I huddle in a corner by the brink of the precipice, next to the waterfall.

The location makes sense as a last refuge for a desperate woman. Who wants to die of thirst, staring at the waterfall? This position allows access to water, even at the risk of a spike through the heart. Honestly, a spike through the heart sounds like a win next to a slow death.

But also... and hear me out... this is where I need the spikes to hit the ground.

Were I normal, I would have never built up enough resolve to stay in this one place. But I'm bipolar and I'm used to taking unnecessary risks to get my blood pumping with thrill. Living with Matteo almost made me forget the adrenalin rush between fear and dizziness. I'm not a normal woman, I'm mental. I believe!

Hot urine pours down my thighs when the screeching sound announces the spikes' grand entrance. Good thing tears veil my poor eye, because if the plunging tips looked as sharp as they are... Well, I might have vomited too.

I count down from one thousand through rattling teeth, otherwise my heart would lie that it wasn't over yet... I mess up on eight-hundred-and-three... start again.

Anyway, once there's no movement for long enough, I unglue my back from the rock wall and stretch on the floor.

On my elbows and heels, I wiggle under the most descended spike in the row closest to the brink. All the spikes aim at me, converging on my fucking belly button. It's an optical illusion, I'm aware, but my heart races, expecting Irene's invisible hand to grow impatient. She'll break the rules and skewer me where I lay. Here I would stay for all eternity, with my eye flung in surprise. One dead woman. One dead eye.

My chosen spike hovers about a foot above my breasts.

I release a deep breath, noticing how my chest and stomach flatten. I close my eyes and relax muscle by muscle, from fingertips to the core. It's like some fucking yoga class. And it's like a letter conveyed by body movements.

To: My Unseen Watchers.

From: Bryn Williams who hoped to become Mrs. Bryn Scali.

Dear Unseen Watchers,

I've given up and beg you to strike the killing blow. Tell Matteo I love him.

Ciao!

Ohmigosh, I'm certifiably insane! Some people would say, what took you so long to figure it out, Bryn?

Well, fuck. Too busy living my own life, I guess.

Spikes terrified me yesterday, when I was penning this stupid letter.

Today, after I've spent a few hours on my back underneath one, I know them intimately.

Which is so damn funny, I shake with giggles, sort of like Nina.

Nina!

The memory of the dastardly girl shakes me. Just how long was I sprawling there, with a target painted on my chest? Hopefully, long enough, or I'm a dead woman walking.

Well, I'm a dead woman walking already, but a more dead dead-woman-walking. You know what I mean, right?

Anyway, I use a spike that came down half-way. The spike, my unbendable helper—because I tried to bend it, heh And, like, screamed at it when it didn't bend...

That was before I pantsed the pants plan, and it became way scarier.

I grin at the spike and work its tip through the seam of the pant legs of my pants. That's lots of pants, but I wish I had more. "More pants would be better."

My only cut-up pair slips out of my hands to the stone floor. For a second, it looks like they might slide all the way over the edge. I lurch and grab them, press them to my pounding chest. The cell whirls around me, so I steady myself with a hand on the spike. Like I said, they're my only allies here. Funny, right?

So fucking funny!

Laughter rocks me to my knees. "The joke... the joke's on you!" I let go to wag my finger at the spike and laugh till tears squirt out of my eyes. Till I have to catch myself on the floor to avoid tumbling face first into the stone.

There I stay, stretched out hand holding my shaking body up, head down, waiting for the dizziness to recede. Hunger plus constant terror equals euphoria. It won't go away completely until I eat something, and there's nothing to eat in this house. Isn't it so damn weird that hunger makes you queasy, because that's when you want to keep what you already have in your system—

Right, I cut off the winding trail of thoughts taking me into the mire. Don't follow the lights, Frodo. Don't follow the fucking lights!

Finally, my reeling mind is steady, and my hands don't tremble quite so much. I can work again.

I pick up the first pant leg of the split pants and start cutting the tube into two stripes on the end of the spike.

Steady mind, steady hands. Just overall, steady. It has to be even. The mad grin that twists my face has got to go even though it's bloody convenient that the invisible hand stopped the spike right here, at this height. It makes my job so much easier.

If the Hand of Doom would rather help me than pierce my liver while I crawl on the floor, who am I to say no?

"Suckers!"

The gallows' laughter has me in its grip again. I hope the invisible dickheads enjoyed my little performance yesterday. One of those motherfuckers ought to have a twisted sense of mercy to give me what I want. Or at least what I want them to think I want.

Because I'm pretty sure I don't want to die before I marry Matteo. We've overcome too many obstacles already on the way to this wedding. The mafia, world-wide pandemic, my parents—nothing could tear us apart. I even found my perfect dress. So, yeah, dying has to wait. I'm not going to give up now because of the second-rate mafia bitch and her sadistic buddies.

Speaking of those buddies, the bastards are taking their time this morning. Come on, damn spikes, fall!

"Fall! Fall! Fall!"