A scream ripped from Page's mouth, shaking the entire house. The frantic footsteps of her mother thumped up the stairs. "Darling? What's wrong?"

Page's eyes flickered from Dara and the door. Before the girl could say anything more, Dara switched up the timber of her voice to match Page's, slapping a hand on her charge's mouth. "I'm fine, Mom!" she yelled, stalling the approaching footsteps. She flashed a stern and urgent look at Page, silencing the girl to submission. "Just dropped my tablet. Or something. It's fine now! Just surprised."

Dara added an awkward laugh, something Page has been known to do when caught red-handed. When her mother's presence receded from the second floor, Dara peeled away from Page and mussed her hair. Despite keeping it short, it was easy to get matted and tangled at the ends.

"W-who are you?" Page stumbled off the chair and crawled to the corner of her room. She brandished a cardboard sword she won at a cosplaying event some time ago. "How did you get into my room?"

Another sigh bled from Dara's lips. "Just, calm down, alright?" she said. "And bring the fucking sword down. I ain't going to hurt your tiny ass."

As an answer, Page whipped to her behind before flashing an angry gaze at Dara. "They're not tiny!"

Dara rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and I'm not a contractor," she muttered under her breath. She took one look at Page's confused expression, read the question from it, and decided to face the problem head on. "Look, we both want to be done with this as soon as possible, yeah? So, why don't you sit your ass down on your princessy bed, and listen to what I have to say? Can we do that?"

Page frowned. "What's a contractor?"

Oh, here they go. "Contractors are beings that are sent to unhappy individuals to...well, make them happy," Dara explained, reciting from memory everything she learned from the guidebook. "Basically, we are granted powers to fulfill their wishes, but—" She wagged a finger near Page's face before another stupid question was asked. "We have rules to adhere to, such as: we cannot grant other people's wishes except the charges we signed a contract with; we cannot disobey the natural laws with our power; and we are free to refute a wish that can harm another person or cause more unhappiness."

Page's frown deepened. "Damn, you guys thought this through," she said. A beat went by. Two. She tilted her head at Dara, squinting. They weren't that different in age in terms of appearance—for some reason, Dara was stuck as a youth with an ambiguous age—but the range of expressions, vocabulary, and thought processes in both of them couldn't have been more different. "So, you're a fairy godmother. You know, that Cinderella thing? Bibbidi bobbi—"

"No," Dara interjected before the girl started singing that annoying song. "We are contractors, and you are my charge. My...liability. The point is—we aren't supposed to show ourselves to the people we grant wishes for, because the contract can get abused. But we're here now. I'll deal with my mistake on my end—I truly didn't mean it—but you have to help me sign your case off just to even out the odds with my superior."

The girl's lip curled in a pout. It was obvious she had a dozen questions about all of this flitting around in her tiny head. "So...you grant my wishes?" she asked, scratching the side of her face. "Since when?"

Dara braced her hip. "Since a month ago."

"Oh," was Page's only answer. She faced Dara again, swiveling in her gaming chair. It was only then did Dara see the real color of her eyes, when it wasn't shrouded with the computer's blue light. Brown, with a hint of flecks the color of honey. She has beautiful eyes, if only she knew how to use them to get what she wanted.

"So, do you have a plan?" Page asked.

Dara smiled. She hoped it wasn't one resembling a murderer. "I'll help you," she said. "I'll help you get Jake as your boyfriend."

Silence. "I just need you to follow everything I say. To the letter. No arguing." Dara crossed her arms and stared down at Page. "Go against a single thing, and our deal is off. Agreed?"

Page jutted a hand out towards Dara. "Agreed."

They shook on it, and Dara tried hard to ignore the flashes of warmth that traveled up her arm with the brief second they touched.