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“You’re so beautiful, Valerie,” the Deacon said, an almost parental tone falling out. He sounded proud. “So obedient. I love when they’re new like this.”
Valerie stared, the girl in the cave moving in her periphery. She could not look at her. Could not move.
“Look at her. Look at her again, and tell me what you see.”
Valerie took a breath and felt like a heavy bucket of water had been poured over her. She jerked to the side, and the blonde-haired girl was not there. Not anymore.
Chained to the wall, in her place, was a girl with dark hair and a wicked grin around the gag.
Staring back at her with malice and triumph was Serendipity. In reality, the girl there looked nothing like her dead foster sister, but the illusions planted in minds were often potent. And being near the Deacon, so close to his heart, she had no chance of breaking free from what he wanted her to see. She brought her hand to her mouth and stifled a gasp.
“She didn’t deserve you. She was not your sister. A sister would not take as she did. I can bring you to them, the sisters you seek, the flesh and blood you know is out there. And your mother? I can show you her, too,” the Deacon said.
Valerie turned to him, away from the grinning girl, tears in her eyes. “My mother? Serendipity always said she was dead. That she died after she left me.”
“How would she know? Tell me you do not linger in those falsehoods. She aimed to hurt, to cut. And you let her.”
“I … just wish I knew her name. I wish I knew why I’m like this …” She wanted to know. Desperately. It’s all she could think about. Her whole life. A mother to love her, to come back for her. To tell her why she left her there. If it was the fleshy deformity. If she had to. If she missed her at all. She’d missed her mother dearly, making up her reality and form. She saw red. Red hair that gave her a copper mane. But the mother in her dreams had red hair like blood, red hair like the glowing red circle she saw in the woods in her dreams—the one she wanted to walk through.
“Why don’t you ask Serendipity? She kept so much from you. Make her tell you,” the Deacon said, teeth sharp.
Valerie blinked at him, unsure what she was seeing. So like a horror movie. And the most horrifying thing was that she wanted to touch his incisors. Feel them on her flesh. She looked at the girl chained to the wall. Dirty and sad, alone in the dark. Sister. Taker. Killer. So like Valerie, in some ways. Sisters in kind. She stepped toward her, and the girl thrashed. Something likehelp mesounded in her muffled cry. She knew it wasn’t true. Her sister would never ask for help. Didn’t ask for help when Valerie had taken her life. So sure she would always come out on top, even as the life left her. So wrong, so deserving. She thought she had stayed for that last gasping breath, that stupid smirk sliding away. But had she? The memories blurred with the dreams, with the years past.
“How is she here? I killed her. I wanted to confess tonight. I needed to.”
“Did it satisfy you? Maybe that’s not what you needed to do. I can show you how to take a life slowly. Taste it.”
Valerie shook her head, stepping away. Her legs felt stiff, but she could still move.
The Deacon shook his head, blinking at her with his dead white eyes. He unbuttoned the sleeves of his shirt and rolled them up when he was done, casting glances at Valerie. Serendipity retreated, making herself small, pressing against the wall.
Valerie stared at her, stomach churning, mind racing. She was going mad; she was sure of it. The horrors of the ranch had caught up to her. She pinched herself, hoping to wake up from the nightmare. She wanted to find herself in bed, the sound of Nicholas sneaking out bringing her comfort. She wanted anything but this.
The Deacon walked to the mattress as he unbuttoned the front of his shirt. He leaned down, and Serendipity spread her legs, a look of pleasure on her face. At least, that’s the way she remembered her. That smirk, that sly eye, that knowing face that said, “I got what you want; I willalwaysget what you want.” Valerie looked on in horror, in a surge of warmth. She locked eyes with her sister, and there was almost a word there, a plea for rescue. But that was wrong. Serendipity would never ask Valerie to save her. She would never stoop so low.
She heard the breaking of flesh, a sucking sound, and a sigh. Outside, the lake was quiet and there were no cars on the bridge. The town was asleep.
She wished it was that dark thing in the road in front of her now. She could take that. Not this.
When the Deacon was finished, he stood.
His mouth was covered in blood, and she fell into his eyes. White, scared at the edges, his face a shield of hard lines. He smiled and looked like a joker, a jester of the court. He looked like the nightmare thing that lived in her dreams. She tried to run, but he was fast, catching her at the elevator entrance. His hands grabbed her arms, and he held her still. Valerie thrashed, furtiveno’s falling from her mouth.
“Sweet girl, sweet girl, don’t be afraid. I want you to taste it,” he said. And she imagined the words in another way. A sin in name, but nothing like this. He grabbed her jaw, making her face him. She closed her eyes, clutching them shut, afraid to look into them. And then his mouth was on hers again, pushing his wet and bloody tongue inside—so like a snake she almost gasped when she felt the forked shape. It hadn’t been like that before. She opened her mouth, and when his tongue entered her again, she practically gagged on it. He yanked her head back, and she opened her eyes in reflex. When she stared into the white orbs every part of her drifted to heat. She felt warm all over. “Stop resisting,” the Deacon said. “I don’t enjoy doing it this way.” And like a dog, she stopped thrashing. She stood perfectly still, and he let go, stepping back.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked.
Valerie nodded. She was at his command, but her truths were still there.
“Did you not believe Markus?”
“He was false,” she said, voice monotone and flat. Her mind whirled inside, but she felt drugged.
“He was … an unfortunate disappointment. He asked you to call him your father, but he was not that. Could never be that. He knew the call. He knew who I was, and he still wore his false titles. Do you not feel good when you’re with me? Or was that a lie?” the Deacon asked.
“I feel good when I am with you,” she said.
“Do you not believe I will absolve you from your sins? Why do you think you have been this good this long? Were you not waiting for me?”
