Page 90 of Problematic

You keep trying to disappear, Little Flower, but I have always been drawn to things that thrive in the dark.

I read it again.

And again.

I did disappear. At work. In crowds. In conversations about power and bloodlines and marks I didn’t have. I made drinks, smiled, got out of the way, and took up less space because space had never felt like mine to take.

The book stayed open in my lap.

More black tabs waited ahead, dozens of them, a trail of jokes and threats and observations. I glanced at the larger box. The one I hadn’t opened yet. My pulse jumped again. I bit my lip and wrestled with myself for a moment. Then, I reached for the ribbon.

“This better not be a body part.” The ribbon came loose, and the paper peeled away. Under it sat a matte-black box with no logo, no label, no helpful clue whatsoever. It looked menacingly expensive. I lifted the lid. My brain went completely blank.

I stared into the box.

Then I slammed it shut.

“No! He didn’t.”

My face caught fire. My ears. My neck. My entire body went so hot I could have powered the ward on my front door with pure humiliation. I opened it again.

Still there, nestled in black tissue paper like some demonic artifact dug out of a cursed temple, sat the most obscene object I had ever seen outside of the forbidden side of the Internet.

The toy gleamed softly in the lamplight, black down the shaft with deep-red ridges curling through it like veins of heat. The head was blunt and pronounced, textured in a way that made my thighs press together before my brain could finish screaming at them. Near the base were two swollen knots, thick and bulging and absolutely not designed for the faint of heart, beginner-level optimism, or women who still considered themselves mostly normal.

I stared. “That is a weapon, not a sex toy.” My voice cracked. I picked up the little card tucked beside it with the stiff fingers of a woman handling evidence.

His handwriting curved across thick black cardstock in silver ink this time, because, apparently, the man had diversified.

For when the book is no longer sufficient.

I stopped breathing. I made a strangled sound and slapped the card face down on the bed.

“Nope. No. Absolutely not.” My gaze flicked back to it. Double knotted, my brain helpfully supplied. The phrase alone almost took me out.

I looked away.

Looked back.

Mistake.

It was huge.

Beyond cartoonish. Big. Worse. Believable enough to make some deeply unwell part of my imagination start doing math, and math had no place in my bedroom. Especially not geometry.

“I am going to die of embarrassment in my own apartment, and the Guard will find me next to an unreleased stalker romance and a demon dildo with two knots. My grandmother did not survive an uprising for this.”

I lowered my hands and glared at the box. My body, treacherous and, apparently, oblivious to danger, reacted.

The camera sat under the ribbon where I’d almost forgotten it. I picked it up slowly. Another tiny card had been tucked beneath it.

Your placement. Your choice.

This was stupid and dangerous and also the most fun I’d had in forever. I was going to die. This was me poking the monster in the dark and hoping it flirted instead of murdering me. I chucked the camera into the black box.

“There,” I said, voice shaking despite my best efforts. “Your turn, Murder Boy.”

The lights flickered once. My whole body went rigid. Nothing moved. I hated this. I loved it. I hated that I loved it, that tiny thrill that shot through me every time something shadowy moved outside.