Serpentine Desires

The prey

We will Go Home, Kitten

My breath caught as I flipped through the documents, my heart pounding like a caged bird. My every breath felt heavier than the last. There they were—snapshots of my life, laid bare in cold, clinical detail. My pictures. My schedules. And then... the ones that made my stomach churn and bile rise in my throat.

Images I didn't even remember anyone taking.

Me at ten, bathing in the river behind our old house in Texas. The playful innocence frozen in time now felt tainted, and wrong.

The words scrawled across each photo in that unmistakable jagged handwriting made my skin crawl: "We will go home, kitten." 

I clenched the papers tightly, the edges cutting into my palms. It was not his handwriting. I knew it as surely as I knew the sound of my own name. The hurried, erratic strokes were unlike his usual calculated precision as if he'd written them in a fit of mania. My head swam with questions that had no answers.

Why? Why did Judas have these?

How did he even get them?

What was he planning?

My knees buckled, and I caught myself against the desk. The room seemed to spin, the walls closing in like a vice. The air felt thick, suffocating. My chest heaved as I tried to steady my breathing.

"No," I whispered, the word trembling as it left my lips. I couldn't let him know I'd seen this.

With trembling hands, I hurriedly sorted the documents as I'd found them, my heart hammering in my ears. If Judas found out I had seen these... the thought made my blood run cold. I couldn't even begin to imagine what he'd do.

I stumbled out of the room, my feet unsteady, and reached the kitchen. Grabbing a glass, I fumbled with the tap, spilling water on the counter in my haste. My throat was dry, but the water barely helped.

Why me? Why those pictures? Why now?

Was I just a possession to him, a thing to be catalogued and claimed?

I couldn't breathe. The house—his house—felt like it was closing in on me, the walls pressing tighter with every passing second. I had to get out.

I shoved my feet into boots and threw on a coat. The icy wind hit me the moment I stepped outside, biting into my cheeks and stealing my breath, but it was better than the suffocating weight inside. Snow crunched underfoot as I wandered into the whiteness, needing the cold to anchor me, to clear my chaotic thoughts.

The landscape stretched out, a blanket of pristine white under the dark sky. For a moment, I felt small, insignificant—almost safe. But the questions wouldn't stop.

Why those pictures? What was he planning? Did he know I'd seen them? Was I just a pawn in his twisted game, or was I something worse—a victim waiting for my turn?

Lost in my spiralling thoughts, I almost missed it—a faint flicker in the distance. A small, red light, barely noticeable against the vast whiteness of the snow.

I stopped dead, my breath clouding in the icy air.

A light.

Did someone live there? Could they help me?

No... no, they wouldn't. Not with Judas looming over every aspect of my life. Even now, his presence was an invisible chain around my throat.

But he wasn't here. Not now.

Could I try? Could I risk it?

The light blinked again, a pulse against the endless void of snow. My heart quickened. Maybe it wasn't a house. Maybe it was nothing. But I couldn't stop staring.

He'd saved me once. Protected me, even claimed he'd die for me. But Judas was still dangerous. No amount of loyalty or obsession could erase that.

My fingers clenched into fists. If I went toward the light, if I sought help, would it doom me? Would it doom them? Judas always knew. He always found out.

But I had to try. My steps faltered as I took a shaky breath and moved forward, the snow crunched beneath my boots echoing louder than the chaotic storm in my mind. Even if this led me straight into more danger, anything was better than staying in the shadows of his suffocating obsession.

Still, the words on those photos haunted me: We will go home, kitten.

Home.

Did I even know what home was anymore?

The snow was deeper than I thought, dragging at my feet with difficulty. My legs ached, and the cold seeped. It blinked faintly in the distance, like a beacon, and I clung to it like a lifeline.

But no matter how much I pushed forward, the light seemed to drift farther away, teasing me, taunting me. I swallowed down the lump in my throat, my breath fogging the air, shallow and quick. The biting wind cut at my exposed skin, and I clenched my teeth against the numbing pain spreading through my body.

Just a little further. Just a little more.

Minutes stretched into what felt like hours. And every step took every ounce of strength I had left. My chest burned, my legs trembling under me as I stumbled through the endless white. My fingers, raw and frozen, reached out toward that red speck of hope, as if touching it would tether me to some kind of salvation.

Finally, after what felt like thirty agonizing minutes, the terrain shifted beneath me. The crunch of snow was replaced by a slippery, unnerving slickness. Ice.

My gaze lifted to see it—a vast, semi-frozen lake stretching out before me. The light blinked faintly on the other side, impossibly far now. My stomach dropped as I realized the truth. Between me and freedom was this expanse of fragile ice and frigid water.

My body betrayed me then. My legs buckled, the strength draining from them as I collapsed to my knees on the frozen bank. The cold pierced through me like daggers and my breath hitched as the first sob broke free, raw and guttural.

I couldn't do it.

The tears came hot and fast, freezing on my cheeks almost instantly. The futility of it all hit me like a tidal wave. I had come so far, and for what? To be stopped by this cruel, uncaring force of nature.

The water lapped at the edges of the ice, dark and merciless. I could hear it, faint but steady, the sound of it crashing against the shore like a mocking laugh.

I doubled over, my forehead pressing into the snow as I wept. My hands clenched into fists, pounding weakly at the ground beneath me. Why? Why couldn't I just escape?

The cold crept in, stealing the last remnants of warmth from my body. My fingers, already numb, no longer felt the snow. My legs were heavy, immobile as if the ice had already claimed them. I wanted to move, to stand, to scream—but I couldn't.

Judas always finds me. Always.

The thought whispered through my mind, soft and insidious. Why fight it? Why keep running when the end was inevitable?

The icy wind howled around me, drowning out the sounds of the world. My eyelids grew heavy, my body sinking deeper into the snow as I let it take me. For once, the cold didn't hurt. It was almost... comforting.

As the edges of my vision blurred, that mocking red light blinked one last time, far and unreachable. The thought came unbidden, bitter and full of despair.

Even freedom didn't want me.

And then, I let go, letting the ice and snow consume me.

*****

For those whore saying the book is getting boring just because Judas didn't punish Sera, I want you guys to consider that there is a phase in the book that's called Character development, if punishes her, forces her and rapes her, that's the part where the book is not moving forward. That means the book has stilled. So, please have patience, if you are waiting for a spicy chapter, it will come soon and don't it won't be boring. Just go with the flow.