Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The tagger has been decided to be you
It'll be fun, I'll join you
That moon will hit the jungle gym
And we'll play until the time comes
— Peek-A-Boo by Red Velvet

TRING TRING. The sound of the bell was swallowed by the heavy, unnatural stillness of the house before him.

"Coming!" a voice, light and distant, called from within.

Outside, Jacaerys Velaeyon shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his worn-out sneakers feeling particularly inadequate on the porch. His knuckles were white where he gripped the cardboard pizza box a little too tightly, the warmth of the cheese inside doing nothing to combat the sudden chill that spider-walked up his spine.

His eyes, wide and uneasy, wandered across the house's facade. It screamed Halloween, he thought. No garish, skeletal decorations were strung alongside fairy lights that hadn't been taken down since December. No plastic witch dangled from the eaves, her cackle long since faded, yet her painted smile seemed to follow his every move. No tangle of fake cobwebs choked the porch railings, dust-thick and genuine-looking in their neglect. It was the middle of July, he thought, but the air thick with the scent of cut grass and approaching thunder, and this house clung to a perpetual, off-season autumn.

And his heart... it was a frantic drum against his ribs, a wild horse kicking at the gate of his chest. Every instinct, the quiet, primal ones you ignore when you're just trying to make a delivery, screamed that something was deeply, fundamentally wrong in this place.

But then, the door swung open and his world tilted on its axis.

She stood there, framed by the gloom of the hallway, a silver-curled goddess. Her eyes, a shade of violet he'd only ever seen in daydreams, looked through him with a sweet curiosity that was both disarming and devastating.

His breath hitched the next second. He shifted, his awkwardness magnified tenfold under her gaze. Then, he froze. And at the third frantic beat of his heart, something inside him simply... fell. Not with a crash, but with a silent, complete surrender. He didn't know why. He didn't know for what. But he knew that he was no longer standing on his own two feet, but floating in the gravity of her presence.

"Hello?" Her voice was a melody, light and playful, as she blinked those pretty eyes. "Can I get my pizza now?" A small, delicate hand reached out, fingers wiggling expectantly towards the box.

Jacaerys nodded, a jerky, puppet-like motion. He thrust the pizza forward, his movements suddenly feeling foreign and clumsy. "That'll be ten dollars," he managed, his voice a little too high.

"Oh? Such a steal," she teased, her lips curving into a smile. She placed a crisp ten-dollar bill into his palm, her fingers deliberately, achingly, brushing against his. A spark, a jolt of pure energy, shot up his arm. "Thank you for delivering to us," she said, and with it, she winked.

His heartbeat stopped, completely, foolishly, fallen for her. A perfect, silent vacuum in time. A perfect mistake he would not yet realized.

"Baela? Where's the pizzas? I'm starving!" A younger voice, impatient and whiny, echoed from somewhere deep within the house.

"Yeah, come on, babe! We're dying out here!" another voice shouted, this one warmer, wiser, carrying the weight of an older sister or a very close friend.

Then the goddess—Baela—glanced back over her shoulder, a flicker of fond annoyance crossing her features. She turned back to him, offering one last, polite smile and a small nod. Then, without another word, she shut the door gently but firmly in his face.

For a long, bewildered moment, Jacaerys stood frozen on the porch, a statue in sneakers. He felt utterly bewitched, as if she'd cast a spell and left him there to collect the pieces of his scattered consciousness. Then, slowly, the world seeped back in: the heat of the night returned, the scent of grass slips through his nose, the distant rumble of winds heard.

Alas, when he walked away, his legs feeling like they belonged to someone else.

And luckily for him, or perhaps by some strange design, the orders from that house—that unsettling, spooky house—kept coming.

The second time, the door was opened by a girl with a cascade of warm, curly brown same silver hair and a smile that felt like a blanket on a cold day. Rhaena.

The third time, it was Daenaera, a curious-looking girl with wide, wondering eyes that couldn't seem to stop staring at him, as if he were a puzzle she was trying to solve.

The fourth, it was Nettles, the all business girl. She took the pizza, handed him the exact change with punctual efficiency, though her dark, intelligent eyes scanned him from head to toe, a quiet assessment for an approval that seemed hers alone to grant.

And the fifth time, just last night, the door was answered by Floris. Her eyes were sharp, like cut glass, and her smile was a practiced, social thing that never quite reached them.

And now... now, on the sixth day, he was here for one reason only. He wished to see her again. To see Baela, the one from the first night.

TRING TRING.

The bell's cry seemed more hopeful this time. He stood awkwardly, once again a prisoner to his own nerves. But when the door opened and revealed that majestic cascade of silver hair, a smile, genuine and wide, broke across his face before he could stop it.

"Another pizza delivery," he blurted out, his voice dripping with an enthusiasm so palpable it made her eyebrows rise in amused surprise. "Sorry," he mumbled, his cheeks flushing.

She laughed then, a sound like wind chimes in a gentle breeze. And he swear, that it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard. "No need," she said, taking the pizza and handing him the money, waiting patiently for the change.

"I bet you girls just love pizza so much," he said, grasping for any conversational lifeline.

"We do, yeah," Baela agreed, her violet eyes sparkling. "Very like. Love, in fact." She stressed the word, as if it held a deeper meaning.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Jacaerys stammered, counting out the change into her palm. "I love myself some pizza as well. That's why I work for one."

Good one, Jace, he cursed himself. Real smooth.

"You do?" she asked, her interest unexpectedly sharpening. It wasn't just a polite question; it was an invitation, a door held open just for him.

"I do. I love pizza too." He nodded, an eager, awkward affirmation, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.

Baela hesitated for a moment. Then she glanced over her shoulder into the shadowed house, a silent conversation passing with the unseen occupants within. When her gaze returned to him, it held a new light. "Well?" she said, a playful challenge in her voice. "Do you want to come in and get some pizza? I'm sure we have room for one more person."

At that moment, he felt the familiar sensation of being bewitched wash over him. He didn't know if it was by her, or by the house, or by the strange pull of fate itself. But he nodded, a mute acceptance.

The next thing he knew, he was sitting in their living room—which was, he noted with a shiver, just as creepily decorated as the exterior—with dark velvet drapes, candelabras holding unlit candles, and old portraits with eyes that seemed to follow you. Before he knew, he was surrounded by the five girls who had opened the door for him over the last six days.

Daenaera, if he remembered correctly, was the one to open the pizza box in front of them and, with a gracious smile, push it towards him. "You are our guest," she announced softly. "Why don't you take the first slice? After all, it was you who brought it to us."

"True, and uh, we're so happy to have you..." the girl with the warm smile, Rhaena, trailed off delicately, her eyes prompting him.

"Oh, I'm Jacaerys. Jace, for short," he said, his voice finally finding some steadiness as he reached for a slice of pepperoni. His movement was still awkward, but the act of taking the food felt grounding.

Rhaena's smile widened, becoming impossibly warmer. "Well, we're delighted to have you here, Jace."

He took a bite, the familiar, greasy taste a strange comfort in this odd, shadowed room. He watched as, one by one, they each took a slice. Nettles, efficient as ever, was first. Then Daenaera, then Floris with her sharp, assessing smile, then Rhaena, and finally Baela.

As they ate, they reintroduced themselves, their names settling into his memory like stones dropping into still water. Throughout it all, Baela's eyes never left his. Every time he blinked, he would open his eyes to find her gaze already there, waiting for him, a silent, thrilling conversation passing between them.

Heat crept up his cheeks, a persistent, traitorous blush, and he knew, with a certainty that made it worse, that they all knew. But there was nothing he could do but eat, and talk, and let the hours melt away in their strange, captivating company.

And strangely, in that dim, cluttered room, Jacaerys felt his gravity shift. It felt heavier, as if an invisible force was tethering him to his seat, to this moment, to them. The urge to simply sit and talk and never go home was a physical pull. The girls, too, were so warm to him. Their laughter was easy, their questions curious but never prying. They made him feel seen, truly seen, for the first time in a long while.

And that warmth, that feeling of profound belonging, led him to accept a glass of their homemade wine.

A deep, ruby-red booze that was sweeter than any wine he'd ever tasted. It went down smooth, filling him with an even deeper, more languid warmth. He drank and drank and he talked and he laughed, the strange room spinning softly around him. And at some point in the night, a point he would never be able to recall, the warmth consumed him completely, and Jacaerys knew nothing but a deep, dreamless, and absolute black.

Consciousness, when they returned to Jacaerys, was not as a gentle waking, but as a sudden, disorienting snap. His eyes flew open, light seeps through his bone, and suddenly, he was alone.

The living room, with its oppressive velvet and watching portraits, was exactly as messy as he last remembered: cushions dented, glasses still bearing the crimson residue of their wine, the empty pizza box lying open like a discarded shell. But only, only the girls that were gone. They vanished like they never drank and drunken with him. The remained gone but the pizza boxes with him. The silence was absolute, a thick, suffocating blanket that pressed against his eardrums.

THUG!

The sound tore through the quiet like a piece of loh—a heavy, muffled impact from somewhere above. His heart, which had barely calmed from the moments before, launched into a frantic, painful gallop.

"Hello?" His voice came out as a dry croak. He pushed himself up from the floor, his limbs heavy and uncooperative, as if he were wading through water. "Baela? Rhaena? Daenaera? Nettles? Floris? Girls? Anyone?"

The staircase loomed before him, dark and unwelcoming. But his feet, driven by a morbid curiosity he couldn't suppress, carried him forward. One step. Then another. Then another. The wooden stairs groaned beneath his weight, each complaint echoing too loudly in the oppressive silence.

THUG!

Louder this time. From his left. His head snapped towards the sound, and before his mind could catch up with his body, his feet were already moving, carrying him down a long, shadowed corridor towards the room at the very end. The only room with a door that was slightly ajar.

"Hello? Is anyone here?" His voice was a trembling whisper now, all pretense of casual inquiry gone.

The door had no window, but the room beyond was separated by a heavy curtain. With a hand he couldn't stop from shaking, Jacaerys slowly, carefully, slid the fabric aside just a fraction of an inch.

And then, at that moment, his blood turned to ice. Frozen.

Inside, the room was transformed. Dozens of candles flickered in a chaotic constellation, their flames casting dancing, distorted shadows on the walls. In the center, atop what looked like an ancient wooden table scarred with symbols he couldn't comprehend, sat Daenaera. But she was not merely sitting. She was posed, her back impossibly straight, her eyes closed, her small hands resting on her knees. The candles surrounded her in a perfect circle, as if she were the heart of some dark, living organism.

Around her, the others moved in a slow, hypnotic circle. Nettles, her face a mask of concentration, held a gnarled wooden staff that she brought down against the floor in a steady, rhythmic beat. THUG. THUG. THUG. Each impact was the sound that had drawn him here. Baela, Rhaena, and Floris followed in her wake, their lips moving in unison, chanting words that felt ancient and forbidden. The language was unfamiliar, guttural yet melodic, a river of sound that seemed to crawl under his skin and wrap around his bones.

"What the hell," Jacaerys breathed, the words escaping him like a prayer and a curse all at once.

In that exact moment, though the devils that may have ears, Daenaera's eyes snapped open. And they found his instantly.

Through the curtain gap, through the candlelight, through the shadows, her gaze locked onto his with terrifying precision. And then she smiled. It was not the curious, wondering smile of the girl who had stared at him during pizza deliveries. This was something else entirely—wicked, knowing, triumphant—anything that could make one's blood rushes. As if she had been expecting him. As if his presence here, witnessing this, was exactly what she had wanted all along.

From the depths of Daenaera's eyes, a shiver unlike anything he had ever felt erupted at the base of his spine and exploded outward, racing through his veins like liquid nitrogen. It was pure, primal terror.

The next thing he know, he ran.

His feet pounded against the corridor floor as he hurtled back the way he came, down the stairs so fast he nearly tripped and broke his neck. The front door, the thought, had to reach the front door.

He slammed into it, his sweating fingers fumbling with the lock, twisting, pulling, wrenching. Nevertheless, it wouldn't budge. The door was sealed as if it had been nailed shut for a century.

"No, no, no, no," he gasped, throwing his shoulder against it. Nothing.

Windows, there had to be windows, he thought as he sprinted from room to room on the first floor, tearing at curtains, shoving at frames. His breath coming in ragged, panicked sobs. Every single one was stuck fast, painted shut, or simply refused to yield to his desperate strength.

But the house had become a cage. And through it all, their voices began to seep through the walls.

"Jace, where are you going?!" Nettles's shout was not her usual punctual, business-like tone. It was ancient, layered, echoing with an age that couldn't be measured in years. It crawled through the air like smoke, wrapping around him.

"Jacaerys... where are youuu?" Rhaena's voice followed, and it was the most terrifying of all. That warmth, that blanket-like comfort he had felt from her, was now twisted into something hollow and cold. It was the warmth of a hearth in an abandoned house: inviting, but with no one left to tend it.

"Oh, the game has started! Finally!" Floris's voice was a cacophony, a symphony of a dozen different emotions layered on top of each other: glee, malice, anticipation, hunger, and something that sounded almost like longing. No human voice should be capable of carrying so much at once.

And then Daenaera began to hum. A melody rose through the house, an ancient tune with words he couldn't understand but felt in his marrow. It was haunting, he admit, like a lullaby from a nightmare but each note freezing him a little more solid.

"Tick tock, tick tock, the clock will turn and run out," Baela's voice would whisper at irregular intervals, sometimes from his left, sometimes from his right, sometimes from directly above him, as if she were everywhere and nowhere at once. It sounded like a reminder. Or perhaps, the taunt of a huntress toying with her prey.

After minutes that what felt like hours of frantic, fruitless searching, Jacaerys stumbled to a halt in the main hallway, his chest heaving, his vision swimming. He pressed his hands to his head, trying to block out the chorus of voices that now seemed to be coming from everywhere, calling his name, laughing, whispering.

Then..

THUG!

A sharp, explosive pain detonated at the back of his skull. The world went white, then red, then a swirling, dizzying black. His knees buckled, and his body crumpled to the floor like a discarded marionette.

Through the fading static in his ears, he heard footsteps. Slow, deliberate, unhurried. They circled around and stopped directly in front of his face. With tremendous effort, he forced his eyes to focus.

Floris stood over him, her head tilted at an unnatural angle. On her face was the most horrific smile he had ever seen. A smile that stretched too wide, a smile that reached her eyes and beyond, that spoke of a joy that was fundamentally wrong. In her hand, she gripped a baseball bat. And his blurred vision caught a glimpse of something dark and wet on its end.

She opened her mouth to speak, but the words never reached him. Because the darkness swallowed him whole again.

Consciousness, when they returned to Jacaerys, was not as a gentle waking, but as a sudden, disorienting snap. His eyes flew open, light seeps through his bone, and suddenly, he was alone.

Consciousness, when returned to Jacaerys, felt like a tide creeping back over sand. Slow, reluctant, piece by piece.

As his eyes open fully, he became aware first of the floor beneath him, hard and unyielding against his cheek. Then the sofa beside him, its worn fabric grazing his forehead. Finally, the weight of his own body, heavy and achingly present.

THUG!

Baela's hand fell over his shoulder, and the girls were exactly where he had last seen them before the blackout: before the ritual, before the chase, before Floris's smile and the bat.

There, now, Baela lay curled on the sofa, her silver hair spilling over the edge like moonlight made tangible. Nettles was sprawled on the floor to his right, her breathing slow and deep. Daenaera rested on his left, so close he could see the faint flutter of her eyelids. Across from him, Rhaena lay on her back, one arm thrown dramatically over her face. And on the other sofa, Floris was stretched out with an unsettling stillness, as if she had been posed there.

One by one, as if his awakening had triggered theirs, they began to stir, and their groans filled the room. Their limbs stretched. And at last, their eyes blinked open, confused and heavy-lidded.

Was that a dream? Jacaerys's heart hammered against his ribs, a wild, panicked bird that refused to be calmed. Because it had felt so real. The chanting, the candles, the terror, the blow to his head... all felt too real. But here he was, alive. Unharmed. Surrounded by five girls who looked just as disoriented as he felt.

"Uh, that was bad." Daenaera's voice cut through his spiraling thoughts. She sat up slowly, pressing her palm to her temple with a wince. "I think I need to move around, lessen this headache."

It had to be a dream, he thought, it had to be.

"You're right," Floris agreed, pushing herself up with a fluid grace that seemed almost practiced. Her eyes, those sharp, cut-glass eyes, swept across the room before landing on Jacaerys for just a fraction of a second too long. "Perhaps a game, then?"

"A game would be most fun!" Rhaena's warmth was back, her smile chasing away the shadows that had haunted Jacaerys's nightmare. It was so genuine, so familiar, that he felt some of the ice in his veins begin to thaw.

"What kind of game shall we play?" Baela asked, her eyes sparkling with anticipation. When her gaze found his, something in Jacaerys's chest loosened. The dream was fading at the sight of her violet pools, becoming fuzzy at the edges, the way all nightmares do in the harsh light of morning.

The girls looked at each other, and in that shared glance, something passed between them: an invisible current of understanding that Jacaerys couldn't quite grasp, yet. Their energies shifted, perked up, sharpened with an almost predatory focus on the prospect of play. He felt a twinge of wrongness, a distant alarm bell ringing somewhere in the depths of his mind.

But somehow, impossibly, he couldn't stop himself from wanting to be part of it.

"I think I know what kind of game," Nettles announced, her voice carrying a note of finality that brooked no argument. Without waiting for a response, she turned and sprinted up the stairs, her footsteps echoing through the house like a drumroll.

The others followed in a cascade of laughter and excited chatter. Daenaera first, then Rhaena, then Floris with that same too-slow glance back at him. And last, Baela lingered, waiting for him. She crossed the room slowly, deliberately, until she stood before him. Then she extended her hand, pale and graceful, an offering.

"Come on, Jace," she said, her smile warm, her eyes soft, inviting. Bewitching. "Let's play."

And that was all it took. The warmth of her smile. The prettiness of her eyes. The overwhelming, intoxicating sense of belonging that flooded through him at her invitation. He reached out, took her hand, and let her lead him up the stairs.

Her fingers were cool against his palm. Comforting, belonging.

Why does comfort feel so much like surrender? a small voice whispered somewhere in the back of his mind.

Unfortunately, he ignored it.

Stepping onto the second floor, Jacaerys felt his stomach clench with a familiar, primal dread. They turned not towards the corridor where he had witnessed the ritual in his dream, but towards the opposite wing. The safe side, he told himself, the normal side. But in the split second before he followed the girls, his gaze flickered involuntarily towards that other hallway. Towards the room at the end.

It stood there in the shadows, its door closed, its secrets intact. A chill skittered across his skin, raising goosebumps along his arms.

"I'll be damned," he muttered, so low that only he could hear.

Yet, Baela's hand tugged him forward, and he let himself be pulled away.

The room they entered was aggressively, almost suspiciously, normal. It was like walking into any family's garage-turned-game-room—shelves lined with board games, a ping pong table folded against the wall, mismatched chairs gathered around a worn coffee table littered with magazines. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in a sterile, unremarkable glow. It was so utterly mundane, so defiantly ordinary, that Jacaerys felt some of the tension leave his shoulders.

The only thing that felt off was Nettles. She moved with purpose to the far end of the room, her back to them as she rifled through a drawer. The sound of rummaging filled the silence. The other girls waited with an almost breathless anticipation, their eyes fixed on her.

"Got it!" Nettles exclaimed, spinning around with a flourish. In her hands, she held up five blindfolds. They were all the same shade: a deep, unsettling dark red, like dried blood or red old velvet. "Let us play hide and seek!"

The girls erupted into cheers. Clapping. Laughter. A chorus of approval that filled the small room and bounced off the walls. But Jacaerys stood frozen in the center of it, a statue in a storm of excitement.

Before he could process what was happening, they were already determining who would hide. A quick round of something—rock paper scissors, or some variation he didn't recognize—and the result was decided.

Against all luck, against every instinct screaming at him to run, Jacaerys was chosen.

"Well, lucky you," Rhaena said, her warm smile carrying an edge he couldn't quite name, yet.

"You have about five minutes to hide, Jace," Nettles instructed, distributing the blood-red blindfolds to each of the girls. "Now, let us cover our eyes so Jacaerys can hide."

As one, they raised the blindfolds and tied them into place. Five girls, five crimson bands, five sightless faces turned towards the empty space where he stood.

Nettles's voice cut through the sudden silence. "Go hide, Jace."

He didn't think anymore, he didn't question. The words had barely left her lips before his feet were moving, carrying him out of the room and into the house with a speed born of something between excitement and terror. All he could think, all that existed in that moment, was the need to hide. Part of him had forgotten the dream entirely, swept away by the adrenaline of the game. And another part was genuinely, childishly excited to play.

He ran through corridors, past doors, down the stairs, until he found himself in the kitchen. It seemed as good a place as any. He ducked behind the large island, pressing his back against the cabinets, forcing his breathing to slow.

And then he noticed.

The kitchen was too clean.

Not just tidy, sterile. The counters were spotless, wiped free of the crumbs and spills he remembered from the night. The sink was empty, its usual collection of abandoned glasses gone. The leftover pizza box, which had been left on the table, was nowhere to be seen.

Why is this so crystal clear? he thought, frowning. I think I spilled some drink earlier, there should be...

The dizziness hit him then, a delayed reaction to the sudden movement, the running, the overwhelming wrongness of everything. He pressed his hand to his head, hoping to steady himself.

His fingers encountered something wet. Something slick. Something that matted his hair in a way that felt deeply, fundamentally wrong.

Slowly, his hand shaking now, he brought it down from his head. He turned his palm towards the light filtering through the kitchen window.

Blood. Thick, fresh, crimson blood painted across his skin like an accusation.

His breath stopped the next second. His heart, which had been hammering so persistently, seemed to freeze in his chest. A shiver erupted in his stomach and spread outward, cold and absolute, until his entire body trembled with it.

At last, he knew.

The dream was never a dream.

The blood on his palm was still there. Still wet, still real.

Jacaerys stared at that dark, accusing stain, and the world narrowed to a single, screaming truth: this was happening, that dream was actually happening.

His breath came in short, sharp gasps, each one a knife in his chest. No time, his mind screamed through the static of terror. No time to think, Jacaerys Velaeyon, mo time to process. They're coming any second now, and then they'll realize where you are, and they'll...

Panic flooded his veins like liquid fire. His eyes darted across the kitchen, desperate, searching, and landed on the knife block by the stove. The knives gleamed under the fluorescent lights, innocent and ordinary and perfect.

He moved without thinking. His body acted while his mind was still frozen. His hand closed around the largest one, the heaviest knife which is a chef's knife with a blade that caught the light like a threat. The handle fit his palm as if it had been made for him, as if the house itself wanted him to hold it. Perhaps, wanted him to fight back. Or perhaps, wanted him to believe he had a chance.

The front door, the thought cut through the chaos. Reach the front door. Escape. Get out. Get out. GET THE FUCK OUT FROM THIS HOUSE.

The next breath, he ran.

Through the kitchen, feet sliding on tile. Through the dining room, past the table where they had all sat together just hours ago, laughing like friends. Past the stairs where—

No, no, no, don't think, the thought. Just run. The front door was right there. So close to his grasped, just a few more steps.

His lungs burned every second. His legs screamed ever steps. His hand tightened on the knife until his knuckles went white. He slammed into the door, both hands against the wood, twisting the handle, pulling, wrenching, throwing his entire weight against it.

Unfortunately, the lock wouldn't budge. It was stuck. Sealed. Impossibly not moving. Like the door had become part of the wall, like the house had grown teeth and clamped down, refusing to release its prey.

"No no no no no—"

WHOOSH! An arrow flew past his face so close he felt the wind of it on his cheek.

He heard the loud thunk as it buried itself in the door frame, inches from his head. An inch to the right and it would have pierced his skull. An inch to the right and this would already be over.

He spun around right away. And there, at the top of the stairs, stood Baela, with her crossbow was still raised in her hands, its string still vibrating from the shot.

Faint smoke curled from the tip, impossibly, as if the arrow had been fired with more than just mechanical force. Her silver hair cascaded around her shoulders, catching the dim light like a halo. But there was something angelic, dark angelic, about her face that drawn him to her.

Nevertheless, it was also unreadable. No smile. No anger. No triumph. Nothing. Just eyes that looked right through him, as if he were already a ghost, as if she were seeing past his flesh and bone to something else entirely.

Then she tilted her head. A slow, curious movement, like a bird examining something strange and fascinating. When she whispered, its soft as a lullaby, "Peek-a-boo, Jace."

His heart stopped the next beat.

All the air left his lungs in a single, shattered exhale. The memories crashed over him like a wave: her smile at the door that first night, the way her fingers had deliberately brushed his, the wink that had stolen his breath, the warmth in her eyes when she invited him in. Was that not real? He thought. Was that not love? Had he only imagined scenarios the way his heart soared every time she looked at him while she plotted for taking his life? Was it all a lie? A ploy to lure him here? A trap baited with beauty and kindness and fated meeting, and he had walked right into it like the fool he was?

Tears welled in his eyes, hot and unwanted. He blinked, and they spilled down his cheeks. Was I so blind? So desperate for connection that I couldn't see what was right in front of me? So deeply fallen for her violet pools that I did not recognized the danger behind it? 

And then the house exploded with sound.

"AND NOW, FINALLY, THE GAME BEGINS!"

Nettles's voice tore through the air like a war cry, primal and exultant. She came barreling down the stairs behind Baela, and in her hands—sweet merciful gods—in her hands she gripped an axe. Not a tiny hatchet, not a decorative piece, but a REAL axe, the kind that split wood. The kind that split bone, with its blade was broad and wicked, catching the light with every swing of her arms. Her eyes were wild, hungry, alive with a joy that was fundamentally wrong. And her laughter—GODS THAT LAUGHTER—it rang through the house like music from a demon's choir, beautiful and terrible and absolutely mad.

Behind her, Floris followed, and oh Gods her smile. The smile that never reached her eyes before? It reached them NOW. Wide and bright and absolutely insane, stretching her face in a way that made her look like someone else entirely. Like someone who had been waiting their whole life for this moment, someone Jacaerys would not imagined meeting his whole life. Her fingers were wrapped around shurikens, the throwing stars glinting between her knuckles like metal teeth. And she was laughing too. Laughing freely, joyfully, like a child at a birthday party. Like this was the best day of her life.

Behind Floris, Rhaena walked. Not ran, just walked. Slow, deliberate, and graceful, with her bare feet made no sound on the stairs, but somehow Jacaerys could feel each step in his bones. In her hand, she held a long sword—not an axe, not a throwing star, but a proper blade— elegant and deadly, its edge catching the light like water flowing over stones. Her face was calm, TOO CALM. The warm smile from the conversations was gone, replaced by something Jacaerys couldn't read. Perhaps, something ancient. Perhaps, something patient. And perhaps, dangerously thought, something that scared him more than all the wild laughter and sharpened steel in the world.

The next breath, he ran away.

He didn't think. He didn't plan. His body simply moved, propelling him through the nearest doorway, into a corridor, past rooms he didn't see, down hallways he didn't recognize. The knife was still in his hand. It felt heavier now. Useless.

Their laughter followed him everywhere.

"Nettles, left corridor!"
"I see him, I see him!"
"Don't let him hide, girls! Don't let him—"
"Ooooh where are you, Jace? Come out, come out, let us play!"
"Floris, check the bedrooms!"
"Baela, is he upstairs?"
"Oh, this is so fun! Nettles, I swear this is so fun!"

Their voices bounced off the walls, came from everywhere and nowhere, a chorus of hunters reveling in the chase. And beneath all of it, underneath the shouts and the laughter and the pounding of feet, there was something else. Something Jacaerys felt in his chest more than heard with his ears.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. The clock. Always the clock, ticking so loud.

At some point, he didn't remember when, didn't remember how, but he burst through a door and into a bedroom. One of many he could find. They all looked the same now: shadowed, unfamiliar, indifferent to his terror. He slammed the door behind him, pressed his back against it, and forced his eyes to sweep the room.

Window? Locked, he already knew it would be. Another door? Probably a closet, or a dead end. And there, against the far wall, a closet, a real one, with sliding doors.

"Yes," he whispered, the word escaping like a prayer. "Yes, yes, yes. That one."

He threw himself across the room, slid the closet door open just wide enough to slip through, and pulled it shut behind him. The darkness swallowed him whole. He pressed himself against the back wall, knife raised, breath held, heart screaming against his ribs so loudly he was sure they could hear it.

Please please please please please, Gods, do not let them find m—

Footsteps pounded past the door. Heavy. Close. So close he could hear their breathing.

Then silence. And silence, he knew with a cold, sick certainty, was the least safe thing in this house. Silence meant he couldn't find them. Silence meant they could be anywhere. Silence meant the game was entering its next phase.

The next second, the closet door slid open, and Daenaera stood there.

Candles flickered somewhere behind her, he didn't know where, didn't know how, but their light caught her face and turned it into something ethereal and terrible. Her head was tilted, curious, the way one might look at a lost kitten they'd just found in the rain. Her eyes seemed to know everything, every thought in his head, or every beat of his terrified heart, down to every hope he'd ever harbored of escaping this place.

"Boo," she whispered. And smiled, sweet and dangerous. "Found you."

She stepped back, and Jacaerys knew—knew immidiately—that she was about to call the others. Her lips parted, her head turned, and her voice followed. "Guys, I—"

Something snapped inside him that moment.

Later, he wouldn't remember making the decision. He wouldn't remember his body moving. All he would remember was the shock on her face as he SHOVED her, hard and desperate and with every ounce of strength his terror could muster.

She stumbled backward, arms flailing, crashing into a dresser with a yelp that sounded almost human. Almost scared. Almost innocent. But the dagger in her hand—where had that come from? He thought—caught the light, and he saw her grip tighten on it even as she fell.

He didn't wait.

He couldn't wait.

He ran.

He ran again.

Out of the bedroom, into the hallway, past door after door after dooe. Behind him, Daenaera's voice rose, higher now, sharp with something that might have been shock or might have been delight:

"He's here! Come get him, girls!"

And then laughter. Not mean laughter. Not cruel. But delighted laughter. As if he had done something wonderful. As if his desperate act of survival had impressed her.

Then the others' voices joined in, a symphony of hunters closing in.

"Oh let us go get him!"
"Don't let him reach the stairs, girls!"
"Run faster, all of you!"
"Oh, this one's feisty! But I love it! I LOVE THIS CHASE!"
"Stop him! Don't let him go right! Come on, move!"

That last one was Baela's voice. And something in it—something almost like a warning, almost like a hint, he thought—cut through the chaos. Alas, he couldn't tell if she was helping him or hunting him. He couldn't tell if she wanted him caught or wanted him free. Her voice sounded more human than the others. More conflicted.

And Jacaerys Velaryon, chased by five psychopathic girls, didn't have time to question it.

He ran through the living room, through the dining room, back to the kitchen, through corridors he'd already traversed a dozen times. Every room looked the same now. Every hallway led nowhere. The front door still wouldn't open. The windows still wouldn't budge. He was a mouse in a cage, and the cats were everywhere.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

He didn't know how long he ran. Minutes? Hours? Time had lost all meaning in this house. The girls appeared and disappeared like phantoms. Nettles would appear around a corner, axe gleaming. Floris would be suddenly at the end of a hall, shurikens spinning between her fingers. Rhaena would glides past a doorway, sword catching the light, her calm eyes following him like she had all the time in the world. Daenaera's humming will follow him everywhere, that ancient melody winding through the walls like a living thing.

And Baela, well, always Baela, will be everywhere. Sometimes in front of him, crossbow raised. Sometimes behind him, her footsteps soft and unhurried. Sometimes just a glimpse of silver hair disappearing around a corner, leading him somewhere, away from somewhere, he couldn't tell which.

And then—

DING. DING. DING.

The clock.

Midnight? he thought, his exhausted mind grasping at the sound like a lifeline. Is is midnight? Or is it the end?

When the clock ding again, his body gave out.

His legs buckled. His vision swam, colors bleeding together, shapes distorting. The knife slipped from fingers that no longer remembered how to hold it, clattering against the floor with a sound like a final judgment. He collapsed, his cheek pressing against cold wood, his eyes fighting to stay open, to see, to know—

The girls gathered around him.

They stood in a loose circle, breathing hard, their weapons lowered. Their faces were flushed with exertion, with joy, with the satisfaction of a game well played. They were smiling. All of them. Smiling down at him like he was the prize they had been seeking all along.

And Baela. Baela stood a little apart from the rest. Her face was hidden in shadow, but he could see her hands. Empty. The crossbow was gone. Her arms hung at her sides, limp and still.

Was she sorry? He thought, the question floating through the darkness closing in around him. Does she care? Does she... perhaps... feel the same way I did?

Her face tilted towards him. For just a moment, the shadow shifted, and he saw her eyes.

Were those tears? Or was it just the light?

Then nothing. The darkness took him, soft and absolute, and Jacaerys knew no more.

Opening his eyes this time was not like waking at all.

There was no gradual return of awareness, no slow drift toward consciousness. One moment there was nothing, then a void, an absence, a silence so complete it felt like death. And the last, he was simply there. Present, yet also, trapped.

Darkness pressed against his eyes, but not the darkness of closed lids. This was the darkness of something over them. Fabric? He thought, thick and suffocating, pressed against his face like a second skin. A blindfold.

His wrists burned. The rope bit into his flesh, winding tight around his arms, his hands, pinning them behind the chair he sat in. The chair was hard beneath him, its wood cold through his clothes, its shape unforgiving. He tried to shift, to find any give, any weakness in his bonds. But, nothing. He was held fast, a butterfly pinned to a board.

And the clock. Still dinging. Still marking midnight, over and over and over. DING. DING. DING. The sound was everywhere, filling his skull, vibrating in his teeth. GODS, how long had it been ringing? Minutes? Hours? Days? Perhaps it had always been midnight. Perhaps it would always be midnight, forever, and he would sit here in the dark until the sound drove him mad.

He tried to move again, but his body refused to obey. He tried to speak, to call out, to scream, and yet, nothing came. His throat was there, his voice was there, but the sound died before it could form, swallowed by the oppressive silence between clock chimes.

Then, through the thin fabric of the blindfold, he saw something: shapes, movement, figures sitting around him.

The girls are there, with him. He knew them by their size, their stillness, the strange energy that radiated from them like heat from embers. They were seated too, arranged around the same table, and in the dim light bleeding through the blindfold, and yet... yet, somehow, he could see they were also bound. Also blindfolded. Also prisoners of whatever this was.

What the hell, he thought, and the words echoed uselessly in his skull. What in the Seven Hells is this?

And then he felt it. In front of him. A massive food, standing still at the center of the table. Round and tall. Impossibly present despite it lack of humor. His blindfolded eyes couldn't make it out clearly, but something in his gut—some primal, animal instinct—told him what it was.

A pudding? He thought. A giant, ridiculous, terrifying, green pudding. It sat there like a monument, like an altar, like something that had been waiting for him since before he was born.

Then the voice came.

But this was not one of theirs, and certainly not his. It was lower than any human voice, older than the house, older than the bones in the ground. Ancient in ways Jacaerys couldn't name, couldn't comprehend, could only feel in his marrow. And it came from everywhere and nowhere at once—from the walls, from the ceiling, from the darkness itself—!s if the house had grown a throat and learned to speak.

"EAT. AND YOU SHALL LIVE."

Four simple words that felt incredibly final. The kind of command that had never been disobeyed, not once, in all the centuries this house had stood.

Jacaerys's blood turned to ice right away.

Across the table, he felt the girls shift. Not toward him, but toward the clock. Toward the direction of the voice, like they were listening. Like they... answered to whatever spoke those words. Like they were... servants at an altar, waiting for the god to speak again.

A pause happened there. Heavy and suffocating. The air itself seemed to thicken, pressing against his lungs.

DING. DING. DING. The clock tolled again, and something in Jacaerys snapped.

He couldn't think anymore. All logic, all reason, all resistance had been stripped away by the chase, by the terror, by the endless midnight. All that remained was a single, burning imperative: Eat. Live.

He lunged forward the next second.

His hands were tied behind his back, his arms bound, his body trapped. But his face, he knew his mouth was free. He buried it in the pudding, scooping with his chin, his lips, his tongue. It was undignified, he know, but he was also desperate. It was the act of an animal, not a man. But he didn't care. He couldn't care. All that mattered was the rhythm: bite, swallow, bite, swallow, and perhaps, he will live.

First bite. Sweet. Too sweet. The sugar hit his tongue like a wave, cloying and nauseating. His stomach lurched, tried to reject it, but he forced it down. Eat and Live, he told himself, Eat and Live.

Second bite, then Third. He couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop. The voice said eat. The voice said live. He needed to live. He wanted to live.

Fourth. Fifth. He ate and ate and ate, his jaw aching, his throat burning, his stomach screaming for mercy. But the pudding never ended. Every time he scooped, there was more. Endless. Infinite. A nightmare of sugar and jelly that refilled as fast as he consumed it, growing, regenerating, a hydra of dessert.

Bite after bite after bite. He lost count. He lost time, and also, he lost himself.

At some point—he didn't know when—he realized he couldn't hear them anymore. The girls and their breathing. Or their presence. Or the subtle energy they gave off. They were suddenly, gone. Vanished. As if they had never been there at all.

But he kept eating. Because the voice said eat. Because eat meant live. Because if he stopped—

He ate until his stomach screamed. Until his vision swam behind the blindfold. Until he forgot why he was eating, forgot what live meant, forgot everything except the rhythm: bite, swallow, bite, swallow, bite, swallow, live, live, live—

And then the blindfold lifted.

Light exploded into his eyes: bright, harsh, unforgiving. He blinked thrice, then gasped, then choked on the last bite still lodged in his throat. Colors swam, shapes distorted. He couldn't see, couldn't breathe, couldn't—

But she was there.

Baela.

Baela was there.

Her face was inches from his, close enough that he could see the individual lashes framing her eyes. Those eyes—Gods, her violet eyes—were wide, wet, terrified. She looked at him like he was already dead and she was trying to pull him back from whatever shore he was drifting toward.

Her hand found his, squeezed it. Her fingers were cool, trembling, but her grip was fierce. And in that touch, all the feelings he had tried to bury—the affection, the longing, the desperate hope that she had been something other than a predator—came rushing back. A flood he couldn't contain.

"If you want to live," she whispered, so low he almost didn't hear over the ringing in his ears, "come with me. I will help you."

He stared at her with disbelief painted clear.

Trust? The thought was bitter, sharp, cutting through the fog in his mind. After everything? After the arrow? After the chase? After she stood at the top of those stairs and said peek-a-boo like it was a lullaby? After she and her friends hunted him through this house like he was a fucking prey?

He yanked his hand back. Or tried to. Her grip held.

"Are you insane?!" The words tore from his throat, raw and ragged. It was all he could manage. Reality, feelings, hope, hatred—all of it was smushed together in his chest, like a tangled knot he couldn't unravel. Affection and loathing, two sides of the same coin, each impossible without the other.

But when he met her eyes—Oh those pools of violet, he thought—well, he saw there stopped his heart.

Fear. Genuine, bone-deep fear. Not for herself. For him. And beneath it, something else. Something that looked like the same affection he had been drowning in since the first night she winked at him on the doorstep.

"Jace, the arrow," she breathed, reading his doubt like it was written on his skin. "I missed on purpose, okay? Look, if I really wanted to kill you, you'd have been dead now."

Something cracked in his chest. A wall he hadn't known he'd built. The arrow? He thought, the words looping in his mind. Am I supposed to thank her? For not killing me? For only pretending to try?

His logic was gone. Had been gone for hours, maybe days. His heart was shattered, pieced back together, shattered again. He didn't know what to believe. He didn't know what was real.

When she took his hand again—when she pulled him up from the chair, and untied the ropes with fingers that moved too quickly, too desperately—well, he let her. Foolishly, let her.

They ran away the next beat.

Up the stairs. Through the hallway. And then he realized where she was leading him, and his blood ran cold.

The ritual room. The one with the candles. The one where Daenaera had sat in that circle of fire, her eyes snapping open, her smile spreading like a wound. The room where the chanting had wrapped around his bones and pulled. His feet faltered. He almost stumbled, almost turned back, almost bolted in the opposite direction—

But Baela's grip held him. Her hand was iron, her pace unrelenting. She didn't give him a choice. She simply pulled him forward, into the corridor, toward the door at the end. The door that, in his dream, now has led to something terrible. Something he still couldn't fully remember.

At the end of the corridor, she stopped, and turned to face him. Both hands on his now, holding tight, her fingers interlaced with his like she was afraid he might disappear if she let go.

"Listen to me," she said, her voice shaking. Not with fear for herself, but with fear for him. "Whatever you do. Whatever my sisters throw at you, keep running. Keep running toward this direction. You'll find a door at the end, and you will enter it. It will lead you to the living room."

He blinked. His mind, battered and exhausted, struggled to process. "The living room? But that's—How? How is that possible? Baela, what is this house actually—"

"No time to explain, okay? Just trust me and run if you value your life!" Her voice cracked. "Do the path, and run again. Same pattern, Jace. Remember that. Living room, run upstairs, open this door, and repeat. Over and over. Again and again."

Her eyes searched his, desperate for understanding, for belief, for something he wasn't sure he had left to give.

"There will be an end," she promised, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I promise you. But you have to run first. You have to keep running, no matter what. And do not stop until you get to your home. Do you understand?"

Something in her words felt like a confession. Like she was telling him not just how to escape, but why she had done what she did. Why she had hunted him without truly hunting. Why she had let him live, again and again, even when the house demanded otherwise. In her eyes, there was a split hope—a tiny, fragile thing—that wanted something for them both. Something outside this wrecked house.

"Come with me," he said.

It wasn't a question. It was a plea. A prayer. A hope formed at the last possible second, when all other hope for connection had been stripped away.

Something broke in her face, just for a second. A crack in the mask she had been wearing all night. And at that very second, the huntress, the predator, the loyal sister was gone. For one breath, one heartbeat, he saw the girl who had winked at him on a summer night. The girl who had invited him in for pizza. The girl who might have loved him in another life, or in another house, or in a world where this wasn't happening.

Then she steadied herself. And the mask slid back into place.

"I can't." Her voice was barely a whisper, a ghost of sound. "They'll be suspicious. They'll know. And then... neither of us will be able to be—" She stopped. Swallowed. Her throat worked around words she couldn't say. "UGH! Just run, Jace. Run."

She let go of his hands.

He stood there, frozen. The warmth of her fingers faded from his skin.

"GO!" she hissed.

And he ran.

Behind him, he heard nothing. No footsteps following. No shouts of pursuit. No laughter, no chanting, no hunting cries. Just silence, thick and waiting.

He didn't look back.

He ran toward the door at the end of the corridor, his lungs burning, his legs screaming, his heart—broken and hopeful and terrified all at once—pounding a rhythm that matched the clock still dinging somewhere in the depths of the house.

Run. Keep running. Don't stop until you get home.

He reached the door, threw it open, and plunged into whatever came next.

DING. DING. DING. Midnight, he thought, still midnight, always midnight.

Living room. Upstairs. That door. Living room. Upstairs. That door. Again. Repeat.

Loop after loop after loop. The pattern burned itself into his legs, his lungs, and his skull until it became something beyond instinct. Like a prayer, or a compulsion, even the only truth left in a world that had stopped making sense. The house now blurred around him, hallways stretching like pulled taffy, rooms shifting positions when he wasn't looking, stairs multiplying into endless spirals that should have been impossible in a building this size. But he didn't stop. He couldn't stop. Baela's words were carved into his chest like a second heartbeat, pounding with every step: There will be an end. I promise.

But where was the end? His mind, battered and exhausted, screamed the question with every loop. Will there even be an end? Or is this just what the house does? Trap you, break you, wear you down until you can't run anymore?

The first loop, Nettles appeared from nowhere. One moment the hallway was empty, and the next, she was there, axe already swinging, her face split by that wild, hungry grin. He ducked—he barely ducked—and felt the wind of the blade against his hair, rolled across the floor, and kept running. Her delighted laughter followed him like a loyal dog, nipping at his heels.

The second loop, Floris blocked his path at the top of the stairs. Her shurikens spun between her fingers like silver butterflies, beautiful and deadly, and then they were in the air, slicing toward him. He remember how desperate he try to grabbed a lamp from a nearby table and the crash of ceramic against wood bought him half a second. And that half a second was enough, he knows. He remember how he dove past her, how he felt her fingers brush his sleeve, and heard her wide smile in the laugh that chased him down the corridor.

The third loop, Daenaera's humming echoed through the walls. Always ahead, and also, creepily, always behind, but never where he could see her. The melody wrapped around him like silk, ancient and sweet and terrible, and he knew... knew she could catch him whenever she wanted. When she didn't, he knew as hell she was enjoying this. Enjoying him, enjoying his fear. As if the chase was the point, and he was the finest prey she'd had in a very long time.

The fourth loop, Rhaena stood in the middle of the hallway. Still, silent, deadly. Her sword was lowered, its tip resting against the floor, and she did nothing but watch. Her eyes—GODS those warm, calm eyes that had once welcomed him like family—now followed his every step toward the second floor. No chase with Rhaena, no attack. Just that steady, patient gaze, as if she were testing him. Or perhaps, as if she were letting him go.

And then there was always Baela.

She appeared in every loop, in every hallway, in every impossible corner of that shifting house. Sometimes ahead, crossbow raised, her silver hair catching the dim light like a warning. Sometimes behind, her footsteps close enough to echo his own. Sometimes beside him for a single, stolen heartbeat, close enough to touch, close enough to—

And every time she shot, the arrow flew wide. An inch from his shoulder. Or an inch from his ear. Or an inch from his heart. Always an inch away, never closer, never farther. As if it was the way she protects him, as a lie she told the house, again and again, so that it wouldn't see what she was really doing.

He caught her eyes once. Mid-loop, mid-run, mid-chaos. She was standing at the end of a hallway, her bow raised, and for one frozen second—a second that stretched into eternity for Jacaerys—she wasn't aiming. She was looking at him. Really looking. And in her eyes, he saw what she couldn't say: Run, save yourself, and don't look back for me.

By loop seven, or seventeen, or seventy—he had lost count somewhere around the time the stairs started breathing—he burst through the door at the end of the corridor. The ritual room door. The one that always, always led back to the living room.

However, this time, it didn't.

He stopped so suddenly his legs almost gave out beneath him.

This wasn't the living room, he thought, this was somewhere else.

The air changed the first. It hit him like a wall: colder, stiller, the kind of cold that doesn't just touch your skin but sinks into your bones. The kind of cold that belongs to places where nothing living has breathed in a very long time. It smelled like dust, like old fabric, like the chemical tang of preservatives. Like a museum, or a tomb. Like a place where things were kept, not lived.

The light changed too the next. Dimmed and felt artificial. It came from somewhere he couldn't see, casting long shadows that moved when he moved, as if they were watching him.

And suddenly, he was in a hallway. Long and narrow, its walls lined with glass. And behind the glass... well, mannequins.

Dozens of them. Rows and rows, stretching into the dim distance. Each one stood in its own glass case, posed like a soldier at attention, like a display in a store that had never opened. Each one wore a uniform. Different colors. Different logos. Different companies.

He recognized some of it. A distant pizza chains, or delivery services, some places he'd seen around town. Others were unfamiliar: older, faded, their logos belonging to businesses that had closed before he was born. The thing that freak him the most, well, mannequins themselves were eerily realistic. Not the smooth, featureless faces of store displays, but faces with details. Faces with cheekbones and jawlines and the suggestion of features that had been worn away. Or perhaps, shivers ran through his skin, they had never been fully formed. Perhaps the house had stopped before it finished.

Each case had a small plaque at the bottom. Brass. Polished. Like a museum exhibit. Like a memorial. Like a tomb.

His legs moved without permission, carrying him forward. His eyes scanned the plaques as he passed.

He stumbled. His company, the same company. Suddenly, he remembers. Addam Hull had been a delivery driver of last year, he had once meet him briefly. He also remembered the flyers taped to the bulletin board in the break room, the hushed conversations, the manager telling them not to worry, it was probably just some kid who decided to skip town. "Probably just ran off", his memory served him, "you know how these things go."

He remembered how they hadn't found him. No one had found any of them. But now, he thought, he may finally found him.

He stumbled past the case, couldn't look at it, couldn't think about what was inside, about what had once been a person with a name and a job and a life, standing in this same hallway, seeing this same row of cases, understanding what it meant—

GODS, his breath stopped.

And the end of the hall, stood one last case. One last empty case with no mannequin and uniform. Just empty space behind the glass, waiting. The plaque at the bottom was already there, its letters crisp and clean, freshly polished, as if someone had been expecting him.

He stared at it.

And the letters didn't blur.

Didn't change.

Didn't dissolve into some nightmare trick of the light.

They stayed there, clear and permanent and already written, like his fate had been decided long before he ever rang that doorbell. Like the house had known his name before he knew theirs. Like the moment Baela opened the door and smiled, the last case had already been prepared, the plaque already engraved, the space already measured for his body.

They knew, he realized, and the thought was a blade in his chest. They always knew. From the first delivery. From the first smile. From the moment she winked at me and I fell in love with a girl who was never mine to loved.

His stomach heaved.

He dropped to his knees next, the cold floor slamming against his bones, and vomited. Nothing came up but bile and the too-sweet remnants of the pudding, burning his throat, his nose, his eyes. He knelt there, trembling, his hands pressed against the floor, his breath coming in ragged, wet gasps.

The house suddenly fell silent.

No footsteps. No laughter. No arrows whistling past his ears. Just him, and the glass case, and his name waiting to be filled.

He didn't know how long he stayed there. Minutes? Hours? Days? Years? Time truly had no meaning in this place. But eventually, somewhere far away—or perhaps directly above him, or perhaps inside his own skull—a clock began to chime.

DING. DING. DING.

The sound pulled him back. Pulled him up. Pulled the memory of Baela's voice from the wreckage of his mind.

Run. Keep running. Do not stop until you get to your home.

He pushed himself to his feet. His legs were shaking. His vision swam. But he was standing. He was still standing.

He didn't look at the empty case again. He couldn't. Instead, he turned away, his back to the plaque with his name on it, his face toward the far end of the hall, where another door waited. A door he hadn't seen before. A door that might lead nowhere, or might lead everywhere, or might lead to the one place he still wanted to go.

He ran next.

DING. DING. DING. The clock sounded one more time.

He ran faster than he'd ever run in his life. All his years of living.

The mannequin room soon left behind him. His name on that plaque soon shadowed in the back of his mind. The images burned into his skull, fueling his legs, pushing him forward through the door at the end—

And then, so suddenly as it was strated, he was in the ritual room again.

Candles are scattered now, some knocked over, wax pooling on the floor. The table where Daenaera had sat was overturned. The circle broken.

But, at the same time, not empty.

Nettles stood at the far end. Waiting. Like she knew he'd come here. Like she'd been waiting all along.

And in her hands, was the axe he feared might be the cause of his death.

"No more running, pizzaman." Her voice was calm. Too calm. Too Nettles with her cold blooded murder. It was the voice of someone who'd done this before. It was the voice who'd kill many times over.

Jacaerys's hand found the knife still in his pocket. The same knife from the kitchen. Still there. Still sharp. He gulped nervously, his praying to any Gods who might listen never stops.

Then, she lunged.

And he dodged, barely, with the axe slicing past his ear and embedding in the wall behind him. Before she could pull it free, he swung, and it shocked to even him. The knife caught her arm. Not deep, but enough. Enough for him to find another courage to run.

Nettles looked at the cut, blood welled through her sleeve. Then at him, stared for a few seconds. And finally, she smiled.

"Oh, good," she breathed. "You're a fighter. Those are more fun."

She yanked the axe free the next breath, came at him again, smiling widely with excitement.

He blocked with his forearm instinctively, letting the blunt side of the axe cracked against his hand. Pain exploded up his arm and next, he screamed. Dropped the knife, and then, his fingers felt broken coated with blood—were they broken? He thought, they felt broken. They swelling already.

Nettles raised the axe for the final swing.

WHOOSH.

An arrow buried itself in the wall inches from her head. So close it grazed her ear.

Nettles whipped around, her eyes shocked with the suprise. At the end of her gaze, Baela stood in the doorway. Crossbow raised. Still aimed at where Nettles's head had been. Her face was pale. Her hands were shaking.

Silence were over them for three heartbeat.

Then Nettles's voice, dangerous and full of rage "What. The. ACTUAL FUCK. Baela?!"

Baela's eyes darted to Jace—just for a second—then back to Nettles. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. The hesitation painted crystal clear in her face. "Sorry, Neti!" The word came out high, too fast, wrong. "I was aiming for—I thought he was going to—the angle was—"

Nettles stared at her. Long enough for Jacaerys to remember Baela's words from before: Run, keep running.

He ran. And ran. And ran. Ran and ran again.

Out of the ritual room. Down the hallway. Past door after door after door. Behind him, he heard Nettles's voice—cold, dangerous—and Baela's replies—too high, too fast, too guilty—and then nothing. Just his own footsteps and his own breath and his own pounding heart.

He found a room. Any room, he didnt bothered to look around anymore. Slammed the door behind him, pressed his back against it, gasped for air. And then, faintly, through the wood, he heard: "Go down. The door is now opened."

Baela's voice. Barely a whisper. Like she was speaking through the walls themselves. Like the house carried her words to him.

He didn't question, he knew he shouldn't questioned. All the second in the house worth his very own breathe. Alas, he ran downstairs.

Unfortunately, they were all already waiting.

Daenaera was the first he noticed. She appear from the kitchen, her humming stopped the second she saw him. No smile now. Just focus. Just hunt.

Rhaena was the second. She stepped out of the living room, sword lowered but ready. Her face was unreadable. The warm girl from the door was gone, and what was left was truly, truly her dark side.

Floris was the third. She blocked the path to the front door. The door that was now open. The door to his freedom. The door behind with the garden and garage where he parked his car. Floris stood between him and it. And her smile had reached her eyes again.

"Hello, little mouse," Daenaera said.

He fought.

He swear he fought like crazy.

He didn't think, he knew he didn't think.

He just fought. Swinging with his good hand, kicking, biting, screaming.

He remembers how Daenaera grabbed his arm and how he threw her off.

He remembers vividly how Rhaena swung her sword at him right before he ducked, rolled, came up swinging his.

He remembered how they were fast.

How they were strong.

How he curse fate because he knew with cold certainty that they'd done this before.

But he was desperate. And desperate mattered.

He remembers how he took hits. How a shuriken grazed his shoulder. Or a kick to his ribs. Or a slash from Rhaena's sword that shallow, but burning.

He remembers he kept moving. Kept fighting. Kept surviving.

Well, until... Floris had him. Cornered, against the wall. Near the open door where he was so close he could smell the garden, feel the night air, see the stars.

But Floris was in front of him, shuriken raised, and her smile was ecstatic. "Last dance, pizzaman."

WHOOSH.

Another arrow. And this one hit Floris in the shoulder.

He remembers how she screamed so loud with the sounds that more surprise than pain and stumbled sideways, clutching the wound.

He remembers how her head whipped toward the stairs and found Baela stood there with her face that was wet.

"RUN!" she screamed at him. "JACE, RUN!"

He didn't know why he follow her words but he ran. Through the open door. Into the garden. Leaving all the madness behind.

But at the edge of the garden, he stopped.

Just for a second. Just one.

He looked back, his heart pounding hard, worry for her.

There, Baela stood in the doorway of the house, framed by the darkness behind her. Behind her, the others were gathering. Nettles, holding her bleeding arm, pushing past Floris, her face a mask of fury. Floris, clutching her shoulder, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Daenaera, emerging from the kitchen, her eyes fixed on Baela with something that looked like disappointment. And Rhaena, sword lowered, watching. Not moving, just watching.

But Baela, to his eyes, she was alone. Standing between him and them. Her arms empty now, Nettles had taken the crossbow, he saw it in her grip, saw her raising it. Her face was wet. Her lips moved. He couldn't hear the words, but he knew them.

RUN.

The arrow hit his thigh during that silence.

Pain, white-hot and absolute, exploded through his leg. He staggered, nearly fell, caught himself on the gate. Blood poured down his leg, hot and fast, soaking his jeans, pooling in his shoe. Nettles's face was pleased as she lowered the crossbow. Baela's eyes twitched as she tried to move while the other pinned her down.

He ran. Ran for the countless time at the night. Through the gate. Down the street. To his car.

He looked back one last time before driving away.

The girls stood in a line at the garden's edge. Nettles, crossbow still in hand. Floris, blood staining her shoulder. Daenaera, her humming finally silenced. Rhaena, sword lowered, watching.

Their faces were grim. All of them.

Except one.

Baela stood apart. Her face was wet. Her arms hung empty at her sides. She didn't look grim. She didn't look angry. She somehow, looked pleased. Perhaps, not with herself, but with him? She looked like she was proud of him. Like she had wanted this all along. Like his escape was the only thing she had ever truly wanted.

At last, he drove.

And in the distance, heard the sound of that clock again.

DING. DING. DING.