CHAPTER TEN —

— THE SISTER.

KATE COULDN'T REMEMBER WHEN SHE STOPPED BEING A 'KATIE' — but it felt like aeons ago, back when she went to bed before the sun and didn't know how to multiply past the number five. She had been grey, grim Kate for years, at least when she wasn't playing pretend as someone else completely. And it felt weird to her that so many people kept forgetting that she was almost an adult and definitely not a sniveling little snot-faced kid named Katie anymore.

At the very least, she expected her sister to know better. But considering they were basically strangers nowadays, maybe her expectations were too unrealistic.

Mariana Pruitt wasn't a Blackwell on paper anymore. And three and a half years ago, she'd sworn to never associate with any Blackwell label again, which Kate assumed also meant her (and considering they only interacted through Instagram likes and Christmas texts, that seemed right). But thirty-six hours after the announcement of Killian Blackwell's death, Mariana Pruitt showed up on the mansion front steps with two bags and a beaming smile, leaving Kate no choice but to let her in.

She definitely didn't look like a Blackwell anymore, Kate observed dully. Nothing like the perfectly poised eldest daughter always dressed in expensive creams and maroons, smizing behind her perfect parents. This Mariana draped herself across the uncomfortable velvet furniture in one of the many Blackwell 'entertainment rooms' (which hadn't been used until that very day) and dangled her mismatched-socked toes off the back. This Mariana wore a huge smile pretty much all the time, to the point where it kind of scared Kate, and sweaters with little pink crabs all over it, and seemed to be absolutely oblivious to what was going on.

Not oblivious, actually. Just unsympathetic.

"Y'know, Katie—"

"—Kate."

Mariana cocked her head, blinking owlishly at her sister. "Huh?"

Kate squirmed under her gaze. "I...it's just Kate," she said lamely. "No one calls me Katie anymore."

"Oh." Mariana considered that for a second, before shrugging and widening her smile once again. "Sure. Kate. I was just asking if you heard what I said."

Honestly, Kate hadn't been listening to her sister for pretty much the entire time she'd been there. After Mariana showed up, offering very little condolences and promptly remarking on how moorish the Blackwell Mansion was — which, yeah, that happens when the only good in a family dies or leaves and all that's left is a sociopathic dickwad of a father, who then kicks the bucket TOO — Kate felt herself fading into her mind, and out of what was actually happening. Her body still functioned, but it was on autopilot so she could relax a little.

That probably wasn't fair. But selfishly, Kate didn't really care. Autopilot was easier than trying to process reality, or convince herself her absent father really did kill himself and her absent sister was back in her life again pretending like nothing happened and everything around her was falling apart and she hadn't ever processed how good her life had been before, even if it had been horrible, it still —

But sharing all of that with her stranger of a sister didn't seem like the greatest idea, so Kate lied. "Sorry, I was lost in thought. What were you saying?"

Mariana waved her phone, "Tim just texted. He's gonna be here in a few."

"Oh. Cool."

Not cool. If seeing the sister that basically abandoned her to a ghost house three-and-a-half-years ago wasn't hard enough, and then having said sister ignore how shitty everything might feel to the person that had had to live through the past three-and-a-half years alone and find out about their dead dad alone, meeting the sister's husband named Tim fucking Pruitt was going to be the icing on top of the worst cake ever goddamn made.

"You know, he's excited to meet you?"

"Oh."

Mariana shifted herself on the couch, dropping her feet to the floor. "Absolutely. Yeah. Obviously these aren't ideal circumstances, but...you know."

Circumstances being the death of our dad, who you hated and left me with three-and-a-half-years ago, who you won't even talk about despite you being here because he, AGAIN, kicked the bucket, which you're probably thrilled about but you won't admit that and — Kate swallowed back the rest of her bitter thoughts, stopping herself before she accidentally said something aloud.

"Tim's an only kid, you see. He always wanted a little sibling, and I think he's a little over the moon to finally meet his honourary little sister."

I didn't even go to the wedding, she screamed in her mind, I found out about it through Instagram! I have no relationship to you or Tim fucking Pruitt — there's no way I'm calling him my brother.

"Cool," Kate mumbled, because she didn't really have much else to say.

Mariana didn't seem to mind. She smiled wider, which didn't seem possible until it was done. "I can't wait for you two to meet. It'll be so good."

Kate shifted her weight awkwardly in her seat. Silently, she prayed for a piano to fall on her. It seemed easier than dealing with all of this.

"I think this will be good for all of us, honestly."

Her hands knitted together in the pocket of her hoodie. She hadn't taken it off since the news broke. "What?"

"Well, I know that everything's a little crazy right now, but we're all going to be together. And—" Mariana paused from whatever she was about to say once her phone buzzed. She gave a little gasp and in one graceful movement, slapped her feet back down on the ground again. "Tim's here!"

Incredible.

Without a second thought, her sister was bounding away to find her husband, and Kate was left reeling behind. For a moment, she wondered if she could get away with leaving now. Fleeing to her room and locking herself inside. But, as tempting as that sounded, the consequences seemed worse. There wasn't a chance that Tim and Mariana wouldn't search her out and invade her only safe space left, and Kate would much rather deal with this disaster outside of that.

"This sucks," she muttered aloud, slowly getting to her feet. "Like, really frickin' sucks, Blackwell. Whatever you did in your past life really pissed off the universe, eh?"

Sounds of her sister's cheers and a sharp male's voice came from the front entrance as she reluctantly headed towards it. She couldn't make out what exactly they were saying — but Tim sounded exactly like a Tim, she decided with some vitriol. Her stomach churned.

Kate lingered in the halfway point between the foyer and the living room, watching the happy pair embrace. It felt oddly wrong, having a couple so pink-cheeked and warm surrounded by nothing but darkness and death. She likened it to teenage lovers making out in school stairwells, swallowing back the half-dozen vitriol thoughts lingering in her mouth.

She had already seen Tim Pruitt a few times on her sister's Instagram, so she could vaguely recognise him. And he looked exactly like he did on there, just a bit taller in person. Coiffed dark hair, sharp jawline, round glasses to make him look smarter than he probably was. He beamed just as wide as his wife, but his smile was mostly close-lipped, which made Kate cringe. That, and the way his large hands hung awkwardly by his sides, like he never knew what exactly to do with them, or like an alien trying to merge with human society without any basic training.

The alien description felt like a good one, Kate decided, looking the man up and down. He walked, smiled and moved his hands like he wasn't confident in any of his decisions. And with a name like Tim — that's gotta be fake, she thought to herself. Tim the Alien.

Mariana pulled back from Tim the Alien and beckoned Kate over. She took slow, hesitant steps, trying to prolong the introduction process, spare herself a moment to breathe. But before she could take in air, she was in front of Tim T.A and he was smiling down at her with way too much excitement for a stranger.

A stranger greeting a newly orphaned teenager, too.

Was her life just becoming a bad Beetlejuice remake?

"Heya, Katie." Tim smiled from ear to ear, just like his wife beside him, leaving the two of them looking creepily clown-like against the vampiric colours of the Blackwell mansion. "How're ya doing, kid?"

Kate folded her hands back into her sleeves, gripping tightly to the thick black material. Not great, Tim! she screamed in her mind. My dad just died; how do you think I'm doing?!

"Fine."

He cocked his head and gave her a look of pity. "I'm sorry about what happened with your father, kid. That's...that's really tough to go through."

Kate held back the burning desire to scream, forcing a short nod instead. "Yeah," she said simply, not trusting her voice.

"How've you been holding up?"

"Fine."

"Right," he said, in a way that felt both condescending and sympathetic. "Well, I'm glad you've not been alone for all this. It's probably nice to have a sister to get you through it, eh?"

Kate blinked, and wondered for a second if her life was just a really crappy simulation where NPC's asked mind-numbing questions and pushed her buttons, just to see her break. That would make more sense than this being a real conversation, at least to her.

She looked to Tim, and then over to Mariana, who had intertwined her right arm with his left. In the twenty-four hours her sister had been there, Kate had been stuck listening to her moan about the interior of the Blackwell's grief-infested mansion, gush about her wonderful, brilliant, sexy, beautiful husband, and slurp lo mien noodles like she was playing a game called 'How Loud Can I Make Every Single Bite of this Chinese Food?'. And she had never stopped smiling, or acting genuinely happy to be in this situation, and she had never said a word of condolement or understanding or comfort.

The most comfort Kate had had was when Mariana finally went to bed, and the house was quiet. But that only lasted until six am when she woke up for her morning Pilates session, just when Kate was finally falling asleep.

Kate looked back to Tim. "Sure," she said, with absolutely no emotion.

"Alright, well..." Tim glanced to his wife, who gave him an encouraging nod, before looking back to Kate with pity-filled eyes. "Just so you know, I'm an almost-practicing therapist, so I have some experience with dealing with these types of things. I know we don't know each other that well yet, but I'd like to offer myself, if you need anything. If ya need to talk, or anything, a-anything of that sort. Yeah?"

Kate bit back the half-dozen harsh remarks she wanted to say, because honestly, it felt like a waste of time and not worth the little satisfaction it'd bring. Instead, she just nodded and looked down at her feet, and wished she could turn into a dust bunny and roll far away from there.

The three of them stood in the grandiose foyer for a long few minutes, saying nothing and drowning in the awkward tension.

Mariana finally broke first. "Tim's been wanting to meet you for a while, Kate. I feel like I talk about you all the time, probably talk his ear off—"

"—no, baby, you know I love hearing your voice—"

"—aw, honey you're too nice," Mariana cooed, "but really, I go on and on about you. And I'm so happy I finally get to have—"

"—I need to take a piss."

The couple paused immediately, glancing back to her in confusion. Tim's brows crumpled low, and he almost looked like he was going to tell her off for the word choice, like the parents she saw on TV.

"I-I — really bad," Kate rushed before either could say anything. "Um. So. I'm gonna...go pee. Bye."

"Oh, okay—"

She didn't waste a minute letting them finish.

As she raced towards the employees stairs, she could just barely hear Tim's murmur to his wife, "...it's common, for teens to avoid processing difficult emotions. I recognise the signs: she's clearly..."

Kate scoffed and slipped through the small staff door. She flipped Tim off on the other side of it, glaring at him through the tiny glass panel. "Piss off, alien," she whispered harshly. "Keep your psychoanalysation to yourself."

Yeah, you really told 'im off there, Blackwell.

"Whatever." She stomped up the stairs and away from the disaster of life downstairs. Down the hall back to her bedroom, which had remained almost untouched since the moment she had heard the news. She didn't have any energy to clean the space up.

Kate slipped under the thick comforter on her bed, pulling it all the way up above her head. She curled in around herself and breathed in a small, shaky breath of stuffy warm air. She stared at the grey blanket sky around her, and wondered how bad it would be if she just stayed under there forever.

"At least it'd be quieter," she said to herself. "No sisters' or Tim's' here. A little lonely, but...you're good at lonely."

Kate knew she technically had people around her. Aliana and Didi had posted on their Instagram stories non-stop about the loss, which was sweet, kind of. And all her classmates were in her DM's with 'so sorry for your loss' and 'if you need to talk I'm here for you girlie!' messages. And that was nice in theory, but Kate also knew none of them really meant it. They didn't know her or her relationship with her father. They couldn't fathom the complexity of the situation. They just wanted to lay claim to her grief and get in close to the orphaned heiress.

Her closest friends were basically strangers, now more than ever. Kate wondered if they even really cared.

"I probably wouldn't," she admitted to her comforter. "It's all meaningless anyways. None of us care. None of it matters. It's fine."

Kate swallowed against the lump growing her throat and turned her face towards her blanket. She shut her eyes and stared into the bleakness behind her lids. Being in the dark felt easier than acknowledging what was really around her.

Even as the air around her grew hotter and stuffier, the blanket remained tight around her body, no relent for her lungs or sweaty frame. Kate stayed curled up and still in her makeshift sanctuary. Like she was a little girl again, hiding from the monsters.

Only, unlike when she was little, the monsters were real. And there wasn't anyone out there to protect her. Her mother died a declared alcoholic, destroying her family. Her father forced his way back into her life, turning it on its head and then fled, leaving only confusion and more anger. Her sister was a complete stranger to her.

And the world sucked. Everything kind of did.

So Kate stayed as still as she could, and pretended like none of it was real, and she was small and seven again, because it was the only haven she had left.

A FEW HOURS LATER, HER HAVEN WAS BROKEN INTO BY HER SISTER.

That wasn't much of a surprise. Honestly, Kate was shocked it took her so long — but maybe Tim would explain why. She appreciated that from him, that she had had a brief moment of peace, even if it was shattered now.

"Can I come in?"

Kate stuck her head out of her comforters, staring blankly at her closed doors. Despite every instinct telling her to ignore it and stay quiet, her voice came out, "sure."

The knob turned and a head of dark hair peeked in. A bright smile beamed, followed by the rest of Mariana's body. There was a large tray in her hands.

"Cecilia asked me to get this to ya," Mariana offered, holding up the tray in her hands. "She said you skipped lunch. Not a smart idea, y'know."

"I wasn't hungry."

"Ah. Well, you should be for this fettucine alfredo. It smells freakin' heavenly." Mariana looked down at the tray like any second, she was going to dive in and devour it. "I mean, wow. I ate mine and almost cried. I forgot how much of a god Pietro is."

Kate sat up a little in her bed, rubbing her sleep-deprived eyes. "S'not Pietro," she explained. "He's been out sick for a while."

"Oh. Really?"

"Yep."

"Oh. Sad. Hope he gets better soon."

Did it matter? His boss was dead. He probably didn't have a job to come back to. Unless the responsibility of the Blackwell household employees fell now to Kate, in which case he definitely wouldn't want to come back. He never liked her much.

"Anyways," Mariana cleared her throat. "You should take this before I go crazy and eat your meal, too." She shuffled forward and sat it on Kate's comforter, right next to her feet. "Whoever cooked it, really killed it."

Kate winced at her word choice. Mariana didn't seem to notice.

Her sister dropped the tray next to Kate's legs, patting the comforter twice as she did so. There was a large plate of pasta, still steaming, several pieces of garlic bread, and a bottle of water with a glass next to it. There was also a small pack of gummy bears next to the dishes.

"Oh, yeah," Mariana chuckled, following her sister's gaze. "Cecilia put those on there for ya, too. She told me to tell you to eat them after, though. She told me to remind you that candy's not a meal — which I agree with."

Kate stared at the candy bag blankly.

"She's lovely, y'know. I really like her. I was surprised to see her still here, but I'm glad she is."

"Yeah," Kate said simply. "She's nice."

"I agree. I forgot how nice she was."

Kate thought about Cecilia. About how she had held her for what felt like both hours and mere seconds after she found out the news. About her horrible, heart-wrenching screams that still haunted her dreams after she had heard the news. About how truly sad the housekeeper had looked, and how sorry she looked when she comforted Kate. About how she had cried and cried and cried, and Kate hadn't shed a fucking tear, and she had promised her that "everything was going to be alright, dear, you're going to be alright".

"She is nice," she said again. "She's a good person."

"She likes you a lot, too. Kept asking a lot of questions about how you're doin' and stuff."

Ironic.

"Tim likes her, too. We were eating dinner, and..." Mariana started to ramble on about her wonderful husband, and Kate immediately felt herself retreating back into herself and away from her sister. She stared with glazed vision at the tray.

The food smelled incredible. And also nauseating. The idea of eating anything was. Why was that?

"And...hey?"

Mariana's story stopped, interrupted by her own worried tone.

"Yeah?"

"You're blanking again."

She was surprised her sister had noticed. It didn't seem like she cared anymore.

"Sorry."

"I — are you alright, Kate?"

Kate stared at the pasta, fighting the urge to vomit. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you left rather abruptly and then didn't come back down. Six hours later I find you buried under the covers, half-suffocated."

"I was tired."

"You weren't sleeping," Mariana refuted, smiling. "I can tell. Which is why I'm asking, 'cause I can also tell you didn't sleep much the other night, either."

Kate shrugged a shoulder. "There's just a lot on my mind," she said, hoping that her sister didn't press.

Unfortunately, her wish was not granted. Mariana took a seat at the bottom of her bed, jostling the plate of untouched pasta. She looked down the comforter to Kate, which made her stomach flip-flop even more. Watching her sister try to sympathize after so many years of not caring was like trying to walk on nails.

"Kate, if you want to talk about this, I'm here. And Tim's here, too. He's trained in this kind of thing. We both just want to be here for you."

The room felt extremely hot, all of a sudden.

"Do you want to talk about what's going on in your mind?"

And before she could control it, Kate's mouth parted, spitting out a quiet but venomous,

"do you care?"

Silence followed, thunderously loud.

That wasn't the right thing to say; Kate knew that. It wasn't kind, or fair, and if she wasn't bearing the entire weight of the Blackwell world on her shoulders alone, she probably would have been able to hold her tongue. But in the circumstances they both were stuck in, she didn't.

A small, secret surge of pride shot through Kate's body as she watched her sister's face crumple.

Mariana stared across the bed. For the first time since her arrival, she had stopped smiling. She started to stammer for words. "I...yes. W-what do you mean? Of course I care. You're my sister."

"Yeah." She felt a familiar stinging in her eyes, but she blinked away the unwanted tears. Her hands curled into her hoodie sleeves, searching for comfort. "Yeah. Just...y'know. Didn't seem like you do."

"What does that mean?"

The familiar feeling of her hoodie fabric wasn't enough to calm her this time. Anger and pain and what might be grief, however foreign and uninvited, pounded on the back of her eyeballs.

"You left me, Mariana."

"Kate, no. I —"

"—you left me here. Three and a half years ago," she interrupted. It was hard to speak through the lump half-closing her throat, but she forced the words out. "You left me and you never even looked back. So I've been stuck here for three and a half years. Trying to survive in this place. And you've barely extended a Merry Christmas my way."

"Kate. T-that's not fair."

But Kate wasn't done. Something wicked pulled at her mind, pulling her out of her bed and to her feet. Her plate of pasta rattled and some sauce spilled on her comforter; she paid it no mind. She glared down at her sister, who suddenly looked much smaller beneath her. But she ignored the sad look in her eyes, because how could she be sad when it was all her fault?!

"I did all of this alone," she spat, spraying vitriol across her face. "All of it. All of it! And-and now dad's fucking dead, and you're home and pretending like everything's fine. Pretending like we can just be a family again, with fucking Tim, and-and," Kate gasped for air, chest heaving hard, "and expect me to just roll with it?! Do you know what my life has been like?! Do you know what I've dealt with? Do you care?!"

"Of course I know what that was like. I lived it too!"

"No you didn't! You ran, you don't get to say it was your—"

"—I left because I had to," Mariana interrupted with a cry, eyes wild. For a second she wore an expression close to Killian's periods of mania, a comparison Kate knew would only wreck her sister. But the moment faded, and she looked human again. "I couldn't take him anymore."

"So you thought leaving me alone with him was—"

"—you don't know what it was really like, after Mom died," Mariana cried. "I mean, you were there, but you were so young! He put a lot on me that wasn't fair. All his guilt, all his-his shit, his blame, he gave that all to me. He did so much. And he didn't care about my feelings, and you were too young for me to put my pain on, so I had no one in the world looking out for me. And — and I know leaving might not have been the right choice and I regret not dragging you along with me every single day, Kate, but I wasn't gonna let him kill me, too."

Kate clenched her jaw and stared at the closet door.

I wasn't gonna let him kill me, too. It wasn't hard to guess what Mariana meant by that.

"I was a wreck, you know. I cried myself to sleep every night, alone. I could barely eat for a year. I barely did anything. I...I almost...it was bad, Katie. But I forced myself to get better and to live my life, because if I didn't, he won. I fought for every day, and I—"

"—and I stayed here with no one," Kate snapped back. She swiped a hand across her eyes, fighting against the tears that chased to fall down her cheeks. "I grew up alone. You left me here when you knew how bad it was. And I had no one, while you found a husband, and friends, and a career, and a life. And you got away from it all."

"There was nothing I could do!"

"Bullshit, Mariana!"

"He didn't let me see you," she cried, tears flying furiously now. "He told me I had to leave and never look back. I wasn't allowed back here — not until now, don't you get that?!"

Kate scoffed. "And that was it, you just gave up after that?! You didn't even say goodbye!"

"I wanted to, I just—"

"—I get it," she cut in, spitting her words towards her sister's slumped frame. "I get why you left, Mariana. But you could have tried. At least a little. You didn't have to cut me out, too."

Mariana choked out a sob. "He wouldn't have let me visit you."

"I could have come to you. You could have left me an address or a phone number to call. Even an email would have been better than nothing."

"I know! I know. I know what I did was wrong, and believe me, I deal with that guilt every day. But I...Katie, I was just a kid too. You gotta understand me."

Kate swiped at her cheeks with the sleeve of her hoodie. She didn't have the heart to argue back, because a part of her knew that she was right. Mariana was a kid. She was suffering too and maybe if she had been the older sister, she would have run for the hills too. But as the little sister left alone with just her mother's hoodie and old photos to hold her together, her heart wouldn't let her be mature about this.

She had been quiet about her feelings all her life. She had the right to feel them now. And she was going to, dammit!

"You can't just come back into my life and expect me to get over this," she said sullenly. "I get that you got a new life outside of this, and you moved on, but I've been here all this time, stuck in this ghost house with him. And you get to come back in triumph, and laugh at him and celebrate your wonderful life. I don't have any of that."

"I'm sorry, Katie."

"It's Kate," she flung back. "I'm not your baby sister anymore. I grew up without you, an-and you don't get to waltz in here and pretend like none of that happened."

"I'm not trying to do that!"

"You are!"

"Kate, I just want to be your sister!"

She let out a sharp, bitter chortle. "It didn't seem like that for the past three and a half years."

"I'm sorry!"

"That's not good enough!" She yelled back, throwing her hands in the air. "Sorry isn't going to fix this, Mariana! Our father's dead! Both him and mom are, and I've been alone, dealing with that like I've had to do with everything! I'm a fucking orphan now, y'know that? I'm completely! A-absolutely alone."

"You're not alone. Don't say that."

"Yeah? Who's here for me, you?"

Mariana huffed. "I'm here. I'm trying. I'm doing everything I can to help you!"

"Bullshit," Kate flung back again, feeling a bitter sense of pride as her sister's expression crumbled further. "That's bullshit. Nothing you've done is for me, and we both know that."

"Don't make me the villain here, Kate, I don't—"

"—you're not the villain, you're the bystander in this whole thing, watching as I suffer and—"

"—I hate this place too! I hate everything about this! But I'm here, and I'm trying!"

"Stop with the trying!" Kate snapped, flinging herself off her bed. She paced a couple steps, trying to hold in the anger bubbling in her gut. "I-I-I — god, I don't even know anymore."

She wanted to watch her sister cry. And beg. Get on her knees and plead for anything, anything to fix this. But really considering it, that wouldn't make her feel any better. They would still be cracked. Killian would still be dead. The world would remain tilted, stuck on its axis with no will to keep on spinning. Making Mariana beg for forgiveness wouldn't change that.

Kate squeezed her eyes tight, hard enough to hurt. A void invited her on the underside of her eyelids, and she wondered if staying there would be simpler than continuing on like this.

"I'm sorry, Kate."

Wearily, she reopened her eyes, fixing her gaze on her older sister.

Mariana scrubbed her hands across her face before burying it in her palms. "I'm sorry for not helping you grieve," she said through her fingers, voice slightly muffled. "Truly."

"I'm not grieving." And Kate realised, with a sharp blow to her heart, that that was true. She wasn't mourning her father, not necessarily, much as her confused brain thought it should be. "I'm not sad about this, Mariana. I'm just...trying to figure out what to feel."

Mariana hesitated, then with a low voice, said, "I know what you mean. I don't — I don't know what to feel myself."

She snorted mirthlessly. "Really? You seem pretty goddamn happy."

"I-I think I want to be. But I can't really be. He was my father. And he was a good one, once upon a time."

Kate closed her eyes again. She didn't want to do this. She didn't want maturity. She wanted to be mad. To shout and scream and hate her father, not play the 'he was a good man' game. Giving him humanity made it hurt, and she wasn't sure she could handle that hurt.

More tears threatened to slip through her closed lids. She sniffled them back.

"I missed you. So, so much, Kate. I thought about you every day."

Kate didn't say anything to that.

"You were my little sister. We did everything together. I-I remember helping you learn how to read, and pushing you on the swings, and having sleepovers because you got scared whenever he got angry." Mariana lifted her head out of her hands, face glimmering with tears. "I loved you, more than anything, and I thought — stupidly, I thought that one day we'd be able to reunite and everything would be fine. I knew I was wrong, but...over time, it just seemed best this way."

Kate wondered if that was the truth or not.

"You know, you could have reached out, too."

She huffed, crossing her arms across her chest. "You changed your number once you left. I didn't know where you lived. I found your Instagram a year later, where you kept bragging about how great your new life was. It didn't really seem like you wanted to include me in that paradise."

"I know," Mariana said, hanging her head. "I'm sorry. You're right. I...I wrote so many letters, and texts, and emails and like, everything else. I just...didn't know what to say or if you'd want to hear."

"So you chose to not say anything."

"I'm sorry, Kate."

Stop saying sorry, Kate's mind screamed. Sorry can't fix this. We're all broken. Sorry can't put us back together. 

She bit her tongue, pressing her teeth together hard enough in hopes it'd break the muscle clean open. Fill her mouth with blood. Make everything go white with pain, give an escape to this nightmare.

"I want to fix things. I want to fix us." Mariana swiped at her face, but it did little to ebb the tears. "I want to get past what I've done and rebuild our family, the way it should be. I don't want him to hold us apart, you know. I- he's already done that, so much. I don't want to be apart any longer."

But they were worlds apart. In so many more ways than physical distance. Kate didn't know who Mariana was anymore, aside from what social media showed. She saw her noodle posts and selfies with her boyfriend and complaining about nursing school, but that didn't fill in the gaps that came with growing apart for almost four years. And she knew that Mariana also didn't know her anymore, not the way a sister should. They were strangers in most senses.

"Kate? Can you...can you say something?"

Kate exhaled shakily. Her tongue burned as she moved to spit, "what do you want me to say?"

"I don't know. I just...I want to know what you're thinking."

"I think..." She balled her hands into fists. Her nails dug into the meat of her palms. "I think you should stop pretending like we can go back to the way things were." 

Her sister fell silent at that, simply staring at Kate through a film of tears. She made no effort to wipe her eyes, anymore, or hide the painful expression on her face. She finally looked human, but it wasn't easier to stomach than the constantly smiling version of Mariana that first came back. It might be worse.

"Can you leave," Kate asked quietly. "Please?"

"I think we should talk this out. You shouldn't hold this all in. It's not good for you."

"I-I can't handle that right now."

"Kate, I don't want to stop this now."

"Please?" She said again, a little bit more insistent. Her gaze dropped from her sister and down to her carpet, wondering how small she would have to shrink to hide in the tiny strands of faux sheepskin. That sounded really nice, right about now.

"I..." A sigh came, heavy and sorrowful. "Okay. If that's what you need. I'll respect that."

Her bed creaked as Mariana's weight lifted from its bedsprings. She watched her socked feet leave towards the door, out of Kate's sight. But the shuffling sound stopped before she left.

"I want you to know that I am sorry, Kate. And I will do anything to make this better. To help you."

Three and a half years too late.

"...I'll let you be," her sister said from the doorway, after she got no response. "But...tomorrow, we have to meet with the funeral director. Will you be ready for ten?"

Right. The funeral, which thankfully Killian had had planned from top to bottom and prepaid for before he met his end. All his parentless daughters had to do was show up and bob their heads yes a bunch of times, and some black-dressed money-hungry stranger would prepare the ceremony for them.

How thoughtful, father.

"Yes."

"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow, Kate."

"Okay," she murmured back. "See you."

The door shut gently, leaving Kate alone in her room again.

Slowly she sank to the carpeted floor, wrapping herself in her giant, worn blue hoodie and wishing she could be anywhere but there. No, not anywhere, Kate thought, anyone. Someone else but Kate Blackwell, the newly crowned orphan heiress, burdened with pain she didn't know what to do with.

Kane would know what to do with the darkness enveloping her chest. How to cope. Kate had designed her that way; perfect for dealing with anything thrown her way. How to live with this pain of loneliness and betrayal and grief, a grief she didn't want to feel for a man she didn't want to love.

But if Kate Blackwell created Karma Kane, it made no sense why she couldn't be the same, if there were technically the same person. Kane might feel like her own entity, but she lived inside Kate's skin and breathed the same oxygen Kate took in. Kane was a coping mechanism masked as a fantasy and if she could save lives and solve cases and keep level at all causes, her maker should have that too. Right?!

Kate folded into herself further, hugging her arms around her exhausted body. "Kane would get it," she muttered, snorting at how ridiculous that sounded. "Yeah. She'd know what to do. Ha."

Karma Kane wouldn't be sad that some billion-dollar shady-dickwad died. She would see it as an opportunity. She would take her feelings, crush 'em into a teeny tiny ball and get to work figuring out what was left behind. And —

—wait a second, Blackwell.

In the pitch black gloom of Kate Blackwell's weary mind, a tiny lightbulb sparked, illuminating a path she hadn't thought was even an option.

"Of course," Kate breathed.

Her brain abandoned the annoyance of complicated emotions and raced to a new target. An new puzzle to solve. Why bother processing anything when you can turn it into a game?

"Blackwell, you're so slow sometimes," she admonished herself. Kate scrambled for her laptop, which had sat abandoned for the last few days. Suddenly the wear of life had shed from her shoulders, and the writing block that held her from a case before was nowhere to be seen. She felt like a whole new person, in more ways than one.

"Kane doesn't just roll over and accept surface level facts, she's smart." Kate closed all her half-finished scripts and lazy ideas from what felt like a lifetime before, and opened a new document. She didn't bother with a name, just fled back to Google and began frantically typing. "Kane doesn't do easy. Kane is — stop talking in the pseudo-third person, me."

Eyes chased every word that came up on the screen, searching for answers in the stacks of texts. Dozens of articles all about the same thing. All with the same details, basically parroted from mouth to mouth.

She shed her hoodie, suddenly feeling too hot to hold onto layers. In her thin black tank top and three-day-old sweats, Kate Blackwell drifted into a different skin, someone with a sharper tongue, darker hair and no shits to give.

"We're not rolling over and playing dead here," she spoke aloud, no longer sounding like tame, timid, tired Kate Blackwell. "This is way too tidy for a high profile situation like this. There's no way they wrap up this kinda death in a day and tie a bow. Way too cut and dry, and you are not falling for that today."

Kane's eyes caught on one of the last sentences on the article posted by the Daily Share. "Blackwell had made plans to present formalized formula to CDC day before death," she muttered, tracing the black text carefully. "Also let go of several executive board members, citing 'insubordination' for reasons..."

Kane dived for Kate's bedside drawer and yanked out two notebooks: Delaney Winter's filled one, and the one used for Karma! case notes. She grabbed her pen and started frantically taking notes on a fresh page in her case notes, ignoring the writing attempts from days prior.

"I'm gonna figure this out," she promised herself, sifting between the two halves of her disheveled mind. "We're gonna do this, Blackwell."

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been busy with work, and when I'm not doing that, I've been trying to finish a birthday gift for a friend I should have had done like...I think a week plus ago. And when I'm not doing that, I'm trying to figure out how to go back to uni and trying not to have a breakdown. And I forgot to update this baby in the process. :'(

If anyone is curious, Tim  Pruitt's faceclaim is by Casey Cott. He's a fourth-year psychology student studying to work in counselling. Mariana is in a nursing program, and they met at trivia night at their local bar, The Pirate Lass. I built a whole backstory for them but it probably will never be relevant to share, lol.

THANK YOU
for reading.