"Hello?"

Astrid wandered into the dimly lit reception area.

Just a little further, Calla thought, still crouched low.

"Calla? Hello? Where are you?" Astrid called, irritable now as she glanced around the room. "I swear to God, if I came out here for nothing..."

Come on, Astrid. Don't turn back now.

Grumbling under her breath, she moved over to the fireplace, crossing her arms to try and get warm, the tassels on her denim jacket winking in the low light. While her back was turned, Calla straightened, one hand propped against the open door.

"Wild goose chase," Astrid was muttering, eyes falling to the hardwood floors, the new-but-antique-looking rug.

The body. The blood.

The gun.

Gasping, Astrid backpedaled into the stone fireplace. "What the fuck!" she squealed.

Calla stepped out of the shadows and closed the front door.

Astrid's head whipped to the side. "What—"

"Boo," Calla said with a grin, sliding the deadbolt into place.

Oh, if only she had Cooper's camera here with her. The look of indignant horror on Astrid's face could've sustained Calla for a lifetime. Several lifetimes, in fact.

As if simply by thinking of him she'd somehow conjured his attention, the bracelet around her left wrist buzzed. Hello? it seemed to ask. Calla, where are you?

He'd figured it out. Her time had run out.

"Go to him," Rachel murmured.

"What..." Astrid clung to the fireplace at her back. "What are you doing?"

"I often lurk around in dark, empty buildings for no good reason," Calla deadpanned. "What does it look like I'm doing, you dithering idiot?"

Astrid's eyes hardened, just for a moment, before darting from one end of the room to the other and back down to the body on the floor. "That's Gerald Michaels."

"Astute of you."

"He's dead."

Calla sighed. "Not the brightest crayon in the box, are we?"

"Shut up!" Astrid screeched. The pitch of her voice made Calla wince.

She jammed her pinky into her ear, pretending to clear it out. "Alright, alright. Sheesh."

Astrid inhaled, shaky and uncertain. "What did you do to him?"

Again with the stupid questions. "I stabbed him."

She closed her eyes, horrified. "Oh my God."

"No, oh my me." Calla tapped her chest. "I'm the one who did the stabbing."

Her wrist buzzed again, insistent. Calla. Calla. Calla.

She ignored it. Ignored him.

Astrid fumbled for the purse at her side. Calla just watched as she struggled, one brow raised in amusement at the theatrics.

Finally, Astrid produced a small black canister and pointed it in Calla's general direction, even though they were separated by about twenty feet. "Get back," she warned in a quivering voice.

Calla eyed the canister and then burst out laughing. "Is that...pepper spray?"

"I said get back!"

"I'm sorry. I just...you can't be serious."

Rachel's soft chuckle floated by her ear. "I think she is."

For all her talk of let go of your hate and live and blah-blah-blah, Rachel sounded rather amused by Astrid's panicked antics. Not quite so forgiving as all that, eh? Calla wanted to ask, but she'd look like a lunatic, talking to empty space. Not that she didn't already look like a lunatic, what with the dead body on the floor.

Semantics.

Astrid's eyes shone with tears. She swiped at them with the back of her hand. "You've officially lost it, Calla."

"Eh." A careless shrug. "I never really had it, if we're being honest."

"Fuck." Astrid scrubbed at her eyes. Calla's were also beginning to sting. "What is that smell?"

"Bleach." Calla stepped away from the door. "Dead people stink. Gotta cover it up somehow."

"Whatever," Astrid snapped.

Cold air brushed the back of her neck. "She's scared."

"Good," Calla mused. "She should be."

Astrid looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. "What?"

Whoops. Talking to the air. "Oh, nothing."

More buzzing from the bracelet. Calla had half a mind to rip it off, but—she couldn't bear it. She needed him here, with her. If only for a few more moments.

"Why did you ask me to come here?" Astrid asked, miserable.

Calla contemplated her, the shine of sweat at her brow, the slight wobble in her lower lip. She'd worn heeled boots and red lipstick and—my God, had she planned on going out after this?

Why did you ask me to come here?

Calla could've given her a great many answers. Because you killed my best friend. Because you're a loose end. Because I hate you and that hate will never go away, no matter how Rachel begs and begs.

It was true, every bit of it. The hate she held in her heart urged her onward, even now, to its inevitable, bloody end.

But more than that, Astrid's death was a necessity.

"I asked you to come here," Calla said, taking another step away from the door, "to kill you."

Astrid didn't so much as flinch. After seeing the dead body on the floor, Calla supposed she wasn't all that surprised. "I thought...Cooper said he would talk to you."

Calla stroked the bracelet's metallic band, savoring the periodic vibrations against her skin. "Oh, he did." The further she moved away from the door, the more Astrid began to stiffen, taking notice. Calla could practically see her measuring the distance, calculating the odds she could make it in time.

In those ridiculous boots, no less.

"Don't forget," Calla said softly, recapturing her attention. "While you and Jessica were waving your adorable little pom-poms, I was out on the track, running down the competition." She smiled, sharp as glass. "I wouldn't try it."

"You said you wanted me here to talk," Astrid accused, voice watery with tears. Or maybe her throat was just choked from all the bleach.

"We are talking."

Astrid looked pointedly back down at Michaels, clearly disgusted to be so near a corpse.

"Oh, him?" Calla braced her hand against the back of the couch. "Don't mind him. He was a very naughty boy. Threatening to tell all kinds of secrets."

"You're a psycho."

"Kettle." Calla shrugged. "Pot."

"I'm not crazy!" Astrid snapped. At Calla's slow, knowing smile, she blanched. "I'm not. Look. I've made my fair share of mistakes and I don't want you to go blabbing them, either. As long as my secrets are safe, so are yours." Another glance at the body. "All of them."

Maybe that would have been true, once. But the road Calla had chosen to travel...

Mercy was no longer on the table.

Calla trailed her hand along the back of the couch, leaving Astrid's path to the door clear. Well. Clear enough. Calla would be able to beat her to the door easily enough; Astrid pursed her lips, apparently coming to the same conclusion.

"I'm not sure I believe you," Calla mused aloud.

"Calla—"

"You wanna know what I think?"

Astrid's eyes darted over to the door. She'd started to inch her way across the fireplace, fingers trailing over the smooth river stone, mirroring Calla's slow, steady steps.

Putting herself into position to make a run for it.

"I think you're a better liar than you pretend to be," Calla said softly, picking at a loose thread in the upholstery. "I think you knew exactly what you were doing when you broke that bottle against the wall and cut Rachel's throat. I think you're not sorry at all."

"That's not true."

"Astrid."

They stared at each other, Michaels' body lying on the rug that stretched between them. Calla suppressed a shudder as cold air wafted across her face.

"I want you to let go, Calla."

Let go of your hate. Let go of this need for revenge.

Calla had heard that speech before.

Slowly, Astrid lifted her chin. "Fine." Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. "I'm not sorry. Rachel got what was coming to her."

Calla stopped by the grand piano's bench. Taking a page from Michaels' book, she pressed one of the keys. "And so will you."

"And what about you?" Astrid asked, bolder now.

The question reminded her of a different time, a different place. Calla and Cooper and Vincent, gathered together in the Diner, when times had been simpler. I promise you, she'd told them, Astrid will pay for her sins.

Vincent had looked at her then, his eyes shining with accusation. And when will you pay for yours?

Calla sat on the edge of the bench, suddenly exhausted. Soon, she thought now. My bill is coming due soon enough, Vincent.

"We all pay a price," Calla said quietly, clasping her hands together.

Astrid had continued her slow, creeping journey to the front door and now clung to the edge of the fireplace, desperate for freedom. "I really thought Cooper would get through to you," she muttered.

Calla rubbed her wrist, fingers numb from the near constant vibrations that reverberated through her bones. 

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

At the time, Calla had thought of a distant shore, the sky gray and dreary and full of freedom.

Now, all she could think was, If I could live anywhere, Cooper Daniels, I would live wherever you are.

She chuckled, low and dark and humorless. "He tried. But what did you expect, Astrid? That I'd see the light? Find God and repent and start going to church like a good little girl?" Astrid turned her head. That's a yes, Calla thought wryly. "Yeah," she continued, standing. "That's exactly what you expected, isn't it?"

Astrid forced her eyes away from the door. Michaels' blood had seeped further into the carpet, thoroughly soaking it. There would be no cleaning this up, no covering her tracks.

Soon enough, someone would find the body or the blood. Even if she somehow managed to clean it all up, sweeping his death quite literally under the rug, his sudden disappearance would eventually stir rumors—rumors about why he'd moved to Ithaca and why they'd been seen together, tense and unhappy.

Nasty, suspicious rumors that would inevitably land right on her doorstep. Unless of course, Michaels wasn't the only one to go missing.

No one ever suspects the dead girl.

"I thought you said you weren't sure about anything?"

"I'm not," Calla said, still staring at Astrid, who frowned in her direction. "Except for this. We are who we choose to be, Rach."

"No, Calla. We are who we choose to love."

Ach. Calla's chest ached with a fierce longing.

Cooper.

"Who are you talking to?" Astrid demanded shrilly.

Calla almost laughed. Anything to banish this bone-deep...hurt. "My conscience."

"Screw you." Rachel's words whispered across her skin, cold and comforting.

Astrid was looking at Calla as though she were a few screws loose. "He loves you," she blurted. Doesn't he?"

Ah. Time. Astrid was trying to buy herself time.

And it worked. Calla hesitated, clasping her wrist and hating herself for that weakness.

The bracelet continued to vibrate. Cooper, insistent as always. He would never give up on her.

She fancied she could hear his voice in her head. Don't do this. Please, don't do this. Choose me, Calla. Come back to me.

When Calla said nothing, Astrid pressed forward. "He does love you. He always has." She sounded almost desperate as she lowered the canister of pepper spray back down to her side. "He's good, Calla. If he loves you...that means something. Deep down in there, there's got to be good in you, too."

Calla wanted to laugh. Good and bad and ugly. She didn't have the answers anymore.

"Cooper does seem to think I have a better nature. Somewhere," she agreed.

Astrid's eyes lit with hope, darting over to the front door. "It's okay, Calla. We can just forget—"

Forget. Forget?

Calla's wrist buzzed and buzzed.

Never.

"But he's wrong," she interrupted dully. "I don't have a better nature."

She retrieved a matchbox she'd hidden in plain sight, right there on top of the piano.

Astrid stared at her, confused. "What—" Then she saw the matchbox, and confusion gave way to horror as she choked on the pungent fumes of bleach, splattered over the rug, soaking the furniture, the curtains, the walls. Masking another, underlying scent.

Gas. Hanging in the air, leaking in from the burners Calla had left running in the kitchen upstairs.

Calla smiled without humor as she held out a matchstick. "See you in hell, Astrid."

Without pausing to think about it, she tapped the bracelet's centerpiece three times. A final message.

Cooper. I'm sorry.

Don't forgive me.

Calla lit the match, and all the world turned to fire and smoke.