Get Out If You Can

Alison | Why

"And that is it," the dark-haired girl, who materialized out of nowhere, finishes. She dusts her hands, as if to brush off the memory.

I don't know if it'd be fair to say that I'm shocked. Yeah, I am, but if there was a word for something way beyond just 'shock', I'd use it. Because that's what you feel when you see a dead girl walking and talking, telling you the story of how she supposedly died one winter night.

And she looks dead, too. Her skin, once smooth, brown, and shiny, is now pinched and weary; and her eyes, once bright blue, are devoid of any emotion. Her figure, once full and cheery, is now thin as a rail.

I don't say anything when she's done. No one does. We simply watch.

"I escaped," Caitlyn says, sitting down on an armchair in a corner of the room. "I escaped. Somehow. I was lucky. I crawled out of the car — with the key I showed you, Hunter — and got out of the fire. It was cold," she says, "that helped. But whatever I did, I did too late." She glances at Lana's trembling frame. I'm nowhere close to realizing how she brought the rest of them in, too. "I didn't know it was you," Caitlyn continues, "but now I do."

She stares around at all of us, as if she was daring us to speak.

"Would you like to know how I managed to get you all here?"

No one says a thing. No one moves so much as a muscle. I'm pretty sure everyone has, at some point during this episode, wondered if we're dead. Already. I did.

"I'll take that as a yes," she says, running a thin finger up and down the arm of the chair she's sitting in, not meeting our eyes. I have no idea why nobody's moving – why nobody's doing anything to her, while she's here, unprotected, and threatening to kill us. Maybe it's the shock – because, of course, it's wrong that she's standing here in front of us. A dead girl can't do that.

"Diego, I'll start with you, as you're our guest." I watch as Diego stiffens, his cheeks still shining with fallen tears. I've never seen him cry, not until now.

"Do you remember what happened the day your house was vandalized?" she asks. "At Empa Mundo?"

"How- how'd you know where I was?" Diego asks, tremors in his voice.

"Saw you leave," she says. "I had a whole year to observe you and your friends, Torrez. You'd be surprised at how much you can pick up if you look close enough."

No one says a thing.

"Do you know why I chose to use spray-paint as a warning message?" she asks. "Because I wanted to see if this place even remembered the time 'freak' was painted on my wall, in the exact same way. You did not remember.

"Well, anyway," she continues, and in her pause, I take in her altered features. I don't remember Caitlyn Tejada vividly, but here she is, sitting in a chair in front of me – and her face is enough to tell me that she'd changed. For better or worse is not for me to decide.

Is this even her? It might, very well, not be. Some freak might be experimenting with us to see our reaction. After all, she's been dead for almost a year. There's no way she could be moving around, going around houses and painting walls without anyone noticing. And she couldn't have planned this on her own. She'd have to rent the manor, hire workers to put in the screens and all the other stuff – I don't see how one person can do so much.

"It was simple, vandalizing your wall, Diego," she says, and I fix my attention on her words once more. "There's a tree near the garage of your house that's very easy to climb and paint from. I don't blame you for forgetting," she says, "we tend to forget things that are habitual. Bruce held you up at Empa Mundo while I was at work. You noticed nothing. Oh, and Matt," she glances at Matt, who stiffens, "yours was the easiest. You're never home. Your dad didn't even recognize Bruce when I sent him in to do my work, and he was right in front of him."