"Hello, Hannah Ivory."

"I don't understand," I quivered. "How...why did you steal that key from Sara!?"

She held up the key, light reflecting eerily off the bronze plating. "It's a marvel, really," she said, almost whispering. "Only two of these keys have ever been made. They grant nearly limitless access to any building in this city." She turned to me. "And to answer your question, my love, I stole this key from Sara because she was the only one, up until a few hours ago, who could have stopped what your father and I had been planning.

"I told you that two of these keys had been made. Both were, at one point, in the hands of The California Law Enforcement Patrol, until a gentle yet cunning Mexican-American woman managed to steal one." She exhaled reflectively. "That woman was Alma, and for years she used that key to sneak undocumented immigrants into safe houses all across California. It was quite a feat, to be sure.

"But one of the places that key could unlock was an old cellar located under the police station, a cellar that your father and I had used to hide the bodies of Dale and Eric before taking them to their final locations. I broke into Sara's house tonight to tie up that final loose end—no one will be recovering any DNA from that cellar." She sighed. "I had hoped to be telling you this under more favorable conditions. But alas, circumstances beyond my control have been quite troublesome."

"Circumstances beyond your control!?" I screeched. "Mom, you were helping Dad murder people!"

"The only people I killed, Hannah Ivory, were the ones who threatened your future."

I crossed my arms. "You mean like Eric?"

"In not so many words, yes." Her eyes grew thin. "It's almost unbelievable that someone with such a childish and immature disposition could be so scholastically talented. But that's beside the point." She handed my dad the key, and he left the room as she continued talking:

"When your father and I found out that Eric was in the running to be valedictorian—and worse, that he had already been in correspondence with an admissions counselor at Scofield-Andrews—we knew that we couldn't let him steal away all that you had worked for.

"One day after school, I followed him home, where I saw him crawl behind a set of tall shrubs and start smoking marijuana. I took several pictures before leaving, and then I kept taking pictures for weeks on end. When I finally turned them in to Principal Hollendale, he had no choice but to expel that boorish child!

"But Eric didn't take kindly to being exposed. I'm not sure how he discovered it, but he found out that I had been the one to turn him in. He came to our home and threatened me with a gun...but little did he know that your father was still in the house. He wrestled the gun away from Eric and threatened to call the police, but I didn't give him the chance. I took the gun and blasted Eric twice in the head."

I crossed my eyes. "Couldn't you have just buried him or something?" I asked. "If what you said's true, then why'd you have to lock his dead body in that student lounge?"

"Because, Hannah Ivory," she sighed, arching her elbow and resting a hand on her hip. "After I shot Eric in our home, the plan was to burn his body. But when we found out that you were starting to take a liking to Stefan, we feared that he might be plotting to take revenge on you for his brother's expulsion. So we locked Eric's body in the student lounge and decided to lure Stefan inside before burning it down. While your father was dispatching Velden, I was tasked with setting a controlled fire in the lounge. But those floors...they just lit up like a tinderbox the moment I set the flame..."

I hung my head, shielded my eyes with my hands, felt the flow of hot tears as they poured between my fingers. "Mom, you could have killed me!"

"No, Hannah Ivory," she tried to reassure me. "I would never have let that happen; you have to believe me. Your father and I love you so much—"

"STOP SAYING THAT!" I screamed. "You don't love me! You never have! You think love is lying, stealing—MURDERING! You don't care about me! You care about the money I could make, the future I could have!" I sniffled, tears raging incessantly down my red and burning cheeks as my breath escaped in fitful, frenzied streams. "If you really loved me, you would have taken me to the movies instead of always forcing me to study! You would have invited my friends to stay for sleepovers! You would have watched with joy as we giggled and braided each other's hair and talked about boys having cooties! You would have kissed me and hugged me and laughed and smiled and cared!" I steeled myself against my mother's voice, my mother's lies. "You would have given, instead of always demanding."

My mother scowled angrily where she stood, staring at me coldly and without flinching. "You dare tell me what I should have done!? You know nothing! Nothing of the agony I have felt! Do you pretend to understand the pain, Hannah Ivory—the hurt of losing a daughter? Of losing your child, your selfsame image!?" The bitterness, the obsession in her eyes was equal in magnitude to the despair in my own.

Just as I thought my mother might lunge across the distance between us and smite me across the face, my father re-entered the room, dragging behind him the weakly quavering body of Luvietta Jackson, steely cuffs binding her hands and feet. After he lugged her to the middle of the room and deposited her only a few feet from Azalea, he lifted his head to stare at the clock on the wall, watching with unblinking eyes as the minute hand slowly ticked past the number 5, signaling the arrival of 12:26 a.m.

"It is time," came the rumble of my father's voice.

"No!" I yelled. "DAD, NO!!"

He retrieved a gun from inside his robe and pointed it toward Azalea's unconscious body.

"Dad, she didn't do anything to you! You don't have to do this!"

"LUVIETTA KILLED MY DAUGHTER!" He screamed, his voice assuming at once a ferocity and a depth of darkness that I had never known even him to possess. He shifted his gaze fleetingly to Azalea's mother, staring hatefully upon her shaking frame as he spoke:

"You thought you'd gotten away with it. You killed Heather, and there was none the wiser." His eyes narrowed, and his pistol cocked. "But he who kills last, Luvietta—it is he who kills best."

POW!

"NO!" I screamed, falling to the floor in terror and agony as the sound of a gunshot rang out through the air.

I was crying, screaming, willing with all of my soul that everything would stop, that by some miracle I could save Azalea and her mother, that all of this could be some sick and wicked dream.

But the gasp I heard next was not that of Azalea Jackson—it was Phillip Mun.

I lifted my head, blinked my eyes to see my father writhing in pain, blood seeping from his right arm as he lay curled tightly atop the floor's wooden boards.

My eyes darted to the left, then right, spotting instantly the hall light flooding through the classroom doorway—light that illuminated the form and figure of none other than Staley Jackson, who stood brandishing a .22 caliber pistol.

"Mr. Jackson," I exhaled, my heart fluttering with relief.

He lowered the pistol and rushed into the room, hurrying to my side.

"Hannah, are you alright?" He asked as he knelt in front of me, gripping my shoulders.

"I'm fine," I nodded, my head still whirling with fear. "I just—LOOK OUT!"

No sooner had I spoken the words than the shadow of my mother darted swiftly along the classroom walls, clacking high-heels echoing with fury. The swift kick of a stiletto-clad foot slammed into the side of Mr. Jackson's head and knocked him to the floor.

He rolled away from me, landed on his back, raised his pistol with lightning speed just as my mother closed what little space lay between them and slammed the gun from his hand before twisting yet again and pounding the side of his head with another vicious kick.

"Mr. Jackson!" I screamed as his head flew backwards and he groaned in pain, blood spurting from his mouth as he struggled to steady himself after the force of my mother's strike.

"Stop it!" I wailed. "Mom, please!"

As if I had said nothing, she bent wordlessly to the floor to retrieve my dad's pistol, then she aimed it at Azalea.

"Mom, no!" I screamed. "NO!"

I leapt from the floor and tackled her as she fired the gun, my arms circling both her legs and toppling her wiry frame. The bullet sailed upward, ripping through the clock and embedding itself in the wall.

My mother grasped my throat with her palm and pinned me to the floor, just as my father rose from the ground, blood seeping from his arm and staining red his robe of white. He staggered in uneven steps toward Azalea's unconscious body, his eyes still leaden with that hateful glare.

I raised my arm and backhanded my mother in the jaw. Her grip loosened on my throat, and my hand shot up to grab her hair and yank back her head. She screamed and grasped at her scalp with both hands, rolling away from me, and I sprang to my feet frantically and rushed for my father.

Stumbling to move, he drew a knife from the white robe's interior and raised it shakily above Azalea's body. I thrusted myself through the air, diving directly into him, and sent him crashing back to the floor.

The knife fell from his hand and clanged beside us, my father's eyes growing wide as I reached for the blade. He caught my hand and jerked me backwards, then reached past me to take the knife.

I jabbed my elbow behind me, slamming the bullet-sized hole leaking crimson from his arm. He hollered aloud, and I squirmed forward and grasped the knife in between my fingers.

I rolled away and stood to my feet, flinching as my father stared ferally into my eyes.

Feet from us, my mother was slowly pushing herself back up from the floor, struggling to stand on those sharp stilettos.

"HANNAH!" My father leapt from the floor in a sudden burst of energy, lurching forward at me with a single arm outstretched and grabbing for the blade. His body slammed me against the wall, and his hand bore into my shoulder, digging against the skin before rising to my face and gripping my jaw.

Fear pulsing through my brain, I swung the knife upward and plunged it into the side of his throat. Blood spewed, blasting me directly in the face. But I didn't let it stop me from pushing, forcing the knife deeper, penetrating against his mangled screams.

My mother ran forward, but I shoved my back against the wall and kicked with all my might, propelling my father's bulky body against her. I left the knife in my father's neck, then bolted across the room and swiped Mr. Jackson's gun from the floor, where it rested in darkness.

My dad's blood was pouring down the side of my cheek as I spun around and pointed the gun at the lady who had mothered me and the man whose head she now fearfully cradled in her hands, the gash in his neck drenching her in red. I prepared to shoot, to end forever the agony and misery they had caused me, to free myself from torture of which I had been the subject since birth—I was ready to fire my curved and silvery weapon when suddenly...I heard tears.

My mother—she was crying.

"Hannah Ivory, please," she begged through sniffles. "I love you. We love you. How could you do this to us?"

"How could you do this to me!?" I demanded. "You've been lying to me from the minute I was born, lying to me about everything! You told me that Heather committed suicide! You said she killed herself, when all this time, it was you, YOU WHO KILLED HER!" I raised the pistol and cocked it. "You can blame Luvietta all you want, but it was you who drove her, demanded that she be the best! It was you, Mother, you and Father! YOU DID THIS!"

I pointed the barrel angrily forward, both of my parents still huddled on the floor. My mother clung to my father, and she cried—oh, how she cried!

I felt my finger on the trigger, preparing to pull it back, to release the metal bullet that would free me, that would finish at last this horrid chapter in my life.

My eyes turned to Azalea, her body spread unconscious on the floor just feet from her mother, and then to Hunter, his blond hair and squared jaw still as charming as ever as he lay motionless, unknowing. A single tear condensed below my eye, rolled silently down my cheek, falling to the ground and bursting with the faintest of thuds.