We're going to frame you for ! And you're going to go to JAIL for THIRTY YEARS!

“… get him dressed.” You point to Kurt, moving across the room to retrieve your phone. The satisfaction of having let go and killed Atlee is … tempting. ‘Come on, she had it coming,’ it argues to you. ‘You can’t pretend like it wasn’t fun.’ While you don’t necessarily disagree with it, the weight of ending a human life, even a horrible one, is still too much to even try to process. You shove past breaking down or savoring it alike, trying to focus on the immediate problem.

“Okay, now what?” Eva asks, finishing buttoning his pants back up. You walk over to the bedstand, grab the lamp on it, and smash it against your fist near Atlee’s body’s head. Letting the pieces fall, you hoist Kurt up and stumble back with him in your arms before setting him down against the wall at the foot of the bed. “I think I see what you’re going for …”

“Do you think I should do something else?” Your voice, despite your best efforts, has a tinge of desperation in it.

“No, no, womanizer with at least two people out there who might be willing to say he’s a ****, kills sorority president in heat of the moment, but not before she smashes him in the face and he passes out after the adrenaline rush wears off.” You nod, hoping she has something, anything to say. “I’m not a forensics person, but I think … that’s as good as we’re getting it. If we overthink this …”

“We’ll get too clever and fuck up, I know. How do we get out of here, though?” Eva glances from you to the window, then shrugs when you follow her line of vision to it and back. “Don’t you think that’s kinda’ going to attract attention?”

“More than just walking down the stairs from a room a body’s about to be discovered in?”

“Right.” You pry up the window and stare down, the drop a little imposing. You’ve never been exactly athletic, and even with your new capacity for physical power, it’s still intimidating. Eva hops out first, easily landing on her feet, then beckons for you to come down quickly as she looks back and forth. You close your eyes and jump. While you don’t even sort of land on your feet, your body easily absorbs the shock, and you spring back up as Eva starts towards you to help. “I’m fine, go!” you hiss quietly.

The two of you steal across campus back to your dorm as silently as you can, though neither of you speaks for the duration. What’s going on in Eva’s head is her business, but yours is swimming with guilt and panic and paranoia. You just KILLED a person. Another human being. An awful one, sure, but they were still and cold, and you did it. She was going to die before Eva broke her neck, though … it doesn’t make any sense for that to comfort you, but it does. At least knowing you’re not stuck in this alone. But what if someone finds out? You two aren’t exactly master criminals, could it really be that hard? And if you’re caught, that’s it. Sun’s kind of hard to avoid when you’re on someone else’s timetable by law.

“Jaq?” You shake your head, hardly realizing the two of you are back in your room. “Are you okay? Talk to me, what’s going on?”

“Physically, yeah …” you answer slowly, putting your hands down and realizing you’re sitting on your bed. “Otherwise, I have … been better.”

“Try not to worry about that.” You look at Eva, who’s still a little shorter than you even with you sitting, and give her a sad, but incredulous glance. “Yeah, I’m aware, not helpful advice. But there’s nothing we can do about it now. It happened. Feeling bad about it is natural, normal, good, even. But it doesn’t make you bad. Hearing what she said to you … I’d be mad enough to kill her, too. You’re just sort of better-equipped to make it happen.”

“Just … what did you find out?” Eva opens her mouth to say something, then stops and nods instead. You’re thankful, for the moment. You just want to not think about it as much as you can.

“Okay, so, Aida didn’t remember the girl AT ALL. And she’s not in any photos, because … well …”

“No reflection. Valerie didn’t remember her, either. Kurt DID, though.”

“Yeah, I found some people, too. It looks like she was looking for a good candidate. Kurt’s a scumbag **** asshole, but Gene from that other frat, he’s a good guy and he remembered her. But he’s also extremely smart, like, top-of-the-class smart. And you …” You tilt your head. “You’re passionate, and you’re also literally the best liar I know. Like, you don’t with me, but you know how to make people twist. I think she was looking for best-suited.”

“So, an undead sociopath thinks I’m the most worthy heir. Cool. Love that concept,” you state flatly and bitterly.

“Weeelllllllll, there’s that … but that’s assuming she was picking you for a good reason. Gene said she mentioned she was avoiding an ex from Georgia, and gave him a description in case he saw him. I think she’s on the run. Which may make you a distraction. Or bait.”

“That’s only, like, two percent more comforting than the other option.”

“I know, it sucks. But if she thinks other people have potential, she might come back around if she’s trying to lay a trap. Or she might be doing this in other places, like clubs downtown or in the projects. It’s not a lot, but we have a description of her: tall, dark brown hair, light hazel eyes, killer rack. I’m quoting there.”

“Man, I hope I at least got to second with her before she killed me …” you sigh. “If I died for it, I should at least get a good boob squeeze in.”

“Or maybe you did it too hard and that’s why she killed you?” Eva responds with a grin, glad to see you able to at least joke again.

“Eva. Sweetheart. I know what I’m doing. If I got my hands up in there, I promise, turning me was to preserve a work of art,” you tell her in your best faux-humble voice. She laughs, which pulls the same out of you. It’s not much, but making her happy makes the storm inside you feel a little less bad. As the two of you compare notes until you feel yourself going under again, all you can do is hope that you don’t get found out. And if you do, that the blowback doesn’t hit her. You can take being caught, maybe you can talk or whammy your way out. But the idea of having to save your best friend makes you shiver, even though you’ve started noticing you don’t really feel cold or warm anymore. Whatever happens, you can make it if she’s safe. Whatever happens.