Poison

Seven - The Arrogance of Men

- VERONICA -

From the dark shadow of the corridor, Remus steps into the light and pauses to look at me.

"I thought I've told you these don't work on me." He raises a hand, and between his thumb and index finger is my silver bullet.

He's wearing a tux this time with the top three buttons of his white, crisply pressed shirt undone and a bowtie hanging loose on either side of the collar. The man looks like he's just returned from a wedding or some upper-class reception. No wings this time. This visit, I conclude from the evidence, hasn't been planned.

"Besides, I may be a little late, but there's really no need to shoot at first glance, Miss Wolf," he says, placing the bullet on the table and scowls at the blood on his hands in disgust. "May I use your sink?"

I stare at him in disbelief for a moment. The man strides into my home whenever he likes, puts poison into my drink when I'm not looking, leaves his underlings to babysit me like I'm some kind of a low-level subject he can't bother dealing with, and then he asks me for permission to use a sink. I don't know if I should consider him well-mannered or incredibly rude, but at that moment I can only nod in response. My head is only half working, and I can't even form a sentence to describe what I'm feeling.

He strides to my poor old sink that suddenly seems wrong when he stands in front of it. I grimace at that logic, at how he manages to make my entire middle-class kitchen seem out of place just for being in it. He turns on my faucet and washes his hands like he's in a marble powder room at some six-star hotel I can't afford. Then I see the blood spiraling down the drain, and it pulls me out of my stupor, reminding me that there is actually a severed head in my kitchen - and probably another somewhere outside my house - because of those hands.

Whatever food I've retained from the bar that night suddenly threatens to come back up. "I need to use the bathroom," I say, running over to the toilet in the living room. I don't know why I felt compelled to excuse myself in my own home, but as much as I hate to admit it, the man's presence does exude some kind of authority that demands it. Under normal circumstances, I should have been able to resist such an urge easily, but by that time I can only think of running to the nearest toilet to puke my guts.

A few minutes later, as I support myself on the toilet seat throwing up the content of my stomach, Remus appears by the door I'd left open in a hurry when I ran here.

"When was the last time you took the pill?" He asks agitatedly.

"Yesterday morning," I reply, pushing back my hair with one hand as I continue retching so I don't get puke on it. Thanks to my Victoria's Secret curls, the effort is pretty much useless.

"Here," Remus sighs in irritation and steps forward to gather my hair into his hands, holding it up and away from my face. I want to tell him to leave me alone, but I'm too busy emptying my stomach to make the effort. His careful fingers touch my forehead when I move, and I nearly jump from the coolness of them against my skin. I don't remember them being that cold the last time they grazed my hand, but then my fever must be sky-high right now and that could be why.

I head to the sink to clean myself up afterward, and despite my several attempts to dismiss him, Remus hovers nearby like a vulture over a soon-to-be-dead injured animal. I hate it that he's seeing me in this state, and he's not being at all discreet about his disapproval of my appearance.

It's bad enough that he has such leverage over me, now I have to suffer the sighs and irritating gestures he shows while witnessing how much of a mess I am. To make the matter worse, I happen to look like a tramp who can't stop throwing up from having had too much to drink - thanks to Chris. How absolutely fabulous.