Chapter 1: The Splinter**

Chapter 1: The Splinter

The silence in Kris Miller’s house was a specific, curated thing. It was the hum of the stainless steel refrigerator, the whisper of the dishwasher’s rinse cycle, the absence of a child’s shout now that Leo was at preschool. It was the sound of a perfect life, polished to a high sheen, and it was driving her mad.

Kris stood in the center of her kitchen, a monument of muted grays and sterile whites. She wore what she always wore: soft, shapeless sweatpants and an old t-shirt of her husband’s, clothes designed for comfort, for invisibility. At 29, she had everything she was supposed to want. A handsome, stable husband in Mark, a beautiful son, this house in the Portland suburbs with its manicured lawn. It was a photograph she’d painstakingly composed, only to realize she was fading into the background, a ghost in her own life.

Her thumb moved on its own accord, opening the app that was her only real window. TikTok. A universe of chaotic, vibrant life that bled through the cracks of her own beige existence. Her algorithm knew her better than her husband did. It didn't show her parenting hacks or meal prep ideas. It showed her one thing. One person.

Clara.

The video filled her screen, a blast of sound and color. A woman, tall and powerfully built, stood in a sun-drenched forest clearing. Her blonde hair was a stylish, sweaty mess, and a small, white scar cut through a defiant eyebrow. She wore a stained tank top that did nothing to hide the coiled muscle in her arms and shoulders. With a grunt of effort, she swung a heavy axe, splitting a log in a single, perfect motion. The crack of the wood was like a gunshot in Kris’s silent kitchen.

Kris’s breath hitched. She watched Clara’s bicep flex, the sheen of sweat on her tanned skin, the way her intense green eyes focused on her task with a single-minded ferocity. Clara never looked at the camera. She didn’t have to. She was a force of nature, utterly self-contained, and Kris couldn’t look away. She was everything Kris was not: strong, sure, unapologetically real.

“Hey, honey.”

Kris jumped, fumbling the phone. It clattered onto the quartz countertop. Mark stood in the doorway, smelling faintly of office coffee and corporate apathy. He was handsome in that forgettable, clean-cut way, his polo shirt neatly pressed.

“Didn’t hear you come in,” she mumbled, her face hot.

He leaned in and gave her a perfunctory peck on the cheek, his lips dry and familiar. His eyes scanned the kitchen, not her. “Looks clean. Good day?”

“Fine,” Kris said, the word tasting like dust. “Leo was a handful this morning, but he settled down.” A lie. Leo had been an angel. But a perfect child, like a perfect house, felt like another accusation.

“That’s my boy,” Mark said with a distracted smile. He opened the fridge, the curated silence now broken by his presence. “Anything planned for dinner? I was thinking maybe that chicken dish you do.”

“Sure.” Her gaze drifted back to her phone, the screen now dark. The image of Clara, however, was burned onto the back of her eyelids. That raw, physical power. That freedom. A deep, unfamiliar ache bloomed in Kris’s belly, a longing so sharp it felt like grief. She needed to get out.

“I’m just going to pop out to the co-op,” she said, her voice tight. “We’re out of quinoa.”

“Sounds good. Don’t be too long,” Mark said, already scrolling through emails on his own phone. He hadn’t really seen her. He never really did.

The Portland Food Co-op was an assault of smells—damp earth from the organic vegetables, roasted coffee, the sweet funk of kombucha on tap. It was her preferred grocery store, a small rebellion of burlap sacks and handwritten signs against the sterile aisles of the supermarket chains. Usually, the atmosphere soothed her, but today it only made her feel more disconnected, an imposter in her own skin.

She was in the bulk goods aisle, wrestling with the lever on a bin of red lentils, when she heard it. A voice. Low, a little rough, and laced with an amusement that made the hairs on her arms stand up.

“You gotta give it a good whack sometimes. They stick.”

Kris froze. She knew that voice. She’d heard it muttering curses and triumphant grunts on a hundred tiny videos. Slowly, she turned.

And there she was.

Clara Vance. In the flesh. She was taller than she looked on screen, her shoulders broader. She wore dusty work boots, jeans stained with what looked like grease, and a simple black t-shirt that stretched across her chest. The scar through her eyebrow was more pronounced, a faded silver line against tanned skin. And her eyes—her eyes were an electrifying, predatory green. They were fixed on Kris, a slow, knowing smirk playing on her lips.

Kris’s mouth went dry. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. “Oh. Thanks.” The words came out as a squeak.

Clara’s smirk widened. She stepped closer, invading Kris’s personal space with an unnerving confidence. She smelled of sawdust, sweat, and something else—something wild and clean, like pine needles after a rainstorm. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“No, I just… I recognize you,” Kris stammered, feeling like a fool. “From, uh, online.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Clara said, her gaze sweeping over Kris, from her tired eyes down to her shapeless clothes, and then back up. It wasn’t a casual glance; it was an appraisal, an inventory. It made Kris feel utterly naked. “You’re not here for the lentils, are you?”

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. A challenge.

Kris couldn’t speak. She could only shake her head, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement.

Clara’s eyes glinted. “I thought so.” She gestured with her head toward a door marked ‘STAFF ONLY.’ “I’m picking up a special order. The door’s heavy. Could use a hand.”

It was a preposterous excuse. A woman who could split logs with a single blow needed help with a door? Kris knew it. Clara knew she knew it. The air crackled with the unspoken truth. This was an invitation. A dare. Every sensible instinct screamed at Kris to make an excuse, to grab her quinoa and run back to her safe, silent house.

But the image of Mark’s passionless kiss, of the sterile white kitchen, of the endless, identical days stretching out before her, rose in her mind. And then she looked at Clara’s mouth, at the promise of pure, unadulterated life in her green eyes.

“Okay,” Kris heard herself say, the word a foreign object in her own mouth.

Clara led the way, pushing the door open into a dim, dusty stockroom. The air was thick with the smell of cardboard and grain. Pallets of canned goods were stacked high, creating narrow canyons between them. The door swung shut behind them, plunging them into near darkness, the only light a faint rectangle from a high, grimy window. The sounds of the store vanished, replaced by a deafening, intimate silence.

Kris’s heart was a frantic drum in her ears. “So, where’s the…?”

She never finished the sentence. Clara turned, and in one fluid motion, she had Kris backed against a wooden shelving unit. The hard edge of a shelf dug into Kris’s spine. Clara wasn’t touching her, not yet, but her body heat was a furnace, her presence an overwhelming force.

“There’s no special order,” Clara said, her voice a low rumble that vibrated through Kris’s bones. “But you knew that.”

She raised a hand, and Kris flinched, but Clara only traced the line of her jaw with a single, calloused finger. The touch was electric, a jolt that lit up every nerve ending Kris had forgotten she possessed.

“You’ve been watching me,” Clara stated, her eyes searching Kris’s face in the gloom. “Staring at your phone in your quiet little house, wondering what it feels like.”

Kris couldn't breathe. She could only nod.

“Wondering what this feels like,” Clara clarified, her hand sliding from Kris’s jaw down the column of her throat, her thumb pressing lightly against the frantic pulse there. “To be seen. To be taken.”

Her other hand braced against the shelf next to Kris’s head, trapping her completely. She leaned in, her lips hovering inches from Kris’s ear. “I’m going to give you a choice. You can walk out that door right now, go back to your life, and forget this happened. Or you can stay, and I will splinter you so completely, you’ll never fit back into that perfect little box again.”

Tears pricked Kris’s eyes—not from fear, but from a terrifying, exhilarating relief. To be seen so clearly, so brutally. It was everything she had secretly craved. The thought of Mark, of Leo, of her entire life, was a distant shore she was already drifting away from.

Her choice was no choice at all. It had been made the moment she first saw Clara on her screen.

With a trembling breath, she whispered the only word that mattered.

“Stay.”

A slow, dangerous smile spread across Clara’s face in the darkness. “Good girl.” Then her mouth was on hers, and the world didn't just splinter. It shattered into a million unrecognizable pieces.