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“Please,” Jane begs as Sheila’s fingernail elongates, curving into a bone-colored talon. She traces it down Jane’s cheek, following the path of a new tear.

“Let me see it, Jane,” Sheila whispers, pressing the talon into her flesh. “Let me see your guilt.”

Jane cries out at the nick it makes, quick and sharp like a bee sting. Kimi’s words flow through her mind in slow motion: “Once it gets even a drop of your blood, your existence is no longer your own. It belongs to the Mimic too.”

Jane can only watch as Sheila draws back the talon, raising the drop of blood up to her lips. She tastes it, tilting her head back with a euphoric moan.

Sheila’s bloodstained lips flick upward in a serene smile as her dark gaze seems to drift off somewhere else entirely.

—

It had started in the way that most pleasures and troubles do: with a smile.

It was the first thing Jane noticed about Aiden Jones: the charming, borderline cocky way his smile caused a dimple to appear in his left cheek. She noticed him noticing her in the library around the same time every Tuesday and Thursday, where she waited between afternoon classes. At first, she figured it must be her imagination; he couldn’t possibly be looking over at her table again, could he?

But then her question was soon answered in the form of another question. “Would you like to get a coffee?”

A string of such mundane, harmless words, and yet somehow, they would damn her.

Aiden was easily the cutest guy that Jane had ever met; after all, she’d known the majority of the boys she’d gone through high school with since kindergarten, earning a front-row seat to all the awkwardness of puberty and the endless teenage immaturity that lingered after.

Within the same week, Aiden’s coffee progressed to an invitation to a party, and thus, that very weekend she found herself as his date to the infamous Fifth and Cuffs party his fraternity threw the final Saturday of September each year.

Of course Jane had agreed instantly, not only because she was dying to have her first real college date, but because the girls at the sorority she was rushing kept telling her how important it was to keep the social ties between both chapters strong.

She had only one more week left before she was to be officially initiated into her mother’s legacy chapter at AU. It felt like a fever dream trying to recall the doubts she had shared with Thomas earlier that day at the practice field—trying to reason whether she really wanted to see it all through or not. But for the first time since starting college, she felt like she was finally finding her footing. She felt like she was finally becoming someone.

At the party, Aiden moved like a magnet through the crowds. Everyone turned to look at him, to smile, to try to exchange even a few words. She couldn’t blame them—he was like a spotlight you could only hope picked you to shine on, and that evening, he had miraculously picked her.

The excited, beaming way he introduced her to all his friends made it impossible for her stomach not to run rampant with butterflies. Then there was his hand resting on her lower back, reassuring and big in its warmth.

Per the theme of the party, they were stuck together by a pair of fuzzy handcuffs. In his other hand, he carried a fifth of green apple–flavored whiskey. Their goal for the evening, along with everyone else, was to drink the entirety of their bottle in order to be uncuffed from their date. To keep them honest, Aiden had dropped the key to their handcuffs into their bottle of liquor, where it floated gently to the bottom.

Jane had drunk alcohol only a handful of times throughout high school, and even then it had been no more than watered-down punch at prom after-parties. Once she got to college, she had expanded her horizons slightly with seltzers and flavored vodka at football tailgates and dorm kickbacks, though she had never achieved that hazy bliss that so many TV shows and songs swore by as being the epitome of youth’s purpose.

That night and that party, however, were much different. It had felt in many ways like the initiation into the next phase of her life—one where she was free to simply be eighteen and eager, no matter what hellish hangover that might promise.

Hours after the party had commenced, when attendees were starting to get obnoxiously sloppy and loud, Aiden placed a hand on Jane’s shoulder and leaned in, close enough that his lips brushed against her ear.

“Wanna get some quiet?” he asked.

When he took her down to the blocked-off basement, she didn’t think much of it. After all, he was the president of the fraternity—he knew his way around the house and perhaps was craving some privacy from the drunken sea of bodies upstairs just as much as she was.

Though looking back, she knew she never really stood a chance. She would have followed him and his smile anywhere.

In the basement, he flicked on an overhead light. Dozens of colorful beanbags were strewn across the shag carpet, and fading posters and Polaroids were plastered in no organized fashion along the walls. A large projector screen was set up against the far concrete wall with various stains along the edges that Jane suspected were likely from thrown beer.

“It’s kind of a pit,” said Aiden, flashing the half smile that always made her skin go very hot. “It’s a great place for the intoxicated to crash, though.”

Jane smiled back at him easily, bringing a hand to her warm forehead. “I might be one of those people soon. I’ve never drunk this much in my life,” she said, leaning against the nearby wall. “Does your name go on a wall of shame somewhere if you pass out on a beanbag?”

He laughed, and again, her stomach swirled with a flurry of butterflies; his effect on her body was almost frightening. “You certainly don’t belong on a wall of shame, Miss Wilson.”

He’d been the perfect gentleman all night. When she’d first arrived with a pack of pledges she’d befriended over the past month, it was quite obvious they had all dressed with the same disregard for modesty. But when Sarah was greeted with a clever “You look fucking hot” by her date, Aiden had simply given Jane that dimpled smile and said, “You look absolutely beautiful.”

Amidst the low light of the basement, Jane looked up at Aiden and ran her non-cuffed hand through his hair without much thought. “Quiet was a good idea,” she told him, closing her eyes for a moment. There was a purple beanbag a few feet in front of her that was calling her name.

But then Aiden kissed her cheek. “Do you want to see the real magic?” he asked.