Chapter 3: Pride and Prejudice
The ramen shop’s fluorescent lights buzzed like trapped flies. Steam rose in lazy curlicues from the bowls between them, fogging the grimy window overlooking the rain-slicked alley.
Jules broke apart his chopsticks with a practiced snap. “Leo does pro-bono work sometimes,” he said, not looking up as he stirred his noodles. His voice was too casual, a weapon disguised as an offhand remark. “Friend of mine.Therapizes people. The nightmares, he’s good with that stuff.”
Sera’s chopsticks froze halfway to her mouth, a tangle of noodles dripping broth back into the bowl. The wound was so sudden, so precise, it stole her breath. She felt her face go hot, then cold. Damaged.Charity case. The words hung in the air, unspoken but louder than the sizzle from the kitchen.
“I don’t need a shrink, Jules,” she said, her voice thin. She lowered the chopsticks, the food suddenly looking like something dredged from a sewer.
“Didn’t say you did. Said he could help.” Jules finally met her eyes, his gaze steady. “There’s no shame in it, kid.”
But there was. To her, in that moment, there was nothing but shame. The shame of being broken, of being the wounded bird he’d taken in, of the gun he cleaned that was more comfort to him than she could ever be. She pushed the bowl away. The rich, porky scent of the tonkotsu turned cloying, then foul, like ash and copper in the back of her throat.
She stood up so fast the stool screeched. “I’m not hungry.”
She left him there, a phantom in the orange neon glow, staring at her untouched meal, the perfect spirals of fish cake already beginning to sink. She walked the fifteen blocks back to the apartment in the drizzle, the wet cement smelling of ozone and decay.
It was three days before she came out again. Three days of muffled sounds from the other side of her door—his phone calls, the creak of floorboards, the distant blare of action movies he put on too loud, as if trying to lure her out with the sound of fake gunfire. On the evening of the third day, he knocked, not on the door, but on the wall beside it.
“Your turn to pick the takeout,” he called through the plaster. “I’m sick of my own shitty cooking.”
The normality of it was the hook. Slowly, she opened the door. He was leaning against the hallway wall, holding two menus. He didn’t comment on her puffy eyes or the sweatshirt she’d been living in.
They ate Chinese from the containers, sitting on the floor of the living room with a movie playing silently on the screen. When the last noodle was gone, Jules crumpled his box. The sound was final.
“You can’t live in that room forever, Sera.”
She focused on a loose thread on her sleeve. “I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” He leaned forward, forearms on his knees. The tattoos there—a twisted rose, a stylized dagger—seemed to tighten with the movement. “This? This isn’t living. It’s hiding in my fucking closet. And I get it. God, I get wanting to hide. But you’re gonna wither away in there. I can’t… I can’t watch that.”
Her throat tightened. “So what, you’re kicking me out?”
“I’m telling you I can’t fix this for you.” His voice dropped, rough with a frustration she knew wasn’t directed at her. “I can keep you safe from whatever’s out there. I can put a bullet in anyone who looks at you wrong. But I can’t fight the thing that’s already in here.” He tapped a finger against his own temple. “You gotta do that. And you can’t do it alone in the dark. You have to talk about it.”
The silence stretched, filled only by the silent car chase on the television. She saw the burner phone on the coffee table, the one he’d slid to her weeks ago.An unanswered demand. This was softer, but it was the same question.
“I’ll think about the therapist,” she whispered, the words tasting foreign.
He just nodded, the tension in his shoulders easing a fraction. “Okay.”
The next day, he said they were out of everything. Coffee, chips, the weird sparkling water she liked. “We’re going to the store,” he announced, a command disguised as an errand.
She went, shrouded in one of his hoodies. He didn’t take her to a grim bodega. He drove to a bustling district, all bright signs and crowded sidewalks. He dragged her into a few clothing stores, pointing at graphic tees—some anime, some band logos. “You need something that’s actually your size,” he grumbled, holding up a shirt with a roaring kaiju on it. She almost smiled.
Then he steered her toward a tiny Korean street food stall, its window glowing with photos of crispy, sugar-dusted spirals. “Heard these are a thing,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “A Korean corn dog? I’ve wanted to try one forever.” The delight in her own voice surprised her.
They ate them leaning against a planter, the cheese and potato coating hot and gloriously greasy. She laughed when a string of mozzarella stretched comically from her mouth to the stick. For a moment, standing there in the humming city with junk food in her hand, she was just a girl. Not a survivor, not a victim.Just Sera. She saw Jules notice it too, saw a faint, real smile touch his eyes as he watched the life, timid but undeniable, seep back into her face.
It lasted until they turned the corner.
There, plastered across a bus shelter, was a poster for a clothing brand. The model wore a flowing linen dress, her hair a specific shade of artfully messy blonde. She held a single peony. It was the same flower, the same shade of blonde, the same ethereal aesthetic Damien had fetishized. The Cult of the Dawning Light’s whole visual palette, sanitized and sold back to the world.
Sera’s smile didn’t fade so much as shatter. The light in her eyes guttered out, replaced by a blank, terrifying distance. The half-eaten corn dog fell from her hand, landing in the gutter with a soft, sad sound.
“Hey,” Jules said, his voice sharp. He followed her line of sight to the poster, and his jaw hardened. He didn’t ask. He simply took her elbow, a firm but gentle steer, and turned her away, putting his body between her and the image. He led her back to the car, and she moved like a sleepwalker, the miles back to the apartment passing in a silent, hollow blur.
The weeks that followed were a cruel tide. There were good days, where she’d watch movies with him, even making quiet commentary. She started doodling in a notebook—heroic figures with swords, echoes of the manga she’d loved. She ate, sometimes with real hunger.
Then the tide would recede, and the abyss would swallow her whole. A smell, a sound, a certain quality of light through the torn blinds—anything could be the trigger. She’d retreat to the guest room, locking the door, and would not emerge for days. Jules would leave trays of food by the door; most went untouched. The silence from behind the door was worse than any nightmare scream. He heard her crying sometimes, a low, animal sound of pure despair that made his hands curl into fists so tight his knuckles turned white.
He felt utterly, desperately useless. He could broker deals, enforce territories, inspire fear with a look. But he couldn’t fight a ghost that lived inside her skin. The burner phone on the table, the one she’d never used, felt like an accusation.
So he made a call.
The woman Jules brought over looked nothing like Sera’s idea of a therapist.Dr. Anya Sato was young, dressed in dark jeans and a leather jacket, her hair shaved on one side. She had calm eyes and no-nonsense hands. Jules introduced them, his posture taut. “An hour,” he said to Sera, a plea and an order in one. Then he left, closing the apartment door behind him with a definitive click, giving them the space he knew she needed.
Silence choked the living room. Sera sat curled in the corner of the sofa, arms wrapped around herself, staring at a water stain on the ceiling.
“Jules is worried about you,” Anya began, her voice neutral.
“I don’t want to be here,” Sera muttered to the stain.
“He said you have nightmares. Flashbacks.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not eating. You’re isolating. That’s not fine. That’s someone drowning.”
Something snagged in Sera’s chest.A spark. “You don’t know anything.”
“Then tell me. What’s so much worse than starving yourself in a dark room?”
The spark caught. “You think it’s that simple?” Sera’s head snapped around, her eyes blazing with sudden, furious tears. “You think it’s just bad dreams? It’s in the food. It’s in the light. It’s in every fucking flower and every kind voice! You don’t know what it’s like to have something beautiful turned into a cage!”
Anya didn’t flinch. “So he used beauty. He used kindness. To get to you.”
“He saw me!” Sera exploded, the words tearing free like shrapnel. “At first, he just… saw me. In a way no one else did. He said I was special. That I was chosen. The attention was like… like water in a desert. And then, it wasn’t a request anymore. It was a direction.My clothes. My friends.My thoughts. If I prayed enough, if I was pure enough…” She was shaking now, the memories flooding the locked gates. “He started touching me.Not asking. Just… taking. As if my body was just another part of the… the ritual. And then… the others.They never asked either. It was just… my duty. My purification.”
She was gasping, the room swimming. Anya’s face remained a calm, safe shore in the hurricane. “Where did this happen?”
“The old chemistry building.The basement. They had… rooms. And then… the box.For disobedience. For impure thoughts.” Her voice dropped to a haunted whisper. “It was dark. So small.For days. They’d let me out for… for the ceremonies.”
She started to rock, back and forth, back and forth. The words kept coming, a toxic spill she could no longer contain. “They had an altar. It wasn’t symbolic. It was… stone.Cold. They called it the Final Communion.” Her eyes were wide, unseeing, fixed on a horror replaying in the empty air between them. “The first time… it was a girl. I knew her.From my French class. They held her down. They cut her throat. And the blood… they collected it in a… in a chalice. They made me drink. They said it was to take her strength, her light into myself. They said it was love.”
A dry, heaving sob wracked her frame. “And the flesh… they cooked it. Like meat. They said it was the Lamb. They made everyone eat. You had to eat. To be one with the congregation. To be… cleansed. I’m never forget, I’ll never get that taste my of my mouth. And how many girls they killed..”
She was breaking apart, fragmenting in the worn fabric of Jules’ sofa. “He’d whisper while we… while they… he’d whisper prayers. He said God was pleased. He said it was holy. He said… he said it was love….but, that’s not God, not the God I know. He worshiped the devil.”
The last word was a ruin. She collapsed into herself, the horrors echoing in the silent room, no longer locked away, but out in the open air, festering and real. She repeated them, fragments of the unspeakable, a litany of violation and sacrilege whispered into the quiet. “The blood… the box… the screaming… the taste… it was salt and metal and… and it was holy… he said it was love…the last night, he held my hands against the blade and he made me…he made me…” she looks down at her hands in horror. “He made me…slit her throat..I felt, I felt the life drain from her. I saw her fear. I-I tried to escape. They locked me in the box, covered in the girls blood, but they left me with my hairpin and I picked the latch to get out…and I came to the only place left in the world where I knew I’d be safe..”
The door to the apartment was thick, but not thick enough. Jules, who had been leaning against the wall in the hallway, listening to the muffled rise and fall of voices, heard the final, shattering wave of her confession. He heard the raw, unbearable truth of it.
His head tilted back until it met the wall with a soft thud. His eyes, fixed on the ceiling, burned with a liquid fire. Every muscle in his body went rigid, a wire pulled taut to snapping. The charm, the casual ease, all of it was gone, stripped away to reveal the brutal foundation beneath.
A cold, precise fury settled into his bones, a blueprint for destruction. The chemistry building. The basement.
He knew exactly what he was going to do.