The Darkness Within

Epilogue, Pt. 1

A/N: Epilogue pt. 2 going up shortly. Double update for holiday spirit. 

Epilogue, Pt. 1

Kira

Three months later

In the midst of one of the rare warm late-summer days, sitting in the newly created statue garden of the home Sergei and I recently purchased, I bask in the rays of sunlight while working on my most recent project with Bettina. We've set up on one of the stone tables and benches scattered around the field of statues similar to the one at Sergei's demolished estate. I missed the garden as much as he did, so one of our first orders of business after purchasing the property was creating a new one.

"Did he really have to commission a statue of... that?" Bett asks, nose wrinkled as she stares behind her shoulder at the life-sized statue that I've chosen to ignore since first discovering it. We bought half of the three dozen statues that now litter the acre-wide space dedicated to the garden, and commissioned the other half.

Sergei conveniently neglected to tell me that one of the statues he had commissioned was of an erotic scene taken from Slavic folklore—two gods fornicating—except the gods have our faces and bodies. I'm twined around him in the statue, my legs around his waist and arms around his neck, with my head thrown back in ecstasy. The only naked part of my body visible is my ass, and I was surprised and slightly disconcerted about how true to life the replica was. Telling Sergei to put the statue somewhere less visible had no effect—he considers it a very definitive way of claiming me for any and all to see. His exact words were, They can covet what's mine as much as they wish, but they cannot touch.

I wave a hand at Bett. "Ignore it. That's what I try to do."

In the weeks after my brief captivity, I was in and out of the hospital repeatedly, primarily for physical therapy for my ankle—which was screwed up enough that it required almost daily rehabilitation to get back to normal. Sergei spent the time either by my side, or on the phone with me while searching for a new home for us. He was very insistent that I be involved, even if I couldn't accompany him due to my inability to walk. Through pictures, videos, and video chats, we ended up choosing a place within two weeks. It's the least extravagant of all the properties Sergei considered, though that isn't saying much considering his ostentatious tastes—we still live on fifty acres of gated and guarded land with a house that could double for a castle.

Any time Sergei wasn't with me in the hospital room, Bettina was there. It didn't take long for me to see the same thing in her that Sergei must've; an absolutely brilliant girl with no concept of how to control her brilliance or how grapple with all of the side effects that come with genius—namely, madness.

While Sergei and I are both blessed with stunted emotional ranges that prevent us from spiraling out of control despite the astronomical speed at which our minds work and all the complications that accompany it, Bett doesn't have the same protection. She feels everything, and I don't think she ever learned how to handle that. So, she compensates by focusing on what she can do rather than what she can't and embraces her quirks while distancing herself from most people.

From what I've gathered, previously, Sergei was the only person outside of her immediate family she didn't hold at bay. For some reason, it didn't take me long to join him on the list. Possibly because I agreed to a project where we use theory, math that Bett invented, and probability to devise an algorithm that could enslave the world. Not that we intend to use it: we just want to see if it's possible.

Bett finally takes her eyes off the statue that I refuse to acknowledge out loud is of me and turns back to the table full of notebooks and laptops sprawled in front of us. She picks up the notebook nearest to her, flips through a few pages, and then frowns.