CHAPTER ELEVEN (R-rated)

The Apple of Knowledge

Aug 10, 2026

She tasted knowledge
and discovered that
sin was never in the apple.
It was in the blood.

ROSE

The bathroom smelled like Astrid. Lavender, vanilla, and some expensive nonsense with a citrusy aftertaste. I stood in front of her sink and took whatever I needed.

My things had mysteriously disappeared during the month I’d been gone. Either she’d hidden them somewhere, or she’d simply decided I wasn’t going to need them anymore.

I turned on the hot water. Stepped under the shower. And let it wash the traces of the night away. I reached for the razor and shaving foam, slowly shaving everything.

My legs. My groin. Every intimate part.

Smooth skin. A clean canvas.

When I stepped out, the mirror was drowning in steam. I wiped it clear with my palm and stared at my reflection.

I picked up a comb. After a few strokes, a handful of blonde hairs remained caught between its teeth. Well... Almost blonde.

I brought them closer to my eyes. The roots weren’t platinum anymore. They were dark. Almost black.

I pushed my wet fringe aside. The exact same shade was already growing from my scalp.

I shrugged. “Well... at least I’ll save money on the hairdresser.”

I reached for the toothbrush, squeezed some toothpaste onto it, and started brushing.

Crack! Something hard struck the porcelain.

A tooth. Still attached to a long root, coated in bloody foam.

For several seconds, I simply stared at it in silence. Carefully, I ran my tongue over my gums.

Crack! Crack! More teeth dropped into the sink.

For a moment, I had no idea what to do. It wasn’t panic.

It was that horrible feeling you get when you suddenly realise your own body is doing something without your permission. You become afraid to move, as if a single breath might make everything worse.

Then the pain came. First pressure. Then a sharp, throbbing ache. My gums stretched with every breath. My jaw hurt so badly I could barely close my mouth.

New teeth began pushing their way through my gums. Longer. Sharper.

I touched the upper fang with my finger. I clumsily sliced the pad of my index finger on its tip. “Jesus...”

A drop of blood detached from my skin and fell into the sink. A tiny red circle spread across the porcelain.

Saliva suddenly filled my mouth. I stared at that single drop. For one heartbeat, I wanted to bring my injured finger to my lips.

Instead, I quickly turned on the cold water and rinsed my finger beneath the steady stream.

Only when the blood disappeared down the drain did I realise I’d been holding my breath. I lifted my face toward the mirror.

A girl with darkening hair stared back at me, the corners of her mouth stained with blood and a smile sharp enough to open a tin can.

It was suspiciously a lot of changes for one morning.

But honestly? I’d expected something much worse. This actually had a certain style to it.

My stomach growled loudly. I went downstairs to the ground floor. The mansion was suspiciously quiet. The only sounds were a vacuum cleaner in the distance and muffled swearing that, judging by the creativity, could only belong to Shawn.

“Breakfast...” I muttered to myself.

I opened the kitchen door and immediately closed it again. That image had already burned itself into my mind. I opened it again, this time more carefully.

Erick was sitting on the kitchen counter, his hands braced against the wood. His shirt was unbuttoned, and Kara was just getting up from the floor. With a quick movement, she adjusted her smeared lipstick.

Neither of them looked remotely surprised.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Kara greeted me with a smirk.

“Sorry.” I pointed my thumb behind me. “Should I come back later?”

“That won’t be necessary.” Erick swiftly fastened his belt. “The timing wasn’t ideal, but the situation has been resolved.”

“Very thoroughly resolved,” Kara remarked, casually running her tongue over her teeth.

Erick fastened the last button on his cuff before finally giving me a proper look.

At the black fine-mesh turtleneck beneath the corset. At the thigh-high boots.

“Astrid’s wardrobe,” he stated. It wasn’t a question.

“I tried to find the least outrageous thing.”

“That genuinely pleases me.” The corner of his mouth lifted almost imperceptibly. “I was beginning to worry you’d choose latex.”

Just then, footsteps sounded in the hallway.

A half-asleep Shawn staggered into the kitchen. Loose T-shirt. Hair pointing in three different time zones. He blindly opened a cupboard, found his favourite mug by touch, and poured himself some coffee with rum.

“You two...” he sighed weakly. “Have you ever tried pretending to be a normal household, or is traumatising your roommates your shared hobby?”

“We were handling a private matter,” Erick said irritably.

“Uh-huh... a very... orally oriented matter.” He took a sip from his mug. “And you, Astrid 2.0, why are you standing there?”

“I came to make... breakfast?” I spread my hands with an innocent grimace.

“See?” He pointed his mug at Erick. “The girl wants an omelette and instead she gets your falafel.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Erick remarked dryly.

Kara burst out laughing.

“No.” He placed his mug in the sink. “Ever since that one showed up...” His eyes flicked toward her. “I’m afraid to open a door without throwing a grenade through it first.”

He headed for the exit.

Erick hopped down from the counter. As he did, he straightened his cuff. There was a single wrinkle in it. On anyone else, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

I walked past him toward the fridge.

“So...” I glanced at them over the refrigerator door. “I’ll make myself an omelette.”

Eggs, butter, yogurt, cheese, vegetables. I grabbed a strawberry yogurt, peeled back the lid, and took a sniff. Instead of the sweet strawberry smell, a horrific stench hit me.

My face twisted. I threw it into the bin.

I tried the cheese. Same result.

“What the hell is this shit...?”

Eggs. The unfairly ignored classic.

I cracked one into the pan, but the moment the egg white began to set against the hot oil, a smell filled the air that instantly left a lump in my throat.

“It’ll pass. It’s definitely because I haven’t fully recovered from this morning’s chaos,” I muttered, turning off the stove.

I crouched beside the bottom freezer drawer and pulled it open. Inside were carefully arranged vacuum-packed cuts of meat. Beef. Venison. Game.

But my attention stopped on a package at the very back. A handwritten label was stuck to the glossy wrapping: ASTRID.

Until now, my stomach had been turning at anything that even remotely resembled food. But now something different happened.

My fingers touched the frozen plastic. All I had to do was open it. Just snip a little corner off, take a smell.

No one would know.

No one was here.

“Taste it...” The thought came so naturally that, suddenly, it felt like the most logical thing in the world.

My mouth filled with saliva before I even realised why.

Through the vacuum-sealed plastic, I could smell something I hadn’t noticed before—the sweet, spicy scent of human blood.

I couldn’t say when my hand moved.

My fingers were already gripping the edge of the package.

“Rose,” I whispered my own name into the kitchen.

It didn’t help. My fingers were still gripping the edge of the package.

“No!” I jumped back, pressed my back against the kitchen counter, and stood there breathing rapidly, confused.

I’d never wanted raw meat in my life. Never. And certainly not...

My gaze drifted back to the freezer. To the name written in black marker on the white label. A completely ordinary image flashed through my mind.

Astrid in the kitchen. Chopping vegetables. The knife slips. A tiny red drop appears on the tip of her finger.

I instinctively pressed my lips together. The hunger inside me snapped into pure disgust.

“Oh...” came a theatrical sigh from the doorway.

Light was leaning against the frame in fluffy pink slippers.

I didn’t even ask. With this moron, you quickly learned that some questions were better left unanswered.

“What could possibly be more beautiful than the morning sun?” His slimy eyes travelled down my booted thighs. “A hungry beauty with blood on her lips. Shakespeare would throw away his dick for you.”

“Shut up, Light.”

With the muffled tap-tap of his walking cane, he circled the kitchen island. A glittering robe trailed behind him like the cape of some self-proclaimed emperor.

And underneath it... Black G-string…

“Such harsh words. Our little flower is turning into a rose with thorns.” He stopped a metre away from me. “If you keep growing like this, Astrid will have to start locking not only her heart, but the freezer too.”

I stepped forward and kicked him sharply in the knee.

He whimpered. His cane slipped from his hand, and the table creaked as his back slammed into it.

I grabbed him by the robe, stepped closer, and with my free hand squeezed him mercilessly between the legs.

His face went pale. A whimper escaped him in one high-pitched breath.

“If you’re not out of here in a minute, I’ll cripple you so badly your own mother won’t recognise you,” I growled, my upper lip curling back over my sharp white fangs.

A manic spark flickered in his eyes. With the cane tucked under his arm, he quickly limped away. But he wouldn’t be Light if he didn’t try one last time to provoke me.

“By the way,” he called out in his sweetest, most disgusting tone, “you still have Astrid’s spit on your nipples, you horny slut!”

That was a mistake.

I took off after him, the floor vibrating beneath my feet.

When he heard my heavy, rapidly approaching footsteps, he suddenly threw away his cane too and, despite his mangled legs, launched into the sprint of his life.

At the end of the hallway, he tried to take the corner. He didn’t make it. At that speed, with his wrecked knee, he completely lost control.

The hallway echoed with the dull, ugly collision of two bodies, followed by the sound of a shattered cup.

“You disgusting, half-glued pervert!” Kara’s furious voice erupted from around the corner. “My coffee! My chinchilla coat!”

“Madam Helsing, wait, it was Ro—” SLAP!

I leaned my shoulder against the wall and called toward the corner with a wide, toothy grin: “Kara! Get him for me too!”

“With the greatest pleasure!” she shouted. “Bend over, darling!”

A second later came the sharp click of a stiletto heel finding its target.

Light’s voice shot up into frequencies high enough to be heard by bats in the basement. “Aaaaaaargh! Oh, sweet Jesus! Not my little chocolate crown!”

The sun blinded me the moment I stepped into the courtyard. I raised a hand to shield my eyes. In the distance, I heard the steady hum of a lawnmower and the metallic snip of garden shears.

Erick was moving across the lawn in front of the mansion. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up, and he wore delicate leather gardening gloves. It looked absurd.

A man who could decide the fate of dozens of people was now mowing the grass and trimming the rose bushes with that same intense concentration.

My gaze settled on the freshly cut strip of lawn. “I didn’t know you did this yourself.”

“I could leave it to someone else,” he said, carefully sweeping a few blades of grass off the path, “but if you want things done properly, it’s best to get your own hands dirty.”

“Are you that much of a perfectionist?”

He gave me that fatherly look of his.

“Look around you. If you let even one corner grow wild, sooner or later the wilderness will grow over your head and you’ll lose control.”

I walked over to him, took the second pair of shears from the bench, and without asking, started trimming the bush beside him. The strength in my hands was incredible—the thick stems snapped effortlessly beneath the blades.

“Since we’re talking about order and control... where does Kara fit into all of this?” I asked, snipping off a withered bud. “You two are from completely different worlds.”

Erick’s shears stopped. Instead of answering, his eyes wandered past my shoulder.

I turned around.

At the opposite end of the courtyard, beside the pool, Kara was lying on a sun lounger. Of course, completely naked. Dark sunglasses covered her eyes, and she looked as though she were on vacation at some seaside resort rather than in the middle of a mansion full of psychotic vampires.

Scarecrow was kneeling beside her, ceremoniously rubbing tanning oil onto her breasts.

Kara noticed us. She lifted her sunglasses and blew me a theatrical kiss. Then she turned her head toward Erick. With exactly the same enthusiasm, she gave him the middle finger.

“See?” He turned back to the roses. “That’s exactly what I was talking about.”

“You call that a relationship?”

“Kara is a fire,” he said, carefully trimming another branch. “A foolish man tries to put it out. I made that mistake a long time ago. A wise man learns which side of it gives off the heat.”

A sweet, diplomatically packaged answer. Classic Erick.

I moved a step closer.

“I was thinking...” I began more cautiously. “Has there been any progress with the investigation? I mean... my father.”

This time, he looked directly into my eyes.

“Have you managed to track down Viper?” I asked quietly. “Or are the people responsible still running around somewhere out there?”

He didn’t answer. He brushed a tiny blade of grass from my shoulder that I hadn’t even noticed. “I understand you, Rosemary. But right now, I’m more concerned about your health.”

“I’m fine.”

“Really?” He tilted his head. “Since the beginning of our conversation, you’ve cut more than ten branches.”

I instinctively lowered my eyes to the roses. He was right.

“And not once have you looked at the shears.” He gently squeezed my shoulder. “I’d like to make sure your condition hasn’t deteriorated.”

He pulled off his leather gloves and carefully placed them beside the shears.

“If you don’t mind, let’s go to my study.” He held out his hand. “We can talk about your father there too. All right?”

It wasn’t a request. Nor was it an order.

Just a perfectly polite offer that made a person very quickly forget they were allowed to say no.

There wasn’t a single piece of paper on the desk that was even slightly crooked. Even the fountain pen rested perfectly parallel to the edge of the solid wood. The bookshelf behind him was arranged with the precision of military discipline.

“Please, make yourself comfortable, Rosemary.” Erick gestured toward the leather armchair opposite his desk.

I sat down. The leather creaked beneath me.

Meanwhile, he walked over to the cabinet, took out a small medical case, and placed it on the desk. The metal clasps opened with a quiet click.

“Right hand,” he said curtly.

I held it out to him.

His fingers were cold as they settled around my wrist. For the entire time, he watched his watch first. He didn’t look at me.

At that moment, a completely inappropriate thought flashed through my mind.

How easy it would be to yank my hand away, sink my fangs into his throat, and find out whether his blood sang with that strange, sweetish aroma too.

The muscles in my thighs tensed. My breathing quickened. My upper lip lifted almost imperceptibly.

“One hundred and twenty.” He didn’t even look up from his watch.

“Excuse me?” I snapped back to my senses.

“Something upset you.” He released my wrist. “Your face gave you away. Rosemary, what were you just thinking about?”

I looked away. “Everything that’s happening.”

He didn’t ask another question. Instead, he took a small diagnostic light from the case. He leaned closer and shone it into my mouth.

“Interesting.” With a wooden tongue depressor, he carefully pressed against the new fang. “Does it hurt?”

“I constantly feel like... I should bite into something with them.”

He placed the tongue depressor into a paper tissue.

“That is expected.” He closed the case. “Fangs are a tool. They aren’t what’s dangerous.”

He looked as though he were waiting to see if I’d reveal myself.

“What is dangerous is the impulse that makes you use them.”

I leaned deeper into the chair and crossed my arms. “And the investigation, Erick? You promised we’d talk about it.”

He steepled his fingers.

“As for your father and Viper, you don’t need to worry about it, Rosemary. Sebastian is already handling it, and I trust him enough that you don’t need to carry that burden as well.”

“Sebastian... hmm... And what about that girl? The one who was taking out your acquaintances... Lainey?”

His index finger stopped moving along the edge of the desk. So briefly that I wasn’t sure it had even happened.

“Lainey...”

Suddenly, a sharp phone tone came from inside his jacket.

He stood. He stopped halfway through his sentence and pulled out his phone. His expression barely changed. Only his eyes darkened.

“Yes, LaRonica.” He pressed the phone to his ear.

For about a minute, he listened in silence.

“I’ll be there immediately. Goodbye for now.”

He ended the call and slipped the phone back into his jacket pocket.

“Excuse me, Rosemary.” He put on his jacket in one smooth motion. “Something has come up that cannot wait.”

He walked to the door and held it open for me.

“We’ll continue this later.”

So I stepped out into the hallway. I realised one very unpleasant thing.

I had walked into his study with questions.

I walked out without a single answer.

Everyone around me seemed to be playing some elaborate game, feeding me nothing but scraps.

I headed for the library. I needed answers, and the two-storey room filled with old paper and candle wax seemed like the only place where I might find them.

“You’re looking for something that will hurt you again.”

A familiar, whispering voice came from beside the tall window. He sat in his favourite dark-wood chair, surrounded by his usual, utterly genuine boredom.

“I’m looking for the truth, Wraith,” I replied without stopping beside him.

“Truth is a word mortals use to decorate their illusions.” He intertwined his long, pale fingers. “Tell me, if you find it, will you know what to do with it?”

“I’d rather know than live a lie.”

“Oh, a lie is often merely armour protecting us from a world we’re not prepared for. Are you certain you want to take it off?”

I ignored his philosophising and began searching through the shelves.

First, I reached for a file on tooth fairies—I needed to understand what was happening to my own body.

When I slid the book back into place, I noticed an old volume with a metal clasp tucked into the back corner of the shelf.

The rusty lock gave way beneath my fingers.

I opened it. It was an old registry.

On the first page, an elegant handwritten title read: The Order Archives: Known Hunters and Threats.

I turned through pages describing weapons and tactics designed to eliminate inhuman creatures, until I stopped at a yellowed two-page spread containing a faded photograph.

My heart gave an unnatural jolt.

The photograph showed a young man with a sharply cut jaw, a hardened expression, and a massive crossbow. Around his neck hung the same pendant I’d seen at home in the drawer.

Beneath it was a caption: HUNTLEY SCOTT.
Trident Sector. The most effective vampire eliminator of the twentieth century.

My breath caught. My father...

“See?” Wraith’s voice came from the shadows. “You think you’ve found an answer... but haven’t you merely found more questions?”

“He hunted them...” My fingers traced the paper profile of my father. “Then why did they take me in?”

“You believe there was a hint of mercy in it?” He poisoned me with yet another question.

Fingers moved slowly over the faded paper. My eyes fell on the photograph beside it.

A young man with dark hair falling across his face. Even through the faded colours and years, I recognised those features.

Sebastian...

I turned through several more pages.

In the descriptions and handwritten notes, his codename appeared again and again beside my father’s. The texts described their joint operations, tactics, combat reports...

Suddenly, everything began to fall into place.

Sebastian had never been protecting me. I looked back at my father’s photograph. He had been protecting his last trace.

I turned to the next page, and my hand froze completely. Amid the grim reports of eliminations, a small photograph had been inserted separately.

A little girl in a simple dress. Light hair. The same shape of the eyes. The same uncertain clasp of the hands...

As if someone had taken my own childhood photograph and pasted it into this old registry.

“I see you’ve found the only flower in that cemetery of names.”

“Who is she?” I barely recognised my own voice.

“A name you won’t find there.” He leaned deeper into his chair, his fingers moving along the armrest with an unusual, almost reverent slowness. “Delilah Bathory.”

I spun toward him. I’d had enough of hints.

“And what about you?” I demanded bluntly. “Everyone here is playing some kind of role, while you sit there shrouded in smoke, dispensing wisdom. What exactly are you?”

He gave a bitter smile. The sigh that escaped him sounded like dry leaves whispering beneath the wheels of a wagon.

“Napoleon once asked me the same thing.”

I swallowed. My eyes remained fixed on the little girl’s face. She didn’t look like me. She was my face.

“Do you think, dear Rose...” he whispered, “...that you’re the first original, or merely an echo of someone you were once meant to be?”

I stumbled out of the library. That horrible question and the name Delilah Bathory were still echoing in my head. I needed air—anything that didn’t smell like century-old paper and ancient secrets.

I ended up in the garage behind the mansion.

Even from a distance, muffled, raspy rock was coming from the radio, accompanied by the clinking of metal against metal. The doors stood wide open, and an Impala occupied the centre of the garage.

“If you came looking for Four-Eyes, I don’t know where he is, I don’t know where he went, and honestly, I couldn’t give less of a shit,” Shawn’s irritated voice called out.

He slid out from underneath the car on a mechanic’s creeper.

His hair was a mess, a smear of black motor oil streaked one cheek, and he was holding a massive wrench.

“Jesus...” He put it down on a rag and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “What the hell happened to you? Did Erick finally accept an application to his embroidery club?”

“Something like that.” I leaned against the side of the open garage door.

Shawn studied me with his blue eyes. No pressure. No stupid questions. He stood, reached into a small fridge, and pulled out two bottles of beer. He tossed one to me.

I caught it reflexively, almost too fast.

“Nice,” he remarked. “Come on, spill it. What’s got you looking like you’ve been gutted?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“‘Nothing’s wrong with me’ is the biggest lie women ever came up with, right after ‘I don’t want anything else.’”

He walked over to the Impala and gently patted the hood.

“This beauty had a seized engine, a fucked transmission, and half the wiring chewed through by mice. You know what fixed it?”

I raised an eyebrow. “A new engine?”

“A little love, loud music, and the fact that I didn’t kick the shit out of her when she was down.” He winked at me and sat on the fender. Then he pointed toward the passenger seat. “Come here.”

Just as uncertainly, I walked over and sat down on the leather seat.

He leaned through the door, turned the radio up louder, and placed a small screwdriver in my hand.

“Since you’re standing around anyway, at least help me. Hold this wire and don’t you dare let go, because if it shorts again, I’ll be swearing like a fucking crow with rabies.”

For a moment, it was easy to pretend the world was still made up of cars, music, and motor oil.

But the silence in my head didn’t last long. The question I’d been trying to suppress slipped out on its own. “Does the name Huntley Scott mean anything to you?”

Shawn was just about to take a drink. He froze halfway through the motion. The beer went down the wrong pipe. He coughed violently, spraying it across the windshield, the bottle dropping to his side.

“Where...” he rasped. “Where did you hear that name?”

My thumb brushed over the plastic handle of the screwdriver.

“...He was my father.”

He slammed the bottle down on the workbench so hard the glass rattled. His fingers remained wrapped around the neck. “So that’s it...”

“What?” I forced myself to look directly into his eyes.

“Now I understand...” He rubbed his face. “Why I grew up without a mother.”

I had no idea what to say. Everything in my head was beginning to scatter into completely new pieces.

“You... you knew, didn’t you?”

When he spoke again, all the lightness had disappeared from his voice. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know anymore...” I flinched.

“Don’t feed me that bullshit.” His voice hardened. “You figured something out!”

My fingers tightened around the metal so hard that the tip bent. “I’m trying to process what the hell is actually happening here.”

A muscle twitched in his cheek. “You don’t know shit about any of this!”

I opened my mouth. He didn’t let me speak.

“Not only have I spent all these years hearing that bastard’s name from Father! Now his daughter is standing here implying that I’m hiding something from her?!”

He kicked the bucket of tools with all his strength. Wrenches, screws, and nuts scattered across the garage with a deafening clatter.

He remained standing with his back to me. “Fuck...”

The anger drained out of him just as violently as it had erupted.

He took one cautious step toward me.

As if only now realising that between us wasn’t just a pile of scattered tools. It was the entire lives of two strangers.

He raised a hand. He wanted to place it on my shoulder.

All I had to do was reach out. An hour ago, there would have been nothing between us to stop me.

“Don’t touch me...” The words came out quieter than I’d expected. That only made them hurt more.

He stopped. His hand remained suspended in the air.

I closed my eyes. It hurt me just as much as it hurt him.

But what frightened me more was the fact that I could no longer tell who I was actually hurting.

Him? Or myself?

“Please... just leave me alone.” My voice sounded exhausted. “If I stay here with you... I’ll start doubting you too.”

I’d forgotten that the past didn’t bleed only for me. He had just lost his mother all over again. I wanted to apologise.

“For what? For my father? For asking the question? Or for ever coming here in the first place?”

None of the words sounded right.

Shawn lowered his hand. He didn’t say a word.

I walked past him.

Behind me, the radio kept playing. Nobody turned it off.

When the garage door closed behind me, I realised something I hadn’t even considered until then.

All this time, I’d been searching for the person who killed my father.

Not once had it occurred to me that one day, I might also have to carry the weight of knowing who my father killed.

The sun was sinking below the horizon. With my hands buried deep in my pockets, I tried to make sense of everything that had been dumped on me.

The worst part was that I kept replaying his face after I’d told him not to touch me. I didn’t want to think about it. So I kept walking.

The hum of an engine pulled me from my thoughts. A sleek black convertible rolled to a smooth stop beside me on the dusty road. Kara leaned out from behind the wheel.

Despite the approaching night, she was still wearing sunglasses, chewing gum between her lips, while some rough synth-pop blasted from the radio loud enough to wake the dead.

She looked me up and down. “Hop in, sunshine. Let’s get the hell out of here before this holier-than-thou nest gives me measles.”

I hesitated for a moment.

But when I pictured my room, my bed, and another few hours spent thinking about everything, I opened the door and climbed into the passenger seat.

Kara snickered, shifted gears, and slammed her foot onto the accelerator.

The convertible shot forward, carrying us straight into the wilderness.

We were sitting in the back booth of a tucked-away, questionably lit bar in the city center. Three empty vodka shot glasses were already scattered across the table, and Kara had just nodded at the bartender to bring us another round.

“You know what’s funny?” She knocked back another shot. “If you dressed an etiquette encyclopedia in an expensive suit, shoved a stick up its ass, and gave it a superiority complex, you’d get Erick.”

I sank deeper into the booth. “If you hate him so much, why are you even with him?”

Kara leaned across the table. Her jacket shifted as she moved, revealing parts of her tattoos. Black lines disappeared beneath the edge of the fabric—roses, skulls, and tiny hummingbirds scattered between them.

“Because the easiest way to destroy a family...” she whispered, “...is to wipe it out from the inside, sunshine.”

“Wipe it out from the inside...”

It could have been a provocation. Drunken nonsense. Or one of those things Kara said with a smile that only made sense once you realized there had been truth hidden underneath.

She leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. The tight mesh skirt pulled against her as she moved, the pattern of the fabric leaving very little to the imagination.

Without realizing it, I bit my lower lip, and my thighs pressed together beneath the table.

Kara noticed, of course. Or at least she looked like she did.

Her tall gothic boots caught the dim bar light with every movement. A tiny bead of sweat appeared at her temple. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, seemingly completely unconcerned with what she was doing to me.

“Want some?” She pulled a rolled joint from her purse.

“Give it here.” I motioned for her to pass it over.

I took a drag. The smoke lingered on my tongue. The alcohol wasn’t helping much either, but the tension beneath my ribs suddenly loosened.

“What do they mean?” I pointed toward her chest.

Kara shrugged off her jacket and tossed it over the back of the booth.

I swallowed dryly. Heat rushed into my face.

“The skulls?” She tapped one with her fingernail. “Old times. Memories of the Reapers.”

She traced one of the hummingbirds.

“That was my mother’s nickname.”

“And the roses?” My breath caught somewhere between an inhale and an exhale.

“Those?” She took my hand, as though the answer were painfully obvious. “Because they’re cool.”

Without breaking eye contact, she guided my index finger along the curve of her breast, deliberately circling the hardened nipple before stopping my finger against the dark ink.

“But if you want...” she breathed into my ear, “...I can explain every little detail.”

“I can figure that out myself.” I pulled my hand back and took another drink instead.

“You know what’s most beautiful about you, sunshine?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “That when you stop being afraid, you become fucking dangerous.”

0:00

-3:39

An hour later, the night in Stockholm had turned into absolute madness. The wind tore through our hair as the neon lights of the city blurred around us into streaks of color.

Every now and then, Kara glanced at me, that same wildness in her eyes mixed with a strange, provocative tension.

“Watch this!” she shouted, yanking the wheel and pulling off a perfect drift around an empty roundabout. The tires screamed, leaving smoking black marks across the asphalt.

Without hesitation, she slammed on the gas and headed toward the industrial district on the outskirts of Stockholm. The pounding bass and screaming engines could already be heard from a distance.

An abandoned warehouse complex blazed beneath the lights of dozens of cars. Illegal night racing. Crowds. Gasoline. Bets. Adrenaline so thick you could almost cut it with a knife.

“Feel like making some money?” Kara shouted over the roar of the engine as she pulled the convertible straight onto the starting line beside a gray Nissan GT-R.

“How much are you putting up?” its driver yelled.

“Fuck all,” Kara replied.

The crowd burst out laughing.

“Then what the hell are you betting?” someone shouted.

Kara rested her elbow on the door and shrugged with complete seriousness. “If you win... you get both of us for the whole night.”

I turned toward her with a murderous glare. “Are you fucking insane?!”

“Quit whining.” She shifted into first. “I don’t plan on losing tonight.”

A girl carrying a flag stepped onto the starting line.

The roar of the engines drowned out even the pounding of my heartbeat.

The grass, alcohol, and my newly heightened senses pushed my perception into overdrive. I could see every movement. Hear every piston.

The flag dropped.

The convertible’s tires bit into the asphalt with a savage scream. The sudden acceleration slammed me back into the seat.

The Nissan launched slightly faster thanks to its all-wheel drive, but Kara shifted gears with the confidence of a seasoned racer.

First corner. A sharp ninety-degree turn between rows of old shipping containers.

The Nissan started braking.

“Hold on!” Instead of touching the brakes, Kara yanked the wheel and pulled the handbrake.

The convertible swung sideways. Only inches separated us from the corrugated metal walls of the containers.

The finish line appeared at the end of the straight.

The Nissan was practically glued to our rear bumper.

Kara clenched her teeth and pressed a button on the dashboard. The car shot forward so violently that the air was knocked out of both our lungs.

We won by a single car length.

The crowd erupted. Lights flashed as we came to a stop inside a cloud of tire smoke.

“You’re fucking insane!” I grabbed my stomach, laughing breathlessly. “You’re completely fucking insane!”

“I told you not to underestimate me!” She grabbed me by the shoulders.

The organizer walked over and tossed a thick bundle of cash through the window.

Kara threw it into my lap: “What should we do with it?”

“Give it to Shawn and Aeshan.” I ran my fingers over the bundle of money. “They could definitely use it for the shelter.”

I didn’t know whether I was doing it because of her, the alcohol, the weed, or simply because I’d spent the entire day needing to stop thinking about everything.

I grabbed her by the collar and pulled her into a raw, impulsive kiss.

She kissed me back with the same ferocity she had taken that corner.

The convertible was parked in a dark, dead-end alley between old brick warehouses. The neon lights couldn’t reach this far; the only illumination came from the faint glow of the moon and the muted red light of the dashboard.

The seats were reclined, and rules and restraints had been left far behind us. We were tangled up in each other in a wild, desperate rhythm—hips pressed together, thighs intertwined, the touch of our bodies against the leather seat.

Kara breathed hoarsely into the darkness, and all the tension that had been building inside me was finally beginning to drain away.

Until the flash came. A sharp, freezing memory shot through my mind out of nowhere.

An image. Instead of Kara, Astrid’s face flickered before my eyes.

The breath was knocked out of me. The rhythm broke.

“Sunshine...?” she murmured hoarsely, trying to pull me back toward her.

I quickly pushed her legs aside and freed myself from beneath her. I straightened my clothes and sat there, breathing heavily, my palms pressed against my face.

A few seconds ago, I hadn’t wanted it to stop. Now I couldn’t stand the sound of my own breathing.

“We were just getting to the good part.” Her disheveled hair fell across her face. The dark alley in front of me suddenly felt easier to look at than Kara’s face.

“All of this...” My voice trembled. “It was a mistake.” I swallowed hard. “Kara, I’m sorry. We have to go back.”

The engine died.

All that remained on the gravel driveway was the echo of my racing heartbeat. I ran my fingertips across my lower lip—a futile attempt to wipe away the mixture of tastes lingering on my tongue, along with the image that had surfaced the moment things spiraled out of control.

A silhouette emerged from the darkness of the woods.

Alex.

His school uniform jacket was rumpled, his tie loosened, and he dragged his bag along the ground with bored indifference. He walked past us without even bothering to glance in our direction, disappearing into the shadow of the doorway.

But the porch wasn’t empty either.

“I was just about to come looking for you.”

Erick’s voice cut through the silence. Emotionless, yet carrying enough weight to press down on the air around us.

Astrid came running down the steps and threw herself at me. Her arms wrapped around me with brutal strength.

The bones in my shoulders protested beneath a pressure that had very little to do with a warm welcome.

“Rosie, where have you been?” she hissed against my throat.

Her nostrils flared. She pulled back and lifted her chin. Something dark and possessive ignited in her eyes. Her head snapped toward Kara.

“Go inside. Dinner’s on the table.” Erick pinched the bridge of his nose.

No one said a word.

Astrid didn’t let me out of her reach for even a second. Her grip remained a warning to anyone who might dare come near me.

We crossed the threshold. The heavy oak doors swung shut behind us with the finality of a guillotine.

The dining room felt unpleasantly normal after we returned. Candles burned on the table. The silverware was arranged with meticulous precision, and the glasses gleamed beneath the chandelier. The smell of roasted meat drifted in from the kitchen.

We sat around the table. On the surface, it looked like an ordinary family dinner after an ordinary day. But nobody behaved like a family anymore.

Astrid sat beside me. She hadn’t touched me once since we walked in, but her shoulder remained pressed close to mine.

Kara sat across from us with her leather jacket unzipped. The purple marks on her neck looked so beautifully visible...

Erick had to have seen them. Shawn too. And Light...

Light was genuinely smiling at the table. Apparently, his evening wish had come true.

I put a little meat on my plate. My fork barely touched the porcelain.

“So... did you have a good time?” Metal scraped against porcelain. Astrid set down her cutlery without taking her eyes off Kara.

“Wonderful!” Kara took a sip of wine.

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“But it’s what I answered.”

Erick placed his napkin beside his plate, but before he could say anything, Astrid turned toward me. Her nails dug into the tablecloth.

“We’ve spent the entire day worrying about what’s wrong with her, and she comes back drunk and—”

“Astrid, I’m right here,” I interrupted.

She shot me a nasty look.

“What exactly bothers you so much, Pepper?” Kara reached for the bottle. “What we did, or the fact that you couldn’t join us?”

“I swear to God, I’ll cut your tongue out! “Her chair scraped sharply against the floor as she moved.

“Enough! Both of you.” I had no intention of sitting there as their audience. “Could you at least stop jerking your egos off over me during dinner?”

“I jerk something else off over you,” Light muttered, cutting himself another piece of meat.

Shawn made a noise beside me that was probably supposed to be a laugh:“Bit late for that. His Lordship here”—he pointed his fork at Erick—“has been making decisions for everyone since the moment you crossed the threshold.”

Erick didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “Does anyone else have a problem with that?”

“I’ve told you a hundred fucking times: we aren’t your pawns,” Shawn growled, throwing up a hand.

“The tighter you hold a rose, the deeper its thorns sink into you,” Light remarked, popping the piece of meat into his mouth. “Mmm...” He chewed thoughtfully. “So, naturally... you blame the rose.”

My fork froze halfway to my mouth.

Kara choked on her wine.

Something inside Astrid snapped.

“You really are an unbelievable fucking asshole, Light.” Shawn buried his face in his hands and got up from the table.

“Sit down. The others haven’t finished eating yet,” Erick warned him.

“Huh? What are you gonna do? Give me a black pu—”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, ALL OF YOU!”

Every glass on the table rattled.

Alex sat at the very end of the table, his face flushed with rage. His fingers were clenched so tightly around his fork that his knuckles had gone white.

“I just want to eat,” he hissed, sounding like a man one bad sentence away from a complete breakdown. “I want to go to bed and hear exactly zero fucking stories about who slept with whom. Got it?”

Light opened his mouth again. Alex pointed the tip of his fork straight at him. He wisely shut it and raised both hands in surrender.

Ding-ding-ding! The sound of the doorbell echoed throughout the dining room.

The ringing stopped. A few quick, confident knocks followed. Then came a provocatively cheerful voice that froze even the last breath in the room.

“My boys! Where are you? Daddy’s home!”

Maxim Farrier

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