Valentina lay in the wreckage of her own life, her mind a shattered mirror reflecting only corpses and blood. The temporal visions Rex had forced upon her acted like acid, eating away at her sanity.
She could still feel the phantom sensation of Helena's bones snapping; she could still hear the wet gurgle of Lily's final breath. The trauma was so profound that her body began to reject itself, her muscles seizing in involuntary spasms.
'Please,' her mind whispered, a broken, pathetic thing. 'Please, not them. Anything but them.'
"Please..." The word finally broke free from her lips, not as a command or a curse, but as a wet, desperate plea.
She dragged herself toward Rex's boots, her fingernails leaving crimson streaks on the marble as she prostrated herself before him. "Stop... please stop showing me those things."
She looked up at him, her face a mask of agony, tears mixing with the blood streaming from her nose. "I'll do it."
"I'll give you... everything."
