C/W: this chapter contains graphic depictions of a panic attack, a PTSD-induced flashback and descriptions of minor self harm.
Skitter's centipede exploded in my hand. The brittle exoskeleton shattered inwards, pulping its delicate insides into an unrecognizable mess. Hemolymph and gore spilled out over my fingers, coating my hands in slime and sickening fluids. Its legs twitched spasmodically, nerves misfiring in futile response to the force that had torn it apart.
My world narrowed to the sticky mess on my skin and the twitching death throes of the little life I'd just snuffed out. Horror gripped me. I couldn't focus on anything else. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. A vice tightened around my chest, squeezing the air out in shallow, frantic gasps. There was no noise. No sound. Just the pounding of blood in my ears and a high-pitched ringing somewhere outside my head. I dug my nails into my palm, feeling my shield flicker from glass-smooth to warped, swirling distortion under them as my fists tightened. Hard. Harder. Warm blood welled up. It didn't help.
The world was distant, tumbling away from me as I fell backward. My stomach flipped, nausea swirling, a fist clenched tight around my gut,
twisting…
There was color. Movement.
None of it mattered.
Nothing made sense; nothing was
right. I gagged, feeling my breakfast try to force its way back up, but nothing came. I wished it would. If I was sick then maybe I wouldn't be floating and dizzy and clammy and shivering and cold and-and–
There was. Something important. That I was supposed to be doing right now. Someone I needed to warn about… it wouldn't come.
("Vi... are y... oing...?")
"
We are immensely proud of her work."
I flinched. No, I
cringed; curled in on myself convulsively, drawing my shoulders in, tucking my chin down like a beaten animal. Hands. Hands on my wrists on my shoulders on my chest on my face holding me down holding me tight holding me in place I could
feel them I couldn't get
free. I thrashed, or tried to thrash–tried to struggle, tried to escape. There was resistance. Brief. Like cobwebs. I tore through it, but nothing changed. The hands were still on me, fingerprints molded into me like clay. I was still marked. Trapped.
My ears were still ringing. A distant keening wail, like an air raid siren; hurting my head, humming through my skull. I was raw. Flayed. Like I had shed my skin, and was now soft and open and weak and
vulnerable. The air stung like nettles brushed along bare nerves. I could feel my body shuddering; a keening thing of mismatched parts and exposed tissue sucking in shaky, shallow, irregular gulps of air and losing them again just as quickly.
("... oria... ell me wh... ear m...?)
The PRT hadn't done anything. They'd known about Amy. We'd told them weeks ago. Miss Militia had
admitted they'd had suspicions. They weren't... they were meant to... when one of their Heroes or affiliates got accused of something like this, they had to investigate, they
had to look into it! It was standard protocol! I had refreshed myself on it months ago, after a discussion with–
They had to have followed up. In the time since. There was no way they hadn't. And yet. They called Amy. To help with this. They gave her credit. In front of the whole city. Director Piggot herself vouched for her.
My cheeks were warm. Wet. The air around me was still and quiet.
("... eed you t... own and loo...!")
"
Amy will be available to heal."
I forced my lungs to work, sucked in a gasp that strained my ribs and made my diaphragm ache. Breathed in. And in. And held it.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting until my chest was burning, screaming, until my eyes watered and my ribs ached and I couldn't hold on anymore, my vision was fadingoutandeverythinghurtandIcouldn'tseeSkitterIcouldn'tseeanythingwherewasIwherewassheplease–
It punched its way out of my lungs like a dam breaking. I gasped, hacked, coughed, retched. Like a sick woman puking up her guts. Like a drowning girl desperate for air.
Maybe I was. Drowning.
("...
isten to...")
…no one would know. What she did. The PRT wasn't saying anything, and
Carol certainly wasn't going to after that performance. She'd be given other patients. Other victims. Other people put under her power. Under her touch. Shifting and sliding and changing until they looked just how she wanted them–
Wetness, slick and hot against my skin. My hands, one, two, three, five, ten, grasping at the bedsheets, trying to find solid ground. Trying to hold on. My torso, warping and changing into some sick imitation of what I used to be. What she wanted me to be. And all throughout it. Her. Above me. Smiling
. Never letting me forget what was happening. What she'd made me ask for. How she'd never stop.
How I would beg for more.
I screamed. And screamed. And screamed. Until my voice broke and gave out into a harsh, choked whisper.
My skin felt smeared in it. In
her. Like she'd crawled inside my body and made a place for herself there. A disease living between me and my skin. A parasite laying eggs of sick devotion. I thrashed and bucked and beat my head against the ground, clawed at my arms, my sides, my legs, but it wouldn't go away;
she wouldn't go–
"Victoria!!!"
I jerked away into what was left of the couch, the splintered backrest snapping in two against my spine. And then there was silence again, save for the cracking of plaster against my back and the rattle of splinters falling to the floor.
I opened my eyes.
Skitter, Taylor was in front of me. Six feet away. Mask off. Eyes looking into mine. Charlotte was gone. So were the kids. I didn't know when. Didn't care.
(Did)
"Victoria," Taylor said, drawing my gaze back towards hers as it darted skittishly away, a nervous animal flinching from every shadow. "Victoria. Focus on me."
I stared at her, not blinking, not breathing. My eyes hurt. My chest felt tight.
"Are you with me?"
I blinked. I couldn't stop trembling. Clammy sweat soaked my clothes; they clung to me, cold and heavy. My guts churned, nausea rising and falling in swamping waves, worse than the worst bouts of flu I'd ever suffered through as a kid. Spit flooded my mouth, thick and cloying and sour. It was a battle not to gag.
Taylor sighed, slowly rocking backwards on her heels until she was sitting on the floor. She didn't move an inch closer. "Can you sign?"
I blinked.
"Okay, can you hear me? Blink twice for yes."
Two blinks.
She closed her eyes for a moment. "Good. That's good. Thank you, Victoria."
There was silence again. I forced myself to swallow, sucking in another breath of clean air over my tongue to air my mouth out. It didn't help.
"Okay. Two blinks for yes, three for no."
Two blinks.
"Thank you. Do you know where you are?"
Three blinks.
She smiled at me encouragingly. Probably. "You're in the hideout. Charlotte and the kids left. No one here will hurt you. You're safe."
Three blinks.
Taylor's brow furrowed. "There's someone here you're scared of?"
Three blinks.
"Have you forgotten where the hideout is, how you got here?"
Three blinks.
She paused for a long moment. Her eyes slowly turned down. She breathed in and then out, and I followed along with her automatically, matching inhale to inhale, exhale to exhale. The world settled. A little.
"...do you not feel safe here?" she asked.
Two blinks.
The breath left her in a huff and I reeled for a moment, cast off from my lifeline. She noticed–of course she noticed–and started up again, saying nothing more for a moment while I settled.
"Okay," she said after ten more breaths in and out. "Thank you for telling me, Victoria. Is there something I can do to help you feel safe?"
Three blinks.
Taylor's lips thinned. "Would you prefer I go? To let you handle this on your own?"
Three blinks; panicked, fast and clumsy. My vision blurred. My breathing started to stutter–
"Okay," she said softly, propping her arms behind her and leaning back. "I'm not going anywhere unless you want me to. If anything or anyone wants to hurt you, they'll have to go through me."
She closed her eyes and waited. Maybe reaching out to her bugs. Forming cordons. Surrounding the house. Guarding us.
I took a raspy breath in, watching her chest move as she sat there. Then let it out as she did. In. And out. My vision was slowly creeping back, the room swimming into focus again. I could feel the weight of my hoodie on me, soft but stifling. It was bunched up around my neck. I could feel the cracked plaster digging into my spine. I could feel the sweat clinging to my skin, smell the sour reek of terror, taste the bitter, metallic red in my mouth.
I shut my eyes and tried to focus back on Skitter's slow, steady in-and-out.
They were going to give Amy more people. More people she could screw up, toy with, change in a thousand tiny ways they'd never notice. And the PRT was enabling her. Carol was enabling her. If there were any doubts I'd clung to about exactly where… Mom… stood, they were gone now.
It. Hurt. Like a knife in my chest, a gunshot to the stomach. Was I worth so little? To her? To them? That what happened to me was just collateral? Something to be swept under the rug? Forgotten until convenient?
My stomach twisted violently. This must have been how Skitter felt, all those months ago. When she'd looked at the Heroes she'd idolized and saw them for what they really were. Carol had told us the truth of the PRT a long time ago, how they were entirely willing to cover up "inconveniences" so long as they were never made public. How fitting that she was the one to finally make that lesson stick.
I bit my lip, grinding my teeth down until I tasted hot salty metal on my tongue again. The pain grounded me, centered me.
She hadn't let me feel any pain.
Okay. Focus on the... the actionable stuff. Facts. I could deal with facts. Facts couldn't hurt me. If I got the facts all lined up in a row, I'd... I'd know what was happening. And once I knew what was happening, I could work out what to do.
So. Fact: Amy was going to be healing at the hospital. Fact: Carol had said so.
Fact: The Protectorate had called on her to do something with her power during the Coil attack. Fact: Whatever it was, it had worked. Helped. Contributed somehow.
Fact: Amy was going to be put in a position of power over others. Like she had been over me. Fact: The people she'd be treating wouldn't
know. What she was. What she'd done.
Fact: The Protectorate were
letting her–
I squeezed my hands and held my breath in. Focus. Focus. I could do this. My instinct was to jump to that conclusion. It felt better. Easier. But I was safe here. I could be honest with myself, even if it hurt.
The Protectorate was enabling Amy.
Speculation.
My entire body tensed at that thought, flinching like I'd taken a hit without my shield. But it was important. I couldn't take anything for granted right now. Especially now.
Fine. Fine.
But.
The Protectorate wasn't taking a public stand against what Amy had done to me. Either they were unwilling, or they were unable. But either way, they weren't taking my side.
... Fact.
The thought closed like the lid of a coffin. I couldn't escape it, couldn't find another explanation, couldn't reason my way out of the truth. The Protectorate knew what she'd done. Knew that letting her do this would give her clout, public support, leverage... and gave her a platform anyway.
Those were the facts. Which meant...
I was expendable.
What would happen next? Would Dragon stay to collect me? Send me back to my family so that they'd stop complaining? Would Defiant break down the front door? Polish his ruined reputation a little by rescuing the poor little Master victim? Or would it be Assault, finally able to pin some moral sin on the Undersiders? Would Piggot even care if I said no? Would
anyone–
"–toria! Victoria!
Vicky!"
An animal noise tore out of me and I scrambled back, kicking out, fending her off. My heart jackhammered in my chest. No! Nonononononono not that name never that name please no I couldn't–
"N-n-n-n-no," I forced out, bile sour on the back of my tongue.
Silence. Stillness. Then.... "Okay. Not that name. You weren't responding to Victoria. Do you want me to–"
I shook my head, clenching my eyes tighter. No. That name right now was too much. History and expectations and failures and.
No.
"Okay," the voice, Taylor, said in front of me. "Does Tori work?"
I grasped the offer like a lifeline, nodding frantically. A new word. A new name. Something to set me apart. To pretend that this was all happening to someone else. If I could be Tori right now, it meant I didn't have to be Victoria anymore.
She hurt too much.
"Okay, Tori," Taylor said, as gentle as I'd been with her... with her centipede. My centipede. I looked down at the viscera smeared across my palm and under my fingernails. My eyes stung uselessly. Misery pulled at my mouth. I'd killed her. She wasn't a pencil or a table or a doorknob. I couldn't replace or repair her. What... what was the point of crying for something I couldn't fix?
Tears cut cold tracks down my cheeks.
But they couldn't cut deep enough.
"Tori?" I flinched again, curling in on myself, trying to hide my hand behind me as if it would keep what I'd done from her; a shameful, sordid secret. She let me pretend. Kept talking. "I'm going to… I'm not good at words, but I'm going to have to ask something of you. Something big."
My ribs clenched, digging into my sides.
"Can you look at me?"
I drew in a shuddering breath, and looked up. Taylor hadn't moved closer. But she filled my vision anyway. Her wide mouth pursed. Eyebrows slanted and angry. Green eyes harsh and sharp. But her tone was gentle.
"Thank you. I want to tell you something. Something important. Is that okay?"
I nodded.
"Good," Taylor said. She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, mask or not, I knew it was Skitter looking at me. "I know you're hurt. And you have every right to feel that way. But I want you to know that one way or another, I am
never letting her hurt you like that again."
Her voice was sharp. Dangerous.
Safe.
"I don't care if I'm fighting Defiant, or Miss Militia, or Dragon herself," she said, as if she could chisel her words into reality through nothing more than force of will. "Nothing is getting between us. Not unless you want to leave. That is
your choice, and I will fight to keep it that way. If you don't trust the PRT, don't trust the Undersiders, don't trust
me, that's fine. But at least trust this."
Skitter took a deep breath. "When I found you, I forced Amy to leave at gunpoint. Next time, I'm pulling the trigger."
My vision blurred, narrowed, sharpened until it was just her. Just the girl in front of me. Thief. Villain. Warlord. Skitter. Guardian. Friend.
Taylor.
I leapt across the space between us, knocking the breath out of her. I barely remembered to pull my speed so I didn't fracture her sternum. My arms came around her, and I clung. I dug my face into her neck, pulled her close until I could feel the silk against my cheek and listened to the pulse in her throat, the furious hammering of her heart.
We stayed like that for a minute. Two. More. Slowly, Taylor brought up an arm and rested it across my back. Not encircling. Not holding. Just… resting. Reminding me that she was there.
I let out a breath and finally,
finally started to cry.
A/N:
So here is where I would make some joke about how "the centipede finally died" or something. But the mood seems off for that.
I've been sitting on this chapter for almost three months. And to this day I still think it's one of the best I've ever written. It's the culmination of a lot of things. Tori's trauma and refusal to examine how much Amy has really taken from her. Her relationship to Taylor, and realization that what she wants now is permanently different. Who she wants to be going forward. I could go on.
Today's rec is in a similar line to all of this,
Victoria and the Broken Bird. It's an analysis and comparison about how Taylor is a traditional YA power fantasy inverted, while Victoria is effectively a side character given her own story and narrative center. It makes for good reading, albeit with Ward spoilers in broad strokes.
There's one more thing. A short interlude was written by one of the betas that I'm posting right after this, so keep an eye out for that. Other than that… take care of yourselves. This chapter was a lot, and while I'm not looking to wallow in angst, there's definitely more of it where this came from.
