She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to laugh. Keiba stared sightlessly at the door of the shed: her prison. There was an emptiness filling her. People like to say what they would do in situations like this, and Keiba had always thought herself a fighter. Yet here she was, staring off into space, sitting there like a helpless idiot.

“Hey. Hey!”

Keiba woke from her daze as Darcie’s fingers snapped beside her ear. She turned her head toward her slowly. Darcie would never admit it, but the blankness in Keiba’s eyes unnerved her. She resisted the urge to squirm.

“You listening? I’m trying to tell you a story.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” She said monotonously. “I wish you’d just let me go.”

She grinned. “Well. Can’t do that, Keibs.”

“Why not? Darcie why are you doing all of these things to me?”

Darcie swung her legs on top of the table. “How should we spend your last minutes alive?” She asked instead. “I could tell you my story or we could sit in silence… Oh, I know! Let’s talk about boys. Min-Kyung for instance?”

A jolt ran through Keiba’s body. It was as though every cell had jumped at the sound of his name. Mini. Memories of them together flashed through her mind’s eye. And with them came memories o her friends and her cello and her family. No. She couldn’t be so docile. She had to fight. She had to see Min again. At the very least, she wouldn’t die in this fire. She couldn’t do that to him.

“Yeah, I got a topic in mind.” Keiba began. “Let’s talk about how you and Meaghan killed over 600 people.”

Darcie’s smile vanished. “What?”

“You heard what I said, Darcie.”

She frowned suspiciously. “What’s this? Are you trying to record me too?”

“What would it matter if you’re going to kill me anyway?” Keiba kept her tone as gentle and empty as she could. “I don’t have anything on me to record you with, Darcie.”

“Then why should I tell you anything?”

“You don’t have to. I just want to know the facts before I die; is that such a hard request?”

In Darcie’s silence, Keiba listened to her heartbeat. It seemed to grow louder and faster as the seconds ticked by. It took everything for her to keep from fidgeting nervously—or glancing at the knife Meaghan had left behind.

Darcie hopped off the table. “Look—it wasn’t supposed to end that way. We never wanted to start that fire. We never meant to kill anyone. It was just supposed to be a prank… And anyway, neither of us actually started it. I don’t know how it happened.”

“Don’t act like you care now, Darcie.” She said before she could stop herself. “And don’t make excuses for yourself. What’s done is done.”

Darcie stood quietly for a moment, then she stormed up to Keiba and slapped her. “You think I don’t care?”

Keiba swallowed the pain and blinked the tears away. “No, Darcie.” She snapped. “I know you don’t.”

“ you, Keiba. You don’t know a damned thing! I told you I never wanted to kill anybody. You think I like knowing it was my fault?”

“I don’t really care, Darcie. You never accepted responsibility for what you did. You never apologized to the families of the people you killed. So no, I don’t think you care at all.”

“ you.” She said again. “You don’t even know the story.”

“Then tell me what happened.”

“Fine. What’s it going to matter to a dead person, anyway? It’s only going to clear my conscience. Besides, it’s better someone real than a page in my diary, right?”

Keiba said nothing. Darcie started to pace again.

“Like I said earlier, it was just supposed to be a prank. Meaghan and I decided to trash the kitchen. The cooks never kept it very clean anyway. Besides, the year was almost over. We thought it’d be a good senior prank. After all, it was my last year at Ardyn Grove.

“It wasn’t hard to get into the kitchen. The door was locked so all we had to do was steal the keys from the main office. I remember Meaghan was really nervous, but I knew we wouldn’t get caught. Security never watched the cameras, and at night they were even worse. It was also one of the first places destroyed in the fire—the office wasn’t very far from the kitchen; so the footage of us breaking in was never recovered.”

When Keiba heard Darcie’s tone level into a steady murmur, she knew she’d started to become lost in her story. She moved the chair experimentally. It made a harsh scraping sound against the ground. She looked up quickly, but Darcie hadn’t noticed.

“Anyway, we got in, and the first thing Meaghan wanted to do was make a snack. She the gas for the stove and I threw something at her. It might’ve been flour, or a loaf of bread, something to distract her from that. We forgot about the gas and we started throwing things on the ground. I remember smelling something really bad—like rotten eggs or something, but we just assumed it was the food. We got a little dizzy too. But we hadn’t learned what to do when we smelled natural gas.”

Keiba stood up and inched her way over to the table. Her ankle was screaming, but the knife was near the edge. If she hurried she’d be able to get it before Darcie even knew what was up. But it was at this time that Meaghan started to return to the shed.

“I called my mom. I’d told her before that I wanted to stay at school for the night, but I changed my mind.  I thought that if we went home, it’d minimize the suspicion that we were the ones who messed up the kitchen. If the fire hadn’t broken out that night, they would’ve caught us for sure—”

“Darcie!” Meaghan’s voice barked. “Look! Look!”

Darcie turned. She saw Meaghan’s face looking in through the window at the side of the shed, then she noticed the stricken look on Keiba’s face as her fingers grasped the knife.

“You !” Darcie exclaimed, rushing toward her. “You little ing !”

Keiba quickly snatched up the knife. She spun around Darcie, hitting her with the legs of the chair, and hobbled as quickly as she could to the door. She slammed her body against the wood just as Meaghan tried to get in. She sat the chair in front of it and fumbled with the knife to get the blade in place to saw at the rope. The knob rattled as Meaghan banged at the door.

Darcie screamed and ran toward Keiba, but Keiba kept her at bay by flailing her legs. The rope gave way as she landed a kick in Darcie’s stomach. The rattling of the wood stopped, and Keiba had only a second to acknowledge that when a rock flew in through the glass. The projectile just missed Darcie’s body.

As Meaghan struggled to remove the glass, the blade finally cut through the plastic cuffs. Keiba’s hands were slick with blood—she’d cut herself multiple times in the process of freeing herself–but she gripped the hilt and slashed the knife at Darcie when she again tried to rush at her. Darcie somehow ducked the blade and slammed her body into Keiba’s stomach. Keiba cried out as she hit the wall. Darcie had stepped on her bad ankle. It almost crippled her, but she grabbed a fistful of Darcie’s hair. She released another primal yell as she yanked Darcie upright. She had to use both hands to push her away, and the blade bit into Darcie’s shoulder.

She hissed in pain, backing away until she’d almost hit the old boxes stacked against the back wall. Meaghan crawled in through the window, the glass she hadn’t had time to remove ripped into her clothes and scratched across her skin. She fell onto the table and then rolled off of it to her feet. She stood with Darcie and looked at Keiba. Her hand reached into the pocket of her hoodie and pulled out the Taser.

Keiba wiped her hands on her dress and got a firmer grip on the knife as she waited for one of them to attack first.

Min-Kyung rubbed his face as Banks and York searched the language building. He knew Keiba wasn’t there, and he’d already tried suggesting that they look somewhere else, but the officers were determined to check every room. And, for speaking out of turn, he was assigned to watch the door while they searched. So there he crouched with the flashlight in between his hands, his head consumed with thoughts of Keiba. 

He could hear her voice from that afternoon, giggling as he kissed her skin and sighing and as he her from inside. He remembered her from a couple of hours earlier as she assessed herself in the mirror and the redness in the tip of her nose when she confessed that she was nervous about the competition.

He closed his eyes and covered his mouth with his hand. Where could she be?

That was when he heard it.

The scream was faint, but they were far enough away from Campus Central for him to hear it. He was inclined to think it his own imagination, but then he heard more shouts. He stood up and looked toward the forest. The location was hard to determine, but he thought it might’ve come from there. It was an area they hadn’t even considered.

“Officer Banks, Officer York!” He called. “I heard something.”

“We heard it too, kid.” York said, following Banks out of one of the rooms. “Where do you think it’s coming from?”

“The forest.” He said quickly. “It has to be.”

“Let’s go, York.” Banks said. “He’s right. Even if it’s not Keiba, that’s still someone in trouble.”

“Or it could be a few kids messing around.” York grumbled. “But we’ll never know for sure unless we check it out.”

Keiba swiped at the droplets of sweat beading at her forehead. She had to escape, but the chair was in front of the door. It’d helped her before, but now it was a hindrance. She’d have to move it, but Darcie or Meaghan could get to her before she even turned the knob. On top of that, the adrenaline was slipping away the longer they stood there staring at each other. She was starting to feel all of the aches and pains—especially from her ankle.

“No.”

Keiba looked at Darcie. Blood was oozing from between her fingers and tears were streaking down her face. Whether that was from the pain or frustration, Keiba would never know.

“You won’t survive this, Keiba.” She continued. “You can’t. We won’t let you.”

“Why?” Keiba implored. “What have I done to deserve this, Darcie?”

“You had everything, Keiba! You had a nice, happy family with a nice, happy future while my mom had to lie to keep people from knowing that we were starving! You always had a smile on your face when I had to keep from crying every night! You even have a ing boyfriend when I have trouble finding someone to sleep with me! I hate you, Keiba. I’ve always hated you.”

“You did all this, all of this, for jealousy?” Keiba’s voice grew louder with the realization. “Darcie how ing dare you? Your of a mother killed mine to make your life better. You kept me miserable for years! And now you try to kill me? No. I’m not dying here, Darcie. You might have thrown your life away, but I’m not going to die because of your guilt and jealousy.”

Meaghan chuckled from her side of the room. “Sorry,” she said once she saw that both girls were looking at her. “All of this talk of jealousy and guilt tickled me.”

“Meaghan, what—?”

“Sorry, Darce,” she interjected. “But all that doesn’t apply to me. I never cared about those people. I never have and I never will. No, I’ve never felt bad about those deaths, and I’ve never felt like I should. I knew what I was doing when I that stove. I was planning on finding some excuse to leave it on. I wanted those people to die; I’d been planning it for months. We didn’t have a natural gas detector, so I knew I’d get the job done.”

“Meaghan, you started the fire on purpose?”

“Yes. I didn’t know the death toll would be so large, but I don’t regret it.”

“Why, Meaghan?”

“Because I knew I’d get away with it. But that has nothing to do with now. I’m doing this because I hate you too, Keiba.”

“Why?”Keiba asked, her voice trembling with anger and fear.

She chuckled. “All of these questions… But I’ll tell you: my allegiance has always been with Darcie and Sun-Hee. When you started going out with Min-Kyung, I knew it’d hurt the chances of him getting back to Sun-Hee after Ricky broke up with her. I always knew that would happen. It’s just a matter of when if it hasn’t happened already. So to help her out, I tried to get rid of you.”

“With Yun.”

“But the little idiot couldn’t do it. Up until that point, it was just a general dislike, but then you made it personal by recording me. I have to get rid of you now.” She turned around and went into one of the boxes. She came back with a small canister of gasoline. She spread it about her while Darcie and Keiba watched uneasily; Keiba crept toward the chair until Meaghan had turned around again.

“Meaghan, what the hell are you doing?”

“I didn’t want you to be in here when I set it off, Darcie, but Keiba’s left me no choice.” She reached for the lantern. “I’m sorry about this, but you’re right, Keiba’s not going to survive this. Not if I can help it.”

“No!” Darcie ran toward her as Keiba pushed the chair out of the way. She’d just put her hand on the knob when Meaghan threw the lantern. It hit the door in a shatter of glass and oil. Keiba screamed and fell back, turning her face and throwing up a hand to protect her eyes from the shards.

She kept her eyes closed until the sound of glass hitting the floor ceased. When she looked up, the door was engulfed in flames.