I get a call when I'm at home. It's a priority call, so I don't think: I just answer.

"I got her, Ty," Lindsey says. "I got her for you."

I pull the phone from my ear and check the time: it's early morning.

"Got who?"

"The Consuming Sin-Viper."

Dammit, Kam.

I ask where. She tells me.

For a panicked moment, I think the address is a morgue.

I'm relieved at first, then horrified when I discover it's a police station. I knew Lindsey wanted to become a cop after all we'd done, I just... I never thought she'd go this far.

She never forgave herself. She thought I was traumatized.

I wasn't. I was liberated. I wanted it.

I still want it, even with the sourness of the guilt roiling in my gut. 

'Rory seems like a good guy.'

The words have played on a loop in my head nonstop all week.

He is a good guy. He doesn't deserve this. 

It doesn't stop me.

None of it does until I'm at the police station talking to Lindsey, and I realize I shouldn't be bailing out my... mistress?

Is that who I am now?

No. Kam was right. Rory is a good guy. I can be okay with being with Rory. 

I'm getting Kam out because Lindsey overreacted.

Yeah. That's why.

Liar.

"She's back in holding right now."  
  
I furrow my brow. "She didn't ask for an attorney?"  
  
"That's the only thing she asked for. I'm slow-walking it. Bet I can make her break if—"  
  
"I'm her attorney." I'm furious when I blurt it out.

Lindsey snorts. "Don't you do, like... corporate law?"  
  
"And?"

"And, uh..." Lindsey scratches the back of her neck. "You heard me say who it was, right?" She seems confused and hurt that I'm not here for her crusade.

I don't want to hurt her, but... "I did, and I appreciate that it's eaten you up all these years... but I moved on. I need you to, too."

Liar.

I haven't moved on. I can't move on when everything Kam does to me sets my body on fire in the best way. Even seeing her half-drunk and stumbling doesn't dim my attraction to her.

God, maybe I'm a bad person for it but it might make it all worse. I know she's going to wreck me for this. I want it.

Lindsey takes a moment to twist the knife, metaphorically.

It's only when I reprimand her that Kam sees me. "What're you doin' here?"

"I'm your attorney."

"Huh?"

I turn to Lindsey. "Is she free to go?"

Lindsey gives a stiff, blank nod. Poor girl. I feel awful for doing this to her.

Liar.

I can still salvage things with Rory.

I know we have to talk, but I wait. I wait until we're outside, and even further from the police station. I wait until I have Kam in the back of a town car I have on retainer, and even then I still don't talk.

If I don't talk to her, I won't give in.

Kam seems chastened by everything, though, and she doesn't make any moves to talk to me, either. She just stares. It's not at me. It's through me. Disassociated, bereft. She's not there right now.  
  
I feel my resolve waning. Rory is a good guy.

But I want Kam.

That's the truth. So I start talking.

"So, you had a night," I say.

Nothing.

"I just... I'm sorry about Lindsey. She never forgave herself."

Nothing. We pull up to the curb and the car rolls to a stop. Kam takes off her seatbelt and leaves. I should let her go.

I should let her go.
  
I should drive back to Rory and crawl into bed.

I don't. I tell the driver to go. I'll call if I need another car. I exit, and run to catch the controlled-access door before it swings shut. It's loud enough that Kam hears. She turns, grimaces, and keeps moving without saying a word.

She has every right to hate me, but I won't give up. Not now.

I follow her up a flight of stairs and down a hallway, staying at a distance. She at least doesn't slam the door in my face when she unlocks her apartment and steps inside. Instead, she leaves it open.

This is a phenomenal betrayal of my vows. I know this. I walk inside.

She's sitting on a small, beat-up couch, staring at me. Unlike in the car, she's not looking past me. Her eyes track me as I pace, smoldering with hurt and rage. You'd think a lawyer who's stared down CEOs would manage to not be a sweaty mess. You'd think wrong.

"I messed up," I finally say.

"Yeah. Ya made that pretty clear," Kam says.

"No, I... I messed up by leaving, Kam."

Kam crosses her arms, but it looks more like she's hugging herself. "Yeah, that's not gonna work. It was fine the first time. Jitters and all that, but nah. I don't do indecisive."

It's a front. She's lying, too.

I do another stupid thing: I call her on it. "That's not why you're mad."

A bestial snarl. One moment she's on the couch, and the next her tail's wrapped around my throat, squeezing ever so slightly.

"I'm a monster, Tiana. You don't know me. Everything we did? That was playacting. Pretend."

Liar.

If I believed her, I'd be scared.

I don't because I know she's terrified. All her life being vilified, and now tonight...

She doesn't get it. She doesn't see her like I see her. My hands grasp at where her tail's wrapped around my throat, and she looks smug. Vindicated. She is a monster.

Liar.

My fingers graze her tip, and stroke.

"Wh-what...?" Kam lets out a single, choked word.

"Tell me to stop."

She doesn't, and I feel the coil slacken.  
  
"We shouldn't do this," Kam says in a frightened whisper. "I can hurt you."

"Liar," I say. 

It's the truth, and we both know it.

I guide her into my mouth, and yesss. It's not like when I'm inside her, but it's more visceral. Realer.

"Ohhh, fuck. Tiana..." Kam groans. I lock eyes with her and begin to bob my head. My tongue swirls her tip and she gives me the prettiest little sigh.

This is wrong, but it's honest.

We tell the truth for the next hour, my body coiling around her tail as I make it clear that she is not a monster to me. She is something better. Something more.

It's all going so well. I'm so drunk on her that I don't notice the bulge in her tail except as something to grind against.

Kam does.

She pulls back just as the bulge is about to reach her tip. Her body — tail included — shudders, and something warm coats my face and upper body.

I open my mouth, panting.  
  
"Wait, let me get you a towel," she says. I nod, and do my best to listen. She wanders away, and I'm left alone. Tempted.

'Decay', they call it. They say it corrupts. That's all it's meant to do: defile women into monstrous wickedness. You'd think something with a name so repulsive wouldn't smell so wonderful. Enticing. I try to breathe through my mouth so I won't be tempted. I inhale a globule.  
  
It's amazing.

I want more. My tongue goes to lap up what I can feel near my lips, but Kam's back. I withdraw. She wouldn't want me to.

Already I can feel it in me, though. It's all placebo, mind: magical girls have defenses. That little Decay won't do anything to me.

And yet I want it to.

I want to be free.