a/n - my heart broke writing this, i'm hoping you guys are satisfied with all the answers here.

also! this is not the last chapter, there'll still be two more chapters after this + a character q/a & answers :-))

are you guys ready for this omh

stay happy,

x bri

-

[ cara ]

"This is a joke."

Heather pursed her lips together and shrugged both her eyebrows up once, sarcastically, "Mm, if that'll help you sleep better at night, then sure, we can call it a joke."

I watched in astonishment with my mouth agape as Heather stalked over towards Emma, Kariana stepping aside to make room for her to squat down. The sound Emma made after Heather squeezed her face in-between her fingers had me wincing all the way from across the room. This wasn't happening. It was Heather...?

"I heard you made a little get-away, earlier," Heather arched one of her eyebrows and snickered, visibly tightening her grip on Emma's face. Emma whimpered. "You don't think we're completely dumb, do you? There's literally a chip inside of your neck right now, honey, if you even twitch, I'll know- all from one app on my fricking phone. Isn't modern technology great?"

"You're going to end up alone in a shack in Iceland that smells like cat piss and feet and I'm not going to feel sorry at all." Emma spat, no later receiving a harsh slap to her right cheek. The last time I'd ever actually seen Emma cry was when she, El and I were maybe eleven years old and Elena beat her at a round of Guitar Hero - the fact that one slap of Heather's hand colliding across Em's cheek had her in tears made me feel like strangling somebody.

I choked, "Heather!"

She really was batshit. It wasn't even just the fact that her referring to me using my real name that had me struggling to breathe, but more so the fact that she really must've taken the time to do all of this. This all must have taken weeks of planning, whatever Heather was trying to do for whatever reason she was trying to do it must have taken so much of her time and dedication and something inside of her had to have been so damn broken to make her actually want to do this. Suddenly, the part of me that'd once felt guilty for cutting her out of my life freshman year had disappeared.

Heather shot me annoyed look, eyebrows knit together and mouth lined in a sneer. "You know what, you're getting annoying too! You're being awfully ungrateful, right now, Cara."

Even though it was already kind of a given at this point that Heather knew the difference between Elena and I, that I wasn't really Elena, my heart still stopped in my chest for a moment. It'd been so long since someone other than my parents and Emma referred to me as 'Cara' and not 'Elena' - I blinked, and struggled to sit up straighter, groaning and giving up at the pain and swelling I was feeling at my hipbone. "I'm being ungrateful?! Explain to me what I actually have to feel grateful for right now, Heather, enlighten me!"

"I'm not exactly bitter, I'm doing this all for you!"

"You're beating the shit out of my sister and my friend for me?!"

"Yes! That's all this has ever been!" Heather's voice had started to not only rise, but break. She took a couple of deep breaths before slowly walking over to where Em and Elena were laying motionless on the cement ground, and lifted Emma's shirt so that the large bruise on her side was visible. She pressed on it with the pads of her fingers, ignoring Emma's grunts and instead turning to look at me defiantly. "This? I'm doing this all for you, Cara - because I care about you. Do you really think I'd go around bruising and hurting people for the thrill of it?"

I wouldn't be surprised I'd wanted to say, instead just shrugging my shoulders. "I don't know. I don't even know what the hell you mean when you say you're doing this for me, Heather - I never asked you to do any of this. I would never ask you to do any of this to anyone."

"But they aren't just anyone, Cara," Heather eyed the two girls for a moment longer, menace smeared all over each of her individual features, before pushing herself up and off the floor and towards me. Instinctively, I guess, I cowered backwards towards the wall behind me until my back hit the hard surface. I swallowed as Heather only got closer to the point where I could feel her own heat radiating off of her on my skin. Somehow, I was still freezing cold. "They hurt you. They really, really hurt you and I-I can't just let that happen. You don't deserve to be hurt, okay, you deserve justice."

"What are you talking about?" I nearly punctuated a laugh out of all the frustration piling on top of me.

The minute I was slowly starting to piece everything together, the minute everything was slowly beginning to make sense, I'm flung back to the place I started. My eyes flickered all across Heather's pale face in search of something on her face that would tell me that this was all just a joke, that everything she was saying wasn't true, but all I could make out was desperation and exhaustion - and it was a look that I was almost positive I'd never seen on her.

Heather sighed and dragged both her palms against the width of her face, "Do you not remember the night of freshman homecoming?"

I squinted confusedly, "I didn't go to freshman homecoming..."

"Exactly, I know you didn't," Heather shrugged, matter-of-factly, "but there was a reason behind it. You didn't go because Elena went with Connor O'Hansen, the guy you wanted to go to homecoming with, just so she could make Calum jealous. You came to my house, and you cried and told me that Elena was always the one to get everything - the attention, the admiration, the appreciation - and you told me that because of that, you never got the chance to actually feel even equal to her. And it was only after you told me that did I actually notice, you know? It wasn't just homecoming, it was life in general, Cara. I saw how unhappy you were seeing how differently people treated you compared to Elena. They put her on a high pedestal and sat you down on a stump. She made you unhappy, and I couldn't stand that. You deserved so much better than that."

I flickered my eyes across the room to Elena who was already staring at me with an unreadable expression casted upon her face - maybe it was shock, or disbelief, or disappointment, even. Her chapped lips were parted, slightly agape and her eyes were kind of narrowed - I bit down on the tip of my tongue. I'd never told her about any of this. Everything Heather was saying was true, though - I'd told Elena all about my dumb, pathetic, pug-crush on red-headed Connor O'Hansen and she'd still gone behind my back and went with him to homecoming to make Calum jealous all because they had a fight over leaving one another on read.

That was the first time I'd ever actually felt that mad at El, too. It was kind of the point where I realized that no matter how many times I pushed myself and tried and restarted and refreshed, Elena always came out on the top while I was still struggling to get my feet off the ground. I guess it hurt so much that night in particular because it was almost like I was starting to get used to it - and I didn't want that. I don't know anybody who'd want that; feeling like the alternate choice, or feeling like you're not even a choice at all.

"Then all of a sudden you stopped talking to me," Heather continued, "and I remember all of the the times I called you and went up to you and asked you why. All I wanted was for you to tell me why, and what I did wrong, because I-I thought that maybe I could fix it, and make myself better, and you'd want to be my friend again. I would've done anything, Cara, all you had to do was tell me what I did wrong."

I bit down on my bottom lip and allowed the guilt to seep in. The only reason I hadn't told Heather why I'd tried to cut our friendship off was because I couldn't exactly fathom how to say it without feeling like a terrible person for cutting the only person who actually had genuine interest in me off. "Heather, I-"

Squeezing her face inbetween her palms and shutting her eyes tightly, Heather shakily exhaled, "I was lonely again, you know? We went back to sitting at different lunch tables and you didn't come to see me before last period and you even stopped making eye contact with me, Cara. I-I thought you hated me. I was lonely again."

I stood dangerously still and silent, allowing Heather to have a moment. It didn't even occur to me that she was crying until she looked up at me with glassy eyes, "I told myself that I would do whatever I could to win you back. I had to get you back, I had nobody else. I didn't even want anybody else, Cara. I knew that I like, had to come up with a plan or something, but for a while I kind of just - I had nothing, which was why I'd started to go out to parties more often. That's how Paisley happened."

"I'm surprised you didn't just grab a kid off the street and call her yours." Emma grumbled lowly, but audible enough for Heather to snap her head over her shoulder to stare harshly at her - it didn't exactly take a master's degree to know that if Emma didn't shut the hell up now, she'd end up with no legs and a bent nose by the time we made it out of here - which we would. I was going to make sure of that.

"Heather, just finish the story while I'm here." I spoke up quickly, before she could take a step closer to Emma.

Silence, a long, deep intake of breath, and then a shaky exhale. Heather turned back around to face me. "After I was raped, my Mom told me that there was no way we'd be able to hospitalize the kid on our own with it just being the two of us, and so after I gave birth and caught up a little bit with school, she took me into her business. Then, a couple of months ago, Malikoa found me online and hired me to plan her wedding. And then I realized-"

"That she was Calum's sister. And Calum was dating Elena." I finished for her, eyes wide and heart picking up as my mind was slowly beginning to catch up.

Heather nodded, tears freely glistening in her eyes, now. "And so I thought, maybe if I take away the people who brought you pain, you'd love me again - you'd want to be my friend again. Maybe if I took Elena away, you'd come looking for me. So I found Kariana online and she hooked me up with the warehouse, and I promised to pay her if she were to help me carry out this plan. I took Elena while she was in her car in the parking lot and I brought her here and it worked, everything was going as planned and everything was perfect. Taking Emma wasn't even a part of the original plan, I just grabbed her because of the fact that she landed you in the damn hospital and I didn't think you deserved that at all! I waited, I kept them both here for so long, but you didn't come for me. You didn't call, you didn't text, and you didn't look for me, you looked for Elena and Emma!"

"But y-you had your Mom, Paisley..."

"You meant more to me than them, Cara!"

I brought both of my hands up to my face as layers of realization began to fall on top of me, heavily - this was my fault. I'd created someone who was absolutely insane, but more so, absolutely broken. The threat telling me to stop looking was Heather, angry that I hadn't looked for her, but rather Elena. Heather must have dropped Kariana's number in Elena's car when she kidnapped Elena, which must have been why Dad's guards found the phone number in El's car in the first place. She'd formulated an entire plan that would result in killing people, for me.

"I was originally planning on killing Elena for you, to make you happy," Heather suddenly chuckled, almost like she'd just read my mind. She wiped harshly at her under-eyes, causing the brown mascara coating her bottom eyelashes to smear across her skin. Slowly, she spun herself around on her heels and sauntered towards the other side of the room where Emma and Elena were laying and grabbed onto Elena's hair, pulling her up onto her feet. I bit down on my bottom lip, "and I was actually considering letting Emma go. But now? Now that I'm saying all of this out loud and I'm feeling all of this? I'm going to kill both of them, because you deserve to feel all the pain you made me feel these past three years, Cara. I'm going to make you weep and you're going to regret every-"

"Put her down, anything you say or do can and will be used against you in the court of law."

I felt like breaking apart at the sight of a group of police officers hustling into the room to surround the door. Sharply, Heather diverted her eyes to Kariana who was still standing across the room, and as if there was a silent agreement between the two, Kariana stepped forward towards Emma, outstretching her hand. I screamed loudly as one of the police men towards the front of the group pressed down on the trigger, shooting Kariana right in the shin and causing her to topple over onto the cemented ground.

Looking panicked, Heather visibly tightened her grip around Elena's waist and quickly dug her hand into her jean pocket only for it to emerge with a pocket knife wedged between her fingers. Elena sobbed dryly, shooting me a desperate, wide-eyed look that'd sent me into a circle of hyperventilation all over again. Heather grinned at the uniformed-men with guns clutched tightly in their hands slyly, bringing the knife even closer towards Elena's skin. My legs were wobbling - the only thing stopping me from moving forward being the fact that Heather was absolutely crazy and had a knife to my sister's throat. "I wouldn't if I were you, sir."

I shook my head furiously, keeping my eyes trained on Elena's. I'm not going to let her do anything, hang on, I'd wanted to tell her. "Heather, come on, I-"

Heather scoffed loudly, "No, too late. You deserve this, Cara. You need to understand. You need to-"

With a loud shriek, Heather suddenly collapsed and fell down to her feet and released her grip on Elena. After that, everything seemingly started to move too quickly for my eyes to catch. Within the duration of only maybe three seconds average, Elena had moved out of the way to grab Emma, run to the side of the room I was standing frozen in, and an officer had fired yet again, bullet inserting itself right into Heather's calve. Heather only screamed louder. Emma and Elena enveloped themselves around me once they'd made it over, falling apart into only loud tears, while all I could do was stare at Heather - Elena had stabbed her with the sharp end of the chain she'd been tied down with in her upper thigh, while her calve was obviously gushing out red. I swallowed, holding Elena and Emma tighter to me.

One of the police men stood up and backed away from Heather's scene to escort the three of us out of the room, whispering promises that they would handle it, that everything would be okay. I peered over my shoulder at Heather and Kariana one more time, immediately looking away at the sight of Heather clutching onto her leg, sobbing, and Kariana getting cuffed, blood seeping from her lower leg.

Inside, I was okay. I knew that it was over, now. It was going to be okay.

It just sucked that it had to end with blood.

Mom and Dad were waiting for us outside of the room. Judging from the tears on both of their faces, they must've heard what had happened inside. I had a lot of questions; I wanted to ask how they found us, the building, how long they've been standing there, how long the police have been here - had they heard Heather's story? There was so much that had just happened in the past five minutes and none of it seemed real - I was lost. I still had a lot of questions. However, Elena was in tears yet again, pulling herself out of my grasp to run to my parents while I was even more so focused on the four boys standing behind them - I couldn't even bring myself to breathe, right now, let alone give my parents the third degree.

I let out a loud breath as I inevitably turned to the brown-haired, dark-skinned boy who'd ironically gone pale standing to the side. Luke was standing behind him, eyes wide with his hand placed on Calum's shoulder cautiously, as if he were scared Calum would flip somebody over at any moment now. Ashton and Michael mirrored both of their expressions exactly, eyes squinted and trained on Elena confusedly, the only difference being Mike not-so-subtly peeking at Emma behind me.

Four boys staring at me with the exact same expression, and the only one I was focused on was Calum.

Eyes still locked on Elena who was being rocked back and forth in my Dad's arms, Calum parted lips parted, and then pressed them together, and then parted them, and then pressed them together, the cycle repeating as if he couldn't get any words, or even any sounds, to come out of him. After a few moments, he let out a loud breath and slowly met my eyes, "You're Cara."

I bit down on my bottom lip, and nodded.

"You're not Elena."

I bit down harder, and shook my head.

Calum nudged his chin towards Elena who was now having a conversation with some of the police men along with our parents, "That's Elena. That's my girlfriend."

I could taste the metallic taste on my lips as I nodded again.

"So you lied to me."

"There was a reason, it wasn't just-"

"You lied to me."

"I wasn't trying to hurt anybody by doing this, I-"

"You made me believe that you were someone who you aren't," Calum pointed out, clenching his jaw. "that's lying. You lied straight to my face for weeks straight."

There were so many things I probably should have been spitting out to defend myself right now, like the fact that by pretending to be Elena, I'd be saving Dad's job, and our family's name - but I stood in front of Calum listening to him reciting the fact that I lied to him, and I couldn't speak. Or breathe.

If his brown eyes being narrowed and his jaw being clenched to make it appear visibly sharper were anything to judge by, you could tell that Calum was mad. And there was a difference between the mad Calum who locked me out of my car because I continuously called him 'babe' and the Calum I was looking at right now - this Calum was my latest nightmare. This moment right now was what I feared ever since the beginning of this project. They told me that it was a bulletproof plan, didn't they? They told me nobody would ever suspect anything, that nobody would find out, but it was happening. It was happening, and it was all falling apart exactly in the way I'd predicted it would and I felt like driving my hand into my throat and crying. I peered down at my feet for a moment before looking back up at Calum pleadingly, only for him to stare back with raised eyebrows and cold eyes. It was like he was waiting for me to say something that would make him hate me a little less, right now. I breathed out deeply, easing myself of a huge breath that I didn't even know I'd been holding. I took a small step closer to the Maori boy in front of me only for him to flinch and back away slightly with wide eyes - all in all, he looked insanely afraid of me and I whimpered, feeling my stomach squeeze. "Calum, you have to let me explain this you."

"I don't have to do anything, what are you on?!" Calum laughed dryly. It wasn't humorous, at all. It wasn't the laugh that I'd heard the evening we made brownies or the day we were driving to the boys' house - it wasn't even a real laugh, it was like an aggravated chuckle. "I don't want you to talk to me again. Ever again."

"Calum," Luke interfered from behind him, squeezing his shoulder.

"You don't know anything and I didn't ask you to talk, stay out of it." Calum spat, holding his finger mere inches away from Luke's face. He shrugged the blonde's off of him, and looked back at me, keeping his eyes sharp and hard. Calum's gaze flickered to Elena for a moment, and then back at me, and then back at Elena, and then back at me, until his eyes suddenly just started to dart all across the board, like he was trying to think, but there were too many thoughts. He started to shake his head violently and his eyes only widened further. He started to inch further and further away from me, not looking at me whatsoever while he spoke, yet it was still seemingly obvious that he was speaking to me, "I don't want to see you again."

I dragged my hand across my forehead stressfully, trying not to be too much of a victim by sobbing, "Calum-"

"I don't want to see you again!" Calum suddenly yelled, the echo bouncing off of the bare walls of the factory or warehouse or coven or supermarket or whatever the hell this place was, shocking all of us. Emma stepped forward and squeezed my wrist. Elena and my parents quieted down for a minute to gape at the side of Calum that nobody even thought he had. I stared at the boy wide-eyedly as he continued to back away from everything I'd thrown onto him. Calum looked terrified, furiously shaking his head like he was trying to deny something that he was relentlessly being accused of. It was like he was having his own panic attack. Eventually, he just turning around and running down the steps all together, Ashton and Luke following after him, leaving Michael, Emma, Elena, my parents and I in the hallway.

Michael stared blankly at Emma and I, more so at Emma and the marks and scars and bruises littered across her body. I parted my lips, ready to beg that he listen to me explain, but Heather and Kariana being dragged out of the room with cuffs enclosing their wrists together and trudging down another hallway towards another flight of stairs with police men guiding them from behind ended up distracting both Emma and I. When I turned back around, Michael was gone.

I whimpered loudly and Emma sighed, wrapping her arms around my middle and placing her head on my shoulder. Her right hand soothingly rubbed my forearm, "It's fine, you're fine. It's done now, mission over."

I shook my head, "They found out. They weren't supposed to find out."

It was silent after that, nobody said anything. Elena was crying, my parents were crying, Emma was tearing up and my mind was swirling so much to the point where I didn't even realize it, at first, but I was crying, too.

Elena was safe, Emma was safe, my parents had their favorite daughter back, and Emma and Kariana were caught. Maybe for them, it was mission over. Maybe for them, it was mission complete. Maybe for them, it was mission success.

For me, though? Going over every single thing that had just happened within the last thirty minutes, it was like a silent confirmation with myself.

Mission failed.