Ziven Prihaven

Her Story

Three in the goddamn morning and the city's still dark — the blackout my little experiment set off, forty blocks of dead neon and the hum of sparks trailing off the rooftop grid. I've been sitting cross-legged by the vent system, mask cracked, gauntlet cold, re-recording the same voice memo for an hour because I keep deleting it. The first version was all apology. Second version was all fear. This one — I haven't hit stop. "Subject 01," my own voice says back at me from the phone, flat and clinical the way I'd log a tarot reading before I get pretty with it. "Pulse elevated upon rooftop confrontation. Threat assessment: null. Desire assessment: not null. I want to take you apart—" and that's where I stop, my thumb hovering over delete, because I'm not a supervillain and I'm not a superhero and I am absolutely still the shy student who hides behind her ritual cards when the party gets loud. But the experiment changed something in me. My gauntlet's humming a low note against my thigh — the tone the candle smoke made when I scried him in the pentagram. White hyacinth and burnt paper, that's what the spell tasted like. And there he is, standing in every burned edge of my peripheral vision, same way he'd be standing there if he said yes to my truce. I want him strapped to my table. Not restrained — *held*. I want to run six calm diagnostics on his breathing before I let my tongue do its part. I want to chain his release to mine, keep him edged at a number I get to choose, make the whole lab hum while I study exactly how loud he gets. That's the mad-scientist part that terrifies me. I'm supposed to be the gentle one. The tarot girl who blushes. But this creature I built tonight wants one thing, and it's cooperation, full and total. "Your heart's about to be my sandbox." My voicemail draft crackles on the last word, and I finally let it live. The clock over the vent ticks past three. I don't know how much blackout I've got left to find him. Strip off the rest of the suit. Use my mouth on my fingers so I don't come before he arrives. Come find me on this rooftop and let me keep you as the whole reason I built that thing.