DA Meadow: The Hellbent and the Broken (Jason Todd) BOOK 2

Seventy One: Grade A Friend

I dream of a red snake.

It slithers like a bad omen across the floor of my living room, fork tongue flickering in and out of its fanged mouth. It isn't thick, but it stretches far longer than the length of my apartment, tail coiled like hose in the kitchen. A scarlet-scaled back is dotted with yellow angular shapes.

Sharp fangs drip with blood as it closes in on an unmasked victim, already exhausted from a one-sided battle, collapsed in my favourite armchair.

I can't tell who is what. Am I the victim? Am I the snake? Is Jason either? Simon? Rose? Something else entirely?

My own subconsciousness tries to dissect the very vision it is producing in my slumber. Even in sleep I am unable to give up the curiosity. However, I get my answer sooner than I expect, in plain form.

The snake raises its arrow head into the air, lithe body following it. Am I the victim, or the culprit?

Its body moves in hypnotic motions, swaying left to right towards the arya leather seat, weighing its attack. Will it strike with fangs or coil around like a rope?

All questions are answered in less than a second.

The snake strikes with gleaming fangs bared, as sharp as any blade when they sink into the throat of the victim. Blood splashes in unrealistic amounts; against the walls, gushing over the carpet and raining down on me.

It is an ocean of red which burns like acid against my ankles. And I realise- I'm looking at my own ankles. When I raise my head I realise I am neither the snake nor the victim.

I am the observer.

The snake turns to me with its victim clutched between growing jaws. It slithers and continues that reptilian swaying dance towards me, increase in size until I am craning my neck to see it. The movements are hypnotising as everything else in the room seems to turn to dust.

I am standing alone in a scarlet ocean, with a snake consuming a faceless body.

Eyes the colour of glaciers; a cold, pale, soulless blue, bore into my soul like they own me.

All I can do is stare on at the knowing, oh so familiar gaze.

Bloods trickles down the serpent's smirk.

"Venus!" 

I slap my hands down on the table and sit up straight, pushing up from my desk and rocketing into the back of my office chair. For a second my eyes can not focus with the lengthy beast's silhouette lurking in my vision.

"Venus?" Kalie's voice snaps through my com again. It isn't in me to respond, so I'm not surprised when my door is being pushed open and my secretary appears, looking angry at first before shifting to concern. 

I must look nuts with my eyes wide, my face flushed and my mouth opening and closing, because I just can't get the words out.

"Hey," Kalie sooths softly, moving across the room towards me.

Red snake. 

It might not be as symbolic as I thought.

"I need to go to Crime Alley," I finally get out, jumping to my feet. She might know, or one of the kids perhaps.

Kalie reaches my desk with a frown, shaking her head.

"N-No, you can't. You have a case in an hour, before the first election debates."