Calla had not heard from Cooper in three days.

Well. Two days, seventeen hours and some change. But she wasn't about to admit that aloud.

We're more than friends. We've always been more than friends.

The words had been both hers and not hers, because she had no idea where they'd come from—only that they were true, and she was not sorry for saying them. She'd thought, after that conversation, that she and Cooper might finally be able to find a measure of peace together. Happiness, even. At least for a time.

And then the text came in.

Cooper: It's done.

Calla had read and reread that ominous text over a dozen times. But the words never changed. And Cooper never called.

For three days he said nothing more to her and she said nothing more to him, and so Calla waited—and wondered.

She scowled down at her feet as she neared her apartment, her nose raw from the bitter winter air. She could only assume his text meant that he'd successfully found a way to get the poisoned pills to the professor. How he'd done it and why and the ramifications of that decision—those were the questions that plagued her, relentless. She would have liked to ask Cooper for the specifics, but he refused to answer her calls. Refused to speak to her, period.

Ask yourself if this is something you're even capable of. That was what she'd asked of him, and in his own way, Cooper had given her his answer.

And now he hates you. Her lungs burned as she fought to outpace the storm building overhead. He won't come back from this. You've ruined him. You've ruined him and he will hate you forever for it.

No. That was not a possibility—or at least not one she was prepared to consider.

She reached her apartment building just as the skies opened, filling the air with the smell and sound of rain. "It's not like I forced him into anything," she muttered to herself, jamming her thumb against the elevator button. They'd only just fixed the damn thing last week. "He made his choice, not me."

The words tasted like a lie. Calla had backed Cooper into a corner, and he could have no more refused her than she could have refused him, back when he'd first appeared on her doorstep. Bottle of wine in hand, those inquisitive eyes imploring her to let him inside and back into her life.

I didn't know where else to go.

She'd warned him against this path, yes—but she hadn't turned him away. So perhaps his burdens were her burdens, too.

Maybe he's not ignoring me at all. Maybe he's just busy, she reasoned, tapping her foot impatiently as the elevator slowly slid from the first to the second and then to the third floor. Vincent would tell me if there was something seriously wrong.

That, at least, was something for her to hold onto.

The elevator doors opened. Calla stepped out but moved no further, because there, pacing in front of her apartment door, was—

"You," Astrid Baker hissed, whirling around to face the elevator doors—looking very much like a rabbit caught in the farmer's garden.

Calla reigned in her surprise, carefully arranging her expression into one of practiced indifference—though deep down, where she kept the beast under lock and key, an invisible struggle ensued, tearing her in two. 

Kill her now. The nasty, festering thing inside her wriggled and squirmed, demanding to be let loose. Kill her now now NOW.

The logical side of her knew better. She could not kill Astrid. Not here.

Not yet.

How did she find my apartment? Calla wondered, mind abuzz with possibilities. The same way I found hers, I suppose. Social media. Public records. I just didn't she'd have the balls to actually show up here...

"Well, who did you expect?" Calla drawled, breaking the silence between them. "I do live here." She paused, a slow, languid smile touching her lips. "Did you get my love letter?" she asked sweetly. A rhetorical question. If Astrid was here, that could only mean one thing.

She knows that I know her secret. 

Calla's smile grew as she imagined Astrid ripping open the envelope she'd sent to her doorstep; her initial confusion as she examined the USB, wondering at its contents; and then her horror as the truth came crashing down around her—that somehow, someone out there in the great big world knew her dark, dirty little secret.

"I knew it was you," Astrid breathed, her hands curled into fists at her side. "I knew it—"

"How?" Calla asked, already knowing the answer. "How did you know it was me, hmm?"

Astrid stiffened, doubt flashing in her dark eyes. "I just...did."

Lies. And not very good lies, either. 

She wouldn't be lying for her own sake, but for another's. Mike, perhaps. Or less likely, Blake. One of the twins must have let slip what Calla was capable of if provoked. Why they'd thought to blab about her secret to Astrid, of all people—

Calla suppressed her rising temper. Blake wouldn't do something so blatantly idiotic. He's too afraid of me to risk it, she thought, somewhat appeased. But Mike...he's too stupid for his own good. And loyal to a fault. Astrid was Jessica's best friend. Maybe he warned Astrid to stay out of my way out of some misguided sense of duty to his dearly departed, unfaithful girlfriend...

Calla snorted. Of course Jessica Sneider had found a way to spite her from the grave.

"What game are you playing at?" Astrid asked. She swallowed down the tremble in her voice. "What do you want from me?"

Calla swung her keys around her finger. "This isn't a game, Astrid. I know what you did."

"I know what you did," Astrid fired back.

Calla grimaced. She'd expected as much, but to hear it...

"She knows." Tracy's wretched voice on the wind, caressing the shell of Calla's ear. "She knows about the nasty, naughty thing you did. We see you, Calla Parker."

Calla sneered. The words were nothing. The echo of a ghost that had never known when to leave well enough alone. "You're going to have to be more specific than that," she murmured, clenching the keys in her fist, fingers stiff with cold.

Maybe the twins didn't get into the specifics, she thought, uncharacteristically hopeful. Maybe—

"Tracy. Tracy was...you killed—" Astrid choked on the words, the weight of them a shock to say aloud.

Calla's blood ran cold. She mustered an equally chilly smile. "And somehow...you still thought it was a good idea to come here alone?"

Astrid paled at that. When she took a step back, attempting to put space between them, her back hit the wall. "You couldn't just leave it alone, could you?" she whispered, miserable tears in her eyes. "You've been stalking me and making my life fucking miserable because of that stupid whore—"

"Say that again," Calla said softly.

"I hate you!" Astrid screamed, the words reverberating through the open-air corridor. "Rachel is gone, she's dead and she's never, ever coming back, no matter what you do to me." She swallowed thickly, chest heaving. The tears that had been gathering in her eyes spilled over, and she quickly dashed them away with the back of her hand. "So do what you want. I don't care anymore."

Rachel is gone, she's dead and she's never, ever coming back, no matter what you do to me.

Calla flexed her fingers around her keys, the rigged edges and angles digging into her skin, tearing it open. "I think you care too much, actually." She took a step forward. Another. Until she and Astrid stood barely a breath apart. "I will kill you for what you did to Rachel. And when I do..." She grinned. "Give Tracy and Jess my love, will you?"

The words had their intended effect. Astrid flew at her, raking jagged nails across her cheek. Calla thought then to pin her against the wall, to press her forearm against Astrid's airway, how simple it would be to wrap her fingers around her throat and squeeze and tear—

But she didn't dare. Astrid couldn't have known about her recent...extracurricular activities; if she had, she would never have come here alone. And Calla needed Astrid to underestimate her, to believe she stood a fighting chance. Otherwise she would run and never look back, and Calla would never get another opportunity to see through what needed to be done.

I will not be denied.

The elevator doors slid open then, startling Astrid badly enough that when she turned to flee, she nearly ran face-first into Calla's apartment door. Swearing, she regained her footing and, with a nasty look in Calla's direction, sprinted down the corridor and out of sight.

Calla didn't wait to see which of her neighbors had such impeccable timing. Cradling her right cheek with one hand, she uncurled the fingers she'd wrapped around her keys and, though it took her four tries, eventually made her way into the apartment, where she tossed aside the keys and her bag and slumped against the door, exhausted.

Gotta clean it. Infection. Calla's thoughts, disjointed as they were from adrenaline, propelled her forward, away from the door and into the kitchen, where she dug out the emergency kit she'd stashed away for...well, emergencies.

"Not that this really qualifies as an emergency," she muttered, rifling through packets of gauze and medical tape until she'd found what she was looking for: disinfectant wipes. She ripped open the plastic package with her teeth, grimacing at the taste as it slipped over her tongue.

Cradling the disinfectant wipe against her cheek, the chemicals stinging her torn skin, she began to search for a clean towel, opening drawer after drawer—

The gleam of a kitchen knife halted her search.

Her irritation—at Astrid, at herself, at this stupid, juvenile injury—began to fade as she ran a finger along the edges of the knife's bone-white handle, as familiar to her as the breath in her lungs, the blood in her veins. The sight of it was a comfort, somehow.

And also a dangerous keepsake. She would have been better off burying it, and for good this time—just as she'd buried and burned and otherwise purged so many other things that day in the cemetery in a rather pathetic attempt to lay Rachel's memory to rest.

Calla closed the drawer, and the knife with it. The day would come when she could finally close that chapter of her life. But not yet. Not yet.

Rachel is gone, she's dead and she's never, ever coming back.

Perhaps that day would never come at all.