Chelsea curled into a fetal position, her knees drawing up to her chest. Her fingernails dug into the filthy sheets, scratching until she felt them snap. A guttural sound escaped her throat-half groan, half sob.

Brittany stood by the bed, frantically wiping at the brown stains on her coat with a silk handkerchief. Her face was a mask of fury, but as she watched Chelsea writhe, the anger slowly morphed into satisfaction.

"Leave us," she commanded the guards. "Wait outside."

The heavy door clicked shut, leaving them alone in the suffocating room.

Chelsea's vision was starting to swim. The edges of the room were dissolving into static. But her hearing... her hearing became terrifyingly sharp. She could hear the rain hitting the roof, the hum of the mini-fridge, the ragged sound of her own dying breath.

Brittany stepped closer. She didn't mind the smell anymore. She wanted a front-row seat. She crouched down, her face inches from Chelsea's. Her perfume-something floral and expensive-clashed violently with the metallic taste of blood in Chelsea's mouth.

"It hurts, doesn't it?" she whispered. "It's a special blend. Quick, but not painless."

Chelsea tried to speak, but her tongue felt swollen, heavy like lead.

"You want to know the truth, Chelsea? Before you go?" She pulled out her phone. The screen lit up the gloom.

She swiped a finger across the glass. A photo. Bennet and Brittany, on a yacht. They were tanned, laughing, holding champagne flutes. Bennet's hand was resting possessively on her thigh.

"Look at the date," she urged.

Chelsea's eyes struggled to focus. The timestamp. July 4th, 2029.

The year Chelsea married Bennet. This was taken three months before their wedding.

"He never loved you," Brittany said, her voice smooth like poisoned honey. "He loved your money. He loved your connections. And I loved him. We planned it all, Chelsea. Every step. The addiction? Who do you think introduced you to that 'doctor' who prescribed the first round of painkillers? Who do you think swapped your anxiety meds for something a little more... destabilizing?"

Chelsea's heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. The betrayal hurt worse than the poison. Her entire life-her marriage, her downfall, her misery-it had all been orchestrated. She wasn't just a failure. She was a puppet.

"You... you..." Chelsea choked out.

Brittany laughed. It was a high, tinkling sound that bounced off the peeling wallpaper. "We spent your fortune together. We bought houses, cars, islands. And you? You were just the bank account."

The poison was reaching Chelsea's extremities now. Her fingers and toes were going cold. The fire in her stomach was turning into a numbing ice that crept up her spine.

"And now," Brittany sighed, standing up and smoothing her skirt, "you're just a loose end."

Rage.

It flooded Chelsea's system, overriding the pain, overriding the fear. It was a pure, white-hot energy. She was going to die. She knew that. But she wasn't going to let Brittany have the last laugh.

Chelsea bit down hard on the tip of her tongue. The sharp pain cleared the fog in her brain for one singular second.

Brittany leaned in again, her arrogance making her careless. She wanted to see the light go out of Chelsea's eyes. She wanted to savor the moment.

"Goodbye, loser," she whispered.

Chelsea summoned every ounce of adrenaline left in her dying cells. Her right arm, which had been lying limp, shot up.

It wasn't a graceful strike. It was a desperate, animalistic swipe. But it connected.

Crack.

Chelsea's palm collided with the side of Brittany's face. The sound was sickeningly loud in the small room. Brittany's head snapped to the side. She stumbled back, losing her balance in her high heels.

She gasped, her hand flying to her cheek. A red welt was already forming on her perfect, porcelain skin. Her hair was disheveled. She looked shocked.

Chelsea didn't stop. She couldn't speak, so she did the only thing she could. She gathered the blood and bile pooling in her mouth and spat.

The red spray hit Brittany squarely in the face, spattering across her eyes and nose.

"You animal!" she shrieked.

She lunged forward and kicked Chelsea. The toe of her heel drove into Chelsea's stomach. The pain was blinding. Chelsea rolled off the bed, hitting the hard floor with a thud.

Dust bunnies danced in front of her eyes. The floor was cold. So cold.

Above her, Brittany was scrubbing her face, cursing, sounding like a banshee. But Chelsea was smiling. Through the blood, through the agony, her lips curled up.

She had marked her. It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. But it was something.

Brittany composed herself. She took a deep breath, smoothing her hair, wiping the blood from her cheek with the back of her hand. The shock in her eyes was gone, replaced by a cold, reptilian malice.

She walked over to where Chelsea lay on the floor. Chelsea was staring at the dust under the bed, unable to move her head. She saw Brittany's shoes-red soles-plant themselves inches from her nose. Brittany stepped on Chelsea's hand, grinding her heel into her fingers.

Chelsea didn't feel it. Her nerves were already dead.

"You think that matters?" Brittany hissed. She leaned down, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "You think a slap changes anything? You're dying in a motel room, Chelsea. Alone. Unloved."

She paused, waiting for a reaction Chelsea couldn't give.

"I have one more secret," she said. "A parting gift. You remember the car crash? The one that killed your father and crippled your mother's career?"

Chelsea's heart gave a strange, fluttering skip. Her eyes locked onto Brittany's ankles.

"It wasn't an accident," she said simply. "I cut the brake line. I was sixteen, Chelsea. And I did it with a pair of garden shears."

The world stopped.

Her father. Her kind, gentle father who used to read her stories. The crash that had turned her mother into a recluse. It wasn't bad luck. It wasn't fate.

It was Brittany.

Grief, massive and suffocating, crashed over Chelsea. It was heavier than the death creeping into her limbs. A single tear, hot and bloody, leaked from the corner of her eye and tracked across the bridge of her nose.

"He screamed," Brittany whispered. "I heard the recording from the dashcam before the police destroyed it. He screamed your name."

She stepped back, satisfied. "Go to hell, Chelsea."

She turned and walked to the door. The latch clicked.

Chelsea was alone.

She tried to scream. She tried to beg the universe for a second chance. Not like this. Please, God, not like this. Let her fix it. Let her kill Brittany. Let her save them.

The darkness rushed in. It wasn't a fade to black. It was a violent shuttering. Her heart gave one final, agonizing thump.

And then... silence.

A high-pitched ringing noise began to build. It started as a whine and grew into a roar, like a jet engine inside her skull.

Then came the falling sensation. She was plummeting, wind rushing past her ears, her stomach lurching into her throat.

She gasped.

Air flooded her lungs-too much air, too fast. She sat bolt upright, her chest heaving.

"No!" she screamed, her hands flying to her throat, expecting to feel the burning of the poison.

But there was no pain. Her skin was cool. Her throat was clear.

She was drenched in sweat, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She looked around wildly.

This wasn't the motel.

The walls were painted a soft, creamy yellow. Sunlight-bright, clean morning sunlight-streamed through sheer lace curtains. There were posters on the wall. A framed print for a recent, critically acclaimed indie film. A concert poster from The 1975.

Her hands. She looked at her hands.

They weren't the skeletal, trembling claws of a forty-three-year-old addict. They were smooth. The skin was taut. Her fingernails were short and unpainted, but healthy.

She scrambled out of bed. Her legs were strong. They didn't buckle. She ran to the full-length mirror hanging on the closet door.

She stopped dead.

The girl in the mirror was eighteen. Her hair was thick and glossy, cascading over her shoulders. Her face was full of collagen, her eyes bright and clear, devoid of the dark circles that had haunted her for decades.

She touched her cheek. Real. Warm.

Her gaze drifted to the desk. A sleek laptop hummed in the corner. Next to it was a paper desk calendar.

September 15, 2024.

Her knees gave out, and she sank onto the plush carpet. 2024. Her senior year at Crestview Academy.

"Chelsea! Breakfast is ready! Don't make me come up there!"

The voice floated up the stairs. It was warm, slightly exasperated, and utterly familiar.

Mom.

Earlene.

Her mother, who in her memories had died a broken, silent woman.

Tears burst from her eyes, hot and fast. She slapped her thigh hard. Slap. It stung.

It wasn't a dream.

The memories of the future-the Krav Maga training she did for that action movie role in 2030, the eidetic memory exercises she mastered to memorize scripts, the years of suffering-they were all there, layered over the mind of an eighteen-year-old girl.

She wiped her face with the back of her hand. The confusion in her eyes hardened into something steel-sharp.

She looked at her reflection again. The innocent girl was gone.

"I'm coming, Mom," she whispered.

Then she looked at the calendar again. November 8th. The date of the crash. She had time.

"This time," she said to the empty room, her voice low and dangerous, "I'm the one who holds the shears."

Chelsea took the stairs two at a time, her feet finding the rhythm of the treads that she hadn't walked in twenty-five years. The smell of bacon and maple syrup grew stronger with every step, a sensory assault that made her knees weak.

She burst into the kitchen.

Her father, George, was sitting at the round oak table, a newspaper spread out in front of him. He looked younger, his hair still peppered with black, his shoulders broad and unbent by grief. Her mother stood by the stove, flipping pancakes, her silhouette bathed in the morning light.

"Morning, sleepyhead," Dad mumbled without looking up.

Chelsea didn't speak. She crossed the room in three strides and wrapped her arms around her mother from behind. She buried her face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of vanilla and laundry detergent.

Her mother stiffened in surprise, then laughed softly. "Whoa, careful! You'll make me drop the spatula."

Chelsea squeezed tighter, feeling the solid reality of her. She was alive. She was warm.

"I love you," Chelsea said, her voice thick. "I love you so much."

Mom turned around, concern knitting her brows. She pressed a hand to Chelsea's forehead. "You okay, Chels? Bad dream?"

"The worst," Chelsea said, forcing a smile. She turned to Dad and hugged him too, burying her face in his flannel shirt. He smelled like Old Spice and coffee. She wanted to stay in this kitchen forever. She wanted to lock the doors and never leave.

But she had work to do.

Chelsea ate breakfast mechanically, her mind racing. When Dad offered to drive her to school, she shook her head. "I'll take the bus. I need to... review some notes."

She needed space. She needed to calibrate.

The bus ride was a blur of noise and teenage angst, but it gave her time to settle into her skin. When the bus hissed to a halt in front of Crestview Academy, she took a deep breath.

The school was a fortress of red brick and ivy, a monument to old money and pretension. Students milled about the courtyard, a sea of navy blue blazers and plaid skirts.

And then she saw it.

A bright red convertible pulled into the reserved parking spot closest to the entrance. The vanity plate read B-POTTS.

Brittany.

She hopped out of the car, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder. She looked radiant. Perfect. Innocent.

She was surrounded instantly by her court-girls who wanted to be her, boys who wanted to date her.

Chelsea stood by the bus stop, watching her. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. The urge to walk over there and snap Brittany's neck was so strong it made her vision vibrate. Patience, she told herself. You are a predator now. Predators wait.

Brittany spotted her. Her face lit up with that trademark smile-the one that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Chelsea!" she squealed.

She ran over, her heels clicking on the pavement. She threw her arms around Chelsea.

Chelsea's body went rigid. Every instinct screamed danger. It took every ounce of her acting training to not shove Brittany away. She could feel the ghost of the poison burning in her throat.

"Hey," Chelsea said. Her voice sounded flat, but Brittany didn't notice.

Brittany pulled back, linking her arm through Chelsea's. "You didn't text me back last night! I was spiraling. Bennet was being so weird."

She was dragging Chelsea toward the entrance, her grip tight on her arm. It wasn't affectionate; it was controlling.

"Sorry," Chelsea said, putting on the mask. She widened her eyes, softened her jaw. She became the Chelsea Brittany knew-the doormat. "I fell asleep early. Headache."

Brittany rolled her eyes, but she bought it. "Ugh, you and your headaches. Anyway, we have a plan for lunch. I need you to look at my Yale essay. It's tragic."

"Yale?" Chelsea asked, playing dumb.

"Yes, Yale. The deadline is Friday. And you know I can't write to save my life." She squeezed Chelsea's arm, her nails digging in slightly. "Bennet says smart girls are sexy, but let's be real, I don't need to be smart if I have you."

Bennet says.

Chelsea almost laughed. The audacity.

"Sure," she said. "I'll look at it."

"Look at it? Babe, I need you to fix it. Rewrite it. Whatever." She checked her reflection in a window they passed. "Oh, and don't forget, you're doing my history presentation too."

They reached the main doors. The bell rang, a shrill sound that echoed through the courtyard.

"I have to go to my locker," Chelsea said, gently extricating her arm from Brittany's grip. "I'll catch up."

Brittany paused, looking at Chelsea. For a second, a flicker of suspicion crossed her face. Usually, Chelsea would cling to her like a limpet.

"Okay..." she said slowly. "Don't be late. We sit at the round table today."

She turned and sashayed into the building.

Chelsea watched her go, the smile dropping from her face instantly. Her expression went cold.

She walked into the building, passing the large bulletin board in the hallway. Mid-Term Rankings.

She scanned the list. Her name was at number 50. Right in the middle. Exactly where she had kept herself so she wouldn't outshine Brittany, who was miraculously at number 10 (thanks to Chelsea's work).

She touched the glass over her name.

"Not anymore," she whispered.