Content Warnings:

  SpoilerTransphobia (including slurs and references to violence/murder); sexual content; misogyny; alcohol abuse & intoxication; self-destructive sexual behaviours.

  [colpse]II. Curse of CassandraI left for work earlier than usual, intending to get a head start on the potential vampire problem. I’d tried to keep it out of my mind for what remained of the night, but every time I looked at Lexi, my brain conjured horrific images - her lifeless body drained of colour. Sheer, violent images that wouldn’t let me look away. I had to get ahead of this. Before the people I loved started getting hurt.

  Besides, showing up for work early isn’t hard when you sleep below the pce. They were "kind" enough not to force a curfew, but for the time being, I am to reside somewhere The Coalition can keep an eye on me. So, I remained in what was my containment cell - they just stopped locking the doors.

  Maybe I shouldn’t compin. I don’t pay rent, and the room is actually quite nice - my own kitchen (air fryer and all), a luxurious bathroom, and more floor space than most student housing. But there are no windows, and every morning I wake up with an intense fear that the front door won’t open. It probably evens out.

  I woke up as Maisie and started my morning routine. Technically, I don’t need to shower - I could cp my hands and repce every single hair cell with a fresh one - but something about the ritual of warm water in the morning proves to be therapeutic. I brush my teeth. Make breakfast. Pick out an outfit that suits today’s goals - a flourishing white blouse and an innocent bck pinafore.

  And then, my little act of rebellion. I have to show up to work as Maisie, else the scanners won’t let me inside, and I’d set off all sorts of arms. But do you want to know a secret about The Coalition? They’re cheap bastards. Their biometric security is nowhere near as fwless as they think, and my daily revolt is to test the extent of it by changing Maisie’s appearance ever so slightly. I widen the bridge of my nose by a few millimetres, watching the shift happen in the mirror. It’s freeing, rebellious, and a small comfort knowing that despite all the effort spent on controlling me, nobody will notice. They never do. No matter how hard they try, the suits can’t stop me shifting.

  I was expecting to be alone at work - most people don’t show up until right before nine - so I was counting on an hour to myself. Imagine my horror upon walking in and seeing Sadie sat at her desk, leaning forward, fully absorbed in a newspaper article on her screen. She has a simir jolt of shock when I take a seat at my own desk.

  Great. So much for peace and quiet.

  She jumps when I sit down, as startled by my presence as I am by hers.

  "Jesus!" she says, gasping and pressing a hand to her chest. Her voice is airy, yet sharp at the edges. "I was not expecting anybody else in so early." Her brow furrows. "What are you doing here?"

  I start booting up my computer before replying. "I have a lead that I didn’t want to wait to investigate. You know, my job." I gnce at her. "What are you doing, Sadie?"

  She shrugs her shoulders, but her eyes remain locked onto me - scrutinising me with every blink. "Same."

  I catch a glimpse of the article open on her screen - Scotnd Fertility Crisis: What’s Behind the Declining Birth Rate?

  A rookie would see this and scoff, dismissing the idea that it could be anything reted to The Coalition. Hell, I’m close to having the same thought. But as much as I loathe Sadie Cross, I have to admit - begrudgingly - that she has the nose. Nobody knows how she does it, but she can spot something weird with barely a gnce. If she’s sniffing around Scotnd’s fertility rate, then there’s likely something happening beyond the usual "empowerment of women means fewer babies" narrative.

  "Well, what’s behind it?" I ask.

  "I don’t know yet." She folds her arms, still looking at me. "But none of the arguments in this article have convinced me. Do me a favour, MH, and review any Scotnd readings that you have from, like, the past year. When you get the chance."

  I expect nothing more from Sadie, but I still cringe at MH.

  There are very few people inside The Coalition who actually understand RED - who know how to interpret its readings and what reading it actually involves. Reviewing data from a region as rge as Scotnd over a time frame as broad as a year would take days. I have no desire for a fight with Sadie, though. So I nod and say that I’ll see what I can do.

  I’ll deal with Scotnd’s baby crisis ter, though. For now, I pull up readings from the local area over the past month and lean forward, letting the brightness of the screen consume my tired eyes. My graphs are to me what the news is to Sadie. I don’t always know what I’m looking for, but I know it when I see it.

  And what I’m seeing is a fat load of nothing.

  There are some breaches, but they’ve already been belled and dealt with. Most of the data is simply compliant. A few oddities stand out - smudges, tiny distortions in the readings. They could easily be dismissed as noise, but they could equally be indicative of a small breach. I zone out, staring at them, as frustration creeps in. They’re too borderline, not convincing enough.

  Begrudgingly, I turn my head towards Sadie - who doesn’t bother returning the stare until I speak.

  "Hey, have you heard anything about, um, murders in the city recently? I’ve been hearing rumours about girls being found drained of blood. Sounds vampire-ish."

  She pauses, tapping her fingers against the desk, eyes flicking towards the ceiling in search of a memory. Then, something clicks, and she nods.

  "Oh, you mean the transgenders?"

  My jaw tightens.

  "Yeah, I’ve heard," she says, completely unfazed. "I sent Tommy to look into it, but he couldn’t find any evidence of interstitial activity."

  I scoff, making little attempt to hide my disdain. Tommy Garrick? That man would not be my first choice for the role of investigator. He’s the type of man you point towards a problem and tell him to go punch it. He doesn’t have the brain cells necessary to find the problem himself. He was probably too busy gawking over the fact that trans women can have breasts to complete any sort of critical evaluation.

  "Surely them being drained of blood is pretty good evidence," I say, frowning.

  Sadie shrugs, clearly annoyed that I’m distracting her from research that actually matters. "Seems to be some weird cult shit, which isn’t our jurisdiction, MH."

  I have a name.

  "You know how controversial these people are," she says, waving a hand dismissively. "It’s probably just some deranged woman who caught her husband trying on a bra and is trying to make a political stunt out of it."

  Rage fres up so fast that I can taste it in the back of my throat. I could let this go, and I probably should - but I can’t. She’s thinking like Elias - except his naivety is forgivable. He doesn’t know about the Interstice. Sadie does. Yet she is happy reducing the deaths of two people to nothing more than a political stunt.

  "These are real people, Sadie," I say through gritted teeth.

  "Take it to George," she says, turning back to the computer, not even looking at me. "It’s not my call, but I’ve said my piece."

  She’s already moved on. But I haven’t.

  "I don’t know, Maisie," George says, leaning back in his chair as I stand in front of the rge monitor, my face in my palm. "This all seems quite circumstantial."

  I want to scream.

  The RED data isn’t that compelling on its own - it might indicate a small breach, but it’s well below the standard of what I would usually bring to him. But combined with the two bodies - who, let me re-iterate, because apparently nobody is listening - were drained of blood, I think it’s a pretty fucking compelling case.

  Yet George, with wispy caramel hair, ridiculously oversized gsses, and legs crossed in casual dismissal, looks at me with a thoughtful expression - a how do I break this to her? kind of thoughtfulness. Dismissive. It makes my blood boil.

  "George, two girls from the same demographic have died in a way that is typical of a vampiric entity. How is that circumstantial?"

  He sighs and shakes his head. "Maisie, it’s really sad what happened to those girls, and I would agree that it’s weird. If you had the RED data to back it up, I’d get somebody on the case immediately. Two isn’t really a pattern, though, is it?"

  I like George. I really do. But he knows fuck all about RED. I’ve shown him so many reports over the years that he’s convinced himself he can interpret a graph as well as I can. But he doesn’t see what I see.

  He doesn’t see the smudge.

  I flick my tongue off my teeth, a deliberate attempt to steady myself before I explode - but it doesn’t work. My voice comes out louder than I intended, sharp and cutting.

  "So what, we wait until another trans girl dies? Because we’re so fucking expendable?"

  George’s face reddens. He exhales deeply as his posture stiffens. He’s embarrassed, but mostly, he just wants this conversation to end. "Maisie, that’s not what I’m saying."

  "Then what are you saying? Are you going to help?"

  His lips press into a thin line. "I’ll speak to Graham about it. If you can type up a report, I’ll share it with him and see if I can convince him to give the green light."

  Well, that’s dead in the water.

  There’s no way Graham is going to help, and the odds of George standing up to him and fighting for what’s right are even lower. Once again, I like George - but he’s our Pod Leader (and the favourite to take over the Office Lead role) for a reason. His lips are firmly wedged between management’s arsehole, and his tongue works overtime.

  Resigned frustration churns in my gut. I know how this works. I know that nothing I say will change things. But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up.

  "Why are we being so stingy about investigations all of a sudden?" I say, pnting my hands on my hips - a deliberate power move to sow discomfort. "We’ve sent people to investigate less."

  "Tommy’s already checked this one out!"

  I scoff and let the silence hang.

  "With the coming change in Director, Graham’s working hard to keep our finances in check," he says, his voice betraying his own ck of faith in the words. "The Coalition’s not in a great pce financially, and we’re expecting quite intensive financial reviews once Moreau, or whoever, comes into power. He wants to get ahead of it."

  "At the expense of vulnerable lives?" My scowl deepens.

  He groans. "To save people’s jobs, Maisie. If the new Director finds that the UK is overspending, there are going to be redundancies. Graham’s just looking out for us."

  It’s hard for me to care about that. If The Coalition decided to "y me off," what would that even entail? Would they go back to locking me up full-time? Or would they finally decide to just let me go - to free me from this monotonous, bureaucratic bullshit?

  I see the genuine worry in George’s eyes. He thinks this is a worthy trade-off.

  He’s wrong.

  I time my lunch break badly, but I’m too frustrated after George and Sadie’s dismissals to focus on my graphs. Scotnd’s baby crisis is going to have to wait. I know I’ve timed it badly the second I step into our cafeteria area and see who’s at our pod’s lunch table.

  Tommy and Jordan. The gym rat and the meathead. Peak worst-case scenario.

  If I could, I’d turn around and head straight back to my desk for a much more preferable hour of smming my head against it - but Jordan has already caught my eyeline and is waving me over with enough enthusiasm to kill somebody. Fuck sake.

  Tommy, on the other hand, visibly recoils, like I might breathe on him and give him some shape-shifting disease. It’s almost funny. He’s huge - broad shoulders, square jaw, easily four times my size - and yet here he is, acting as if a conversation with me might melt his chromosomes.

  "Maisie!" Jordan beams as I sit down. "I was just telling Tommy about what I told you yesterday - and realised that I was completely wrong. I was chasing these tiny efficiencies and completely forgot about what’s most important - feeling natural with my workouts. And you know what makes me feel natural? Sumo. I know, I know - I was literally just saying-"

  "That sounds great, Jordan," I say ftly, unable to feign much interest today. She doesn’t seem to notice. I turn to Tommy instead. "Tommy - I heard you were investigating some local murders?"

  He gres at me, as always, barely pausing his chewing. "Yeah, the trannies," he says, nodding, speaking with his mouth full. "Not much to it. They probably tried to sleep with a man, who got upset and shed out."

  I flinch. It’s subtle, a quick flicker of a reaction - but I feel it. A brief, stunned silence hums between us, the temperature of my skin rising in a way I can’t control.

  But before I can respond with some strong words of my own - Jordan surprises me.

  She shakes her head, nudging Tommy with her shoulder. "You’re not supposed to use that word, Tommy," she says, her voice chipper and well-meaning. "I read on the internet that you’re supposed to call them trans-identified males now."

  I can’t stop myself from dragging my hands down my face in sheer disbelief. "No, that’s not-"

  "Does it really matter?" Tommy says, yawning like the conversation is physically draining him. "It’s got nothing to do with us. I didn’t get anything weird from the RED scans of their bodies - everything was normal."

  My hands still on my face, I pull my skin back even further in frustration. I said earlier that George doesn’t know shit about RED. But Tommy? Tommy doesn’t know anything.

  "Where did you see the bodies?" I say, already bracing myself.

  "The morgue," he scoffs, like it’s the most obvious answer in the world.

  My hands nearly rip my face off.

  This is dumb, even for him.

  I refrain - with extreme amounts of effort - from calling him a moron. Instead, I take a slow breath, forcing my voice into something that resembles patience.

  "You’d be able to get lingering traces of RED from the entity itself," I say, my restraint wearing dangerously thin. "You wouldn’t really expect to find any on the victims. Especially not one that’s two weeks gone."

  He rolls his eyes. "Whatever. I don’t deal with that nerd shit, I do it off instinct - and what I saw was not interstitial." He shoves another bite of food into his mouth, chewing zily before adding, "Just regur fucked-up tranny shit."

  I want to hit him. The impulse is there, bubbling under my skin, daring my knuckles to move.

  But I don’t. Because I’ve been here before. Years in captivity taught me that the worst thing you can ever appear as is violent. So I don’t hit him. I don’t even flinch.

  I just let the bitterness wrap around me like a well-worn chain.

  I hate both Sadie and Tommy with a fiery passion - but at least Sadie has competent instincts. Tommy has the instincts of a pickled cabbage.

  I don’t have a good excuse for visiting Margaret in the bs, but I don’t think I can stand looking at the rest of my office colleagues right now. Whether it’s George putting jobs before people’s lives, Sadie not giving a shit, Tommy firing out slurs, or Jordan cheerfully reciting TERF propaganda while trying to be helpful - I just don’t have the patience for it.

  I can feel an outburst simmering inside me. I refuse to let it out, but it’s going to eat me alive if I stay in that environment any longer.

  Margaret is happy to see me, anyway. She stretches out her chubby, white-clothed arms in an exaggerated mime of a hug. I can’t contaminate her gloves - a lesson I’ve learned too many times - so I mime one back. We both smile. It’s comforting. She’s comforting.

  The seventh member of our team, Edgar Finch - Margaret’s assistant - sits beside her, methodically filling twenty different microcentrifuge tubes with a pipette. He doesn’t turn to acknowledge me, but that’s expected. The reassuring thing about Edgar is that it’s not personal. He wouldn’t turn to talk to anyone. In all my time here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him willingly converse with anybody who wasn’t named Dr Margaret Christie.

  Margaret tilts her face upwards, her expression soft with sympathy. "What’s up, doll? You don’t look yourself."

  I smile at her wording, knowing that it was completely intentional, and sink into the seat next to her, facing out into the rest of the small b room.

  "Nobody upstairs is taking me seriously," I say, exhaling sharply. "I’ve got two murders that are quite clearly Interstice-reted, but everybody seems to have lost their minds. Nobody is willing to investigate."

  A small grin spreads across her face. "Ah, the curse of Cassandra."

  My skin loses all colour - not on purpose. "What?"

  Panic coils tightly in my ribs.

  I’ve never told anybody at The Coalition about Cassie, just like I’ve never told anybody at The Drowned Duck about Maisie. They are two completely separate lives. Two carefully constructed identities that I have no intention of blurring the lines between.

  For a brief, horrid moment, I wonder if somebody has been watching me. If I’ve been tracked this whole time.

  "You know? Cassandra from Greek mythology? Cursed to see the future but never be believed?" Margaret shakes her head. "You kids don’t know anything."

  "Oh," I say, piecing it together. "Like the Taylor Swift song."

  "What?" she says, genuinely baffled.

  "Never mind," I ugh, shaking my head. A wave of relief washes over me - followed by amusement at the irony of the name. "Yeah, I suppose. The data I have is shaky, but there’s definitely something there. George says Graham’s worried about costs, though."

  Margaret groans - loudly. It’s so forceful that Edgar jumps, knocking over a few of the tubes and spilling fluid onto the counter. His eyes widen in panic as he scrambles for something to clean it up.

  "Tell me about it," Margaret grumbles, grinding her teeth. "He’s been breathing down our necks for the past few weeks, wanting us to justify every expense. I like the man, but he’s a right pain in my arse, Maisie."

  I give a weak smile, not liking the man and still finding him a pain in my arse.

  "I’m scared that people are going to die, and I don’t know what to do."

  Margaret sighs and wraps an arm around me, valuing my emotions more than her PPE. I stay stiff in her arms. Physical affection comes naturally to Cassie, but it’s a rare occurrence for Maisie.

  "I don’t want to suggest that you devote any more of your time to this godforsaken pce," she says. "But if you’re really worried, you could try investigating on your own time. Get some more compelling evidence - force their hand."

  I nod along, but uncertainty creeps in. I want to help, but I don’t know how. I’m good with RED data. I’ve proven useful when The Coalition needs somebody to poke around wearing specific faces. But I don’t have Sadie’s nose. I’m not a detective.

  "What are you working on?" I ask, eager to change the subject after an entire day spent talking about dead trans girls.

  Margaret brightens. "Edgar, do you want to tell her?" She turns to the young man beside her with hopeful enthusiasm.

  He looks at me. Shakes his head. No words spoken.

  Amusement flickers through me - along with a small, stupid pang of jealousy. It must be nice being able to opt out of conversations entirely.

  Margaret sighs, resigned. She’s been trying to pull him out of his shell for a while now. "Fine," she turns back to me. "You know that panther thing we found in the Lake District st year?"

  I nod, smirking at her yman phrasing. We both know the proper name: Umbrafelis cumbriensis.

  "Well," she continues, "we’ve been trying to sequence the bastard’s genes for ages now, but until recently, we’ve had no luck. Too unstable. That was until Ed here came up with a novel technique that’s actually yielding results."

  She pats him on the shoulder like a proud parent. He doesn’t react.

  "Still early days, but it’s an exciting time to be in Lab R, Maisie!"

  "What will sequencing the genes tell us?"

  She gasps, clutching her imaginary pearls. I smirk.

  "To prove that we can, of course!" she says, as if I’ve questioned her entire existence. "Maybe Umbrafelis won’t teach us much, but if we can develop a technique now, we’ll be ready for future unstable species that might have more to offer us."

  I nod, giving an approving shrug. That seems fair enough - but I can’t help but find it bizarre that the genetic sequencing of cryptic panthers is a greater priority to The Coalition than two murders. But I keep that to myself.

  Casting off Maisie and letting myself sink into Cassie is more of a relief than usual. It’s like peeling off tight, uncomfortable work clothes after a long day - shedding the weight of The Coalition, shedding Maisie - and slipping into something that actually fits.

  I have never held any remotely positive opinions about The Coalition, but today has cemented exactly why I despise them. A global organisation - with dirty fingers in every country, access to all sorts of resources - and the best advice I got was to go rogue and do it myself.

  I’m almost at The Drowned Duck when my phone buzzes in my pocket. Against my better judgement, I check - opening up the Bckline app to see the message.

  SadieC: Did you get a chance to look at the Scotnd data?

  My grip around my phone tightens, dangerously close to cracking the thing in half. I gnced at it, but the request was so ridiculously broad that even knowing where to start felt like an impossible task.

  Maisie: Sorry, didn’t get the chance. Will make it a priority tomorrow!

  Her response is immediate.

  SadieC: ughhhhhhhhh

  I wait for a follow-up. A thanks anyway that never comes. Maybe her phone died. Either way, I’m past caring.

  Trying not to let any of these thoughts corrupt Cassie’s mind, I turn off my notifications and slip my phone back into my pocket.

  No more Coalition stuff tonight. The door is closed.

  Elias is on annual leave today, so it’s just Rico, Lexi, and me managing the bar.

  Rico - donned in a fluffy red corset, giant eyeliner, and a crown of roses - has promoted himself to bartender for the night, wedging himself behind the counter and dramatically judging every patron’s drink order. I’ve heard the same quips so many times that they don’t even register as funny anymore, but the customers seem to get a kick out of it. That’s what matters, I suppose.

  Thursday nights are busier than Wednesdays, so we don’t get to sit around and chat as much as we did st night. The pub is packed, with a whopping six whole customers crowded into the tiny space. Not enough to keep us busy, but enough to make st night’s shouting antics untenable. How infuriating.

  Still, Lexi and I stay close throughout the shift - dragging a conversation across the whole night, shoving words between clearing tables, cleaning gsses, and running to the back room to change the kegs.

  "I’ve got a date on Saturday," she sings, scrubbing a table with too much enthusiasm. "An older guy. Fit as fuck."

  I giggle, stacking gsses. "Cis?"

  "You betcha." She snaps a finger gun at me, clicking her tongue. "Cassie, I know you won’t understand, but I need some fucking cock inside me."

  I snicker and shake my head. "Is that wise, right now? I’m assuming Elias gave you the same Dad talk that he gave me yesterday."

  I watch her for a reaction, curious to hear her thoughts.

  Lexi doesn’t give me much - just folds up the cloth she used to wipe the table. "It’s just coffee during the day, Cass. I’ll be fine. I’ve handled much worse than blood-sucking transphobes."

  The way she says it - so casual, like it’s a joke instead of a real threat - makes my stomach churn. But I steady myself. It’s probably just a defence mechanism. And she’s not wrong. She has handled worse.

  Lexi was cursed by a witch as a child (a joke, as far as I know) to never have luck in love. She’s been on more first dates than anybody I’ve ever met but probably matches the universal average on second ones. She even asked me to shadow her once, just to see if there was something she was doing wrong. She wasn’t, as far as I could tell.

  Besides having god-awful taste on the apps.

  Cis men, trans men, cis women, trans women, non-binary folk - it didn’t matter. If Lexi swiped right, they were an arsehole. If Sadie has the nose and I have the RED brain - Lexi has the disaster girldick, which springs up like a superhero’s calling card whenever a twat is in front of her.

  "Can’t be worse than the st one," I say, trying to lighten the mood as we head back to the bar, steering the conversation towards her st T4T escapade rather than the serial killer on the loose.

  The second it leaves my mouth, I know I’ve hit a sore spot.

  Lexi’s shoulders loosen, her lips drooping slightly. "Ava wasn’t that bad. She was just self-conscious. I think all of us dolls have a self-hating phase, where we forget that we’re trying to pass as women, not cis women."

  She’s being kinder than Ava deserves.

  Ava - the bitch who waltzed into The Drowned Duck, scoffed at Rico’s drag, and then weaponised it as a stick to beat Lexi with - accusing her of all sorts, until Elias hounded her out, never to be seen again.

  "Oh God," Rico groans, turning towards us instead of the customers he was midway through serving. "We’re not talking about Ava again, are we?"

  I motion toward the two young women waiting at the bar, silently signalling for him to do his job and stop eavesdropping. But nobody tells Rico Devereaux to mind his own business. Instead, he turns to the girls - who I assume to be cis, though from the ripped jeans, definitely some variant of queer - and drags them into the conversation.

  "She was such a bitch. Like, you wouldn’t believe it - told us to take down our rainbow fgs because they were ‘othering’," he says, before turning to one of the girls directly. "Do you feel othered, gorgeous?"

  She shakes her head. "I like this pce. Very camp."

  I roll my eyes.

  "Okay, that’s enough, Rico," Lexi says, stepping forward and physically pushing him aside to actually serve the girls, just to get them out of the conversation.

  Rico takes the hint, but not gracefully - he ughs loudly, banging his hand against the counter as the girls awkwardly take their drinks and scurry to the other side of the bar. He waves at them, and they give an uncomfortable wave back. I fight back the second-hand embarrassment.

  "Sorry, Lex, I didn’t realise that one was a touchy subject," Rico says, batting his eyeshes and blowing her a teasing kiss, which she swats away dramatically. "Would you rather I talk about - oh, I don’t know - any of your other romantic failures?" He grins. "Maybe the one who brought his mother to your first date?"

  "It wasn’t his mother," Lexi says, pouting. "It was his spiritual adviser - who just so happened to be his mother. But she was nice!"

  She turns to me and gestures toward Rico. "Defend me here, Cass!"

  I shake my head, ughing. "I don’t think I can."

  Lexi lets out a dramatic whine and drops her face onto the counter, covering herself with her arms. It’s a common sight around here.

  "Why am I so bad at this?"

  "At least you try!" Rico says, fshing his teeth as he turns to me. "When was the st time you even had a date, Cassie?"

  My heart skips a beat. Cassandra Vale has never been on a date, and there’s no expectation that she ever will. Rico means nothing by it - it’s just a casual jab, the kind of teasing he throws at everyone - but it exposes something that I don’t want to think about.

  Because it’s not a matter of not wanting to date. It’s a matter of logistics.

  If I were to date someone, it would mean living a lie - letting them fall in love with one version of me while hiding all the others. It would mean dragging them into a world where I could be locked away again at any moment.

  It would mean putting them in danger. Like Wendy.

  "That’s not fair - she’s ace, you idiot," Lexi says, cutting in as she lifts her head from the table temporarily before dropping it back down.

  Rico shrugs.

  I’ve never told them I identify as asexual, but it’s a convenient mistruth for them to believe. If it’s even technically a lie.

  I am not asexual. But for all intents and purposes, Cassie is.

  It bothers me. I hate to admit it, but it really does. So many of our conversations are dedicated to terrible exes, bad dates, failed attempts at love - and while I know what to say in reaction, I also know I can never truly rete.

  Because I’m not like them. Not really.

  I’ll never have to sit across from a cis man and worry that he doesn’t see me as a woman - because I could just make sure that he does. Because I’m not real in the way they are.

  "Cassie, you okay?"

  Lexi’s hand touches my shoulder, and I realise that I’ve been sitting here doing nothing but breathing - heavily and unevenly - for the past thirty seconds.

  My face flushes red with embarrassment. Two sets of eyes on me.

  "Sorry," I say quickly. "I was just... thinking about stuff."

  "Damn right, you were," Rico says with a cheeky grin. "Your face looked real strained. You were thinking real hard."

  I shake my head, forcing a giggle. "I hate you both."

  When the bar finally closes, it’s a relief. By numbers alone, it wasn’t even a particurly busy night - but after the day I’d had, I was already primed to be destroyed, and my breakdown over dating hadn’t exactly helped.

  The three of us dance around the room as we clean up, music bsting as we set things up for tomorrow’s opening. As we move, I can’t help but hear a constant buzzing coming from Lexi’s phone.

  "Is that your cis boy?" I tease, giving her a pyful jab.

  I expect an eye roll, maybe even some dramatic swooning. Instead, she looks weirdly embarrassed and shakes her head.

  "Um, no. I’m kind of doing numbers on Twitter right now, and my phone won’t shut up."

  I ugh.

  Lexi’s problem with dating isn’t due to a witch’s curse - it’s due to her chronic case of being terminally online, making it impossible for anybody who isn’t to rete to her. And the issue, of course, is that anybody else who is terminally online is almost certainly a dickhead.

  "Show me?" I say, curiosity piqued.

  She stiffens, slipping the phone into her pocket. "I don’t want to."

  I frown. "Lexi, I have you on Twitter - I can just check it myself."

  "It’s not on my main account," she says, biting her lip. "Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything."

  My intrigue only grows. Lexi has the loosest lips of anybody I know. She isn’t usually one to keep secrets.

  "What do you mean? You’re doing numbers on an alt?"

  For those not well-versed in internet lingo, the term doing numbers means getting a high number of likes or shares on a post. You’re welcome.

  She sighs, gncing over her shoulder to make sure Rico is still busy and not paying attention.

  "Okay," she says quietly. "Please don’t judge me for this. I was just joking around, I didn’t mean to actually get anything out of it."

  I raise an eyebrow. "What have you done, Lexi? You’re scaring me."

  I ugh as I say it, but when she gives me a serious look, I nod. "Okay, no judgement."

  Another beat of hesitation, until finally...

  "I made a fake account," she says. "Where I, um, pretend to be a TERF and just tweet stupid shit."

  I lose it. I fall into her, one hand clutching her shoulder as ughter bursts out of me.

  "That’s what you were worried to tell me?" I manage to say between ughs. "What’s even the point of doing that?"

  Lexi shrugs, but her face is still red.

  "I don’t know... It’s kinda reassuring to see how stupid they are. Like, I tweeted ‘trans men will NEVER be women’ and got a hundred likes within a few hours. They’ll like anything as long as it seems anti-trans."

  I nod, appreciating the easy bait as if I’m the Gordon Ramsay of online trolling. In terms of effort, it’s the bare minimum - but it still gathered an impressive number of bites.

  "I wonder if, like, you could use it to find out secret information from their ringleaders," I say, more of a muse than anything else.

  "I doubt it," she says. "Not unless I started attending meetings in real life, and I don’t think I pass well enough for that."

  Her words hit me like a train. No offence to Lexi - but she’s right. She’d have a hard time passing as a transphobe.

  Me, on the other hand? If I wanted to, I could create any persona I wanted. I could infiltrate any anti-trans group in the city.

  And if there’s any chance that one of these groups has someone willing to use their newly acquired vampire abilities to stick it to the local trans women... This is exactly the kind of situation Margaret was talking about.

  If The Coalition isn’t going to help my people, I have to take it into my own hands. And if I don’t have traditional detective skills? Then I need to take advantage of the skills I do have.

  "Cassie. You okay? You’re smiling quite deviously," Lexi says, raising an eyebrow.

  I nod. My grin is wide, determined - completely unhinged.

  "I’m good," I say, suspiciously pleased. "Just thinking again."

  She rolls her eyes. "You really need to work on your thinking face."

  You thought it was just Maisie and Cassie, didn’t you? You thought you could fit me into two neat boxes and be done with it. But people have been trying to put me inside boxes my entire life, and not a single one has managed yet.

  When I leave The Drowned Duck and get home, it’s 1 a.m., but I don’t feel tired. By all accounts, I should. It’s been a long day. A draining day. But it’s the kind of drained where the st thing I want to do is sleep. I want to fight something. I want to smash something. I want to fuck something.

  I told you that Cassie was asexual, but Niamh is not. She’s called Niamh tonight, but by the nature of her function, her name changes. So does her face. Tonight, she’s a tall, slender blonde with loose shoulders, rge breasts, and bright pink nails. A sparkling silver dress hangs low, exposing a lot, paired with spicy red heels that match the shade of her lipstick.

  The look just comes to me. I don’t have to think about it - I just let the horny part of my brain design my dream babe and assume she’ll fit the role for someone else, too. I try not to think about how, with a different outfit and a quick restyle of hair, I would look exactly like Sadie Cross. That’s too much to unpack after the day I’ve had.

  Once I’m ready, I hit the clubs - pying catch-up by drinking as much as I can, as fast as I can. It’s hard to expin, but once there’s alcohol in my system, it’s easy to maximise the effect - to speed up my blood flow, ensuring every cell gets a taste. Then, it’s just a matter of looking lost, confused, and ridiculously sexy until some desperate man takes me home.

  Ladies, please don’t try this at home. I am aware that this is reckless behaviour - that I could get myself seriously hurt. But we are not the same. If a man turns violent, I can give myself the muscles I need to break him. If he surprises me with a knife and tries to cut me open, I can repair the wound before he even pulls the bde out. Now, he might get lucky - might kill me faster than I can heal, or might be smart and go straight for my brain. If so, congratutions, I’m dead.

  This isn’t risk-free. It’s a self-destructive habit. And I need this section of my life to be a no-judgement zone.

  Is that understood? Excellent. Thank you for your co-operation.

  I was in the club for precisely forty-three minutes, which is longer than usual - but eventually, Jamie dragged me out of there. He seemed nice, which was disappointing. The dicks are more exciting. Nice ones tend to take me home, kiss my forehead, and tell me to text when I’m in bed safe.

  So I was relieved when he didn’t ask for directions after we stepped outside - just slung me partially over his shoulder and started leading me across the city centre, presumably towards his pce.

  The streetlights give me a better look at him than the club had. Very white. That kind of white where his features almost blend into his face, like he’s been patted down with a light foundation. Pale brown hair, gelled back. Generic. Forgettable. One of many.

  His bony shoulders aren’t comfortable to cling to, but the reassuring smiles he keeps fshing in my direction feel warm against the bitterness of the night.

  Listen, I know I already specified that this was a no-judgement zone, but I can sense some of you judging, so let me crify. I know there are some questionable morals at py here. Poor Jamie thinks he is taking home gorgeous Niamh and will end the night with a fake phone number and a broken heart - having actually had sex with a genderless entity who created Niamh for the sole purpose of luring him in.

  Is that fucked up? Yeah, it probably is.

  But when you consider that Jamie picks his mate by scanning the dance floor for the loneliest-looking drunk girl and takes her home with barely any words exchanged - can you really feel bad for the guy? In a fucked-up way, we’re both kind of sexually assaulting each other, and I think that bances out, doesn’t it?

  I don’t really care what you think.

  "Are you cold, babe?" he says, looking down at me.

  I am shivering slightly, because it is chilly - but I don’t know why he’s asking. It’s not like he’s wearing a jacket, or anything he could offer me. I shake my head, though I can’t help but wonder what he would’ve done if I’d said yes. Would he have ripped off his bck button-up and draped it over my shoulder? I’ll forever live in regret.

  He keeps fshing those smiles, and I don’t know if I’m an idiot for actually enjoying them. For a second, I almost feel like a dy being walked home by a gentleman. But in reality, I’m just this creep’s test victim.

  "You’re quiet," he says, as we exit the main roads and slip into a quieter section of the inner city. "What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?"

  I tilt my head up. "What do you think?"

  He grins like a boy. "Hopefully the same thing I am."

  How boring. I can smell the missionary already.

  We reach his building - a grey block of student fts. He fumbles for his keys with one hand, while the other stays tightly around me, like he’s afraid if he lets go, I’ll wander off into traffic.

  We head inside, and he leads me up to the third floor. The hallways are yellowed with age, thick with a nasty smell that could be the building itself or just student drug culture seeping into the walls. He gestures for me to go in first. I smirk, amused at the formality of it, and step inside.

  His ft is exactly what I expect - small and messy, but not filthy. The kind of space that instantly tells you a single man lives here. But at least a man who’s changed his sheets in the past year. There’s a distinct citrusy smell, like he’s sprayed something to hide his own musk.

  "You want a drink?" he says, tossing his keys onto a small table by the door.

  I turn to him, letting the yellow light shimmer against my dress. "You think that’s a good idea?"

  He ughs, shaking his head. "No, I suppose it isn’t."

  The alcohol is warm in my arteries, and I let it take me over - deliberate and controlled. I want it to pull me under, to smother over every thought of Sophie Moreau, Scotnd’s fertility crisis, and transphobic vampires. I want it to rush through me until Jamie - who isn’t bad-looking, per se, but is painfully boring - becomes the hottest man in the country.

  I perch myself on the end of his bed, making my intentions btantly clear, and wait for my man to come and collect his prize. He looks at me with hungry eyes. The alcohol floats through my bloodstream, lifting me off the ground, filling me with a high that makes me feel untouchable.

  He stands in front of me and presses a hand onto my bare shoulder, his eyes locked onto mine. His fingers are cold, sending a shiver through me, but I stay still - looking up at him with wide, submissive eyes.

  Then, gently, he pushes me down onto my back, kneeling over me, pinning my hands above my head. A thrill runs through me. Yes.

  His mouth brushes against mine, and our lips part, tongues sparring. He’s not looking at me - he’s looking down, his eyes fixed on Niamh’s impressive chest, his free hand trailing down my leg, leaving a line of goosebumps in its wake.

  As his fingers brush against my clit, I let out a sharp moan - my head snapping forward, almost headbutting him. The finger weaves and dances around me, my voice rising in chaotic, beautiful shapes, creating a symphony of pleasure.

  Every ft around us can hear Niamh’s screams. And I do not care. Because Niamh does not exist.

  It’s only as I’m gasping for air, body writhing, mind utterly detached, not quite there - but close - that another sound finally breaks through the haze.

  A guttural sound. Not pleasure. Crying. Fuckboy Jamie is sobbing. Loudly.

  He isn’t looking at me. His gaze is still fixed on my body, but his face is twisted, mouth open in a silent, choked kind of grief.

  I pull back immediately, sitting up, breath still ragged, my head spinning. Confusion grips me. What the fuck?

  "You okay?"

  Jamie shakes his head, sucking in a ragged breath. "Sorry, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I’m doing this... This is so fucking wrong." His voice cracks. "You’re drunk, and you can’t consent, and... I don’t know what’s wrong with me."

  I reach out, resting a hand on his shoulder. And he shudders away, panic fshing across his face as he scrambles across the bed. His eyes are wide when he looks at me. As if he’s afraid of what he might do. Intriguing.

  "Hey, rex," I say, trying to sound as sober as possible. It’s hard, because I’m not. "I came out tonight looking for this. I’m consenting, okay? You haven’t done anything wrong."

  I’ve done this a lot. I won’t give you an exact number, but this isn’t new for me. Plenty of people have chickened out before the act. But nobody has ever backed out midway through. I’m not used to being edged like this.

  Jamie shakes his head, his voice barely above a whisper. "It’s not you. I’m really sorry."

  His sobs grow louder, but at least now - he lets me move closer. Lets me hold him. I have no idea what’s going through his head, and that intrigues me to no end. But I don’t expect answers. We’re both pissed, and all I can do is let him cry. I stay there, still and patient, until his body gives in and he passes out on the bed - leaving me to be the responsible adult and get myself out of there.

  I can’t stop thinking about him in the taxi home. He seemed like a stereotypical douchebag. Until he wasn’t. Until something broke, and the act fell apart. Because it was an act. For whatever reason, he had decided he had to py the role of a predatory man tonight.

  A virgin, maybe? Sick of teasing from his friends? Something more interesting? Unlike the jacket question, I can’t leave this one unsolved.

  So I - perhaps stupidly - left him a note. A note telling him he can reach out anytime. A note containing - for the first time ever - my actual phone number.

  Niamh makes it home alive. And for another first, I need to commit her face to memory. Because there’s a non-zero chance I might need it again.

  LilAgarwal