Zebra has a crush on Hyde, and breaks into Sor’s shop to act on his sadistic desires. Things go wrong, however, when Hyde catches him in his workshop and proceeds to torture him. In the process, he cuts a deep wound in Zebra’s cheek, which will leave a scar. The night ends when Hyde realises Zebra is about to die. Because he does not currently have anyone else to “play” with, he stops torturing Zebra, and traps him in a cage overnight. Zebra escapes the cage and flees the shops, determined to get even in the future.
While Sor and Zebra are off having their adventure, Katters returns to the basement to experiment on a magic, which she’d harvested earlier from a magic-user she was going to kill anyway. She “sciences” the magic explicitly against Sor’s wishes, and it is apparent that it is under Sor’s direction that Katters harvests magics in the first place.
Katters’ hubris bites her in the butt, and the magic bites her in the hand — and won’t let go. The chapter ends with Katters realising she is in quite a bit of hot water.
Next chapter
Zebra coerces Katters into “playing a game” with him, then takes her down to the basement at gunpoint and straps her to one of the autopsy tables. When she refuses to cooperate, he breaks her hand and hurts her until she agrees to play.
The game he has in mind is Russian Roulette, and she fights the idea but is unable to stop him from continuing. She wins a round, but starts going into shock from the stress, pain, and fear. Zebra asks her what prize she wants for winning a round and when she can’t or won’t answer, he tells her that he will take her out to dinner at some undefined point in the future.
Zebra takes a turn and Katters points out that if he dies, there’ll be no one to unstrap her from the table. He doesn’t care.
For his prize, he wants a scale from Katters’ back, and cuts it off with a scalpel. Katters continues going into shock.
They play another two rounds, Zebra continuing his mind-games. When he wins a second time, he takes another scale. Katters agrees to take her own turn with the gun, instead of Zebra taking her turns “for her”. When he unstraps her hand, she takes the gun and aims it at herself — then at Zebra.
Zebra backs away from the gun, giving Katters the opportunity to finish freeing herself. She then attempts to shoot Zebra twice, then beats him with the gun.
Some time later, Katters is in bed, still injured. Zebra arrives and cleans and bandages her wounds. Katters tells him she can’t do anything like that again, and Zebra changes the subject.
Katters goes to sleep.