Why do I keep attracting Villainesses?

Chapter 43: 3RD POV.

"Since you made it, I only wanted to help you adapt to your new body, but you just had to make everything difficult!" Persephone yelled at him.

She wasn’t holding back anymore. All the frustration she had kept inside was pouring out.

"If only you’d listened to me and killed that darn thing, I wouldn’t have done that," she added, her eyes flashing with a mix of anger and regret.

"It’s your fault, not mine! I only wanted to help, but not once did you give me a chance." She stopped for a second, her body trembling.

She unconsciously glanced down at her legs, or rather, where her tail would have been if she were in her true state.

"But it’s normal to you, right?" she whispered, though the words still carried a sting.

"Because I look more like a shark, you detested me from the very beginning. Unlike her." She was talking about Artria again.

Artria, who looked much more like a human woman with a graceful fish tail.

Her sister, who fit the "beautiful mermaid" image that people dreamed about.

"Just because I looked different, you decided I was nothing more than a monster," Persephone said.

Her voice cracked, and the tears that had been threatening to fall finally began to drift away into the salty water.

"Wait a minute... I didn’t, I mean..." Jacob stammered.

Right now, he didn’t know what to say.

He felt like he had been punched in the gut.

Was she actually right? Had he been judging her based on her appearance all this time? He thought back to the first time he saw her.

He had been terrified, sure, but had he also been disgusted? He remembered how he had looked at Artria and felt a sense of relief because she looked "normal" and kind.

Had he looked at Persephone and seen only the predator?

’No, it can’t be. How is it my fault?’ Jacob tried to argue with himself.

No matter how he tried to wrap his head around it, he just couldn’t see it.

He had a good reason to fear her! She had kidnapped him! She had changed his body without asking!

"That still doesn’t change the fact that you almost killed me!" he shouted back, trying to regain his footing in the argument.

He couldn’t let her make him feel like the bad guy. Not after everything he had been through.

"Because you wouldn’t listen!" she yelled back, her face getting closer to his. "Do you really think this world is fair? Even down here in the sea, everything isn’t all colorful."

" If you want to survive on your own, you need to be stronger. Mercy is a luxury for the people who are already at the top. For people like you, it’s not reasonable!"

Jacob scoffed at her remark. Was that really her excuse to harm the weak? He found it disgusting.

In his mind, there was a big difference between surviving and being a bully.

At least killing simple-minded fish when hungry was more acceptable than killing some manatee just to show you could.

One was about eating; the other was simply being a monster.

"Is that what you told yourself after killing your parents?" he muttered.

The silence that followed was heavy and terrifying.

Persephone’s pupils constricted into tiny pinpricks the instant the words left his mouth.

The air, or the water, around them seemed to freeze.

Jacob realized he had gone too far the second he saw the look in her eyes.

It wasn’t just anger anymore. It was something much deeper.

Before Jacob could even react or raise his hands, he found himself slammed hard onto the floor of the cave.

The impact was so strong that the earth beneath him caved in, sending up a cloud of sand and crushed stone. The back of his head throbbed with a new, sharp pain.

"ARCK!"

Jacob choked on his words as her hands clamped around his neck. She was sitting atop him, pinning his arms down with her weight.

Each pressure she added caused the ground to cave in even more.

Her expression was livid, her teeth bared in a snarl that looked more animal than human.

She was squeezing hard, her claws digging into his skin.

"Wasrth? Des I strigh a nerve?" (What, did I strike a nerve?) he managed to wheeze out.

His voice wasn’t understandable; it was just a series of wet, gargled sounds.

He was being strangled, and his lungs were starting to burn again, but he didn’t care.

Just like her, He was also angry, and he wanted her to feel the same sting he had felt.

Even as he felt her grip growing stronger, even as the world began to dim at the edges, he still refused to show an ounce of fear on his face.

He stared back at her, his eyes full of defiance.

"#£5647£#£’bbsd" (I’ll accept the fact that you saved me all this while, and yet I refused to acknowledge it, but the one thing I’ll never accept is your insane, ruthless ideals!)

He tried to say the words, but they came out as a mess of bubbles and groans.

He wanted her to know that being "saved" didn’t give her the right to own him.

He wanted her to know that he’d rather die than become like her.

******

Several minutes later.

’Crap, maybe I shouldn’t have said that,’ Jacob thought to himself as the pressure on his throat became unbearable.

His vision was already beginning to falter, turning gray and fuzzy.

The red haze of his own bloodlust started to creep back in, but he didn’t have the energy to fuel it.

His face was definitely turning a dark shade of blue as the oxygen was cut off.

He could feel his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird, getting slower and weaker with every passing second.

Persephone didn’t let go. She looked like she was in a trance, her eyes fixed on his as if she were trying to see the very moment his life flickered out.