Sin & Savior

CHAPTER 9, PART 2

Before she could even gather thoughts around what she set out to do: Seraphina's body propelled itself forward. She sprinted with the full flourish of an Olympic athlete toward Broderick and buried her foot as hard as she could into his groin, buckling him over onto the floor before he had any time to react to what was happening.

"YOU MOTHERFUCKING SCUMBAG!!!" she howled, her lungs ballooning from stress and surrender.

She leaned forward with a twist of her waist and decked him right in the mouth as hard as she could, not wanting him to rise up and retaliate with superior strength. As she did, Evan and Alexander burst through the bedroom door in the middle of the loft, scrambling to the scene entirely absent any idea or clue of what had transpired to cause such chaos.

Alexander looked toward Broderick's bloodied face in confusion as Seraphina scrambled towards him shouting and pointing toward her victim. "I KNEW IT!!" she gained, piercing the hollow of Broderick's home with her shrieking.

"Sera, what the hell is going on?!?!" Alex begged, clutching his casted arm with his free hand, his eyeballs wobbling errantly inside of their sockets as his mind tried to process the scene unsurreptitiously laid before him, though entirely remiss of context.

"HE DRUGGED US! THAT'S WHY WE CAN'T REMEMBER LAST WEEKEND! THAT!!" she said, pointing toward the kitchen. "GO TASTE IT, ALEXANDER!" she said, backing away from Broderick, now rising to his feet, and spitting out blood onto the carpet.

Alexander did as he was told, using his casted arm to push Evan backward and off to safety and walking towards the kitchen with his nostrils in the air, inhaling deeply.

"Sera... I don't SMELL anything! What the fuck is GOING ON?!? Are you sure you're thinking clearly?" he asked, with a hint of fear in his heart finding its escape inside of his voice.

"THE BOTTLE, ALEX! THE FUCKING BOTTLE!" she screamed, as if she were preparing herself to hurt him next.

"WHAT BOTTLE, SERA?!?" he cried out into the air as he wandered through the kitchen searching for what she could be referring to. However, he halted his steps short as he saw Broderick approaching his sister with murder in his eyes, then sprinted forward and created separation between them: placing himself directly within the gap between their bodies.

"MOVE!" Broderick hollered. "OR I'LL MOVE YOU AND THAT BITCH MY FUCKING SELF!!"

It was then Alexander knew the time for cordiality, for games, or for play... was officially over. Seraphina was willing to die for him, and he was no less willing to die for her.

Rather than evade him, or break an open path toward Seraphina: Alexander took one step backward while reaching for his waist, and reached beneath his shirt. Within seconds: he'd had a firearm trained and chambered onto Broderick's chest.

Seraphina recoiled at the sight, her voice lowering to match her shock and the abject horror metastasizing itself across her features.

"Alexander.... wh.... where the hell did you get a gun?... What are you doing?" She asked, incapable of anything beyond incoherent babbling after her question evacuated her lips.

"It was Dad's." He said, with a sternness she'd never heard from him before. "Mom kept it all of these years, and she didn't know I knew where it was." He said, his voice low and husky. This manifestation of the young man she'd known was entirely foreign to Seraphina, and she was at a loss for words when it came her time to speak.

"I only have one arm, and no idea what the fuck just went on out here... but I'm not going to let any man hurt you, even one that might have good reasons." He said, protective and bravely.

Seraphina stood there staring at his back, saying nothing.

"Now... what the FUCK happened out here, Sera?" he asked, staring at Broderick with unblinking eyes, analyzing the rage within him as if he were staring at his younger self in a mirror. His father left so much chaos inside his soul he compartmentalized for at least a decade, and he would channel it all now in this moment if Broderick so much as blinked too aggressively towards him. For now, though: he was content to stand adjacent his position, growling under his breath with fists balled and eyes that seemed to X-Ray him and peer right through his skin and onto Seraphina's.

She gathered herself and walked over to the half-consumed bottle of Vodka beneath the cabinetry, then stepped beside Alex with its swirling contents on full display.

"It was this. How he did it. There are only 3 things I drink: Vodka, Gin, and Tequila. No mixers, no chasers. Our athletic program doesn't allow us to consume any other alcoholic drinks because the sweeteners and caloric consumption are too detrimental towards our training. Broderick is an alcoholic, but in a year of dating: I've never watched him drink Vodka by choice unless it was mixed with something else or given to him. He'd never go out and buy this, and I didn't think anything of it because I'd been trying to get him to stop lately so I figured he was given the bottle by somebody else. But... that isn't it. If he was smart enough to start drinking straight Vodka as a way to gross himself out and curb his consumption: this would've been gone days ago. It was here last time I came over, and the amount hasn't changed since. He isn't drinking this.... WE were. At Giovanni's." She said, uncorking the vodka, and dunking her pinky inside, then tasting a small amount of it.

"Mint. Risperidone tastes like mint." She said, staring at Broderick before capping the bottle off. "I googled everything about it after a doctor told me the result-profile of our blood tests indicated my brother and I had been DRUGGED, you FUCKING PRICK!" she said, setting the bottle down and tossing her arms to her side.

"Wait..." Alexander said, his jaw dropping in disbelief.

Just then: Broderick's face stiffened uncontrollably.

"You said you'd never let a man hurt Seraphina, even if he had good reason... but what about you?" he said, spitting blood to the ground beside him, barely missing Evan's sneakers. "Clearly you've forgotten the part you played." He grated maniacally.

"I would never hurt my sister, no matter what. Even drugged." Alexander responded with confidence. "Now: if you don't shut the fuck up: I'm going to do more than hurt you. If you don't plan on losing your knees while your little brother watches: I suggest you find silence, and introduce yourself."

Broderick stared him down, chuckling below his breath.

"What's so funny, motherfucker?" Alex said, taking a step closer to him, pistol raised and ready.

"The two of you want to know, so badly, why I fought you that night, Alex. Why I fucked you up in front of a house full of people...." He mocked them both, steadying himself before finishing his statement. 

"It was because I found you in the middle of taking Seraphina's virginity. Some "White Knight" you are, you pompous, arrogant, freckle-faced prick." He said, stepping forward, and placing his chest, daring and directly, onto the barrel of the pistol.