Tony's vines slid across Lucas's skin like cold, deliberate fingers—searching, mapping, claiming. They didn't move like limbs; they moved like living intentions. Each tendril slithered with the patience of something that knew it would get what it wanted, sooner or later. Their surfaces were slick, almost metallic, humming faintly as if vibrating with a pulse separate from the room, separate from Lucas, separate from anything human.
One vine pressed against the base of his neck, stroking once, twice, as though savoring the moment before invasion. Then it plunged in.
A cold shock radiated through him, bright as lightning but without the release. A second vine followed, then a third—each a needle-thin cord sliding between nerves that had never been exposed to the open air, let alone touched. Lucas felt every centimeter of their journey: the unnatural pressure, the sharp prick of violation, the way the vines seemed to taste him from the inside.
He didn't move.
Didn't tense.
Didn't give Tony the satisfaction of seeing the pain.
He stood rooted in place, posture straight and unchanged, as if he were carved from stone—a statue awaiting the sculptor's cruelest chisel.
The third vine rooted itself with a twist.
Lucas's left arm snapped upward violently, muscles spasming, fingers clawing at nothing. Pain lanced down the limb, but it didn't even feel like his pain—just a reaction echoing through a body that suddenly didn't belong to him.
For two agonizing, disorienting seconds, the arm was Tony's.
A puppet limb.
A stolen piece.
Then the vine relaxed and the arm dropped, hanging at Lucas's side like a marionette waiting for its next command.
His vision distorted next.
The world blurred at the edges, colors shifting and pulling apart like wet paint dragged by invisible hands. Every shade brightened unnaturally. Reds sharpened into something violent. Greens pulsed with a nauseating glow. Shadows twisted, lengthening, curling into hungry shapes. Lucas blinked, but the distortion clung to his retinas—this wasn't his sight anymore.
Someone else's excitement tingled through his optic nerves. It was visceral, eager, a ravenous joy that didn't belong to him.
Someone inside him was thrilled.
Someone was savoring the experience of being him.
Then a whisper threaded through his skull—soft, intimate, close enough to feel but impossible to pinpoint:
I just need time.
More vines rose from the jar—thick, pulsing tendrils slick with fluids Lucas didn't want to identify. They wavered in the air for a moment, sensing, smelling him, then plunged into his back with the certainty of a predator sinking fangs into prey. Each one latched onto his spine, burrowing deeper, connecting themselves to him in ways that felt horribly permanent.
He felt every vine like a thread of molten metal twisted directly into his nerves.
Still, Lucas didn't resist.
Couldn't afford to.
If he fought back—if he broke Tony's rhythm even for a heartbeat—Erica would die before he managed to lift his stolen arm.
Across the room, Darren's body slumped lifelessly on the couch, head lolling forward like a puppet whose strings had tangles. His eyes were open but vacant, the faintest flicker of consciousness drowned beneath Tony's control. Each breath he took looked borrowed.
Tony spoke through Darren with unsettling smoothness, as if he'd practiced the cadence of human speech for years and still found it amusing. Darren's mouth curled into a smile that wasn't his own.
"You really are remarkable," he said, voice dipped in admiration that made Lucas's skin crawl. "I've never found a host who could channel this much power. Monstrous strength. Lightning that doesn't obey the laws of anything living. Instinct so sharp it killed my previous vessel in a second."
Darren's head tilted, admiration sliding into something possessive. "And all wrapped in a mind sturdy enough to carry me without shattering."
Another vine drove deeper into Lucas's spine. His back arched involuntarily, teeth clicking together hard. Pain burst behind his eyes—but he didn't make a sound. Not a grunt. Not a gasp. Not even a tremor.
"You walked in here," Tony continued through Darren, voice dripping with smug delight, "fully aware of what I'd do. Aware that I could hollow out that girl with a thought. And yet…" Darren's stolen smile widened. "You came alone."
Lucas breathed once. Twice. Deep, steady, unbroken.
"A perfect vessel," Tony purred, "with a perfect flaw."
Another vine wrapped around Lucas's ribcage like a constrictor tightening. His heartbeat thudded against it. Tony hummed inside his skull, savoring the connection.
"I will use your body properly," he said. "Not like you do—choking it with sentiment, restraint, mercy." Power crackled faintly through the vines, sending involuntary sparks through Lucas's nerves. "I will show you what your power can really do."
Lucas let the words wash over him like cold rain. Let Tony talk. Let Tony gloat. Let Tony believe he had already won.
Because Lucas's attention wasn't on Tony.
It wasn't on the vines digging into him or the fire flooding his nerves.
It was on Erica.
Lucas could feel the faint tremor of Tony's influence wrapped around her like a choking fog.
He monitored with every sense he had left. Tracked the tiny shifts in Tony's mental tether to her. Measured the exact degree of pressure Tony held over her body.
He needed one moment.
One break in Tony's concentration.
One flicker of arrogance too large to ignore her.
Just one.
The vines continued burrowing, claiming him inch by inch, root by root, as if preparing to grow an entire new being inside his body. Lucas's muscles twitched beneath the invasive threads, but his mind remained still, cold, sharpened to a killing edge.
A wolf pretending to be prey, waiting for the jaws to open wide enough.
He would not break.
Not now.
Not ever.
And when that moment finally came—when Tony shifted his attention just enough—Lucas would tear him out of his own body, root, nerve, and soul.