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31: Loose Ends

Six.

"Get down!" Ryan shouted.

Calla fell to her knees without hesitation. A heartbeat later, the blast of gunfire reverberated through the rafters, filling her head with a terrible ringing. When she looked up, eyes watery with pain, she found Mike on his knees, hands folded over his head like a man in prayer.

And further away, panting on the gym floor—Stephanie, blood blossoming across her right shoulder.

Calla pushed once more to her feet as Ryan lowered the gun, relief evident in his eyes. "Sorry we're late—"

"Mike!" Blake pushed past Ryan and sprinted to his twin's side.

"Uh..." Cooper slowly straightened out of a crouch. "You're on our side. Right?"

"Duh." Ryan hurried across the court and helped Cooper to his feet. He clapped him on the shoulder. "Told you I've got your back."

Vincent groaned from the floor, still thoroughly strapped to his chair.

"Shit." Cooper darted to his side. "Sorry, man."

Calla turned from what was sure to be a heartfelt reunion, ignoring the pain in her knees, in her head. Fury and adrenaline fueled her now, hot and relentless.

Dr. Peterson had had quite a few things to say about her temper. Don't let it get the best of you. But the good doctor didn't know about the vast chasm inside of her—didn't know that her anger was one of the few tethers she had to this life. Sometimes, she thought it was all that held her together.

You're not real. You're just an empty shell, full of blood and endless rage.

Without her pistol in hand, Stephanie shrank from Calla's approach, half-sobbing as she cradled her injured shoulder. Sneering, Calla crouched over the other girl, using her knees to pin her to the floor.

Dr. Peterson could kiss her lily white ass. 

"You deranged—" Calla wrapped her left hand around Stephanie's throat, "—delusional—" squeezing until she began to choke, arms flailing, grasping at Calla's hair, her face, her clothes, "—bitch."

Calla held one of the metal pins up to her eye. Stephanie stilled, face flooded with color as she struggled to breathe. "How does the saying go?" Calla asked, mocking. "Hear no evil..." She stroked the tip of the pin along Stephanie's lower lashes. "See no evil?"

Stephanie gagged. Except—it wasn't Stephanie at all.

Tracy winked up at her, the column of her throat torn and bloodied. "Long time, no see."

Calla closed her eyes, forcing herself to snap out of...whatever the hell this was. When she opened them again, Stephanie was beneath her, frantically gulping down air. Her neck was still in one piece. "Astrid—"

"Shut up."

"Astrid!" Stephanie gasped, clawing at Calla's wrist, still raw from where she'd stabbed herself with the pin. "Astrid. Astrid killed Rachel. Astrid killed Rachel!"

Calla grinned. "That's not going to work. Not this time."

Still. Stephanie's words triggered an unwanted memory: Cory kneeling above her in the dark, the pain in her shoulder like an iron rod drenched in fire. Rachel, he'd whispered. I have to tell you about Rachel. An accident...

Calla's smile fell.

"It was Astrid. You've...known," Stephanie forced out, tracking the pin that hovered mere millimeters above her eye. She didn't dare struggle for fear that she'd lose that eye if she tried. "You've known all along. And I've got the evidence to prove it."

You've known all along.

Calla glanced over her shoulder. Cooper and Ryan were still trying to free Vincent from the chair, and had so far only managed to cut loose an ankle. The twins were lost in their own world, faces glistening in the slant of sunlight beaming through the windows overhead.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" Blake shouted, sweeping the baseball bat before him in a wide arc. Mike jumped back to avoid a blow to his ribs. "You don't ever use your head—"

"I was doing it for you, you big idiot!" Mike retorted, grabbing the bat on Blake's next swing. "What were you doing, huh? Steroids? Do you have any idea how stupid—"

"Right...pocket." Stephanie's voice was barely more than a pained groan. "Right...pocket."

Calla raised a skeptical brow, eyes skimming over the denim jacket she wore. "Look who's stalling now," she muttered, but curiosity got the best of her. She dug out the flash drive Stephanie had stowed away for safekeeping and shoved it in her face. "What is this?"

A light sheen of sweat had gathered on her brow. Stephanie swallowed, throat bobbing beneath Calla's fingers. "Evidence," she panted.

Calla snarled. "Yeah. Against me." She moved to pry open Stephanie's eyelid. "Open wide, sweetheart."

"No!" She thrashed, sobbing. "Astrid! Astrid! Proof. I have...proof..."

"Proof." Calla pulled away and stared at the flash drive. "Liar."

"No."

"Liar."

Tracy whimpered. Not Tracy. Calla shook her head. Stephanie. Stephanie Stephanie Stephanie.

Calla drove a thumb into the bullet-sized hole in her shoulder. Stephanie moaned in agony. "I know how that feels," Calla whispered, leaning in close. Vicious delight swept through her. We are the wolf in sheep's clothing. The beast unfurled, tap-tap-tapping at the soft membranes of her skin. Let me out. Let me out.

Calla burrowed her thumb deeper. Stephanie screamed, and the sound was like music.

"I told you," she sobbed, her claw-like fingers digging into Calla's hip. "It was Astrid. An accident. An accident. I told you. I could ruin her. I could ruin her...Cory picked. Cory always picked. He wouldn't let me..."

Calla gazed down at her, apathetic. "You're afraid," she murmured. "You're afraid of me."

"I'm not stupid," Stephanie snarled, tears streaming into her hairline.

Calla forced herself to take a breath, to think through the haze of her fury, her mindless rage. A single name came to her.

Rachel.

She'd been slaughtered like all the others. Strangled, throat slashed. For so long, Calla had assumed the culprit behind her death had been tied to the rest. There had to be a pattern. There had to be. The alternative was to be adrift in the dark. Lost. Without purpose.

But the rules had changed—again. And now Calla had a decision to make.

She considered the flash drive, tongue dancing across her bottom lip. She desperately wanted to jab the metal pin into Stephanie's brain and be done with it. But doubt stilled her hand.

That's the difference between you and me. I leave nothing to chance.

Stephanie wasn't stupid. Astrid had witnessed her commit a horrific crime, and Stephanie—ruthless and calculating—never would've let her live, not without insurance. Mutually-assured self-destruction was one surefire way to keep someone's mouth shut.

Calla clenched the flash drive in her fist.

"What are you going to do, Calla?"

She didn't dare look up, didn't acknowledge the question at all—not when she was so very close to the edge of oblivion. Instead, she slipped the metal pins and the flash drive into her back pocket.

Leave me alone, Rachel. She practically screamed the words in her mind. Just...go. Be at peace.

"I can't." The faint, exhausted whisper wrapped around her. "You won't let me."

Calla pushed herself to her feet. Stephanie trembled where she lay, one hand clasped over her injured shoulder. Blood stained the wooden floor of the court, leeching the color from her face, her lips.

"Calla."

She turned. Cooper jogged to her side, shaky with adrenaline despite the exhaustion in his eyes. "Are you—"

"Fine." She stared down at her bloodied hands. "I'm fine."

"And Stephanie?"

She heard the unspoken question in his voice. What are we going to do with her? Funny. Everyone seemed to want to know the answer to that question.

Calla looked over his shoulder and grimaced. Her window of opportunity had passed. If she'd killed Stephanie quickly—if she'd just jammed that pin into her eye, as she'd planned to do—then her death might've been overlooked, chalked up to self-defense or some other such nonsense. But to kill her now, after she'd clearly been incapacitated...

There would be hell to pay. And Calla intended to avoid that particularly fiery end for as long as possible.

"We're being watched," she mumbled by way of reply.

Cooper shrugged and wrapped his arms around her. She recoiled in surprise.

"There," he said, the words a low hum in her ear. "They'll think we're having a moment."

"Are we having a moment?"

He laughed. The sound vibrated through her chest. "I didn't realize you were a hugger."

"I'm this close to kicking you in the—"

"What are we going to do about Stephanie?" he asked, talking over her.

The others were watching them now, glancing surreptitiously in their direction every few seconds to give them the illusion of privacy. She wrapped her arms around Cooper's waist and perched her head on his shoulder, lips hovering near his ear. They were both sweaty and disgusting, but she hardly cared. "Steph didn't kill Rachel."

She felt his surprise when his arms tensed around her. "Then who—"

"Astrid." The flash drive practically burned where it lay in her back pocket. "I've got proof. Supposedly."

"So we turn it over to the police."

She hesitated. "Maybe."

"Calla—"

She pulled away. They locked eyes for a tense moment, and then he nodded, arms falling to his sides.

The others crowded around them. Vincent was rubbing his raw wrists and wincing. "Jesus." Ryan shot Stephanie an uneasy look. She glared at him from the floor. "I thought I'd killed her."

"I almost wish you had," Cooper muttered darkly. Blake snorted in appreciation, his baseball bat balanced across his shoulders.

Vincent eyed the bat, curious. "What exactly were you going to do with that thing?"

Before Blake could muster a response, the sound of a siren pierced the air. Distant—but growing ever closer.

"I can't wait to explain this one," Ryan grumbled.

Cooper made a face. "How are you going to explain it?" He gestured between them. "I mean, how the hell did you two know where to find us, anyway?"

Mike waved a hand, sheepish. "That one's on me."

"Idiot," Stephanie hissed from the floor. Calla elected to ignore her—and so did everyone else.

"Mike said he was in deep shit." Blake shrugged. "So I called for backup."

"You're the backup?" Cooper asked, shooting Ryan a dubious look. Calla arched a curious brow, equally curious.

"Don't act so surprised. You've been acting mad weird lately, man. And that stunt you two pulled at the bar?" Ryan glanced pointedly between the two of them while Vincent looked on, bewildered. "That theory you had, about Venus and the killer and all the rest. It got me thinking. And then Blake came into the bar last week, and we got to talking—"

"—I told him everything," Blake confessed, shrugging good-naturedly. "Steph. The blackmail. All of it."

Calla stared at him, trying to decipher the hidden meaning behind his words. But he wouldn't meet her eye.

"So Blake hit me up and I came as fast as I could." Ryan rubbed the back of his neck with a grimace. "Still took forever, getting out of the city—"

Cooper clasped his shoulder. "I'm just glad you came. Saved our asses."

"I don't know," Mike said lightly, though something about it seemed forced. "Calla looked like she was coming in for the save there at the end." He glanced down at her wrists. "How'd you get out of the cuffs, anyway?"

She considered lying then, but shrugged and said, "Cooper got me a lockpick kit for my birthday last year."

They all stared at her. Even Stephanie, who'd managed to push herself upright, blood still seeping between her fingers as she held her shoulder. And then, without warning, Mike began to laugh.

Calla grinned. She couldn't help it; Mike had one of those laughs, the kind that doubled you over regardless of the joke. So maybe it was his laugh that did it. Or maybe it was the fact that they were all burned out on adrenaline. It didn't matter. Within a matter of seconds, they'd dissolved into a fit of hilarity that had them kneeling on the floor, arms wrapped around their middles as they laughed themselves silly.

The sound of approaching sirens brought them back down to earth. Calla held her sore stomach as Cooper sprawled out on the court, arms and legs splayed like a butterfly pinned to a board. "I'd guess we're about to be up to our eyes in shit," he observed.

"Nah." Blake tucked his knees to his chest. "It's our words against hers." He nodded in Stephanie's direction. She sneered at him.

"Uh. Yeah. Our word." Cooper pointed to the rafters—and the cameras lodged there, far above their heads. "And Big Brother's."

Blake smiled a secretive smile. "The cameras are dead. Didn't catch a thing."

Cooper perked up at that. Vincent and Ryan did the same. "What do you—"

"You cut the feed," Calla guessed, impressed. She thought then of the security breach that had vexed Detective Beitch and the rest of the police force the night of Venus Upton's fall. "I'm guessing...not for the first time?"

Blake looked inordinately pleased. "Yeah." His expression abruptly fell into one of alarm. "I mean...I didn't know what would happen, or anything—"

"Dude. It's cool." Cooper pushed himself to his feet with a heavy sigh. The others followed suit. "We all know who the puppetmaster is."

Stephanie managed a weak grin. She'd turned an alarming shade of grey. "That's...right."

"Not one more fucking word," Calla warned her, holding up a finger. "Not one."

Stephanie's grin vanished. Calla could feel Blake's eyes on her then—could sense the question in them. She was sure now that he had found evidence on Stephanie's computer; it was the only explanation as to why he'd been avoiding her for weeks now. But she knew better than to ask him for that simple scrap of truth. He would deny it, as he'd denied it before.

And for good reason, too. If he'd seen the truth of her, had witnessed firsthand what she was capable of—he knew he was better off keeping his mouth shut. 

Her hand drifted to her back pocket—to the flash drive there. Blake caught the movement and their eyes met. Quietly, he said: "Don't ask, don't tell?"

Calla recognized the white flag for what it was. Blake had seen too much, knew too much. But she wasn't the only one whose future hung in the balance.

A scholarship. A shot at university. A fresh start.

No one here was perfect. They'd lied or stolen or worse. But that could all go away—so long as they were willing to bury their secrets in a mass grave.

Calla nodded, curt. Mike did the same, eyes glued to the floor between his feet. One by one, the others bobbed their heads in agreement. Silent. Grim. Calla half-expected to feel a rush of victory. But that anger—her constant companion, her closest confidante—burned as bright as ever.

Disgusted with herself, she turned her head, hiding her face from the others. Stephanie was watching her from the floor, eyes bright with cruel amusement. Just an empty shell, those eyes seemed to say.

Calla wanted to shake her, wanted to scream. You lost. It's over. But it would have been a waste of energy. Stephanie may have tormented her, in her own waybut she wasn't the one Calla was after. Not really.

Astrid. The name was a litany, a burning brand seared across her brain. Astrid Astrid Astrid AstridAstridAstrid—

"Are you alright?" Cooper asked, voice pitched low to avoid drawing attention.

Calla gazed at Stephanie a moment longer, thinking not of revenge—but of fairytales.

One feather is of no use to me.

"I'll be fine," she murmured. Her rage flickered and died. Content, for now, to bide its time.

I must have the whole bird.

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