Chapter Text
Jackson stumbles down the hall, affected by mislabeled white powder laced with sedative, a detrimental element of demise labelled as a gift from a woman whom he has grown to trust. Nothing but circumstantial manipulation forms the frail bond between him and Winter.
Seducing Will was easy for her, performing for him rather than feeling or experiencing any sort of physical pleasure from the acts. She supposed it was habitual, a skill acquired from the need of self preservation. Like everything else, there had been an attempt to hide it from Allie, and like always, Novak was shown the truth in a rather jarring fashion, Proctor again being the one to force feed the truth to willfully ignorant eyes. Novak had deluded herself as she painted her lover as an innocent victim to the governor's abuse of power, not being the first time Allie had tried to generate excuses for Winters infidelity.
She hadn't believed a word out of Kaz’s mouth, screaming at her when she had come slinking into her cell with seemingly wild accusations of such an affair. But left alone, it didn’t take long for those claims to solidify in her mind. She watched and watched until she grew sick with disgust, letting the rage grow and consume.
Winter pushes the door shut with a careful gentleness so antithetical to the violence manifesting in the dark cavern of a room the three occupy. There is nothing but malice on Novak's face as she approaches the disoriented man. No trace of the sweet girl who cried helplessly when he told her of Kaz’s death remains, the man she once saved from Proctor's wrath now groaning as he tries to make sense of his predicament.
“Marie-” The gasp is so quiet as to be barely perceptible, but hearing that name in his mouth still fills Allie with burning rage.
A hard blow from dirted shoes colliding with his stomach only draws out a dulled reaction, gasping for breath rather than writhing in pain.
Struggling, he forces his way back onto his feet, determined to live. Winning seems so probable when entrapped in delusional denial, he doesn’t see he is doomed. Reeling from the beating already taken, he clutches his stomach, so pathetically helpless, doubled over with nothing but fear taking hold of him.
It sickens Allie how he had tried to act friendly, almost caring towards her all while using Marie behind her back, she shifts all the blame on him in order to absolve the disgust she should be feeling towards Winter. Marie is all Novak has now, she cannot bear to hate her once more.
“Time to finish him off, sweetheart.” Allie takes the weapon without daring to look Marie in the eyes, ignoring the way their fingertips touch in the transaction, the electricity.
The knife is nothing special, stainless steel and cheap plastic, yet deadly all the same. Seeing the blade in Maries hand reminds her of years before, tension in the kitchen deep within the home they occupied in another life. Dreams of violence and shouting matches culminating in sinister silence, watching her captor slicing bloody red meat and wishing she was the one under the knife.
Though this time it doesn’t quite turn out that way, Novak grips the cold plastic of the handle like an extension of her body, stalking forward, this unfeeling automaton takes hold of all that Allie tries to convince herself she is not; utterly vicious.
“You’ve never killed before, have you, darling?” Allie’s silence is indicative of the fact she hasn’t, and the shallow laugh which falls from Winter's lips in response is as cold and unfeeling as the metal beams holding up the ceiling which creaks overhead.
Almost. The answer goes unsaid, always hidden behind sealed lips when they are together. Years ago, Allie would tell her everything, stripped down every inch of separation between her and her captor, longing to sink into her body forever. Then that utter deviation shifted to something akin to hatred, Novak weakly tried to convince herself she would rather die than be held in Winter's cruel embrace, rage compelling her to lie to herself as much as she was lying to Marie. And still, Novak hungered to kill, hissing out empty threats at every opportunity.
Marie has never raped her, that still holds true after over a decade. She just allowed it to happen, as long as she never had to witness the act. So the first time she stood above one of those men, Karen by her side and an aluminium bat in hand, she almost smashed his skull in like Ruby had with Danny, with even more rage driving her to hit harder than Mitchell could dream of.
That thought is ever-present in her mind as she grows closer, the governor acting as a surrogate for decades of built up rage. Allie forces the knife not only into Will, but her father, Channing, hundreds of other faceless men she lay helpless to. He lets out a groan, clawing at the blade, whimpered pleas for help silenced with a quick fist. Jackson cannot see Marie now, can’t experience anything but pain.
Pulling the knife out, Allie decides that blood is beautiful, staring back in the ineffective mirror provided by glazed eyes. Not in the way poets write it, with their pretentious shades and metaphors. But Will had never looked as bearable as he did lying on the ground, begging and screaming until he could no longer vocalise, as his life leaked out onto the concrete, dull as his uniform before it was stained brilliant red. The last he saw was those rabid eyes glaring, hungry as a wolf, white teeth to soon grow red. Power tastes like red metal, as Allie now knows, his jugular torn out and spat back onto the ground in one bitter go, staining her teeth forever as his grew cold.
Novak tries to pretend for a moment that the blood belongs to Winter, wanting to feel Marie in her mouth, a reminder the ice sculpture is merely a human.
My beautiful monster , Marie thinks but does not speak aloud, as she knows full well it would be hypocrisy coming from her. If Allie is a monster, it is Winters doing, she built the girl after all.
Marie has tasted Will before, a mere annoyance she endured for the sake of power in an unfamiliar landscape, one which she did not at the time rule. Fucking her way up to the top, coiled around him in a way which mirrored the serpent imprinted on her shoulderblade. Jackson tastes far better in her lover's mouth, for she seizes the girl's face before she has the chance to spit black blood onto concrete. Tainted plasma is still warm as she allows it to slide down her throat.
The sickening scent of iron taints the stale air even further until the point it is downright suffocating, haem coats Winter's traitorous tongue, iron clinging to her like a punishment.
This is the epitome of passion, of lust, two women coiled in a brutal embrace. Winter holds the knife as though it is a crucifix, hands splayed around it as though in prayer, before moving the blade to her lips and planting a tender kiss to cold metal. Impulsively sliding her hand along the blade, carelessly allowing her palm to be sliced, Allie relishs the pain, though the sting is dulled by adrenaline.
Now she is the one in control, Marie belongs to her, or will soon.
“Get on your knees.”