Page 8 of Serpentine Valentine
I lay still and silent as that beautiful serpent unraveled across the space between us, undulating like a ribbon in the wind.
It will kill me, I thought, choking on terror and relief in the same breath.
But it didn’t.
The snake slid over me as if I was as unthreatening and inconsequential as debris on the forest floor like a felled log or an overturned rock. Its tongue flickered softly against the bare skin of my belly as it slithered over my torso, body cool as textured silk, and down the other side of me.Without thought, my hand raised and lowered over the length of its tail, just a soft touch, my fingers tripping over the scales until it was gone and all I felt was my own skin.
My eyes burned, and my breath came hot and fast, pluming in the cold air. If I could have cried then, I would have.
Because somehow, the snake felt like a gift.
A promise.
That someday, someway, I’d be able to move on from this horror—shed my old skin and be reborn something stronger.
Something powerful and terrifying.
All the darkness I used to wear beneath my skin would become my shield and my armor while all the goodness––or what little remained––I’d hide deep within like the minotaur at the center of an endless maze.
As the rattle of the Timber faded, I sucked in a deep, agonizing breath.
And I stood.
I wentto Professor Morgan’s office in Hippios Hall.
It was too early for class, dawn just broken open over the grounds like a spill of yellow-orange yolk. There was no one to see me drag myself down the cobbled pathways, a blood-splattered trail of breadcrumbs in my wake. No one to see the way my knees knocked and my hands quivered. I was mostly naked, my skirt hanging askew over my hips by one button, my white blouse shredded by strong hands flapping like a white flag of surrender over my bruised breasts.
The door to the hall was unlocked, a low murmur of voices greeting me on a rush of centrally heated air as I struggled to pull open the door. Something was broken in my hand, and I could feel the pain andwrongness of a shattered collarbone in my left shoulder.
The corridor was empty, but doors were cracked open as faculty pored over morning lesson plans and sipped their start of day coffees and teas.
Professor Morgan’s door was closed, but I didn’t let that stop me.
It thudded open with a dullthwack.
I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have much in my brain at all beside static hurt and fear and rage, rage that began to burn it all clear away, but I wasn’t really expecting him to be there.
And he was.
Sitting in his great backed leather chair in a blazer with suede elbow patches drinking out of his favorite Hamlet mug. His hair was still damp from a morning shower, curling around the collar of his Oxford shirt, and he’d nicked himself shaving, a little cut on the edge of his clean jaw.
As if the sight of him wasn’t enough, the insult of his cleanliness compounded how disgusting I felt, how rotten he’d made me feel straight down to the core.
And then there was her.
The girl sitting in my usual seat of pale lemon velvet with a mug of jasmine tea raised halfway to her red lips.
In a single instant, whatever remained of my humanity was lost to the voracious, all-consuming rage that possessed me like a hell demon.
I launched myself at him with a cry that tore up my already damaged throat. It left bile and the metallic tang of blood on the back of my tongue, but I didn’t notice.
My focus was on Professor Morgan.
The monster that had turned me monstrous with pain and fury.
I landed partly over his desk, dislodging his computer and books, sliding across the surface with enough momentum that my fist hit the edge of that clean-shaven, nicked jaw like an anvil. His headsnappedtothe side, blood spraying over my chin from the way he bit into his tongue at the impact. His tea cup shattered on the floor, the scent of jasmine strong enough to make me gag.
I didn’t stop there.
