Snow and her Seven

Chapter 27-Needed Me

Um I have to write these on my phone, omg. It is the most annoying thing, since I am the fastest laptop/comp typer, but with phones I turn into an eighty year old woman who doesn't know technology. 

Sun filtered in through the curtains as Snow sat on her bed, hand idly playing with a lock of Dominic's curly hair. Brutus had had two days and three nights. She slid her hand onto Dominic's face, something lurching in her as he slept soundly. 

She had to protect him. 

She had to protect all of them.

Her usual uniform of death was outfitted onto her- black, spandex leggings, a long sleeved ebony sports top, with a heavy leather trench coat the colour of ink. Snow tied her hair into a tight, precise pony tail then lined her eyes with kohl, laying on the thickness and shadow. When Snow became the killer that she was for Frederick, there was nothing recognizable in her face. Nothing kind, nothing loving, nothing like the person Mavon and her father knew her to be. 

Snow walked from the room, picking up her phone and calling the one number she would forever remember and had memorized at a young age. 

It rang briefly. "Snow?"

She stayed silent for a few moments, opening up a drawer in the lounge that held her guns. If only her father knew. 

"You always say that you love me." She murmured, her icy facade creeping into her conscious and voice, wrapping around it like a frosty viper, built from malice. 

"I do Snow. I do." Gervais murmured, a new kind of fear stabbing at his heart. 

She loaded her guns, clicking them loudly, and at her father's sharp intake of breath, a cruel smile split her face. 

"Sometimes I wonder. Sometimes I wonder if you love me as much as you say you do. I wonder, how could a father listen to his only child break down and not come home? How could...any parent listen to their child hurt and not come home?" 

This new fear set his heart beating rapidly, and he stood from his desk, walking to the door and grabbing his wallet. 

"You left me here. Alone. And you knew how much, how lonely I was. I couldn't handle the silence, I couldn't handle the weight of my own memories, and you still fucking left me here. To grow up cold, alone and...You left me dad." The last syllable broke in the air, years of loneliness, rejection and pain encompassed in that single sentence. 

"I didn't want any of this. I just wanted a dad. But even if you didn't love me as much as you say you did- I meant what I said. I love you daddy, and I always will." Snow murmured, standing tall now that she had tucked her last gun away. 

"What are you talking about Snowflake? Why does this sound like a good bye?" Gervais panicked, fumbling with his keys into his car. Where was she going? What was she doing? 

"Love you dad. I'll...see you later." 

Snow hung up over his panicked shouts, quelling the guilt inside and freezing it so well, she almost felt nothing. And after a few seconds, when she was staring at the sky with a cold breeze blowing onto her face, she felt nothing. 

Snow grasped that nothingness, coating everything in her with it, then walked to her jeep, jumping in it and steeling herself for the inevitable. 

Brutus hadn't been able to kill Landon, he should have been back by now. 

"Never send a man to do a woman's work." She murmured, pulling out of her drive and starting on the path to Landon's. 

________

He had been falling in and out of pain for the past few days- if he had even been there for days. That was the thing about pain, it guaranteed you losing track of everything but trying to numb the agony that ran through you. Brutus had been through pain, had to go through pain to be as powerful as he was today. But Landon...Landon was a mystery. No one really knew anything about him- and that was where Brutus had went wrong.

He hadn't researched. He hadn't dug deeper. And now here he was, wrapped in chains, barely conscious, with blood coating every inch of his skin and clothes. He had to give it to Landon, he knew how to break people. 

That sociopath didn't just put you through physical torture, but also emotional torture. Making you regret things. Brutus knew that deeply, because more than the wounds weeping on his body, his mind was filled with a despair that was centered around Snow Black. 

She had protected him. Protected him, his brother, and all the Seven from being ruined. 

He even knew about her past. 

About her psychopathic mother who had tried to kill her own daughter, beating her with guns and into silence. Hammering, pounding and mauling Snow into the hard, cold person she was today. 

"Her mother tried to kill her you know. Constantly. She'd break her bones, lock her in rooms with no food or drink, make her stare down guns as she played Russian Roulette with her own daughter." Landon said casually, as if he were talking about the weather. Brutus froze completely, feeling everything in him go still.

Landon lit up a smoke, taking a long, thoughtful drag before exhaling luxuriously. "That woman- Karinena Black- she's beautiful. Even though she's drained by that mental hospital she's chained to, she's still beautiful. The ability she has to...completely shatter people is admirable." He chuckled briefly, a sick sort of affection on his face. "I would love her if I had the capacity to love. She's everything I've wanted in a woman."

Brutus fought the urge to spit in his face, instead speaking. "Then why take Snow?"

Landon's gaze slid to him, knowing and smug. "Before, she was everything I wanted in a pet. Now, she's everything I want in a..." He thought, tapping a finger on his chin before turning his attention back to Brutus. "Yes, she's everything I've wanted in a wife. Someone who listens to my every whim and bears me children, but has the beauty of a Queen of Ice and wrath of a blizzard." 

Brutus's heart sped up, disgust and anxiety pumping through his body. He wanted her as a caged animal. One who bred pure children, and obeys him with absoluteness. That was still a pet. Trepidation lined his mind, and he mentally wished he had killed Landon when he had had a chance. 

A moment's hesitation had cost him everything. 

Landon sat down, crossing one leg languidly over the other. "Snow Black. Daughter of a psychopath and a deserter, abused by her mother and subsequent foster family, a lonely, lonely girl." He winked at Brutus, a light gleaming in his gaze. "The lonely, hurt ones are the easiest to manipulate. Because once they find a friend," Landon leaned closed to Brutus, placing a hand on his bloody face and squeezing. 

"They'll do anything to keep them safe."