I pretended to be a zombie. I pretended to be hers.
“Declan, can you hear me?” Ambrosia asked, peering at me. I ignored the annoying use of my full name, and stared straight ahead at an imaginary spot on the wall. She waved her hand in front of my face and I had to think whether I should respond to it or not. What did zombies do? I took a risk and slowly, jaggedly, turned my head her way. My eyes looked to a spot on her forehead.
I could see her expression changing, frowning, suspicious.
“Declan are you ready to do my bidding?”
I decided to not show anything. I kept staring, dumb-faced, swaying slightly. It was only then that I heard Perry whimpering. She was believing it, all of it. She had no idea.
I had to ignore that. I couldn’t screw up now. I had to play this up for as long as I could, until I was sure that Perry and I could escape. While I stared dully at Ambrosia, my mind tried to recall what the room looked like and if there were any weapons anywhere. There was just the knife, I remembered seeing it sticking out of the wall when I came in, skewering the dead chicken to it.
Ambrosia studied me for a bit longer and then started her chanting, her commanding words vibrating off the walls. She waved the candle around then delicately placed it on the floor. She walked over to a bookshelf and pulled off a large jar of oil, bringing it over to me. It smelt disgustingly sweet, just like her—baby powder and bitch.
She placed that on the ground too, and started dipping her hands in it. Then she rubbed the oil all over my face and neck, down my chest, arms, and legs. Even my crotch. She rubbed that area a little too long, but what I’d said earlier held true. I’d only be hard for Perry.
When she was done, she stepped back to admire her handiwork. From what I could tell, all she did was rub me in a vat of stinky almond oil. To her, it was probably the finishing touches in her ritual for mind-control, and though I had no doubt that she did have power, that she could bend dark forces to her will, it wasn’t working with me.
I should have been relieved at that. But then she came closer, a cloy smile on her lips, and I knew it wasn’t over yet. My allegiance wasn’t sealed.
“Declan,” she said seductively, putting her arms around my neck. Suddenly I had images of the stereotypical Voodoo ceremonies: blood orgies and naked, dancing, writhing bodies and animal sacrifices. If she was asking me to f**k her, right here, right now, I didn’t know if I could do it.
She leaned into my ear, the one that was still whole, and whispered, “Kiss me like you mean it.”
And so I did. I had to. I kissed her hard, kissed her long. Her tongue snaked against mine, hard and greedy. She was absent of everything I loved about Perry—her warmth, her softness, her vulnerability.
I heard Perry gasp, knowing she was watching this, but I had to keep going as long as Ambrosia commanded me to.
Finally she pulled away, her breath heavy, and I had to hold back a grimace. My face had to be blank, neutral, stupid. I felt like I’d just kissed a snake.
“Now,” she said slowly, “we’ll see what else you can do.” She started to undo her blouse until her bare br**sts were showing. She shrugged off her cloak to the ground, the blouse falling away afterward. She was completely nude from the waist up.
Oh shit. Oh no. No, no. No, this wasn’t good. This I couldn’t do, I couldn’t do this to her, with her, and I couldn’t do this to Perry. I was trying to save our lives, but I had my limits. This was it. This would be something neither of us could walk away from. But if I didn’t comply, we wouldn’t be walking anyway.
She came forward and brushed her ni**les against my chest. “If you’re truly my follower, you will do as I say, when I say it.”
I steadied my breath, trying not to freak out. I could feel the pain radiating off of Perry as she prepared for what she knew was going to happen. Ambrosia was going to make screw her, a display of her control.
“Stop it!” Perry cried out in agony. It broke my heart, but it made Ambrosia turn her head. “Stop it! If you’re going to kill me, then just kill me. I don’t need to see him like this, not like this.”
Ambrosia cocked her head and then eyed me up and down. “Perhaps I am being a little too cruel to your girlfriend, Declan. I can always use you later, when she’s gone. And speaking of…”
She flashed her smile at Perry. “I think your wish is my command this time. I will kill you. Well, Declan will. Won’t you?”
Though I wanted to breathe out the biggest sigh of relief over the fact that we just dodged a naked bullet, I stared forward, trying not to blink, to think, to give any sign of myself. Ambrosia stepped away, still shirtless, and picked up her candle. She began chanting.
I knew it was time. I had to think fast.
“Declan, go kill Perry. Eat her, finish her, destroy her.”
This was it.
I brought my eyes over to Perry who shook there, still held between the two slaves. She really thought this was it, that I was going to eat her alive, and not I the way she liked.
I staggered toward her, walking unsteadily but full of faked menace. Once I was out of the range of Ambrosia, once I knew she couldn’t read my eyes, I made sure that Perry could.
I was just feet away, coming toward her with my mouth open, hands bared, trying to convey to her everything I could with just a look. Everything I held, everything that was me was in my eyes. I hoped she knew who she was looking at.
I didn’t have to worry for long. Perry immediately recognized me, the terror disappearing from her face, her shoulders relaxing.
But that wasn’t good.
I heard Ambrosia make an irritated sound behind me. She saw Perry’s reaction. She already knew.
“Get him! Kill them!” She screamed.
I quickly lunged past Perry, to the knife stuck on the wall, and ripped it out of the chicken. Without even thinking, without even looking, I spun around and flung the knife across the room.
It landed square in Ambrosia’s bare chest.
The whole room seemed to dim with power, the lights and candles all flickering. It took me a few seconds to realize what had happened, that I threw a f**king knife at her and that I actually hit the target. The knifed bobbed out of her chest like she was a piece of meat at a butcher. She wheezed again, sputtering blood, put her hand around the handle, and feebly tried to pull it out.
She couldn’t. She gasped her last dying breath then collapsed to the floor, blood pooling around her.