This fire was not a feeling Zoe knew well, nor one she was comfortable with. It had not been so long since she'd kissed Cai but that had been a different sensation entirely; she trusted Cai, against all odds but there was no trust here, just the mockery of intimacy, of lust. She'd told Rachel once that she felt like that part of her had switched off, that she hadn't felt lust or even the hint of a crush since the school shooting. Even Cai wasn't that; he wasn't a crush, wasn't lust. Cai was confusion and distraction and reassurance and hope.

This thing infiltrating her body now was an alien thing, lust without invitation and intimacy without trust and Zoe panicked. Zoe revolted against it. She did the only thing she could think to do: she threw herself at him and shoved him hard back into the wall.