She's got cracks running through those seemingly unbreakable walls, water leaking through the dam and you can see it start to show. Her hips don't have so much swing anymore when she walks past you in the hallway, her voice loses that focused passion that makes everyone listen, she's losing that special glow about her that just makes everyone think she's got it.
She doesn't have it and you know it. She had to work, sweat and bleed for all that talent and you know it. There's no such thing as a natural. You can be good at something, but you can't just be born with the ability to show up the people that actually try. You could tell the swing in her hips onstage wasn't effortless; she didn't wear thigh-high dresses just because she felt like it. She was a hunter and she had to draw her prey in. Oh, she caught more than she ever could imagine she could, but she caught the eye of venomous green-eyed viper and that's probably the biggest mistake that she's ever made. Vipers strike when you try to back away and that's exactly what she tried to do. She took a step back, then strode back forward into the spotlight again until you got tired of watching her bask in the sun and you bit her on the ankle.
At first she looked so much stronger than the others. She managed to pull herself back up onto her feet, limp with her head still held high. But then you took her in the dark, bit her throat and sunk your teeth into her heart. Now she stumbles blindly; just how everyone else is. Unlike some of the others again, she has an idea of what the antidote is. It's you and at the same time you're the exact opposite. You can soothe the burn, the acid eating away at her. But at the same time you can bite and twist your fangs deeper, drip in just that more poison and make her come back for more. You've got an iron grip on her and she knows it, though what's left of her mangled pride will deny it. You sink hooks into her and then pull the lines taut until she's straining and begging. She can barely move until you tell her to now. Cat sees it too.
Caterina Valentine knows the work of Jadelyn West when she sees it and it's not really that hard to figure out why it happened when she knows the one motive behind everything: getting what you want. And what you want is to see, hear and know that you can get people to bend over backwards for you, even when you're not around. You trained Cat to be your little watch girl for the times when you're not around to hear the gossip and whispers. What everyone doesn't know or doesn't bother to acknowledge is that Cat Valentine, the ditzy little red-head that never pays attention to anything, is a wolf in sheep's clothing or perhaps a lion disguised as a kitten to be more accurate. Yes, Cat's just as twisted as you, but she went in the opposite direction. Instead of letting her outside bear resemble to the inside like you did she turned herself into something completely different.
Her metamorphosis was less successful than yours, though. Now she can't control it; she only has control over that false happiness that's melded into her 'personality'. She's constantly on unseen ups and downs, and comes to only you to fix it. She follows you simply because you mastered the skill of the wicked, slid ever so stealthily around everyone until it was too late and you were squeezing and suffocating them with your coils, fangs hovering with menace. You've binded Cat and Beck to you with a rare kind of bond. Its friendship, love and manipulation all wrapped into one...only you know that they're both playing for you and you've got the stronger pieces on your side. The big picture is you and the only one who either doesn't seem to get it or refuses to understand is Tori Vega.
Beck's still upset over it. He doesn't understand what Cat's already managed to grasp; Tori Vega, the Make It Shine girl and Miss Perfection is a threat. You had to bring her to your side because she was just too good and you couldn't have an actual obstacle in your way lest it take away from your precious time. You've told him over and over again; she's completely under control and yours to command. And surely he's noticed, you get more parts than she does, write songs that get better grades, you show more passion onstage because you're not weighed down. The cracks are getting wider, merging into an abyss that she's lost herself in and only you have the power to pull her up the sheer cliffs. Cat and Beck can shine light on her in the darkness, but they don't have the hold you do to beckon her very soul and call her to you even as she learns that you are the cause of her darkest days.
You don't know if she can comprehend it. Her mind most likely has after all this time, but her heart certainly hasn't. No, not even after all this her emotional core won't quit - it almost seems to refuse - to drop the part of the hero. You make her literally beg on her knees for you, treat her as little more than a glorified animal. By now her eyes should resemble something like the bottomless abyss you know that you've created in her, void and empty of anything, but they don't. Her touches linger always a second too long, her kisses are gentle and tender on your skin. And her eyes...they've changed, alright.
She looks at you the way Cat and Beck do now.
She loves you, but do you love her back?