As my apartment comes into view, I narrow my eyes. At first I think it's an illusion, but there's no mistake. The door's ajar. And I'd locked it before I left.

I reach for my stun gun, pushing the door open with an ominous creak. 

There the invader lies in wait. Like a spider watches a fly. 

Ensconced upon my projector sofa, her long, slender legs lean against the armrest. She wears a skintight leather outfit like some extra in The Matrix. Curvy. Almost flawless. 

Quite the femme fatale.

Then it hits me. 

It's her.

Stella's killer.

Unlike her last murder, she doesn't wear a balaclava, but an elegant mask. The kind ledges wear when they attend fancy masquerade balls for charity. It's black with silver filigree tied with a black ribbon behind her head. The ends cascade down her back along with her ebony waves.

The killer's skin almost glows, pale as alabaster. As I draw nearer, the distinct scent of coconut and mango wafts my way. A specialty shampoo I know all too well.

"How dare you?" I spit the words at her like venom. "You bathed in my tub? Using Stella's soap?" 

As the intruder rises, she gracefully untwists her limbs and slinks over to me like a wary predator. She's painted her full lips crimson. Dark as blood. She presses them together and releases them with a barely audible pop. 

My heart flutters at the sight of her. No, this is no stranger.

She knows me. And my heart tells me I know her.

This close, her light-brown eyes twinkle in the light. She's found me. Caught me in her web. Unable to breathe, I can't look away as she traces my cheek with her fingertips. Her prey.

"Tara..." She whispers my name with a hint of an accent I can't place. Trailing her patrician nose across the tender side of my neck, I shudder in her arms. Unable to pull away. "Do you not see?"

"Don't touch me." My words fall flat, without emotion. "You killed her."

"Did I?" 

She trails her fingertips across my shoulders and down my spine. When I try to pull away, I can't move. It's like a vice holds me in place. Panic erupts in a cold sweat. 

"Shh-shh-shh..." She places a gloved fingertip on my lips. "Don't be afraid."

My heart thuds against my ribs. Death is coming. Not with the force of a thousand screams but with a gentle whisper and a kiss. Her lips barely graze my skin, and yet the burning starts.

"Have you ever heard of a krait?" Her voice is breathy and sultry. Smooth as butter. Deadly as poison. "The bite is painless. Yet it paralyzes its victim and kills it softly."

I shudder. 

"Suffocation..." She trails a fingertip down my neck. "In four to eight hours. The closest hack I could find to replicate death by a boa constrictor. A merciless death. It's what you deserve."

"Why?" 

"Why?" She brushes a wayward curl from my face with the tenderness of a lover. "Because you hurt him, Viper. You dug your venomous fangs into my brother and killed his humanity."

"What are you talking about?"

"You...created the serum."

She spits in my face. 

"Rainer created this place, but you turned it into AG's personal hell." She speaks so close to me that I can smell her minty breath. "You lied to us. And you tortured us. Now you'll pay."

I grab onto my one hope. "You know Rainer?"

"He's my flesh and blood."

Tears well in my eyes. Angry ones. Ones of defiance. "You're wrong. I never hurt anyone."

"Not here. Not now. But in another life."

"What do you mean?"

Slowly, Stella unties her mask before flinging it to the ground. 

I gasp. Unable to comprehend. 

Am I delirious?

Has her venom begun its work?

"Stella?" I breathe. "No, you're dead. I watched you die."

"You watched me hack your mind." She smiles with deadly calm. "This is not real. None of it is. In reality you sit in a VR chamber watching your victims suffer while you toy with them like a god."

"You're crazy."

"Am I?" Stella chuckles as she runs her gloved fingertips across my velour sofa. "Maybe...I've been trapped here so long, I can't remember what sane feels like."

"Aila, call the police!"

"Aila? Oh, yeees...Aila. I'm afraid that'd be me." She chuckles darkly and touches her heart with a demure bow of her head. "I hacked your Aila, I'm afraid. Only way I can grace you with my presence while I'm trapped down here in this cold, dark digital hell."

"Zephyr...I mean, Rainer...they're looking for you." Her digital hack has worked so well, I can barely swallow. "If you let me go, I swear we'll find a way to rescue you."

"So, there'll be no police visits today." She sinks down into the cushions and crosses her spindly limbs, flashing me a vicious smile. "I get you all...to...myself."

"Are you listening to me? We want to help you."

"You never help anyone but yourself."

"We're so close to ending digital slavery. We have proof now. I'll send it to the entire digital associated press tonight. It'll cause a media splash by tomorrow morning, I swear."

"Mmm..."

Silence falls.

"Perhaps I'll let you send it and then kill you."

"Stella, why are you doing this?"

"Your Stella is a figment of my imagination." Stella rises, pacing like a feline stalking its prey. "A way to get you to bend to my will. She doesn't exist. She never existed. She's a hack. A tool."

"I don't believe you."

"Oh, no?" Stella raises a quizzical brow. "Well, thanks to your Aila, I can hack the CCTV at the power station and show you what you really are."

Stella reaches down for the digital remote and flicks my cinematic holojector to life. It shows a woman in her late twenties. She lays vertically in a VR pod, as still as a corpse.

It's me. But it isn't me. 

I stare in abject horror.

They've trapped me like Zephyr.

"The real you has money, brains, and influence." Stella stops in front of me, her light-brown eyes twinkling with evil pride. "And yet she does nothing to help us. I've tried. So often." 

She grabs me by the throat and squeezes, lifting me into the air. Inwardly, I scream at my limbs to fight, but they refuse to obey.

"Every time she refuses. Every time she disappoints me."

She tosses me against the wall with a grunt. Pain explodes everywhere, so badly my vision goes dark even though I'm still awake. Then it blinds me. 

"She's sad and alone with no one to love but a Maine coon."

Stella kicks me in the stomach.

"Tell me, Tara. What will it take to get you to listen?" She grabs me by the lapels of my suit jacket and shoves me against the wall. Caging me with her body. "What torture will make you see the hell you put us through?"

"Please...I've changed."

"When will you ever learn?" she whispers in my ear, kissing my cheek like Judas. "Evil doesn't change. It slithers to safety until it rises once more."

"Like you?" 

Her face falls. She drops me like a piece of litter. 

"You let your brother take the fall for your mistakes," I say with as much anger as my lungs can muster. "That's not courage. That's cowardice."

"How dare you?" 

"If you want to help your brother, let me make this right." I struggle to sit up but can't move. So I stare at her from the corner of my eyes. "If I release him, we can find you."

"I'm going to make this very simple for you."

She bends down and leans me against the wall, my chin sinking against my chest. She holds it up by force, staring into my eyes as her poison takes hold. 

"You have a choice." Stella conjures a gun out of thin air. "Either I shoot you now, and you enter the next layer of my digital hell. Or I let the serum kill you, and that woman..." She gestures at the screen with her laser pistol. "The real you will be dead by morning."

My eyes widen.

"So, what'll it be, my dear?" She grins at me while the full moon rises, illuminating her pale skin. "Death by morning? Or death by moonlight?"

I stare at Stella with defiance. "This was never about saving your brother. It's about revenge."

Stella gives me a tight-lipped smile that reminds me of Zephyr. "I must admit I get a certain pleasure...watching you suffer."

"Let me die."

She balks.

"Go...now." I jut my chin. "Let it end here. I'll suffer like you want. You get your revenge."

"No..."

"And the truth about your brother dies with me."

"When will you understand?" Stella growls in frustration. "The evidence still exists out there...in the real world. But no one has the courage to find it. No one gives a flick. Whether you live or die, no one will know."

"Then take a chance."

"What?"

"Let me live. What do you have to lose?"

"This..."

Suddenly it hits me. Stella may despise me, but if she lets me die, she has no one. Nothing. Nowhere to direct decades of anger and hatred because she's all alone.

"You're lonely." My voice falls as gently as a whisper as my lungs begin to fail me. I struggle to snatch the next breath. "You're trapped there...in hell...all alone."

"Silence!"

"You'll miss me."

"I hate you."

A dark chuckle tumbles from my lips with a pained sob. "Ah...well, you know what they say..."

She raises the pistol to my head. "Don't..."

"You're never gonna let me die." My voice grows hoarse. It won't be long left before words fail me. "Who will you play with when I'm gone?"

"Maybe I like torturing you."

"Maybe..."

"Maybe I need you to tell the truth."

"Maybe..." A dry cough falls from my lips. "Or maybe you knew me better than you admit..."

She turns her face from me.

"Maybe we were closer than you want me to remember, hmm?"

Silence falls like a burial shroud.

"No stranger lusts for revenge this much," I whisper. "No stranger touches me like you do."

Stella squeezes her eyes shut. "You remember what I allow you to remember."

"End it." I force the next exhale. "Do it."

Her hand trembles as she raises the laser gun to my head. 

"One final reset."

She pulls the trigger.

___

Word count: 1,763
Total word count: 18,225/20,000

Ermergerd!!! We're so close to the end now, I can taste it. Ahhhh!