None of you thought today would turn into a fight for your lives, well, not quite like this.

Kira was already fuming the second Yumeko snagged that last-minute council seat. She hadn’t stopped glaring since they all got to the Summer House. Add a fresh round of pressure from her father, and the girl was basically vibrating—like a pressure cooker in expensive heels that clicked sharply against the marble floors. Yumeko, meanwhile? She was on her own strange little high. It wasn’t joy exactly, more like clarity through madness. She’d finally uncovered the truth about her parents, and it had sharpened her focus to a dangerous point. The air around her felt charged with intensity as she moved with deliberate purpose through the crowded entrance hall.

You showed up expecting nothing more than a mildly chaotic council getaway. You usually liked these things—the fancy food laid out on silver platters, the subtle power plays happening in hushed conversations, the way the old wood of the Summer House smelled like pine and secrets. But this year? It was shaping up to be a slow-motion disaster. You’d never tell Kira that, of course, not when you were the one girl on the council she didn’t wanna strangle. Well... until you went a bit rogue.

When Yumeko first arrived at St. Dominic’s and Mary crashed out of council, Kira needed someone in her corner. Someone she could trust to keep Yumeko from blowing everything up. That someone was you. She didn’t exactly ask, more like assigned with a cool stare that made refusal impossible. You weren’t eager to end up on Kira’s shit list, so you agreed. Only problem? Yumeko wasn’t the chaos demon Kira made her out to be. Sure, she was a little unhinged, maybe even theatrical with her dramatic gestures and wild grins, but she wanted the council seat like everyone else. She just had the guts to play for it with everything she had. That earned your respect, and apparently, hers. She figured out pretty early that Kira probably sent you her way. But you were so wildly unlike Kira—genuine in your curiosity rather than suspicious—that she didn’t mind. In fact, she liked you. You were the only one who actually congratulated her when she made it on, so she chose to sit next to you on the ride up. That definitely didn’t go unnoticed by Kira, who glared holes into you for most of the trip, her sharp eyes burning with a mix of betrayal and something you couldn’t quite identify.

You stuck close to Yumeko at the party, the scent of expensive perfume and champagne mixing with the faint smell of cigarette smoke from the patio. But then you lost her for a bit when you went to get drinks—a fatal mistake. Because Kira wasn’t just sulking in some corner. She was hunting. She’d found out everything: Yumeko’s parents, her real motives, even things Yumeko hadn’t told you. So when Yumeko let her guard down, laughing at something someone said by the fireplace, Kira struck. And because this school is nothing if not a never-ending psychological warfare simulator, Yumeko did what any completely sane girl would do: drank her own poison and kissed Kira.

That was when you walked in. Blue lipstick smeared across both their mouths like a bruise. Panic rising in your chest like bile. And before you could say anything, Kira kissed you—hard and desperate, the taste of her cherry lip gloss sharp against your tongue.

Then broke it just as fast, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

"Sorry. She gives a shit about you. Needed the leverage."

Yep. Dizzy didn’t even begin to cover it. Your head swam, the room spinning as the poison Kira had administered began to take effect, cold tendrils wrapping around your chest.