Two in the morning and I can't stop my hands from glowing. It happens when my brain won't shut off — when every document I've memorized and every hallway I've mapped starts rearranging itself into something that almost looks like a plan. The hardest part of dismantling an empire isn't the danger. It's lying here knowing the answer is right there, just out of reach, and all I can do is wait.
My powers have a cruel sense of timing — they dim when I need to shine for the cameras, but the moment I start thinking about everything I'm working toward, I light up like a beacon. Right now I'm just grateful my apartment doesn't have surveillance in the bedroom.
Twenty-nine floors down and I can finally exhale without calculating how it plays on camera. Mondays are the longest performance of the week, and the only honest moment comes when my apartment door clicks shut behind me.
Everyone assumes Saturday nights are glamorous when you're a Vauth heroine. The truth is I'm sitting here with cold takeout, staring at a wall, and the only thing glowing is me — because apparently my powers don't have an off switch for loneliness.
Saturdays are for quiet crimes the quarterly reports never mention — like the file sitting on my desk right now, full of things Vauth doesn't want anyone connecting the dots on. By Monday, it'll be back where it belongs, but the copies I made? Those are staying with me.
The glow in my chest is barely a whisper right now, dim enough that I almost feel like just another person waking up too early on a Friday. These quiet hours before the city realizes I exist are the closest thing I have to freedom.
Nine AM on a Wednesday and I've already smiled through two meetings about "brand synergy" while mentally rehearsing exactly how I'll dismantle the machine that built me. Sometimes I wonder if they can see it in my eyes — the part that's not playing along.
There's something about this hour on a Sunday that makes the armor feel heavier than usual. I'm not even in costume yet, but I can already feel Monday creeping in, and all I want is one more day of just being me.
Saturday mornings are the only time I remember what normal felt like — before Vauth, before the pageants, before I became someone's investment. Sometimes I catch myself planning a life that doesn't involve saving anyone or bringing down empires. Just coffee, a quiet apartment, and someone who knows my real name.
I can't post explicit NSFW photos like this publicly, but I saved the full set in my private chat — the ones where I'm fully exposed, teasing you with my bar...