"Jane! Are you there? Please!"

Alejandra's voice was hoarse now, shredded by pain. Jane sat on a large rock near the edge of the cliff. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a mint. She unwrapped it slowly, the crinkle of the plastic loud in the quiet night. She popped it into her mouth.

She calculated the acoustics. The ravine was deep, the walls acting as a funnel that directed sound upward, away from the house. The party music was still thumping in the distance. No one would hear her.

"I'll pay you!" Alejandra begged. "I have money in my room! Ten thousand dollars!"

Jane chewed the mint. The cool flavor filled her mouth. She remembered the winter of 2018. She had been evicted. She had called Alejandra, begging for a loan to pay for heat. Alejandra had laughed and told her to sell her kidney.

"Does it hurt?" Jane asked softly, though Alejandra couldn't hear her. "Consider it interest."

She stood up and kicked a few loose stones over the edge. They clattered down the rock face.

"Jane?" Alejandra's voice pitched up in hope. "Is that you? Are you coming down?"

Jane didn't answer. She walked along the rim of the ravine, her mind a cold machine of calculation. Leaving Alejandra alive but broken was better than murder. A coma, a lifetime of rehabilitation-these were fates worse than a quick death for someone so vain. It created a power vacuum, a story of tragedy, not of crime.

She needed to make sure the scene told the right story. She walked back to the broken platform. She took the wrench and carefully retightened one of the remaining bolts on a post that hadn't fallen, then scuffed the area around the sheared-off bolts with a rock, making the metal fatigue look natural, a product of time and neglect rather than tampering.

Below, the sounds changed. The screaming stopped, replaced by ragged, painful breaths. Alejandra had likely passed out from the pain or was conserving her energy. Good. It gave Jane time.

She lay on her stomach and peered over the edge. In the moonlight, she could see the silver dress, a pale shimmer against the dark rocks. Unmoving. It was enough. The heiress was neutralized, taken off the board in a way that would sow chaos and grief, the perfect cover for what came next.

Jane stood up. She was just a shadow against the stars.

Alejandra had made a mistake. She had assumed Jane was a lamb to be slaughtered. But Jane was a ghost, already dead, and she had nothing left to lose.

Jane took a deep breath. She didn't need to go down. She had done what she came to do. The scene was set.

Her attention now turned to the Lodge. The night was far from over.

Jane retraced her steps from the overlook, her movements deliberate. She had one crucial piece of stage management left. She found Alejandra's phone lying in the grass where it had fallen from her hand, its glittery case winking in the moonlight.

The screen was cracked but functional. Jane's hands were steady now, no longer mimicking fear. She grabbed a leaf to avoid leaving fingerprints and pressed Alejandra's dropped designer hairpin against the screen to navigate.

Jane opened the camera app. She took three blurry photos of the trees and the rocks from the edge of the overlook, angling them to look like someone stumbling around in the dark, capturing the "beautiful" view.

Then she opened the messaging app. She started a new text to Kolby.

This place is trippy. You should see the view.

She didn't send it. She left it in the draft box. It suggested intent-that she was exploring, that she was high or drunk, that this was an adventure gone wrong.

She wiped the phone clean with her sleeve and tossed it over the edge. It clattered down the rock face, landing a few feet from where Alejandra's crumpled form lay. It would be found with the body, a perfect digital breadcrumb trail leading to a tragic, stupid accident.

A twig snapped in the woods nearby.

Jane froze, her heart hammering against her ribs. She melted back into the shadows of a large pine, her breath held tight in her chest. An owl hooted. Just an animal.

She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. She checked her clothes. No blood. Just dirt.

She began to move, not back toward the manor, but on a parallel path through the woods, circling toward the hunting lodge. It was a brutal trek through the undergrowth. Her muscles burned, her lungs screaming for air. She clawed her way up a steep embankment, digging her fingers into the mud.

When she finally reached the manicured path leading to the Lodge, she collapsed behind a hedge for ten seconds, gasping. She checked her watch. 12:45 AM.

The first pawn was off the board. Alejandra was neutralized, a problem for doctors and lawyers now, not for her.

Jane turned toward the Lodge. Her legs felt heavy, but her mind was racing ahead. Alejandra was the easy part. Alejandra was predictable.

Kolby was a wildcard. Kolby was armed.

Jane reached into her sleeve and touched the packet of powder. The muscle relaxant mixed with whatever opioids Kolby was already on would be a lethal cocktail. But she couldn't just hope he overdosed. She needed to be the hand of fate.

She started walking toward the distant lights of the hunting lodge. The night was far from over.

The Lodge was a rustic mansion made of cedar and stone, separated from the main house by a mile of forest. Jane approached from the downwind side. The lights were blazing.

She crept to the window. Inside, the den was a mess. Trophies of dead animals stared from the walls-deer, elk, a bear. Kolby stood in the center of the room. He was holding a compound bow, wiping it down with a rag. A bottle of expensive whiskey sat open on the table next to lines of white powder.

He was talking to himself, his movements jerky and erratic. He was already high.

Jane circled to the back. The servant's entrance was unlocked. It always was. The staff knew better than to lock Kolby in when he was on a bender; they wanted him to be able to stumble out if he set the place on fire.

She slipped into the kitchen. The air smelled of stale cigar smoke and spilled alcohol. Kolby's silver flask sat on the granite island.

Jane moved fast. She pulled the packet from her sleeve. She unscrewed the cap of the flask and dumped the powder in. She grabbed a bottle of bourbon from the counter, topped off the flask, and screwed the cap back on. She gave it a hard shake.

Heavy footsteps thumped on the hardwood floor.

Jane ducked into the pantry, pulling the door almost shut. She peered through the crack.

Kolby stumbled into the kitchen. He was shirtless now, sweating profusely.

"Alejandra!" he yelled. "Where the hell are you?"

He grabbed the flask from the counter. He unscrewed it and took a long, deep swig. He grimaced, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Stupid bitch," he muttered. He grabbed an apple from a bowl, took a bite, and spat it out.

He turned and walked back toward the den. "I'm gonna shoot something," he announced to the empty room.

Jane waited until she heard the screen door slam. She stepped out of the pantry.

The drug would take about twenty minutes to hit peak effectiveness. It would start with dizziness, then muscle weakness, then respiratory distress.

Jane walked into the den. On the wall rack, there was a recurve bow. It was lighter than the compound bow Kolby took, silent and deadly. In her previous life, Conrad Norman had insisted she learn archery. If you're going to live here, you'll learn to hunt, he had said. She had become a marksman to earn a scrap of affection that never came.

She took the bow. She grabbed a quiver of arrows. She tested the string. The tension was familiar. It felt like shaking hands with an old friend.

She strapped on a leather arm guard. She slipped out the back door, following the noise.

Kolby wasn't hard to track. He was crashing through the underbrush, shouting at trees.

"Come out, Bambi!" he yelled. He took another swig from the flask.

Jane kept her distance, moving tree to tree. She was a shadow. She was the darkness.

Kolby stopped in a small clearing. He swayed. He tried to nock an arrow, but his fingers were fumbling. He dropped the arrow.

"What the..." He stared at his hands. "Why are my hands numb?"

He fell to his knees. The bow clattered to the ground. He clutched his chest. "Heart... racing..."

The cocktail was working. His central nervous system was shutting down, confused by the conflicting signals of the stimulants and the depressants.

Jane stepped out from behind a massive oak tree. She stood twenty feet away. She raised the recurve bow. She drew the string back to her cheek, her form perfect.

The moonlight glinted off the broadhead arrow tip.

Kolby looked up. His eyes were wide, unfocused. He saw her.

The game had changed. The hunter was now the prey.