The villa's private bar was too bright. Chrome and crystal, everything designed to sparkle for cameras that weren't even there.
Mia stood barefoot on the cold marble, still in the torn dress, blood dried black under her nails. Two assistants hovered near the doorway, voices low, phones glowing in their hands.
"Did you see the video?" one whispered. "Lila totally lost it on stage last night. Screaming about the lights, ripping her mic off… Triple E had to drag her off in a towel. They're saying she's done."
The second assistant laughed, nervous. "Britney 2.0. They'll put her in the same clinic they sent the last three. Six months and she'll come back smiling like nothing happened."
Mia's fingers tightened around the edge of the marble counter.
Inside her head, Carmilla's voice came soft, warm, like a blanket she didn't want.
*Shh, little one. They're talking about Lila. Not you. You're safe. You're home. Breathe.*
Lilith didn't speak. She just growled — low, deep, animal — somewhere behind Mia's eyes. A warning that tasted like smoke and teeth.
Mia reached for the nearest bottle. Crystal decanter. Something dark and expensive. She didn't read the label. She poured until the glass was almost full.
Carmilla again, gentler: *You don't drink, sweetheart. You never drink. Put it down.*
Mia lifted the glass anyway.
The first sip burned like acid. She hated it. The taste was wrong, chemical, nothing like the sweet cocktails they made her pose with in magazines. Her throat closed. Her eyes watered.
She drank again.
Lilith's growl turned into a purr of dark amusement.
*Good. Let it burn. Let something else hurt for once.*
Mia set the glass down hard. Amber liquid sloshed over the rim.
She looked up.
The mirror behind the bar showed a stranger.
Hollow eyes. Blood on the jawline she didn't remember getting. Hair wild, lipstick smeared into a clown smile that wasn't hers. The girl in the reflection looked like she had already died and was just waiting for the body to notice.
Mia stared.
That's not me.
That's not—
Carmilla tried again, desperate now: *Mia, baby, look away. Come back to me. You're safe. You're—*
Lilith cut her off with a single word, cold as winter steel.
*Run.*
Mia ran.
She left the glass behind, the assistants mid-sentence, the mother's voice still echoing somewhere upstairs about the *Vogue* interview. She ran through the marble halls, past the photographs of herself smiling on every wall, past the security cameras that never quite caught what really lived inside her skin.
Out the side door.
Into the night.
Barefoot on gravel. Dress tearing further. Heart hammering so hard it felt like someone else's fists inside her ribs.
Behind her, the villa glowed like a perfect lie.
Ahead of her, the forest waited.
And inside her head, Lilith laughed once — low, satisfied, ancient.
*We're ahead.*
Mia ran.
And for the first time, she didn't know if she was running away…
…or if she was finally being let out.
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