Chapter 1: The First Dream
The alarm was going to be the death of her.
Kim’s hand slapped at the nightstand, fumbling for the beeping monstrosity. Her fingers found empty air, then the cool, slick surface of something that definitely wasn’t her Ikea laminate. Her eyes flew open.
Black glass vaulted overhead, reflecting the sickly glow of neon-green vines that pulsed where a ceiling should be. The air was thick, sweet, and electric, coating her throat. This wasn’t her room.
Panic, cold and sharp, drilled into her ribs. She tried to sit up.
She couldn’t.
Her wrists were bound above her head by slender, glowing cords of the same green energy that hummed from the vines. They were cool, almost gentle, but completely unyielding. She was stretched out on a expanse of deepest black silk, naked, the fine hairs on her arms standing up in the charged air.
“Easy, Princess. You’ll hurt yourself.”
The voice was a lazy smoke, familiar and all wrong. Shego leaned into her field of vision, a silhouette cut from the darkness of the cavern. She was wearing something loose and dark, her black-and-green hair falling around her shoulders. Her sharp green eyes weren’t sparking with their usual malicious glee. They were… focused. Intent.
“Let me go. Now.” Kim’s voice sounded off to her own ears—too breathy, not enough command.
“Or what? You’ll call for help?” Shego’s lips curled. She dragged a single, gloved finger down the center of Kim’s torso, from her sternum to her navel. The black leather was surprisingly warm. “Who exactly do you think is coming?”
Kim jerked against the bonds, a flush of humiliation heating her skin. This was a trick. A trap. Another stupid scheme. She had to think. Assess. Escape.
“What is this? Some new low-rent hypno-ray? Ron will—“
“Ron is asleep in his beanie, dreaming about naco pyramids.” Shego’s hand flattened on Kim’s stomach, holding her still. “And this isn’t a ray.” She leaned down, her breath ghosting over Kim’s cheek. “It’s a dream. My dream.”
The words shouldn’t have made sense. But they slid into Kim’s mind like a key into a lock she didn’t know she had. The logic of the waking world—missions, school, Middleton—dissolved, replaced by the deeper, older logic of this place. The hum of the vines was the only sound. The slick glass walls held no doors.
This was a dream.
The realization should have been a relief. Instead, it coiled in her gut, heavy and dark.
“Why?” Kim whispered.
“Because I can.” Shego’s answer was simple. Final. Her gaze traveled down Kim’s body with a proprietorial slowness that made Kim’s skin prickle. “Because out there, you’re all righteous fury and cheerleading routines. In here…” She lowered her head, her lips hovering just above the frantic pulse in Kim’s throat. “In here, you’re just this.”
Her mouth touched Kim’s collarbone.
It wasn’t an attack. It was a slow, open-mouthed kiss, searingly hot against Kim’s cool skin. A shockwave of pure sensation tore through her, burning away the last embers of coherent thought. A ragged sound ripped from her throat—a moan, choked and desperate.
She arched off the silk, her body bowing into the touch, seeking more of it with a shameless hunger that horrified some distant, shrinking part of her mind. The bonds held her fast, rendering her helpless, and the terrifying part was the spark of gratitude that flashed through the haze. She didn’t have to choose this. She could just… feel it.
“See?” Shego murmured against her skin, her tongue tracing a path to the hollow of Kim’s shoulder. “No battles. No witty banter. Just… truth.”
Her hand moved from Kim’s stomach, sliding up her ribcage, thumb brushing the underside of her breast. Kim cried out, the sound echoing softly in the vast cavern. Pleasure, thick and syrupy and total, flooded every nerve ending. It was a surrender more complete than any physical defeat.
“Please,” Kim gasped, not knowing what she was asking for.
“Please, what?” Shego pulled back just enough to look at her. Her eyes were dark with a satisfaction that went beyond winning a fight. This was intimate. Consuming.
Kim turned her head away, squeezing her eyes shut. The green light played against her eyelids. She couldn’t say it. She wouldn’t.
A gloved hand cupped her chin, turning her face back. The leather was soft. “Look at me.”
The command brooked no refusal. Kim’s eyes opened, swimming with unshed tears of frustration and a shameful, building need.
“You don’t give the orders here, Possible. I do.” Shego’s thumb stroked her lower lip. “Now. Try again.”
The war inside Kim was short, brutal, and lost. The part of her that was the hero, the leader, the good girl, was drowning in a sea of green light and electric touch.
“Please…” Kim whispered, the word tearing itself free. “Don’t stop.”
The smile that spread across Shego’s face was a victory unlike any other. It was soft. Triumphant. “Good girl.”
She kissed her then, not on the shoulder or the collarbone, but fully on the mouth. It was deep, claiming, and devastating. Kim’s last resistance shattered. She kissed back, a willing participant in her own unraveling, her bound hands twisting in the energy cords not to break free, but to anchor herself as the world dissolved into heat and want.
The humming of the vines grew louder, synchronizing with the frantic beat of her heart.
The world slammed back into focus with the subtlety of a car crash.
Sunlight. Pink walls. The fuzzy face of Rufus the naked mole rat peering at her from the next pillow.
Kim bolted upright, gasping, her sheets tangled around her legs. Her body was slick with sweat, her heart hammering against her sternum. The phantom feel of silk was on her skin, the echo of a hum in her ears. The taste of ozone and something sweet clung to the back of her tongue.
She scrambled out of bed, nearly tripping, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Same red hair, messy from sleep. Same green eyes, wide with panic. Same old Kim Possible.
But her lips felt swollen. Her skin was hypersensitive, the brush of her cotton tank top almost too rough. And deep in her core, a treacherous ache throbbed, a physical memory that refused to fade.
“A dream,” she said aloud, her voice shaky. “Just a really, really weird dream.”
Shego. In her head. In her… She shook herself violently, as if she could physically dislodge the memories. It was stress. Fighting Drakken so much. Pre-calc finals. It meant nothing.
She stumbled to her shower, turning the water to cold. Icy needles pelted her skin, but they couldn’t erase the heat coiled low in her belly, or the way her traitorous mind kept replaying the exact shade of satisfaction in Shego’s eyes.
As she dressed for school, the normalcy of it—the jeans, the belt, pulling her hair into a ponytail—felt like a costume. The confidence was there, the habitual readiness, but it sat on her shoulders differently. A hollow echo.
Her Kimmunicator chirped from the desk. Wade’s face appeared, bright and alert. “Morning, Kim! Just a heads-up, I’m picking up chatter about a possible smuggling run at the Bueno Nacho docks tonight. Low priority, but I thought you’d want the option.”
“Yeah,” Kim said, her voice surprisingly steady. She fastened her belt with a definitive click. “I want it. Send me the details.”
She needed a mission. A real fight. A chance to punch something solid, to prove that the girl in the mirror was the only one that existed.
“You got it. Everything else okay? You look… tired.”
“Fine,” Kim said, too quickly. She forced a smile. “Just didn’t sleep great. Strange dreams.”
She ended the call and stared at her reflection again, lifting her chin. The heroine’s mask was back in place.
But as she grabbed her backpack and headed downstairs, the words echoed in the quiet corners of her mind, a secret she could never voice.
Good girl.
And the part of her that had said please shuddered, not entirely in disgust.