Chapter 92: Deep Night with Sarah I was expecting, maybe, eight hours of sleep. Max. That was usually my upper limit before my brain started spiraling into overdrive about homework I wasn’t doing, system missions with threatening timers, or whatever fresh psychological warfare Lincoln High had cooked up for the day. My mental alarm clock was a certified asshole. But ten hours? Ten. That was straight-up coma territory. Hibernation. Bear-mode. Like my body had filed a PTO request and blacked out before I could say no. When I finally surfaced, it wasn’t like a gentle rise to consciousness—it was a drag. Like my soul was being yanked up from the bottom of a lake with concrete boots. Everything was sore. My muscles felt like I’d run a triathlon on a tilt-a-whirl, and my eyes refused to open without protest. The house was dead silent. Which was weird. Eerily weird. No mom yelling about her shift. No sound of the twins fighting over who got to use the bathroom first like they were negotiating a hostage situation. No TV blaring their k-dramas. No smell of burnt toast. Just the soft electric hum of the fridge and the oppressive quiet of a house that had already moved on without me. What time is it? I cracked one eye open, reached for my phone, and nearly dislocated a shoulder in the process. Screen glared back at me like it was judging my entire life. 2:47 PM. Jesus. Fucking Christ. I’d slept through most of the goddamn day. Peter Carter, teenage chaos engine and part-time Dark Lord, had just pulled a full-on Rip Van Winkle. Which would’ve been hilarious if I didn’t feel like I’d been hit by a train carrying emotional baggage, divine-demonic energy, and an unholy amount of sexual exertion. That’s when my stomach decided to make itself known. Loud. Aggressive. Like a demon in its own right. A deep, guttural growl ripped through me that could’ve summoned ancient gods from beneath the floorboards. I was starving. Not "I skipped breakfast" hungry. Not "I forgot to eat during finals" hungry. I was burn-the-world-down hungry. Like my cells were screaming feed me or die. I rolled out of bed like a reanimated corpse, legs trembling under me like they were still replaying every thrust from yesterday’s Dark Lord marathon. My hallway stretched out in front of me like some mythic journey—light at the end of the tunnel, and that light? The kitchen. Food. Need food. Now. Everything else in my brain shut off. No thoughts, just primal drive. I stumbled toward the fridge like a caveman approaching fire for the first time. And thank every divine entity in the multiverse—Mom had left food. Last night’s casserole, just sitting there like a treasure chest waiting to be looted. Still cold. Still glorious. I didn’t hesitate. Grabbed the whole dish. Fork. Carton of orange juice. No plate, no dignity, no care in the world. Just a boy and his instinct to survive. I sat at the table and destroyed that casserole. No heating. No prep. Just full-on savage mode. I was shoveling forkfuls into my mouth like I’d been stranded on a desert island and the rescue chopper had just dropped in a four-star meal. The texture was somewhere between cheesy and borderline solid, but to me? It tasted like salvation. I chased it with pulls straight from the juice carton—because why the hell not? I’d just spent the last 24 hours seducing and fucking my teacher, surviving metaphysical transformation, and rearranging the emotional lives of two insanely hot women. I earned this feral meal. A breakfast, maybe? Whatever. Somewhere between mouthfuls, I paused just long enough to think: When’s the last time I ate like this? I couldn’t even remember. Not like this. Not with this level of hunger. Like my body was screaming to be rebuilt from the ground up—fuel, protein, sugar, electrolytes, the works. Dark Lord tax must’ve hit harder than expected. I kept eating. Faster. Louder. Messier. And for the first time all day, I felt like I was finally putting the pieces of myself back together. One cold bite at a time. I was about halfway through demolishing the casserole when I felt eyes on me. I looked up, fork still in my mouth—and yeah, there she was. Sarah. Leaning on the doorframe like she owned the whole damn house. Her smirk? Lazy. Knowing. The kind that said she’d seen me like this before but this time... it hit different. And Jesus Christ, she looked good. Her sleep shorts clung to her hips like they were custom made to tease—riding low, tight enough to trace the curve of her ass even from the front. Her legs were long, toned, bare all the way down, with that soft, golden glow you only got from sleeping late and never stressing over shit. Her tank top wasn’t even pretending to do its job—thin, loose, no bra underneath. I could see the soft rise of her chest with every breath, nipples faintly visible through the fabric, brushing against the cotton like they were daring me to stare. Her hair was all over the place in the best way—messy waves falling around her face, like some model had just woken up from a dream. And her eyes? Half-lidded, still hazy with sleep, but sharp enough to know exactly what kind of picture she was painting standing there. I swallowed hard. The fork hung loose in my hand. My thoughts? Nowhere near food. ’Goddammit,’ I thought, dragging my eyes back to the casserole like it was some kind of lifeline. ’This is Sarah. Your sister. Get your shit together. Yes, that’s your sister, you fucking weirdo.’ But my body hadn’t gotten the memo. Not with her standing there like that. And judging by the way she was staring at me, arms crossed, and eyebrows raised, she was clearly enjoying the caveman scene I was putting on in front of the fridge. "Wow," she said. "Did someone forget how to use a plate?" I grunted through a mouthful of casserole. "Starving." She rolled her eyes and walked past me like I was just some wild animal she’d seen at the zoo too many times. Typical Sarah. Always unbothered. Always in control. And always catching me at my worst.