Carpe Victim

Carpe Victim-7

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I can move. Muscles and sinew bunch and flex as I work the pins and needles out of my arms and upper body. Spring up from my prone position and pummel his shoulders, chest, anywhere I can reach. He rocks back under my attack—but not nearly far enough—and my assault does nothing to erase his annoying, enigmatic half quirk of a smile. If anything, it only increases with each blow.

He does nothing to avoid my attack or defend himself physically. Seems to almost welcome my outbreak, almost to bloom under it. For every blow, each punch or slap, each aggressive act I inflict, he grows healthier, more robust. Rosy color suffuses his skin, his eyes and features brighten. In fact, his features actually seem to change, become oddly familiar, his hair graying slightly and curling, his eyes lightening. His body even appears larger, more muscular, and I grasp, too late: aggression is an emotion.

Now you're getting it—just not the way I'll give it to you later.

And there's no mistaking his intent. My arm jolts back, fist aiming, finally, to smash that knowingly amused smile from his face.

My fist meets his palm mid-flight, meets, too, the return of the Hag and Her icy paralysis.

"Now, now, let's not waste all your energy—not when I have such plans for it."

I'm not human, not for centuries, so the sound torn out of me can't be described as such, but I barely recognize it as coming from me.

Glances at my fist. Open your hand and touch my face. Touch it: you will not hit my face, not slap it, not smack or punch me. You will touch my face as though it were Hers.

To my horror, he forces my fingers to uncurl, almost joint by excruciating knuckle while I fight to clench them back. "No, I..."

Oh, you can. You will. Sinews creak and scream in my hand, skin crackles, as we fight within my body for control, for mastery—of my body. Thumb, forefinger, each unfolds in a repeat of the same maddening fight, a competition I keep losing.

Then why keep fighting?

I refuse to dignify with an answer.

Or waste much needed energy fighting me.

But each finger, each digit, opens despite my draining efforts, despite my fighting with all my undead strength, until my hand lies flexed, curved and unguarded, reaches then—at his command—toward his cheek.

"No." I choke back some tortured noise that might've been a sob if I had more strength, more will, to put behind it.

Really? Same battle. Different territory. What's it to me if you're so stubborn you have to fight every battle anew to figure it out? 

"Figure what out?"

Who's already won.

But, then, my hand is on his face oh, so gently, skin, flesh so warm and seemingly fragile in my hand, my fingers stroking his cheek because he wills it. Subverts my intended assault into caresses—because he demands it.

He leans into my touch, so calm, unperturbed, supremely controlled, damn him. His palm pushes out, back and down, all without seeming to move, forcing that cold stillness out of himself and onto...into me. I push back—or try to, but the Hag commands a glacier, and I can budge neither. The frustration builds in my throat, building until it threatens to rupture my esophagus, but he kills that as well as if he's inside my very tissues, commandeering them for his own use.

How d'you know I'm not? Swimming in the ice bath that is your blood? Burrowing into the deep, hollow chambers of your heart? Flowing into the lovely frigid expanse of your prick? Nestling in the ebony tinged crevices and crevasses of your mind? Think I like there the best. So many places inside your mind for me to trickle into, spread out and occupy, to curl up and lie in wait. 

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