“You are so fucking full of yourself!” Kali shouts at me, her voice breaking just a little. In the moonlight like this, her eighties-inspired makeup doesn’t seem quite so dark, quite so harsh. She looks less like a woman of the night and more like a fragile, lost, little girl.

Some strange part of me wishes I could help her.

The rest of me knows that sometimes people are wicked, through and through.

Kali is one of those people.

Coraleigh, on the other hand … she was merely pathetic. She hurt people because that was the only way she could ever feel powerful, the only way she could take control. She was never truly wicked; she wasn’t strong enough for that. She was just a blind sheep in a bad flock.

Kali is a whole different animal.

“Full of myself?” I echo as she steps toward me, her green party dress catching the light. It looks awful on her. It clings in all the wrong places, emphasizing the bony structure of her body. If she really is pregnant, then she isn’t showing.

“Standing out here like you’ve got some moral high ground, spouting crap at me that’s as bad as your poetry.” She pauses and tilts her head to one side. Maybe she thinks I don’t see her reach into her purse? But I do. “The thing is, Bernadette, you’re just as bad as all the boogeymen you think you’re fighting against. You’re a monster, too.”

“Maybe,” I say, turning the knife in my hand, holding it the way Callum showed me. I look up at Kali as she pulls a second knife from her purse, tossing the hideous, gold thing aside. Guess we’re going to duke this out, hand-to-hand.

Lots of blood and pain. Like it always should’ve been. A gunshot between the eyes would’ve been too easy, too clinical.

I let Kali rush me, ducking as she swings the knife in an arc at my face. The blade digs into the trunk of the big tree behind me, buying me enough time to swing around and come at her from the back. Unfortunately, she’s not as dumb as she looks. Kali ducks and avoids my blade, yanking her own knife from the bark of the tree as she spins around to meet a second thrust.

She knocks my knife aside, but I cut her anyway. Blood wells over her pale hands. Not surprising. Knife fights are never clean. I’ll probably end up with a partially severed finger before the night is out.

Because I know Kali all too-well, when she starts to swing frantically, pushing me backward into the blackberries, I smell a trap. Not a second too early, I drop down and throw my bodyweight into her belly, narrowly avoiding falling down a small ravine into the icy waters of Mill Creek.

We hit the ground, blades flashing. I see my own cut to the bone on her arm, a scream raking from her throat as she swings at my chest. The lace of my dress splits open, an angry slash of red appearing across my breasts. I don’t feel the pain, however, too intent on my mission.

End this.

Kill Kali.

Bernie, this isn’t you, I tell myself, but that’s the old me, pre-Penelope’s death. All I wanted was to be good, to drink black coffee and write terrible poems. I wanted to be a poor artist in a studio with a leaky roof, and I wanted to create things. I wanted to plant an herb garden on the windowsill and squeal when I had enough basil to make spaghetti sauce with zucchini grated into it. Because that would mean I was creating things instead of destroying them.

That girl … she’s lived too long with people like Neil and Eric, Coraleigh and Kali. They have changed her, altered her irreparably.

The only way she’ll ever feel sane again, is to destroy them at their own game. It’s a thing she knows she can do, and do well. With Havoc by my side, I will rule this horrible town and all of the awful people in it.

Hell, I’m already well on my way. There have been delays. There have been metaphorical wildfires. But nothing is going to stop me. Nothing. Motherfucking nothing.

I stab the blade down as hard as I can, holding it with both hands, but Kali manages to turn her head at the last second. My knife severs the bun of green and black hair from her head, but that’s about it. She yowls at me like a frightened cat as she brandishes her own knife, slicing me across the shoulder.

With my knife buried in the dirt, I readjust my grip, until I’m holding onto Kali’s neck.

Just like Victor did to Kyler earlier, I lean forward with grim determination. Now that I’m in the same position, I can see why he did it. Why he knew he needed to do it. The dark will always play by its own rules. It’s all well and good to want a superhero, but it’s impossible to expect someone made of light to fight the shadows; they might disappear when there’s a ray of sunshine, but they’re not gone. They’ve just retreated. The night always returns, after all.

Kali drops her knife in her frenzy to get to my hands. That’s her mistake, losing that blade. Maybe, if she’d gotten lucky, she could’ve plunged it through my heart.

A gunshot echoes in the woods around me, a strange serenade mixed with the wicked metal music taking over the little ghost town. I barely hear it though. I’m too focused, too zoned-in. How could I not be, in that moment? A moment I’ve been waiting for, for what feels like forever.

Besides, there’s an intimacy to strangulation. I can see now why most murders carried out this way are between people who know one another. There’s a level of connection here that’s hard to explain.

My archenemy … her face, it turns red then blue. Her eyes bulge out of her skull, like two mean pits in the moonlight. She struggles fiercely and then starts to twitch.

I can’t do this.

The thought hits me so hard and so fast that I gasp like I’m the one being strangled.

I release Kali just as she begins to go still, and she pulls in this awful, choking breath. It’s wet and raspy, and it sounds like death incarnate. Shoving up to my feet, I stumble away and vomit into the bushes, bleeding everywhere and hating myself. You’re too weak, Bernadette, my mind hisses. You let Billie go, even though you shouldn’t have. And now, here, even knowing what she’s done to Aaron, you can’t finish it.

Am I too much the tortured, awful, self-righteous superhero? Are my morals tying my hands? Or is it something else?

I’ve talked a big game all night, to the boys, to myself … I promised and craved bloodshed. So why? Why? Fucking why?!

You’re better than Kali, that’s why, something inside of me says, and I stand up straight, turning to look at her. Kali is struggling to her feet, but I can’t let her get ahold of either knife so I move quickly back over and clock her in the face as hard as I can.

She falls to her ass in the bed of wet dirt and pine needles while I collect both knives from the forest floor.

“Where is Aaron?” I ask, standing above her and wishing she were smart enough to tell me. She won’t. I’ll have to keep her here; Havoc will show; she’ll die a horrible, gruesome death of her own orchestration. And I’ll let them do it because, as much as they’ve become my pets, I am truly and wholly theirs. “I will not ask you again.”

Kali laughs at me, turning over so that she’s on all fours. I allow her such an undignified fucking position. Her panties are showing. They’re red, a thong, crotchless. They don’t go with her dress at all. Not that lingerie needs to, but … it’s just a show of trying too hard. Desperation, that’s what they look like on her. A different girl could wear the same panties and look fierce. But not Kali.