maber @mabermaple - Tumblr Blog

Nov 11, 2025

NO, I’M NOT A HUMAN — p. bueckers

pairing: paige bueckers x fem!reader

synopsis: the world as you knew it is gone, replaced by a deadly game of guessing who’s human and who’s not. then she knocks—confident, alluring, and far too calm to be trusted. and yet, against all reason, you find yourself unlocking the door for her.

warnings: mentions of gore. horror-ish. dark themes like death and the end of the world. adult themes. manipulation. metaphorical cannibalism. blood. corruption. munch!p. fingering (r!receiving). scissoring. predatory desire. dom!paige. sub!reader. idk what else

word count: 18k

note: the way this took 5 years off my life… anyway i’ve never attempted writing anything creepy or eerie so i hope y’all fw this. reblogs and feedback are highlyyy appreciated

♯┆taglist (open) .ᐟ ★ @pboogerswbb @bueckersbitch @ekisokay @sierrale8ne @ohmybueckers @yailtsv @lilpaigeyherbo @prettygirl-gabi @mariahthealchemist @avvwritesstufff @vintagebueckers @naeswrrldd @thaatdigitaldiary @xoxosierralane @itsstavy13 @kehlaniscript @sheturnpesbian

It had been exactly three weeks since the world as you once knew and trusted it, began to unravel. Twenty one days of confusion and disbelief, of trying to stay sane when sanity had no currency anymore. Fourteen days of staring into the static, wondering when the shift began—was it the broadcasts? The power outages? The first time someone knocked and didn’t sound quite human? You’d stopped trying to answer that. It didn’t matter now. Nothing did, except survival.

It had been Thirteen days since you last stepped outside. Thirteen days of stale air clinging to the corners of the house, of half empty cans stacked on the counter, of curtains nailed shut so tightly not even sunlight could beg its way in. You’d let a few people inside during the first days. The crying ones, the shaking ones, the ones who swore they were safe, but you’d learned quickly that mercy was a luxury. That trust had teeth.

Ten days of silence, broken only by the hum of your breath and the slow, metallic ticking of the clock that no longer kept real time. Ten days of speaking to yourself in whispers just to remember the sound of a voice.

The televisions had gone dark on the Seventeenth day. Before that, the channels had been full of screams and flickering news anchors, their faces pale and frantic. They warned about the Visitors, about how they looked like us, talked like us, even begged like us—but their eyes never quite met the camera. And then one by one, the screens went white. You left them that way. You couldn’t bear to see your reflection staring back at you through the screen.

Now, you were in the living room again, crouched beside the wall. A rag clutched in your hand, damp with bleach and something darker. You scrubbed in circles, over and over, though most of the blood had already faded into the paint—thin, rust colored ghosts that wouldn’t leave, no matter how much you tried to erase them. The smell had almost gone too. Almost.

The last one hadn’t gone quietly. They never did. But at least they didn’t linger long. The convenient thing about Visitors, if convenience could still exist in a world like this, was that their bodies didn’t stay. They faded. One moment, there was the ruin of a body on the floor, a grotesque stain of what used to be human. The next, there was nothing but the echo of it. Like they were never there at all. Like you’d imagined it.

You’d turned down two more since then, two people at the door, their knocks too steady, their smiles too wrong. You’d watched them through the peephole until they left, slow and patient, their shadows stretching across the porch long after the sun had disappeared.

Still, you couldn’t help but think: maybe you shouldn’t rely on looks. Because sometimes, the eyes lied. And sometimes, the monsters looked more human than you did.

You were nearly finished scrubbing when the knocks came. Two sharp raps, quick and confident.

You froze, the damp rag dripping pink water down your wrist. The sound vibrated through the hollow quiet of the house and for a moment, you thought you’d imagined it—another trick of a tired mind too long without real voices. But then it came again.

Knock. Knock.

You let out a breath that trembled at the edges. Of course. Another one.

You were already frustrated. Two others had shown up earlier, disturbing you while you were trying to erase the last of that crimson red from your wallpaper. Their knocks had left a ringing echo behind, long after you’d sent them away. You didn’t have patience for a third.

Still, seeing as the stains were mostly gone and you’d reached the point where bleach couldn’t help anymore, you dropped the rag into the bucket and stood.

The house groaned faintly with your movement. Outside the windows, the light was that same green yellow hue the sun had taken on since the world began to turn wrong. Through the slats, you could still see the silhouettes of the FEMA agents out back—or what was left of them. Their bodies had begun to stiffen, lying half buried in the dry grass like halloween decorations you couldn’t bring yourself to remove. They were proof that you’d made the right choices. Or something close enough to it.

You walked to the door, every step creaking under your weight. Another knock came, slower this time, almost polite.

Through the peephole, you didn’t see what you expected.

A woman. Young, maybe your age. Blonde hair tied back in a bun that looked too deliberate for this world. Clothes not quite clean but not ruined either. A little dirt on the fabric, a faint sheen of sweat on her temple, and that was it. No bruises. No frantic eyes. No trembling hands.

She was composed. Attractive, even. That alone made your pulse pick up.

“Do you want me to knock some more to get your attention?”

Her voice came through muffled but clear enough to feel. Confident, even light, like she’d rehearsed it.

You hesitated, pressing your forehead lightly to the cold door. “Well, you got it now,” you said after a pause. “What do you want?”

The woman smiled. It was small, just a ghost of a smirk that made you wish she’d keep talking.

“What do you think?” she said. “Shelter. Same as everyone else who’s knocked before. I’d prefer not to die out here, you feel me?”

Her voice—low and smooth, that soft rasp around the edges—slipped through the door like warm smoke. It wasn’t exactly deep, but it carried weight, resonance. There was something quietly husky about it, a closeness that made it sound like she was right behind you instead of outside.

It distracted you. More than it should have.

“And how do I know you’re not a visitor?” you asked finally. “You don’t exactly look like someone in distress, you feel me?”

Her smirk deepened as she dipped her head, trying—and failing—to suppress a quiet laugh. The sound prickled the air.

She didn’t look desperate. She didn’t act like someone who’d been running or hiding. That alone was reason enough to keep the door shut.

“How long have you been out there?” you asked, rubbing at a spot on your wrist that wouldn’t come clean.

“Like a day or two,” she said with a shrug. “Hard to tell now with the sun doing whatever it’s doing.”

Her tone was even and casual. Too casual.

You studied her a little longer through the fisheye lens, eyes tracing the clean line of her throat, the dirt smudged collarbone that disappeared into her shirt. You swallowed.

“Who were you with before you came here?”

“No one. That’s why I left.” She shifted her weight, resting one hand against the doorframe. “The area I was in was too dangerous for anyone to come knocking on my door. Can’t let them catch you alone, remember?”

The way she said ‘them’ made your stomach twist. There was something rehearsed about it, like a line learned by heart. You couldn’t tell if that made her more or less convincing.

She tilted her head slightly. “So… you home alone?”

Her voice lowered as she said it, softer and slower, like she knew it was an intimate question. It felt like she was staring straight through the door, through the peephole, through you.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” you said. “Who knows.”

You tried to sound nonchalant, but your pulse had started to pound. Something about her presence was getting under your skin.

“I would know,” she said, her smirk returning, “if you’d just open the door.”

You forced a scoff, trying to regain control. “I don’t think I will. How do I know you’re human?”

“You keep asking questions,” she said, her voice a quiet hum, “but your hand’s already on the lock, ma.”

Your brow furrowed and you looked down.

She was right. Your hand was on the lock. You didn’t even remember moving it there. Your fingers clutched the cold metal so tight your knuckles had turned white.

A chill ran down your spine. “How do you know that?” you whispered.

“If you’re so sure I’m not human…” she paused, her voice dipping lower, almost tender, “then why do you sound so tempted to let me in?”

You couldn’t answer. The question hung in the air between you like static.

You exhaled slowly and turned the lock. It clicked, soft and final. You told yourself you were just tired of the silence. That it was safer to have someone—anyone—inside than risk facing another night alone.

The door creaked open, just enough to let the light catch her eyes. They were blue. Clear, unsettlingly so.

“‘Cause I need someone inside with me, I guess,” you muttered.

That seemed to be good enough for her.

Paige smiled—small, knowing, almost kind.

And as she stepped forward into the sliver of light, the air in the house shifted.

It wasn’t colder. Just… alive again.

You led her inside, slow steps, eyes never leaving her back. The door clicked shut behind her, the sound almost too final for comfort. You made sure to stay close enough to watch her movements, far enough that she couldn’t reach you first if she turned. Your hand hovered near the gun tucked at your waistband, the safety off, and bullet ready. You didn’t plan to shoot, but the plan never mattered when it came to the Visitors.

She didn’t hesitate. Not once.

Paige walked through your home like she’d been there before—each step steady and unafraid. She didn’t scan her surroundings like most survivors did. She didn’t whisper or tremble or stare at the boarded up windows.

She just knew where to go.

You followed her into the living room. The air there was stale, mixed with bleach and something copper underneath. Paige stopped in the middle of it, hands in her pockets, tilting her head slightly like she was listening to the house breathe. Then she dropped herself onto the couch, sprawled out, legs open, and completely at ease.

“Might as well just rip that bit of wallpaper off,” she said casually, chin tipping toward the faded stain you’d been scrubbing for hours. “Smell won’t go away.”

Your grip on the gun tightened. She hadn’t even looked at it.

“How’d you know it was there?” you asked quietly.

Paige finally looked up at you, blue eyes meeting yours in a way that felt wrong. They were soft and cold at the same time, too steady to belong to someone human. There was something hungry in the stillness of her gaze.

“Lucky guess.” Her lips curved up again into that faint, lazy smirk.

You didn’t respond, because you didn’t trust your voice not to shake. You wanted to break eye contact, to move, to breathe—but you couldn’t. She looked at you like she was peeling your skin away layer by layer, and part of you wanted her to keep going.

“Paige,” she said after a long silence, her voice low and rough around the edges.

Your brow furrowed. “What?”

“My name.” She leaned back slightly, still staring up at you from the couch. “It’s Paige.”

You blinked. Of course it was. That should’ve been obvious, but somehow, your brain lagged. You couldn’t tell if it was exhaustion or something she was doing to you.

“Cool,” you murmured, voice flat, trying to sound unaffected. But she was still watching you, pupils dilated just enough to make you uneasy.

You wondered, for one awful second, what her skin felt like. If it’d be warm. If she’d flinch at your touch.

You shook the thought off hard enough to make your jaw ache. No. You couldn’t want anything right now. Not when wanting got people killed.

She tilted her head again, like she could hear your thoughts knocking around inside your skull. “You’re not gonna test me?”

Your pulse stuttered. She said it too easily, too sure of herself, like she already knew the answer.

You kept your face blank, forcing your voice into something cold. “Don’t get too excited about it. Or too comfortable.”

Her grin widened just enough to show a sliver of teeth. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

You turned away before she could say anything else, your fingers twitching near your gun again. The hallway light flickered overhead. You stopped by the radio, twisting its knob, smacking the side and hoping for a voice, static, something. But there was nothing. Just that endless, pulsing hum beneath the silence.

You could feel her gaze still on you from the couch. Heavy. Like hands pressing against your back.

Your throat felt dry when you finally slipped into your bedroom and locked the door behind you.

For a long time, you just stood there, staring at the handle, half expecting it to turn on its own. But it didn’t. Not yet.

You exhaled slowly and let yourself collapse onto the bed. The sheets were warm. The world was quieter than usual, and still you could swear you heard her voice under your skin.

You pressed your palms against your eyes, trying to shake it off. Trying not to think about her, about her voice, her eyes, her smirk. But it didn’t work.

You didn’t know if you’d ever sleep again.

And deep down, you weren’t sure if you even wanted to.

You didn’t expect to wake up the next morning, if you were being fully honest with yourself. You weren’t even sure what you expected. An attack in the dark? A stranger’s breath against your neck? The sound of your front door swinging open to the things outside?

But it definitely wasn’t waking up to your clock blinking 12:38 PM in a lazy, casual way. Like the world wasn’t ending. Like everything was normal.

Your brain was groggy, like you’d been drugged. You rarely slept deeply anymore—your dreams were usually too violent, too loud. Lately, every time you closed your eyes, the Visitors showed up. Sometimes they watched. Sometimes they spoke. Sometimes they smiled.

But today? Nothing. Just blankness and a faint ache behind your eyes.

You pressed your palm to your forehead as you sat up. You tried to search your mind, forcing it to rewind the night, but all you found were flashes. White teeth, blue eyes, fingers wrapped around your wrist. A laugh. Or a growl. Or breathing. You weren’t sure.

It made your chest tighten.

You stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom. The faucet sputtered before releasing a cold, biting stream of water. You splashed your face repeatedly until your skin stung.

When you finally looked into the mirror, your breath snagged in your throat.

Your reflection wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t right either.

Your eyes were bloodshot and glossy.

Your skin drained of warmth, like light reflected off porcelain instead of flesh.

You leaned closer and noticed the way your pupils looked a fraction too dilated. Like prey.

Or like something nocturnal.

Your tongue felt thick in your mouth as you finished brushing your teeth and stepped out into the silent hallway.

Silent, except for the soft creak of the house breathing around you.

You forced your feet to carry you past the living room and past where you last saw her.

You slowed.

She was still there. Exactly as you left her—same posture, same casual sprawl, same hands loosely resting on her thighs like she had nowhere else to be. Her focus was fixed dead ahead at the wide open window.

A window you were certain you’d latched last night.

Your heart crawled up into your throat. You didn’t want to look outside, didn’t want to risk seeing them… The ones that scanned houses for movement and begged in voices that mimicked people they’d devoured.

So you kept your gaze locked on Paige.

“Good morning.” Her voice drifted out smooth and quiet—too quiet—like she didn’t need volume to reach you.

“Did you sleep well?”

You froze, body angled halfway behind the doorframe like a child hiding from a ghost. You didn’t reply. Couldn’t. You just hummed a weak, unsure noise that barely qualified as communication.

She didn’t look at you, her attention stayed on the sunlit horror beyond the glass.

Were you missing something? Was she seeing movement? Shadows? Someone staring back?

Your fingers twitched.

Then, slowly, she turned her head.

When her eyes met yours, every muscle in your body seized. Blue. Too blue. Unblinking.

Like she wasn’t looking at you, but into you, carving your secrets out from the inside.

“Oh, I’m sure you did.” Her tone curled at the edges in a knowing, delighted way.

It felt like a pressure wrapped around your ribs, squeezing so tight your next breath came out as a shaky exhale. The hairs on the back of your neck stood up one by one.

The room was warm, but you suddenly felt cold.

You backed away before you even realized you were moving, retreating step by slow step until the living room disappeared from your view. Paige didn’t follow. She didn’t need to.

Her gaze still clung to you.

You pressed your shoulders against the wall and tried to calm your breathing, but clarity refused to come. Something about her was wrong. Too sure of herself, too calm, too comfortable in the nightmare your home had become.

You knew you should test her. You knew you should be ready to kill her. You knew you should never, ever turn your back on her.

And yet, despite the dread going down your spine, you couldn’t shake the twisted comfort that came with her presence. Like if something terrible tried to break in, she’d already be waiting for it.

Whether to protect you—or to join it—you still couldn’t tell.

You sat at the kitchen table with a glass of wine on one side and your loaded gun on the other, lined up perfectly to your dominant hand in case survival demanded speed again. You stared at the gun as though you were seeing it for the first time, even though it had been your closest companion these past weeks. Your heartbeat counted the moments you had used it and the number of times you wished you hadn’t.

If someone had told you a month ago that you’d be using it to blow ‘people’s’ brains out—watching blood and something more metallic splatter across your walls and into the carpet threading like spilled ink—you would’ve laughed. Maybe even offered to walk them into a psych ward yourself.

But here you were three weeks later. Too many dead. Most were visitors, but two had still been human. Just as breakable and just as terrified. Warm blood, warm eyes, warm voices. They haunted your dreams, or they had, until today. Maybe they were grateful now. Maybe freeing them from this nightmare was the closest thing to mercy left. It was the *‘Thank you’*s that scared you the most.

“You seem like you’re having fun.”

Her voice—uninvited, too casual for the apocalypse—rang through your kitchen.

You jerked violently at the sudden voice. Paige’s voice. Your hand flew for the gun, knocking the wine glass over with a sharp crack. Dark red splashed across the table and floor like spilled blood. The stem shattered, pieces glittering like tiny teeth.

Your pulse hammered against your throat.

She didn’t flinch.

Instead, she leaned against your doorway with an almost bored amusement, eyes dropping to the spill and the shattered glass, studying the scene like a painting.

“Fuck…” The word left you in a whisper only loud enough for you to hear. Yet her lips twitched like she’d heard every atomic vibration of it.

She stepped further in, every pace deliberate, almost predatory in its calm. Then she crouched before you, kneeling right at your feet as if she belonged there, and began examining the mess.

“It’s okay. Accidents happen,” she murmured. “At least you’re not hurt.” She looked up at you through her lashes, voice soft and warm with something like kindness.

And suddenly your lungs forgot how to work.

You looked down at her. Too close. Too calm. Her head tilted up, eyes locking onto yours. That stare hit you like a hand around your throat—gentle enough to soothe, firm enough to own.

Intimidation, heat, fear, curiosity, and something unnamed and feral braided itself around your spine. Her blue eyes were too vivid, too hungry, and that’s when you noticed how red the whites were. Strained, sleepless, and feverish. It didn’t automatically make her a visitor right? Yours looked the same by now.

Then her cold hand, impossibly cold for weather this hot, for a sun still scorching outside, closed around your bare knee. But the chill wasn’t what you fixated on. It was the softness. The tenderness. As if you could shatter under the slightest pressure. A touch meant to reassure, but it felt like she was staking a claim.

“Are you feeling alright, pretty?” she asked, voice light and almost sing song , like someone practicing affection rather than feeling it. Was she flirting? Or was she simply the type who made endearments sound like threats wrapped in silk like those comforting southern women you loved so much?

You nodded without realizing you’d forgotten to breathe. Though you didn’t remember deciding to nod.

Her fingers tightened—painfully and possessively—as her gaze swallowed you whole. You felt skinned open beneath it.

“Breathe for me,” she murmured, unconcerned and commanding. “I don’t want you turning purple.”

Your whole world narrowed to her. Her voice, her eyes, her face. The way she spoke as if you were fragile and she was the only thing keeping you from falling apart. Your lungs obeyed before your brain did. Inhaling sharply and exhaling slowly, because logic had drowned somewhere between her pupils.

She smiled. A small, sharp curl of lips, satisfaction disguised as something kind.

“Good girl,” she cooed, quiet and intimate, before withdrawing her hand and calmly picking up shards of glass with her bare fingers, collecting them like precious stones. She didn’t bleed.

She rose, tossed the shards into the trash, and wandered out of the kitchen without another word.

Only when she vanished did you look down at your knee. Her grip had left a blooming red imprint—a perfect ghost of her hand.

So much for not wanting you to turn purple.

The day slipped by in fits of avoidance. You kept your distance from Paige, not because she moved much—she didn’t—but because proximity made your head fog and your pulse stutter. She sat in the same places, watched the same corners, said almost nothing. One thing nagged at you all afternoon though: she hadn’t eaten. Not once. She hadn’t asked for a thing. It should have alarmed you, but you swallowed that alarm because you needed her there. You needed a body inside the house, a voice that answered when you spoke. Needed someone who hadn’t yet learned to kneel at the door and beg for mercy.

Then the knocks came again. Not loud, not frantic—just the pattern you had learned to dread. You’d memorized his rhythm like a warning sign carved into your bones. Three short. Pause. Two long. Pause. A single, final rap. The sound cut through the house, and the silence folded up around it until everything felt smaller.

Your heart turned into a fist of ice in your chest. You’d never had only one other person inside when he chose to call. Your feet moved of their own accord, each step heavy with dread, and sweat slicked yoir palms as you pressed your eye to the peephole. The backyard beyond the glass was the same ruined picture it always was. brown grass and the useless silhouettes of bodies, but he was there too, waiting in the ruin, pale as paper under the sick sun.

“So, you’re still holed up here I see,” he said, his voice sliding through the door like something made to unsettle. It always did. It hit at a frequency that didn’t belong in human throats. “I was outside your window last night. Wanted to show you something, but you weren’t looking.”

You felt the memory in your bones. Last time you’d peeked, he’d stood like a statue for hours, knife in his hand and a head dangling over the other like a grotesque trophy. You could still picture the way the jaw had flopped. The way the eyes seemed to blink when the wind hit them. The thought curled low in your belly and you were grateful you’d slept so hard that night. If you’d been awake, you knew you’d have looked. You would have seen.

“What a shame. Maybe next time,” you managed, keeping your voice steady if not steady feeling.

“A shame indeed.” He flashed that grin—wide, too white, dolphin teeth catching the greenish hue of the evening. The light painted him as something carved of bone and hunger. You could see the shallow rise and fall of ribs beneath stretched flesh or whatever had once been skin. There were hollows under his eyes where sleep had not been welcome for a long time, but his grin made you colder than any lack of rest.

He leaned into the dramatics then, dragging his next word on purpose, a deliberate mocking hum of air. “Listennn. You alone?”

You closed your eyes and let the world press in for a second. He only had the power you gave him. Breathe. Name your ground. “No. I’m not alone. Sorry to disappoint.” Your voice didn’t sound like a threat. It sounded almost small.

The grin dropped. The light left his face and something flat and staring replaced it. He spoke like a judge with nothing but years of cruelty to recommend him. “You know things will never go back to the way they were, right? Life’s changed. You’ve changed. Just give up already.”

You didn’t dignify him with an answer. Silence felt like better armor than words.

“Next time we meet, you might not be as lucky,” he said, and then his silhouette receded. He walked away with a predator’s slow, deliberate gait. The yard swallowed him.

You let the breath you hadn’t known you were holding out, a sound that was half curse and half release. “Stupid fucking cunt,” you spat into the quiet as if the house itself had offended you.

When you turned back to the room, Paige was inches from you. She’d moved without sound. For a moment you thought you’d blinked and she’d moved that close, and the suddenness of it made you gasp. Your shoulder hit the door as she stepped forward, and instinct—hot, metallic—rose up like bile.

“Who was that?” Her voice was too casual, low and almost playful. You couldn’t tell if she was asking because she didn’t know, or because she already knew everything he did.

“Don’t worry about it,” you said, cutting the question off. You tried to slide past her, to create space, to make the walls between you feel thicker, safer.

Her hand firmly closed around your wrist and rhe pressure stopped you like a clamp. It wasn’t a rough hold. It was a possessive one.

Everything snapped back into survival mode. Your fingers found the gun so fast it felt like muscle memory on autopilot. You pulled it free and, without thinking beyond the immediate need to make her release you, pressed the barrel under her chin. The cold metal kissed sensitive skin. There was a second—nothing but the small mechanized click of your breath—that felt like the last possible moment between deciding and acting.

“If you don’t let go of me right now, I will literally paint this door with your fucking blood and brains,” you said. Your voice was steady. It had to be. You had to sound like any hesitation would be lethal. “Okay?”

She did not blink in fear. She did not crumble. If anything, the expression that slid across her face was amusement edged with something darker. Your brain supplied explanations for weeks of sleep deprivation, hormones, fatigue, and the way grief rewires hunger but you also felt the prick of something else, an edge of arousal or approval in the way she held herself under the threat.

“My bad, ma.” She let go as if releasing a leash, palms lifted, the grin in place like a secret. The grin did not falter when the cold of the barrel rested at her jaw. She seemed to inhale the steel and your skin tightened at that sight.

You pressed the gun until the metal pressed hard enough to numb the skin, watching her reactions like someone monitoring a live experiment. Her pupils didn’t dance, they dilated in a slow, patient way that looked indulgent. She did not flinch from the threat. She seemed to enjoy the proximity as much as she enjoyed watching you try to be cruel.

Your eyes challenged ans hers dared. The room held both of you taut, a wire tuned to snap. It felt like being observed by something both animal and scholar at once. Curious and amused.

For a breath, you wondered whether you wanted to pull the trigger. Not to hurt her. Not yet. The thought was obscene and electric and half terrifying. You could feel the weight of what killing did, how it would stain the walls again, how it would cost something inside you until nothing remained. You also felt that awful, parentless loneliness and the knowledge that this man outside would be back. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps with more. The calculus told you to keep her alive.

She held your gaze and smiled, like a tutor who’d been watching you solve an equation and was curious to see if you’d do it on your own. Then she stepped aside, fluid and calm , leaving the space between you humming with unsaid things.

You lowered the gun slowly, your hands shaking with the effort of restraint. Her imprint on you, both literal and otherwise, burned like a brand you hadn’t agreed to.

Outside, the house settled. The night covered the yard. He disappeared into the ruin and the sound of him walking away carved out a hollow that no noise could fill.

Inside, Paige watched you with the faintest slant of hunger in her eyes. The night had grown heavy with threats and near consequences and you were exhausted from being expected to choose between them. You thought about the headaches, the dream choked nights, the faces of those two people who’d been unmistakably human until the moment you had stupidly decided they weren’t. You thought about mercy and survival and whether the two were even words that belonged in the same language now.

You sat there, palms damp, and felt the house close around you. She had not moved to comfort you. She had not promised protection. She had simply been there, as if closeness were a right she’d always held.

You could not tell if she was protecting you, testing you, or simply hungry in the way that had nothing to do with dinner.

Either way, you were running out of choices.

You felt like you were rotting from the inside out. Not the sudden, cinematic kind of fear, but a slower decay. Doubts eating at you the way soil eats a body left to itself. Paranoia didn’t arrive as a burst. It was a small, persistent worm behind your thoughts, gnawing at instincts until they blurred.

There was something off about her. Then there wasn’t. The longer you stared, the less the pieces fit together. Her presence made your rules look like riddles written in a language you no longer spoke.

Goosebumps prickled across your arms. Your foot tapped a nervous rhythm against the bedroom floorboards as you sat hunched on the vanity chair. The mirror before you caught half your room and all your unraveling: a messy scatter of papers pinned with notes, diagrams, timelines, survival protocols in your handwriting. Everything you thought could keep the world organized. Patterns. Signs. Names. You read them as if they might translate the stranger sitting in your living room. They offered nothing.

You lifted your head and watched your reflection. When had your face stopped belonging to you? Your eyes, once wide and incandescent with stories, stared back smaller, rimmed with red and glassy with exhaustion. Your lips, once soft and full, had cracked and lost color as if the blood itself had thinned and fled. Dark crescents pooled under your eyes like ink spilled overnight. The apocalypse had been an unkind mirror.

You could not stand it any longer. You needed to know. You needed proof you could point to when instinct screamed otherwise.

The chair legs scraped the floor with a sound that felt too loud in the quiet. You grabbed your gun and yanked the bedroom door open, the snap of wood echoing. The hallway swallowed you as you moved fast, boots thudding, breath short. Your hands were steadier than you felt.

“Get up. I wanna test you.” The words left your mouth with a force you barely recognized.

She looked at you the way someone inspects an insect through a glass jar. Paige’s blue eyes lifted slowly. the bloodshot whites framed them like bruises. A small smirk played at one corner of her mouth. She let her arm fall off the back of the couch before sliding up to her feet, coming toward you like a tide.

She was too tall up close. The air contracted around you in her shadow. You should have felt in control. You did not.

“Yeah? What you wanna test?” she said, voice low and amused, as if you’d invited a game.

You gripped the gun with practiced care, forcing your tone to steel. “Show me your hands.” You pointed the barrel lightly, not aiming to kill yet, just to command.

Paige cocked a brow like the request entertained her. She held her hands out without hesitation. They were unnaturally clean and oddly cold to the touch. No dirt trapped under the nails, no scrapes or splinters, no telltale signs visitors often carried. They might have been washed minutes ago, or they might have never touched the ground. You couldn’t tell which made you feel worse.

You probed her palms, fingers mapping planes of skin that didn’t betray work or travel or suffering. The cold seemed to sink through your glove and into bone. For a second you wondered if you were the one who had been outside too long, if your temperature had become unreliable.

“You happy?” she teased when you finally let go, a lazy challenge wrapped in a grin. “Or you want to touch my hands some more? Maybe something else?”

You rolled your eyes, the sound of it hollow even to yourself. People made jokes in the face of dying, it was the most human thing she’d shown so far. You wanted to be angry, to call her out for the ease with which she toyed with the edges of your patience. Instead you barked, “How about you touch some grass.”

She shrugged, casual and unnerved. “I would, but I can’t really go outside, you know?” The shrug was effortless. Her nonchalance irritated and terrified you in equal measure.

You felt the tug of exhaustion hardening into something more like resignation. Sleep had seemed a gift last night—you’d never slept more soundly in weeks —and you wanted that shelter again. You turned away, each step back to your room a small surrender, the gun still heavy at your side.

Maybe you’d sleep like a baby again, you thought absurdly, as if last night were proof you could trust the world for a few hours. As the door clicked shut behind you, the house settled into its usual thin breathing. Outside, the ruined day folded away. Inside, you could still feel the echo of her hands against your skin and the cold press of her gaze through the walls.

You lay down with the gun on the nightstand and tried to will your eyes to close. The mirror in your head replayed her hands, her smirk, the way she had not flinched. Somewhere under the exhaustion, something deeper and quieter had shifted. You could no longer tell if you feared her because she was dangerous, or because she was altering the shape of you, softening edges you had sharpened for survival.

Either way, you were tired. You let darkness take you, and for a moment thought you might sleep.

Sleep had finally dragged you under after nearly an hour of tossing and turning, the heat suffocating, sweat sticking your tank top to your back. The blanket—usually your nightly armor—lay abandoned at your feet. A month ago, you couldn’t even think about sleeping without it tucked up to your chin. Now? A flimsy sheet meant nothing. Your gun was the real comfort.

Or it used to be.

You’d rolled onto your back, another new habit you never liked, but exhaustion didn’t leave room for preferences. What woke you wasn’t noise, or a nightmare, but the air. Warm. Too warm. And breathing against your skin.

You tried to ignore it, tried to sink deeper into sleep. Tried to pretend there wasn’t something in the dark with you.

“Don’t scream.”

The whisper grazed the edge of your ear, a breath hotter than the room, and your eyes snapped open.

Paige hovered over you in the darkness—a silhouette with sharp features and red rimmed eyes glowing faintly like something not meant to see daylight. A strangled scream jumped from your throat but was crushed beneath her palm before it could live. Her other hand pressed into the mattress beside your head, caging you completely.

Your heart slammed painfully, like it wanted to punch free of your ribcage.

When did she get in here? Why didn’t you hear her move? How long had she been watching you sleep?

“Shhhh…” she breathed, voice threaded with a disturbingly tender cadence.

“You’re okay. Just stay quiet for me, mama.”

Your skin burned where her body brushed yours—too close, too intentional. You nodded, because what else could you do with her weight pinning you down?

That’s when the tapping started.

Soft. Sharp. Rhythmic.

Tap… tap… tap…

Against the window and against your sanity.

You flinched, your entire body seizing up, but Paige didn’t so much as blink.

Her lips curled. Amused.

“He said he brought you a present,” she murmured, like sharing a secret.

“Wanna see?”

Your lungs froze mid breath and the bile in your throat tasted metallic. You didn’t respond. Couldn’t.

Paige removed her hand only to slip her arms under you, one beneath your knees, the other behind your back, and lifted you like your fear weighed nothing. Your arms clung around her neck automatically, your body acting purely on survival instinct.

She carried you toward the window.

The curtains loomed like a sealed tomb.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered, her breath brushing your cheek. “All you have to do is look. Then it’ll be over.” A lullaby wrapped in a threat.

Your trembling fingers reached for the fabric .A slow drag… a hesitant parting…Eyes squeezed shut because maybe you weren’t ready. Maybe you would never be ready.

Her voice was soft, yet commanding.

“Open them.”

Your eyelids obeyed, but your mind regretted.

Outside stood him—the pale man.

That grotesquely familiar smile stretched wider than human skin should allow.

In his hands, dangling like a grotesque trophy. Your neighbor’s head. Mouth frozen in a silent scream. Blood dripping in slow, syrupy lines.No eyes left to cry for help.

The tap… tap… tap…was the head knocking against the glass as he proudly lifted it higher.

A sound ripped from your chest—not quite a scream—a sharp inhale that punctured your lungs like knives. You buried yourself into Paige’s neck, face pressed to her cold skin, needing to hide from the world, from him, from everything.

“Shhhh…” Her hand slipped into your hair, stroking. “So good. It’s over now.

You’re safe with me. He can’t hurt you.”

You hated that it helped. Hated that her voice made the terror ease. Hated that she was the only thing between you and a nightmare wearing human skin.

“Why are you doing this?”

The words were muffled into her collarbone, small and fragile.

Paige shifted you in her arms, cradling you closer like a child clinging to their monster.

“To show you he can’t touch what’s mine.”

She walked you back to the bed and sat down, keeping you in her lap like you were an extension of her body, like letting you go wasn’t an option she’d ever consider.

Your fingers fisted the back of her shirt.

You weren’t clinging for affection — you were clinging for survival.

“You’re safe,” she whispered, chin resting atop your head. “See? Nothing can get to you while you’re with me, pretty.”

Her arms wrapped around you like protection. Like restraint. Like a promise. And for the first time since the world fell apart, you weren’t sure which one you wanted.

You woke up like someone had just pulled you out of a nightmare by the throat, gasping and sitting up so fast that your vision spun. For a second, you didn’t even realize where you were. The ceiling above you looked warped in the half light seeping through your curtains, your chest heaving, lungs fighting for air that didn’t seem to reach all the way down. Sweat clung to your back and gathered at the base of your neck, slicking the tiny hairs there until they stuck to your skin. The sheets were a tangled mess around your legs. You could feel the faint tremor in your own hands when you pushed yourself upright.

Everything seemed normal. Your eyes darted around the room, frantically scanning every corner, every shadow, every faint outline that could’ve been her. But Paige wasn’t there. The curtains were still drawn. The window still closed. No blood. No sound. Just the low hum of the refrigerator somewhere beyond the walls and your own pulse hammering against your ribs.

For a fleeting moment, you let yourself believe it. Maybe last night really had been a nightmare, maybe sleep deprivation and paranoia had finally blurred the line between real and unreal. The thought almost made you laugh—almost.

You swung your legs over the edge of the bed, the floorboards cold beneath your feet as you pushed yourself to stand. Every muscle in your body felt wired, your nerves still buzzing from something you couldn’t see. You hesitated before leaving the room, every step toward the door slower than the last, and when you finally peeked into the living room, the empty couch made your stomach twist. The blanket you’d tossed to her the night she arrived was folded neatly on the armrest. The indentation where she usually sat was gone.

She wasn’t there.

Maybe she’d finally left. Maybe you’d wake up tomorrow and it would be like none of it ever happened.

“Looking for someone?”

You froze. The voice came from behind you, quiet but heavy enough to stop your breath. The air in the room shifted instantly, and you turned, too fast, too clumsy. Paige stood in the hallway, leaning against the doorframe like she’d been there for a while, watching you.

She looked different. Her eyes weren’t as red as before, though the veins around them still lingered faintly. Her skin had a strange glow, not like health but like light bouncing off polished marble—unnatural, too clean. Her hair looked softer, like it had just been brushed, and for one absurd second, you wondered if she’d been standing in front of your mirror this whole time, staring at herself.

You couldn’t speak. Your voice felt caught somewhere between your throat and your chest, so all you did was shake your head, your breath coming out uneven.

Her gaze was steady, patient, unnervingly calm. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said softly, her lips twitching into a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Relax. You’re safe.”

You didn’t believe her, but the words still had that low hum of comfort that made your brain want to listen. She stepped closer—too close—and your instinct was to move back, but she only brushed past you with the faintest touch at your arm, warm and deliberate, her fingers grazing your skin long enough to make your stomach clench. “C’mon,” she murmured, her tone laced with something almost playful. “You need food. You haven’t eaten.”

Her hand pressed gently against the small of your back, guiding you forward. You told yourself to shrug it off, to resist, to step away, but you didn’t. Somehow, your body didn’t listen. There was something in her touch that rooted you in place, like fighting it would only make it worse.

The smell hit you first. Not strong, but enough to jolt you. Pancakes. Sweet, faintly burnt, mixed with the bitter aroma of coffee. The table was set with a plate, a fork, and a mug. It looked wrong. It looked like a scene from a life that wasn’t yours anymore.

“Sit,” she said, pulling the chair out for you as if this were some casual morning in a world that hadn’t ended. “You need to eat something.”

You sat because you didn’t know what else to do. The chair creaked softly under your weight, and the smell of the food—too normal, too human—made your stomach churn with both hunger and suspicion. Paige sat opposite you, resting her elbows on the table, her posture lazy but her eyes sharp. She didn’t blink much, just watched as you hesitantly picked up your fork and began cutting into the pancakes, the edge of the knife scraping against the plate.

Her attention was suffocating. You could feel her gaze dragging across every small movement. Your hands, your throat, the way you chewed too quickly.

After a moment, she tilted her head slightly. “Anything on your mind?”

You stopped mid-cut, knife hovering over the pancake. The question felt loaded and too casual to be harmless. You swallowed hard before answering, voice low and uncertain. “Last night… why did you do that?”

Her brow furrowed, and the change in her expression was subtle but calculated. The confusion she wore looked almost genuine. “What do you mean?” she asked, her tone light. “What did I do?”

Your heartbeat picked up again, the unease crawling back up your spine. “When came into my room,” you said slowly, each word deliberate, like you were testing how real they sounded out loud. “You know what happened, don’t make me retell it.” You continued , the memory flashing sharp and cold.

She blinked at you. Then that faint, amused smirk curved her lips again. “Why would I come into your room at night?” Her voice softened, mocking affection lacing through it. “Were you having a wet dream about me?”

The sound you made wasn’t quite a laugh, but not quite denial either. “What? No. What the fuck.” You meant to sound offended, but it came out shaky. Her smirk deepened slightly, satisfaction flickering behind her eyes. The air between you tightened. She didn’t have to say anything else, you could already feel her winning whatever silent game she was playing.

Maybe you were wrong. Maybe the nightmare had just been that—an ugly, feverish dream. You were tired. You hadn’t eaten. You hadn’t slept properly in days. Maybe this was what losing your mind felt like. “Nevermind,” you muttered, forcing a small laugh as you dropped your gaze back to the plate. “I probably just imagined it.”

Paige hummed, low and pleased, before leaning back in her chair. “That happens sometimes,” she said, almost kindly. “Dreams can feel real when you’re running on empty.”

You stabbed another piece of pancake, this time bringing it to your mouth quickly, pretending the conversation hadn’t scraped open the back of your mind. She kept watching you though, silent and still, eyes glimmering with something you couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t hunger for food. It wasn’t even lust, exactly. It was closer to ownership, the way a collector looked at something rare.

After a while, you tried to fill the silence. “Why didn’t you make any for yourself?”

Her grin widened slightly, the faintest glint of teeth showing as her tongue darted across her lower lip. “I already ate,” she murmured, voice velvet soft.

You nodded absently, but the words sat wrong in your head, echoing. Something about the way she said it—slow and casual, but deliberate—made you feel like she wasn’t talking about breakfast at all.

Evening fell like a blackout curtain.

You sat curled up on the couch, blanket wrapped around your shoulders like it could hide the shaking in your hands. The gun rested beside your thigh, silent and useless unless your instincts decided to wake up again.

Paige lounged across the room, leaning against the wall as though she were posing for a painter. She flipped lazily through one of your notebooks—the ones filled with warnings and timelines and desperate ideas for survival—smiling faintly like she was reading a romance novel instead of your unraveling sanity.

“Your handwriting is cute when you’re scared,” she mused without looking up.

Before you could snap at her you heard three knocks. Calm and polite. Too normal for this world.

Everything inside you froze.

A male voice followed.

“H-hello? I… I heard someone inside. Please, I’m just looking for somewhere to stay for the night.”

Your breath hitched. He sounded like a real person. Normal and reasonable. You were already halfway to the door when Paige’s voice cut through the air like a wire tightening around your throat:

“Don’t.”

It wasn’t loud, nor was it forceful, but it made you stop nonetheless.

Paige pushed off the wall and approached like she had all the time in the world. Her fingers brushed your elbow as she came to stand behind you.

The voice outside spoke again, tired and hopeful.

“Please. I’m clean. I haven’t seen anyone in days. I won’t be any trouble.”

Your chest constricted. You swallowed hard, eyes flicking toward the lock.

“See?” you whispered. “He’s human.”

Paige leaned down, her breath ghosted across the back of your neck, warm and intimate in a way that felt wrong.

Wrong because you leaned into it.

“You’re smart,” she whispered. “Your instincts kept you alive this long.” Her hand slid down your arm, fingers tracing the tendons of your wrist. “So why aren’t you listening to them now?”

You blinked. Confused. “What—?”

“You’re shaking,” she murmured. “Not because of him… but because of the idea of trusting him.”

You looked down, your hand on the lock trembled violently.

She was right. She was right—wasn’t she?

Another knock. Softer this time.

“I’m not dangerous,” the man said, voice cracking. “I just—I’m so tired. You don’t even have to let me stay around you. Just… just a roof.”

Your heart ached. God, you knew that kind of tired.

Paige moved closer—her chest pressed to your back now, one hand gently closing over yours on the lock. Her touch was cold and tender at the same time, like a soft shackle.

“That’s the problem,” she whispered.

“They always say the right things.”

You stared into the peephole.

A man stood there, mid 40s, worn jacket, dirt streaked face. Panting like he’d been running for miles. He didn’t look like a monster. He looked like a school teacher. A dad. A neighbor.

Your voice was barely audible. “He just needs help.”

Paige’s fingers slowly interlaced with yours on the doorknob.

“And what about you?” Her tone sharpened, a whispered blade. “Who helps you when you let in the wrong person? Who saves you if he decides you’re just another meal?”

Your lungs stuttered and your hand slipped off the lock.

Paige hummed a pleased little sound behind you—almost affectionate—as she slid her arm around your waist and pulled you back against her, guiding you away from the door like you were something fragile made of wet paper.

Outside, the man sighed, the sound heartbreakingly human.

“…Okay,” he murmured. “I understand. I’ll keep moving.”

You listened to his footsteps fade into the dark.

Paige nuzzled her chin into your hair, her voice velvety sweet as she spoke. “You made the right choice. You trusted me.”

Her grip tightened—not painfully, but like she was securing ownership. “See how safe you are, when you listen?”

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Because the truth hit you. You didn’t know if you were safe from the world outside or from the woman holding you so close.

Paige smiled against your skin, feeling that thought run through you like a shiver.

“There we go,” she cooed. “It’s just us now.”

And God help you, a part of you felt relieved.

You sat in front of your vanity, the soft glow of the dim lamp barely reaching the edges of the room. Your fingers closed around the handle of the hairbrush, lifting it to your tangled strands. Slowly, you pulled it through your hair, and with each stroke, more and more strands clung to the bristles like fragile threads slipping away. You watched them fall, limp and lifeless, and a sharp stab of panic fluttered in your chest.

Your eyes, rimmed red and sunken from sleepless nights and endless tears, locked on your reflection in the mirror. The face staring back at you was a stranger—pale, hollow, lips cracked and dry, the faint shadows under your eyes like bruises no one else could see. The skin was dull, sallow, and even your once favourite silky nightgown couldn’t make you feel anything but exposed.

You sighed, shaky and defeated, trying to find a trace of the pretty girl you used to be. The one who loved this ritual, who smiled at her own reflection with hope and light in her eyes, but she wasn’t there anymore. Just a ghost trapped behind glass.

Your hand lifted and smeared cold and heavy foundation onto your skin like armor— uneven and thick, like war paint against a battle no one else could fight for you. Eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss, blush… you did everything just like before, forcing the motions out of muscle memory. But the reflection didn’t change. It only highlighted how far you’d fallen from the girl you knew.

Tears pricked at your eyes and stung, but you blinked them back. Your fingers reached for a makeup wipe, hovering over your face as if it might erase the pain beneath. But you hesitated, staring hard at your own reflection, memorizing every cracked line and hollow cheek. You wanted to be you again. You wanted normal and you wanted to stop feeling like you were unraveling thread by thread, slipping into a darkness that you could no longer fight.

The quiet pressure of those emotions swelled inside, rising like a storm threatening to break free. Before you knew what you were doing, you stood abruptly, grabbed the empty glass from the nightstand, and with a scream that came from deep inside your soul—raw and ragged—you hurled it across the room. The glass shattered against the wall near the door, shards scattering across the floor like fragments of your fractured self.

Paige appeared quietly in the doorway, watching you with that unnervingly calm expression of hers. You didn’t notice her at first, pacing back and forth like a caged animal, hands running frantically through your hair, tugging and pulling as if trying to rip the confusion and pain from your mind.

Her voice finally broke through the chaos, soft and measured, as if she were soothing a child instead of the storm that raged within you.

“Hey, hey. Calm down, it’s okay,” she said, stepping fully into the room with deliberate grace.

Your breath hitched, tears streaming down your cheeks, eyes bloodshot and wild. Your hands trembled uncontrollably as you nibbled on your nails, searching desperately for something solid to hold onto, some last sliver of sanity.

Paige moved forward, reaching out to rest her hands gently on your shaking shoulders, guiding you towards the bed like you were a fragile thing made of glass. You stumbled slightly and sank down onto the mattress, knees hitting the frame with a hollow thud. Your breath was ragged, chest heaving.

Her hands slid behind your head, fingers threading through your hair, stroking slow and possessive. The touch should have comforted you—maybe it did—but there was something else beneath it. Something like ownership.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, voice soft but with an edge that demanded honesty. Not curiosity. Not kindness. Just ownership.

You clutched at her arms, desperate to anchor yourself to something real, your voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t do this anymore, Paige. I fucking can’t. I can’t.”

Her brows knit together in a show of concern, eyes softening as if she truly felt for you. But you knew better. It was a performance, a calculated tenderness that only made you more vulnerable.

“Can’t do what?” she murmured, voice like honey, coaxing.

You panted through your nose, lips trembling as you finally met her gaze, eyes raw with exhaustion and defeat.

“Living like this. I’m not me. This isn’t me, okay? Do you understand that? I’m not me anymore.” Your voice cracked, the words spilling out like a confession to a lover or a crime to a judge.

“I used to be pretty. Sweet. Kind. I was full of life. And look at me now,” you said, a choked sob wracking your body as your fingers tightened on her arms. “I’m wilting away. I don’t even look human anymore. I don’t feel human.”

Paige’s hands came up to cup your face, cold yet eerily soft, gentle enough to soothe but firm enough to remind you she was in control. Her gaze locked onto yours, her small smile curling at the edges—sympathy and something darker entwined.

“That’s good,” she said, voice low and velvety. “Humans are weak. You’re evolving.”

Her thumbs traced slow paths down your cheeks, wiping away the mascara-streaked tears with deliberate care. “And you’re still pretty, baby. So, so fucking gorgeous.”

You didn’t respond. You couldn’t. Because somewhere between the exhaustion and the brokenness, between the need to resist and the hunger for comfort, a part of you began to listen. To fall. To lean in.

And Paige was there, always there, ready to catch you.

Paige slid behind you on the bed without a sound, the mattress dipping beneath her weight. Her knees came up on either side of your hips, closing you in place like she’d been waiting for this exact position. Her chest pressed against your back, not fully—she was savoring the inches she hadn’t claimed yet.

Her hand wrapped around your jaw, gently but with direction, turning your face toward the mirror as if you didn’t deserve to look away from what you were becoming.

“Look at you,” she whispered into your hair, her breath threading through the strands. “You can’t tell me that’s not beautiful.”

She brushed your hair to the opposite side with slow, deliberate fingers. The gesture was caring to anyone else, but to you, it felt like preparation. Her face hovered over your shoulder, cheek almost touching yours as she inspected the reflection like it was her masterpiece.

“Why would you want to look human?” Her voice dropped, low and darkly proud. “You look so much better like this.”

Your eyes—once warm, once full of sunlight—looked almost glassy under the dim lamp glow. Lighter. Sharper. Foreign. You hadn’t noticed it happening, you’d been too busy falling apart everywhere else.

Her lips ghosted the tender skin beneath your ear.

“This is who you’re meant to be, pretty,” she murmured, each syllable sliding down your spine. Then with a kiss against your cold neck, “Mine.”

A shiver raced through you, not entirely fear.

Her mouth moved up your throat in patient ascension. The soft pressure of each kiss carried a silent threat. She could devour you if she wanted to. And she did want to.

Her hands glided down your arms, her fingertips leaving goosebumps in their wake until she reached your wrists. She lifted them, placing your hands gently on your thighs—palms down, fingers spread—as if arranging a porcelain doll she owned.

Her thumbs stroked the inside of your wrists once… A reminder that all she had to do was close her fingers to make escape impossible.

Then she rose gracefully, lifting her weight from the bed only to reposition herself in front of you. The mirror vanished behind her. Only her existed now, her eyes, her breath, and her hunger.

She caught a tear on her thumb, smearing mascara like war paint across your cheek. Her gaze ignited with something triumphant.

“You’re exhausted,” she said, voice velvet and poisonous. Her hands cupped your cheeks, holding you steady, holding you still. “Let me think for you.”

Her eyes dropped to your lips—raw from weeks of chewing on your own panic—then back to your eyes, locking you in.

“Just give in.”

Your chest rose and fell too fast. Your pulse thundered beneath your skin. Every warning instinct in your body screamed at you.

But you nodded.

Because you were too tired to fight.

Because a terrifying part of you wanted this.

Paige’s grin was slow, predatory, and victorious. She leaned in, lips brushing yours, almost nothing, almost everything. “Good girl.” Her mouth finally met yours, soft at first. Testing. Tempting. Your lips moved without hesitation, like your body already belonged to her even if your mind refused to admit it. Her hand slid to the base of your throat, fingers resting lightly as if measuring your pulse. Not squeezing. Not yet. Just reminding you how easily she could.

It made your breath hitch and it made her smirk against your lips.

Her other hand found your bare thigh, fingertips dragging upward, slow enough to make you shake. She nipped at your bottom lip, coaxing your mouth open and when her tongue slid against yours, you melted, every defense collapsing into heat and want.

You kissed her like she was oxygen.

She kissed you like she was claiming territory.

Your hands—still placed obediently on your thighs—twitched with the urge to grab her, hold her, cling to something. Paige noticed. Paige loved it.

“You’re so adorable,” she breathed, swallowing your quiet, desperate sounds like they were her new favorite melody. Her tongue tasted fear and surrender and a hunger you didn’t know you had.

Then—just when you thought she would pull back—her teeth sank into your lip. Hard. Sharp. Breaking skin. A bloom of pain burst, metallic warmth following.

You gasped, but didn’t pull away.

She exhaled a shaky, delighted laugh against your mouth. Then licked the blood from your lip like it was something earned.

“God,” she whispered, voice raw with restraint she was losing by the second. “You taste like you were made for me.”

Her grip on your throat tightened—not enough to hurt, just enough to promise she could.

And you didn’t flinch. You leaned into it.

That was all she needed to break.

Her mouth crashed back to yours, harder and hungrier, every kiss a command, every touch possession.

You were gone and Paige finally let herself enjoy it.

Paige kissed you like she was drinking you, deep and greedy, her tongue claiming space that wasn’t hers but she took anyway. Every needy breath that slipped from your mouth, she swallowed like a reward.

Your self control snapped.

Your hand left your thigh and slid over hers, not pushing her away, but inviting. Encouraging. Begging without words. Your other hand slipped up into her hair, fingers threading through soft blonde strands as you tugged her bun loose. It fell around her shoulders in pale waves, a wild halo that made her look more dangerous. More unreal. More like the creature she was becoming.

And she let you.

A low, practically feral sound rumbled from her chest as she leaned into you, guiding you back until your back hit the mattress and your head sank into the pillow. The room tilted, the world narrowed, but she stayed in focus. Always her.

Her hand never left your throat, thumb resting over your pulse like she was counting how fast she was ruining you.

She broke the kiss only to hover above you—her cocky, devastating smirk curving at the corner of her mouth. Her blue eyes, glowing faintly with that same eerie light from the night before, dragged over your face like a caress.

The reminder struck you fast and cold. That wasn’t a nightmare. None of this was a nightmare. It was worse, and better than that.

Her grip eased from your throat, palm trailing down your chest in slow circles, slipping under your nightgown with a confident, possessive slide. Her fingertips traced your hipbone, claiming skin inch by inch.

“Tell me you need me,” she murmured, mouth brushing yours again but not quite kissing. Her voice was velvet and knives, soft enough to melt you, sharp enough to cut into the last of your resistance. “Tell me you want me to take care of you.”

Her hand squeezed your thigh, urging them apart just a little. Not enough to be explicit, but enough to make you shake. Her lips skimmed your cheek, then your jaw, then your throat, teeth grazing where her hand had been moments before.

“You’ve been so strong,” she whispered against your skin, tone dripping with dark sweetness. “So stubborn.” Her tongue flicked the edge of your pulse. “It’s cute.”

Her free hand slid into your hair, pulling just enough to expose more of your neck, her mouth trailing down greedily. “But you’re done fighting, aren’t you?” A kiss. “You want someone to take over.” Another. “You want me to take over.”

Her hand on your hip drifted inward, dangerously close to where you trembled for her. She didn’t touch—she hovered —letting the anticipation ache. Her nose brushed yours as she returned to your lips, eyes locked on yours like she was inside your head, answering thoughts before you could think them.

“That’s why you opened the door.”

Her thumb pressed lightly beneath your chin. “That’s why you almost begged when I kissed you.” Her smirk grew. “That’s why you’re under me right now… so fucking desperate.”

Your back arched as she finally— finally—let her body settle against yours fully, the heat between you snapping like electricity.

“Say it,” she coaxed, voice lower, darker, undeniably aroused. “Say you need me.”

Her fingers toyed with the hem of your nightgown, her mouth ghosting the corner of your lips, close enough to drive you insane and far enough to deny satisfaction.

“I wanna hear it,” she purred. “Wanna hear you give yourself to me.”

You could feel her smile against your cheek.

“Be a good girl…”Her hand slipped just a bit higher, enough to make your breath stop.“and admit you’re mine.”

Your lips parted, but the words that tried to crawl out of you weren’t the ones she wanted. “Paige, I—” you started, voice trembling and thin from everything pressing down on you. But she didn’t let you finish. Her mouth crashed onto yours again, swallowing the syllables before they could take shape. The kiss was hotter this time— hungry, claiming, like she wanted to eat every protest straight from your tongue. Her hand at your thigh pushed upward with intention, fingers flexing into skin she clearly wanted to bruise.

The sound that escaped you was embarrassment disguised as a gasp, and it made her smile into the kiss. She drank you in like you were something sweet she’d earned. When she pulled back, just barely, your heart chased her lips without permission and you moved before you even realized you were doing it.

Paige noticed. Oh, she noticed. Her hand slid higher still, brushing the softest part of you through the thin fabric of your nightgown. You jerked beneath her, breath catching in your throat, but she only tightened her hold around the back of your neck, guiding your gaze to hers.

Those impossibly blue eyes held you in place like a hand around your heart. “Aw, look at you,” she whispered, words curling into your mind like a possession spell, “you’re clinging to me like I’m the only thing keeping you alive.” Her nose brushed yours as she nudged your legs further apart, taking what she wanted without force—just the certainty she’d be obeyed. “‘Cause I am,” she added, soft but deadly, sealing it like a truth you were never allowed to question.

You opened your mouth again, maybe to fight, maybe to beg—you didn’t even know anymore—but the only thing that came out was her name. “Paige…” It wasn’t a plea or a warning. It was a submission dressed up like fear.

Her fingers finally slipped beneath the hem of your nightgown, skin to skin now, the heat of her palm burning into your hip like a brand. She tilted your chin up with her other hand, forcing you to hold her stare. “There she is,” she murmured, voice thick with dark satisfaction. “My pretty girl. My exhausted girl.” Her thumb pressed beneath your jawline, just shy of your pulse. “You’re tired of being human, aren’t you? Tired of pretending you don’t want this.” She leaned in, her lips brushing your ear, breath hot and possessive. “Just say it.”

You swallowed hard, chest rising sharply against hers. It felt like breathing through wire. Your body betrayed you — arching, seeking, desperate. Every inch of you screamed yes while your mind scrambled for something to hold onto and found nothing left. Not even yourself.

Her lips trailed from your ear back to your mouth, a slow drag that sent your stomach dropping like a stone. “Say you need me,” she repeated, voice almost gentle now, like a reward waiting to happen. “Say you want me.” She pressed a soft, unbearably slow kiss to your lips, one that felt like permission to fall apart. “Say you’re mine.”

Your last bit of reason cracked under the weight of desire and exhaustion and loneliness. You exhaled her name again— softer, broken—and nodded against her mouth as tears warmed your cheeks. “ I need you,” you whispered, and it sounded like confession and surrender in the same breath. Paige smiled. Not kind but not cruel, just certain. Because she had you now.

“Good girl,” she breathed, before kissing you again, deeper and harder, like she intended to keep that promise.

Paige’s hands began their descent like she was mapping a territory she intended to conquer. Her palms glided along your throat first—not squeezing, but measuring, feeling the flutter of your pulse, counting each beat that belonged to her. She dragged her thumbs down the line of your collarbones, over the swell of your chest, circling lazily around each hardened peak just to feel the way you gasped and arched up into her touch.

Your nightgown clung to her knuckles as she moved lower. Over your ribs, one by one, like she was checking what was still breakable. She paused briefly beneath your sternum, her hand flattening against the trembling rise and fall of your breathing. Savoring the panic. The want.

Then she reached your stomach—her fingertips dipping into the soft give of skin there—until finally, *finally*, she gripped your hips like she was claiming a meal.

The whole time, her mouth was fused to yours. The kiss was messy and consuming, all tongue and teeth and hunger. She pulled tiny, helpless sounds straight from your lungs and swallowed every one like she was starving for them. By the time she pulled away, your lips felt bitten, used, and bruised.

She pushed your nightgown up, slow and with purpose, until cool air brushed the purple lace panties you’d put on hoping to feel like a normal girl again. But under her stare, you felt anything but normal.

Paige looked down at you through her lashes, lips slick and parted, and the smirk that curled there was pure appetite.

“God…” she breathed, desire dripping from the word, “aren’t you just the cutest thing ever.”

Her thumbs pressed into the dips of your hips before sliding out to squeeze the soft flesh there, greedy and admiring at the same time. She alternated between kneading and stroking, watching the way your stomach jumped with every touch, how your thighs tensed and tried not to move.

Your eyes couldn’t leave her. She looked so painfully human like that—flushed cheeks, tousled hair, parted lips—yet every instinct in your body screamed that she was not. Something in those too bright eyes, that edge of hunger just below her skin… it called to you. It promised that if you gave up humanity for her, she would devour the parts of you that hurt.

Her mouth returned to your skin, lower this time. She kissed the place just under your jaw, slow and soft for a moment before her teeth sank in with just enough pressure to make your breath hitch. She sucked a mark there, pulling heat to the surface in a bruise that felt like a brand.

Her hand drifted down, exploring again. Your stomach, the waistband of your lace amd lower.

She cupped you through the fabric.

You gasped, quiet and soft, and Paige’s lips split into a pleased smile against your neck. She pressed more firmly, testing how soaked the lace already was, humming when she found her answer.

“Got you this wet already?” she murmured into your skin, voice vibrating where her mouth pressed. She licked the new bruise slowly, savoring the taste of you like it was a delicacy. “Just for me.”

Then her knee slid between your thighs and nudged—not gentle, not tentative—forcing you open like a door she had every right to walk through. The muscles in your legs melted around her instinctually, granting her the access she wanted. Needed. Her thumb slid along the damp lace again, slow circles that made your hips chase the pressure without thinking. Paige’s breath hitched too, a low, involuntary sound like your need was feeding her.

Her teeth scraped down your neck, each nip more desperate, like she was trying to keep herself from biting deep enough to change everything too fast.

You felt her smile against your throat , sharp and hungry, right before she whispered against your pulse, voice trembling with restraint, “Just let me have you, pretty girl…”

Not a demand. Not even a question. Just a promise she was starving to fulfill.

Her thumb traced slow, taunting circles over the damp fabric covering your core while her mouth devoured your neck. Lips, then tongue, then teeth, as though she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to worship or ruin you.

Eventually the restraint snapped.

She bit down, not enough to break skin, but enough that the sting radiated deep and hot, electric in a way that made your back arch. You knew that mark would be there for days. She wanted it there for days.

All you could do was whimper, breath catching. You didn’t push her away. You didn’t dare. The pain was sharp, intoxicating, and a reminder that she was real and here and touching you exactly how you needed.

“F-fuck…” you breathed, lungs tight like she’d stolen all your air. “Do something.”

Paige lifted her head slowly, almost lazily, like a predator indulging a helpless little thing beneath her. Hovering over you, she looked down with a seriousness you’d never seen in her before, her expression carved from hunger and command.

“Ask nicely.” No smile. No warmth. Just power wrapped in a beautiful face.

Your throat tightened. Tears clung to your lashes from the overwhelming mix of arousal and sensation, but you forced your voice to steady, even if it only came out as a fragile whisper.

“Please…” Your fingers curled in the sheets, voice small and desperate. “Please, Paige. I need you. I need something. Anything. Please.”

Desperation tasted sweet on your tongue and she savored it. Satisfaction curled at the corner of her lips, a private little smirk that said she could do unspeakable things to you if she really wanted to. And she did. Just slowly.

She eased back, sitting on her heels, studying you with a calm intensity, as though she were deciding which part of you to consume first. Her gaze moved down your body like a hand, stripping you layer by layer even before her fingers reached the waistband of your panties.

You expected a slow slide. A tease.

Instead she ripped them.

The lace tore apart between her fists like nothing. The sound alone sent heat rushing through your veins. Your gasp hadn’t even finished leaving your throat before she was on you again, crushed lips against yours, stealing your shock and turning it into a mess of need.

When her fingers slipped lower, brushing your entrance, you could tell how embarrassingly wet you already were.

“You’re soaked, mama,” she murmured against your mouth, voice dripping with mock sympathy. “You need it that bad?”

All you could do was nod—quick, eager, shameless. Your lower lip jutted out in a silent plea that only made her chuckle darkly.

She didn’t answer, she simply acted. The nightgown was tugged up and off you entirely, tossed aside like it offended her by existing between you and her hands. Then came her own shirt—over her head in one swift motion—leaving her in a sports bra and the loose shorts you’d given her earlier. They looked better on her than they ever had on you.

You stared. It was impossible not to. The smooth planes of her stomach, the toned lines of her arms, freckles scattered like constellations across shoulders you wanted to memorize with your mouth. She looked so human… frighteningly human. And yet, something deep inside you knew she wasn’t.

She crawled up your body again, and before you could brace for it—

Two long fingers pushed into you.

A stretch that bordered that thin line between pain and pleasure. You sucked in a long breath through your nose, eyes squeezing shut, everything in your body tightening around her.

The reaction only fed her more.

“You’re so gorgeous when you’re in pain,” she whispered, curling her fingers just slightly, enough to make your hips jump toward her. “Like an angel.”

The smirk on her lips said she knew exactly how untrue that word was to you, and how badly you wanted to believe it when she said it.

Her rhythm started slow, deliberate, learning every gasp you gave her. She watched you like a study, eyes tracking every shift, every flutter of your lashes, every breath that stuttered when she changed the angle.

She drank in your pain like it was pleasure. And maybe it was for both of you.

Your nails dug into her back without thought, dragging down her skin, leaving angry red trails. A thin line of blood welled under one. Paige hissrd, not in pain, but in satisfaction. She liked it. She wanted more.

You had never felt anything like this.

And she looked at you like you were the closest thing to divine she’d ever seen. Hair fanned around you like a halo, lips swollen from kisses that bordered on bites, your neck and chest marked by her possessiveness. She wanted to take her time. To savor every inch she claimed. To make sure you never forgot who made you feel like this. She wanted to ruin you, slowly and beautifully, until nothing in the universe could compare.

Her fingers never faltered, slick, sure, and ruthlessly patient as she worked you open. A third joined the others, stretching you further, and the shocked whimper that tore out of you made her pupils blow wide. It was like she needed to witness every twitch of your body, every stutter of your breath. Like she fed on it.

Paige curled her fingers again, deeper this time, angling just right as they hit that spot, and the sound that escaped you wasn’t pretty or controlled. It was raw and iInstinctive. A confession torn right from your chest.

She smiled like she owned that sound. Owned you.

Her thumb found you too, drawing slow, circling patterns over your throbbing clit that mocked the frantic hunger of her fingers. Pleasure and pain clashed and tangled until you couldn’t separate one from the other. She was savoring you—dissecting your reactions, playing with your limits—as though she had all night to dismantle you piece by trembling piece.

Your head tipped back into the pillow, neck bared like prey offering itself up. Paige’s mouth descended immediately, claiming the vulnerable column of your throat. Her tongue soothed over bruised skin for a fleeting second before her teeth sank in again, staking another claim. You cried out, legs jerking, thighs instinctively trying to clamp around her wrist, but her free hand was already there, spreading you wider, keeping you open for her.

A low purr of satisfaction vibrated against your skin.

“You’re perfect,” she murmured into the heat of your neck, reverent and dangerous all at once.

Then she lifted her head, slow and predatory, forcing you to meet her gaze. Her eyes locked on yours with a hunger that felt like drowning. Like she was pulling the soul right out of you with nothing but eye contact.

“So fucking good for me,” she breathed, her voice softening the way a storm calms just before lightning hits. “Taking it so well, mama…”

You couldn’t speak—couldn’t think —just clung to her, nails dragging furrows down her back. Every thrust of her hand pulled the tightening cord in your abdomen closer to breaking, heat building fast and blinding.

She moved faster.

Something wild snapped loose in you. You needed to anchor yourself, needed to stop floating away , so you buried your teeth into her shoulder, biting down hard. A claim. A marking. Pure instinct.

Paige gasped, but the sound was ecstasy, not pain. Her smile spread slow and sharp, like she’d been waiting for this exact moment. Her hand fisted in your hair, pulling your lips from her skin just enough so she could speak against your mouth, jer voice low and possessive.

“Mine.” Her kisses trailed up your cheek, her breath hot at your ear as she delivered the final blow. “Only mine.”

That did it.

The rope snapped violently, pleasure crashing over you so fast your body couldn’t keep up. Your vision blurred white, muscles locking as you came apart underneath her, a trembling mess of heat and relief and desperate, broken sounds you couldn’t swallow back. You tried to muffle them by hiding your face against her shoulder, burying yourself in her scent, but your whimpers still escapedd. Every one of them claimed by her ears, her hands, her teeth.

Paige held you through the fall, fingers still deep, still guiding, still owning, like she wanted to make sure your pleasure didn’t just crest, but destroyed you.

Like she wanted this moment carved into you forever.

You were still shaking.

Not the pretty kind of trembling—no, this was the full body, bone deep shiver that came after being pulled apart too fast and too perfectly. Paige didn’t withdraw immediately. Her fingers stayed buried inside you for a lingering moment, like she wanted to feel every final pulse of your orgasm against her skin. Like letting go meant giving up control, and she wasn’t ready for that.

Only when your whimpers softened into heavy breaths did she finally slip her hand away, slow and possessive. She lifted her fingers between you both, slick and shining, and looked at them like they were something sacred. Something hers.

The sight alone made your breath catch.

Paige’s expression softened, though hunger still licked behind her gaze, and she brushed her knuckles along your hipbone, grounding you. “There you are…” she murmured, voice low and strangely gentle, like she was soothing something wild inside you. “Back with me?”

You tried to speak, but your throat felt too tight to form words. All you managed was a nod, small and shaky, but it pleased her anyway. She leaned forward, capturing your mouth in a slow kiss, not claiming this time but consuming in a different way. Addiction. Devotion with sharp teeth.

Her free hand slid up your ribcage, fingers splayed wide, as if she needed to feel every breath you dragged in. “You did so well for me,” she whispered against your lips. “So beautiful when you fall apart.”

You should’ve been exhausted, done, and spent. But the way she looked at you… it reignited something molten under your skin. Like one climax had only teased awake a hunger you hadn’t felt in years.

Paige noticed.

Of course she did.

She always noticed the things you didn’t want to admit.

Her palm drifted lower again, fingers ghosting over the bruises she’d given, the marks she’d left. “Look at you,” she said softly, almost in awe. “All of this… and you’re still letting me touch you.”

She traced the inside of your thigh, light amd almost teasing, spreading warmth through your trembling muscles. Your breath hitched, and Paige smiled against your cheek, lips brushing the damp track of your tears.

“That’s my girl.”

The praise landed like another claim, right over your heartbeat.

She shifted downward, her body moving with a certainty that made your pulse stutter. Her kisses trailed after her, down your jaw, down your neck, down your collarbone like she was mapping where she would bite next.

You felt her settle between your thighs, not touching yet, just breathing there. The anticipation alone had your hips lifting off the bed, chasing more.

Paige’s hands held your hips down, gentle but immovable. “Easy,” she whispered, voice roughened by want. “I’m not done with you.”

Your stomach dropped.

She said it like she meant it..

Her lips pressed to the inside of your knee, slow and reverent, before she began her path upward, a pilgrimage toward the heat she’d already ruined once tonight. When she looked up at you from between your thighs, she didn’t look human at all.

And god—you wanted her anyway.

“God, it’s so pretty,” Paige murmured against your pussy, voice a wrecked whisper. “Prettiest thing I’ve ever seen… other than your face.”

Her teeth grazed sensitive skin, leaving new marks to match the constellation she’d already mapped across your chest and throat. Every slow drag of her breath over you sent another shiver spiraling down your spine. Your hands twisted into the sheets, searching for anything to ground you before she unmade you all over again.

And she was absolutely savoring the power of that.

You forced your eyes open, looking down through the haze, and the sight nearly stole the air from your lungs. Red and purple bruises blooming over your thighs, each one shaped by her mouth, her possession. Paige looked up briefly, tongue wet against her lips, looking devastating with her lashes low and her hair falling like silk around her sharp cheekbones and sculpted shoulders.

So unfairly beautiful, like temptation built a body just to test you.

She hooked her arms beneath your thighs and dragged you closer until you were exactly where she wanted you—your legs thrown over her shoulders, body at her mercy, pussy close to her face. Then her gaze lifted, pinning you there. Her head didn’t move, but her mouth did, until she was finally right where you needed her most.

Her tongue traced a long, deliberate stripe up your folds, and Paige swore she could taste something holy in the pleasure she pulled from you. The soft whine that slipped out of you was all the confirmation she’d ever need.

She hadn’t even truly begun, and your thighs were already trembling.

She lingered close, nose brushing your inner thigh as she looked at you with that look—the one that always robbed you of breath and reason and dignity.

The heat between you thickened the air, a slow burn that felt like it could swallow you whole.

“Damn,” she teased, voice low and pleased. “Shaking already? You love this, huh?”

Her grip tightened just enough to remind you who was in control before she dove back in, tongue finding the exact rhythm that made your pulse stutter. From where she knelt, she looked like both worship and sin, lips and devotion and wicked intention.

“Use your words,” she demanded, breath hot against your cunt. “Tell me what you want.”

Your whisper cracked, but it was enough.

“You.”

Her grin curled, hunger licking at the edges of her self control. “Yeah?” she breathed, lips grazing you as she spoke. She shook her head with almost affectionate disbelief. “You’re so easy to corrupt.”

Then she truly devoured you.

Her mouth sealed around your clit, tongue teasing through your folds, savoring, and tasting like she’d finally found her favorite sin. She held you firmly in place, as if she didn’t trust your body not to flee from the pleasure she was determined to drown you in.

Your hips chased her on instinct, needy and thoughtless, your hand sliding into her hair just to ensure she stayed exactly where you both needed her.

“Just breathe,” Paige mumbled against you, voice somehow steady despite the chaos she was causing. “I’ve got you.”

It wasn’t about control anymore. It was about ownership. Mind. Body. Soul. Maybe even the heart you tried so hard to guard.

Your vision warped at the edges as she worked you with expert precision—your world collapsing into heat and mouth and Paige. Your head tipped back, a choked curse breaking free.

“Fuck—feels so good. You’re so good, oh my God—”

Every breathless praise only stoked the fire in her, drove her deeper, hungrier. Her face was buried in you, like she had been starved for too long. Like the taste of you wasn’t just pleasure. It was life.

When you actually thought about it…

this was Paige’s first meal since you met her.

And she was ravenous.

It didn’t take long for your orgasm to rise up and ambush you, it was sharp and overwhelming, ripping right through your core before you even had the chance to brace for it. Your thighs clamped and shook around Paige’s head, your mouth falling open on a cry that sounded dangerously close to a scream as pleasure tore through you like a live wire.

But Paige? She didn’t stop.

Her tongue kept working you, relentless and precise, like she’d never learned the concept of mercy. Like the taste of you was her lifeline. If she were mortal in this moment, her jaw would ache, her neck would burn, her lungs would beg for air. But she was possessed by something stronger than pain could ever challenge.

She worked you through that climax like she was dragging it out by hand, not for your sake. For hers.

The overstimulation slammed into you and panic fluttered in your stomach. Your body tried to retreat, hips twitching away from her mouth. You reached for her head, fingers trembling, trying to pry her off just long enough to breathe again.

But Paige wasn’t having it.

Her hand shot up with lightning speed, wrapping around your wrist and slamming it into the mattress, next to her head. The grip was unforgiving, bruising, a stark reminder of who owned this moment.

“Take your fucking hands off,” she growled against your soaked pussy.

The vibration of her voice against your clit dragged a broken sound out of you, something primal and pleading and barely human.

She didn’t even look up. Didn’t need to.

Her mouth sealed back over you while her free arm locked you still, her forearm pressing into your hip, holding you open while she devoured you. Every lick, every suck was fueled by hunger so deep it bordered on obsession.

“I’m not done.”

Her voice was low and vicious, like the warning of a predator that delighted in the chase. She treated your second orgasm like a challenge, like she wanted to break the part of you that still thought you could resist her. She feasted on every stutter in your breath, every twitch of retreat you tried to make. She chased you ruthlessly, greedy for every drop of pleasure that spilled out of you—her tongue moving with expert, almost feral rhythm.

“I could keep you like this all night.”

She meant it. You could feel the truth of it—felt her teeth scrape lightly against you like a threat.

Your body was a live current under her, too sensitive to survive the intensity, too addicted to run from it. You tried to speak, to beg or curse or warn her,

but the words died in your throat as pleasure detonated again.

Harder. Deeper. Like your nerves were snapping under her mouth.

Stars burst behind your eyes, white hot and merciless. The sound that ripped out of you was high and panicked and raw, your back arching almost painfully as you came for her a second time, louder, messier, with no control left to pretend dignity.

Paige didn’t just push you over the edge.

She dragged you there and and threw you over.

And she only tightened her grip on your wrist like she was just getting started.

Your lungs were still catching up as Paige climbed over you, breaths sharp and uneven, but even in your haze of aftershocks you refused to let her have every ounce of control forever. Your hand came up to her jaw, not rough, not gentle, just decisive. The kind of touch that demanded her attention.

Paige stilled instantly.

Her eyes flicked up to yours, pupils blown wide, lips still glossy with your cum. God, she looked like she was starving and finding restraint was physically hurting her.

You leaned in, teeth catching her lower lip and the taste of yourself before you whispered into her mouth.

“Wanna feel you.”

It wasn’t a plea. It was a promise.

Your tongue brushed hers, bold and claiming, shocking a low sound out of Paige’s throat that she tried—and failed—to swallow down. She kissed you harder, like she thought maybe she could distract you out of taking control.

But your hands had already moved, gliding down her throat, over the curve of her chest, sliding lower until your fingers caught the waistband of her bra. You tugged slowly, deliberately, letting the friction speak for you.

Paige pulled back just enough to breathe out a small, breathless laugh, more air than

Her smirk twisted into something darker, impressed and hungry as she raised her arms without a second thought.

You peeled the fabric up and over her head, tossing it aside carelessly. Paige didn’t break eye contact once. She just watched you watching her, like your attention alone was enough to unravel her. Then your hands were at her waistband, and this time, she helped. Lifting her hips just enough for you to drag the shorts and boxers down her legs and toss them aside with the rest of your clothes.

Now both of you were bare. Skin on skin.

In one smooth shift, you pushed her back into the mattress and straddled her hips. Paige’s hands immediately found your thighs, fingers digging in like she needed the reminder that you were real and here and hers.

Her voice dropped to something low and possessive. “Look at you…” Her thumbs stroked slow up the sides of your legs.

You leaned down, your nose brushing hers as you stole another kiss, messy, deep, and a little dizzying. Her hands slid up your back, urging you closer like she wanted to feel every breath you took.

Paige’s forehead pressed to yours, her lips barely brushing yours when she spoke again. “I want you everywhere,” she murmured. “Take whatever you want.”

Her tone wasn’t mocking this time.

It was reverent and ruined and ready to be undone a second time. Her nails traced up your spine, leaving goosebumps in their wake as her voice dropped just for you:

“Put that pretty pussy on mine,” she whispered, eyes blazing with something dangerously close to devotion. “Let me feel you lose yourself again.”

And you could feel it—the shift. The hunger was still there, sharp and feral, but now it was wrapped in something intimate. Something that felt like the beginning of worship.

Your breathing was still uneven when you caught Paige’s face in your hands, steady enough to make her focus, and unsteady enough to show how much she affected you. Not soft. Not rough. Just a command.

“Wanna feel you,” you murmured against her mouth, lips brushing, tongues barely touching like you were daring her to take it further.

Paige didn’t bother with words. She just kissed you deeper, like she was answering with her mouth instead of her voice.

When you broke the kiss, your gaze dropped, and it was hungry and unapologetic. You caught your bottom lip between your teeth without meaning to as the heat began rising beneath your skin.

One of her eyebrows lifted, amused and turned on. Her hands slid to your hips, fingers digging just enough to hold you in place.

“C’mere” she murmured, low and warm and smug, like she already knew you would.

You didn’t even pretend to hesitate. You kissed her again, slower but deeper, until you could taste the air leaving her lungs. Then your lips wandered her jaw, the edge of her throat, each kiss a little more open, a little more claiming.

Her grip on your hips tightened, guiding you against her thigh in a slow, steady drag you hardly registered because you were too focused on the way her skin felt beneath your mouth. You finally lowered yourself to her chest, kissing wherever you wanted, lips wrapping around her hardened nipples, and hands moving with the kind of certainty that came from wanting, not asking. It wasn’t for her reaction. It was because you needed it.

Paige’s fingers threaded through your hair, gentle but possessive, and when you dared to glance up, her eyes were fixed on you like you were something she planned to devour later.

She whispered, voice almost ruined. “So pretty when you want me.” Your hands were everywhere. So were your lips. And Paige looked like she’d let you take anything you wanted.

You eventually dragged yourself up her body, slow and debauched, stealing one more kiss from her lips before leaning back, chest rising and falling, breath still uneven from the last time she ruined you. Your thigh pressed between hers as you shifted until your hips aligned—wet heat sliding against wet heat—and Paige didn’t breathe a word. She just watched. Eyes dark. Lips parted. Like she’d been waiting her whole life for you to take exactly what you wanted.

A shaky sigh escaped you. Relief, hunger, and anticipation all tangled into one sound.

Paige’s hands stayed at your hips, not guiding, just holding. Letting you steer. Letting you feel powerful—the tiniest illusion she’d allow before she’d drag it all back and own every piece of you again.

You rolled your hips forward, slow and testing at first, a glide of slick friction that made your entire body tighten when your clit brushed hers. Your palms braced against her abs and her thigh, grounding yourself as pleasure licked up your spine. And then instinct took over, need took over and your hips moved faster, smoother. You were soaked and unable to think, every rational thought burned away the second Paige’s skin pressed against yours.

“Yeah… that’s my good girl,” she rasped, grip tightening in a way that felt like possession. “Show me how bad you need it.” Her voice dropped lower, unbearably confident. “Make me cum.”

That single sentence hit like electricity.

Your fingers dug into her thigh harder as you shoved her legs apart wider, grinding down with purpose, deeper angle, more pressure, and more access. Everything. The air thickened, humid with sex and heat and competition. Your sounds, soft whimpers and choked moans, tangled with Paige’s heavy breathing. Her pupils had blown so wide they swallowed the blue. She looked at you like she wanted to break you open and worship whatever spilled out. Like she needed you in a way that bordered on dangerous. Something primal and animalistic.

Her nails carved into your hips deep enough to sting and deep enough to claim, helping you drag yourself against her harder. Every drag of your pussies together felt filthy and perfect at once.

“God—please don’t stop,” you breathed, a noise caught between a whine and prayer.

Paige didn’t even pretend to hide her smirk.

“I’m not doin’ anything,” she murmured, voice rough and hungry. “This is all you.”

Your hand left her thigh and slid up her torso, finding her chest — squeezing and touching one of her breasts, taking every inch she offered like it belonged to you. Everything was slick and wet. Skin on skin, sweat and arousal making every movement glide.

“You sound so pretty, mama…” Paige’s words slurred a little with want. She bit her bottom lip, eyes locked on where your bodies met. “Don’t look away—”

Her hand shot up to your jaw, fingers firm, forcing your gaze back to hers.

“Look at me.”

You did and the intensity in her eyes nearly knocked your orgasm loose right then.

“I’m— fuck— I’m so close,” you managed, voice cracked open and honest.

Paige nodded once — slow, sure — like she already felt you shaking around the edges. Like she needed you to know that she was close too.

“Good. Cum with me,” you breathed, pleading, dizzy. “Please—want you to cum with me.”

Her nails dug deeper, sharp enough to draw thin trails of blood she didn’t even notice because you were too far gone.

“That’s it,” she growled, hips finally meeting yours, chasing the rhythm you’d started. “Go ahead, mama. Cum for me—I’m right behind you.”

Your climax hit hard—a sharp, overwhelming snap that ripped a broken, high moan straight from your throat before sound itself disappeared. Every nerve lit up, every muscle locked tight as the pleasure poured through you, violent and consuming.

Paige followed instantly, like the sight of you falling apart dragged her right over the edge with you, and a low, breathless sound ripping from her chest as she came underneath you.

You barely registered anything beyond the dizzying rush, not even the way her grip had broken your skin, and blood curling down your hips like another mark she’d given you. All you knew was her.Her body. Her breath. Her nails still in your skin. Her eyes still pinned to yours.

And the stunning realization that neither of you was anywhere close to done.

You barely remembered falling asleep—the world had blurred into heat and lips and the tight press of Paige’s body wrapped around yours. At some point the frantic breathing slowed, the urgency dulled, and you melted into her like she was the only thing tethering you to what was left of reality. Her quiet whispers had been the last thing you heard. Soft, possessive praises brushed against your shoulder, promises murmured like spells meant to sink beneath your skin. You didn’t have the strength to fight it, or the will.

Morning—or what used to be morning—arrived too quickly. When you opened your eyes, the light wasn’t sunlight. It was a violent, searing white, crawling across the ceiling like a warning. You blinked against it, and your chest tightened with disappointment, the sky was still wrong. No stars. No moon. Just that blinding, endless sun, hanging above a world that should’ve burned.

You wondered how long it had been since you’d last seen night.

Paige’s arms were still around you in an iron lock disguised as an embrace. You turned in the cage of her warmth and found her asleep. Really asleep. Her chest rose and fell peacefully, her features softened into something deceptively harmless. For a moment you almost convinced yourself she could be human too. Almost.

Then you noticed the marks you’d left on her, proof of last night, proof of hunger and want, fading like they had never been there at all. Skin turning perfect again. Untouched.

Your stomach dropped. It wasn’t fair, you wanted them to last. You wanted reminders. You wanted ownership, the same way she claimed you.

You slipped from her grasp carefully, your body reluctant to leave but your mind buzzing with a quiet alarm. You grabbed the thin nightdress from the floor and slipped it on, breath uneven as the room felt too small, too warm, and too alive. Something pulsed under your skin. Something not yours.

The house was silent as you made your way to the front door. You told yourself you just wanted fresh air—any air—even if it burned. Your fingers hesitated only a second before unlocking the door.

The second it cracked open, everything inside you froze.

Bodies. Dozens. Mangled beyond recognition. Your lawn soaked in a deep, slick red that glistened beneath the sun like fresh varnish. Limbs discarded like toys. Faces crushed, torn, twisted, and all of them laid out neatly and deliberately at your doorstep.

Not any other house.

Just yours.

Your breath shook as you stepped outside. Not because of the carnage, but because you felt nothing. No scorching heat clawing at your skin. No prickling burn as the light touched you.

Instead a breeze kissed your cheek.

A breeze. A kindness this world hadn’t shown you in weeks. And that’s when you realized that world wasn’t getting better.

You were getting worse.

Panic surged up your spine as you stumbled back inside, slamming the door shut and locking it like that would keep the truth out. Your feet carried you straight to the bathroom, muscle memory from when you still trusted mirrors.

The moment the lights flickered on, you stared. Waiting. Hoping.

At first, everything looked familiar.

Then you leaned closer.

The bruises on your neck were already fading. The split in your lip was gone. The exhaustion that used to cling beneath your eyes was replaced with veins dark and sharp, your irises washed out to an eerie pale shade that didn’t feel like yours at all.

You opened your mouth. Teeth too white. Too perfect. Too sharp at the edges.

Your breath hitched. Your heart pounded so violently you thought your ribs might shatter around it. You didn’t look like someone surviving this nightmare.

You looked like something made to live in it.

“Look at youuu…”

Paige’s voice slid into the room like smoke, curling around your spine. You flinched, because you hadn’t heard her approach. You hadn’t even seen her reflection behind yours until she moved, stepping into view with that calm, patient smile.

She looked flawless again. Hair smooth, posture regal, skin unmarked. A monster dressed in perfection.

Her arms slipped around your waist, holding you firm, not a hug, but a claim. Her lips brushed your shoulder in a slow kiss that made your knees weaken even as fear twisted deep in your stomach.

“You’re changing,” she murmured, eyes locked with yours in the mirror. “Just like you’re meant to.”

You tried to speak, tried to find one word that made sense, but your voice wouldn’t come out. Paige’s fingers pressed harder into your waist, reminding you she could break you in half without effort and maybe you wouldn’t even feel pain anymore.

Her smile spread, sweet and wicked and undeniably triumphant.

“You’re almost mine, baby,” she whispered against your skin, the warmth of her breath making your reflection blur for a second. “You were made for this.”

For her.

And as terrifying as that truth was, the part that scared you most, was how deeply you wanted to believe it.

You leaned forward, staring deeper into the mirror. Your face looked normal for a second—flushed and shaken—but then your reflection shifted. Its lips stretched into the faint curve of a smile. A cruel one. A hungry one. But you weren’t smiling. You felt your own mouth, slack and horrified, but the mirror insisted on showing a version of you who wanted this. Who was already gone.

Paige’s chin settled on your shoulder, her eyes meeting yours through the reflection. She looked proud. Possessive. Like everything unfolding was exactly how she planned it. “Don’t fight it.”

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CREEPY FREAK

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