Vera,

I'm sorry. I know I messed up, but please let me talk to you. You haven't been lifting up your phone or texting back and even when I try to talk to you, you squirm away.

Trust me, I didn't want to send you a message in a letter, but I needed to get through to you. Please, just let me explain myself and then you can do whatever you want.

-Tyler

~Vera~

We are screwed.

We had been for the past few weeks ever since the revelation that Jason was still alive and Secret Keeper ran Julia over with a car. Secret Keeper had been silent since then, letting us scramble for answers as she sipped her tea in amusement. At first, the possibility of someone I had never met knowing my every move gave me shivers. I would lock my door, checking the windows, shutting the curtains as tight as possible, even hanging a bell on my door to make it ring when one tried to enter. But in the past few days, I had relaxed much more, letting my guard down.

Hence why I was sprawled out on a chaise beside an indoor pool, wearing shorts paired with a crop top and sunglasses, trying to pretend like I was on the beach which was too cool at the moment. A tall glass of lemonade sat beside me, half-empty, ice melting. I closed my eyes letting the smell of chlorine lull me to sleep. The paper fluttered out of my hands and I didn't bother to pick up Tyler's note.

Yes, I did just discover I had another personality in my head. Yes, Jason did fake his death. Yes, Secret Keeper's stringing us like puppets. Yes, Julia was in the hospital. But, the winter holidays were supposed to be the time I recharged after a long semester and we all saw how well that went. For god's sake, I needed a break, the rest of the world be damned.

So, I kept sipping my lemonade as if I had all the time in the world. Alyssa would be proud. I wondered if my alter ego would too.

Of course, my peace was destroyed when Tyler slammed open the door of the community pool. He paused for a moment, drinking in my relaxed state and his lips quirked up at the edges.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself."

I said nothing, keeping a poker face as I took a long sip out of the straw once again, gazing out at the pool. Tyler was growing more uncomfortable by the second by my attitude, shifting on each foot before slowly sitting beside me, still unsure of himself.

Alyssa would be giving me an award at this point.

Tyler placed the phone in his hands on the table and cleared his throat. I swiveled my head to the side, casting him a bored expression though I doubted he could see my eyes through the sunglasses.

"Vera, I just-" he sighed. "Where do I start?"

"You're the one who wanted to meet," I responded curtly. "You tell me."

"I, um, I just wanted to say sorry."

"As you have before."

"I wanted to say it one last time," he continued. "When I first saw everything that had happened, I was confused. Scared. Shocked. Everything was so strange and none of it made any sense... I thought I was going crazy. That maybe I had some mental illness or something. I waited days, wondering if I had made a crazy story just trying to cope with Jason's death. It was only when Julia falsely confessed that I thought what I saw may have been true. I should've said something then-"

"So why didn't you?" I asked, sitting up straight and moving my sunglasses up. "Why didn't you tell us that we didn't kill Jason?"

"Because of Secret Keeper," he replied. "I had gotten the first note later that night and thought that it was part of the insanity, but when Julia confessed, I thought them over and knew I couldn't tell anyone yet. You read the first one. I needed to make sure I knew who Secret Keeper was before I could tell anyone. I started to record who I was around whenever I had gotten the cards, thinking I could figure out who Secret Keeper was before taking action."

"And did you?" I leaned forward. "Do you at least have a suspect?"

"No."

"And you still didn't want to tell any of us, even after realizing you had no way of knowing who Secret Keeper was?" I asked him. "You didn't even think to tell me or Jordan privately?"

Tyler hesitated before answering slowly. "The next time I had gotten the card after the funeral was during the race."

I blinked. "Where did you find it?"

"In my car."

"But that's impossible," I told him. "We were almost always around the car. If someone else had placed the note we should've..."

I trailed off as the realization slammed me in the face. "You thought I was Secret Keeper."

His guilty expression was enough of an answer.

The thought stung even though I knew it was valid reasoning. Still, I tried to calm myself down.

"I'm sorry about that, I just-"

I held a hand up and he stopped talking.

"It's fine," I told him. "Even I had thought you were Secret Keeper not so long ago. We're all doing things we regret, thinking things we never would."

"So, you forgive me?" He tilted his head, brown eyes sparkling from the sunlight spilling through the windows.

I thought it over. If I was being honest, I missed his presence. Plus, what I had said was right. We had all done things we regretted, like pretending to not know who killed Jason, despite believing themselves to be the killer. His mistakes were dull compared to mine.

I nodded. "I forgive you."

Tyler sighed in relief and leaned back, pausing for a moment before saying, "I never managed to-"

I held my hand up again.

"No, this is my relaxation time. Leave," I said and leaned back into my chair, placing my sunglasses back in place before making a shooing motion.

Tyler let out a laugh and held his hands up in surrender. "As you please, Your Majesty."

I couldn't help the smile tugging at my lips as he left. It felt nice to slip back into our easy friendship.

The door shut gently and I closed my eyes, muscles relaxing almost immediately. Before I knew it, I had descended into a light slumber. I couldn't remember what I dreamt about. Only what happened after.

I woke up to someone covering my head with a plastic bag and tightening the opening around my throat, cutting off my windpipe. I tried to open my eyes only to realize someone had taken off my sunglasses and replaced it with a blindfold. I started jerking, but to no avail, as strong hands swiftly tied my wrists together with thick rope. I felt their hands move to my legs and I kicked as hard as I could, flailing my legs in every direction and trying to scream as loud as I could with the plastic bag digging into my throat. I fell off the side of the bench, landing hard on the concrete. I writhed, trying to get to my feet, but my assailant kicked me repeatedly in the gut. I lost focus, white stars filling my vision though I didn't know if it was from the pain or the lack of oxygen. 

The person finally managed to slip the rope around my feet and tightened it to where I could feel them no longer. Still, I jerked back and forth though I knew it was futile. Hands pulled me off the ground threw me back. I sailed through the air before crashing into a wall of water. The freezing water seeped around my body, water trickling into the plastic bag.

I'm going to drown.

I sunk deeper and deeper until finally, my bound feet touched the bottom. I must've been in the deep end. The thought threatened to make me panic, but I steadied myself, trying to keep a level head. I touched my neck, hoping to free myself of the plastic bag and blindfold, only to find another rope tying the plastic bag to my neck in a series of knots that I had no hope of removing. I bent my knees, trying to untie the bondages at my legs instead. Maybe I could kick my way out of the pool.

I felt around the knots, trying my best to visualize them as I pulled at the different strands of rope. But it wasn't working. The rope would get tighter when I didn't mean to, the knots to complicated for me to puzzle out. The water now filled the entirety of the plastic bag, the little air I had left, gone. I pressed my lips shut like a damn, but it threatened to break open, to let in the water that lay just beyond, swirling around tauntingly.

I won't die, I won't die, I won't die.

My hands, still bound at the wrist, were clawing at the thick rope now, but to no avail. My lungs were screaming, heart thumping loudly in my ears, my movements slowing, lips threatening to part and let the cool water in. The only thing stopping me was sheer will, and I didn't know how long that would last. I clawed harder at the rope, only realizing that I was bleeding when the chlorine stung my fingers. I was getting weaker, my legs growing leaden and pulling me further down to the pool floor like an anchor who'd latched its hooks onto the grips of death.

No.

And then the rope grew loose and the hope in my chest surged. I kicked at the tangled rope until it floated away, the pure adrenaline giving me one last bit of energy as I thrust off the pool floor, pushing to the surface that was somewhere above. Finally, I broke free, cool air biting my shoulders. I gasped for air, only to remember that the plastic bag was still around my neck, only letting it's contents trickle out slowly.

I breathed in a mouthful of water.

I crashed back into the water, the unwelcome intruder invading my lungs, the energy I had found only moments before depleted, the anchor reeling me back in. I fought to stay conscious, but it only slowed down he inevitable to an agonizing rate, one that forced me to watch as my own body dissolved into nothing but a lump of flesh, one that was insignificant amongst the sea of bodies filled with life. Reality bent and I was suddenly outside of my body, staring down at my limp form in pity. The image sent a shiver down my spine and I tried to tighten my hand on the world as it twisted in my grasp, wanting to sail away like a fish skimming the water or a bird about to take flight. More water seeped in, and my grip loosened.

And then I felt something, a pressure on my shoulder. A hand. An arm. Another beating heart. I was guided upward and cool air pricked my skin again. But I kept going up. Perhaps the arm was that of an angel, showing me the beauty of death. Maybe the white light filling my eyes from its milky wings.

Something sharp dug into my bag, and then the hard texture was all over my body. Was I laying down? I couldn't tell. But my body was rolled over, the cold hard wall pressed against my stomach as a weight was lifted off my neck. A bubble of water broke as my face was also exposed to the unkind air that stuck its needles into me. And then water bubbled out of my mouth, lurching free from somewhere deep within. Light feathers held my hair back.

I twisted my head to look up at the angel. The face blurred over and I blinked a few times, wondering if perhaps the divine showed not their faces to those who had been tarnished. But then my vision cleared and the face of my brother looked down at me with worry.

I'd almost laughed. Had Vincent become an angel when I wasn't looking? Or perhaps he was an angel the whole time, a gift from the heavens. Had he seen everything, all the mistakes, and sins that had been committed in just the last few weeks? He sat and continued to watch as the girl who had believed herself to be Jason Hargrove's murderer slipped away while he still lived.

I giggled at the irony of it all and Vincent placed a gentle hand of light against my cheek, brown and blue mismatched eyes filling with tears. My heart wrenched as I took in the image of my beautiful little brother watching his sister's light fade.

"Poor little Vince," I muttered, the words barely above a whisper.

And then the world sailed free.