Making an very important sales pitch, for one.

Staring down Kappa house is … less than ideal. Namely, everyone staring with blank, green eyes at you from its windows as you stand waiting at the door. You really, really hope Atlee takes the bait instead of just rushing you. You can probably take them, but you’re not sure if Atlee backs them up. And you’re very not sure if you can do it even then without killing them. ‘And she might be kind of harder to convince if I tear my way in, too,’ you think to yourself.

Fortunately, after a few grotesquely uncomfortable minutes of consideration, the doors to Kappa house open. As you move towards it, girls file into the entry hall to watch you, starting from the farthest ones out at the windows as they lose sight of you. By the time you reach the center of the room, near the staircase, all of their eyes are on you again. You have to **** down a bolt of fear when the door shuts behind you. Stillness fills the room.

“I really thought we worked this out,” you hear Atlee’s voice call down. Looking up, she takes a regal position at the peak of the stairs, looking down at you. She’s already naked, six tentacles dancing behind her. You note that, unlike before, these are tipped with cruel, metallic, spearhead-like ends. Which sends a pretty clear message about what she thinks you’re here for. “Please tell me why I shouldn’t be having you torn apart, then going to find that pretty roommate of yours to explain why I have to **** her to **** because of you?”

“I mean, you’d be missing out on seeing how I am in the sack, for one,” you joke, putting on a mask of confidence. “Reconsidered. I didn’t think that’d be met with such … resistance.”

“It wouldn’t if I believed you,” she sighs, lifting herself into the air on her powerful, flexible inhuman limbs. “This is a trick, though. I’m not an idiot, Jaquelin. You’re here to kill me. I don’t know how or why, but you didn’t just wake up and decide not joining was a mistake.”

“Never said I ‘just woke up,’ and decided. Things … have changed,” you answer, using your actual fear to mimic real hesitation at admitting why. In truth, you’re still constructing as you weigh what parts of your planned lies you need to reconfigure given Atlee’s attitude and the situation. “Besides, really not sure I could kill everyone here alone. You’ve really done some expanding.”

“Not beyond Kappa yet, but thank you.” She lowers herself to the ground floor, but still stays elevated above the girls in her hive-mind. She idly strokes one of their chins as she passes, admiring them, but you note far more like a beautiful doll than a lover or friend. “Consolidation is important. We’ve been working the kinks out of our system.”

“Hey, from what I saw, your system’s pretty kinky by nature.”

“Don’t try to change the topic.” Her face is stern as she uses her tendrils to tower over you, four of them still waving menacingly as two balance her against the floor with surprising grace. “What’s your plan, Jaquelin? Tell me, maybe I’ll let you get off with just you dying.”

“No plan, really.” Your voice quavers a bit, but you’re not sure if that’s a better or worse sell for what you’re trying. “It just … it doesn’t seem like I can win against this. I’ve been having these dreams, and it’s so fucking exhausting delaying the inevitable. If I’m going to lose, I might as well lose the fun way, right?”

“Lies,” she counters, one of her weaponized limbs drifting up. The metal edge is surprisingly sharp and forces you to tilt your head up when it reaches you chin. “Of course you’re going to lose. You didn’t care earlier. And I did a lot of looking into you before this, Jaquelin. Before I was made whole. You don’t give up easy. There are so many documented cases of you fighting for a lost cause because you believe it’s the ‘right thing.’ It’s admirable when correct, but that’s never been a qualifying factor from what I’ve seen. Just blind empathy, trying to form an illusion of yourself as a good person so you can pretend everything is just fine. Nothing but individualistic hubris, liberal guilt, and boredom. I can read your feelings as clear as day.”

“Then you can see I’m terrified right now, I’m not here to fight!” you let yourself beg. It feels bad to be at her mercy, but not nearly as bad as if you let all your friends and the sisters Atlee’s captured down. Have to push through. Have to make it look real. “You’re everywhere! I can see every time I walk down around here that you’re growing, expanding, swelling, and I can’t do anything to stop it! I can’t expose you, who’d believe me? And I can’t kill innocent people just to keep them from you. All my options are pure failure, it’s not like volunteering in local politics or marching against some bullshit government policy! There’re no people to wake up to change this. It’s just you, massive and overarching, and I’d rather be inside something I don’t approve of than dead.”

“I think I’ll run her through this these …” Atlee muses out loud, three more sharp tentacles drifting closer to your body. “Eva, that is. I could use the ones meant for sex, but after this particular deception, it seems … more fitting. You have one more chance, Jaquelin. Or she dies bleeding from the inside.”

“Okay!” you yell. The anger and horror flooding through you at her words takes legitimate **** of will to contain, begging you to fight her or run or anything besides stay there and make this work. You latch on to them, though. Ride those feelings. Emphasize them. She’d have already killed you if she didn’t want you, she WANTS to be convinced. She can’t take not controlling you, even if it’s stupid. Make. Her. Believe. “It’s for her, okay?!”

“Little Eva?” she taunts, but you can detect interest in her voice all the same.

“I’m pretty sure I CAN kill, you Atlee,” you carry on. “And probably everyone here. And if I thought that’d keep her safe, I fucking would. But it won’t. No matter how hard I fight you, I can’t keep her safe. Not from out here. I’ll never know who’s with you or not, who you hid away, when you’re coming back. If you let me in, I can help you convince her to give up. Alive, at the very least.”

“That doesn’t sound like something she’d want, Jaquelin.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But she doesn’t always know what’s good for her. Hell, she’s friends with me! This is the only move I have left to protect her, that’s why I’m doing this. That’s why I’m giving up.”

“WHY?” she asks, voice level, but loud and demanding. You shudder. Digging deep, you pull out your best gambit to legitimize your surrender.

“Because I love her, okay?!” you snap sharply. It almost hurts to say. You know you love her, known since the second you met her, but that’s not what you mean, and both Atlee and you know it. “I love her. She’s everything to me, I can’t … I can’t watch her die. I can’t let her down again. I’ve been dragging her into this downward spiral with me because I’m so scared to just be the fuck alone, to be lost and abandoned, and it’s done so much to hurt her! Please, just beat me, Atlee! I lose, you win, please take it! I don’t … please don’t hurt her, Atlee. Please just let me fail instead. It’s the only fucking thing I have left I can do for her. Please …” The blood streaming in thin streaks down your cheeks is all too real, crying at the emotions you’re pulling on to convince Atlee to join with you. She observes you coldly, her tentacle under your chin coiling back. You watch it, primed to strike, and feel dread creeping over you that it darting forward is the last thing you’ll ever see.

“Enough begging,” she finally speaks. “You can join. Despite what you think, I’m not a monster. You’ll understand once you’re with us.” You nod, wiping bloody tears away with a weak sniffle. Even succeeding feels a bit like losing in your head right now. “Leave the dress with the sisters. It’s very pretty, I imagine you’ll want it later. Meet me where we started this, Jaquelin. We’ll end it there.”

With that, she hauls herself back over the banister at the top of the stairs without even using the steps, then retreats down the hallway. If you’re understanding her right, to the guest room where Eva and you killed her the first time. Two girls who’ve both died in the same house. ‘My life is so goddamn weird,’ you think as you stand, then carefully remove the dress. The green-eyed girls help you out of it dutifully, leaving you naked before they split to make a pathway to the stairs. You straighten your back, look forward with determination, and march towards the scariest fight of your entire life. ‘Fuck, I hope they can pull it off,’ you think, focusing on your friends as you go to meet the monster.