She looked to be in her early to mid-thirties—a blonde woman with the air of a passionate biker. Her ears were lined with dangling piercings, her left arm covered in tattoos, and she wore a black, sleeveless leather vest.
Rather than gracefully residing in Linhart’s dignified mansion, she seemed far more suited to riding a massive motorcycle down the dusty, desolate highways of Texas—alone, the wind howling past.
She stared at Siron with a look that said she had just met the perfect punching bag, as if the day had already been shitty enough and here was the cherry on top. It was clear she had no intention of letting a delivery guy’s mistake slide.
Fuck. Acting skills. I need my acting skills right now.
Siron took a deep breath, trying to stir up emotions like someone tormented by unbearable guilt. The strange sense of pressure he had felt since stepping inside the entrance only grew heavier the closer the woman approached. Siron, on the verge of losing focus, pulled himself together.
“I’m really sorry. You must’ve waited a while... I don’t know what to say.”
He stepped in close—closer than she had expected—and looked up into her face. The hostility burning in her eyes flickered with a flash of confusion, as if caught off guard while searching for someone to unload her anger onto.
“During delivery, I messed up and spilled one of the two curry sets. But the other one’s fine—if you go ahead and eat that one, I’ll bring a fresh replacement right away, plus a little something extra, on the house.”
Siron looked at her with eyes full of distress. His clear gaze shimmered with moisture, like morning dew clinging to glass. Faced with Siron’s sorrowful expression, pleading silently for sympathy, the woman sucked in a short breath. Then, regaining her senses, she accepted the bag with a faintly trembling hand.
“It’s fine. One’s enough. I’m not in the mood to eat right now anyway.”
Sensing her anger had begun to subside, Siron drove in the final nail with an expression of utter remorse.
“Thank you. I—I mean it. I’m really, truly sorry. If you order again, I’ll make sure to pack in plenty of extras.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Siron gave a soft smile to the woman, who stood stiff and unmoving, still staring at him like she was frozen to the spot. Then he turned and exited the mansion. As the door shut automatically behind him with a mechanical click, Siron’s smile vanished from his face like stone cracking.
The oppressive sensation he’d felt since entering the mansion evaporated as if it had never existed. But the discomfort still clung to his chest. He pressed a palm to his overreacting heart. The delivery mishap had ended without further trouble, and yet he felt desperate to get away from here.
Casting a wary glance at the towering walls, Siron climbed back onto his bike. As he sped through Linhart’s luxury housing district, the wind gradually cooled his nerves. He remembered the woman’s exhausted face.
“Where have I seen her before?”
It was strange. He was certain it was their first time meeting, but she didn’t feel unfamiliar at all.
---
Anna stood frozen, staring blankly at the closed front door. The appearance of that unexpectedly ethereal delivery boy had knocked the wind out of her. She’d dated more pretty men than she could count—cycling through them like cheap wigs—but the curry shop delivery guy was a type of beauty she had never encountered before.
That face didn’t suit a smile—it was made for worry. A face that made you want to frame him for something he didn’t do, just to watch him cry in frustration. And if his lips had a scab from a forced kiss? Even better. That kind of fragile, almost breakable beauty—that’s what that face held.
Realizing she had just spaced out, completely entranced by his face, Anna gave a hollow laugh.
“Well, at least this shitty life comes with a few surprises.”
She carelessly set the curry down on the floor and fished in her pocket for a cigarette and lighter. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely get the cigarette lit. The flame danced wildly before it finally kissed the tip of the cigarette, and Anna inhaled like someone drowning, clawing for oxygen.
One cigarette turned into two, then three in a row. As the chain-smoking dulled her nerves and stopped the trembling, her thoughts blurred into a hazy fog. Feeling slightly dizzy, she picked up the damn curry and headed inside.
The house was deathly silent.
The man who used to greet her like an eager dog, always rushing out to meet her, was lying motionless in the living room. She didn’t spare him a single glance as she walked straight past and into the kitchen.
The curry in the bag was a disaster. The inside was drenched in sauce. The guy had said one set was intact, and technically that was true, but even that one had curry smeared all over the bottom. Normally, Anna would’ve blown up at the restaurant for sending some incompetent delivery punk, demanding to speak to the owner and lodging a furious complaint.
But not today.
She didn’t have the energy to cook. She didn’t even feel like ordering something else. More than anything, she was starving—so hungry it felt like she might faint.
She devoured the curry with a huge soup spoon, then sat there staring blankly at the patterns on the wall across from her. Her body jolted when the silence was shattered by a chillingly cheerful ringtone.
---
SluHanSa Jackson
The call was from Jackson Cliff, a member of SluHanSa, short for {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} People Who Have Overcome Grief, a group therapy community in Baggers City.
It had been two months since Anna last attended a SluHanSa meeting, but Jackson hadn’t given up on her.
---
SluHanSa Jackson:
Anna, please answer. You need people around you when you’re struggling. We’re always on your side.
3:11PM
---
The message floated across her screen.
Anna’s face hardened, chilled by the world’s least convincing display of encouragement. But then, like a collapsing dam, her cold mask cracked into something pitiful.
“We can overcome this. Let’s say it again—‘I can overcome this.’”
She murmured the mantra like a lunatic, as if pleading with herself. I can overcome this. She had brainwashed herself into believing it over the past seven years, clinging to that delusion just to make it this far. She would survive this too—somehow.
Repeating that phrase over and over, lost in a daze, Anna suddenly flinched.
Like biting into a lemon, her mind snapped into clarity. She quickly pulled up her contacts and sent a message.
---
Me:
Am I supposed to live like this forever? Isn’t there any other way to relieve the symptoms?**
---
She sent it to her dealer—H. The reply came instantly.
---
Dealer H:
If you need a refill of the sedative, click the link.
※This is a one-time link. Click only when you’re ready to purchase. :-)
---
It was a soulless auto-reply with no real answers. The smiling emoji felt like a slap in the face—a taunt, an insult aimed at her choices and her very existence.
Anna glared at it, her face twisted in rage. Her whole body trembling, she read the next incoming message.
Dealer H had sent a one-time link to the purchase page for the sedative. Based on past experience, the page would only accept crypto and offer a very limited product line.
There were only four items:
1. A purple ampoule of sedative,
2. A tranquilizer gun—illegally modified revolver with a silencer,
3. Tranquilizer rounds strong enough to drop a ten-foot grizzly,
4. The ampoule-type sedative.
Just one hour ago, Anna McCarthy had pulled the trigger on a tranquilizer round.
Her target: Lewis McCarthy, her younger brother, twelve years her junior.
The woman who had once become a cop for the sake of her family had now turned a gun on her only remaining blood relative.
The revolver had been loaded with tranquilizer rounds that could take down a bear in a single shot. In a panic, Anna had fired like a madwoman at the beast her brother had become, and out of six bullets, three had hit.
Lewis lay sprawled on the floor, completely unresponsive—like a corpse.
Three bear-grade rounds to the body. It was possible Lewis was already dead. As she stared blankly at his back, tears poured from Anna’s eyes like a broken faucet.
Only an hour ago, they’d been having an ordinary afternoon.
Until Lewis McCarthy lost control and tried to assault his sister.
They were both hopeless at cooking and lived mostly on delivery. Today, they’d both been craving something spicy and strong. They’d expanded their search across the river to Riverland and found a highly rated curry shop.
But barely a minute after ordering, Lewis’s condition had begun to shift.
He was gasping for breath, his shoulders rising and falling sharply. When Anna reached out in concern, Lewis recoiled like he’d just been molested—his eyes filled with shame and rage as he slapped her hand away.
His face flushed red, his breath rapid, his gaze filled with contempt and fury—and that’s when Anna realized.
This was it.
The rut cycle that Dealer H had warned her about.
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