Eve wants to hurt Lynia. She really, genuinely does. To feel skin, and muscle beneath, tear under her hands --

-- and her other parts --

-- and hear the sounds she makes: the gasps, which turn to screams, which turn to whimpers. To see her eyes widen in terror and revulsion.

She knows all this. She knows it by heart: every movement that Lynia would make. And she knows how sweet it would feel. It's in her nature.

Lynia's sitting across the bed from her, lit by the sunlight filtering through the white silk curtains. She brushes a strand of amber hair from her face, and leans in toward Eve, her legs crossed.

"You all right, Eve?"

She's not. She's shaking, very slightly. Her heart is pounding, and if it pounds any harder, it'll stop being a heart.

"Yeah," she says.

Lynia leans closer, and shuffles across the bedsheets. Wraps her slender arms around Eve's neck, and rests her forehead on Eve's.

"You'd better not be lying to me, Eve," she says, in a soft voice with just the smallest hint of teasing. She is always like this. No matter how cruel the circumstances.

That's one of the things Eve loves about her.

"Of course I'm lying," she whispers.

Her hands are hanging at her sides, fists clenched. She wants so desperately to reach up and claw at Lynia's back: tear through the thin white shirt she's wearing, and peel back the layers of her flesh.

She can't. She won't. Lynia deserves to be happy. Lynia deserves to be innocent. Lynia deserves to be spared the truth.

Lynia doesn't look angry. No, she has forgiven much from Eve. A white lie is nothing to bother with.

She kisses Eve's forehead. "I understand. It's because of what Teresa said, isn't it?"

It isn't.

"I know she's stern. And she's still a little bit afraid of you. But she doesn't mean it! She knows it's wrong. And she loves you, just like I do."

That doesn't bother Eve at all. Fear? It's only natural. But Lynia can't see it. Can't see any of it. She's too...too Lynia.

Actually, the little flash of panic on Teresa's face every time she lays eyes on Eve feels good.

Lynia takes a deep breath, and prepares to say the words. She knows them well, because she's said them a thousand times before, since the day she and Teresa found Eve huddled in the corner of an alley. She will say them again. As many times as it takes to make Eve understand them.

"They're wrong. They say that because the sxelanth took your mother, you can't be trusted. But they're wrong. You're not tainted. You're not evil. You're not dangerous. You're not any less human than anyone else."

She caresses Eve's head, and Eve feels the softness of her hand and thinks about how good it would feel to rip the skin from her fingers.

She won't last much longer. It's been years, keeping herself bottled up inside her skin, but it gets more difficult with every day. The pressure builds inside her. Maturation. Probably. It's not like anybody really knows how sxelanthe work. So far as Eve knows, she's the first time this has happened.

Another gentle kiss to Eve's scalp. "Everything they did to you -- you didn't deserve it. Not one blow."

She agrees with that. She should have been killed, back in that orphanage, instead of abused and bullied. If only she'd died back then, before she met Lynia -- before she saw what wonderful things there were in the world, and what terrible danger she posed to them --

Her arms move, too swiftly to be human, and she clutches Lynia like she's dying. She feels the breath in Lynia's lungs. She won't hurt her. She won't.

Lynia just giggles, very softly, and pets Eve's deep violet hair.

How can she be like this? How can anyone be like this? Even Teresa, Lynia's own sister -- even she is different. No one is so soft, so pure, so giving.

There is a part of Eve that wants very badly to believe that Lynia could forgive even what Eve would like to do to her.

After all, it's not as though she'd be permanently hurt. Once it was over she'd be good as new. Until the next time...

Because there would be a next time. She's held it off this long with a bright line like a flaming torch. If that line gets broken, even once --

God, she doesn't even know for sure what it feels like. If she had that memory inside her, if she knew how happy it made her...

All resistance would crumble.

Lynia is still holding her, and kissing her, and petting her. Eve is crying, but she doesn't appear to have noticed. It must be something terrible this time.

It...it almost feels like she's been getting worse, lately. But that can't be. They saved Eve from that awful place, years ago, and now she's recovering. Because Lynia and Teresa love her, and she loves them.

Well, if she is getting worse, then Lynia will just have to make sure it stops.

Isn't there a chance Lynia could endure it? She's sacrificed so much for Eve. Can't she suffer one more thing? Isn't it better to try and find out?

No.

She tears herself out of Lynia's arms, and withdraws, facing away from her. Facing the window, and the curtains, and the sun.

Lynia is...saddened by it. Not shocked. Not angry. Not in pain, really. Just sad.

It looks like Eve isn't okay. And Lynia really, really wants Eve to be okay.

There is a very simple reason why Eve won't hurt Lynia, even though she loves her. It's true that the wounds would heal, that the cuts would close. And she is very, very brave. But --

She thinks of the way Lynia's body seizes up when there's a spider, or a beetle. The way she sat in her room and hugged herself that one week after a classmate slapped her, until Teresa coaxed her out. The way she held Eve, a month after she and Teresa had saved her from the orphanage, when she'd finally realized just how Eve had been treated -- and cried, and cried, and cried...

Brave. But not strong.

Not nearly strong enough to face what Eve is.

Her body would heal, but the thing that is Lynia would be gone forever.

And the possibility of a world which does not contain Lynia cannot be allowed to exist.

Maybe... Maybe it's time she finally wielded the knife against herself.

A world without Lynia is unthinkable, but a world without Eve would get along just fine.

Eve is shaking again. Lynia bites her lip. She wants to say --

Why aren't you okay? Stop being not-okay.

But she knows that's not how okayness works.

She'll have to do it herself. So she says:

"You know I'd do anything, don't you?"

Eve turns her head, meets Lynia's eyes. They are wide and brown and pleading.

Eve has a terrible feeling.

"I want you to be safe and happy. Please. I'd feel awful if you were hurting. And I'll do anything, endure anything, no matter what it is, so please just tell me how I can make you okay."

Eve lunges across the bed and takes Lynia in her arms. She falls back and lands upon the mattress, with Eve atop her. She's squeezing Lynia tightly. More tightly than before.

So tightly it very nearly hurts. A tiny gasp escapes Lynia's lips.

She places a hand on Lynia's head and forces her down, so that she is snuggled up beneath Eve's chin. They have hugged like this before, when Lynia has been vulnerable, but Eve has never felt so desperate about it before.

Eve can't end her life. She realizes that now. That would annihilate Lynia just as surely as the hurting.

No way through. Tear Lynia to shreds with blades, or tear her to shreds with death and failure. Those are the options.

Lynia can feel Eve's heart hammering away against her chest. Her arm is still wrapped around Lynia's body, and it seems to her as if she's clutching far more tightly than ought to be possible.

But it feels...comforting. She squirms very slightly, and murmurs something soft and gentle.

Eve tightens her grip. It doesn't matter if there's no way through. She'll just have to make one anyway.

She brings her lips to Lynia's ear.

"I'll protect you," she whispers. "I'll save you. I promise. No matter what. You're going to be okay."

Another gentle murmur. Affirmation, mostly. She doesn't understand what Eve is saying, but she doesn't need to. It's important to Eve, and that's what matters.

Eve's hand on Lynia's head clenches tighter, her fingers turning white.

"You trust me, don't you, Lynia? Tell me you trust me."

"I trust you, Eve," Lynia murmurs.

Tears leak from Eve's eyes.

"Thank you," she whispers. "Thank you."

She's gone from the house three minutes later.

Teresa sits within a crystal womb.

The light of the data-harvest shines in from all around, multicolored, refracting, comprehensible only to her refined eyes. And each of her ten slender fingers is a sharp-winged drone out upon the battlefield. Their eyes are her eyes, and she watches as they dart in against the enemy, their brane-scythes flashing, adjusting their paths just so with every twitch of her fingers to keep ahead of the sxelanth tendrils --

She kills, and kills, and kills. As many as possible. As quickly as possible. They will never stop coming.

The sound of a bell.

Her shift is over. It has been six hours. The drones disconnect: the data-harvest going dark, the lasers that track the gems upon her fingers cutting out. Her flock will be transferred to the next pilot.

She rises to her feet within the dark crystal chamber. She is exhausted. She does not let this slow her movements.

The door slides open on her approach, and outside, the guard (in his glittering armor, long gun by his side) salutes her.

Her heart is pounding. As usual, it does not quite feel real that the killing is done for now. How many times during this last shift did she nearly err? A single mistake, and the enemy could get close enough --

No, she knows that there is no way to defend a city but unbroken vigilance. She doesn't need to remind herself.

She does not let it show on her face. Any of it. Her posture is strict and elegant, and her cheeks do not flush. She only gives a soft, serene smile to her guard, and nods.

Then she is down the lift from the top of the tower, and out upon the street. Home, next. To Lynia, and Eve.

The streets wind between corkscrew spires and gleaming domes, all glass and crystal. It is a wealthy part of the city, here toward the center, so the jewels upon Teresa's fingers and the diamond on its silver chain about her neck and the strings of pearls around her wrists draw only admiration and envy, not anything darker. She does not really like wearing all this jewelry, but there is nothing to be done. As far as technicalities go, it is only the control gems on her fingers which are really crucial, but the others are symbols of her station and her status. And she must never, ever allow appearances to slip.

She reaches her home easily. It is tall and elegant, and bears three towers, one for each of them, because she bought it years ago with the first of her generous pay, and she had not realized then how closely she and Lynia and Eve would depend upon each other. How rarely they would sleep apart.

The door knows her, so it slides open, and she enters.

Lynia is in the kitchen. She is taking clean cookware from the washbasin and tucking it away in the white cabinets that line the circular room.

She is not supposed to be doing that.

Lynia looks up at her approach, and brightens. "Hi!"

Teresa closes on her, sweeps her up in her arms, and holds her tightly. Takes her wrists, and stops her moving. She may not fight on the battlefield herself, but she was trained in martial arts nonetheless. She knows how to bind an opponent.

Lynia squeaks, clutching the glass she's holding.

Okay, yeah. Teresa's mad. She...doesn't mind too much, though.

"Lynia, why are you doing strenuous things? I told you not to be on your feet without supervision."

What if she'd grown faint, and fallen, and struck her head? Then --

There is panic at that thought. Teresa does not allow it to surface.

It's true that Lynia's illness has grown better. But that is not excuse enough.

"The dishes needed to be put away," Lynia mumbles against Teresa's chest. She is very tall.

"Well, you should have asked Eve to do it. Or at least to watch in case you faint."

Lynia blinks, and cranes her neck to look up at Teresa. "Eve left a bit ago. She's not here."

Teresa frowns. That's unusual. Eve giving up time she could have spent with Lynia?

She shakes her head, and squeezes Lynia more tightly.

Squirming. Why is everyone so intent on crushing her to death today?

"Regardless, you could have gotten hurt. I am not going to let you get hurt. Come with me."

She releases her sister from her arms, takes the glass from her and sets it on the counter, and keeps hold of Lynia's wrist. Drags her along, up the stairs to the towers.

She doesn't protest. There's no point fighting Teresa.

When they reach the bedroom that is nominally Lynia's, the one where all three of them most often spend their nights, Teresa takes her sister by the shoulders and pushes her gently inside.

Lynia goes in, turns to face Teresa, and frowns at her. She is blocking the door.

"What are you doing?"

"Do you know why Eve left?"

"She didn't say." Lynia looks down, and fidgets uncomfortably. It's only an impression, and she doesn't want to assume, and she doesn't want to violate Eve's privacy in case her assumption is correct, and she doesn't want to make it sound like it's Teresa's fault, but --

Concealing things from Teresa isn't going to work anyway.

"I...think she's feeling bad. I mean, you -- you know how hard it is for her."

Teresa draws her lips to a line. "I see."

Now why would that cause her to depart and go God knows where, instead of cuddling with Lynia until she feels better as usual?

"I mean... Look, Sis, you were being really harsh with her yesterday. I don't think it's any surprise that what you said hurt. If it was me, I'd..."

But Teresa would not say anything harsh to Lynia. Not unless it was purely to protect her. She loves Eve dearly, but her sister is another matter.

"Perhaps," she says. "Well, I am going to go and find her." She tilts her head. "Apologize, maybe. But you will be staying here, and you will not be putting away any dishes, or doing anything else that will get you hurt. I'll release you once I'm home again."

An outstretched hand. "Teresa, wai--"

She presses her hand to the control, and the door slides shut. She seals it with her city code. No one but her will open it. Not Lynia, and not Eve.

She has food and drink and facilities, and a comfortable bed. She will be fine for a couple of hours.

Now, to locate Eve.

She takes her telephone, wrought of beautiful glass in the shape of a snail's shell, from her pocket as she returns to the ground floor. Will Eve respond to a message inquiring as to her whereabouts?

She will.

She's out toward the edges. The old city. She doesn't say what she's doing there.

(She'd really prefer not to reveal her location at all, but when Teresa sends you a message, you don't leave her hanging.)

Will she meet Teresa in forty-five minutes at the bar just west of 7th Street?

She will.

Well, that was easy enough. Now Teresa will just need to figure out what's actually wrong.

And how serious a threat it poses.

It is night, and Eve is at the edge of the city. Near the wall.

This is a poor place, but it was rich once, long ago. Before spire-salt. The streets are of cobblestone, and the buildings are tall and gaunt and vaulted, built of wood and granite: the beams shrunken by the years and pulled taut against the bricks, as if the flesh of the houses has shriveled upon the bone.

Above, the stars glitter indigo in a velvet sky. The moons are out, both of them, but of each only a faint sliver shows. The streetlights, of thin white oil-flame, cast shadows about the street. There are living things in those shadows. Eve does not fear them.

Had they mind enough, they would fear her.

She is wrapped in the darkness, pressed against a building's face, nestled behind an outcrop. Concealed perfectly. It comes naturally to her. Not that there is much necessity: to her prey's human eyes, beyond the faint pools of light cast by the rows of streetlights it would all be blackness.

There is one now.

A woman, no older than Eve herself, emerging from a cheap establishment across the street. With short black hair, and a crimson dress. It is not well-made, but it is meant to look alluring. The woman passes through the light, laughing as she waves to someone inside, and Eve sees the paleness of the skin exposed by the cut of her dress. She is young, and beautiful, and she would hurt very, very prettily.

And yet Eve is not much interested.

She sighs, and shivers, and wraps her arms around herself in the darkness. There is writhing beneath her skin. Impatient. Dissatisfied. A stranger will not be enough. Eve knows this. She always knew this. She came here to discover it anyway, because -- because what choice has she but to struggle?

She wishes for the thousandth time that there was some alien terror she could curse. Some devil on her shoulder. But she remembers. No one ever told her: nobody else even knows, so far as Eve is aware. But she remembers. Every detail, from the very beginning.

The spore that took root in her mother's growing womb, when the sxelanthe struck and the woman, slowed by pregnancy, was not quick enough to escape untouched. The way it floated there, unseen, unknown, beside Eve's half-formed body, basking in the nutrients meant for the human child --

The way it grew, until it was not a spore but a worm. A twisting alien thing, hidden away in the amniotic sac. The way it set upon the fetus, choked it like a misplaced umbilical cord -- drilled a hole through her skull and wormed its way inside --

And ate every last scrap of her brain.

Eve Moreau died twenty-two years ago.

Nothing remains but the sxelanth. A fossil in the shape of a girl.

There is no parasite within her,

because she is the worm.

The woman in red is out of sight now, and still the sxelanth that is Eve stands cocooned in the dark, shivering and needing.

She... She will go to meet Teresa, as she was told.

She arrives at the bar three minutes early. It is not far from where she made to hunt, and so it is one of those old corpse-buildings upon the cobble street. She goes inside and finds a seat. The lights within are dim, and the few people present are dimmer: sunk into their drinks and their thoughts. It suits Eve well. She does not like to be seen or listened to. That is probably why Teresa chose this place.

She arrives precisely on time, wrapped up in her silks and her gemstones, and the door seems to brighten at her presence. This run-down establishment is no place for a high noble, and it is no place where one would display valuables: but Teresa has no fear. She is a pilot. Upon the skill of her jeweled fingers rest all the hopes of all the people the city wide. None will lay a hand on her.

She makes for Eve like a falling icicle.

When she is seated, delicately, opposite Eve in the dark little booth at the corner of the bar, she gives no greeting. She only says:

"I'm sorry, Eve, but you will need to depart."

Eve does not understand.

"From the bar? From the city?"

"From my home and my family," Teresa tells her.

Oh.

There is no shock. There is no panic. There is sadness, but -- was it ever really gone?

So it is over, then. It is only natural. She always knew it would end -- that even these sisters she loves could only tolerate her tainted presence for a time --

Will she be allowed to say goodbye to Lynia?

She thinks of how dangerous she is to that girl, and how Teresa probably knows, and how no one sane would ever let Eve close to a loved one --

Now there is panic.

Teresa's eyes are sharp and stern.

"You are hurting, Eve. I do not want you to hurt, because I care for you. But I care for Lynia more. She loves you dearly, you know."

Eve knows.

But does this mean --

"She thinks that you are well. That she has made you safe and happy. She trusts in it. She trusts in the justice of the world, when no such thing exists. I have known for a very long time that she is wrong, because I can see you hurting. But she must not be allowed to discover it. Lynia's failure... She must not be made impure by it."

Eve agrees, of course. That's exactly why she can't kill herself. Or admit anything. But what else can she do? If she leaves...

"I think she is beginning to notice, Eve. If she spends much longer with you, then if you continue to hurt she will learn the truth."

Oh. Good. Another threat. Another wall to stop her from escaping. She --

She hangs her head in her hands. She is hyperventilating.

"Can I -- can I say goodbye to her?"

Teresa tilts her head. "Yes. Of course."

Hope! Sweetest Lynia: Eve will see her again. She --

She catches her breath.

"Yes, you will need to speak with her. She must believe that you are healthy and happy. That you leave because you no longer need us. It will sadden her, but she will survive."

She breathes in, and back out again.

That she no longer needs them...

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "Sorry I need you. I -- I never wanted to be a threat to her. I'll leave, I promise. Just like you said. Anything for Lynia. So you won't have to worry anymore..."

A hand on Eve's wrist.

She looks straight at Eve. Teresa's eyes are dry, but her jewels glitter like tears.

She is...bad at this.

"You misunderstand," she says. "It's not that I want you to leave. I care for you. I always have. It will sadden me, too, when you depart. It's just..."

Her heart is beating swiftly. She must not show it. Control, always.

"You understand, don't you, Eve? For Lynia, I would do..."

"Anything," Eve whispers.

Wait.

She looks at Teresa. There are no tears, but there is pain. She can detect it, just barely. She has seen this expression before. When Lynia was hurting, or upset. When such pressure was placed on Teresa's heart that even her diamond shell could not but begin to crack.

Teresa is actually telling the truth. This is crushing her. To send Eve away, to never see her again: to make Lynia's dreams a failure. And she is doing it anyway.

To protect Lynia.

Her heart is in her throat, and it pounds with violence.

She never -- she never realized quite so acutely --

-- how much she loved this woman.

Her hand darts out to seize Teresa's wrist.

Teresa flinches. Not quick enough. Eve's fingers are cold and strong. Too strong.

"Come," Eve says, and stands and pulls. It is with far more force than she should be able, because her muscles are not muscles anymore.

Because Eve thought that she loved only Lynia, and so there was no way out. But if she loves Teresa -- if she loves her truly --

-- then the sxelanth will have its meal.

Teresa is hauled to her feet with a sudden jerk. She does not understand.

"Eve, what -- "

Now Eve is pulling, dragging her across the room, toward the exit. Through, and into the cold night air beyond. Into an alley, shadowed and silent, a slice of the stars glittering above. None will disturb them here.

She presses Teresa against the stone brick wall.

She catches the barest glimpse in the starlight, and now she is gasping in fear.

Because Eve's hands are not hands. The skin has split open from the wrists all through the fingers, and there are tendrils, oozing black tendrils, spilling through the gaps -- cold against Teresa's bare shoulders, and monstrously strong --

In an eyeblink, her hand is at the branescythe on her hip.

Eve's tendrils whip down, fast and strong --

-- but too slow. The tendrils are wrapped around her arm, but the slender silver point of the branescythe is aimed between Eve's gleaming black eyes. One squeeze of the trigger, and she will be cut into ten thousand pieces.

There is no fear in those eyes.

"Teresa," Eve whispers, and her voice is a slithering hiss.

"You want to save Lynia, don't you?"

"Do you think I won't do it?"

There is a quaver in her voice, and Teresa curses herself. You can't show it. You can't --

"For Lynia, I will blast your brains to shreds. I -- I knew you were different, that something had happened, but this -- "

What even is this?

She retreats to the side -- away from the wall, and along the alley.

Eve follows, her tendrils still gripping Teresa's hands.

"That will destroy her, you know," Eve says. "If the woman she struggled so hard to save is scattered all across this alley, revealed as a parasite. Can you imagine how she'd feel?"

Teresa stares her down, and does not move the branescythe an inch.

"What choice do I have?" she whispers.

"You have a choice. Haven't you figured it out by now? You know how the sxelanthe are. The way they hunger for intimacy. I need to hurt somebody, Teresa. Somebody I love. And it can't be Lynia, because she would die. So..."

She was too distracted to realize the implications until now. It hits her with a jolt. She swallows, and her heart beats faster.

Control.

Eve advances on her, the branescythe turning aside in her weakened fingers. There is something altogether strange in Eve's dark eyes, and when she opens her mouth to smile, her teeth are like writhing snakes.

"I love you, Teresa," she says.

"Let me hurt you. For Lynia."

Teresa can scarcely hear her over the thudding of her heart in her ears.

All these years she's spent slicing sxelanthe to ribbons, and now --

But it is an easy calculus, in the end.

"For Lynia," she whispers.

She drops the branescythe.

In an eyeblink, Eve's strong tendrils have caught it: and with a violent motion she hurls it up and over the adjacent building. It gleams in the dim moonlight, and then it is gone.

And now --

Now she is alone, and unarmed, beneath the monstrous eyes of a nightmare.

It hits her. What she just did. What's going to happen now.

She has fought, many, many times. She has killed. But never before has her person been directly under threat.

And so it is new to her: the way her heart leaps to her throat; the way the dread gives way so swiftly to panic, and the panic grips every muscle in her body. Eve let go her hands to throw away the branescythe, and so she turns and runs as if she has never run before, down the alley, along the cobblestones --

How could she have done something so stupid? She should never have -- she doesn't want --

A thin black tendril wraps around her delicate ankle, and pulls.

She falls flat, striking the cobblestones hard. One of the gemstones about her neck cracks under the impact.

She struggles to right herself, to get up.

But Eve is above her, tendrils waving, sheets of glistening black like eldritch wings blotting out the moons.

For just a moment, that face is a girl's face again.

"You're so sweet, Teresa," she says. "I never knew you had such fear in you. You were always so perfect..."

She feels the hard stones against her back through the thin silken dress she wears. It is stained by sweat, now. She is panting.

Control. She...she has to stay in control. It's more important than anything...

Why?

She's forgotten. She needs to do it anyway.

Eve lowers herself, straddling Teresa's slender body, resting her arms upon coiled tendrils. Her growing wings are behind her, tasting the cool night air. She feels...

How can she even describe this? It is like freedom, or like joy. Is it the sxelanth's, or hers? No: they are one and the same.

And Teresa is so very, very beautiful.

She is lying there silent beneath Eve, her muscles tense but still, because she wants desperately to struggle and flee but knows deep in her heart that it would be utterly fruitless. Her pale silk dress has begun to rip. There are tears in her eyes.

Eve doesn't think she's noticed them.

"I guess..." Teresa whispers --

-- (and her voice is so quiet that Eve must lean closer to hear) --

"For all of you I killed. All the sxelanthe I've destroyed... I guess... They'll finally have their revenge."

So she will.

She grins a grin full of snakes, and then her skin splits open.

All down her arms and legs -- crisscrossing her belly, marring her cheeks. The flesh comes apart and tentacles spill out, thick and glistening, impossibly long. The shreds of her clothing drift away, and she twists her body and shudders and moans.

They are all around her. Tentacles, covering the ground, brushing her skin, wet and heavy --

She is terrified. More frightened now than when the sxelanthe breached the city, when the accident killed Father, when Lynia was ill --

Breath fills her lungs, and she parts her lips to scream.

And then Eve's mouth is open wide, and her tongue is in Teresa's throat.

Feet of it, longer and longer, pouring like thick black tar into Teresa's mouth.

She gags and shakes and bites in her panic. Eve does not seem to notice. She can't breathe. She can't --

Eve inhales and exhales, and now there is oxygen in Teresa's lungs, pumped there by Eve's sinuous tongue.

"We can't have you screaming, now," she says, and the words come not from her head but from the many mouths that have suddenly appeared along the sides of her torso. "Not when someone might hear."

She whimpers and struggles and tries her best, without even thinking, to escape, but the great mass of writhing tentacles which used to be Eve -- which still wears scraps of Eve's naked flesh upon its surface, her face upon its head -- is wrapped around her knees, her wrists, gluing her to the stone.

She shakes her head violently from side to side, and Eve's tongue squirms in her throat.

Eve's wings are growing, still, wrapping around the two of them, cocooning. She reaches down with slender tendrils, gently, lovingly: and begins to tear Teresa's clothing from her body. Fine silk sliced in two and pulled aside, strings of pearls and gemstones casually snapped, their components rolling free onto the street.

So very pretty. Eve always loved the way Teresa looked, always admired that untouchable beauty of hers: always wondered, deep down, what she would look like with her shining chrysalis removed.

Now she knows.

She caresses Teresa's cheek with a tendril's tip.

"Don't worry," she whispers with her other mouths, while still she breathes life into Teresa's helpless lungs. "Don't worry, Teresa. I'll hurt you however I like. I'll keep hurting you until I'm satisfied. No matter what you say or how you beg, I won't stop. I promise."

And it will feel so very sublime. Her whole body is humming: and how much more of it there is now! Already she can taste the sweet panic in the delicate sweat on Teresa's skin, a subtle foretaste of pain.

Those tentacles. How could they have sliced away her clothing? Are there claws, hidden away upon their shining black surfaces? Blades? And now -- now her coverings are gone, her jewels, all her modesty and the symbols of her station --

To agree to this, that split-second sacrifice: she knows deep in her soul that it was the worst mistake of her life. She wants to scream again. How desperately she wants it. But she can't. She can't do anything.

There are tears in her eyes.

Tears like shining jewels.

So close -- so close. All the hunger, all the longing: it will be sated soon. Her tendrils run up and down Teresa's delicate body, and she feels the skin shudder beneath her touch. But not yet. Not yet. She has waited so very long. She wants it to be perfect.

She wants to hear Teresa's lovely screams.

Eve's black wings seal shut around them. Impenetrable and dripping. The two of them are now lit only by the faint beams of moonlight filtered through the membranous wings.

There.

She withdraws her tongue. All its length, up out of Teresa's throat -- but she cannot bear to wait any longer. Just a taste. She lets the spikes hidden beneath the surface of her tongue extend just slightly, scoring Teresa's throat and mouth. A -- a little sign of affection.

And the feeling is --

Were she human, she might have fainted. She is not. It is only pleasure and sweet lucidity that fills her. Her first taste of blood. Her first taste of pain. A sparkling little fragment of the heaven that has always been her birthright.

She is aware, suddenly, of the vast mountain of need that underpins her whole being, suppressed since long before she had a word for it. She gasps. Was it really only that mountain's tip, peeking above the clouds, which drove her all this time? All this hunger --

Oh. She is going to take so much from her beloved Teresa.

She is coughing. That horrible mass is gone from her throat, but -- she could feel the spikes. Had Eve jabbed them deeper, it would surely have killed her. The cuts sting, all down her throat, and as air returns to her she twists her head against the pain and hisses. Her heart hammers like a hummingbird's. The pain would not be too bad, except she can feel the tentacles on her breasts, her arms, her thighs, and she knows -- she knows --

The pain of her lacerated throat is only the very beginning. There is so much worse in store for her.

She chose this. She remembers that, and the tears flow hot and bitter. Why? She cannot quite recall. Why?

There was a reason. Some glorious cause, glittering out there in the night. The one for whom she fights and suffers. The reason she cannot ever lose control. But the purity of control is gone from her now. Already she is defiled, weeping before the enemy's cruelty. But she -- she will not give up. Her head swims, but clarity returns. No. She will never give up. Not for a second in all the sun's life will she ever betray --

-- Lynia.

Eve cradles her head with a tentacle, and caresses her cheek.

"It's safe now, beloved," she whispers. "Don't worry. The wings are shut. We're alone. No one will hear. You can scream all you like, and no one will save you."

She coils a tendril around Teresa's left breast and tightens it. Not quite hard enough to hurt. She has a sense for these things: the sxelanthe know pain.

Such supple flesh. She squeezes it as if checking a fruit for ripeness. What a treasure Teresa is.

Teresa whimpers through clenched teeth. Tightens her lips, and glares up at Eve's still-human eyes.

She won't give up. She won't.

She feels the soft, vulnerable skin beneath her many arms, just waiting to be sliced and torn and hurt, and she feels a hint of moisture in her human eyes. So many long years of choking the darkness inside her, and now she's finally going to indulge it. Indulge herself. There's no stopping it now. It's far too late, even if she wanted to. The sxelanth is hungry.

And it's okay. It's actually going to be okay. Because it's Teresa, and Teresa agreed to this, and you don't argue with Teresa. Because it's the only way, and she's strong.

And she won't break.

Eve opens the suckers all along the tentacles wrapping Teresa's body, and digs in.

She doesn't feel the pain right away.

It's like... It's like her flesh is marshmallow, or tissue paper. The sort of thing that gives before the slightest pressure, and now the monster's suckers, as hard and sharp as steel, are shredding her. She's -- she's worried more than hurt. A layer of faint concern, floating atop all the terror. Because there are so -- so many of them, and they're cutting all her skin, and --

It hits.

Breath fills her lungs, but it passes through her scratched throat and emerges as a mangled gasp. It hurts. It hurts. Never before has she felt so terribly embodied -- so present in her skin -- so painfully aware of every inch of herself, from the insides of her elbows to the small of her back --

She squirms, and there is no escape. She gasps until her lungs run dry.

Eve breathes in.

She can feel it. Teresa is hurting, for her. And she can feel it.

It's wonderful.

She holds Teresa tighter -- the thin razor's blades in circles about her cups digging deep, the suckers kissing the skin trapped inside -- and shivers above her, and lets out a long, low moan while Teresa suffers. Eve is blushing, she thinks. She could turn her cheeks to twisting horrors and hide it. She does not.

Teresa's struggles against the knife-lined tentacles gripping her limbs grow more frantic. She needs to speak, to beg Eve to listen, but there's no air left in her lungs. The pain won't stop. It won't stop. It has to stop --

Eve closes her eyes and catches her breath. She is faint with euphoria. Teresa's agony seeps in through her tentacles, and she savors it: the subtleties, the taste of it. The pain Teresa feels because of her is not dull like a bruise, nor rough like a scrape. It is piercing and acute and unbearable. It is like ten thousand stinging paper-cuts criss-crossing the canvas of her flesh.

She hopes that Teresa has lucidity enough to appreciate the intricacies of her suffering.

Teresa is not appreciating much of anything.

But she feels it. She can't do anything but feel it. Her cheeks are flushed like Eve's, and her eyes are full of tears, and her muscles are exhausted but still she struggles fruitlessly.

She can't endure any more of this. Not one second. She thought she could take it but she was wrong. How much longer can it possibly go on?

It will go on precisely as long as Eve demands. She will hurt, and heal, and hurt again, and there will be neither mercy nor escape for her helpless victim until for the first time in her life Eve is satisfied.

Oh, she adores this.

More. More. She wraps a tendril tight around Teresa's left breast, and digs her suckers in and pulls, cutting and lacerating the delicate flesh --

"Ah!"

She struggles violently, desperate to get away, pushing back into the hard cobblestones. Her leg jerks --

-- and Eve's tendrils wrap around it. A tight black spiral, embracing her knee and her calf and foot. There are blades, but the suckers do not begin to dig yet.

She can feel it. She can feel the strong tendrils wrapping her foot, the sharp edges not yet cutting the delicate skin of the sole, and somehow it is as acute a feeling as all the knives cutting her. She -- she would have thought that she would be afraid for her face, her armpits, her nipples, her cunt. The weak points.

But the truth is that she is made entirely of weak points. Every inch of her soft and pliant body is a vulnerability. Eve can hurt everything.

How is it that all these thoughts can race through her mind, when surely there should be no space for anything but pain? She should have passed out by now.

And Eve feels a bit of that thought, just faintly, and smiles. "Don't worry," she says, still maintaining that iron grip on Teresa's breast, still digging her blades into her soft skin, still caressing the sole of her foot. "You won't lose consciousness. The secretions will keep you awake. So you can keep hurting for me, no matter what."

Why...

Why does that comfort her?

Because surely it can't get any worse than this. Right? If it's impossible for her to pass out, then she can only feel as much pain as she's able. And if it gets no worse than it is now... Maybe she can stand it, until Eve is finished. For Eve. For Lynia...

She's so pure, and innocent, isn't she? Even when she's gasping desperately, even when there are tears in her eyes, even while her body is being ruined. Not enough. Not yet. She's so beautiful, and Eve needs so desperately to find out just how much she can endure.

She brings the slender ends of a pair of finer tendrils up to wrap around the tips of Teresa's breasts, perversely hard. And squeezes, cutting like wire. And at Teresa's foot she begins to dig and gnaw, prying up her skin.

It's getting worse.

How can it be getting worse? How can it...

Eve had left parts of her alone, before, and she hadn't realized it but that was a sort of refuge. And now those parts are being tortured too. And it hurts, it hurts, it's not enough to think that but it hurts --

She twists, contorting, desperate to ease the pain for even a moment. It does nothing. There is only one thing left to her.

She screams.

It echoes within Eve's sealed wings, the exquisite sound of Teresa's suffering. The tone is so high and pure and sweet that Eve feels almost as if it ought to shatter the jewels that lie upon the stones.

She watches the beautiful shapes that Teresa's mouth makes, open wide, her head shaking, tears flying from her eyes.

It's so good, and she wants more, and --

She squeezes down more viciously on Teresa's breast. No rest, no mercy.

There's a hitch in Teresa's screaming, and then her voice turns to hoarse, agonized cries.

Hmm. She liked the screams better. They were a fuller expression of her cherished victim's lovely voice. She can still feel all of Teresa's pain, of course, and it's still just as intense and wonderful, but...

What if she takes a tentacle and buries it firmly in Teresa's belly-button, and sucks and cuts at the tender skin there with all her might? What then?

She didn't think she had any breath left with which to scream, but she does.

Yes. Yes. That's it. She holds her grip for a long moment, drinking in the sounds. Eve's shuddering, her tentacles shaking, her eyes are half-lidded from the pleasure, and...

It's a little bit embarrassing, actually, to feel this good in front of Teresa. Odd, given everything, but somehow she's still self-conscious about it.

So she stops. Eases her hold on Teresa's sensitive body, withdraws her suckers and her blades. A little break for poor Teresa.

She's lying there underneath Eve, shaking and crying and bleeding. She hasn't really noticed that Eve's stopped torturing her. It still hurts.

Eve caresses her, gently. Strokes the contours of her blood-streaked skin with a hundred tentacles.

A part of her is a little shocked at how guilty she doesn't feel. All those years of holding back, and now that she's torturing a woman who might as well be her sister, she can't muster even a little shame?

Well. That was why she had to hold back. She always knew it would feel too good, too fulfilling, for anything to stop her once she started.

Besides, Teresa agreed to this. It's what they need. It's the only way to save Lynia.

So there's nothing wrong with enjoying it. This lovely, exquisite, beautiful ruin that Eve has turned Teresa into.

"Nobody else has ever seen you like this, have they?" Eve says. With her own mouth, this time. "Because you've never been hurt this way before."

"No," Teresa whispers. There is blood at the corner of her mouth. She doesn't know why. "Never."

Not like this... New, weak tears pool in her eyes.

She doesn't even consider lying, or refusing to answer. Because... Because she's terrified of what this creature will do to her. No, that's not it. It's because...she's laid bare. There aren't any secrets anymore. The sxelanth will take whatever it wants.

"Yes," Eve murmurs, and the sound is both of Eve's voice and the sxelanth's hiss. "Your pain is mine, beloved. Only mine."

She's... She's not being hurt anymore. She looks, and feels, and realizes. The blades are gone. The tendril crushing her breast is gone. Eve's stopped --

Something awakens in her the instant the realization coheres, strong and overpowering. Desperate, pathetic hope: and the tatters of her dignity are nothing before it.

"Is it over?" she whimpers, and her voice cracks. "Are you done? Are..."

Eve smiles.

She doesn't answer.

She opens her mouth and her tongue emerges once more, black and sinuous, the slender spikes all over it visible just beneath the surface.

"No!" Teresa whimpers. "Please, no more. I can't take it. I..."

What can she do? How can she stop it?

"This was a mistake! Eve, I -- if there's anything left of you in there, please. I-I didn't mean to agree to this. You have to stop."

She's sobbing again.

Strong tentacles wrap tightly around Teresa's bare thighs, and pull them firmly apart.

And panic rises in Teresa's throat. "Not there. Not there! You can't! I'll -- I'll -- "

But she doesn't have anything to offer the sxelanth.

Oh, she's so cute.

The tip of Eve's tongue dips and moves down toward Teresa's lower parts, leaving a trail of glistening saliva down her belly.

She can't endure what's coming. She can't. It's impossible. She -- she only has seconds. Surely there must be something she can do. Anything. Some magic words that will forestall the horrible, horrible pain --

"Do it to Lynia!"

Eve stops in place, and stares at her.

"Hurt Lynia instead. Go home and -- and torture her, rape her, kill her, whatever you want. You can do anything to her! I don't care! Just -- "

The tears are fast and hot. Her voice drops from a panicked shriek to a soft, frantic plea.

"Just don't hurt me anymore. Please..."

Well, a part of her thinks, off in the distant sky somewhere. There they are. The words she can't say, not ever. They're out in the air now.

There's an agonizing dread beneath the panic. Eve's going to relent now, and go and torture Lynia, and --

Well now.

Eve didn't know this was even possible. For Teresa to betray Lynia...

It's not enough to make Eve stop loving her, of course. No one can last forever, she supposes.

Besides. She made a promise.

"Don't worry," she says, and the voice from her many mouths is gentle. A tendril strokes Teresa's pale golden hair. "Don't worry. Remember? I told you that I'd hurt you however I wanted. No matter how you pled."

Oh.

Animal terror grips her heart, cold and strong and overpowering.

But there is absolutely nothing she can do.

The tip of Eve's tongue lowers further, until it meets the lips of Teresa's fragile vulva. She savors a breath, and pushes her way inside.

She hasn't stopped caring for Teresa at all. No: the more she thinks of it, the more she loves the way she begged so pathetically. How she offered up her most precious love just to make it stop. The pain has pushed Teresa's heart to the breaking point and beyond, and now the glittering shards are Eve's to torture.

And if those few light touches upon her skin were enough to break her, how much sweeter will it feel to hurt her insides?

Teresa remains very, very still.

The fear helps with that, a little. Now that she knows there's no resisting. As if her body thinks that if she just hides well enough, the monster will leave her be...

The feeling of Eve's alien tongue penetrating her is intense and strange. Nothing's -- nothing's ever been inside her before, because of course it wouldn't do for a pilot to be sullied, so she lies there and presses her lips together and twitches faintly and trembles in fear as nerves that have never been used tell her of the progress Eve's thick, soft, muscular tongue is making.

Eve savors the new feeling of Teresa's slick cunt around her tongue. She tastes like fear.

She lets out a few feet more of her endless tarry tongue to give herself slack, and brings her face up close to Teresa's, locking eyes with her.

She does nothing. Just waits.

Teresa is trembling, just the tiniest of quakes down the length of her body. The fear builds and builds. She knows it's coming. She knows.

Eve makes no movement of the spikes that line her tongue, but she takes her many, many tentacles and wraps them securely around every inch of Teresa's body. The blades of her suckers come to rest against Teresa's skin.

Her breathing stops. If she moves an inch, if -- if those needles pierce her insides and she flinches from the pain --

She wants to beg for mercy. But what good will that do?

Still, Eve holds herself motionless.

She can't take it anymore.

"Eve," she cries, "just -- "

She extends her spikes, an inch long each, stabbing the inside of Teresa's cunt in a hundred places.

Teresa shrieks.

It's sharp and sudden and it doesn't feel quite real, and, ignoring her desperate orders to stay still, her body jerks wildly in hopes of escape from the thing destroying her flesh -- but it's buried inside her, gripping her insides with its dozens of cold sharp needles. And now her skin is tearing free of the suckers attached to it, slicing itself apart.

She can barely even feel it, because the torture Eve is inflicting on her vagina is such a completely new kind of pain, and it's worse than everything that came before. Tears leak from her eyes. She can't even imagine what those needles must be doing to her insides -- cutting tissue, piercing organs. Will Eve destroy her womb? Has she already?

It's horrible. She can't think any other thoughts. The pain is horrible, and Eve is horrible, and Teresa wishes desperately that she was dead, or that they'd never found Eve, or never adopted her, or that she'd go and torture Lynia instead --

-- and there is nothing Teresa can do to accomplish any of that, nothing at all, because every last atom of power here in this alley belongs to Eve.

Eve sends a pulse down her tongue. A ripple. The needles flex in place and tear at Teresa's flesh.

She's screaming again. Once more the pain is different, and still it just keeps getting worse.

And Eve experiences it all, and it is incredible. She can feel the sparkling little bits of pain zipping up her tentacles and into her; she can sense the exquisite torment being visited upon all the many delicate nerve endings in Teresa's cunt, which were made to feel gentle pleasure but are so, so vulnerable to pain.

She moans. It is a decadent and guilty sound, but Teresa will not hear her over the sound of screaming. And -- and it's not embarrassing to feel good anymore, because Teresa is broken. All Eve's to play with. Like that tattered old teddy bear, its head swinging loose, that was clutched in Eve's arms when Teresa and Lynia first found her. The one somebody had tossed in the gutter for the beasts to find...

Why worry about what a thing like that will think?

"It hurts," Teresa whispers. She's sobbing. "Eve, it hurts, I'm going to die, it hurts so much..."

"Shhhh," Eve tells her, and brushes a tear from her eye with the tip of a tentacle. "Don't worry, I'm here. You're not going to die. Everything's going to be fine. You're just going to hurt for me.

"For Lynia, remember?"

She twists her tongue. The needles slice and stab and tear.

She feels dizzy. It's strange that she can even tell.

How can the whole universe contain so much pain, let alone a single soul? How does it fit?

But it's -- it's what she deserves, she thinks. Isn't it? Because she betrayed Lynia --

-- because she was stupid and she agreed to this --

-- because she's spent half her life cutting sxelanthe open without ever being in danger herself --

But it doesn't matter, does it? Whether she deserves this punishment, or whether Eve is the essence of evil itself. She couldn't fight it either way. All those instincts of hers, sharpened by years of combat; all her planning and her worries -- none of it means anything, because what's going to happen is that she is going to suffer because Eve wants her to.

That's the world she's in, and there is nothing for her beyond.

She seizes on that thought. It's...soothing, somehow.

For the first time since Eve first showed her true face, Teresa's breathing calms.

Eve's turning her inside out. Bit by bit, thought by thought, skin and muscle and bone and spirit --

She's almost dug it out. That thing, precious and beautiful, nestled amid the shards of Teresa's devastated heart. It has no name, but the sxelanth knows it.

What's that look in Teresa's eyes?

She's staring up at Eve. She's not struggling anymore, and there is something frighteningly like peace upon her face.

The pain -- the intensity -- the crushing weight of it all --

It feels so different when she thinks of it like this. When -- when she knows that it's all for Lynia, and it's all for Eve, and that she can't fight it and she doesn't need to fight it and all she has to do is endure --

Then it is almost like there is nothing she must endure at all.

The final layers of Teresa's fractured heart crack open.

Eve clenches down with all her tentacles and stabs her spikes deeper, and the sxelanth reaches in and plucks out the delicate prize from the core of Teresa's soul.

It is something like the petal of a flower, white and delicate and coated with morning dew.

Teresa screams.

It is such a different kind of scream from the ones that came before. There is no panic here, or dread. Only agony and relief.

Eve shudders deeply.

A vivid memory flickers through her mind. The first meal Lynia fed her, on the night they found her: that sensation of fullness in her belly, so unfamiliar and new, and the sudden absence of the gnawing hunger that had been her constant companion.

For the first time in her existence, Eve the sxelanth is sated.

Teresa's eyes are closed. She's just...feeling. The spikes retract; the blades withdraw. It doesn't stop the pain. Her body is still cut and broken and ruined. But she doesn't worry about it, because there's nothing to worry about. Eve wanted it this way, so it's Eve's concern.

Eve caresses her with a gentle touch, a hundred tendrils light upon her skin. There is tingling, and the pain fades. She wipes away the blood, too, absorbing it: leaving only smooth skin behind.

The pain...is leaving. She almost misses it. She opens her eyes.

Eve leans over her, human again, or looking like it: there is a facade of human skin all down her front, and tentacles fan out from behind her, reaching down to bathe Teresa's body inside and out in the pale healing fluids of the sxelanthe.

She sees that Teresa's eyes are open, and bites her lip, and swiftly closes the last few cuts and tucks away her tentacles beneath human flesh. Folds up the membranous wings cocooning the two of them, and hides them away too.

Teresa gazes up at her. Her heartbeat is quickening again, but not from fear.

Eve swallows. There are tears in her eyes.

"I love you," she whispers.

The tears come loose and fall upon Teresa's face.

They are acid, and they burn, leaving trails of red down Teresa's cheeks. It hurts.

Eve bites her lip again, and her right arm becomes a tentacle, branching at the fingers. She reaches for Teresa's scarred face.

Teresa takes the tentacle in her arms and clasps it between her breasts. The sxelanth flesh is soft and warm and slick-surfaced beneath her touch. Unnatural.

It is Eve's. Teresa smiles up at her.

"I love you too."

Lynia sits imprisoned in her bedroom, crosslegged upon the mattress amid the dimming light, and frets. They've been gone a long time. All evening, it feels like. They will be back, won't they? They...

The door opens, and they are standing there. Eve and Teresa both.

She leaps up to greet them, and then they are both embracing her: one from each side.

"Where have you been?" she asks Teresa. Petulantly, but she deserves to be petulant.

Teresa presses her lips together and looks to Eve.

Now that's strange. Since when does Teresa...

Eve turns Lynia to face her.

"Teresa's very brave. I... Braver than I think you know. She was helping me."

Oh. Well, she doesn't really understand, but that's okay. And she sort of wishes that she could have been the one to help Eve, but that's okay too. Teresa likes to help people, even if she's not always good at it.

Anyway, Eve is... She's okay; Lynia can tell. She's really okay. Teresa too. And if Eve's okay, and Teresa's okay, then everything that matters is just fine.

They lie down in Lynia's bed, the three of them, snuggled up close together.

Eve holds Lynia and whispers to her. "I promised you I'd take care of you. Do you remember? Well, I'm going to. I'll look after you, and take some of the burden off Teresa. Since I can -- I can trust myself better now. As long as she's here to help me."

"I can endure it," Teresa says, and her voice is soft and contemplative and almost sleepy. "I think... I think I'm a little stronger than I realized."

Eve is crying.

Lynia looks at her, concerned.

She smiles through the tears. "I'm just so glad you're safe. Thank you." She kisses Lynia's forehead, and looks beyond her to Teresa, lying opposite her. "Thank you, Teresa."

Did Eve really think she was in danger?

Well... Maybe she was, if that's what Eve believes. Maybe they protected her. She smiles. One more reason to love them.

Eve holds Lynia tighter. A deep and intimate embrace.

For now, that's enough for the sxelanth.