Foster's

Christina Blythe .1

She had gotten away with it.

Somehow that stupid bitch had gotten away with sending a monster to Peter's apartment and killing him.

When Christina actually paused to think about it, though, she saw the genius of the plan.

The monster did all of the killing and Angelica would have an alibi. If Christina had known that this would happen, when she had given her that monster all those months ago, she wouldn't have bothered.

That wasn't why she attached a Shadow Man to her work friend.

And while it looked like her original plan was working to begin with it, it definitely hadn't ended the way she had wanted it to end.

Mainly because Angelica was still alive and Peter wasn't.

This wasn't the way her psychic, Madame Seroni, said things would go. She had promised real results. Death, insanity, and a chance for Christina to get all that was due to her.

Except, not only had it not worked, Angelica had managed to harness the power of the monster. She had learned how to wield it as her own. Which... well... that wasn't what was supposed to happen. And now, now Christina didn't know what to do.

Angelica had always had horseshoes up her ass, now she had a monster on her side. She was going to be unbeatable.

The idea came to her when she returned to her one bedroom basement apartment.

She hated living there, but she didn't have a choice. She had originally purchased a condo shortly after Angelica had screwed her out of the house. She had done it to keep up appearance, but she couldn't keep up with the mortgage payments. After the bank repossessed the house, basically, her credit was shot, which made this one bedroom, subterranean apartment under a much nicer house the only place she could afford to rent.

And she was managing it because her landlords were having her pay cash under the table so to speak so they didn't have to list it on their taxes.

Now that she couldn't live with Peter she was back to that dingy apartment. The only one she could afford. Peter had been her ticket to something better, the kind of life that she deserved.

And thanks to the monster that Christina had handed her, Angelica had taken Peter and Christina's chance at normal away.

If only she had kept the monster for herself, used it the way Angelica had, but she hadn't thought of that at the time.

Madame Seroni hadn't told her it was possible for her to wield a Shadow Man as a weapon either. And she really should have, because Christina would have wielded it better.

It was that intrusive thought right there that give her the idea.

Why couldn't she use the monster as a weapon?

She had brought it into this world, she had given the totem to Angelica, she could easily get it back. If she had the totem then she'd have control of the Shadow Man, and she'd finally get all that she wanted.

So she had packed her sharpest knife and got into her car and went straight to Angelica's.

It took a lot of balls to march right up to her front door and knock like it was the most normal thing in the world.

And Angelica had all the balls in the world to open that door, take in Christina's shaking form with a roll of her eyes and say: "Aw come on, I don't want to deal with this tonight? Can we have our showdown tomorrow?"

Christina had bristled right away.

Angelica had always thought she was so funny, and everyone was always laughing at all her jokes.