Holy.  Shit.

I look over at Michael's body next to mine and press my face into my hands.  God, how could I be so stupid?  He's the fucking Antichrist, yet I slept with him.  Not to mention that I still have very mixed feelings about him, especially considering the fact that I thought he hated me up until last night.  Even then, I doubt he would hesitate to kill me if I turned on him.

Not to mention that the Halloween ball is only in three days, meaning that we have a few days to figure out our plan.

Wait a minute... shit, I completely forgot about mine and Michael's competition.  Today's the last day of that.  But who even knows if we're competing anymore.  Obviously, a lot has happened since we began the competition.

The last time I checked, it was 2-1, me winning.  Since then I've mind-controlled Venable to make her punish Gallant, told Coco the false rumor about Mead, and caused a scene in front of the whole outpost when Mead tried to take me to the interrogation room.  Michael has broken me out of interrogation, confronted Mead, and pulled his little stunt with my dress.  That puts us at 5-4, me still in the lead.

Michael rolls over in bed to face me.  "You're thinking intensely," he observes.

I quickly stand up and grab my corset from the foot of the bed.  "Last night was a mistake," I state as I throw it on.

"You and I both know that's a lie," he rolls his eyes as he sits up.

"No, it is not.  Your father clearly meant for us to be allies, not lovers!" I scoff, doing my best to quickly tie the corset.

"And you've said it a million times; he was wrong to make us allies."

"Which only makes this," I motion between us, "Even more wrong."  I ignore my terrible job at tying the corset and walk over to my dress lying in the middle of the room.

"Well, it certainly didn't feel wrong to me," he states as he stands up.  "And I'm sure it didn't feel wrong to you either."

I roll my eyes as I step into my dress.  "Michael, carnal pleasure happens to be in your realm of expertise, considering your lineage and all."

While I'm working at putting my dress on, Michael walks toward me. I keep my back to him, doing my best to ignore him. That is, until I feel his body press against mine from behind. His right hand grabs mine to stop me from tying my dress back on while his left hand rests on my left shoulder. My breath hitches in my throat, and I don't need to see him to know that he's smirking at that. "Now, Valentina, I know that you enjoyed yourself last night. Why fight against something that feels so good?"

His left hand moves toward my neck, his fingers finding the tender spots where bruises are beginning to form. 

"Michael, it's a-" I gasp as he puts the slightest bit of pressure on the bruises. "-moral... issue." I'm clearly struggling to keep it together, and he knows that.

As he applies more pressure to the point where I feel pain, my body instinctively arches toward his touch. "Your words say one thing, but your body says another."

"My body betrays me."

"Your body knows what's best for you. Start listening to it."

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, using all my willpower not to cave here and now.

Michael chuckles from behind me. "What is it that you're fighting against? We both want this. Just give in."

I open my eyes and take one step forward. I turn to Michael, and he releases me. "This is textbook temptation. The shit they teach you in Sunday school."

A deep chuckle leaves his chest. "Sweetheart, they don't teach you to resist temptation after you fucked it all night long the previous night."

"Nobody's perfect."

"Nobody's been hand-picked by the devil to be his son's ally."

I let out an annoyed scoff, suddenly having no problem with rejecting him as this topic has been brought up.  "How many times do I have to make it clear that I don't accept the status of being your ally?"

"Are we really going back to this argument again?" he asks condescendingly.

"It's fine," I sigh as I hastily tie my dress back together.  "You see, we're going to get on the same page after we're finished with our competition, which is over after today by the way."

"You still want to do that?" he asks, intrigued.

I nod.  "I'm ahead, 5-4, so I sure as hell want to keep going and win this."

He smirks.  "Really?"

"You seem to think that you have a shot at this.  What I'm about to make go down before the end of the day will put your ideas to shame."

"You seem awfully confident for somebody who's only ahead by one."

"Soon to be more," I assure him smugly.

He chuckles as he begins walking to pick up his discarded clothes on the floor, but I quickly grab his wrist.  "And if you dare bring up this incident again, I will not hesitate to kill you with my bare hands."

He smirks as I release his wrist.  "Is that a promise?"

"I promise I'll bash your pretty face in if you make one more suggestive comment."

He chuckles amusedly, but I ignore him and transmutate into my own room, immediately heading for the shower.  I smell overwhelmingly of Michael; anybody to come within 10 feet of me would know immediately what went down between us last night.

I sigh as I fling off my dress, it coming off easily due to my haste in putting it on.  I feel so... dirty.  I don't even wait for the water to heat up before getting in; the quicker I can wash myself the better.  

As I reach for the soap, I notice the bruises forming all over my wrists.  Fuck.  I block out all the memories threatening to come to mind as I scrub my wrists vigorously with my loofa.

Why the hell am I even doing this?  It's not like scrubbing the bruises is going to make them go away.  It's not going to change what I did last night.  It's not going to change the fact that I'm a goddamn idiot and should have never let that happen.

I look back down at the loofa and notice blood on it.  I drop it to the ground as I examine my wrists.  Great, I just scrubbed my left wrist raw.  I rinse my wrist off in the water, ignoring the stinging from the soap.

I slowly bring my head into my hands.  God, I really just fucked things up.

......

"Where the hell were you?" Coco asks as I walk into the sitting room. "You missed breakfast.  I was scared to death that Mead got to you."

"Don't worry, I'm fine," I assure her.

She skeptically looks me up and down.  "What's up with the dress today?"

"Nothing."  It's a long-sleeve turtleneck dress that I have never worn before, but nothing else covered up enough.

As I'm sitting down, her eyes widen.  She quickly leans towards me and lowers her voice.  "Is that a hickey?"

I realize that my turtleneck fell a little bit too far down my neck, so I pull it back up.  "Coco, leave it," I warn, knowing that she would never believe me if I tried to lie about it.

"Who?" she asks.  "Although, I think I already know the answer."

"Coco, I swear to fucking god, if you don't drop it right now-"

"I'll drop it.  But only if you tell me who.  Was it him?  I mean, the only other possible option would probably be Venable, but he's much more likely."

"I will tell Venable that I saw you fucking a male Gray and she'll be extremely pissed off since you did so without telling her first," I threaten.

"You wouldn't."  She doesn't look so convinced.

"Oh, but I would."

She huffs in protest.  "Fine."  After being silent for a few seconds, she turns to me.  "So let's say that you hypothetically were to have sex with someone here.  Who would it be?"

I send her an unamused glare.  "You," I state simply, my tone not making it clear that I'm joking.

She narrows her eyes.  "You aren't actually serious."

"Want to test me?" I mock.

She rolls her eyes.  "You wouldn't."

I chuckle.  "Maybe I'm feeling unpredictable today."

"You feel unpredictable every day."

I shrug.  "You're not wrong."

We immediately drop the conversation once Venable enters the room.  She sends a skeptical glance at my dress but decides to not question it.  "How many more meals are you going to be missing, Ms. Callistra?" she asks. I can tell by the frustrated look in her eyes that she knows I missed breakfast because of a Michael-related issue.

I sigh before meeting her eyes. "It won't happen again, Ms. Venable," I say, my voice more sincere than I've ever heard it.

She realizes how serious I was about that promise as she nods, all the while holding intense eye contact with me. "I will hold you to that."

......

"That dress is an interesting choice," Michael speculates as he steps out of his room.

I stop walking toward the sitting room and turn on my heel to face him.  "I am not in the mood-"

"Don't worry, I like it," he says almost mockingly as he walks toward me.  He looks me up and down, and I send him a glare in response.  He stops right in front of me and leans forward so that his lips are directly next to my ear.  "The turtleneck doesn't cover it all."  

I sharply inhale as his fingertips brush against a spot of my exposed neck; however, I quickly recover and pull the turtleneck up to cover the spot.  "Enough, Michael."

He sends me an incredulous look as he drops his hand.  "You genuinely regret having sex with me," he remarks.

"Has it taken you this long to realize?" I question as I push past him to walk to the sitting room.

"What is it that has you so morally opposed to this? Have we somehow never brushed over the topic of past religious trauma?"

"No, no," I insist. "I know this may be hard for you to wrap your mind around, but I simply can't entertain the idea of having a relationship with a man who killed 7 billion people."

"Oh, come on, that's only one of my few red flags," he protests.

"Please don't make me start to delve into all of your red flags right now - we'll be here for hours."

"Personally, I think it's rich that you're the one lecturing me on red flags."

My eyes go wide as I take offense to that. "Woah."

"Just saying, the only worse red flag I have than you is the murderous tendencies, which in my defense, is just what I was born to do."

"Well then in that case, I was born to be a bitch."

"And I don't hold that red flag against you."

"Oh, if you think you're about to justify your actions based off of mine-"

"No, I know I'm about to justify my actions based off of yours."

I stop and turn to him, crossing my arms over my chest.  "Can you really not let it go?  I've made myself perfectly clear; we made a mistake, and I will not be stupid enough to repeat that mistake."

"No, it wasn't a mistake," Michael argues.  "I have no regrets, and I think that deep down, you don't either."

I look at him disbelievingly as I begin to turn away.  "You are absolutely ridiculous-"  I quickly stop upon noticing all the eyes in the sitting room on us.  "Fuck," I mutter under my breath.

Everyone stares at us silently for a few seconds, waiting for somebody else to bring up the awkward situation.  Ms. Venable steps forward, a look somewhere between apprehension and betrayal on her face. "What the hell is going on here?" she asks.

I open my mouth to make up an excuse, but nothing comes out.  

"You see, Ms. Venable," Michael states from behind me, stepping forward to be next to me.  "Ms. Callistra and I have been maintaining a relationship."

I quickly turn to him.  "Michael, shut up right now," I hiss low enough for only him to hear.  I turn back to Venable and everybody else.  "Mr. Langdon does not know what he's talking about."

"I know perfectly well what I'm talking about," Michael states.

Venable raises a brow.  "Go on, Mr. Langdon."

"What the hell are you playing at?" I question Michael harshly.

He smirks as he ignores me.  "In fact, we even-"

"Don't you dare say it," I interrupt.

He ignores me again.  "-had sex last night."

Everyone's eyes go wide and I grab Michael's arm.  "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

He looks at me smugly.  "Now it's 5-5, soon to be 5-6."

"You bitch."

Michael smirks as Gallant speaks up. "Wait, so you two are fucking?" he asks, the betrayal clear in his voice.

"No," I state at the same time that Michael says, "Yes." I glare at him as Gallant sends us a confused look.

"It was a one-time deal," I state coldly. "It's not going to happen again."

"So you claim," Michael says under his breath.

I send him another glare which only makes him look at me smugly. 

"Now, I have made the rules perfectly clear," Venable states.  "The no copulation rule has been revoked, but you still must come to me before engaging with members of the opposite sex."

"Ms. Venable," he tsks.  "We all know that you made up the no copulation rule, so you are quite clearly in no place to be lecturing me and Ms. Callistra on this."

"Wait, what?" Coco asks.  "You mean she made up the no copulation rule?"

Venable stares at us speechlessly.  After a few seconds, she turns to me.  "I thought we had agreed not to expose this."

"We did," I reply pointedly as I shoot Michael a side-eye.  "Langdon here has decided to go rogue."

I expect Michael to make some snarky comment in response, but he is instead staring ahead blankly at Ms. Venable. 

"What other rules have you been making up, Ms. Venable?" Dinah questions.

She stares at Dinah emotionlessly.  "The Cooperative said that I could create any rules that I saw fit."

"Bullshit," Emily scoffs. "You took the liberty of rule-making into your own hands after the apocalypse. I saw the email receipts in Langdon's computer."

"What other rules did she make up?" Dinah asks, now directing her question at Emily.

"Basically everything," she replies bitterly. "The dress code, the Grays and Purples, and the 'Morning After' bullshit with playing that song nonstop."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Coco shouts.  "I've gone through psychological torture with having to listen to that song on repeat!"

"How is that what you're most concerned about?" Mallory asks, clearly offended.  "I've been living like a slave these last 19 months just to find out that all these bullshit rules were made up."  She sends an angry glare at Venable.

"I did what was necessary to keep the natural order," Venable states coldly.

"Oh, bullshit," Coco scoffs as she stands up.  "I've had enough of this."  She dramatically exits the room.

"You're sick," Mallory spits at Venable before following Coco.  I've never seen Mallory so enraged, so I know this is bad.

"Timothy died because of your power trip," Emily seethes as she exits after Mallory.

"Tell me, was that stew actually Stu?" Andre asks, disgusted, from his seat.

Venable looks down.  

"Well, there's my answer," Andre states venomously as he leaves the room.

I'm so engaged in the scene in front of me that I don't realize until now that Michael has been silent for this whole expose he caused. He is continuing to stare at Venable, the look on his face somewhere between angry and confused.

I gently nudge him. "Hey, you good?"

He doesn't even look at me. Instead, he turns and leaves the room without a word. 

I quickly follow after him as he turns the corner. However, as soon as I round the corner behind him, he has disappeared. Realizing he must have transmutated, I transmutate to his room. 

As I expected, he is in there, standing in front of his desk. Although I'm sure that he can tell I'm here, he doesn't acknowledge me.

"Michael, is something wrong? You never miss an opportunity to gloat, especially when it comes to showing me up."

When he turns to me, I can see the mess of emotions behind his eyes. He looks angry, betrayed, shocked, frustrated. His voice sounds raw and betrayed as he asks, "How could you?"