23rd of November, 2018disciple-of-bnchard: ive been thinkingdisciple-of-bnchard: we cant be certain 5g waves dont cause health problemsrees-mogged: ?????disciple-of-bnchard: think about itrees-mogged: I'd rather notdisciple-of-bnchard: has anyone ever done proper experiment with a control grouprees-mogged: Probablyrees-mogged: That's how things workdisciple-of-bnchard: but you dont knowdisciple-of-bnchard: can you really trust 5grees-mogged: Yesrees-mogged: It's harmlessrees-mogged: Just weird waves in the skydisciple-of-bnchard: you know what else is just wavesdisciple-of-bnchard: microwavedisciple-of-bnchard: would you microwave yourself RMrees-mogged: That's differentdisciple-of-bnchard: how do you know its differentrees-mogged: It’s got like a different patentdisciple-of-bnchard: oh youve read the patent have youdisciple-of-bnchard: tell medisciple-of-bnchard: what exactly is differentrees-mogged: The waves and stuff arerees-mogged: Fuck if I knowrees-mogged: I’m not an engineerdisciple-of-bnchard: im concluding that you would microwave yourselfdisciple-of-bnchard: like youre a tesco ready mealdisciple-of-bnchard: or leftover macaronirees-mogged: At least I know how to work a microwave retarddisciple-of-bnchard: no you dontrees-mogged: Yes I dorees-mogged: Unlike yourees-mogged: You keep burning your mealsdisciple-of-bnchard: thats because its broken faggotrees-mogged: How do you know its brokenrees-mogged: Did you check the patentrees-mogged: Hm?rees-mogged: All silent now huhrees-mogged: Got no response to that?disciple-of-bnchard: patent_US2704802A.pdfdisciple-of-bnchard: check it outdisciple-of-bnchard: mine doesnt look like thatdisciple-of-bnchard: so its brokenrees-mogged: That's a patent from 1952 you meltrees-mogged: Of course it doesn't look like thatdisciple-of-bnchard: no YOU meltdisciple-of-bnchard: youre the one in the microwavedarjeeling: umdarjeeling: what the fuck is going on heredisciple-of-bnchard: just destroying RM with facts and logicdisciple-of-bnchard: as per usualdarjeeling: ohdarjeeling: have fun then

  2nd of March, 2019Things have been way too tense tely. Jenny is more uppity than she's ever been. Which is terrifying, given the baseline of uppity-ness Jenny established many years ago. Whatever Faith told her st week hasn't made her rex— if anything, it's just empowered her. She’s much happier to make her opinions known, and to do so rather loudly, much to the annoyance of everyone around her. More generously, it’s just a drift back to the norm of Jenny being very present in the lives of those around her.

  At least her disapproval has been focused on the sponsors since then. She's mostly decided to ignore Amy in her soapboxing. That doesn't mean Jenny likes her — she seems to fucking hate her, really — but at least she's keeping it to herself in some kind of recognition that they are, in fact, in this together. Even Amy and Faith's retionship has stayed out of her general ire. At most, Jenny gres at them. There’s not been a single nasty comment all week!

  That's exactly what Amy doesn't like about this. She knows Jenny better than almost anyone in the world. She's someone who talks, like a lot, all the time. Says what she thinks, unfiltered, unbothered. It's why she was drawn to 4chan in the first pce. If Jenny had one of those Maslow's pyramids of needs of her own, she'd have an extra level added below the physiological simply titled 'talking shit'. She especially needs to talk shit with or about Amy. Because she bites a little too easily — she likes to bite, just to see where the conversation will lead — and because neither of them are quick to back down from any discussion, no matter how stupid it is. Jenny needs her much more than either of them would like to admit.

  The fact she isn't even trying to talk to her anymore means she hates Amy more than she enjoys beating her, whilst such conflict would only have left her more motivated to do so in the past. It’s a big sign their friendship might have been shattered in a way that’s going to be hard, if not impossible, to mend.

  Amy's tried to talk to her a few times over the past week, just for Jenny to tell her to fuck off so loudly that it makes Faith flinch. Clearly she's not over Amy telling her to drop any escape pns yet. At some level, Amy understands that, it’s something she struggled to accept as well, a number of weeks ago. The alternative to escape isn’t too appealing. But it’s just the reality of the situation they’re in.

  That reality also means that Jenny might never forgive her, given the things she’s going to be exposed to.

  Just another thing to be depressed about.

  Things just continue to get worse and worse by the day, and all Amy can do is try — and fail — to cope with everything thrown at her. Take joy in the small things offered to her. Those things wouldn’t have left her content even a few months ago, but her standards have been so thoroughly lowered that they might well be underground.

  Vivienne asked her if she wanted to help voice train Faith that morning, and Amy readily agreed— spending extra time with Faith sounded nice, even if it was in the presence of a sponsor. Even if it was to help with her girlfriend’s impending feminisation.

  Especially because it was to help with exactly that, really. She’s seen how dysphoric Faith can get at times, with her voice being a recurring topic of what is wrong with her. She’s learned to hear her voice as it actually is over the past few months — a necessary step in trying to fix her voice — and it means that she feels inadequate with every word she says.

  So Amy joins them today.

  The curriculum seemed to have mostly devolved into talking after two months of voice training. Simply talking in a feminine voice. Sure, they were expected to push their voices as far as they thought they could manage to keep up for an hour, and sponsors paid attention to the more advanced things as well, such as intonation and body nguage, at least in Amy’s case.

  But they mostly just talked about whatever came up. Like they used to before ending up in the manor, just face-to-face.

  It didn't take Amy very long to see exactly why they thought Faith needed some help. She could talk, yes, and she did her best to do so as long as possible, but her voice would end up breaking down about fifteen minutes in. Apparently that, in itself, already was an improvement. The reason why she is struggling is obvious, though. She's talking more loudly than normal, has fewer pauses in her speech, and also needs to pay attention to pitch whilst making sure she's staying in head voice. And it's not like the pitch of her voice is particurly high, either. It’s still lower than the pitch Amy had whilst using her boy voice prior to ending up at the manor— it pcing so much stress on her voice that she runs out of steam after mere minutes definitely implies they're going about this all wrong. That they’re pushing her too hard.

  "She doesn't need voice training," She says, immediately drawing a curious eye from Vivienne. "She needs voice therapy. Very different things."

  "We know." Vivienne responds, sitting next to Faith and visibly holding her hand. "But that's not something we can offer. To put it very bluntly: I'm a nurse, Rose is a chemist, Lulu studied Art History and Eira is a sociologist. None of us can do any formal voice training beyond what you'll find in guides you can find online, on Dorley’s servers.” Amy is a little surprised that Vivienne would drop the name of Dorley Hall so openly around Faith. “We can teach her the exercises we've done dozens of times ourselves, but it's not going to do much for her right now."

  Amy nods. She'd guessed as much, despite not really having been pushed in her own voice training much. From what she’d heard, it seemed rather typical, a selection of some of the same exercises she’d used but applied to general speaking, rather than singing. Which meant that most of what Amy had to do was learn to consistently combine the elements of a feminine she already had, whilst Jenny and Faith had to cultivate entirely new ones.

  "Hence why I asked you for help." Vivienne continues. "You have formal training in singing. You taught yourself to sing like a woman, and yes, we've all heard it— those were some lovely recordings. And that's something you'd also have had to practice for, dozens of times, doing the same exercise over and over again to get somewhere useful. And I think Faith would benefit from those exercises more than she would ours, at least right now."

  "You want me to teach her how to sing." Amy concludes.

  "It'd be lovely if you could." Vivienne says, grinning a little. "But we were more going for the somewhat less ambitious goal of expanding the range of her pitch and giving her voice more..." She thinks of the word, then falls short and shrugs.

  "Presence? Intensity?" Amy offers.

  "Both of those, I think." Viv says. "What else would you want, Faith?"

  "Oh, um." Faith looks up, a little surprised she had to talk again during an exercise that was supposed to make her talk. "I'm happy as long as my voice doesn't make me so dysphoric." She then pauses again, looking down at the floor, blushing. "And the singing does sound nice, maybe."

  "Stretch goal?" Amy asks.

  “Sounds nice.” Faith nods, her voice meek and demure as it always was. They’ll have a lot of work to do in the future.

  ***

  "Oh. It's you." Jenny says, wrapped up into her covers, staring down a pile of books that Eira has passively-aggressively added to over the past few weeks. She’s so behind on her homework now that she can’t hide the books in her wardrobe anymore, and Rose has put them back on the nightstand every time she found them during an inspection. Amy isn’t sure what the pn is, here, other than annoying Jenny into maybe reading one of them once.

  "It's just me, Amy." She confirms nonchantly. "Were you expecting anyone else?"

  Jenny stares her down for one reason or another, then rolls her eyes and returns to talking to her again for the first time in a week. "Of the six people who could have walked through that door, just one would have been fine." She sneers. "And I assume he’s busy cooking.”

  The three of them are supposed to take turns cooking with their sponsors. Theoretically. Jenny has been considered too much of a risk to even be allowed into the kitchen the past few weeks, and because Amy spent the morning with Vivienne, Kelynen suggested that she take Faith for the afternoon. It's a fair enough deal: Kelynen likes to cook and Vivienne apparently needed some time off.

  It is for them, at least. Because Amy doesn't get to spend her afternoon with the ever-cheerful Kelynen, or the rather nice but strict Vivienne— she gets to spend her time with a very grumpy Jenny, who is making it very clear that she's annoyed by the mere concept of Amy's existence.

  "Faith's cooking indeed." She says, then watches Jenny get very annoyed at that too.

  "Dar's cooking." Jenny corrects her. Or it's more like she thinks she corrects her, given the fact that no one except her truly wants Faith to be Dar anymore. Even Faith herself has ended up thoroughly neutral on the question. “Don’t think I don’t notice the name thing, RM.”

  "You should be happy about the fact that they’re cooking. At least you're going to get something edible today." Amy quips, thoroughly unwilling to discuss the point about the name.

  "He’s cooking. I'm sure you are all too happy about that." Jenny sits up in her bed, seemingly just so she has an easier time staring at Amy. "I mean, it's what you always wanted right? Dar gets to be your pretty little girlfriend, he gets to cook for you and care for you and be such an amazing partner whilst you go off and do like, real people stuff. Except now you're not doing real people stuff, you're just another fucking maid in some weird freak's castle. But you still get to be together with him. You get to wife him. And like, congratutions, you got what you all but explicitly stated you wanted for five bloody years. I hope it was all fucking worth it."

  "What would have been worth it?" Amy asks, more confused than anything.

  "You know what I mean." Jenny raises her voice. "All of this! The fucking forced feminisation. Being turned into what we set out never to become. Our dumb, disgusting fetishes becoming reality against our will. The stupid dresses and panties and make-up and voice training and the bloody tucking. Everything. The things you promised we would never do. You said you’d rather die than go through all that. But I guess you forgot about that promise, huh? Or at least pretend you have, just so you can be all cute with Dar and such. Leaving me in the dust. But you don’t care, do you? I was always the third wheel in our friendship. Not rude enough to kick out, just amusing enough to keep around."

  "I'm sorry for making you jealous, I guess." Amy says, sitting down on her own bed and grabbing her book off the nightstand. It’s the first fiction book they’ve gotten since arriving at the manor. Reading about a transgender vampire’s exploits sounds much more fun than dealing with Jenny right now.

  "'I'm sorry'? Is that all you got?" Jenny shouts. "You just think I'm jealous? I wish that was the only thing I had to worry about! It'd be so nice if the biggest issue in my life was my two best friends finally getting together like they’d always threatened to. I'd take that in an instant. But no, that's just the icing on the entire yered cake of shit that's my life nowadays. It seems like you forget this sometimes but we've been kidnapped and are being tortured with electric shocks until we accept our fate as trannies. Though I’m not sure you’re even getting those shocks anymore. You’ve been too well-behaved for that. Really, I’m surprised you’ve not been getting shocks as a reward. And sure, in literature, that can be fucking hot, and I know you think Eira is fucking hot too, but I'm just sitting here and thinking about the fact I could have been nearing graduation by now. Getting a job. Getting a girlfriend. A wife. One and a half kids. A house in a dreary suburb in London and a second-hand car. You know, a life? The thing we wanted to do instead of throwing it all away trooning? But that’s all gone now. Instead I'm fucking here, and I have no control over my life anymore, I need to do chores and read books and, oh yeah, my friends are dating and I'm going to be forever alone in this stupid manor."

  She stares at Jenny for a moment, entirely unsure how to even start to respond to that. There's just so much there! There's so much there that isn't Amy's fault in any way, which is being taken out on her regardless. She doesn’t know why Jenny decided to rant at her today of all days, and doesn’t really care either. Rose probably made one too many jokes at her expense. She can shock her if Jenny yells at her, whilst all Amy can do is sit there and listen. It just implies Jenny doesn't particurly care about who is the target of her ire— Amy's there, and she's annoyed with her because she's jealous, so she can put up with several weeks worth of built-up frustration.

  It's not something she's particurly interested in dealing with today.

  "I'm going for a fucking shower." Amy announces, putting her book down and walking towards the door. "Don't bother to call me for dinner— I'll be back whenever I'm done."

  "Wasn't going to call you, anyways." Jenny scoffs. “Dinner with Dar and no one else sounds really fucking nice right about now, actually.”

  "Seems like we can agree on that, still.” She responds, trying to sm the door shut behind her but being forced to watch as the automatic closing mechanism catches it just before she could get that satisfaction.

  ***

  Showering was nice. It was really nice, actually, in a way Amy hadn't expected it to be. She doesn't just feel fresh and clean, but also smooth— she had decided that a full body shave was in order, after having left the issue for a week longer than she should have — it's not like it grew all that fast in the first pce — and just getting it all done makes her feel so much more alive than she's ever felt before.

  The dysphoria is slowly slipping away and giving room for something approaching, if not euphoria, at least neutrality.

  It's really hard to deny that her body has changed a lot over the past three months. For one, her skin is a whole lot softer. It being so much softer is really hard to ignore now, especially after shaving it and applying some moisturiser. Her skin feels right now. Another thing to notice is that she's getting more of a shape. It's not much yet, but it's impossible to ignore that the weight gained since she starved herself has gone more to certain parts of her body than it had in the past.

  The main thing, though, is that she's growing little bags of meat on her chest now. It doesn't qualify as any kind of cup yet, she doesn't think, but whatever is there is impossible to ignore. The beginnings of boobs. Her boobs. If she takes into account what she knows about HRT from 4chan and considers just how early on into her transition it really is, well...

  It's an auspicious sign for what's to come. Bigger bags of meat, that’s for certain. Maybe even a whole cup size or two.

  A part of her — a weak, pathetic, overly horny part of her — wants to see just how rge they will grow, whether it is actually possible to chisel a woman out of the body she had grown into over the years, whether she would be any pretty at the end of it all.

  Her eyes fall on the parts she dislikes — her shoulders, her face, her thing — and she remembers just how na?ve that thought really was. She’s always going to look like a man in a dress, and nothing else.

  Amy really doesn’t want to linger on that thought, not today. She should really just get out of here and return to the bedroom for dinner. She's been gone for a while, so it should be done by now. Faith should be back, and they can cuddle. Cuddle, as if Jenny doesn't hate her, as if her transition isn't shaping up to be a total and complete failure, as if any of them wanted any of this to happen.

  Cuddle, as if she isn't losing everything she once held dear.

  Fuck. Amy needs her so bad.

  So she makes sure she's fully dressed — in her pyjamas, for the evening — and heads out into the hallway, dirty undry under her arms, ready to be left at the door in the hallway to be processed by some unlucky maid in the morning. Knowing her luck, she’s going to be the one put on undry duty.

  She approaches the door and hears Jenny shouting again, at Faith this time. Her first instinct is to hurry towards it and try to intervene, stopping whatever is happening in its tracks, but then she hears what Jenny is shouting about and completely freezes. It seems to be about her.

  "I don't fucking care what happens to that quisling, Dar." Jenny says, obviously incensed beyond belief. "Yes, yes, I know you like him— but that's part of the whole plot! That's what he wants you to think, he wants to be your siren, to trick you into a false sense of security. To ease you into femininity, into... into whatever they have pnned for us."

  Amy holds her ear to the door and tries to catch whatever Faith is saying. Luckily, Faith also seems to be getting passionate, her voice pushed into what sounds almost like a normal speaking voice.

  "He wouldn't." Faith responds. "He protected me, you know. When Vivienne was going to tase me. He could barely walk and still put himself between us. He— He didn’t even know it was me, not yet."

  "And he also encourages you to become a girl because he wants to be like AGPs together, or whatever." Jenny counters. "He held you so you were forced to be injected, Dar, for god’s sake. He works for the sponsors. It's so obvious that he is. That's why he's going to teach you how to voice train! That’s why he told me not to fight back! Either he's been recruited or he's so weak he lets himself be used. Either way, he's no better than any of them, and certainly no ally of ours.”

  Amy gets down on the floor as silently as she can and holds back her tears. Is that really what Jenny thinks of her? As a traitor?

  "He's trying to protect us." Faith says. "He has his own ideas about what's going on, and whilst I can't really confirm their validity in any way, I— He thinks we're going to be turned into sex sves, you know?"

  Amy’s heart rate increases considerably. Faith heard all that? She knows what’s going to happen to them? She really wants to hold her now, if only to comfort her with that realisation.

  Though, it really wouldn’t be a realisation, would it? It’s been almost two months since that conversation with Eira.

  That also means it’s been almost two months since she stopped fighting back. No wonder Jenny thinks she’s working for the sponsors. She’d have seen at most a week and a half of resistance, and she must admit that it was rather half-hearted at the time too.

  Fuck.

  "Of course he thinks we’ll become sex sves. That's what he wants, probably. Deep down. He’s into freakier shit than that. But please don't tell me you believe that nonsense too."

  "I don't." She says, then corrects herself. "I'm pretty sure I don't. Like I said, I cannot really confirm the theory, nor throw it out per se— though Vivienne doesn't seem like the person to do so. Nor does Kelynen. Or Rose, if what you say about her is correct."

  Jenny interrupts for a second, having realised something. "But that Elle woman, she would. She looked at us like we were prey. And Eira is no better. She actually scares me more than Elle does— she would feed me into a woodchipper if she could get away with it, the evil bitch."

  "I heard Eira deny it too. The two were talking about it in one of the rooms downstairs. Elle had just left. It was the day after Amy got sent to the cells, and Eira clearly wasn’t done with her yet. Maybe she is that cruel — I don’t know, she’s rather nice to me, but what you tell me sounds much less cordial than she is in my meetings with her — but like you said, Elle definitely seems like the type. And Eira works for her. So…"

  "Well, of course Eira would deny it, even if it was true.” Jenny lowers her voice, seemingly actually in thought about this. So the evidence for it is Amy's horny fantasies and just the general vibes of the owner of this manor, and the evidence against it is, like, Eira saying it isn't true. And common sense. I— I can see why you’re uncertain about this."

  "It doesn't matter whether it's true or not. What matters is that he believes it. And he’s clearly panicking over this, and should get some benefit of the doubt. He’s… he’s our friend, Ray. You’ve known him for almost a decade!"

  Amy sniffles and finally realises that she started to cry at some point. How couldn’t she cry? Her best friend and girlfriend are arguing about whether he’s a traitor or just a scared, pathetic loser.

  "That just makes his betrayal worse! What, he's willing to colborate with the people turning us into sex sves in his own depraved mind? Like, fuck, he had a boner watching me get tased that first day. He likes to watch all this happen. Do we matter that little to him? We’re just like, fucking real life porn or some shit? And if we are, why should his fate matter to us? He doesn’t care about ours, not if he can’t jerk off to it at least."

  "Ray—"

  "You know I'm right." Jenny says. “He’s just as much of a threat as the sponsors are, except in our very own bedroom.”

  "He's as terrified as you and me." Faith says, voice quivering. "And you're scaring me too, you know."

  "Does it matter if I'm going to be gone tomorrow?" Jenny asks, and Amy is very confused for a second.

  "I don't want him to be gone tomorrow as well! You— I know you’re pnning to hurt him, to use him as leverage." Faith shouts, something Amy didn't know she had in her. “I’m not stupid.”

  Neither did Jenny, apparently. "Hey, um— calm down. You know I wouldn't do that. If only because it’d really hurt you. It'll be fine."

  "If it was going to be fine you could have convinced me that it would." Faith sniffles. "I want you to have this knife, you know. To have the opportunity to do whatever you need to get out. I don’t want to watch you suffer. I don’t want to watch RM suffer either, but he’s given in, and… Fuck. I can't help you. Not like this. Not when you talk about him like that."

  "Dar—" Jenny tries, almost pleading.

  "I'm going to return it." Faith says, walking to the door. “I’m so sorry.”

  Amy, still behind the door, scrambles away to hide behind the corner. They really mustn’t know she was eavesdropping. She wishes she hadn't been eavesdropping — she's never going to forget some of the things that were said — but it could only get worse if they learn she’s heard everything they said. How they really think about her.

  Faith leaves the bedroom, gently closing the door behind her and waiting in front of it for a moment. Amy would love to see what is going on in her mind at that moment, or just the facial expression. Is she angry? Sad? As scared as she says she is? Or is she relieved, maybe, that whatever she had pnned to give Jenny isn't her responsibility anymore?

  Maybe, just maybe, she is waiting because she knows Amy is out there around the corner, and wants her to join her as she inevitably walks downstairs, towards her unavoidable if still uncertain fate.

  Jenny, weirdly, doesn't even try to follow her outside. Maybe that was what Faith was waiting for— giving Jenny one st chance to even bother to convince her not to give up the one tool she thought would give her any hope of actually escaping. To convince her not to report herself — frankly, Amy is shocked Faith even managed to do such a thing, she definitely doesn’t seem like the type to know how to do theft — and, presumably, make Jenny face punishment for this entire debacle as well.

  Whatever she was waiting for, it didn't come.

  Amy can hear her open the door leading to the spiral staircase, low heels clicking against the stone steps as she descents.

  Instinctively, Amy follows her down. It might be a really bad idea for all she knows, but she doesn't want to wait for the news of what happened to her girlfriend. So she stalks her, sneaking around as silently as she can, feeling quite lucky to just be wearing her socks so she can do so without alerting Faith to her presence.

  Faith seems to have entered the first floor hallway, passing through a door that even Amy doesn't have access to. For a second, she wonders why her girlfriend would have access she doesn't— before remembering that Faith once mentioned something about Viv having offered to keep her company during the weeks when Amy was gone, and she felt quite scared and lonely sometimes. That knowledge just makes the idea that Faith would misbehave seem even more ridiculous. She’s trusted by the sponsors to never make trouble and to share a bed with them if she’s scared. She’s having sleepovers whilst the sponsors watch Jenny’s every move and Amy is barely allowed more than watching a movie when Kelynen is feeling too tired to work for the afternoon.

  Amy slips through the door behind Faith in the awfully short interval between Faith turning the corner and the door automatically closing.

  She only remembers that not having access to the door means she’s trapped after she hears the click of the door closing behind her. Which is, well, it's not ideal— she'll have to improvise if Faith does end up turning the corner again. There's a really good chance that she might. It’s basically guaranteed, actually.

  Well, fuck. Stealth mission failed. Faith is going to find out she’s been stalking her for the past few minutes. That she’d rather do that than actually help her out.

  But what if she does try to help? What would that do for her? Not much of anything, probably. If anything, she’d just make it worse. She always does! All of this bullshit is her fault in the first pce.

  So this is something she’s doing for herself, to maintain her own sanity over the coming weeks. Might as well sneak up on the corner so she can at least do a better job eavesdropping.

  The first thing she can hear is a knock on Vivienne's door, calling attention to something. It opens, and not much is said — Vivienne doesn’t even sound shocked, which really surprises Amy — and the next sound is that of metal being carefully pced on wood, something she recognises from her time in the kitchen. Then, the distinct sound of heels slowly walking backwards.

  "Faith..." Vivienne sounds more disappointed than angry. That makes more sense: Amy can’t remember the st time she’s seen the sponsor angry. "I'm happy you returned it, but..."

  "I'm so sorry, Vivi." Faith whispers. "I— I just wanted to see whether I could do it. It was a really stupid intrusive thought.”

  "Whether you could steal it for Jenny."

  "For myself." Faith corrects, a little weakly still.

  Amy really doesn’t want to hear Faith covering for Jenny, not after all she’d seen and heard from her roommate. The idea that she would sacrifice herself for someone who’d basically admitted she would try to hurt her girlfriend— she’d be shocked if it wasn’t Faith doing it. She’d always been loyal to her friends. Even when they ruined her life.

  Fuck. Amy really shouldn’t sit back and let it happen, should she?

  "I know you did it for Jenny, Faith." Vivienne says, sounding rather firm. "And you know we always have a sponsor watching the cameras in the bedroom, especially the past few weeks with tensions running high. You don't have to run cover for anyone."

  She doesn't respond to that, and Amy again feels like her face would tell her so much more about Faith's pns and motivations for this than her mere voice ever could. Did Faith really do all that in the knowledge that she and Jenny were being watched? And if so, why?

  To calm Jenny down, Amy remembers. To get Jenny off her back. Faith decided to blemish her clean record of behaviour to stop her two friends from fighting so much.

  This really is all her fault, isn't it?

  Vivienne takes a few steps forwards and picks the knife up. "Right, so this is what we're going to do. I'll take you to Eira, you’ll expin yourself, and I'll make sure you don't get any punishment for this— not more than a stern talking to, at least. Eira can decide what happens to Jenny— frankly, I don’t care as long as she doesn’t doesn’t wash her out."

  "No." Faith says, sounding surprisingly confident despite her usual demeanour. "I'm not going to expin myself. It'd be unfair if Amy and Jenny got punished for their attempts, whilst I do much worse than they did and get away with no consequences at all. Like you said, I knew what I was doing. I knew what she would have attempted— though I didn’t know the exact victim. I need to take responsibility for my actions."

  Amy’s heart is really sinking now. Washing out? Taking responsibility? They can’t, right? They can’t hurt Faith like that?

  Except she did steal a knife, and she did steal it with the knowledge it’d be used against the sponsors, and— fuck!

  The sponsor takes a few seconds to respond, deep in thought. "You want us to spare Jenny the punishment she would be due, and punish you instead, because…?"

  "I broke the rules. She just loudly decred she was going to." Faith argues.

  Faith is actually going to do it. Sweet, pure, innocent Faith just trying to stop Jenny from yelling at her girlfriend. And she’s going to be hurt so badly for it too.

  "I..." Vivienne hesitates for a moment.

  “No!” Amy shouts, stumbling into the hallway and pcing herself between Vivienne and Faith. “I— Faith— Jenny—” She stumbles over her words, entirely unsure what to even say, words leaving her as quickly as she can think of them, Amy then immediately regretting them and trying to restart the sentence. She exhales, trying to think of her words before saying them as she always does, then tries again.

  “It’s my fault. Faith did this all so Jenny would get off my back for a change. She just doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. She’s good. She wouldn’t st, please just…”

  “Amy…” Faith whispers. “Calm down.”

  “I’ll talk to Eira. I’ll take the bme! She did it for me, after all. I can handle the punishment. She can’t.”

  “Amy.” Faith says, a little more firmly. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “She’s so sweet, so innocent, so… amazing. Please don’t hurt her.”

  “I’m not a helpless child, Amy!” Faith raises her voice, sounding more frustrated than she had even with Jenny. “I’m not innocent. That’s why I was able to steal a knife, why I could handle one if I wanted to. I had to survive secondary school too. You know about the assholes back then. You just don’t know what I had to do to make them leave me alone. I— I can defend myself if I want to. If I need to. So please stop acting like I can’t. Just this once. I’ll be fine.”

  That’s— She’s just making it all up, right? Does she want to wash out? Does she want to die? Sure, she’s been depressed, has been for a long time now, and she’s talked about wanting to end it all in the past, but—

  If she thinks the sex svery thing is real, which it is, and she wants out, then the only way is—

  And the only reason she knows is because of her—

  Fuck!

  “Faith… Please, they’ll wash you out—” Amy tries to start talking, but is interrupted by a hand suddenly appearing on her shoulder.

  Eira’s hand. She must have heard the commotion and come to investigate.

  “I think you should listen to her.” The head sponsor says, sounding surprisingly calm despite the shitshow she’s witnessing.

  “But…”

  “It’s okay. We won’t hurt her.” Eira whispers into Amy’s ears and wipes tears off her cheeks. “She’s safe. We won’t wash her out. You’ll still get to see her. You’ll still get to see Jenny. You don’t have to protect her, not anymore— just trust us to do that, okay?”

  “I can’t.” Amy doesn’t want to trust Eira. Not on this. Not with Faith.

  Eira shushes her and pulls her into an embrace. “Faith thinks she can trust us— do you really doubt her judgement, even after she went out of her way to protect you?”

  “I trust her.” Amy whispers, instinctually leaning into Eira’s embrace, desperately seeking… something herself. “I just—”

  “She’s safe, Amy. Because I’m telling you she is. When have I ever lied to you?” Eira softly caresses her. “You’re safe, too. I promise. I’ll take you back to your room, okay?”

  “But—” Amy looks at Faith, herself in tears too, leaning against Vivienne for comfort. Did she— did she make Faith cry? Because she didn’t trust her? Is she just making things worse for everyone? She needs to apologise, right now, before Eira takes her away. “I— I’m so sorry, Faith, I love you and…”

  “It’s fine.” Faith whispers, her voice quite hoarse after all this. “I love you too. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  Amy is so exhausted that all she can do is nod to that and let Eira lead her away from her girlfriend. Pulls her away from her for god knows how long.

  Leaving her all alone, nothing to her name except a former best friend who hates her and the faint hope that maybe, just maybe, she gets to see Faith again soon enough.

  And yet somehow, with little more than her touch, Eira makes her think it will be okay in the end.