body sighs with relief, muscles unclenching, the constant tremor in my hands finally stilling. I hate that some broken part of me still chases this feeling like a dog chasing its own vomit.
The guilt twists sharper even as the warmth deepens. Sophia’s face flickers behind my eyes, gold hair and green eyes and that smile that made me believe I could be more than the weapon Valeria made me. I cling to it desperately, whispering her name like a prayer even as the drugs try to pull it away.
Valeria watches me with that satisfied, predatory calm, like she’s enjoying the exactmoment I break a little more.
