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FORTY-THREE

IMOGEN

I must be dreaming. My eyes are heavy and I’m obviously in bed because I’m lying down, but I can’t open my eyes. They are so heavy and impossible to move.

I attempt to move and my hands are like lead weights. I can’t even lift them. It’s the same with my feet. Am I paralyzed?

The fog in my brain begins to clear and as the memories come rushing back, they bring fear with them as an unwelcome passenger.

That man wasn’t Jesse. He was dressed like Jesse, but his voice was cold, unfeeling and brutal.

He is going to kill you.

Even my inner voice sounds panicked and yet I’m not relaxing at all. Just lying in state, almost. Waiting for death. Waiting for him to end it.

“She’s waking up.”

It’s a familiar voice. One I can’t place and yet my eyes remain tightly closed. They don’t want to cooperate at all.

“Good.” The rough voice of my captor grates on my nerve endings and yet I still can’t react or move.

“Are they ready?”

His gruff voice forms a question that receives a ready answer.

“They are all in place.”

“Perfect.”

I hear movement, metal on stone, and the bed moves. Is this a hospital trolley? Am I delirious?

We begin to move, the screech of the wheels against the stone foreboding, warning me to escape, but I have no energy. My body has given up on me.

My inner voice is screaming at me to wake the fuck up. To take charge of my body and fight like hell. I’m aware of what I must do, but I have no ability to move. It’s as if I am trapped inside my body with no way out.

A blast of cold chilling air wafts against my skin, reminding that I am still living—that’s good at least. It’s a start.

The shadows behind my eyes change as we move, from light to shade and then to darkness.

We enter a room that’s eerily silent, only the screech of the wheels against the uneven stone floor.

I am spun around and pushed against an immovable object and then he speaks.

“Fellow serpents, I welcome you all here today with your dedication to the cause.”

A strange hum is his answer and a rattling of what sounds like chains and he says loudly in a voice that would cause the devil himself to shiver.

“We have two final acts today. Both are unusual. Rather than initiate a member into our club as normal, we are facing two betrayals instead.”

A horrified gasp echoes around the chamber and as it subsides he says cruelly, “Our trusted soldier, Python, discovered her slave was working with the enemy. That slave is Delilah and her punishment is that her life ends here today.”

He says loudly, “The other final act is a different form of sacrifice. The apprentice backed out and betrayed the society.”

There is a shocked murmur of discontent and the man yells, “His victim means something to him and we will take her instead to teach you all that the society is the only thing that matters. Total obedience is required or lose something valuable to you and live with the consequences. This final act will be carried out by every serpent here. We will finish what he started as vengeance.”

I’m aware that somebody is beside me. Is this the girl they spoke of, the slave? I remember the young girl with Drake, emerging from the tunnel dressed in black. He told me she was helping him. It must be her.

I try to speak, but my voice is lost and I can’t move my head. What did he give me? I can’t fight back. I am paralyzed and I finally face the fact that this is where my life ends tonight.