The silence in the car only made Chloe more nervous. Ever since they'd left the school parking lot, there was no talking, no radio. She didn't want to break the silence, but the silence kept her from gauging what sort of shit she was in. Not only that, but she really, really hated not having the radio on. No radio meant a serious talk was happening, and serious talks, well, they tended to pertain to her.

She had no idea what this silence could mean, then. Probably an untold level of bad.

"So, um. Can we have the radio on?"

Oh, wonderful. Only more silence.

She saw David adjust his hands on the steering wheel, letting the white-knuckled tension drain from them for a few seconds.

Finally, he spoke up, "You were suspended, Chloe. It's probably best that you don't talk."

Good. Perfect. Right to the point. Just not at all to the point she was trying to make. "Yeah, I get that, it's just a little awkward in the car if-"

"Chloe," her mom cut in, "not now, okay?"

Chloe let out an extremely loud exhale to show her disappointment, but conceded the argument before it began. She leaned against window pane, doing her best to keep her eyes away from the afternoon sun. After a few more seconds of the sensory deprivation, she raised her fingers up to the glass and began to tap a quiet rhythm, the riff of a song she couldn't get out of her head.

"Chloe."

"Yeah mom?"

"Stop that."

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

Chloe dropped her hand back down onto her lap, slipping her thumb into her jeans to keep it anchored there. Instead, she raised her other hand up just beneath her eyes, inspecting her nails with meticulous detail before picking one clip with her teeth.

This time, her mother said nothing, and she gave it up after a minute or two.

When they returned home, the reality of Chloe's situation had sunk in, and she started to think about how she was going to get through it. She had a pocket plan that sounded exciting, but she had to make sure all the unlikely avenues were unavailable.

As she and her mother stepped out of the passenger side, Chloe asked, "Hey mom? If I'm not going to school for the next three days or whatever, can I take the car tomorrow to go to the beach or downtown or something?"

Her mother's dark green eyes read flat, as if Chloe's words did not even register in her mind, until finally her face tilted into an incredulous expression. "You cannot be serious. Chloe, you graffiti'd your school. There's no way we're going to let you run rampant. Just spend a few days up there," she pointed to Chloe's room window above the garage, "and behave yourself. For once."

Her mother turned to head inside after David, but Chloe was hot on their heels.

"Come on! It was barely graffiti - the place is covered in way worse. Plus, it'll take them like, five seconds to clean up. I think they've got a guy on staff just to clean shit like that up every time that club has a party."

That seemed to stop David in his tracks, but her mom just continued on, pulling out her keys to open up the house.

David turned around to face Chloe, bringing his arms up to his chest like he did whenever he saw her around campus, or when he thought it was his solemn duty to parent her. "It is not Samuel's job to clean up after you or those snobby kids. But it is my job to make sure students feel safe, and stuff like that can come off as a threat, you get that, right?"

Chloe fixed a scowl on David. Oh, of course, a little graffiti really put his new head of security gig in a precarious state.

"What? Cars = death? If there's a threat there, it's rich drunk kids driving, not a little fucking paint."

The argument seemed to have stationed itself just outside the door, but Chloe's mom seemed frustrated at them for not coming in after her.

"Chloe, don't you talk to David that way. And both of you, come inside."

"I can handle this, Joyce," David snapped, turning to look over her. Seeing her distress, though, he let his face relax, although it absolutely refused to give up its stubble-shrouded frown. "Come on, Chloe. Inside."

Chloe closed the door a little harder than she anticipated as she expected, but it appeared that both David and her mom were going to do their best to ignore it. David just made his way upstairs, while her mom turned into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. That woman was constantly drinking this ice-cold water, and almost without deviation made it her first priority whenever she came home.

Chloe tailed her mother to the kitchen, leaning against the wall that kept it separate from the entrance hall. "So, what? I'm seriously just supposed to sit on my ass for three days because I was the student unlucky enough to get caught?"

Joyce did not look impressed with her child's argument, but took a moment to drink water. She always took care to hold back when they fought, Chloe knew that, but these little pauses only left her more irritated.

She set down her cup and leaned against the kitchen counter before finally replying. "Chloe. You are going to sit here on your ass for three days because you vandalized. That's a crime. I can't believe we're not being fined as it is."

Chloe groaned, pitifully smacking her head against the wall, although there was so little momentum behind it that she barely felt it.

Her mother ignored this, and, adopting a gentler tone suggested, "Now, why don't you use this extra time to get caught up on your homework? I know you're struggling with math and - and what was the other one?"

Chloe shrugged, feigning ignorance. Her mother did not seem to buy it, so she replied, "History? I think. But, like, I'm getting 'A's on all my math tests, and History is basically a blow-off class so-"

That seemed to get her mom frustrated again. "Nothing is a blow-off class, Chloe. Not while we're paying for you to go to Blackwell. You know you've got to get your grades up or you can't attend there next year. It's awkward enough with David working there, asking for them to ignore your semester grades," she gestured towards the upstairs, but Chloe only rolled her eyes.

"Ugh, Mom," Chloe raised her hands up, both in surrender and to halt her mother's progress towards a heartfelt declaration of disappointment. "I'm on top of it, okay? Finals are in two weeks, and they always bump my grades. I'll get in next year."

Her mother's eyes met hers with warning.

"Seriously," Chloe promised.

David descended the stairs again, now dressed in his security uniform for Blackwell. "I'm on shift at five, so I'm going to grab lunch at the Two Whales," he announced.

Joyce pushed past Chloe to see David at the door. Chloe didn't turn to look at them, instead turning into the hallway down to the living room.

"See you tonight."

Chloe mimicked sticking a finger down her throat as she heard them kissing, but she figured neither of them could see.

"And you. Chloe," David called, his hand on the door handle.

Chloe pivoted at the end of the hallway, watching him expectantly.

"Don't you and those skater freshmen kids cause any more trouble around Blackwell. Open House is next week."

"'Kay," Chloe replied, shoulders hunched. These next few days were going to be boring with the way these two had her time worked out.
Pocket plan's a go, I guess.

"What was that?" David asked, as if he hadn't clearly heard.

"Yessir," Chloe answered, looking down at the carpet somewhere near his shoes rather than at him.

And with that, he was out the door.

It was 10:00 am the following morning before Chloe decided to crawl out of her bed, although her alarm had woken her up more than an hour before. While she knew her suspension was awful for 1) her relationship with her parents, 2) her GPA, 3) her academic record, it did mean that she had the house to herself for a few hours every day, depending on David's work schedule. Today, this special day, he had a morning shift at 8:00 am, and now she had a blessed few hours to get things ready.

She would have loved to take care of all of this at night, but Joyce rarely worked the night shift, and it was simply too risky when one or both of her parental figures were in the house. So, down the list with limited time.

Breakfast? Too nervous to eat just yet, put off til later.
Shower? Yes, awesome, showering is amazing.
Check hair? Still 70% blonde, 30% Bad Boy Blue. Hopefully it'll dry out fast.
Shove bed into the corner? Painfully heavy, but enough shoves will wedge it in there.
Once the bed was out of the way, and Chloe had used up her first hour; she carefully rolled up her rug, tossed it in the corner, and inspected her handiwork.

Formed with a collection of black sharpies, a large circle had been drawn in the center of Chloe's room. The circle was filled with a spiraling, foreign text, and a series of neat geometric shapes and patterns were laid out throughout the spiral. It was all nonsense to her, on a practical level, even though she had been slowly learning what it all meant.

There inscribed on the hardwood floors of Chloe's bedroom was a summoning circle. The spell itself had taken almost no time to find, but the research it had taken to use it! The translation from Sumerian. The list of components, and tracking them each down. The decoding of the messages and symbolism within the circle. The careful inscription of each word, unknown but duplicated geometrically off her computer. Even the reviews had been a pain to sort through, as people may have made any number of mistakes and groaned as they summoned something they had not expected.

Chloe smiled happily down at her circle for a few seconds, so glad that the day had finally come. She stood from her crouch and turned to her closet.

If she was going to be summoning a demon, she wanted to look good for it.

What was appropriate to wear when meeting a succubus for the first time? None of the reviews she'd found online had mentioned anything about it. Maybe every demon had its own fashion sense, and so nobody really bothered trying to impress it on a first date? Plenty of people must just call clothes quits when summoning a creature like this, sure, but that wasn't Chloe's style. She was summoning a creature out of hell, right? So she should look intimidating. She figured that was probably a pretty common thing in hell.

She quickly skipped over any of her band shirts with satanic iconography on them. Anyone who had actually been to hell wouldn't be impressed with all the goats heads and pentagrams. Well, that was the only stuff that she had that was kind of scary. Maybe something kind of funny? You know, catch them off guard, break the ice right away?

Chloe grabbed her Treachery of Images t-shirt and pulled it on quickly. All of her pants were ripped jeans or just flat black, so she figured her choice wouldn't make that much of a difference. Then again, she liked wearing the ripped jeans when she went out, and she only had one pair that was still clean.

Black it is, then.

Awesome, time to bust out the ritual components, then. Chloe had originally planned to hide them all cleverly and individually throughout her room, but had quickly discovered several of them really smelled. Thus, they all ended up in the bottom of her dresser, wrapped up in old socks that were too far gone to really be harmed further.

Five black candles? Check.
Chalk for five wards? Check.
Sage and other herbs to be placed inside the wards? Check.
Measuring tape stolen from David's work space to make sure she got all of the ward and candle placements correct? Check.
Ash of a cremated person? Disgusting, but check.
Lube? Not exactly part of the ritual, but she hid it in the same place. Check.

And down the list Chloe went until she was certain she had everything. It took her about another hour of preparation before everything was ready, but when she sat down in the center of the spiral and crossed her legs, she couldn't help but smile. The incantation she was to use, and all of her notes on phrasing and steps she had to take during the ritual lay on a single piece of paper in her lap.

Today was the day.

She took a deep breath, trying to let her expectations (and, well, fear) sink away. Here we go.

As she began reciting the incantation, she first took a piece of paper she had inscribed with a demonic symbol that had been recommended to her. Then she pricked her finger with a (sterile!) needle and let a drop of her blood soak into the paper. Great. Awesome. Everything was going awesome.

She pat around her pockets until she located her lighter, trying not to let the distraction ruin her concentration. She set the paper alight, just pinching the corner with her finger until the symbol was consumed in the fire.

Was this going to work? Or had she just been duped by dozens of random people online with very active imaginations?

She wasn't sure until the moment the flame suddenly went out, and all of her candles were extinguished in the same instant. Her whole room immediately darkened, as if a veil were placed over the window over her desk.

At first, she thought, despite that, that nothing had happened. The smoke of her candles curled upwards towards the ceiling, and for a few seconds, she was just glad that, after all of this, she didn't have a smoke detector in her room.

Then, she felt a push like someone's toes against her back.

"Hey."

Chloe jumped as well as she could in her position, but it really just resulted in her toppling over. She managed to catch herself without smashing her hands or body against any candles, but she was too afraid to leave the circle just yet, so she turned where she sat, and saw her.

She was seated on Chloe's bed with her legs crossed and her fingers laced together in her lap, slightly reclined as if she owned it. Her hair was long and dark brown, although it was second on list of details that Chloe's noticed, after the pair of horns that curled back from just behind her temples to the back of her skull. She looked like she was probably in her late twenties, but the clothes that she wore looked completely out of date - a vibrant Victorian dress with a corset that showed off her boobs way too much to actually be, well, Victorian. How odd the outfit actually looked was far too overwhelming for Chloe to register how frequently something almost exactly like that had come up in her fantasies. From where she sat, Chloe could see just the beginnings of a red and blue tattoo flowing up her calf, but the rest was hidden under her dress.

Chloe's voice shot up almost an octave. "Oh, hi! You must be the, uh . . ." She pointed at the horned girl for a second, then quickly recognized that she couldn't remember the name. What had she summoned again?

"Succubus." The demon's dark red lips curved into a smirk. "You must be the summoner."

There was a twitch under the dress, and for a second, Chloe thought she saw the ends of a pointed tail. She swallowed, giving her a second of pause to try and deal with what she was actually seeing.

She replied, "Yeah, that's me." Chloe realized that she was being rude, and scrambled to her feet. "I'm Chloe. Nice to meet you . . .?"
As Chloe offered her hand forward, the succubus stared at it for a few seconds before reaching up and taking it. "Rachel," she replied as they shook.

Chloe's eyes went wide as they touched. This woman's skin was so soft. It might just be a demon thing, but she didn't think she had ever met someone so well moisturized. Her nails were clean and short, a lot like Chloe's but neatly rounded.

Oh, awesome. I was worried they'd be long.

What was the next step? Chloe remembered how to break the binding and send the succubus back in the event that something went wrong, but she forgot if there was any additional thing she was supposed to do now.

She went with her gut. "So, Rachel."

She looked at her expectantly, blinking slowly. She had the most vibrant blue eyes Chloe thought she had ever seen - they were magnetizing.

"How are you?" She asked, far too casually.

There was no immediate response. Instead, Rachel only returned her a blank stare, and then her subtle smirk instead broke out into a wide smile. She brought the back of her hand up to her mouth as she startled chuckling, leaving Chloe's face suddenly hot with embarrassment.

God, she was totally embarrassing herself in front of this hot demon lady. How many people had tried to wear geeky shirts like this to try and impress someone who was probably immortal and knew like, all of art history? At least most of them had probably practiced what they were going to say.

"That . . . that was not what I was expecting, I'm sorry," Rachel apologized in a tone that was so sickly sweet that it was almost condescending. Condescending but hot. Holy shit demons had low voices. No wonder people invested the time in figuring out these summoning things.

"Yeah, no, I'm sorry, I'm kind of new to this summoning thing." Chloe scratched the back of her head. God, she probably looked like such a dumb kid right now. Only partially-dyed hair? What sort of cool, sexually experienced badass punk only dyes the ends of their hair?

"I just wanted to . . ." Chloe trailed off, struggling to actually complete the thought. Not that she didn't know what she wanted to do, exactly, but because she was so embarrassed of actually telling a stranger what her intention was. She was bold, sure, especially when it came to weak-ass teenage boys, but here was an older woman she spent months conjuring. She wasn't that bold.

Chloe sat down next to Rachel on the corner of the bed, letting her legs hang off the edge near the perimeter of the ritual circle. It made it a little less awkward for her not to make eye contact, so she hoped she could finish the thought.

Rachel reached over and placed her hand on Chloe's thigh, immediately setting off all sorts of alarm bells in Chloe's mind.

She finished Chloe's sentence for her, "You wanted someone to love you." She said it so smoothly, that at first Chloe didn't detect what was wrong with the sentence.

"Yeah," Chloe replied. And then, she realized what she'd actually heard, and turned to look at Rachel with a grimace on her face. "Wait, no? I was thinking more of like, a fucking thing. I'm not, like, some lonely mouth breather who hits up cam girls to ask them about their day."

Rachel quirked one of her (incredibly fucking perfect, what the fuck) eyebrows, and the smirk was back on her lips. "Oh?" She asked, saturated with fake innocence. "More like this?"

Rachel raised her hand up off of Chloe's thigh and flattened it against Chloe's sternum, suddenly forcing her to lie flat on her back. She went to straddle Chloe as well, but Chloe caught her leg and kept it from falling down on the other side

"Now, hold on a sec," she demanded, but didn't sit back up. Instead, she just lay on her back with a sort of white noise blocking out all thought. She was like thirty seconds from fucking a demon, but she was still really annoyed about that 'someone to love you comment'. The intense contradicting feelings totally froze her for a few seconds.

Also, she wanted the blood to drain from her face, but she was kinda turned on immediately as soon as Rachel pushed her down and it didn't seem to be immediately shutting off.

"Something wrong?" Rachel asked, her face suddenly appearing in full view over Chloe's. Her hair was so long it nearly touched Chloe's cheeks, and although Chloe couldn't exactly pinpoint what the smell was, it was really, really good.

Chloe's faced pinched uncomfortably. "What did you mean with that whole 'you want somebody to love you' bit? Was that like, sexy succubus talk or like, did you mean it literally?"

The succubus seemed a little taken aback, and withdrew a little bit. Chloe could barely see her in her peripherals.

"I just thought you seemed lonely."

Now that was exactly what Chloe didn't want to hear. She pushed herself back upright, face twisting more pissed off and voice raising with every second. "You don't even know me. I just conjured you, what the fuck would you even-"

Rachel began to shrink away from Chloe as her voice raised, until she drew up her legs and sat against the wall. Chloe completely cut off, however, as the girl she was seeing suddenly became an entirely different person. It was like a filter was just placed over her entire vision, brightening her room back up to its normal lighting and replacing the succubus.

Except . . . the girl didn't look much like a succubus anymore. Her horns were gone, for one thing. Her hair was significantly shorter, just past her shoulders, and thin, golden blonde. She was still wearing the Victorian-esque dress and corset, but it fit her much more poorly, as her body was much straighter and thinner than it had been a second ago. Most of all, though, the succubus definitely didn't look like she was in her late twenties - at most, she looked like she might be sixteen or seventeen, very close to Chloe's age.

Chloe's eyes bulged at the sudden changed, but her words quickly changed tracks, "Oh my god, are you all right?"

Rachel just then seemed to realize what had happened to her as she raised her hand and stared at it. "Oh, shit," she cursed, and her voice was no longer low and rich, but a little high and weak.

Chloe pulled her legs up onto the bed too and scooted a little closer. "Uhh, what just happened to you?" She pointed up at her own face, drawing such large circles around it that it sort of indicated 'everywhere' instead of anywhere specific.

Rachel lowered her head into her hands, looking so embarrassed that Chloe immediately felt ashamed for yelling at her. Or putting her on the spot. Whatever made her so distressed.

"I fucked up my transfiguration."

Chloe wasn't sure how to reply to that.

Luckily, after a few seconds, Rachel continued. "I mean, I've been practicing, but this is my first time out and I just. I guess I wasn't ready."

Now, there was something in that that Chloe understood. It just really surprised her. "Wait, what? This is your first time out? Like, the first time anyone's summoned you?"

Rachel nodded, and Chloe lowered her head in shame, running her fingers through her hair.

"Shit, sorry dude. I had no idea. I kind of fucked this up, huh?"

Rachel shook her head, but finally lowered her hands and looked at Chloe. Her eyes were hazel, dark and clear under all her golden hair. Although not at all what Chloe expected from a succubus, and really not what she had been . . . aiming for, she could not for a second deny how pretty this girl was. But 'small cute girl' had really not been what she meant to conjure.

"No, no, it's not you. I picked up on your feelings and tried to feed them back to you smoothly. It just . . . I don't know, I'm not really good at that yet."

Chloe's head tilted in confusion. "You picked up on my feelings?"

Rachel nodded.

"Like . . . like you're empathic? Like spirit science sort of stuff?"

"Yeah, I think so."

Huh. Nobody had mentioned that online. Cool trick.

Chloe crawled over her bed to sit against the back wall, so that Rachel didn't have to look directly at her or vise versa. At this point, she didn't really imagine that things were going to go as she planned, so maybe this was just a different kind of opportunity.

"So, Rachel. It's Rachel, right?"

She nodded in response, sitting up a little straighter and tucking her hair behind her ear. For a demon or whatever, she sure seemed shy.

What was the first question that came to mind? "I guess this means hell is real, right?"

Rachel nodded again, but this time actually had something to say. "Yeah, I mean, I guess."

After a blank look from Chloe, she added, "I didn't really go outside much. Or at all."

Chloe only mustered an "Um," in response.

Recognizing her confusion, Rachel said, "I was just created three days ago. The first week or so is supposed to be job training, so I've just been hanging around the office."

What?

"Wait, so, like, you're employed as a succubus? And you're three days old?"

Rachel shrugged, "As far as I can tell, it's a job you're born into, but yeah. I woke up like this," she opened up her arms, pointing at herself.

Mind. Blown.

"Well, holy shit, okay. That's a lot less Inferno than I imagined." Chloe's head tilted to the side again, although now it provided the extra function of scratching her head for her using the wall. "And where did you get the dress? Is that like, how people dress in hell?"

Rachel blushed quickly, and tried to tuck her hair back again, but ended up just running her fingers over her ear where the hair normally was. "Oh, no, I got it out of a closet at work. Or, like, the closet. It's practically endless and we all use it." She paused for a second, eyes pointed up towards the ceiling in thought. "It might actually be endless, come to think of it."

"That's sick," Chloe replied earnestly, and they both cracked a smile, finally. "But like, why did you choose it?"

Rachel seemed confused at the question, in much the same way that a math teacher would look at her when she recited steps to an equation that she had totally made up. But then, realization dawned on her face, and she answered, "Oh! One of the symbols in the ritual circle lets people see your desires and stuff. That's why I came in with the horns and the tail and the corset and stuff, 'cause you would think about it a lot near the circle."

"Oh." Now it was Chloe's turn to be left beet red, and she wasn't sure how to recover from that one. Most of the ritual circle had been drawn for weeks. If, in that time, there was an office building full of demons who could read her thoughts or watch her fantasies or whatever, then there was no end to the embarrassing stuff they might know about her. If she had known demons didn't have horns, she wouldn't have bothered to envision them like that so much . . . probably.

Rachel scooted over a little and dropped a hand on Chloe's knee. "Hey, now, don't worry about it! I thought she was really pretty, the succubus you had in mind. Plus, it's way less weird than a lot of the stuff conjurers come up with, trust me."

Chloe was a little pouty, but she asked, "Really?"

"Mmhmm," Rachel hummed in reassurance.

Chloe kept an eye on Rachel's hand, but it didn't seem to be moving. She was pretty unsure of what she hoped Rachel would do with it in the first place, but it was still pretty comforting.

"Y'know," Chloe started, her voice a bit quieter and more gravelly than before, "I'm really glad I summoned you. If I'd gotten like, an expert succubus, I'd probably be freaking out right now."

Chloe had not been expecting the ungracious snort she got in response, as Rachel held back something particularly funny. Shaking her head, she said, "Oh, god, no. If you'd summoned the other succubi I know, you wouldn't be having this conversation, you'd be like, somewhere in the middle of your seventh orgasm. They're fucking amazing and like, super sexy. It's really intimidating, actually . . ."

Chloe restrained a grin as Rachel's look turned crestfallen. While she couldn't really imagine what an office full of sexy demons was like (not that she hadn't tried, or wasn't trying in this very instant), being intimidated was the last thing that came to mind.

Chloe's hand descended over Rachel's, and she wrapped her fingers around them. She had, even without the transfiguration, incredibly soft hands, and they were so, so warm. Rachel looked back up at her curiously.

"Look," Chloe said, trying to get a reassuring tone of her own, "it's still your first week, yeah? You're super fucking cute already, and I'm sure you'll get the hang of it fast. Like, you could totally be a model no questions."

Rachel's eyes brightened almost instantly. "Really?" she asked, a wave of enthusiasm at the compliment seeming to animate her entirely.

Chloe nodded, "Yeah, totally."

Rachel beamed, and Chloe found herself temporarily dazzled.

Rachel cleared her throat after the pause lasted a little too long, and asked, "So, uh, about why you summoned me and everything-"

Fresh panic erupted inside Chloe as she raised up her hands, waving them in front of her, "Nonono, um." Her brain glazed over with thoughtlessness for a few seconds before she could clarify, "I, uh, I don't really feel comfortable with that when you're just like, a girl, you know?

Chloe expected her to say any number of things like: 'well, I am a sex demon' or 'thanks for wasting my time' or 'you, your own self, are just a girl', but instead, there was just brief silence. She hung her head in shame, not wanting to look at Rachel and see the frustration or disappointment incoming.
And then, "Sure."

And when Chloe looked back up, surprised, she found that Rachel had her pinky finger extended out towards Chloe. "Friends then?" she asked.

Chloe felt like something had stolen her breath away. She wasn't sure whether her blush refused to fade or if it was just coming back stronger, but she knew her face was hot, and that she was unsure if she had ever seen something so cute.

Chloe reached out slowly, and entwined her pinky with Rachel's. "Yeah, friends."
And Rachel kept beaming until Chloe was forced to grin.

Chloe's phone buzzed in her pocket, and the sudden, invasive sound broke their pinky hooks apart. Chloe drew the phone from her pants, and quickly remembered why it was buzzing.

It was time to banish the demon if she wanted to have her room clean by the time David was off his shift, especially if she wanted it to look like she'd been doing homework.

"Oh, fuck," she groaned, her whole body slumping in disappointment. "I've got to end the spell before my step-douche gets home."

Rachel just looked confused. "Step-douche?"
Chloe slipped the phone back in her pocket and shrugged. "Step dad. He's a douche. Step douche."

Rachel snorted again at Chloe's awkwardness, but then turned around to look around the room. "Want help cleaning everything up or . . .?"
Chloe shook her head, "Nah, nah, I got it. Besides, you're a guest."

Chloe scooted forward on the bed until her legs hung off the sides. "But, uh, if you could show me which part lets you guys see into my thoughts so I could destroy it, that would be awesome."

Rachel grinned good-naturedly before pulling up beside Chloe, looking down at the circle. "Totally, sure. Let's see . . . it's . . ." She pointed to a glyph near the edge of the spiral, "that one. Don't even need it to run the spell, it's just convenient."

"Rad," Chloe replied, deadpan.

Then, she turned her head to look at Rachel, casually as she could manage, "Hey, do you mind if I summon you again? Just to like, hang out sometime."

Rachel blinked slowly, and for a second, she thought Rachel was checking her out. Then, she replied, "Sure. I'd like that."

There was a few seconds of comfortable warmth, but before it could break, Rachel tilted off to the side and wrapped Chloe up in a hug. "Thanks, Chloe."
Chloe had no idea what she was being thanked for, but she answered it with a "Yeah," and tried her best to hug Rachel back.

When the moment was over, Chloe hesitated, and then said, "Guess this is it, then."

Neither of them said anything, and Chloe stood up, crossing the summoning circle and crouching down next to the bit that she planned on destroying.

"See ya, Rachel," she said.

"Bye, bye, Chloe."

Chloe swiped her thumb across her tongue and smeared part of the circle.
Rachel vanished, as if she had never been there at all.