Beth didn't sleep.
She lay in her bed, staring at the cracks in her ceiling, the dull hum of the mini-fridge keeping rhythm with the steady pulse in her skull.
Outside, the night dragged on. The whisper of wind. The occasional passing car. The distant thud of bass from some off-campus party.
But inside?
Silence.
Stillness.
The kind you only get after you've chosen someone to die.
By sunrise, she was already dressed. Black hoodie, jeans, boots. She tied her braids tighter than usual, her eyeliner sharp enough to slit a throat. Her combat jacket felt heavier than normal — maybe because she'd slipped her longer knife into the inner pocket instead of the usual folding blade.
This wasn't for play.
This was for war.
At Weaver Community College, the illusion of normalcy was alive and well. Campus buzzed with students pretending finals weren't devouring them alive. The quad was full of laughter and caffeine breath, and everyone pretended Ghostface hadn't been real. That Jamal's body hadn't been a mangled, mutilated question mark on a crime scene report.
Beth walked through it all like a shadow.
No one looked at her twice.
No one ever did.
Except…
Someone had.
Last night.
She couldn't prove it, but her gut — the same instinct that saved her more than once — had screamed at her to get out. And she listened.
But now?
She needed answers.
She retraced her steps during lunch break, phone tucked against her ear as a fake prop. Just a girl on a call. Nothing suspicious.
Beth walked past the exact intersection she had turned the night before, eyes scanning the buildings and alleyways. No cameras that she could see — just brick walls and cheap student housing.
"Where were you?" she muttered to herself.
"Come on…"
She crossed the street, circled the alley.
Footprints. One pair. Faint. The rain earlier had blurred most of the edges, but not all of them.
Someone had been there.
And whoever they were?
They'd been close.
Beth crouched, fingers brushing the heel-print near the trash bins. Wide set. Heavy boot. Someone tall. Not like Amir or Manny. Not like her.
A sudden name surfaced.
Brandon.
The new guy.
Too quiet. Too clean.
Too… her.
Beth stood up slowly, eyes narrowing as her mind began to spool a different thread. She hadn't considered Brandon before. She'd brushed him off. A goth boy in artist's clothing. Too cliché. Too on the nose.
But then again… wasn't she?
And that was the problem.
Brandon didn't act scared. He acted bored.
He didn't shrink from death — he looked like someone who'd already seen it.
He was just like her.
Only worse.
He was likable.
She hated that.
Back at the student café, she spotted him.
Brandon sat at the edge of the patio, sketchbook open, headphones on. His fingers worked a pencil in slow, methodical lines. His clothes were dark, but not desperate. Worn, not torn. The kind of effortless gloom that drew people in instead of pushing them away.
He didn't notice her.
Or maybe he did and pretended not to.
Beth ordered a drink just to keep cover — black coffee, no sugar — and sat two tables over, watching him from behind her sunglasses.
The longer she looked, the more she hated him.
She didn't know he killed Jamal — her instincts didn't tingle that way — but it didn't matter. Brandon was wrong. He was fake. Not like the others. He wore his trauma like a fashion statement.
Beth wore hers like armor.
He didn't deserve to be like her.
He didn't deserve to walk around campus like he belonged.
She could end him. Easily.
A little mix of sleeping pills in a drink. A lure to some dark alley with a sob story. A knife between the ribs. Easy cleanup. Dump the sketchbook in the creek. Make it look like a robbery. One more quiet name on the growing list of tragedies.
She could do it.
She should do it.
But she wouldn't rush it. Not this time.
Brandon wasn't a petty kill.
He was a message.
A statement.
And Beth believed in craft.
Later that night, she laid her notebook flat on her bed, flipping past pages of crossed-out names and failed fantasies. Her pen hovered above the blank space beside the heading:
"Subject: Brandon"
She wrote:
New transfer.
Artist archetype.
Observant. Keeps to himself.
Could be a narcissist.
Too careful.
Could've been watching me last night.
Doesn't fear death.
Pretending to be normal.
She underlined that last point twice.
"Wannabe," she muttered.
And yet… she didn't add his name to the hit list just yet. No, this would take time.
First, she'd study him the way she studied all her targets.
Patterns. Habits. Weaknesses.
Then, when she was ready — when she was sure — she'd tear him down piece by piece.
Only after that would she hunt down the one who took Jamal from her.
Because whoever that was… they were good.
Better than her?
Maybe.
But they made one mistake.
They left her alive.
Beth closed her notebook and turned off her lamp, the shadows swallowing her whole.
"I'm coming for all of you," she whispered.
And this time?
She'd be wearing the mask.