I hope that Eric will be my next ally again Violette's mother, but I run into a few problems.

One, like I demonstrated with my own manipulation of his memories, he's very malleable. Even though he had nothing but wariness for her mother before this, he now follows her rules and orders like a faithful husband. His whole worldview revolves around obeying her. Undoing that will take more than just a few tweaks here and there. It's either that or wake him up all in a rush like Jett did to me, which is tricky because Eric just seems to accept things as they are.

Two, remember how he's a faithful husband? Faithful aside from having been granted permission to fuck his two adopted sons whenever he wants, so I have to dodge his advances whenever I'm in a room with him alone. Come on, Eric, take a hint! We only just got acquainted like that in the real world!

As I sidestep his affection for the third time in the day, I can't help but think this bubble must be made to torment Violette with what she can't have. No attention from Daddy, no attention from her brothers, no one at all to tend the ache inside her except her cruel mother. Meanwhile, the rest of us are, or were, entangled all around her.

Were for me. I'm planning too many things. Jett, well, when we meet up in my room a few hours later, I tell him to keep Eric busy.

"'Busy'? Oran, don't be crude. I couldn't. Not like this."

"What, you can't sleep with your fiancé when you're in a body that's ten years younger? Come on, enjoy being twenty again."

"I don't know how you're so calm. The unnaturalness is not a perk!"

"Because somebody has to be, and sure it is. For now, at least. Go on, 'big brother,'" I say as I give him a push toward what used to be their bedroom. He turns to frown at me but then squares his shoulders and marches out of the room. Atta boy.

Now that I'm on my own and have temporarily given up on Eric, I think of every hint I have so far. Reality bending is a significant power, but Jett and I have proven it has limits. There must be something we can do to save not just ourselves but Violette.

Names are a key point. She needed my name for some reason, and no one seems to know hers. Jett confirmed he doesn't know, but he half-remembers her asking for his before reality got royally fucked. I couldn't glean her name from Eric's mind during our brief encounters today, and I never saw it in there before. Violette might know, I'll ask, but I doubt it. The absence feels conspicuous.

Another important detail is the botanical grafting her mother referred to. I do some searching on my phone, and as I feared, it involves fusing two plants; one main plant grows on top of the roots of the original.

It's likely the mature body that appears to be in her forties that Violette's mother wears is not her original one. For a sad moment, I imagine the struggle of her last unfortunate daughter, probably a powerful one like Violette. I'm sure she tried to resist with all her might. Who would willingly be subsumed by their own mother?

If this reality really is meant to torture Violette, I think the purpose of that is to weaken her enough that she can't resist the grafting process. After all, she couldn't chase after me by possessing Violette like she possessed Blanc.

With that in mind, I know what I need to do next. The name will wait while I dig for clues. As long as Violette's strong, she can keep resisting her mother. And I know exactly how she gets stronger.

First off, I'm gonna grab something from the garage.

* * *

I wait until late in the evening to visit Violette's room. It's several hours after an awkward dinner where Eric was boisterous, Violette's mother was cutting about her academic performance, and Jett and I attempted to play along without feeding her displeasure, knowing that to defend Violette outright would mean drawing attention to ourselves.

At Violette's bedroom door, I knock twice with my knuckles, pause for 3 seconds, then knock once more. The memories from this reality jostle next to my real ones, but I'm used to my head being full, so I can pull out the memory of our secret code fairly easily. This is my knock. I am her favorite big brother, after all.

Presto. She appears to unlock her door and let me in within a few seconds.

A hundred pet names rush to the forefront of my mind when I see her: in an old shapeless shirt for sleep, no makeup, her blue eyes reddened and tired, but still my pretty girl. I only realized at dinner that her hair is no longer dyed blonde but left the natural dark auburn that points to the strength of her mother's genetics. I miss the old color.

Rather than a pet name, I settle on, "Hi, mèimei."

Violette nods in reply and steps back so I can enter inside her dimly lit room. She was always taciturn to a degree, but she's retreated much further into herself now. I want nothing more than to kiss her until her mouth fills up with silly yet carefully spoken words again, until her eyes are bright and clear.

I settle for resting my hand on her head once the door is shut and locked--it's one that can be opened from the outside by a key, but that's why I came late at night. Her small body slots up against my side, where it should be, and I drape my arm over her shoulder.

I know virginity is as made up a concept as gender, but that doesn't stop the frisson of lust that goes through me when I think that she's never had anyone else in this reality. She must need it so badly.

"Tough day?" I ask. Ease into it. It amazes me that this whole reality shift can involve her school, but she went to it like usual, so it must.

"Mm."

"How'd your math test go?"

"Got a C."

"Hey, that's not bad." I play my fingers up under her hair and stroke the back of her neck.

"Mother says I need an A next time."

We make our way over to her bed, and she pats the spot where she wants me to lie down. No matter how fragile, she's still bossy. I lie on my side where she indicated and wait as she gets up next to me. We don't spoon like we normally would, but I drape an arm over her in a loose approximation of hug while she faces away from me.

"Ouch, no way. I'll tell her that's impossible. You studied a lot for that C." Memories of her at the kitchen table, brow furrowed as I helped her, hang at the edge of my mind, retrofitted though they are.

"Mm. I said so too, but she got mad."

"She's too harsh." I move closer to her, pulling her toward me at the same time, until our bodies curve together in a swoop. When our hips meet, I feel an electric thrill course through her. Me, too.

"We can't," she whispers.

"You can't, but I could make you." I place my hand on top of her stomach, then trace lower, until I can pull her shirt over her hips and feel the heat radiating from the furnace between her legs. Some things never change.

"We'll get in a lot of trouble."

"I'll take the blame." Her mother may have created this nightmare of a reality to hurt her, but she put me in the perfect position to play into Violette's kinks. There's no way she can turn me down when I push all of her fantasy buttons.

"She'll still be mad at me."

True. I can't explain why we need to do this anyway, not yet, so I up the ante. "I'll tie you up, then you can swear it was all me."

"You... brought something...?" Her butt moves against my hips as she asks it, and I have to clamp my mouth shut to stay quiet. I know it hasn't been that long since we had sex, not really, but years of pining have since been shoved between us. We're both sweating already.

I answer her by pulling the length of cord I snuck out of the garage from my pocket, taking her wrists, and tying them in front of her. She's docile as I do it, though I can see the fear in her eyes. Not of me. Of the punishment that might come. Nonetheless, she lets me.

When I rest on top of her, pinning her to the bed, my cock pulses against the front of my jeans and the curve of her ass. I can feel her trembling.

"Are we really...?" she asks, as soft as a breath. I hope she can maintain that volume when I'm fucking her.

"Not you, remember? Me. I just can't resist you."

That draws a single squeak out of her, before she bites her lip and nods. It would be easy to go from there, but a piece of my heart wants more than that, just in case.

"Just call for Daddy if you're scared." A safe word. We never bothered in the real world--she could always make me stop with an order, and I never wanted one for her. But now, she's delicate. I hope she understands what I've offered her.

She nods twice this time, then squirms underneath me. I lift myself up with one arm and use the other to pull her shirt up and over her head, the down, until it bunches around the knot at her wrists.

That's when I see the tangling tattoo of a vine that's growing up from the base of her spine. I gently trace the mark to where it terminates, about midway up her back. The green vine sprouts single long leaves with intermittent, yet-closed buds interspersed between them. They're green, but there's a hint of pink around the tips, promising color when they bloom.

I wish I knew a goddamn thing about flowers, because I bet this is whatever her mother is named for. The biggest and scariest blossom of them all.

"Is there... something there?" Violette sounds worried.

"Shh, later," I say, stroking at her skin reassuringly. She shifts back and forth but falls silent.

I lean close to her ear and whisper, "Unless you want me to gag you?"

She shakes her head vigorously and remains quiet as a mouse even when I start pulling her panties down. Then I remove my own clothes in a muffled rush, until I press back down on top of her, feeling our skin together. I seek out the warmth of her pussy with my fingers.

But I don't push my fingers inside her, just use them to spread her apart. She needs more than that, I know.

As I press my cock against her entrance, she buries her face into the mattress to stymy any sounds. I wish I could tell her how good she's being, but that would be unnecessary noise. Rewarding her by entering her will have to be enough. It's Violette, she doesn't need prepping. She's waited too long for me to do anything less.

Nothing about the inside of her has diminished. If anything, she feels better; I can remember longing for her; I can remember having her a hundred times. It all blurs together as I find a slow rhythm moving in and out. Her faint whimpers and the way she's doing her best to curve up against me mean I'm not the only one enjoying myself.

On top of her like this, her hands trapped underneath her from the rope and my weight, and so much of our skin pressed together--it feels incredibly intimate. It's not a position for going fast, but that's fine, better maybe, to keep her quiet.

She starts to say my name, but I shush her before she can finish with kisses on the top of her head. Her breath catches when I do that, and the tightness enveloping my cock seems to draw me deeper, until I can barely breathe myself. We move like that until the friction is truly unbearable.

"Can I--"

"Need it," she gasps out, before I can finish. The only E.S.P. between us may be the love type, but that's good enough.

I finish inside her, even though it might be a bad idea, even though I feel that same sucking loss that I did the first time she grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and made me hers. I'd die if I didn't, and so would she. She's just so perfect when I do it, how could I ever stop?

Having learned my lesson from the last time I tied her up, I untie her right away and kiss her until our lips are swollen and tingling. Even if she's overwhelmed, I don't want her to cry anymore.

"I hoped..." she murmurs, her head bowed down to the line of my shoulder.

"I love you, of course I do," I say, my lips close to her ear.

"But--"

"But what? We can get out of here. Just trust me."

"My head feels... weird. Like there's too much inside it."

"It's your mother. She rewrote things to make them much worse. You just have to stay strong, okay?" I give her a squeeze. That's all I feel safe to tell her.

She leans against me silently for a few minutes, to the point I almost think she's dozed off.

"You really are the best big brother," she finally says, and I have to smother a laugh against her neck then.

I get it. She's not good at saying 'I love you.' I won't object to the code, for now, if that's the best she can do.

* * *

The morning brings new threats. I consider myself lucky that Violette's mother has only done so much to change me (you know, just my entire life and backstory, don't worry about it) because she must have the power to obliterate me with obedience and desire like Violette does. Eric wouldn't be wrapped tight as a bow around her pointed little finger otherwise, would he?

I'd resist her, like I promised Violette, but I have to be realistic. It would be difficult.

So, when she corners me in the hall after our enforced family breakfast, the smell of Violette's juices still on the hand she grabs my shirt collar with, I think am justifiably afraid.

"You've disappointed me again as a son, haven't you," she says, nothing about it sounding like a question.

Her face, which I've hardly looked at so far lest it burn me, is beautiful even when she's glaring at me coldly. She's more like Blanc than Violette, though her dramatic hourglass figure combines both their roundest assets. I wonder what flower this one was named after before she got to her. Carmelia? Lavender? Aster?

"Not a son," I say. I might be scared, but she hasn't driven the rebellion out of me yet, not in any reality.

She narrows her icy eyes and moves past the objection as if it were a worm on the sidewalk. "Your brother wouldn't break the rules. Was it you?"

"I didn't do a thing," I say stubbornly.

Like a striking cobra, she pushes into my space, demonstrating unnatural strength as she shoves me into the wall. I turn my face to side when she hisses in my face, reminding me that she has claws and teeth. The emptiness that I can envision rising out of her blacks out the hallway behind her completely. It feels more like an absence of humanity than it ever did with Violette.

"I think you should try being honest." Her face is very close to mine.

"Fine. I forced myself on her," I lie. She can't read my mind, and I gave Violette enough ammo to claim innocence.

"Did she ask you to do that?"

"It wouldn't be force if I asked her," I point out with my meanest laugh. Let her think I'm an even more monstrous version of myself than I am. "I thought it would be fun. Not like you ask."

"She's mine, much like you are, and does what I wish. You will as well." She relaxes her grip on my shirt only to take my face in hand and press the points of her nails into my jaw. "Your father will punish you when he's home tonight, and if he doesn't fix you, I will."

I flinch away from her, letting her see my real fear, though it's different than what she's imagining. Her promise sounds a lot like a deadline before I get my mind scrambled and cooked into an omelet. Great. Just have to figure out how to break the witch's curse by the end of the day, or Violette may have to do it on her own.

"Yes, Mother," I say, and then the two us stare for a few more moments of hatred before we part.

* * *

I don't know why she doesn't just crush me and be done with it, but it gives me time to pretend to go to class, at least.

The world outside feels exactly as I remember it, which seems impossible with how warped our house has become. My student ID works, and the library welcomes me in with the familiar smell of carpet and books. Not that I need to do my research in the library, but I can't stay home when I'm supposed to be on campus because Violette's mother is watching me. The library is as good a place as any to get on my phone. There's coffee.

Besides, they might have a section on flowering plants. Something with big pictures would be nice.

* * *

I return "home" around 5:30 PM with my head so full of ideas and memories and fears it feels like it might detach and fly away. I couldn't even DM Violette to check on her, since I'm pretending to be one of the bad guys who takes advantage of her. I tell myself she must be doing all right with the energy our connection gave her.

To my surprise, Jett greets me at the door before anyone else. He jerks his head for me to follow him upstairs, and I go without question. Nothing like a common enemy to make an ally.

Once we're alone, he puts his hands on my shoulders and almost shakes me with enthusiasm. "Oran, I fixed him!"

"You... what, Eric? He remembers? Since when?"

"I couldn't bear going to class as if I was a normal student, so I came home early! I got him away from Violette's mother--it wasn't too hard, she seems quite disinterested in him when Violette's not around--and, well, suffice it to say I convinced him!"

I don't think I've heard Jett say quite as much in a row before, unless he was lecturing me. Definitely not so giddily.

"How, did the ring work? I couldn't even make a dent when I tried."

Jett draws up to his full height, which is the height I'm used to, though he's diminished by the loss of ten years of muscle. "You're not the only one who has love on your side."

"Oh, suck my dick," I say before clapping him on the shoulder and grinning. This is fantastic; who knew Jett could actually take care of himself?

"You're terrible at thanks, Oran, you know that," he says with a sigh.

"But you love me!" I leave the room with deuces chucked as he shakes his head. A good 40 percent of my worries just got taken care of, and though the other 60 percent are no joke, I think that Jett is right.

Love is a pretty cool power to have.

* * *

In the evening, we eat a modest dinner made by Eric and Jett while Violette and I avoid eye contact, though I can see from glancing at her that she looks brighter in the light of day, less haggard and tired. Eric is quiet, for once; he's been told I must be punished, so the air is heavy with solemnity--or so it might seem.

I don't know how to fake being mean! Eric worries to himself. He covers it with forced frowns. Much like Violette, he's no actor.

Regardless, Violette's mother seems disinterested in analyzing human emotions and doesn't notice, or doesn't indicate that she does. I'm not sure what she's doing all day when we're not here, other than sitting and contemplating the trees in the backyard. Her eyes are as impenetrable as an ancient iceberg. Is she listening in to the lives of her other daughters, like a tree with roots that intertwine with many other trees' roots? She certainly caught me whenever I delved inside one of them, so I can imagine her mind is far away when she's not paying attention to us.

Just go with the flow, I transmit to Eric, who settles some at that thought. They know you aren't against them, no matter what.

I just want our messed up family back, not this cold and miserable simulacrum. We're so close to something big happening. I can feel it.

Dinner ends when Violette's mother stands up abruptly.

"It's time, dear," she says to Eric, who follows her in a rush of feigned obedience. I have never heard more than a brief negative thought pass through his mind before, but there's a heavy storm cloud of hatred hanging over him just for her.

Good. For love and for hate.

We move to the family room, Violette tugged by her mother, me gripped by Eric. The two of us are forced to sit at separate ends of the couch. It's comically childish, considering what I claimed to do to her, but Violette's mother seems satisfied by it.

"Violet says you assaulted her, and you admit to it," her mother says, as if she's standing on a mountain and judging me.

"Couldn't help it, she's too sexy," I grumble.

Her mother crosses her arms. "Violet, did you entice your brother?"

A beat. "I don't know what entice means," Violette answers.

I grin at her, and even Jett coughs like he has something caught in his throat.

Violette's mother doesn't appreciate the humor, turns on me with fury in her eyes as she sees me smiling.

"Eric, hold Oran in place."

"Oh, uh, yes ma'am," he says, and I hear his internal thoughts panicking as he goes to press his big hands down on my shoulders.

Stay steady, I think to him.

Something seems to dawn on her then, and she sweeps her eyes around the room with great malevolence. Everyone freezes.

"You think yourself very clever, playing games with Violet and the rest of the family, don't you?" As her hands go to unbutton the dark red silk blouse she's wearing, I sense what's coming next, much sooner than I expected. "But you must know that you're nothing, and you will serve me as ablely as all other men and women have."

I appear to have overestimated how much patience she would have before deciding to just obliterate my mind. Without much time to spare, I shut my eyes.

"Force his eyes open," Violettes's mother says, and I feel Eric's hands, nervously, going to my face. He doesn't know what else to do, since he was told to play along. His hesitance is enough time for me to focus. I open my eyes.

She's taking her bra off; I think, in a faraway way, that it makes sense Violette doesn't control people with those. The sight of her chest forces heat into my veins, but instead of letting myself yield, I focus on my anger.

I think about everything she's done: the cutting way she says he and boy to me, the years of hurt and alienation she's forced us to live in just a day, the degree of pain every one of her daughters must have felt--from being discarded, to tormented, to erased--and worst of all, the fact she wants to harm my girl, my Violette.

The expanse of her pale skin is devoid of any of the charming freckles Blanc had on her breasts. I don't look away, can't, really, but my fury burns hotter the closer she gets. There's power there, in how much I hate her and the body she's stolen and twisted. The emotions smoke out of me like liquid nitrogen with water poured over it, freezing my eyes and throat. In the midst of my mind setting itself on fire, there's no room for lust.

I was going to wait, see if there was another way to break out other than gambling on my day of research, but I do think I know the answer to her identity. It was there all along, back on my first day of trying to figure out Violette's origins. A name that I tossed aside easily, back then. I didn't like the implications of it; still don't.

But she is worthy of the name of a demon.

"Your name's Lily, isn't it?" I say, when she's near enough I can spit it in her face.

There's a roar of rushing blood in my ears, a shriek, a swipe of claws across my cheek, the breaking glass sound of lies coming apart, and then a deafening silence as the world repairs itself around us.

* * *

When reality is done reasserting itself, I expect to feel triumphant, but there's a problem.

Two problems, really.

One, Lily, is still very present, and she's descended on Violette, who she's clutching with taloned fingers that dig deep in her skin.

Two, I'm still completely out of control. The fury I needed to summon up to resist her eats at my throat and nostrils like acid while my vision crackles with dark spots and stars.

Eric gasps and lets go of me, and Jett reaches for Violette, but Lily stops us all in our tracks by lifting her hand above Violette's back and drawing tangling green vines made out of light from her flesh. Violette screams like a small animal that has had its guts ripped out and goes limp in her arms.

"You," she says, glowering at me before wrapping the vines growing out of Violette around her wrist like a rope. "You could have been tamed and forgiven. Not anymore."

Then she too goes limp, and they crumple in a heap of limbs and greenery onto the floor.

The sound Eric makes is guttural, but I'm too lost in the flames eating me from the inside to process it. Jett watches in shock, tears running down his face.

It's fine. I'm fine. I'm stronger like this. She went inside her? With Violette, it could be enough.

I walk over to Violette and untangle the twist of green from around Lily's wrist. Eric and Jett stare.

"Watch over us, okay? Take her mother to the other side of the room. Keep her away from the vines. Got it?"

Jett opens his mouth like he's about to protest, but he makes nothing but a choked noise.

Eric nods. My power is flaring so much that it's like I'm standing inside him, sensing how close he is to crumbling too. "I got it--but please, I can't... she can't..."

"No, she can't."

With that, I put my hand on Violette's sweet face, and dive into the dark canyon inside of her one more time.

* * *

I look at my hands after the fall, and even in Violette's mind, I'm smoldering like a coal. Probably not good. At any rate, it's convenient to have a light in the darkness, even if the fuel is myself.

"Violette," I call into the black ether, confident that she will let me speak and will hear me, far better than Blanc did.

There's nothing, for a moment, until a little girl lit only by my internal light runs out of the dark.

"Daddy, Mommy's scary," she says as she dashes into my arms. The heat doesn't seem to burn her.

"Not Daddy, princess," I murmur, though I stroke her hair like Eric would all the same. "I need you to help me face her."

Her shoulders shake with tears for a few more seconds, then the vision shifts, and she's the proper Violette again.

"Ghhh. You lied to me," she says, her forehead against my shoulder. "I'm still mad at you."

"Yeah. My teacher actually looked a lot like your mom, and I just... lied. So you wouldn't say no."

"That other teacher was so pretty."

"I know. I'm a very big idiot and very sorry."

"Stupid! Stupid. Dumb," she mutters into my collar bone. Her grip on me tightens. Oh--she's forgiving me, as sweetly as I imagined she would back then. I really don't deserve her.

But I'm going to earn it.

"Hey, as bad as I messed up, I can help you now. I'm charged up, see?" I gesture grandly with my glowing hand, and she giggles with a snotty noise when she sees it.

"I'm really mad too, but she's inside me. Can we really do anything?"

"Certainly not," Lily's voice says from behind us.

"Violette, listen," I rush to say, before she can split us up. I cup her heart-shaped face and pray that asking her to think won't be my downfall. "You're so strong because of all four of us. Figure out why and tap into it! I'll be there when you do!"

I'm glad I manage to get it out before Lily's hand grabs my arm and throws me deeper into Violette's dreams.

* * *

I'm Violette.

That's easy to understand. What makes me strong is that... I'm Violette. Not the 'Violet' it said on my birth certificate. My version is cuter, softer. I started writing it like that when I was ten or eleven, and Daddy didn't mind at all. He encouraged me, said it suited me, and eventually helped me get it changed so teachers would stop messing it up. Nobody spells it the wrong way anymore.

I like to get my way. I'll do it by force if I have to. I think it's right that Oran calls me a princess so much. I am a princess--like a queen but without all the worries or responsibilities. That's how I want to be for the rest of my life, and if I have to fight for it, I will!

* * *

"I'm Violette," I told Jett the first time I met him, and I didn't like him right away from the way he leaned down to talk to me, as if I was a kid and not seventeen years old. I stayed quiet though, because Daddy liked him enough to introduce him to me and not many boyfriends made it that far.

I used to want to chase them off but could only do it with surly silence. That worked, some of the time, and the other handful Daddy broke up with all on his own (yay!). Jett was the first one Daddy had brought home since I got my power, so of course I tested it on him when we were alone.

It didn't work as well as I expected. He objected way more than anyone else I'd used it on, and in the end all I did was tell him not to treat me like a kid. That didn't work either! He kept doing it!

When Oran came along and explained that he's just like that, it was kind of a relief. Once I understood that, I knew I had to use way more stern words on him than other people. Now, I think it's actually fun how squirmy he gets no matter what. It means Oran and I have an excuse to team up, which always gives me butterflies.

I won't do what I'm told either, not for long. Thanks to Oran, I've gotten lots of power from Jett!

* * *

I'm Violette.

That's one of the first things I ever said. Most people don't remember the first thing they said, but I was old enough to remember because I didn't talk for a long time, almost until I started school. Even though I knew the words and the sounds, I was scared to try.

A lot of the adults around me got mad when I wouldn't talk. Daddy never got mad, but my grandparents did. They blamed it on trying to teach me Mandarin and English at the same time, and took me to doctors who agreed, which made me want to talk even less.

They stopped teaching me Mandarin, but Daddy would speak it to me when we were alone, and I'm glad I learned how to say the words right, even if I don't know too many of them, let alone the Shanghainese my older relatives use.

I got brave enough to talk, eventually, but it's still hard sometimes to put the words together. Secretly, I was glad when my aunt and then my grandparents moved away, because then it was just me and Daddy, and he never judges me.

Even when I hurt him, or use him. The first time I needed it so bad that I just threw myself at him, I made him cry, but he apologized to me, told me I was a good girl. (That's not true; I'm bad like my mom.) Then, I told him not to cry and the tears stopped. It was easy to make him smile again.

Oran said something like that.

Your dad's never bothered for long, huh?

That's right! Everyone likes Daddy because of how happy he is. He makes the best food and gives the best hugs, and he's kind no matter how bad things get. Oran liked him right away, and I can tell they're not usually so nice to people. They were even a little mean to me at first, but I kind of liked it, because I started it.

That must be what they meant, right? That Daddy can smile through anything, make people like him? I never realized that might be a special power, like Oran's mind reading or my control, but it makes sense!

I wish they were here to praise me for figuring it out, but I'll bring them back, I'm sure of it.

* * *

"Hi," I said to Oran when I first met them.

I meant to introduce myself properly, but it's hard for me to talk to strangers. I knew I was going to sleep with them before they got there, but when they showed up and were way hotter than I expected, definitely way hotter than their uncle, I got flustered. Plus, I was still mad at them for coming into our house and being tied to Jett, who I hadn't forgiven for winning Daddy's heart yet.

Originally I couldn't decide whether to pay attention to them or not. But I liked how much they kept staring at me, their pretty narrow eyes so bright against their brown skin, lighter than their uncle's but darker than Daddy's even when he's tanned from working outside in the summer.

When they resisted me, more sharply than even Jett had, and they admitted they'd done things just as bad as me, and then they made me cum before them, it felt like my heart might explode. Finding out they could read and influence minds but couldn't do it to me showed me it was totally fate! Like destiny! That way they would know I loved them for real as soon as I was brave enough to say it.

I haven't managed it yet. But we're soulmates. I'll get the courage to tell them right to their face one day!

That thought makes me stronger than anything.

* * *

The first power I use is Jett's. She tries to overpower me, but I resist her with all my might, struggling for normalcy and righteousness. It won't last forever, but it's enough to throw her off of me.

I'll have to be nicer to him for a few days after this to thank him for his stubbornness.

Next up is Oran. This is my mind, I can make her see what I want her to see! I don't need words for it, just thoughts that cut like a scalpel.

My mother is confused by the landscape she finds herself in, a place unlike any on Earth. The colors are neon and poisonous, too loud and too bright to look at for long, but they're unavoidable. Like when it snows and everything is so white your eyes water. A haze overtakes her as she stalks like a big cat through the flowers that curl into self-terminating spirals and the mushroom trees that drop clinging spores.

Despite the alien foliage closing in around her, their stinging thorns dragging at her ankles, she's smiling and confident that she can get me. That one's a little of Oran and Daddy combined, forcing unearned confidence into her mind.

Everything will be all right.

They're with me, I think. I can't see them, but I feel them.

Of course, princess. I wouldn't leave you alone when you need me the most.

I can't help but grin and wrap my arms around myself at the sound of them in my heart.

You resisted her, pushed your thoughts into her, and clouded her with false hope, now what's left?

Umm, my power?

That's right! And what's the best way to use it?

I think about that for a second, before I grin even wider and imagine something weighty and sturdy forming in my hands.

I am going to hit her with a big hammer.

* * *

Violette's so funny. I was worried at first that I'd have to claw my way back to her and guide her to the answers, and it might be too late then. But she always surprises me, and she managed it all on her own, wove one of her beautifully envisioned paintings into a trap and everything.

I can feel myself reforming beside her as she winds up to strike her mother, who doesn't see the blow coming at all.

"Knock her into my body, all right? We can push her out after, and I think that'll get rid of her."

"Okay!" Violette's chirps like such a sweet little lovebird before she uses her imagined weapon to smash the illusion entrapping her mother and drive her out for good.

I hope she forgives me for lying to her one last time.

* * *

I always wanted to get inside her head, but it's not the way I wanted to do it. Standing alongside her thoughts, I watch my body die from behind Violette's eyes.

Before diving in here, I could tell I had overdone it. Everything came into focus once I realized that. I'm not powerful like Violette; I'm just a stupid human with human limits. Fighting off a monster like her mother for even a few minutes lit a fire that would hollow me out.

I read this story once about a little witch who unknowingly summoned the devil using magic from her ancestors that she didn't understand. To stop the devil, she sealed it inside a decrepit old rooster, where it no longer had any power. The devil escaped in that story, but Lily has no power left to run with as she grasps at the air with my own weakening hands.

I've never seen someone die before, but it's obvious what's happening.

"Oran...?" Violette whispers in horror. Eric and Jett watch helplessly from where they're holding on to Lily's previous body, now empty.

I'm here. I'm sorry.

How strange, to experience her tears as my own, hot and fat as they roll down her cheeks.

"You said I could fix it! What do I do next? How do I save you?"

I don't think you can. But this way she'll be gone for good. I can still live inside you, if you let me.

"But... but I need you..." I feel her knees give out as the eyes on my body close. It hurts as she hits the ground. Both of us hurt together. That's not so bad, is it?

I know. I need you too, but in a way we'll be even closer now. When you dream, I'm sure we can still hold each other.

"No, no, I don't want that, I want you--you have to be here for that!" she shouts.

I'm sorry, I--

That's the last thing I can say to her directly before she throws me out of her head.

There's nothing for me to hold onto, then. I can see the whole room, somehow: the chaos of two dead bodies and Violette on her knees, sobbing, Eric and Jett, holding each other now that they don't have to hold onto Lily's body anymore.

I wanted to live on if I could, being inside Violette was enough, but I guess that last betrayal was one too many. I wish I could tell her sorry a million more times.

She's so lovely, even when she's crying. A golden light seems to pour out of her, and that's the last thing I can perceive as my mind fades away into nothingness.