Kayla is kill.

Endgame

Alyssa pulled the rope just to end Kayla's existence. She'd planned to cut off her head after the heat killed her, but that plan was down the drain. She kicked Kayla's head as it fell. It flew away and hit the ceiling, then fell again and rolled to a stop. Alyssa turned her body over on the cooker, then picked up her head. Her expression was blank. Alyssa slapped her. She didn't respond. Alyssa had a sudden urge to destroy Kayla's head, but she resisted it. She set the head on the counter and went back to Kayla's roasting body. She waited a few minutes, then turned it over again, reached up into her chest cavity, and gave her heart a pull. It moved, but didn't come out. Alyssa took a knife from the counter and cut it out. She dropped it in the tray by the side that held Kayla's intestines. She removed the redhead's lungs next, and then she went back and took out anything she missed. Now, Kayla could roast. Her blood and fat sizzled. Her meat was beginning to smell good.

It occurred to Alyssa that she'd have to hide this kill from Bart. "Don't kill my friend," he'd said a while back, or something along those lines. She could hide Kayla's cooked corpse easier every day as she ate it. Maybe the garage freezer? Bart never used that. Come to think of it, if she put it anywhere but the basement, he'd never find it. But she'd still be gone forever unless whatever brought Kitty back also took mercy on her. From her browsing history, it was pretty clear Kayla was planning on escaping to Canada. Was she going to do that with only $10,000? Alyssa didn't believe she'd sent the money away. Surely she had the rest stashed somewhere safe.

Her home. Her real home.

Alyssa left the kitchen to collect things: a stun gun she'd probably use on Kayla's dad and a suppressed USP she'd use if she found someone appetizing. Maybe Kitty. She could come back from the dead, but could she do it twice? Could she do it if her body disintegrated in stomach acid? Alyssa picked up a knife and her phone as well, then dressed for her mission: baggy jeans so no one could see the weapons in her pockets, a white T-shirt, and a jacket. She slid the weapons into her pockets, then went back to the kitchen. She turned Kayla's body over. Her skin was starting to turn brown and the smell was good enough that Alyssa almost took a chunk of meat. She stopped herself as she heard the garage door open. Hurriedly, she took a butcher's knife from the counter and chopped at Kayla's midsection. The half-cooked skin parted easily, and her spine took longer, but Alyssa successfully bisected Kayla's corpse. She unlocked the restraints and stuffed her bottom half in the kitchen freezer. Kayla's top half was harder to get in, but she managed it. She took the tub of blood and guts and dumped everything in the sink, which she covered with a cutting board. Lastly, there was Kayla's head. Alyssa took a trash bag from under the sink and tossed the head in. She slung it over her shoulder, turned off the heat on the cooker, and wiped down all the blood with paper towels. She left the kitchen and met Bart in the hallway.

"Check our browsing history," she said. "Kayla's been looking up Canada."

"Is that her head in that bag?"

Alyssa kept walking. "It's Jennifer Prannis' head."

"Don't kill Kayla," said Bart. "I'm serious. Don't."

"I won't," said Alyssa. "C'mon, her movie was great. I wouldn't kill someone who could make that."

Alyssa hurried out of the house. She considered tossing Kayla's head in a dumpster, but then she had a better idea. She checked her pistol's ammo. She had 12 bullets in the magazine and another 12 in the garage. She collected that, then drove away. She entered a suburb first. Three miles through that was the heart of Summermount, where everything happened. Alyssa tossed Kayla's head out the window before she got there. She rounded a corner and saw two familiar girls walking together: Fay and Kitty. Fay still looked like a mess, but Kitty looked normal. Alyssa parked around the block and left her car. She ran back and sat across the street from where she'd thrown Kayla's head. She saw Casey come down from the rooftops first, then caught sight of Fay and Kitty. Casey found Kayla's head first, stared at it for a moment, then shot back, horrified. Alyssa laughed to herself. No matter who it was, the reaction was nearly always the same. Kitty and Fay joined her a moment later. They stood around the head, passing it between each other, saying things Alyssa couldn't hear. She took aim, but couldn't decide which of them to pop first. Fay made her choice for her: she took out her phone. Alyssa aimed for her head and pulled the trigger.

***

Kitty ran. Her old brain told her she was an idiot for running toward the place the gunshot had come from. She didn't listen to it. This was the brain that thought "cool" was a great addition to her vocabulary, after all. Still, it had let her love her parents. She was glad for that. She put those thoughts aside and focused on finding Casey and the killer. She heard the rapid popping of a stun gun not too far away, but it was mixed with something else besides a scream—Casey's scream. It sounded almost like a taser from the continued popping after the scream stopped.

"I'll take that pretty head of yours, if you don't mind," said a woman's voice. Kitty rounded a corner and saw it: Alyssa Holmes with a knife in Casey's neck. Blood was only just starting to pour out. Casey's eyes darted up to Kitty's, and Kitty moved. She shot forward and rammed her shoulder into Alyssa's head. She heard a thud, but no crack. Alyssa yelped. Kitty groped for the knife and managed to get it lodged in her hand. She swung it at Alyssa. The blade bit into her upper chest. It didn't feel deep, and it wasn't. Alyssa managed to get to her feet. Kitty followed her up and swung a fist at her face. Alyssa ducked it, then turned around and ran. Kitty opened her hand. The knife stayed in, but no blood flowed. Kitty shook it out and looked at Casey's neck. It was soaked in blood and the rest of her body was still shaking from the shock.

"No . . ." Kitty said. "Don't die now."

"What?" Casey said. "I'm alive. I just can't get up . . . and fuck, this hurts. You got a Band-Aid?"

Kitty smiled. She tore off one of Casey's hoodie sleeves and tied it around her neck. Casey gave her thanks and, after a minute or so, got to her feet.

"Christ," she said. "I got stun gunned before, but that was something else. Like half taser or something?"

Kitty quickly Googled "half-taser" and came up with nothing relevant. She shrugged. "You know your weapons better than I do. Stay here. I'll catch Alyssa."

She darted off after Alyssa. She heard metal on pavement and looked behind her just as Casey sailed past.

"Casey, stay!" Kitty shouted over the wind and Casey's footsteps.

"I do what I want."

"You want to die?"

"No, but I don't want you to either!"

"Just go get the police! They had three whole departments at my house."

"Fuck no. I wanna do this."

Kitty gritted her teeth and kept running. Casey was going to die if she came along—one bullet to the head would take her out unless she had a phone as thick as Fay's to shield herself with at exactly the right time. Even then, the bullet would probably hit her. Alyssa could also shoot at her torso and almost surely kill her. Casey wasn't thinking straight, but Kitty didn't want to lose any more time trying to stop her. The police at Kitty's house was undoubtedly better-suited for stopping a woman with weapons, but they were at least a mile behind now, and Alyssa was getting away.

"Stay behind me, then," Kitty said.

"Why?"

"You're only human—a bullet will kill you."

"And not you?"

"I'm not human."

Silence followed, broken by Casey's metallic footsteps. She dropped back behind Kitty and kept going. Kitty jumped onto a dumpster, and then onto a stairwell going up an apartment, taking a page from Casey's book. She went up and up and came to the roof.

"There!" Casey said. She pointed to a figure on a rooftop far away. "Dumb bitch. These are my rooftops."

Kitty took off after her. "Left here!" said Casey. Kitty went left. "Up the boards, not the pipes," Casey said. Kitty followed orders. Casey continued giving directions. Alyssa's figure drew closer and closer.

***

In retrospect, Alyssa should have hidden in an empty apartment. Below her, she could see swarms of men in blue with riot shields, snipers, and assault rifles. Up here on the rooftops, she was in Casey's domain. She considered shooting the girls running after her, but every time she had a clear shot, they'd both move into a less clear spot. Kitty was in the lead, and she seemed a bit too reckless. Alyssa fired at her once, and she was sure she hit, but nothing happened. Kitty just kept running without even slowing down. There was no blood, either. She had to have missed, then. Remembering her scant ammunition, she focused on running and looked for a hiding place. But the girls were getting closer. She could shoot them both, but then the police would know where she was. One shot with a suppressed pistol was probably hard to locate, but it would set any pursuers in the right direction. Two shots would essentially let them pinpoint her. She'd wait until they were closer.

This had happened before, around 10 years ago, but no one had seen her face then. It was a stroke of luck—or two girls' stupidity—that the only two people who had seen her face had chosen to chase her instead of go to the police. Why were there so many, anyway?

Alyssa saw what she was looking for before too long. She checked over her shoulder, then jumped off the edge of a building. She landed on someone's balcony and entered the hotel room, closing the door behind her. The shower was running and there was a porno playing on the TV. Alyssa left the room and took the elevator to the ground floor. No one knew who she was yet, so she walked casually out the doors and turned right. There was a familiar house there: one she'd spied on a few times. She turned the knob on the door. It was locked. So she went around back, broke a window, and crawled in.

Kayla's house smelled like smoke and alcohol, but there were no ashtrays anywhere, and a quick peek in the fridge revealed no alcohol. In fact, aside from the smell, the house was surprisingly clean. Alyssa entered Kayla's room. The first thing she saw was a piece of paper on the bed. She picked it up.

"Dad,

I'm the Summermount Slaughterer. I killed all the girls in the water park and more. I'm sorry. I was paid a lot of money to do it, and I sent all the money anonymously to the families of the girls. That doesn't justify what I did, but it makes me feel a little better about it. If you're reading this, I'm dead. My suicide was assisted by a very willing party. She'll probably cook me and eat me, so you won't have any remains to bury. My sketchbooks have things in them you don't want to see. Just give them to the police so they can deconstruct my psychology or something. I'm not insane. I'm just fucked up. I was really happy when you stopped drinking for me. I wish I could have never killed in the first place for you in return. I liked it at first, but as I went on, I started realizing I was actually killing humans. Isn't it stupid how it took me twenty kills to realize that? One girl I killed prayed after I put a knife through her neck. I can only hope she's in heaven, but if she is, then where am I right now? I definitely don't deserve paradise. I don't deserve anything less than a death twice as painful as the ones I caused.

I didn't kill anyone by myself. I killed with, or with the help of, Alyssa Holmes and Bart Dresden. Alyssa killed me. She probably only realized afterward that it was assisted suicide, though. If she hadn't killed me, I'd have run to Canada and taken this note with me.

Don't let my death affect you. You quit drinking cold turkey—that's awesome. Don't start again. You treated me much nicer than you ever have these last few weeks. That's the real you: the loving father. My life is over; yours is not. You're a great person, Dad. Show the world that you're better than your failure of a daughter.

I love you,

Kayla"

Alyssa put the note down where she'd found it. It ratted her out, but Kayla's dad deserved to know what happened to his daughter. She was right, too: Alyssa hadn't had any idea she was merely helping Kayla commit suicide.

She had to kill Kitty and Casey fast. Otherwise, her identity would get out and she'd have to spend the rest of her life running. She cut out her name and Bart's from Kayla's note, but left the rest intact. She stuffed the incriminating paper in her pockets and left the house through the front door and resumed her search for Kitty and Casey. As luck would have it, they were still on the hotel Alyssa had jumped off, looking for her. Unless they had super-sight, there was no way they'd spot her among the pedestrians . . . Alyssa stopped that train of thought. She looked around. She was completely alone on the streets. There was a siren coming from the town hall half a mile away. Alyssa heard heavy footfalls and ran back into the hotel, which was fortunately unlocked. She had 10 bullets left in her magazine. She'd only need two.

***

"She's coming," said Kitty. "Just went in under us."

"How can you tell from up here?" Casey asked.

"Super-sight. Get behind the door. We'll ambush her."

Kitty and Casey stood with their backs to the wall on either side of the door leading down to the top floor. Kitty heard a scraping sound. She looked over at Casey.

"What are you doing?"

Casey was scraping something against the tips of her prosthetic feet. She didn't look away. "Foot knives," she said simply.

"We're not trying to kill her."

"You're not. I am."

"Don't kill her. Come on."

"Fine. I'll just stab her legs and see how she likes it."

"Better."

They waited and listened. Alyssa's footsteps soon reached their ears. They stopped just behind the door. Casey held her breath. Kitty would have done the same if she had any breath to hold. She quieted her cooling fans. She could rarely hear them anyway, so it shouldn't make too big a difference.

The door swung open hard. Casey cried out when it slammed into her. Kitty made a grab for Alyssa's neck as she stepped onto the roof only to find herself looking down a suppressor into the barrel of a gun. She hesitated for a moment too long. Alyssa got her in a choke hold and repositioned the gun to the side of her forehead. She positioned Kitty between herself and Casey, who had slammed the door shut and was glaring over a bloody nose and mouth.

"Let her go," Casey said. "You shoot her, I'll—"

"You'll get shot too," said Alyssa. "Right through your eye."

Alyssa backed up, pulling Kitty with her. Casey followed. Every time she stepped too close, Alyssa pressed the gun harder into Kitty's head. She got to the edge of the roof. Kitty couldn't look down from her angle. Ten stories below, she could hear the police swarming into the building.

"No matter what you do, you're not getting away," said Kitty. "Put the gun down. Please."

If Alyssa shot her, all the memories in her brain would be gone forever. All the memories of her parents, of her cat, of her childhood—they'd all get blown out with the bullet. She'd survive. A shot to the processors in her chest would kill her, but Alyssa wasn't aiming there. Kitty could sacrifice her memories to end everything right now and likely save Casey's life. Or she could stall and wait for the police to solve everything with a single bullet.

"Kitty," said Casey. "Do you recognize this place?"

Kitty looked around. "Do you?"

"I do." Casey smiled. "It's a place you're familiar with. Come on. Work with it."

Kitty heard a phone go off. Alyssa's arm around her neck disappeared. "Hello?" she said.

Kitty could hear a man's voice on the other end: "I found Kayla. Don't come back."

"Fuck you," said Alyssa, and tossed her phone off the edge of the roof. Her arm went around Kitty's neck again. "I'm taking you both with me."

The door burst open and the police arrived. Alyssa pulled the trigger.

***

Alyssa fired a bullet into Kitty's brain. Casey heard herself scream. She heard one of the officers shout something. She saw Alyssa turn to toss Kitty's corpse off the building, but then something odd happened. Kitty's elbow came up and slammed into Alyssa's nose. Casey's mouth dropped open. Blood ran down Kitty's face and a strand of her brain was leaking out, but she planted a leg and kicked Alyssa in the stomach. The killer looked just as surprised as Casey did for a moment, and then she disappeared over the edge of the building. She didn't scream. At least not until the end. Casey heard a wet snap as Alyssa’s body broke open against the pavement, and then a sound like a sonar blip rolled in with a cat's hiss came up from the alley. Then Alyssa screamed. Five police officers, a girl, and a cyborg stood completely still, listening. There was a tearing sound. The screams choked off. A crack, and a rip, and a spattering of liquid. Alyssa went silent. Six people stood and listened as the megacat ate the woman piece by piece.