“But, Daddy-”

“Don’t But, Daddy me, Candace~!!” My father slammed his fist down on top of his desk, growling and snarling at me. “What I say goes, and that’s final!!”

“But you can’t just shut my career down like this, I worked really hard to get where I am-”

“I can and I am.” My father was intent on getting his way, no matter what, and there was little I could do to try and stop him. “That’s final.”

I can’t believe this… I can’t believe he’s doing this to me…

“So what… I have to choose between my career or my inheritance?”

“There’s not much of a choice to be made here sweetheart. I’m not letting you cut yourself out of the inheritance, because you’re going to do what I tell you.”

“So you’re making me quit the game…”

“Yes. Yes I am.”

“But, Daddy-”

“What did I just say, Candace?”

This isn’t fair. Nothing he ever does to me is fair. I finally have something that I love and that I’m proud of, and he wants me to throw it away just so that he can have a closer eye on me. He wants me to work for the family just to make sure that I know he still owns me.

“You don’t own me… You can’t control my life like this…”

“Oh yeah? Then why do you still call me Daddy?” He smirked, glaring at me with his cold blue eyes, and when he didn’t get an answer from me, he answered his question for me. “That’s right. It’s because I tell you to… so you’re wrong.”

“Yes, Daddy…” My heart was shattered inside of me, but what else was new, it had been like that since he took Chloe away from me, and now he was taking everything I had left that gave me a connection to her. “I’m sorry…”

“Good girl~” He smiled, leaning back in his seat as he eyed both me and Leah, his assistant and my bodyguard, who was becoming more uncomfortable by the minute. “You aren’t planning on attending your sister’s party, are you?”

“No, Sir…” I bit my lip, shaking my head no.

“Good.” He seemed satisfied enough with my answer not to question why I would choose to skip Claudia’s party. Which bothered me slightly, but I knew very well that my father didn’t care about what I was thinking, he just needed to know what I was doing.

“Good?” But I wasn’t satisfied. He asked for a reason, and I wanted to know why. “Why do you ask, anyways?”

“Because she’s only hosting it for her rat of a mother anyways, I don’t need my princess going anywhere near that, it’s not worth it.”

“It’s for Lilith?” Claudia hadn’t told me that, and neither had Lilith. She hadn’t even so much as called me to let me know it was happening, she just left it to Claudia. Maybe neither of them wanted me there anyways, or more likely, Claudia didn’t want to invite me but her mother made her. “I mean, I wasn’t planning on going… but what if I do choose to attend?”

“I won’t choose to stop you if you want to attend, princess. But I’m not just going to let you go by yourself just for fun. If it was your sister’s party, sure. But since it’s for her mother, I’m not going to send you unless it’s on business.”

“Business?” I scoffed. “What kind of business is there to do at a party?”

“There’s going to be a lot of people there who owe me money, kitten… And if you want a cut of that money, you’ll have to go and make sure they pay up.”

“You… want me to be a debt collector?”

“If you’d like to finally make yourself useful to the family which you owe your life to, yes. I’d like you to go and collect debts, princess.”

“But Daddy, that-” I bit my lip, trying to get my words out before he silenced me again. “That sounds dangerous…”

“It’s a dangerous profession, kitten… Your brother, sister, and mom all knew that… and they still put their lives on the line to serve the family.”

“Mommy didn’t have a choice-”

“No, and neither do you.”

“I’m no slave, father…”

“You might as well be.”

I growled under my breath, but that growl quickly turned into a harmless little mewl when my father snarled back, scaring me back down from any position of power with him. My father was a monster that I could not control, because he had full control over me.

“You are whatever I say you are, Candace. Because you could have been much much less had I not been feeling generous and merciful to your mother. I may be a mafia boss, but she was a slave, and you very nearly ended up on the other side of that extreme, with her and not here with me… so if you aren’t one of my inheritors then that must mean that you’re one of my slaves, like she was. Now if I were you, I know which one I would prefer, kitten.”

“Yes, Sir…” My mewling was again reduced, this time to a pitiful whimper, something I’d expect to hear from Chloe’s mouth, not mine. That’s how much my father made me feel like I was a slave. “Thank you…”

“I love you, Princess.”

“I love you too, dad.”

“Come on now…”

“I love you, Daddy~”

↞✶↠

“God fucking damnit!!!”

I slammed the car door shut as hard as I could as soon as we got home, stomping my way out of the garage.

“I can’t do this, Leah. I can’t do this.”

It was mid afternoon by now, we had just landed this morning, arriving from halfway across the country- and I was already losing it. My dad, my father, is trying to make me quit my job and work for him as some sort of debt collector. He thinks that having one of his children as a face would scare clients into forking the money over, but I was having none of it.

This wasn’t what I wanted, this didn’t feel like the lesson I had just learned, this was just unbelievable. Just last night my actions had accidentally resulted in a young woman’s death, and I thought I had learned my lesson. I didn’t want to cause another death, accidentally or on purpose, but apparently that wasn’t the lesson my father was trying to teach me. So what exactly was it?

“I thought the lesson here was not to overuse my power and end up getting people killed.” I stepped inside, followed in by Leah and greeted at the door by Aria. “But I guess that’s not what my father thinks, huh?”

Leah didn’t seem to have a proper response, she was endlessly loyal to serving as my father’s assistant and pawn, but she was quick to condemn his actions, as well as mine whenever I started acting like him- yet she could never really bring herself to do anything about it.

“Look, honey- your father is… not beholden to any sort of morality.” She sighed, stopping just outside of the doorway. “I just do as he says, and he was very insistent that you’re not allowed to take in a new slave until he okayed it.”

Of course he did, that’s just one more thing my father is taking away from me. When he was my age he had already been married for five years, he was just months away from becoming head of the family, and his oldest daughter was already a year old- yet he still treats me like a child, like I’m still just a year old and need him to tell me what to do. That’s why Riley Bowie died, not because raping girls off the street is wrong to him, but because I’m just not allowed to have another slave after Chloe. I hesitated to say it was unfair, but it certainly wasn’t fair for the right reasons.

I could hear Aria’s trademark pitter-patter across the house as she played cat and mouse with one of my pets, and my blood boiled. I didn’t want to replace Chloe, just like I didn’t want to go to my sister’s party. But thanks to my father, I was very tempted to do both of those things just to spite him.

I’m going to this god damn party whether my father wants me to or not.

“Right. Well I guess we’re doing this then.” I turned back to Leah, still standing in the doorway. “Let my father know that I’ll be going to that party.”

“Don’t sweat it, I’ve got you.” Leah approved of my sudden determination. “I’ll get you there, and take care of our target for us… and you can just have your fun~”

“Thank you, please make sure to inform him that I’ll be bringing someone with me.”

Leah looked up, her eyes following the sounds of Aria’s footsteps through the house, grinning to herself. “I’ll make sure to spring it on him at the last moment, just for you~”

Time to confront some demons, then…

Leah headed out and turned away shortly thereafter, leaving us to ourselves for the time being. Once she was gone, I found my way to the lounge, sitting myself on the floor across from the most precious item in my art collection.

“How did you do it?” I couldn’t even make eye contact with her as I spoke, despite knowing that she wasn’t real. “How did you put up with him, mom?”

The painting said nothing back to me, of course she said nothing back to me. My mother isn’t a painting, my mother is dead- and she has been for quite a while.

“You were always there for me… what do you think I should do? Do you think I’m like him?” I sat there on the floor across from her, clutching the small cross attached to my necklace in the palm of my hand, hoping that the girl who I’d gotten killed was in a better place. Away from me. “Do you think that maybe Riley is better off dead than with me?”

“I don’t know why you’re talking to a painting rather than your best friend, but if you ask me… Probably.” Aria. It was Aria, who slowly sat down on the floor beside me, two overeager cats in tow, crawling into either of our laps.

Right. It’s probably time to talk about Aria Fairmont, huh?

Then let me do what my sister does and break away from what was happening to tell you about her, because it’s a really weird, mildly terrifying, and scarily relevant story… especially when it comes to my relationship with my sister, Claudia.

You might not think it, but a lot of things actually converge on Aria Fairmont, strangely enough. Imagine having a fully completed puzzle, and then reaching into the middle and taking a piece out, that’s what Aria is.

I met Aria Fairmont when I was eighteen years old, fresh out of my father’s claws, still under the wing of my then and current manager, Tallulah Paciente, who taught me everything there was to know about getting by in this world, money laundering while still being able to do what makes me happy- which at the time, was being a model.

Just like Aria Fairmont.

“If you hate me so much, then why are you here?” I looked down into my lap as my little calico, Sophia, climbed between my legs. “Are you really just saying you’re my best friend because you need my protection that badly?”

“Protection from your father is nice and all, but no.” Aria was also slightly preoccupied by a cat in her lap, Thea, my black cat, had always liked her a lot. “I hate your family, but I don’t hate you. Because if I’m being honest… I’m kind of in love with you.”

“Is it bad that I can kind of tell?” I giggled, gently scratching little Sophia behind the ears. “That’s why you didn’t like Chloe, right? Not because you hate seeing slaves, but because you were just jealous of her?”

“I would hesitate to say that I was jealous of her, because I do hate this whole slavery thing, but… kind of.” I could see on her face that she wasn’t exactly proud of that fact. “I was a little bit jealous of her.”

“Aria, I-”

She stopped me, pressing her lips against mine and whimpering into my lips with her warm breath, stopping my heart in my chest as she surprised me with a kiss.

Of course Aria was in love with me, I could tell that just from talking with her over the phone, but I couldn’t say that I felt bad for her. After all, I was once in love with Aria Fairmont too.

I just wasn’t quite in love with her anymore, not like I had been in love with Chloe.

I kissed her back, placing my hand on her chest as I toppled her over onto her back, feeling and hearing the kittens scurry off as I tackled her to the floor, bearing down on her with my lips.

“C-Candace?”

“Chloe had her chance with me… and she made her decision.”

“But, she- I… what about-”

“Hold your tongue, doll… because I have a few rules for you.”

I loomed over her on my hands and knees, curling my fingers around the head of the collar clasped around her neck, pulling on it to assert my authority.

“You also had your chance with me, Aria Fairmont, and you were the one who turned me down when I wanted us to be together as equals. So if you really want me as badly as you say you do, then you need to know that we are not equals anymore.”

I pulled her off the ground just slightly by her collar before slamming her back down on the hardwood floor beneath her, hearing her empty head thud against the ground as it impacted.

“I don’t care what your feelings are about it, but from now on you are a slave. You belong to me, and this collar around your neck is proof of that.”

She was getting flustered just laying there, staring up at me with a mixture of delight and disgust. “P-proof of what?”

“Proof that I am a cat, and you are a mouse.” I snarled at her from above. “I’m better than you.”

Aria bit her lip, struggling and failing to hold herself back. I let her out from under me, watching her scurrying away towards the gaming room, only to falter and end up vomiting right there on the hallway floor. Aria did always have a pretty visceral reaction to the horror of being someone’s slave, so it was no surprise to see her hurling at the moment of becoming one.

She cowered there on the floor as I walked over to her, stomping my foot on the back of her head and shoving her face into her own bile, knowing very well how much she hated it.

“You can’t get away from me, little mouse.” I lifted my foot from the back of her head, watching her hack and cough desperately under my weight. “Clean this shit up, Fairmont. There’s a broom closet in the parlor.”

I kicked her one last time before walking away, heading into my gaming room and closing the door behind me. Aria rejected me when I wanted her, and I wasn’t just going to suck it up and let her into my life.

Don’t worry Chloe. I’m not just going to let her replace you… if she wants to be with me, she has to earn it.

Just like you did…

I sat myself down at my gaming pc, logging onto my blizzard account, CStC, and launching my Starcraft II client. I stared at my list of friends, full of all sorts of people who I didn’t even recognize as I scrolled down, sighing as I landed on her profile. Chloe’s profile, SoCavalier, which had been offline for the last half year.

I’ll beat you one day, SoCavalier, mark my words… I’m not done with you yet.

↞✶↠

“Alright you, where did my brother put you?”

I curled up on my bed by myself, opening up my suitcase. I wasn’t going to unpack it, I had plans to stay with Tallulah this weekend, I just needed to find the controller to Aria’s collar, which Cyrus had stuffed into my bag while we were out of state.

“Oh no.”

I forgot it was in there. I had stuffed it inside and hid it so that I wouldn’t have to look at it, so it just sat in there waiting to be found and opened.

A small red box wrapped in a single blue ribbon. To Candace… From Sophia…

It was surreal, but the controller to Aria’s collar could wait, this needed my attention first. I untied the ribbon and I opened the box, immediately caught off guard by what I found.

“What the…” It was a birthday present, something that Chloe had gotten for me after I had lost the world championship to her. She wanted to apologize to me for what happened, but she had never gotten to do so thanks to me. “Oh Chloe…”

You helped make my career. Please lend me your ear.
And let me bring cheer. With this souvenir.

I know that I won. But you’re second to none.
Because I had lots of fun. And I hope we’re not done.

I’ve been feeling pretty blue. And didn’t know what to do.
But I know you are too. So I made this for you.

You’re an angel, I swear. Even I can’t compare.
But we made a great pair. Happy Birthday, St. Clair.

“Oh my goodness, you loser…” I sighed, unable to keep myself from smiling as I pulled the small slip of paper from the box, flipping it over so that I could read the other side, a note from her- the love of my life, from back before we had ever been together.

I can’t do much, but I was artsy enough to make this for you, and I really enjoyed it.

I hope there isn’t any bad blood between the two of us, but if there is- I’m sorry.

I never imagined I would ever reach that stage, especially against you of all people, but getting to play with you was like a dream come true for me.

I’ve been one of your biggest fans since the day I met you, and I feel really lucky knowing that a girl like me ever got to know you like I did.

You’re my idol, and I never meant to steal your dream away from you. So here’s a heart, because I know yours is probably broken, and honestly so is mine. But here’s one to help you fix the one inside of you.

I hope that you can find someone to share it with, because I know there are lots of girls who would die to wear your heart around their neck.

I know it’s neither here nor there, but I know I wouldn’t mind getting to know you better.

At the very least, I hope that we can still be friends, and if not, I just wanted to say that I hope you win next time.

Thank you for your support and thank you for letting me be a part of your life for a while. Be safe and take care.

Love, Sophia Madeline Cavalier.

“I don’t deserve you Cavalier…” I set the note aside, the corners of my eyes wet with tears as I peeked inside the box to finally see what it was that she had made for me. “I never deserved you…”

I held it in my hand, examining it, admiring it… appreciating it like I never truly learned to appreciate her, neither before she got to me, nor since. It was beautiful, just like her.

It was a necklace, a very simple thing made in the shape of a heart… with two slightly out of shape zerg spirals. It was pretty, glowing purple in the light. Just holding up to the light was enough for you to be able to see it glow red on one side and blue on the other.

I pulled it apart, seeing what she meant by sharing it with someone. It was a two piece necklace, meant for lovers, something she clearly thought was a cute idea. Chloe really always did have a crush on me, even before she became my slave. I missed her.

What am I doing? I bit my lip and set the necklace back down in its box, on the verge of bursting into tears. I can’t share this with Aria… I can’t share this with anyone except for her…

“Candace?” Aria was at the door to bring me out for dinner, seeing me there with tears in my eyes. “Are you okay?”

“No…” I hiccuped and sobbed, shaking my head at her as she rushed to my side. “I miss her…”

“Hey hey… It’s gonna be alright.” She landed next to me, gently wrapping her arm around me. “You’re going to be fine-”

“You’re right, Aria. My family is scum and I-” I pulled my hands from my face, trying to stop myself before I started bawling. “I want to be a better person… for her…”

“She’s gone, Candace.” Aria stopped me right then and there. “Chloe is gone.”

“And that’s why it’s so important!!” I shook her off, getting out of bed and back on my feet. “I want my next slave to love me, Aria… I don’t want to make all of the same mistakes.”

Aria blushed, trying to keep herself from smiling as she avoided eye contact with me. “I can… help… if you want?”

“Please?” I stood over her, standing up straight and reasserting myself. “That’s an order.”

Aria giggled under her breath and shrugged. “Sure…”

“Say Yes, Ma’am.”

“Yes, Ma’am…”

↞✶↠

“Dinner was… nice.” I smiled, handing her the dishes for her to wash. “Thank you, Aria.”

Right. Is this how normal people act? Do they thank their slaves and servants for their service?

“I mean, it’s a start.” Aria chuckled, taking the empty dishes to the kitchen and tossing them into the dishwasher.

“You’re not going to hand wash them?” I tilted my head in an almost comical confusion as I followed her into the kitchen.

“Why would I hand wash them?” She loaded the dishwasher and shut the door, turning the dial and starting the machine. “You have a dishwasher, why wouldn’t I just use that?”

“Of course you would use the dishwasher, but you should hand wash and dry them first, shouldn’t you?” I crossed my arms, looking over at her sternly, almost condescendingly. “I always made Chloe wash and dry them by hand in the sink first, and then I let her put them in the dishwasher.”

“And then what?” She chuckled, pulling up a chair at the other side of the counter and sitting down. “You made her pull them out of the dishwasher and made her dry them while they were still hot?”

“Well yeah, obviously.” I did the same as she did, pulling out a seat and sitting across from her at the counter. “Isn’t that what’s normal?”

“No!!” She was laughing, rolling her eyes at the stupidity of it. “Normal people just toss shit in the dishwasher and wait until things have dried until they put them away.”

“But what do you do if they come out and still aren’t completely clean?”

“I mean when that happens then you can wash the rest off by hand~”

“But then why not just avoid it altogether by hand washing them first?”

“Because that takes a lot more work, Candace.”

“Ma’am.” I stared her straight in the eyes with my stern glare. “Call me Ma’am.”

“I-” She sighed, rolling her eyes, but nonetheless smiling at me. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“Why in the world should I let my slaves get away with doing less work if it means that I’m not getting perfection.” I crossed my arms and scowled at her, not having as much fun as she clearly was. “A slave’s job shouldn’t be too easy. I deserve perfection, do I not?”

“I mean, sure you do. But normal people don’t always get perfection.”

“I’m not a normal person, Aria.”

“I know, but like-”

“They’re slaves, they should do what they’re told to give their betters perfection.”

“I get what you mean, but that gets excessive when you demand it for every little thing.”

“They’re slaves, their time and effort belongs to me, what else are they meant to do?”

“You do realize that slaves are people too, right?? Not everyone is a zerg you know??” She seemed flabbergasted, it was amusing on one hand, but concerning on the other hand. “Do you really think they’re any less than you are?”

“Yes. Of course I do, Aria. Slaves are not real people.” I repeated myself just to make sure I was understood. “Slaves are not people.”

“And how can you tell? What about that Riley girl?” Aria retorted. “Was she a slave or was she a person?”

“Well she was a person, of course-”

“But it was somehow still okay to rape and kill her?”

“I was going to make her my slave!! I wasn’t going to kill her!! It’s not my fault that she died.” I bit my lip and snarled under my breath, for one finding myself being the one to amend my statement. “It is my fault that she died… I’ll take responsibility for that. But it wasn’t my decision to have her killed… I didn’t want that.”

“And you should always get what you want, but not her, right?” Aria grinned and shook her head, smirking at me condescendingly. “Because you’re better than her, obviously. It’s just fine that she died, even if she was a person- because she was going to be a slave, right?”

“I was drunk, okay?” I glared angrily at her, somehow finding myself unable to scare her into backing down. “I wouldn’t have done that if I wasn’t already three cocktails down.”

“Oh sure you weren’t, you’re right- just like you wouldn’t have groped fans at the signing event if you weren’t drunk… oh wait, you were sober for that, weren’t you?” Quite on the contrary it would seem, Aria was not backing down. “But you’re right, Ma’am. You’re always right… so please inform me… what’s the difference between people and slaves?”

“Pardon?”

“You know more than me, so what is it that I don’t understand, Ma’am?” Aria frowned, sitting up straight in her seat, trying to mock the behavior of a proper slave. “When does a person become a slave, Mama cat?”

“I don’t know, Aria. When they’ve been properly trained, or when they’ve been registered in our system, or once they’ve been claimed, how’s that? Does that work for you?”

“That seems kind of arbitrary, don’t you think?"

“Maybe it is!! So what??”

“All I’m saying is that by that definition, I’m not really a slave, am I?” She smirked, relaxing, slouching in her seat. “I haven’t been trained or registered in your system… and I don’t see a controller to my collar on your wrist~”

I stood there, growing flustered, but not angry. She was right. She was often right, even though she was lesser than me. Even though I thought of her as lesser than me. “No, I guess you’re not really a slave… you’re just a house mouse.”

“That’s cute. I like that~”

“Thanks.” I smiled, blushing even harder. “It’s been on my mind since this morning.”

Aria paused for a couple moments to giggle, we both giggled at that, slowly cooling down from our angry spitting match. “When you say things like that… that slaves aren’t real people, you sound like an 18th century southern plantation owner-”

“I do not!!” I protested, honestly a little bit hurt to be compared to something so racist. “I resent that…”

“Think about it, Candace.” Aria stared straight at me, daring to call me by my name and not by a title, something which I no longer felt like I could correct her on.

“I need to think about that.” I wanted to shout at her for being right again. “I’m not the only one who thinks like that you know, my father and my brother are like that too.”

“Yeah but that’s what I’m saying, Candace.” She sighed, whining under her breath at my inability to understand what she was trying to point out. “You’re letting your family do your thinking for you.”

I stomped my foot on the ground and let out an exasperated sigh. “I need to go think for a while, okay?”

“Of course.” She frowned, standing up from her seat. “Can I get you anything?”

“No, please no. I’m good.” I sighed, turning away from her. “I’m just gonna go play video games.”

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m going to be, yeah… just make yourself at home.”

“You don’t want to lock me in a cage?”

I chuckled and shook my head. “Not yet, no.”

I stepped away from her, needing to clear my head, across the dining room and back to the lounge on the way to the gaming room.

So what if I’m letting my father think for me, is that really so bad? I stopped in the doorway connecting the lounge to the dining room, staring up at the portrait of me and my mother. He did your thinking for you, didn’t he?

Of course my father did my mother’s thinking for her, she was his slave, and in the end he did something that ended up killing her… was I really just my father’s slave, just like she was?

Who was she? Who are you, mom? I stepped towards the portrait, cursing myself out in my head. I know nothing about you… who were you before you were with him?

Aria was right. Slaves were people, at least to begin with. My mother must have been something before she was a slave- and I had no idea what that was. You couldn’t have always been a slave, what did he do to you to make you the way you were?

I don’t want to be his slave, mom. I don’t want to be a slave. Nobody wants to be a slave. Nobody wants to be a slave… I looked down at my neck, beginning to grab at the cross I was wearing around my neck, but instead I landed on the necklace that Chloe had made for me.

The necklace that Sophia had made for me. Who were you before you were Alecia?

If I’m not Candace, then I’m just… Cardinal the second…

I clutched the necklace in my hand, unable to stop thinking about her. Would she really be better off dead than with me, mom? Just like you’re better off away from him?

Am I really just my father’s son?

No.

I picked up my phone and dialed in Justin’s number. The question of whether or not I was going to be hosting the tournament with him was still up in the air, just like the question of whether I’d be attending my sister’s party. But it was my decision to make.

“Hey Justin, are you still on for hosting this thing with me?”

“Yeah, absolutely… What about you, are you in?”

“Of course I am. If they want me, they can have me~”

“See you there, then.”

“See you there~”

And I was not about to let my father make that decision for me.

If you have a problem, you’ll just have to stuff it. I stepped inside of my gaming room again for the second time today, booting up Starcraft II again.

“Hrmmm…” I paused for a moment, staring at the friends screen as I pulled out my phone and sent Chloe’s old manager one last text.

~ What’s your username?

~ Username for what?

~ We’re playing Starcraft, loser. Give it to me.

~ JustD0wn, with a zero.

~ CSt.C

~ Yeah, I know your username, runner up.

~ Shut up and get online then!!

I sighed, sitting at my seat impatiently as I waited for him to come online and play with me… Chloe was capable of being friends with this guy, so maybe I could too?

It was at least a step towards being a functioning human being, and it did bring me a little bit closer to her. I had to get to know him a little bit anyways, we were going to be hosting the tournament together after all- and that was all thanks to her, thanks to Sophia.

Sophia Cavalier is a really pretty name…

I sighed, scrolling down to Chloe’s old profile again, staring at it and thinking of her as I waited for her ex-boyfriend to come online.

9 days ago? OH WAIT-

Chloe’s profile hadn’t been offline for the last six months after all, I let her use it a fucking week ago to play in front of my father. I let her log in as SoCavalier instead of CSt.C(1), and she beat me, her name was on the screen!!

“How can you be so stupid?!” I just about broke my gaming mouse shouting at myself, all I could do was hope that he didn’t notice it while he was online, and he didn’t really seem to anyways.

We logged onto the game and started a match as normal, but this time I wanted to try something new.

“Not everyone is a zerg…” I bit my lip, scrolling my mouse over the option for selecting terrans instead of zerg, which I played 100% of the time without fail. “Let’s try being human for once~”

↞✶↠

“Aria!! What time is it??” I stomped into my room, having lost track of time while playing my game. “Did you feed the cats??”

“Feed the cats?” She was lounging on one of the sofas in my room, a book in hand. “Did you expect me to?”

“You always feed the cats when you’re here, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah, usually… but you didn’t tell me to. Was I supposed to?”

“I… kind of, yeah?”

“Well then you’re lucky that I did!!” Aria looked up from her book, smirking at me and batting her eyelashes innocently. “But I didn’t have to you know, I’m not your slave~”

I groaned, picking one of the pillows up from the couch and tossing it directly at her face. “Go change the kitty litter… and empty the dishwasher while you’re at it.”

“Alright fine, but I’m gonna move their food bowls out to the kitchen.” She sighed, but she didn’t argue. She was out of the room before I could even climb into bed.

Come on, Candace… You just have to ask her.

I wanted to go to my sister’s party, and I didn’t want to go alone. But just because I knew that Aria would say yes didn’t mean I was any less nervous to ask her. We both remembered what happened last time.

“Hey, Aria… Would you-” I whined under my breath, blushing at my own flustered incompetence as soon as she stepped back in the room. “Would you be my date to my sister’s party?”

“Your sister’s party??” Her eyes went wide. “Claudia’s party??”

“Well, yeah… she’s my only sister-”

“Your sister hates me, remember??”

Right. She does, doesn’t she? I had totally forgotten about that.

The last time I had seen my sister had been at her wedding. After she and her husband had gotten married, they had held their reception at their house. That was where Claudia and I had our big falling out, I remembered that, I had just forgotten that Aria had been my guest at my sister’s wedding.

I met Aria eight years ago at our first photoshoot together, and I was head over heels for her from the moment I saw her. She didn’t know who I was, she didn’t care who I was, she just thought of me as some weird gamer girl who was trying to be a wannabe model. She was just there for the money.

Our photoshoots were intimate. How could I not fall for her when our bodies got so close together?

She was gorgeous, and I had to have her. But when I asked her out, she said no.

We kept having photoshoots together, not because it made a lot of money, and not because she liked me- she didn’t, but because I wanted her so badly. I personally kept losing money going into it just to make sure that she made money and wanted to keep doing them with me.

And the only reason my father let me do it because it was secretly a front for funneling and laundering money, and Aria got a cut of that without knowing it.

Eventually that resulted in us growing to where we are today, against all odds. But I didn’t like to think about all of the things I did to her up to Claudia’s reception. I was an even worse person back then than I am now.

“You took me to your sister’s wedding, remember?” She climbed into bed next to me, curling up into a ball against the wall. “I tried telling you how uncomfortable your family made me, and you insisted that I meet them?”

“I remember that, I just don’t remember why she hates you.”

“She accused me of stealing from her, remember?”

“Did you steal from her?”

“No!!” Aria was freaking out now just thinking about it, knowing how dangerous my family was. “No. I didn’t steal from her…”

“Then it’s going to be fine.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay…” Aria swallowed nervously, her face bright red as she smiled at me. “Then yes, I’ll be your date to your sister’s party~”

I smirked eagerly, I was well on my way to making up with my older sister, and just maybe I could get her to forgive my best friend in the process.

My family never learned to accept Chloe, but maybe they could learn to accept Aria… maybe I could give her a chance.

“I’ll give you ten seconds to run, little mouse.” I grabbed her by the ear, listening to the little squeaks coming from her mouth as I brought her lips to mine for a kiss before releasing her. “Now go~”

My heart was thumping with excitement watching my prey gasp, leaping out of bed and scurrying away from the bedroom, not wanting to be eaten. But I was no kitten, no mouse would be escaping me today.

10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… The hunt is on~

There’s a house mouse on the loose, and I was hungry to put her in her place.

I pounced, not to Aria, but to my suitcase. If I could finally find the controller to her collar, it was already over for her. I didn’t need it to put the cute little thing under my boot, but I knew it would be useful.

“You little bitch…”

My little house vermin was smarter than I thought… She thought of that, and she got to it before I did. Clever girl, now this was getting fun~

“Oh, Fairmont~” I slammed the door to my bedroom as hard as I could, wanting to make sure that she heard me from wherever she was hiding. “Don’t make your new mistress come and drag you back to bed with her… Be a good girl~”

Silence. She was small and she was quick, wherever she was, I couldn’t hear her. But I was going to find her. Nothing she could do was going to be enough to get away from me.

Click. I pulled my phone from my pocket and smirked, locking all of the windows and doors out of my house remotely. No way in. No way out.

“Scurry back to mama cat, little mouse. I don’t want to have to cook you~”

Alright Fairmont, I’ll play this cat and mouse game with you.

But of course this is Aria I’m dealing with, she’s a lot craftier than she really ought to be, even if I know generally which areas of the house she likes to hang out in.

Aside from the sound of Thea trodding her way across the floor, the parlor was quiet and empty. I looked under tables and chairs, behind couches and houseplants, but alas I found nothing. Even the fireplace housed no sign of her. No mouse in sight, or the cats would be playing with her. The broom closet was where I was really hoping she had been hiding, but it was full of nothing but cleaning supplies, like it always was.

Where would she think to hide?

The foyer, parlor, dining room, kitchen, and hallways were too wide and open for them to be tenable hiding places. As was the lounge, even if it didn’t have a camera in it on account of me not wanting the location of my secret door to be caught on camera.

The cameras~

The real question to ask here wasn’t where she would think to hide, but whether she was clever enough to know how to escape the cameras, because if she wasn’t the game was already over.

I wasn’t going to check the cameras of course, because that felt like cheating, and I didn’t want my little hunt to be over so soon. But assuming that she was clever enough to avoid the cameras would allow me to very broadly eliminate most rooms in the house.

That would eliminate the gaming room and bathroom, the master bedroom and bathroom, the master bedroom’s closet, as well as Chloe’s cell and her bathroom. Aria wouldn’t be caught dead inside of Chloe’s cell anyways, so the thought of her hiding there didn’t even cross my mind. Much to Fairmont’s chagrin, this would also eliminate the pet bedroom and attached bathroom as possible hiding spots, even if it was her favorite room in my entire house.

The pet bedroom was Aria’s favorite room when it came time for finding a place for her to sleep, but it was also where she liked to destress and play, and that was probably down to her wanting to be one of my pets. But I didn’t even have to go inside to tell that there were no cats in here, which made me think that neither was she. She might have been a mouse, but even she wasn’t small enough to fit inside of the shelves or the cat tower.

Besides, that would be the first place she would think to hide, and she was smarter than thinking she could get away by hiding in her usual spot.

I wasn’t one to just check all of my rooms blindly, I was going to deduce where she was as methodically as I could. Assuming she was avoiding the cameras, I could also eliminate the wardrobe room as a place for her to hide, but I couldn’t eliminate the laundry room. The laundry room didn’t have a camera in it, and that was for one reason and one reason only.

Does Aria know more about this house than she’s been letting on?

It was unlikely but it was possible that Aria knew about the existence of the miscellaneous hidden doors sprinkled throughout my house, but unless she had somehow crawled underneath my bed when I wasn’t looking just to get to the secret door in my bedroom, there were only a couple of options available to her.

I stepped into the wardrobe room, confirming to myself that she wasn’t hiding inside of it, but what I was really after was in the laundry room. The lounge didn’t have a camera in it because I didn’t want the secret door leading to the basement to be caught on camera, likewise, the laundry room didn’t have a camera inside of it because it houses its own little secret.

I made my way over to the washing machine, but the shelf above the trapdoor hadn’t been moved, and it was unlikely that she would have been capable of moving the shelf back into position from below. But just to be sure, I moved the shelf and checked the hatch, it hadn’t been opened.

Now things are getting fun.

I might not be able to deduce her location after all, I was running out of locations, and that just made me even hungrier for her. Unless she had swiped my keys as well, which she hadn’t, she couldn’t get into the guest bedroom. I even opened up the secret door into the basement and headed downstairs, and there was still no sign of her.

Alright fine, be like that.

I sat myself down at the security console in the basement, growling angrily under my breath at the thought of having lost my prey. I powered on the monitors and slowly pulled up every room with a camera one by one.

Foyer, parlor, hallways, kitchen, dining room, wardrobe room, master bedroom, master bathroom, master closet, the holding cell, the slave bathroom, gaming room, gaming bathroom, pet bedroom, pet bathroom. Nothing. Nothing.

Wha- How are you doing this?

How could my pitiful and pathetic little weakling of a house mouse possibly outsmart me in my own home. She wasn’t in the broom closet, she wasn’t in the laundry room or the safe room, she wasn’t downstairs, and she couldn’t have gotten into the guest bedroom. She couldn’t possibly still be moving around the house, or else she’d be caught on camera. So unless she had managed to go outside before I had locked the doors, she had somehow found a place in my own home that was safe to hide from me.

She’s… she’s smarter than I am.

She was hiding from me in one of the rooms in my own home, hidden from sight.

Think, St. Clair, think. She’s just a stupid mouse, where would she be?

Where’s the last place I would think to look? Where’s the last place she would think to hide?

Where’s the last place I would think that she would think to hide?

The first place she’d think to hide. Where’s the first place she’d think to hide?

I stomped upstairs, my breath getting faster and faster with each moment as I got closer to devouring my prey. She crawled through the fucking cat door into the pet bedroom, but I was able to just unlock the door and walk inside.

“No wonder they’re not in here to bother you, you moved their bowls into the kitchen.” I stepped inside of the room, locking the door behind me so that she couldn’t get out. But I did leave the cat door unlocked for her just to make our little game more interesting. “I will give you this little thing, you gave me quite the run around.”

Silence. There wasn’t so much as a peep from her, as expected. But if there was one thing that Aria was good at, it was holding her tongue, like she had done for the last four years.

“You might not be small enough to hide inside of the shelves or the cat tower, but I know for a fact that there’s one thing in here big enough to hold a human being.”

I stepped towards the dog kennel, sitting myself down on top of the small cage. “I thought there was no way you’d hide in your favorite room, but I guess you really are smarter than me… that is until you decided to trap yourself in a cage for me~”

There was a blanket completely covering the dog kennel, partially to help keep the cats out of it, but mostly because I wanted to pretend it wasn’t there. I had gotten it for Chloe, so when she was taken away, I completely hid it from my own view so that I didn’t have to think about it.

“Out.” But the game of cat and mouse was over, and it was time to come out now. I held the blanket up and I opened the door for her. “Now.”

There were a few more moments of silence, and then a quiet whimper of indignation as my little mouse did in fact crawl her way out of the dog cage, on all fours no less.

“You may have outsmarted me, I’ll give you that. But you’re weak, and in the real world that’s never going to be enough for you to escape. This isn’t an episode of Tom & Jerry, don’t ever think you can defeat me, vermin.” I stamped my foot down on her lower back, flattening her under my weight before she could get up onto her feet, trapping her beneath me. “Now be a good girl, and give me the controller.”

She grunted, still pinned under my foot as she placed the watch down on the floor in front of me, holding her hands back so that I could reach down and pick it up, which I did.

“Now strip.” I lifted my foot off of her back and stood beside her, looking down at her cute petite little form.

“But, Candace, I-” She gasped, looking up at me with a furious grimace on her face, grinding her teeth together. “I won.”

“I said strip, now do as I say.” I lifted my foot up off of the ground and kicked her upside the head, stomping her to the ground beneath my sole once more, but this time by pressing her face to the carpeted floor. “Unless you want me to crush your stupid little vermin skull beneath my foot, you’ll obey.”

“Yes, Ma’am…” She nervously complied, sitting up in front of me and slowly undressing without ever getting up to her feet. “I just thought-”

“There’s your first mistake.” I snorted, crossing my arms and tapping my foot impatiently. “Stop thinking~”

“But I thought you were trying to be a better person?!”

“This is me being a better person, moron.” I smiled, picking my foot up off of the ground and shoving my big toe in her mouth to shut her up. “Last night I subjugated some random woman off the street, but tonight I’m subjugating you, progress~”

I leaned down and held my hand out for her to hand me her clothes, and once she did I grinned, pulling my foot out from her mouth and sitting myself down on the sofa.

“How is that progress?” She winced, crossing her arms over her breasts to hide them from me out of embarrassment. “How does me being the victim make this any better?”

“Because unlike Riley, you want this.” I smirked, folding her garments into a pile and setting them aside, just to keep them away from her. “And if you don’t want this, you can just leave.”

Aria looked up, her eyes flittering with excitement as she glanced over at the door and then back at me. “I can?”

“Of course you can, watch.” I picked up my phone and grinned, pulling up a floor plan of the house and letting Aria watch as I specifically unlocked the door out of the foyer before sliding my phone beneath the bundle of her clothes. “If you want to leave, leave.”

“Will you give me my clothes back first?”

“Of course not, where’s the fun in that for me?.” I giggled, shaking my head at her. “If you want to leave, you’ll crawl out of here through the cat door, and you’ll drive home naked.”

“That’s not the same as letting me leave-” She scoffed, her face growing bright red. “I don’t even have a car, I can not and will not take the bus, and I can’t drive home either.”

“Sure you can, here-” I smirked, pulling my ring of keys from my pocket and holding them out in front of her. “I’ll even be nice and let you borrow my car~”

“R-really?”

“I mean if you can get the keys from me, then sure~”

She blushed and thought it over for a minute, shivering with embarrassment. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m going to have my fun with or without you, so if you’d just be a doll and help me undress, as soon as you get my cock out I’ll drop them, does that sound fair?”

“As long as you promise I won’t get arrested driving home…”

“You have nothing to worry about there, I assure you, you can get away with anything in a family vehicle. It’s better to drive home nude than have to spend the night in that kennel, right?”

Aria reluctantly but adamantly steeled her nerves, grabbing my leggings first and helping them off of me, followed by my lace boyshorts, which hid my still tucked but slowly hardening cock, now out in the open.

“There. Your cock is out, now give them to me.” She bit her lip and held her hand out, her gaze pointed down, not out of respect to her superior, but because she couldn’t quite keep her eyes off of the prize between my legs. “Hurry…”

“Here you are~” I held the keys by the ring and lowered them towards her hand before dropping them, watching the the shocked look of awe and horror on Aria’s face as the ring holding all of the keys slid its way down the length of my cock, landing around the base of my penis while Aria was too busy staring at it. “Oops, I guess you’ll just have to go get it, huh?”

She snarled angrily at me, still resolutely flustered at the idea of having to pull the ring from my genitals, but having come this far- she resolved to do it anyway.

“Don’t you dare put your little mouse fingers on me~” I caught her by the wrist as she moved to pick up the keys with her fingernails, using my other hand to hold my fingers over the buttons of her collar controller. “Use your mouth, or I’ll electrocute you.”

She couldn’t have possibly thought that this was going to be easy, but she clearly didn’t think it was going to be this hard either. At least not as hard as my cock was as she slid her pretty little mouth down the length of it.

She choked and pulled herself off once, choking and gagging for breath before trying again. She wasn’t used to sucking cock, but if she wanted to be my date to Claudia’s party she was going to have to learn.

Her eyes rolled back into her head as she choked, tears rolling down her cheeks in pain as she caught the key ring by her teeth and pulled it off of me and spitting it onto the floor next to her as she gasped for air. Even I had to admit that the feeling of the ring touching the head of my member felt really nice.

“There.” I bit my lip, letting a small moan out from my lips as I congratulated her. “That’s it, no more funny business. The doors are unlocked, you have the keys, if you want to leave, you can leave… you’ve earned it.”

And this time I meant it. I may have tricked her into sucking the keyring off the base of my penis, but that was all that I was going to force on her tonight. No full on sex, no rape, and no getting killed. If Aria Fairmont wants to leave now, she’s earned it. She just has to crawl through the little cat flap and drive away.

“If my little mouse wants to scurry away, this cat is going to let her.”

“Mama cat’s just lucky she doesn’t have barbs on her cock, or she would have lost it all just now…” Aria glared at me from there on her knees, her fingers wrapped around the keyring as she huffed and puffed with reckless abandon, ready to do something stupid.

Aria sure did have a furious beauty about her as she clung to the keys, having well earned her upcoming respite. “If I had penile spines like a real cat, I think you would be dead, little mouse.”

“Right…” She looked away, a flustered scowl of pain and humiliation swaying in the wind. “I’m leaving then…”

And so she began to head out, slowly crawling through the cat flap and out into the rest of the house. She was so pretty too, I really did want to devour my prey, but I decided instead to be fair. Not only had she practically bested me in a game of cat and mouse, but she earned her way out by the means I had given her.

I watched her on my phone, through the cameras, stopping her just as she was about to step out of the door. Not to reveal that I had tricked her and was going to keep her trapped, but to say what I needed to say before she left.

“Hey, Aria?” I held the phone up to my face, speaking through the intercom so that she could hear me. “I just wanted to make sure… do you still want to be my date to Claudia’s party?”

“What, you mean you’re not going to force me into it?” There was a stinging silence in the air after her sarcastic remark. “Because either way, the answer’s yes…”

“You mean you’re not mad?”

“I mean I am, but-” Aria scoffed, and I could tell just from her voice that she was blushing. “Thanks for giving me a choice tonight…”

“Hey, um…” She couldn’t see it, but I was smiling. “If you’re free this weekend, I’m going to be out of state with Tallie… and I kind of need someone to house sit?”

“Yeah, sure… I’m not really doing anything.”

“I appreciate that a lot… and if you’re down for it, I might ask Rebecca to make a house call for you~”

“A house call for what?” She paused for a moment, but being as smart as she was she quickly figured it out. “Wait, no. Let me guess- an IUD?”

“Right on the money as always~”

“Better that than choking on your cock every time we fuck.”

“If you say so, I happen to like it~”

“Yeah well I don’t… but I do like you, so maybe I’ll have to put up with it.”

I whined through the intercom for a moment, sighing under my breath. “You’re only leaving to spite me, aren’t you?”

“And I’m getting away with it too~!!”

I rolled my eyes and smirked, pulling my phone away from my head. “Goodnight, house mouse~”

“See you in the morning~”

I smiled and turned the intercom off, letting Aria slip through my fingers for tonight. They say that if you love something you should let it go, and if it finds its way back to you, that’s how you know it loves you back. If it comes back to you, it’s yours, but if it never does, then it was really never yours to begin with.

“Oh, Chloe…”

I stared over at the quiet empty kennel and gripped the necklace she made me in my hand, holding my fist to my forehead as I sobbed quietly to myself.

I wanted her back. I wanted her back more than anything in the world. But right now was one of those moments where I wished she wouldn’t.

All I could think of was getting her back someday, but not right now. If I was ever really going to have her back, I needed to be better. I wanted to deserve her, and that meant that I needed to change.

If I was ever going to welcome her back into my life, be it as a friend or lover, I needed to become a better person first.

I’m not going to take you for granted anymore, Chloe. If you decide to come back to me, I’m not going to be the same person who let you go.

The next time you see me, I’m going to deserve having you back in my life. I promise.