Page 148 of Violent Possession

“I thought I knew you,” he says, without resentment. “But you were always a mystery.”

I take a deep drag from the cigarette I’m still holding. “There’s no mystery, Sera. There’s survival. And you’re good at it. Better than me. I just… I need you totrustme.”

He sighs. “Trust,” he repeats, chewing on the word. “It’s been a long time since anyone asked me for that.”

For a moment, we’re just that: an idiot with a tin arm and a master manipulator, begging for trust in a condemned building.

“What doyouget out of this?” he asks suddenly. His gaze is that of someone who already knows the answer but needs to hear it anyway, perhaps to measure the size of the lie I’m going to choose to tell.

The question dismantles me. I could say it’s for loyalty, or because I owe him the only good part of my history; I could invent that it’s out of fear, or because Alexei demands it, but the truth is I don’t even know anymore.

“He makes me want to stay alive,” I say, and the confession comes out so raw and low that I almost choke on it. “I spenta whole decade just… surviving. With him… Iwantto see tomorrow.”

The truth hangs between us, naked and ugly. I see the understanding on Seraphim’s face.

“Fuck, Myrddin…” he whispers, and there’s a genuine sadness in his voice, the sadness of someone who finally gets a terrible joke. “Are youin lovewith him?”

I open my mouth to deny it, to curse him, to tell him he’s ridiculous. In love? The word is stupid, too soft, a word from another world, for other people. People who exchange flowers, not stabs.

What I feel for Alexei has nothing gentle about it. It’s the handle of a knife pressed against my sternum, only I’m the one begging him to drive it in. The desire to be the perfect instrument in the hand of the only man who never hesitates. It’s the feeling of burning alive and, for the first time, not wanting the fire to go out.

It’s the fact that the idea of dying doesn’t scare me, but the idea of dying without seeing him again…thatterrifies me.

Maybe, for a fucked-up person like me, that’s exactly what love looks like.

No words come out of my mouth. To deny it would be to lie.

Seraphim lets out a short, humorless laugh. He shakes his head. “You were always terrible at asking for help.”

I feel like hugging him, apologizing for all this garbage. Seraphim never liked cheap sentimentality.

“Fuck, Sera,” I murmur, “I didn’t want it to end like this. I wanted…”

“For us to have a second chance?” he suggests, with a sad smile.

The desire is so pathetic, so out of place, that it chokes me before it becomes sound.

“There’s something funny about all this,” he says, looking into the void. “We survived too much to die now.”

I don’t know if he’s saying it to calm me down or to convince himself. The phrase hangs there, planted between us, like a last cursed seed of hope.

The silence grows long. A dog barks somewhere in the neighborhood. The wind brings the smell of rain. Deep down, it was always like this: him and me—and, most of the time, just me—waiting for the world to end slowly.

“What do you need?” he finally asks, resigned.

It’s his surrender.

I step back a little, wiping my face with the back of my hand, trying to reassemble the armor that shattered in the last few minutes.

“I need you to contact Alexei,” I say. “I need you to find a way to show him you’re willing to cooperate. A sign, a message… I don’t know. You’re the master of ghosts, Sera. You’ll figure out a way to appear without being seen. Just make him believe. I’ll handle the rest.”

He doesn’t argue. There’s no fight left in him, just a tired acceptance.

He nods his head once.

“Alright, Myrddin,” he says. “I’ll make contact.”

After leaving Seraphim,the silence of the church is no use to me anymore. I need noise, life, a place where I can dissolve.