Page 18 of Serpentine Valentine
One was truth and the other justice. Acheron’s motto was “Veritatis et acquitatis tenax.” Persevering in truth and justice.
There were other, bigger, and more impressive statues of Johnathon Wilcox Hammond and Demetrius Drakos around campus. Still, there was something impressive, almost compelling about those two bronze women down by the lake. Maybe because most women during that period were not permitted to leave a lasting impression in the sands of time, but somehow, they had succeeded in doing so. Maybe because something was beguiling about the way they were designed to sit together instead of with their respective husbands. Maybe because they sat just a little too close that any queer girl or boy seeing them would think for just a moment, “were they like me?”
I visited H&H a lot during my years at Acheron, and it seemed important, fateful even, that the first night of our rebellion took placeunder the view of their bronzed eyes.
Jerrod was there, as Effie said he would be. His friends had left, which was for the better, especially on our first outing, even though a part of me longed to get every single one of them. So it was just the single varsity rower, the son of some Silicon Valley tech start-up CEO, putting away the last of his equipment in the watershed beside the boat launch.
I watched him from the shadows, every predatory instinct alive inside me. It was late, the sunset behind the cloud-covered sky, and the wind was cool and scented with the sweet musk of decaying leaves. No one else lingered near the lake except this prey and his hunters.
He was tall as rowers are, with broad, quilted shoulders and a long reach. The girls on campus who cared about jocks thought he was a stud because he had swagger and attitude and a pretty face. Those same attributes on a woman would make her conceited, bitchy, and unlikeable, but on Jerrod Ericht, they were sexy.
He wouldn’t be sexy when I was done with him.
The loud rasp of wood over wood echoed through the shed as Jerrod slotted his boat back into place alongside the others. It masked the sound of us moving in, a tight circle contracting around him until it was too late for him to escape.
When he turned around, wiping sweat off his damp brow, brown hair clinging to his forehead, he gave a croaked kind of yelp and took an instinctual step back.
I would have too.
It’s not every dark autumn evening you’re faced with a girl in a snake mask dressed all in black. His gaze flickered to Effie with her knives, Juno with her barbed bat, and Grace, as always, with a cattle prod. They were in black, too, straight down to the thick balaclavas obscuring their faces.
“What the fuck?” he asked, the slightest tremor of fear in his tone.
But then, then he looked at us again.
His eyes traced the shape of our bodies, the short length of Effie’s skirt, and the swell of my hips and breasts beneath the leather leggings.
I knew the moment he understood he was surrounded by women because he relaxed slightly.
And then helaughed.
No woman surrounded by men holding weapons and wearing masks would ever have the luxury of laughing about it.
Anger and vindication surged through me.
“What the fuck is this? A practical joke?” He spoke through his laughter, rubbing a hand through his hair as he smirked at us. “Early birthday present, maybe? Man, Max told me he had something wicked planned, but fuck, you guys are hot. You going to take me to prison as your sex slave or something?”
I shifted on my feet as I unlocked the door on my rage, letting it spill through me like poison, bitter on the back of my tongue.
I liked it, though, that bitterness. I wasn’t into sweet anymore.
I was into this.
“Or something,” I told him in a voice like a snake’s hiss.
And then, I moved.
He wasn’t expecting it. They never do. Men are raised thinking they’re better than women in most ways, but especially the physical. He’d never thought of defending himself against a woman, so by the time it occurred to him to try, it was too late.
Effie, Grace, and Juno stood back. I had it under control.
In fact, it was almost boring how easy it was.
By the time I had him strung up to the rafters by a spare coil of rope, his shoulders wrenched back nearly out of their sockets, his left eye swollen closed, his lip split and trickling blood down his chiseled chest, he was finally starting to panic.
“What the fuck is this?” he demanded as if he was still in charge. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Ah, ah, ah,” I hushed him, pressing a gloved fingertip to his mouth. When he didn’t heed my warning, Effie stepped forward and slapped a piece of duct tape across his mouth.
