-transfixed- Kenna James- Lauren Phillips- Jade... -

“She’s trembling,” Jade observed, her voice a murmur.

Lauren smiled. It was a slow, dangerous curve of lips that didn’t reach her eyes—eyes that were fixed on Kenma with the intensity of a predator who had already calculated every possible escape route and found them lacking. “Neither are you,” she said, her voice a low, smooth resonance. “And yet. Here we are.”

The gallery was closed. The lights were dimmed to a soft, amber glow that dripped from the sconces like honey. She’d only stayed behind to retrieve her forgotten scarf—a thin, silken thing now twisted around her fingers. But as she turned to leave, her heel clicked on the marble floor, and the sound echoed into a side corridor she’d never noticed before. -Transfixed- Kenna James- Lauren Phillips- Jade...

Kenma tried to look away. She tried to remember the layout of the gallery, the exit by the coat check, the night air that would break this spell. But her gaze snagged on Lauren’s movement—the deliberate tilt of her head, the way her free hand gestured to the shadows behind her.

“It’s whether you can,” Jade finished softly. “She’s trembling,” Jade observed, her voice a murmur

Kenma’s breath hitched. She should run. Every rational part of her brain screamed it. But her feet were rooted to the floor. She was transfixed—not by fear, but by something far more destabilizing: the sheer, electric certainty that if she stayed, she would be unmade. And some dark, quiet part of her wanted nothing more.

From the darkness, another figure emerged. Jade. She was softer than Lauren, but no less arresting. Where Lauren was a blade, Jade was a velvet glove hiding steel. She stepped close to Lauren, her fingers trailing along Lauren’s arm before she turned her attention to Kenma. Her expression wasn’t hungry. It was curious. Gentle, even. And somehow, that was worse. “Neither are you,” she said, her voice a

Kenna James knew she shouldn’t be here.