Sophia's Chronicles
Chapter 56: All About Eve
British Men of Letters Temporary HQ – 10 November 2011, 5.35am
It was claustrophobic. Zara felt her mind swirl uncontrollably. She couldn't move, she couldn't see and she couldn't feel anything but the cold, invasive water pressing against every inch of her body. Get me out of here! Her heart raced and a sense of impending death flooded her bones, becoming the only sensation that she knew. In that darkness of sensory deprivation, incoherent images floated around in her vision. Suddenly, something strong heaved her upwards and she wasn't in the water anymore. She gasped in fright, gulping large amounts of air as she felt fresh air enter her nostrils. Someone pulled away the cuffs binding her wrists and feet and someone else pulled off the blindfold and ear muffs too. Sensations crowded in her head in an instant. Bright white lights blinded her. People murmuring filled her head, blocking out her own thoughts. Someone held her by the elbows and dragged her away. She felt invaded. On top of that, it was cold. So, so cold. Her body trembled like a leaf in the wind, almost spastically longing for warmth. Around her, all these strange people were wearing strange white hazmat suits with black goggles, appearing like faceless entities. She, on the other hand, was in the same outfit she was in the day she woke up here – a plain black shirt and a pair of pants to match. Now, of course, she was drenched and her clothes stuck to her skin uncomfortably. She wanted nothing but to take them all off and curl up on her mattress and wait for the end of the world to take her away.
She hadn't spoken a single word in a little more than a week. Her lips were sealed shut and her eyes stopped seeing what was in front of her. It was all just moving images now. People came to her room, people took her away, people made her do things. Then she was back in the dark, red room and she would resign to the warmth of the bed and the blissful comfort of the dark red light. They stopped asking her questions after the incident with the spell. It was all experiments now. They asked her to levitate things and make things light up but of course, she didn't know how to do any of that. So then they moved onto sensory deprivation, which was what she'd just experienced. They would wake her at odd times of the day, like when she was asleep, and drag her in her half-sleepy state to the contained lab in the basement where everyone except her wore protective equipment. And then they'd chain her to a metal pole with rungs for her to stand on and cover her eyes and ears before dropping her into a cylindrical tank full of ice-cold water. What any of this was supposed to achieve, she didn't know. But they kept repeating the treatment, so she guessed they must have gotten something out of it.
Zara sat quietly as someone dried her hair and changed her clothes. Her umber eyes stared blankly at the plain grey wall, following the movement of a house fly as it traversed a thin crack in the paint. She tried to think but found that there were no thoughts in her head. She tried to understand how she felt but nothing came to mind. Emptiness. She felt empty. No life in her bones. No sense of time. Like a hollow statue she stood, contemplating how much more of this isolation she could take. It almost seemed like the only life left in her was the one growing in her womb. Absent-mindedly, her palms shifted to rest over her tummy. Then they returned her to her room and shut the door, leaving her alone again.
Heaven – 10 November 2011
It became somewhat of a routine now. Fill a bucket with water from the river, fly to the spot and hurl the water at the fire. The angels got into the flow of things, everyone united despite their allegiances and pitching in to put out the dastardly flame. Though it had been a couple of days, the flame continued to roar like an untamed beast, lashing out with its infernal talons like an animal trapped in a corner. There had been true panic in the beginning when the explosion sounded, with angels cowering and crying and yelling and doing whatever it is the beloved sons and daughters of God did when they were terrified. They were lost, unsure of what to do in the face of something that had no life yet raged like a leviathan come to eat them. They felt powerless. And then Naomi came and ordered everyone to near the fire and use the water from the river to douse it. Raziel came shortly after and it appeared like the two of them had suddenly become best friends overnight. With Naomi telling them to listen to Raziel and Raziel telling them they shouldn't be afraid of the fire, the combined morale boost of the two leaders working hand-in-hand to coordinate relief efforts invigorated the angels and propelled them towards action.
The fire hissed and steam bellowed into the sky as the angels assaulted it with water. Finally, after hours of effort, it finally showed signs of subsiding. Motivated by the sight of its waning strength, the angels increased their pace. With one last united shower of water, the last inkling of fire died and silence fell over the forests once again. Seeing that their long and hard efforts finally bore fruit, the angels collectively threw up their arms and cheered. It was the first time they had all been so happy in a long time. They celebrated like they had won a great battle except the enemy was something inanimate.
"Attention, brothers and sisters," Raziel announced. Everyone was gathered in the open-air hall where they normally had meetings. It was time for a debrief. "We understand that you must have all been frightened by the sudden inexplicable explosion. Investigations will soon be under way, headed by Naomi and I. As for our siblings who were blasted away from the site of the explosion, we seek your help in retrieving them and delivering them to Naomi's care." Raziel eyed Naomi, reminding her of their deal. She was to undo the treatment on the slave angels so that they would not be slaves any longer – they would become their normal angelic selves, not robots.
Nods of understanding and relief could be seen. "And I have an apology to make," Naomi began, her face contorting with reluctant seriousness. "I know that I had called Raziel under investigation prior to this disastrous explosion. It has recently come to light that I was mistaken in assuming the Keeper's culpability in the merciless slaughter of our brethren. After all, he would never be willing to put one of our own in danger." Though her words sounded sincere, Raziel could feel the tense bitterness emanating from her very skin as he stood next to her on the stage in front of everyone. "And for this, I would like to apologise."
"It's alright, Naomi," Raziel 'benevolently' relented. "It is your job and mine to do whatever it takes to keep our kind safe. Mistakes are bound to occur. Let's put this behind us." He extended a hand to her, flashing a wide smile that irked her on the inside considering the asymmetrical concessions that were needed for both of them to stand there that day as friendly leaders of the angels. Their eyes met. Naomi smiled but her eyes glared as though to say 'this isn't over'. She extended her hand in turn and shook his hand in front of the angels. Raziel grinned confidently, beaming rays of hope to all who watched them. All except a certain few. His team. They seemed unconvinced. He had a lot to explain to them and he was well-aware of it.
"Today we have united under Heaven's banner to keep our home safe," Naomi began as they both regarded their brethren. "But we are still angels. Protectors of humanity. And there is a demon King who would threaten our watch. Let us adjourn, my siblings, and return to our duties."
"Hear, hear!" someone shouted. Murmurs of agreement erupted and the assembly disbanded.
Naomi and Raziel faced each other, ready to move in opposite directions. "This doesn't change anything," she whispered so only he could hear her.
"I don't expect it will," Raziel replied as he took off. Another look at the anticipating gazes of his friends told him that they needed to have a nice, long chat in his office. There was something else, though. At the back of his mind, one concern remained. His new friend. Jeremiah, the angel who'd been of paramount help to him, was nowhere to be seen. Raziel didn't remember seeing him in the assembly or the firefighting efforts. Where had he gone? Raziel wanted nothing more than to make sure he was okay and deliver his deepest gratitude. But first things first…
Raziel's office, New York – 10 November 2011, 2.17pm
"Vacation, my arse!" Shemsiel was the first to voice what everyone was thinking. They all stood ominously around a conference table in a room in his lofty apartment. "Taking a break, my arse."
"Please, sit," he beckoned as he placed a tray of glasses and wine on the table. "Drink, anyone?" He poured some wine into a glass and held it out in an inviting gesture. "No? Okay." He swirled the cup once and took a sip as the others merely watched in unspoken bewilderment.
"Wine?" Dinah huffed in annoyance, her several piercings bobbing with her head. "Are we celebrating something?"
"We are celebrating the day Naomi has finally conceded something to us," Raziel stated as he took another gulp. If he could feel their annoyance radiating from them, he made no sign of it.
"Raz…" Pahaliah spoke up with a gentle frown on her face. "We were worried about you. We didn't know if we'd find you alive or dead, with the way things were looking in Heaven."
"I realise that," Raziel averted his eyes. "And I'm deeply sorry for what I must have put all of you through. Truly. But I did what needed to be done. I will tell you all about the details of my mission, not to worry."
"That's not what we're worried about," Shemsiel said. He hid his expression behind sunglasses as he always did. "You went behind our back. You lied to us. You left us in the dark. You-"
"I get it," Raziel cut him off. "I know it was wrong. But I had to do something. I had to act quickly. There was no time to explain it all to you."
"Wasn't there?" Shemsiel challenged. "Wasn't there time when you thought of the lie? Wasn't there time to answer a single call from any of us?"
"Shemsiel, I'm sorry-"
"We don't want to hear it," he snapped. "I thought we were a team, Raziel. You said we had to look out for each other and keep each other in the loop so that we could all stay safe. What does it mean if you thought the best way to handle whatever situation you got yourself broiled up in was to isolate yourself from the rest of us?" Raziel said nothing. He knew he brought this on himself and just sat there, taking it. They deserved that much. "And don't say some shit like you were protecting us. We can protect ourselves. Did you not trust us enough to let us know what it is you were after?"
"Of course I trust all of you. I would trust you with my life!" Raziel pleaded. "But Naomi is dangerous. She would stop at no lengths to pull us down."
"Tell us something we don't know," Rahab interjected. He seemed calm – relatively calm, compared to Shemsiel – but still wore a grave expression. "This is a dangerous path, hermano. We need to stick to our principles now more than ever."
"I understand that. Believe me, I do," Raziel gulped, his words weighing heavily on his tongue. "But how much more do we have to endure by sticking to our principles, while Naomi gets ahead with her less-than-ethical methods?" Silence fell over the room. It wasn't that anything he said was convincing them. More like the opposite – they were all dumbfounded that these were the words their leader was saying. "Tell me, my friends, what would Sophia have done? She would have done whatever she thought was right, no matter the methods or consequences. And how many times has she kept us in the dark for our own good?"
"And where has that gotten her?" Shemsiel uttered slowly but sharply. "I'll tell you where – Hell."
Raziel exhaled painfully. It's going to be a long day.
British Men of Letters Temporary HQ – 11 November 2011, 11.54am
Zara was back in the interrogation room. It's been… it's been… I don't know how long it's been. Without so much as a glimpse of sunlight, she'd lost count of the days and the nights. It could have been weeks for all she knew. She only knew when she was awake and when she was not; when she was hungry and when she was not. But it had been a while. She sat again on the same, stiff metallic chair at the cold table, with a camera poised in front of her. "Hello again," Thomas greeted as he entered. Toni followed closely behind him. That dead-eyed sadistic cunt. Toni had been present for many of the experiments, overseeing them and instructing her on what to do. All that time spent together with her had been mentally draining for Zara, who felt nothing but hatred burning in her chest for the woman. She didn't even know why she got so angry but something about Toni's whole aura just put her off.
Zara drank from her glass of water as the two of them got settled around the table with their various folders in their hands. How much information could they possibly have to warrant so many files? "Shall we start?" Toni asked.
"I still don't have anything to tell you about Sophia or Lucifer," Zara's voice sounded soft and raspy. Her throat muscles were still unfamiliar with talking.
"Oh we're not going to be talking about them today," Toni said as she crossed her legs and rest her palms on her lap. "Today's all about you, Zara."
Zara huffed. "I'm not that interesting," she dismissed.
"I beg to differ," Toni rebutted, her voice playful in all the wrong ways. "I've always wanted to know what kind of a low-life self-loathing loser a person would have to be to run away with Satan." Zara scowled at that.
"Alright," Tom interjected. He didn't want this interrogation to become a passive-aggressive back-and-forth between the two women. "Zara, let's start with your childhood." Oh no. Zara didn't want to go back to that place. She'd spent so long trying to forget. "You were born in Belland, Oklahoma. Your mother is a first-generation immigrant and your father's second-generation. You were the youngest of two children to your parents. You had an older brother named Dev."
"Are you just going to recite facts about my birth?" Zara interjected. "Is there a point to all of this?"
"There is," Tom answered. "You see, these are just words on a paper. They describe who you are in the eyes of the law but they don't give us any clue as to who you really are." He flipped a page, his eyes scanning the lines of information. "The point of this exercise is to get to know things about you that aren't on the record. We're going to run through the information we have little by little and you're going to give us your account of it all."
Zara stayed silent. She didn't like where this was going. Her whole life, laid bare on some pieces of paper. She wondered what gems of information were going to surface. "So tell us," Toni spoke up, wearing that thin polite smile on her face. "What was your childhood like?"
"What do you want me to say?" Zara asked. "It was a long time ago. Nothing interesting to remember."
"What were you like as a child, I wonder?" Toni suddenly asked, leaning forward in her chair. She twisted a fancy ballpoint pen between her fingers as she rested it against her chin. "Did you play well with the other kids in school?"
Zara chuckled a little, though it was more from confusion. "I don't get it… Am I being questioned on everything I've done since I was born?" She huffed, almost laughing. The whole thing sounded ridiculous. "Will I be punished for being a bad child? For not sharing enough candies with the other kids in kindergarten?"
The interrogators didn't seem amused. "According to various teachers' reports here, you were always a withdrawn child," Toni read off a page in her file. "In elementary school, you always sat in the corner while the other kids played. You barely spoke a word."
"So? I was shy. Loads of kids are shy that age," Zara's smile faded away. Such a trivial thing to focus on, she thought. It didn't prove anything.
"Shy…" Toni tilted her head downwards, as if the very word sparked some deep thought in her. "Do all shy kids punch other kids in the playground?"
"What?" Zara frowned. That was not what she expected to hear.
"January 11th, 1994. You punched another kid during snack time," Toni stated in the most serious tone.
"Well…" Zara was dumbfounded. She had no recollection of the memory. "I'm sure I must have had a good reason."
"You were 7. So was the other girl," Toni rebutted.
"Okay, do you want me to say sorry for something I did when I was 7?" Zara shot back. "I was a kid and kids do stupid things."
"But you were no ordinary kid, Zara," Toni said, locking eyes with her. "You were born to be an archangel's vessel."
"How does something I did as a kid have anything to do with why I'm here?" she asked in a flustered tone.
"It has everything to do with why you're here," Toni said sharply. "You were born to say 'yes'. You made the decision to say 'yes'. We just want to know what kind of circumstances had to be there to make someone like you. Someone with no regard for the sanctity of the world. Someone who would make a deal with the Devil."
"So what? You think I'm some kind of crazy? Is that it?" she huffed, shaking her head. She couldn't believe the things she was hearing. "Sorry, but I'm as normal as normal gets. All my bolts are in the right place."
"Then why did your parents take you to a therapist when you were 12, and then again when you were 16?" Toni asked, her index finger finding the words on the page. "They were getting you tested. They wanted to know if there was something wrong with you."
"And they didn't find anything," Zara uttered each word with force. Clearly that wasn't a good memory. "The therapists said I was normal."
"That makes you a good liar, I suppose," Toni mused. "What kind of psychopath could fool even the most experienced psychologists into thinking that they're normal?"
"Now you're just giving me too much credit," Zara challenged. "Psychopath? I couldn't lie to my own mother without getting smacked upside the head if I wanted to."
"Interesting you mention that," Tom chimed in. Zara was mildly relieved to hear him speak. He didn't emanate quite as much of a sinister vibe as Toni. His eyes just seemed more… human. "Let's talk about your parents. What was your relationship with them like?" Still, Zara didn't want to say anything. Why should she give them anything they wanted? "It says here that you ran away from home to go to college. You technically still are a missing person in Belland. I'm guessing that you mustn't have liked them very much if you took off without giving them a clue as to where you were."
"Oh please, they knew where I was," she muttered under her breath and folded her arms. "They were just being overdramatic, as they usually are."
"But why the animosity?" Tom leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. "What did they do to you? Did they abuse you?"
At this point, Zara was finding it really difficult to remain expressionless. Try as she might, her eyelids twitched uncomfortably as a string of memories came to mind. All those years of trying to forget were now slowly unravelling, using her mind like a screen at a theatre. Don't let it show. Don't let it show. Tom and Toni exchanged a glance during her silence, like they both finally realised that they'd gotten somewhere. "You have the magic file with everything you need to know," Zara spoke in a low voice, almost so softly that they couldn't hear her. "What does it say?"
Toni pulled out a piece of paper from the file and held it up. It was too far for Zara to read the words but she could see the paragraphs on it. She laid the paper down on the table, holding it down with her fingers. "It's an interview. With your mother," Toni explained. She made to push the paper towards Zara but stopped abruptly. "She was so willing to cooperate when we said we could find you. A pious woman, that one."
"Must have been a colourful report," Zara remarked, her voice growing hopeless. She could only imagine the total ire her mother would have by now. More than she must have had before. "I bet she told you all sorts of things."
"And what do you think she told us?" Toni pressed. "It would be best to hear it from you, since you probably wouldn't want people to judge you solely based on your mother's account."
"What's there to say? She's a crazy, Jesus-loving woman," Zara shrugged. "There's all there is to it. Unfortunate that she had to give birth to someone like me, isn't it? It's almost like she knew what I would become from the start…" She suddenly felt self-conscious that she'd said so much at all. This was all too personal. Must retreat into inner shell.
"I'm very sorry to hear about your unpleasant upbringing," Tom said, to her surprise. She looked at him and he didn't look like he was joking. Well… okay. "Do you want to read the interview and help us corroborate the facts?"
She noticed how he gulped nervously as he mentioned the interview. Was it something her mother said? As much as Zara was curious as to what her mother's glowing testimony would say, she feared that she would just crush the paper and yell really loudly and angrily in front of them. This was like reliving a part of her past that she never wanted to remember again. Every phase of her life… marked by the scars on her body and mind that she hid from the world. She already felt the rage surging through her veins, threatening to burst out of her skin in a fit of anger. It's what the thought of her mother did to her. God, she hated that woman. She took a deep breath in and released it slowly. "No thank you," she responded.
"That wasn't a request," Toni stated pointedly. She slid the paper across the table, leaving it in front of Zara.
Zara simply leaned back into the chair. She stared straight at her interrogators. She didn't want to give them any more than they already had. "I don't want to."
Toni narrowed her eyes. Her chin tightened again as a sign of her rising impatience. "Fine," she took back the paper. "I'll read it out for you." She cleared her throat as her eyes roved up to the top of the page.
"Zara was always a troubled child. I don't know what sin I must have committed for her to turn out this way. There were so many times I tried to make her repent. To make her right in the eyes of God. But she never changed her ways. She must have single-handedly driven the angels away from our home. When she left us, I must admit that I almost wanted to thank God for relieving me of the burden of keeping her in line. Yet, I still can't help but feel… loss right now thinking of her. It is every mother's affliction."
That stung a little. Zara clenched her jaw and averted her eyes. An affliction, huh? It was totally believable that her mother would say these things, yet it hurt all the same. Just sitting there, listening to her mother's words in someone else's voice was enough to make her feel like her heart was growing thorns and cutting her insides. Toni continued.
"I remember when she was 8, my husband's brother visited us. That day, I saw the way he looked at her – like she was some piece of meat to be eaten. I told her to stay away from him but she wouldn't listen. She just wanted to play with him, dancing in her dress and running around with toys in her hands. Such a young child and she was already tempting men. I had to lock her up in her room so that she wouldn't lead my brother-in-law astray."
Zara felt the ache sting her heart. She remembered it. She was excited to see her uncle for the first time, having only heard about him in the stories that her father used to tell her. Having been such a lonely child, all she wanted was someone to play with. It made her so happy that he sat down with her in her room to spend time with her. Until he started touching her. She thought nothing of it first. How could she? She was a child. Then his grip grew stronger on her back, on her shoulder… and then on her thigh. He went slowly, sliding a palm up her thigh and suddenly she didn't feel so comfortable anymore. She wanted to back away but he had another arm rested on her back, keeping her close enough to him. That was when her mother found them. He immediately retreated his intrusive hands and shifted away from her, but her mother knew well enough what was happening. Zara still didn't understand what was going on but she remembered clearly the frustrated look on her mother's face. Her mother stood like a monolith, in that long flowing dress, frowning at her while her uncle simply walked out of there slowly. Her little heart started pounding wildly as her mother entered the room and shut the door behind her. That was always a bad sign.
"What did I tell you? You're not supposed to go around the house talking to men who visit us," her mother whispered angrily.
"But he just wanted to play, mom," she'd justified.
"Did he want to play, or did you ask him?" Her mother knelt down to her level.
"I… I did," Zara's face became sullen, suddenly feeling like she did something wrong though she didn't know why. "I was lonely."
"Then play with your brother," her mother snapped.
"But he's at soccer practice, mom," she answered innocently.
"So you'll invite men into your room?" her mother asked accusatorily. "The Lord doesn't like girls who ask other men to come to them." Zara felt fear spread through her bones. "Do you want to be a whore, Zara?" Whore. She didn't know what it meant at that age but she knew it was wrong for some reason.
"No," the little girl shook her head, close to tears.
"Whores go to Hell. Do you want to go to Hell?"
"No, no," she continued to shake her head. Thoughts of eternal damnation and hellfire swirled in her little head. It scared her.
"Then repent. Ask God for forgiveness for what you've done," her mother commanded. "And remember, good girls keep their legs closed."
When her mother left, Zara heard the lock click when the door shut. She'd locked it from the outside. Her heart sank every time her mother did that. She just sat on the ground, hands clasped as she rested them on the bed, and prayed just like her mother told her to. She prayed to God with damp eyes, asking Him to forgive her for being a bad girl. She begged Him not to throw her in Hell, saying that she would be a good person. God, give me the strength to resist the Devil.
"Shall I continue?" Toni's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. "This is just the beginning."
"Well, you're not going to take no for an answer," Zara dejectedly said.
"First, what do you have to say to that?" Tom inquired, pausing Toni with a small gesture.
Zara shrugged, glancing at her fingernails. "Pervy uncle. Who hasn't been there, am I right?" She raised her eyebrows sarcastically.
"I think you might find some comfort in knowing that he's been imprisoned for multiple sex offenses," Tom informed her, voice sympathetic. "Quite serious charges, frankly. Some accounts include physical assault."
"He's fulfilled his destiny," she remarked dryly. Like I fulfilled mine.
"How did you feel after this incident?" he asked, being as respectful as he possibly could. "Did you experience any trauma?"
Again, she shrugged, but also shaking her head this time. "Not the best time of my life. Hope he gets hurt somehow. That's normal, right?"
"Well, he did," Toni pointed out. "Just a few months into his sentence, he got shivved in the gut. Unknown cause. He was supposedly alone at the time of the attack. But he still lives." Zara made a shocked "ooh"-face. She grimaced a bit, taken aback by the brutality of the situation. "Did you know about that?"
Zara huffed. "How? How could I have known?"
"I don't know," Toni reciprocated her nonchalant shrug. "Maybe you had something to do with it. The incident happened some time after you ran away from home."
Zara wanted to burst out in laughter, but she refrained from it. "Again, how? I hadn't even met Lucifer then."
"You were going to become an esteemed person in Hell – someone favoured by Lucifer himself. Demons could have been falling over each other to do you favours," Toni hypothesised.
"Lady, do you even know demons?" Zara couldn't believe she had to spell this shit out. "They don't do favours for people like me. Because my opinions don't mean shit."
"If you say so," Tom nodded, noting something down. "But you must know, the whole thing is still mysterious. Even your uncle is… delirious about the situation. Claims a shadow with red eyes attacked him." Zara's eyes widened and frowned at the same time. None of that made any sense to her. "Anyway, moving on." Tom gestured for Toni to continue.
"When she was 12, she began listening to satanic music. All that heavy metal stuff the kids were listening to. I think that's how the Devil indoctrinated her with his ways."
Zara smirked despite herself. You crazy, stupid woman.
"And she didn't have any friends so my husband and I were worried. Or maybe she had the kind of friends that she couldn't show her parents. So we took her to a doctor to see if anything was wrong with her. She argued with us, saying… Oh I still remember what she said till this day. It was ungodly, the way she was acting. Erratic. She was yelling at us. She said, 'How do you know what my best interest is? I went to your schools, I went to your churches, and I'm crazy?' Now what would possess a girl to say such things? But when the doctor got back to us, he said nothing was wrong with her. She must have used some kind of witchcraft to mind-control the doctor to do her bidding, I don't know."
"You're not believing any of this, are you?" Zara suddenly asked, purely out of curiosity.
"We don't know what to think," Tom answered, calm as ever. "That's why we need your help."
"My mother's a crazy bitch," she said, her eyes flickering between the two of them. "There's all there is to it."
"That may be, but what does that make you?" Toni rebutted. "We haven't even reached the best part yet."
Toni cleared her throat. "I went into her room one night and I recited the bible to her. It was my duty as a mother to bring her back to the right path even if she didn't want it. But what happened horrified me. As soon as I started reciting the verses, she kept telling me to stop. And then she started crying and yelling at me to stop and get out of her room. I got scared. Did a demon come to possess my little girl? So I did what I had to do. I… disciplined my child and made her read the verses with me. Then I put up three crucifixes around her room and let her sleep. But I didn't trust anything that night. I went back to see her in the middle of the night and she was… she was gone. She wasn't in her room. And the three crucifixes… Lord help us… they were inverted. That was when I knew… she was beyond redemption."
Zara rolled her eyes. By this point in her life she had given up on religion. She hated it so much that she couldn't even stand listening to people read from the she hated her mother so much that she just wanted to get out of the house for a while so she snuck out the window. The inverted crucifixes, well, were just a gimmick. She knew it would upset her mother and that's exactly why she did it. She'd heard so much about the Devil controlling her that she decided to play along with it. Not such a great move now that she thought about it.
"And then it goes on and on about the books you read, the music you listened to and the fact that you barely spoke to anyone at all," Toni scanned the rest of the paragraphs. "Oh but wait, here's something."
"When she was 16, I suspected that she had been sneaking out of the house every night and I didn't know who she was with or what she was doing. Until one night, I saw her coming back and someone was with her. A boy. He was really tall and had long hair. He was probably her boyfriend. Unacceptable. She had probably already become impure by this point."
Finally, something that made Zara smile. Jack – his name was Jack. And no, he wasn't her boyfriend. Better than that, he was her best friend. She met him when she was 14 and they'd been close ever since. He'd never overstepped his boundaries and always treated her with respect. They used to get up to all kinds of crazy shit – crazy, dangerous shit. But Jack always kept her safe, no matter what. Truth be told, if it wasn't for him, she'd still be a cocaine-addled junkie or she would have broken her neck attempting parkour. They tried as much as possible to keep their friendship on the DL – no one else in her life knew much about him and he didn't even go to her school – so it came as somewhat of a surprise to Zara that her mother found out. But when she did find out…
"I had to drive nails into her window myself to keep her from sneaking out. But somehow… somehow that didn't stop her. I didn't know what to think. There was no way she could have gotten out the night after. It had to be some kind of demonic, unholy witchcraft, I know it."
"Do you have anything to say to that?" Tom asked once Toni finished reading the line. He'd been observing Zara this whole time, keeping in mind her noticeable behaviours. When he read her file, he truly did feel sorry for her. Not only was she chosen by birth to become a vessel, but she'd also endured physical and emotional abuse from an overbearing, evangelical parent from a young age. Such an experience was bound to have affected her in some way but she never seemed to show it. He would have never guessed from looking at her that she'd been subject to all of this. Where were child protective services, he wondered.
"Well it wasn't demonic, unholy witchcraft, if that's what you're wondering," Zara smirked. "Just pure persistence."
"What about your father and brother?" Tom inquired. "What were they doing all this time? Did you get along with them?"
Zara exhaled slowly, the answer clear in her mind. They said nothing. They did nothing. They were complicit and as unforgiving as Mom. "Whipped into submission by my helicopter mom," she sighed. Dev would rat on me to her. Cunt.
"Such an interesting account," Toni pondered, her eyes darting around the room as she put the paper back in its folder.
"Yes, I'm sure they'll write best-sellers about me," Zara replied, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in her voice.
"Hm." Toni smiled briefly at that, before meeting her gaze again. "It is unfortunate what you went through as a child. No doubt such a… lack of compassion and perspective on your mother's behalf has made you into the person you are today. Impulsive, socially-inept, broken… probably even suicidal. Yet not everyone who comes from an abusive household becomes a servant of Hell. So what was it, then?"
"I know you probably think I'm a bad person," Zara muttered, thumbs fiddling forcefully under the table. Somehow her throat felt drier and raspier than before. Even through Toni's ire, the Brit's description of Zara felt accurate. Painfully accurate. "But I've never hurt anyone but myself." A half-truth at best. "Bet that's in your file somewhere. I don't care enough about other people to hurt them. I just want to live and let live."
"How many thousands of people died because you let Sophia into your body?" Toni pressed.
"I didn't kill those people," Zara argued, though one face haunted her blinking eyelids. A woman with a pixie cut in a nightclub somewhere. A woman whose slit throat represented where her loyalties lay.
"But you enabled the archangel who did," Toni grimaced. Her voice grew sharper, like she was getting really fired up by what she was saying.
"I am not her. She is not me," Zara said as if she truly believed those words. "I was captured by Lucifer and forced to release Sophia. I did not choose to kill thousands of people. If I had any choice at all, I would have stopped her."
"So you say," Toni shrugged.
Zara exhaled sharply. "What do you want to hear, Toni? That I'm some kind of monster? Okay, so my childhood wasn't so good. I was chosen for some God-only-knows reason to be a vessel. So shower me in blood and call me Carrie if it makes you feel better. But this is all I have to tell you and you can reject it or shove it up ya ass, I don't give a fuck," she droned on until she had no air left in her lungs.
"This is about more than just you," Toni uttered, frowning. "Maybe you don't realise it, but the Devil's still out there somewhere. He's already killed so many people. You say you don't want people to get hurt but every day you stay here, silent with information that could help us stop him, you put more and more people in danger. Your silence is just as good as murder!" A brief, tense silence fell over the room. "And I will be damned if I just stand here and take your half-wit comments."
Zara glared at her, looking deep into her irises. "Good," she spoke with the most sombre tone she could muster. Finally, some divine justice.
A/N:
So I mentioned in passing about Zara's old friend, Jack. Keep him in mind because he'll be important later. I think he's one of my favourite characters (and I haven't even started writing about him yet!). Just to clue y'all in, I didn't accidentally name him Jack /foreshadows aggressively/
This chapter was inspired a little by the song Institutionalised by Suicidal Tendencies, one of my favourite bands. The song is like a monologue by this guy who is ranting about how people think he's crazy and try to stick him in an institution just because they don't think he's normal. I did borrow some lines from the song for dialogue.
