I wake up with a breathless groan. I wince as an uncomfortable white light flashes in my blurred vision. Squeezing my eyes shut, I reopen them. There's a brief soreness in my arm as I shift against a hard surface that prods at my back.

Fucking hell, where am I?

I squint through the on and off darkness. There's a figure holding the black bag under one arm and gripping the rope, my rope, in their other hand.

Wait, did I just separate bodies and this is ghost me while the other woman is the real me?

She's wearing a dark red leather jacket and black cargo pants tucked into combat boots. A holster with a gun hangs at her hip. Her short, black, wolf cut hair shields part of her sharp cheekbones.

Nope, that can't be me. I'm way hotter.

I blink, and everything rushes back to me.

Someone slamming into me. The pain in my arm. Passing out. And that someone was...

"Ryan," I croak, and that's when I taste the bitter aftertaste of the pills. She must have given me a pill or two after I blacked out. I don't feel weak anymore, but when I try to move, it's like my body has been glued to the spot.

I glance down. Nope, not glued. Bound to the spot. That bitch fucking tied me up, not that I would have done differently if our roles were switched, which they should be. Speaking of, why aren't they? Oh, that's right, I was too dumb to understand how those pills would have changed the whole situation right now.

Ryan looks in my direction. "Lana, you're awake."

"Uh, duh, thanks for stating the obvious."

She snorts. "I see you haven't lost your bright personality."

"What are you doing here, Ryan?" I twist around in the restraints, the rope chafing my wrists.

"I could ask you the same question, you know. And look, I'd love to stay and chat, especially with you being tied up and all, but I got somewhere to be."

She turns to hoist herself up. Fuck, I need to distract her just a little longer so I can loosen my bounds enough to break out of them. I didn't get drenched in monster blood and traveled miles underground just to fail in my mission.

Besides, I never fail. And I'm not about to start now.

"You're working for Farroh?" I ask. It's a wild guess, but Farroh Corp is the only other corporation that has been rivals with Thunder Corp for decades. And it would make sense why Ryan tied me up and is stealing the body bag from me.

But it gets her attention, because she turns back to me with her eyebrow raised. "Yeah, I do. And you for Thunder Corp, right?"

I nod.

She scoffs. "I should have known. Working for those scumbags is right up your lane."

It's now my turn to scoff. "Oh please, like the people you're working for are any better."

"They aren't, that's true. But at least their purpose teeters on the edge of what is right. Meanwhile, yours are fuck-ups standing knee deep in shit that reeks of the worst fuckers humankind has spit out."

"And the only reason I'm working for them is to keep my head above water."

"Uh-huh, tell yourself that." She adjusts the body bag in her arm. Just a few more seconds. "You know Lana, you don't look half bad for someone who kills for a living."

"Well I guess the blood keeps me young. And fuck you, I'm not even thirty."

"Oh, I'd never let you fuck me in a million years, girlfriend killer."

I exhale sharply, my heart racing against time. The onslaught of emotions -- anger, pain, guilt -- invade my system like an acticated, deadly virus. How does she even know about it? My actions that night were never advertised on the news or anywhere public, so how did she gain access to that information? She looks at me, her face going slack when she realizes all too late that she's gone too far.

With a yell of rage, I lunge forward, snapping the ropes around me into threads. Her eyes widen in shock as I pummel into her, sending her flying across the room and through the glass window. It shatters, sending millions of shards in all directions. Some of them cut my face, one nearly missing my eye as it slashes me right below.

But I don't waste a second as I leap over the mantel, avoiding the sharp, jagged glass. Ryan is trying to pick herself up from the floor when I reach her and punch, but my fist touches empty air. My head jerks to the side when her knuckles collide with my cheek, nearly shattering my skull.

With another shout, I send a right hook up her jaw. Bone crunches as she stumbles backward, blood flowing from the multiple cuts all over her body. She looks at me, the corner of her mouth curving up in a smirk as we circle one another like two dogs in a ring.

"Not bad, Lana. Last I saw you, you could barely punch a mosquito."

I spit a blob of red to the side and glare at her. "I've changed a lot in the past eight years. It's not like we kept in touch after what happened."

She chuckles a deep, throaty sound that sends a warm tickle into my stomach. A tickle of disgust, nothing else. It's definitely not the same as what I felt for her when we were friends.

We've changed. Both of us did. And after what happened between us and going our separate ways, there's nothing but hate in my heart toward her.

Even if it was mostly my fault that we parted ways, because it always is. Everything I've ever fucked up, from Ryan to... to Willow. Fuck, Willow.

"And whose fault was that?" Ryan asks.

I growl under my breath. "Don't act like you were innocent in all of that."

"So what? You're going to kill me now?"

"Don't test me," I warned, my fists clenching at my sides.

"Come on, kill me," she taunts. "Kill me, just like your girlfriend. It seems to be the only thing you're good at."

My nostrils flare as my body shakes with uncontrolled rage. I can sense with every drop of blood running through my veins that I'm going to lose control over myself again. And the worst thing is, I'm not even sure if I will regret it.

"Ry... I'm fucking warning you. Don't. Mention. Her. Again."

Her eyes flicker across my face, assessing me, before tilting her head to the side. "Why? The guilt eating away at you?"

A sharp breath releases from the depths of my chest. On automatic, I take out my gun, aim at her head, and pull the trigger, all in a span of two seconds.

She dodges with lightning speed, the bullet grazing just the tip of her ear.

"What the fuck, Lana?" she gapes at me, clearly not expecting me to actually kill her. And, if I'm being honest, I didn't expect it either.

I don't answer as I lunge at her, my fist at the ready. She blocks my punch, sidestepping, and lands a blow to my side. Air whooshes out of me, but I take advantage of my position to land one in her stomach. She skids backward several feet, gasping. I crouch to sweep my foot at her leg. She moves it in time, but not before I kick her with my leg.

This time, she doesn't budge. Instead, she uses my momentum to grab me around the waist and slam me onto my back on the glass-covered ground. Sharp pieces cut through my flesh, making me hiss in pain.

Ryan straddles me, locking me in place, her own face contorted into pain. I try to budge, but she keeps me in place.

"Stop, Lana!" she shouts. "I really do not want to have kill you."

"Oh yeah?" I breathe out. "Do it. I fucking dare you. I fucking want you to. We both know I deserve it."

She furrows her eyebrows at me. "What? You don't... what the fuck are you talking about?"

A broken laugh escapes me. "Come on, Ry. I only hurt everyone around me, right? So go on, kill me. Take the spoils up to your bosses."

"If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't have forced those pills down your fucking throat."

"I wasn't going to die if you didn't shove your dirty fingers into my mouth."

"Oh, I bet you would have loved to be awake for that. I was disappointed you didn't choke on them when you were out like a carcass."

I shove her off me by her shoulders. She doesn't resist, standing up as I sit up and lurch forward on my hands and knees. I exhale several forced breaths before sitting back on my haunches and looking up at Ryan.

"Just kill me, Ry. Please."

She purses her lips before taking out her gun and cocking it before pressing the end of the cold barrel against my forehead.

"Look at me, Lana." I don't react, so she kicks me in the knee with the toe of her boot. I still don't respond. "I said look at me." She tucks the barrel under my chin and forces me to look up at her. Her eyes are like two gray storms, thunderous hate and sadness reflecting in her orbs.

"I'd gladly kill you, but that's not my mission. That's not what I came here to do. And unlike you, I don't kill people who meant something to me, even once upon a time. Unless, well, it's self-defense. Besides..." She leans forward. "You look too pretty on your knees for me to put a bullet through your pathetic brain."

I let out a mirthless laugh. "What are you afraid of, Ryan?"

Her lips form a straight line, the mole under her bottom left lip twitching in the way I used to adore once upon a time. A time when we both had bright futures ahead of us with honest, morally great opportunities. But I had to go and fuck it all up. I didn't just lose my life and my control over my body. I lost my best friend, who would be dead right now if she hadn't reacted fast.

Ryan opens her mouth to say something when bright light floods the room we were just in.

I shield my eyes with my arm as the light sweeps over the white walls of the lab like a searchlight.

And that's when the all too familiar sound of a helicopter hovers above in the skylight. Ryan looks into the room, lowering her gun from my forehead.

I scramble to my feet in time to see the body bag being lifted.

Fuck. We both run into the room, glass crunching beneath our feet, but we are too late. The body bag is already halfway up.

Then my rope crumbles to the ground in a heap, the metal part clanking like piercing gongs.

The skylight shuts with a metal clang, sealing us into darkness as the lights in the lab explode, sparks flying out until only a red glow floods the entire space.

Ryan and I look at each other, the gravity of our situation sinking in.

We're both stuck down here, apparently left twith the only way out being miles away, if that exit is not sealed as well.

Fuck me. 

Total word count: 8130