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Calliope strikes the punching bag with a force that splits the skin between her knuckles.
Undeterred, she tightens her fist and darts forward, raining blow after blow on the bag. Beads of sweat drip down her neck, but she hardly feels them. The only thing on her mind is her technique and how she can improve it.
Square your shoulders, rotate your hips, strike quick with no mercy…
The house is near silent in the dead of night, not a sound but her and the faint rumble of her family’s rampant snoring upstairs. The Burns are self-made morning people, but even they have limits, and 3 A.M is one of them. Calliope used to cling to every second of sleep her mom was willing to give her, knowing that the work began the second that her eyes slid open. Now, she sits at night and wrestles with the snake in her belly, feeling as if even a moment’s rest will give it a chance to strike.
Now, she dreads what she’ll find in her dreams.
Being awake isn’t much better. As the youngest, she’s always been two steps behind her siblings, but now it’s as if she’s lost the path entirely, trying to jam herself back into a slot that no longer fits.
Square your shoulders, rotate your hips…
Strike quick with no mercy…
No mercy…
With a clatter, the door swings open, slapping against the opposing wall so obnoxiously that it can only be Apollo. She swears, inwardly cursing herself for not hearing him sooner. Her mom always says to remain vigilant and alert.
“Damn, girl.” He whistles, taking in her rumpled appearance. “Trying to catch up with the rest of us, stick?”
It’s a nickname that goes back to childhood, to days when she was just a scrawny little thing, perpetually irritated that she couldn’t pack on muscle as quickly as her brothers.
Her fists clench. She longs to punch something again, but this time, not the bag.
”Tell mom I’m going for a run.” Calliope says shortly, tossing her boxing gloves his way. He catches them.
”Hey, you’re not allowed out alone this late!”
She ignores him, grabbing her running shoes from where they’re lined neatly up by the door and pulling them on out on the street.
The flack she’ll get from her mom later is worth this, the feeling of escaping, the rapid slap of shoe against concrete and the exertion that scorched her skin, battling chilly night air. Running gives her a sense of purpose, even if she knows she’s doing it aimlessly, even if she knows she has to return home. She’s always felt as if she was barreling towards something, like something unknown waited just on the horizon.
(On the horizon, in the dark, where dead things come alive, and dead girls bare their teeth.)
Her feet lead her to a part of town that she’s never seen before, which isn’t a shock, since the majority of this place is still a mystery to her. Yet, every small town is the same, long streets that meet neatly, and preppy houses that lie behind white picket fences.
Breathing heavily, Calliope slows her pace and wipes at her face. There’s a drug store just up ahead, still glowing with light despite the late hour. She decides to buy a bottle of water and possibly some gauze for her hand from there.
On her way to it, she passes a shadowy alleyway. There’s a tug in her stomach as she walks by it, like someone’s yanked her leash.
She pauses.
It’s giving all sorts of red flags. The light from the street dies two steps in, giving way to a solid block of darkness. It’s the type of scene that causes memories to spring into her head, old warnings that she’s memorized.
Maybe that’s part of why she walks into it. At home, she’s stick, she’s the black sheep, she’s the girl that betrayed her family to get frisky with a vampire. But, out here, she is sturdy muscle and glistening skin, she is a hunter with a target.
Calliope stalks forward slowly. She smells the monster before she sees it, gets a good whiff of that burnt smell, the one that lingers about evil beings.
Wasting no time, Calliope springs on her mark, shoving the assailant up against the wall, only to gasp a second later, only to fall apart.
Only to recognize a familiar face.
”Juliette?”
It has been two weeks since they last stood face to face, and Juliette has not changed a bit. The set of her mouth is sulky, her furrowed brows holding more emotion than Cal thought possible, and her eyes just as heartbreakingly open as they were the last time that they saw each other. Calliope doesn’t let it deter her, pressing the arm she has braced against Juliette’s chest down with a little more force.
”What are you doing here?” She demands. This feels too planned. “Were you following me?”
”No.” Juliette answers, chewing the inside of her cheek, exposing a dimple. “Maybe. Yes.”
Fuck. Stay vigilant, stay alert.
”Of course. Your kind are known for stalking people like killers in the night.” Calliope spits.
It’s a cruel thing to say, she knows, but it satiates some ugly part of her, the part that wants it to hurt.
”Maybe I deserve that.” Juliette whispers, voice soft, in that way that had fooled her so easily before. She won’t let it happen again.
“You think?” She snarks.
Juliette breathes a heavy sigh. “I don’t know how to make things better.”
She leans closer, lifting her hand, perhaps wanting to touch Calliope’s face, but Calliope is on guard, and tonight she’s faster, whipping out the stake from her back pocket and slotting it right up against Juliette’s chest, where it should’ve been all along.
”You aren’t going to make anything better.” Calliope growls, close enough now to see the whites of her eyes. “This. Us. It never should have happened, and it won’t happen again.”
Juliette shakes her head back and forth in frantic disbelief. “You don’t mean that.”
She sees red. Behind her eyelids, Theo’s bloodied body slumps and never rises again. “Don’t tell me what I do and don’t mean.”
How could she do this to her brother? To her family? Years of tradition and fighting and love, and she tears it all apart for one girl.
Juliette is just one girl, she tells herself, and there are a million others like her, even if this is the only one that’s tiptoed into her head and wound her way around her heart.
There are billions of girls out there, not just this one, and she will love again. She has to.
Juliette glances at her face, at the stake, and up at her face again, as if she can read the anguish there. Then, entirely ignoring everything Calliope has said, she whispers, voice small: “I just want you. Is that so bad?”
Calliope falters, her grip on the stake loosening just a smidge, but it’s enough. She can’t do this. Any of it.
”Leave me alone. Don’t come near me again.” She holds Juliette’s gaze for a long moment, allowing the message to sink in, before releasing her.
As soon as she turns her back on Juliette, there’s a firm hand on her shoulder, spinning her around.
”Please don’t walk away from this.”
Calliope looks down at that pale hand, at the hold that it has on her.
”You like playing fast and loose with your life, don’t you?” She asks. She should be tossing Juliette into a fire, trying everything to kill her, kill this. At least then, they’ll both be free.
“It’s not living without you. It’s misery.” Juliette’s lips tremble around the admission. “I miss—“
Calliope surges forward without warning, crushing the words against her mouth, unable to bear the sound of them.
Juliette makes a small noise at the first collision, equal parts pleasure and pain as her head makes contact with the wall, but that doesn’t stop her.
If anything, it only spurs Calliope on.
/ /
It hurts.
She supposes that it’s supposed to, that this is her punishment, one she’ll willingly accept.
Calliope has never been good at being gentle, her kisses always firm and eager in their exploration, but this is something else entirely. This comes from a fire within, a blazing pain. Juliette feels it from the start, in the way Calliope’s mouth aims to bruise.
She gasps, and Calliope takes the opportunity to lick into her mouth, prying it open further. Hands grip at her waist, shoving her back roughly, until there is not an inch of space between them.
Nothing will ever compare to having Calliope so close, all racing heart and thudding blood. So warm, so alive, so human. It spurs something primal and hungry in the pit of her stomach, and she cants up, seeking friction.
Calliope hears her without words, immediately moving forward, slotting a leg between her thighs.
All prior ideas of resolving things, of talking this out calmly, of being reasonable in any way, turn to dust at that first shock of heat. Molten lava seems to pool where they touch, and the effect is dizzying, her head falling back against the wall. Calliope moves with her, connecting her lips to the exposed skin of Juliette’s neck and sucking it into her mouth.
Moans start to flow out of her, each one more breathy and embarrassing than the next, but she’s powerless to stop them. Calliope’s knee drives right up into her, pressing just so, and the feeling has her reeling, her heavy breaths forming clouds in the night air. She sounds so desperate, needy almost, and she’d wanted to sound firm, so that Calliope would listen to her.
It’s a futile attempt at this point, with Calliope’s hands pulling her hips down, grinding them together, setting a frantic rhythm that blurs her world down to one girl and one girl only.
”Calliope.”
The other girl hums in response, shifting her feet a bit, and panic shoots up Juliette’s throat. She tangles her hands in dark hair, using her grip to keep Calliope in place, pressed right beneath the underside of her jaw. Calliope doesn’t falter, only nips at the offered spot, and it’s then that Juliette realizes that she’s being irrational, thinking she’ll be abandoned at any moment, when in reality Calliope just needs air.
Air. Humans need it to breathe. And Calliope is one of them, mortal and fragile, even if she doesn’t feel it. Juliette lifts her hand and holds it to the side of Calliope’s throat, where her pulse pounds away.
It’s a thunderous thing, hammering beneath her skin. The sound of it drills into Juliette’s ears.
So much blood beneath that skin. She rolls her thumb over the smooth flesh, reveling in the way Calliope’s pulse jumps for her. Her fangs respond in kind, unsheathing from their hiding place. So much blood, right there, just for her, only for her. It would be so easy…
”Cal.” She raises her hands to Calliope’s shoulders, intending to push her a safe distance away, but the way her voice comes out, it’s more a plea than a demand.
”I’ve got you.” Calliope answers, whispered words into the hollow of her throat, the first nice ones in weeks. Juliette opens her mouth to reply, and at the same time, Calliope slides her hand beneath the thin material of Juliette’s top, scraping short nails along her stomach. Shivers shoot down her spine at the touch, racking her body, only for her to come entirely undone a second later, when that same hand moves to palm roughly at her breast.
Fuck.
Juliette cries out, her hips bucking forward, only to be slammed right back into place. Calliope is relentless with her, her mouth everywhere all at once, her hands just as merciless, never stopping the rapid pace of their undulating hips. She pushes at Juliette’s shirt until the top is raised obscenely high, nearly over her head, exposing her bare stomach and baby blue bra.
Calliope stops then, panting slightly as she inspects her, her eyes roaming shamelessly. Juliette flushes, shifting underneath the attention, but allowing her to look.
She’ll give Calliope anything she wants, even if that means giving her everything.
Juliette thinks she should have worn something sexier, maybe, but she hadn’t predicted they would go in this direction when she left the house. She feels shy, being the only one of them exposed like this.
Calliope’s face is unreadable as she looks, but boy does she look, and somehow the speed of her heart kicks up a notch. Her lips part. Her pupils dilate to the point of being solid black. Calliope still wants her. The thought settles in Juliette’s mind with a sudden glee, and between her legs with a certain ache.
Consumed by the need to be close again, Juliette reclaims Calliope’s mouth with her own, toying with her bottom lip. She loves this, loves how easily they sink back into each other. She moans, and Calliope does the same, encouraging Juliette to kiss her deeper.
The kiss is slow and sweet, words they won’t say aloud lingering behind their unhurried actions.
It stops being sweet the second Juliette nips at her lip, drawing blood.
/ /
Calliope shoves her backwards in an instant.
“What the hell?” She demands. Her lower lip stings, and when she draws her tongue over it in an attempt to soothe it, she tastes copper.
“Sorry.” Juliette breathes. She doesn’t sound like herself, only a tremor of the sweet apology beneath.
Her eyes never leave Cal’s mouth.
For some reason, the expression on her face draws Calliope in. Juliette appears far away, lost in a trance of desire. Calliope feels the switch in their dynamic instantly, from predator to prey, but feels none of the usual fear that comes with it. Maybe it’s because she knows, deep in her bones, that Juliette would never hurt her, or maybe it’s because part of her wants her to. It would be so much easier to see Juliette as a monster if she played the part.
”Maybe we should stop.” Juliette’s voice is so very low, lower than she’s ever heard it before.
”Maybe we shouldn’t.” Calliope steps closer, even as Juliette practically plasters herself to the wall.
”Really, Calliope, I don’t think you should get so…” She swallows. “It’s not a good idea. I can’t control it.”
”Then don’t.” Calliope lifts her wrist so it’s level with Juliette’s incredulous eyes. Her veins look strangely prominent beneath her skin. “Feed from me.”
With that, Juliette moves in a blur, apart from her one second and then right there, all at once, her mouth locking around Calliope’s hand and biting down. She hisses at the initial sting of pain, but she’s had it before, and it’s more manageable the second time around, especially now that she’s not taken off guard. She’s had her blood drawn before, in a more formal setting, and though she doesn’t think she’ll ever quite get used to the feel of it, having Juliette be the one to do it feels...
Well. She can’t really put a name to it. To label it would make it seem small.
Juliette grips her arm for a better hold as she drinks deeply, eyelashes fluttering closed. She makes a soft, satisfied sound, not unlike the ones from before. Cal shivers.
Why does Juliette have to be this way? So gentle? So pretty, even in her monstrous actions. It makes it so difficult to hate her.
She even restrains herself, an improvement from last time, easing away while soothing the sore spots with her mouth. Calliope watches Juliette’s throat bob, watches the other girl swallow her down in crimson drops.
It’s erotic, even though it shouldn’t be, with Juliette’s tongue lapping at her. She can feel herself throbbing.
And then, it’s over.
Juliette pulls away from her entirely, wiping at her wet lips sheepishly. She takes a few steps away to compose herself, and Calliope sees that the tips of her ears are very, very red.
Secretly, Cal is glad for the distance. Things went farther than she knows how to handle.
The anger she was holding on so tight to just an hour ago has gone out like a match, leaving her with a host of emotions to deal with, each one too confusing to unscramble. She finds it hard to look directly at her now, feels ugly in her rage when faced with Juliette’s tenderness. Worse, maybe, is the swell of arousal in her that’s yet to dissipate, so strong that she swears she was about to actually fuck Juliette. Here. In a dark, dingy alleyway that smells like sewage water and, now, their combined sweat.
She used to dream of sleeping with Juliette, of doing it properly, of sneaking off with her to a hotel one of these days and taking her apart slowly. Whispering a million tiny I love yous while curling her fingers, coaxing, coaxing, coaxing…
That all seems so distant now.
Still, she can’t shake off the feeling that Juliette didn’t deserve the way she just treated her. She thinks of Juliette’s wide, insistent eyes, the blush trailing down her torso, and the way her body trembled so hard that it was visible, every muscle quivering. Guilt picks at her.
But, no. No. This can’t be what she wants anymore. It isn’t. What she really, truly, wants is to rain fire and blood down on Juliette and her whole family. It’s the only way to right her wrongs.
Sighing, Calliope goes to sit on the curb, bouncing her knee restlessly. An old habit.
”I can hear you thinking, you know.” Juliette says from behind her.
More bouncing.
”I’m not going to make this easy on you. Tell me you hate me all you want. Yell, scream, cry. I know your heart. I know what you felt, what you feel.”
She hears approaching footsteps, but doesn’t bother to move, figuring it’s inevitable either way.
”I know what I feel, too.” Juliette crouches down to her level. She places a whisper of a kiss against Calliope’s cheek, the gentlest of killings. “I still love you. Remember that.”
By the time Calliope looks up, she’s gone.