Chapter Text
It was so quiet, and all Scylla could do was wish for the screeching seeds to come back. To blast into her like a windstrike and take over every part of her mind, forcing her to relinquish all thoughts and feelings and solely focus on surviving each blow.
But, the box was long gone, and she was left alone with nothing more than her own mind to keep her company. Her own thoughts and the dark shadows clawing at her soul.
Her soul.
Her fingers trembled against her forehead.
Raelle was gone. She had been there, and they took her. Forced Scylla to see her, feel her, be with her, and then ripped her away like she was nothing more than some tool, some useless thing they could toss around to get their way.
They took away her soulmate and acted like it didn’t matter.
Went into her mind, saw her deepest memories, and didn’t care that they violated her, took from her. Took her privacy. Took her consent. Took her thoughts and feelings and dignity and past without blinking an eye. Took Raelle.
Used them both without one ounce of regret.
Scylla had no idea what was happening.
Was Raelle ok? Had they hurt her? Was she chained up somewhere like Scylla was? Was she trying to find her?
What was she thinking? Feeling?
Her face, shattered like Scylla’s heart was, haunted Scylla’s mind. The way she felt, hands shaking as she touched Scylla’s mark. The sounds of her sobs. Tears more powerful than the most unrelenting monsoon flooded Scylla’s chest, and she forced them back with every ounce of strength she could find.
She asked to see Raelle one last time.
See the girl who owned her heart and soul before they shipped her off to die.
Tried to use the one last piece of leverage she had to spend one more moment with her girl.
What would they tell Raelle? What had they told her already?
What did Raelle believe?
Scylla needed to see her. Tell her it was ok. That she loved her more than anything. She was sorry for everything. She would always love her. Was so happy to have found her. So happy that Raelle was her soulmate.
She was so damn lucky to have Raelle as hers.
That she would always be Raelle’s.
Nothing else mattered. Not the Army. Not the Spree. Only their bond. Only the fact that Scylla meant it when she said she wanted her. She wished so hard, wished every day, that they had run away. She let Raelle take her far away from all this. Leave their medals on the door and go to the beach. Swim in the ocean. Kiss under the sun and the stars.
Her chest shuddered. How long had it been since Raelle was dragged away from her? Days? Weeks? Hours?
Everything was so messed up.
Did the Army figure it out? They never told their superiors about their marks. Had Raelle? When she was trying to find her, had she told someone? Anacostia? Alder? Anyone?
Is that why they used her?
Would they hurt Raelle because she was linked to Spree? Would Raelle be punished because of her?
She had to see her. Make sure she was ok.
She wordlessly cursed the chains tying her down.
The chains that made them both slaves now kept them apart.
Kept Scylla from fixing this.
Did they know how much it hurt to be away from her lover? To wonder if she was out there wondering about her?
Raelle wouldn’t stay away. Not if she knew Scylla was somewhere. Raelle wasn’t the kind to wait. She would race into the fray without a plan or an idea of what to do except fight and protect.
Would she have to live knowing her soulmate was dead?
When Scylla arrived in the Caribbean, would they execute her quickly?
Would Raelle know the moment it happened?
Would Scylla be able to tell her she loved her one last time? Would anyone comfort her soulmate? Understand the pure unadulterated grief and pain that losing the one would wrought on her fragmented soul?
Raelle already had so much pain and agony hidden within her. Grief that raged like a wild untamable animal. That caused her to wish for death when she came to Fort Salem.
Would Raelle do something stupid?
Had she already?
The guilt ampliphied as she thought of her mission. Of the Cause.
Raelle had been a mission. She still was, only different.
But, Scylla still believed in freedom. In liberation. In fighting and winning the one true war.
And, she had faltered.
Unwillingly given in and let them take from her, learn from her.
They found her like they found her parents.
Would they be proud of her? Hate her?
Would they understand why she did what she did?
Understand that she wanted something to fill the hole their deaths left in her?
Could her and Raelle have been like them? Happy? Together? Living a life about them and not waging endless wars for those who didn’t give a damn if they lived or died?
Would she see them again?
Would she see Raelle?
The door creaked open, loud and heavy.
“Any news on my Caribbean vacation?” Scylla tried to hide how much her hand shook, using her last bit of defense to cover how lost she was.
Anacostia walked over, plate of food in hand.
Scylla felt her empty stomach grumble. She couldn't remember the last time she ate actual food. Food she didn’t worry was a trick or nothing more than mere scraps meant to keep her life sustained and nothing more.
Had it been at the wedding? Playfully teasing her girlfriend and Tally as they munched on expensive canapes and got tipsy on champagne? Jokingly tossing grapes at Raelle for her to catch in her mouth and tasting the alcohol on her tongue?
The plate was set in her lap, and Scylla grasped it, but she couldn’t stop the words from coming out, more desperate and scared than she ever wanted to reveal to the older woman. “Am I going to be executed?”
“Calm down.” Anacostia intoned sternly. She strode back to the door.
Before Scylla could reach for a piece of fruit, she felt a tingling along the back of her neck. A warm comforting caress.
No.
It couldn't be.
Her hungry mind was playing tricks on her.
She had asked to see Raelle, but she hadn’t come.
Anacostia hadn’t brought her.
Had she?
She watched Anacostia step outside the door and pause.
The door didn’t close.
Then, like the moon rising over the horizon into the twilight, bathing the darkness in its radiant pale light, protecting all from the shadows and monsters, Raelle turned the corner and slowly stepped into the room.
It was her.
It was really her.
Raelle had come.
She quickly set the plate down, food forgotten, and stared at her, drinking her in. Her hands itched to reach out. To trace the scar that made her even more beautiful. Kiss her lips. Breathe in the mixture of soap, sun, and old country roads that clung to her skin and could always make Scylla feel safe when she nuzzled her nose into pliant flesh and let everything Raelle envelope her.
Raelle was her home, her soulmate, and she felt it every time she was in her arms.
There was so much she wanted to say. To tell her. To make her understand.
As the seconds ticked by, though, Scylla noticed something was wrong.
The sheen of joy drifted away, the curtain pulling back to reveal not a grin that always made Scylla’s heart skip a beat but, instead, a thin straight line. Normally bright blue eyes were cold, almost steel instead of sky. Where Raelle was normally brimming with emotion, with passion and energy, she looked tired. Exhausted. Stoic. She was holding herself back. Holding herself in check.
Relle never held back with her.
She was patient when Scylla needed her to be, but she never hid from her.
The curve of her jaw gave the tiniest of tremors, and Scylla felt it like a slap to her face.
No warmth came from her girlfriend.
She was like an ice sculpture, empty and unmoved.
She had never seen Raelle like this before.
Never.
The invisible fist punched Scylla in the gut, and her mark stung.
Goddess. No.
“You believed everything they said about me.”
Raelle stared at her. Face revealing nothing to anyone except the girl who knew her better than she knew herself. Her soulmate who could feel her, studied her to the point she could detect even the smallest change in a smile.
The girl who tried to prepare herself for a discussion she hoped to never have.
“I loved you.”
Scylla felt her heart fracture, her chest sliced jaggedly in two. She forced herself to not react, to not feel it. She put all her attention on Raelle. On the war she would wage to make her understand.
“I still love you.” She would always love her. Soulmate or no soulmate. She was Raelle’s. Mind, body, and soul.
“I know about Helen.”
Scylla’s mouth quivered, words fleeting. She needed to remain calm. Talk to Raelle like she would when Raelle was angry. When the inner turmoil would spill out and Scylla had to talk her down from her passionate emotional urges. She sat back, folding her hands in her lap. Methodical. Calm. Collected. The shelter against the storm.
“Have you done that to me before?”
“No,” she leaned forward, the battle to remain calm slipping away as Raelle’s voice remained blisteringly icy. “Never.” She fought for air, her lungs constricting painfully and stomach clenching, “I messed up. I...there’s no excuse...I was scared.” She was terrified of losing Raelle. Of being in love, of being connected to someone. She never got close to people. She was always moving, always hiding.
Her first truly big assignment, and she fell in love.
She met her soulmate.
It was the scariest moment of her life. Knowing Raelle was hers but feeling her drift away, crumble through her fingers like sand because Scylla couldn’t open up to her. Kept parts of herself in the dark.
Didn’t know she could trust someone, let herself trust someone, know how to trust someone, the way she knew Raelle wanted her to. The way Raelle did with her.
Didn’t fully understand who Raelle would be for her until it was too late.
She pretended to be someone else, but...it wasn’t planned. It wasn’t malicious.
It was because she had to keep her. Even if for a little while longer.
Buy herself more time.
Because she wanted her.
Wanted to be seen.
Wanted to let Raelle know there was someone who cared if she lived or died.
Wanted someone to care if she lived or died.
“Scared of losing your mark?” Raelle asked.
There it was.
“It started out that way.” she wouldn’t lie. Not anymore. “But you were...you. I love you. I promise. I promise I’m telling the truth.”
Raelle just stared at her. “Was any of it real?”
Her broken heart exploded into a million pieces. Real? How could it not be? “All of it. Raelle, you have to believe me. I have nothing to gain by telling you this.” Her voice cracked, “They’re shipping me off to die.”
Raelle didn’t react. An almost imperceptibly twitch of an eyelash was all that showed she even heard her.
Scylla tried to look into her eyes. Tried to find the person she wanted to spend forever with. The love that was real .
A fine sheen of tears spread over unfeeling orbs.
“Well, we all go sometime.”
Scylla couldn’t stop the tormented gasp wrenched viciously from her lungs and past the knot in her throat as Raelle turned away from her. She felt each step her lover took. Each footfall a twisting stab to her mangled chest.
Then, her Raelle showed up.
“Why did you pick me!” Raelle spun around, unable to suppress her anger, her grief, any longer. “Is it because my mom died, and you thought I’d be a likely convert? Because of my mark?”
Scylla shook, straining against the chains, “Does it look like I’m calling the shots around here? They didn’t tell me!” Another sob built in her belly. Raelle had never looked at her like that before. She had never seen such rage...such sadness...directed at her from the blonde.
It was heart wrenching.
“You know what, I get it.” Raelle gestured wildly, “I get it. I was the sickest weakest gazelle in the herd. I was easy prey for you.” Her voice growled low in her throat, “I had your mark.”
How could she think that? She couldn’t believe that. “You have no idea how powerful you are.”
“I don’t feel powerful. I feel broken. Thanks to you. I’m sorry we ever met, Scyl.”
As Raelle turned away from her one last time, Scylla refused to hold back any longer. Refused to care about guards listening in or being vulnerable with someone else.
Raelle was walking away from her. Forever.
“I chose you!”
Raelle paused.
“I had orders to deliver you. I chose you...instead of them. I chose you. Please,” her throat threatened to close as tears streamed down her face, “I chose you because you chose me. I’d choose you even without the mark. But, it’s there. It’s there, and you can feel it. You can feel me, and I can feel you, and this is real. There has never been anything more real in my life than you. Than how much I love you.” She tried to lean farther forward, muscles and chains straining and aching. “Raelle, please...I know you’re angry. I know I hurt you. But, you feel it, too. You know you do. I wanted to protect you. I didn’t know...I didn’t know what they’d do. I didn’t know what to do. I fell in love with you. Your mine and I’m yours, and I didn’t know what to do.” Her voice, so full of tears, barely choked out the words, “Baby, please. I never wanted this. I never wanted to hurt you. I only wanted you. You. I wanted us. I was scared. I’m scared. Please.” The tears became too much, and she gave in to the sob, lungs so tight she couldn’t take in air. She doubled over, tears dripping down her cheeks and splattering against her dirty trousers, forming tiny puddles in the grime.
She barely noticed when a presence knelt down beside her. Hesitant fingertips gently probed the back of her neck, settling on the golden mark at the nape under her tangled hair. A forehead pressed against her temple, sliding over as her head lifted to rest against her own. Warm puffs of air massaged her face. A palm tenderly cupped her knee.
“Pass through the waters, I will be with you, and when you go through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.”
The dull ache in the back of her head began to dissipate, and the cuts and bruises around her wrists and ankles disappeared.
“No,” she weakly pushed at Raelle, “Stop.” Raelle shouldn’t heal her.
“Shhh,” Raelle pressed her fingers more firmly against the mark.
A flash sparked in Scylla’s mind, a movie playing across the backs of her eyelids.
Raelle held Scylla close, their foreheads touching, arms wrapped around each other like the sheets cocooning their entangled bodies. She gently kissed Scylla, cherishing the chance to taste those lips, trying to let her know how much she was willing to give, that she was all in. She wanted Scylla, no matter what. Would be whatever she needed.
“We’re in this together, ok?” Raelle whispered. “Whatever this means. Take as long as you need. I’m all in, ok? Friend...lover...soulmate. Whatever you want to call me. I’ll be here. We can move at your pace.”
“What if I move slow?” Scylla murmured.
“I’d stand still with you.” Raelle vowed. “I’m yours.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.” she believed it with every fiber of her being. They might argue. They might have little spats about where to go on dates or if Beltane or Samhain was better. Most of those Raelle argued just to get a rise out of her girl, to see the glint in blue eyes and hear the witty remarks that made her laugh with happiness. They might even have huge fights about really important things like...if forever meant the same thing to them. But, no matter what, Raelle was hers, and she was Raelle’s. Scylla might have her secrets, but she would tell Raelle when she was ready.
“Your pace, Scyl. Whatever happened before...I’m still here. I still want you. Mark or no mark. I want you.”
A tear slipped down Scylla’s cheek.
Raelle kissed it away, letting her lips slide over to her ear. She gently grasped her hand and guided it to her inner thigh, letting fingers brush against her mark. “Shiny and gold. Nothing else I need. Only you can do that.” She nipped, “An’ even if it was only shiny, I’d still be crazy about you.”
Scylla came out of the memory, out of Raelle’s memory, blinking rapidly.
That was what Raelle thought? What she felt?
Raelle leaned into her, body heavy.
She had seen Scylla choose her.
She had seen Scylla choose certain death to dance with her one more time.
To protect her girlfriend. Her soulmate.
The blonde wept, tears mixing with Scylla’s as their bodies came together. Scylla grasped at her, the chains holding her back, only letting her touch an arm, an elbow.
“I’m sorry.” Raelle murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
“I love you.” Scylla whispered, “I promise. I love you. I love you.”
The door groaned open, “Collar.” the call almost contrite.
Raelle’s lips moved against Scylla’s, “I love you.”
Scylla squeezed her elbow, “I love you. Always. No matter what. I promise.”
Raelle nodded, catching her mouth in a kiss.
Scylla felt like she was on salva, flying in the night sky with the girl she liked more than she should.
Their lips broke apart, and she plummeted back to earth.
“Collar.”
“Go.” Scylla sniffled, “It’ll be ok.”
“I’ll find you. I’ll fix this. I promise. I’ll fix this.” Raelle vowed.
Scylla shook her head, “Rae, no.”
Don’t do something stupid.
Don’t get yourself in trouble.
Not for her.
Her fate was sealed the moment she was born.
Raelle shouldn’t put herself in danger for someone who never had a future to begin with.
“You’re my girl. I’ll make it ok. I’ll come back. I promise.”
“Raelle.”
“I’m not losing you.”
“Please, be careful. Don’t...put yourself in danger.”
Raelle huffed, “Should’ve thought about that before becoming my soulmate.”
“Not like I had much of a choice.”
“Collar!”
“Go,” Scylla pushed at her shoulders, “I’ll be ok. We’ll be ok. Please.”
Raelle gave her one last kiss, putting everything she felt into it, before standing up. She walked backwards, never breaking eye contact with Scylla. The moment she reached the door, Anacostia ushered her out, giving Scylla a glance before slamming the door shut.
The warmth along the nape of her neck slowly turned cold.
Her whimper turned into a scream.