Divine Singularity || Reader x Murder Drones

IV

J stood, peeking around a corner, the shadows swallowing her whole as she watched the scene unfold before her. Her core churned with a sickening mix of dread and rage, her fingers twitching at her sides, helpless to act.

The moment she'd stepped into Tessa's room and found it empty, she had known something was wrong. But this—this was far worse than she had anticipated.

She had moved through the halls in growing panic, checking every room, every corridor, her movements silent but frantic. She hadn't called out—she couldn't risk the master or mistress hearing her—but the fear had only mounted with each empty room, with each step that led her closer to this.

And now, hidden in the darkness of the hallway, she could do nothing but watch.

Louisa Elliot stood tall before Tessa, who in turn looked meek and small. Like a kitten compared to a tiger. Both stood in front of the basement hatch, with a few other drone servants waiting on standby. Louisa herself was in her nightgown, its pristine white an ill-fitting contrast to the venom laced in her voice.

"What did I tell you about going to that rancid scrapyard?"

Tessa stood before her mother, small and trembling, her fingers gripping the fabric of her own nightgown as if she could shrink into herself and disappear.

"N-not to, mother...," she whispered, voice barely above a breath.

Louisa scoffed, flicking her fan open with a snap. "Exactly. I tell you not to rummage around outside like some desperate gutter rat, and what do you do? You dare to disobey me? To bring home yet another one of your filthy little strays?" Her eyes narrowed in distaste, the fan snapping shut just as quickly as it had opened. "And off-color, no less."

J tensed.

There were only two drones in this manor who weren't fitted with the standard white optics—the first was Cyn, the supposed "little antichrist" as Louisa so fondly called her. But Louisa didn't call her "off-color."

That left only one other.

You.

J's core sank. Both you and J had returned from the scrapyard with Tessa. That meant Louisa must have seen you. This was the first time the mistress had laid eyes on you, and it wasn't hard to deduce that Tessa had brought you back from the scrapyard, disobeying her parents.

Tessa must have realized the same, her shoulders curling inward. "I'm s-sorry, mother," she meekly apologized.

Louisa sighed, her expression tight with disappointment as she lifted her fan. J saw it before it even happened.

Her fingers twitched, and she saw Louisa's hand reel back. The sound was sharp—flesh meeting flesh in a single, vicious backhand.

Tessa's head snapped to the side, a strangled cry escaping her as she crumpled to the floor, a thin line of saliva trailing from her lips where the impact had landed.

J clamped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from gasping aloud. Her frame locked in place as a sick, cold sensation wrapped itself around her core. She had seen Tessa scuffed up before—small injuries from tinkering, minor scrapes from working with drones—but this was different. It never got any easier seeing Tessa treated like this—like a thing rather than a person. J would always look away whenever it happened, cause she couldn't bear to see her owner get hurt.

But this time, she could only watch. Helpless.

Louisa huffed as if she was the one inconvenienced, turning on her heel. "You need to be punished for your insolence," she declared, flicking her fan open once more. "You will spend the night chained in the basement. Since you adore your little trash heap so much, you can sleep with the antichrist."