Epilogue #2
“That’s me,” she agrees, and flicks him a look that undresses him to the bone and finds it average. Then she returns to me. “I’m a fast study. I know your rhythms. Your brand. Your weaknesses.”
“I don’t have weaknesses,” I say.
“You have appetites,” she says. “You mistake them for a compass. It’s endearing. It’s dangerous.”
I sip coffee to buy a second. Caffeine skates my tongue.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“A seat at the table,” she says. “Ten percent of gross for the retreat. A producer credit on the podcast. If there’s a book, a byline. I’m not greedy.”
“You’re very greedy,” Blake says.
“I’m very honest,” she counters. “And I have a trump card.”
She slides her phone across the counter. A draft email to MEDIA—TOP TIER. Subject: Second Chances Fraud? The body is a neat recap of my cancellations and payment schedule, with a few phrases that would look ugly in headlines.
I set my cup down. “You’d blow up your seat on the rocket to take a shot at the pilot?”
“I’d strap myself to the hull,” she says, eyes bright. “I want the ride. I want to learn how to fly.”
“Shae,” Blake warns—half plea, half threat.
I let my mouth make the shape of a smile. “You think you can learn from me?”
“I know I can,” she says. “You’re a savant. You’re a machine. I want to be a machine.”
“No one wants to be a machine,” I say. “They want the results and the applause and the clean conscience. Machines don’t get out clean.”
She shrugs. “I gave up clean at nineteen.”
I tap her phone with a nail. “You’ll keep this draft forever. Every time you want a new purse, you’ll open it and show me the subject line.”
“I’ll keep the draft,” she says. “And I’ll keep your secrets, and you’ll keep mine. Reciprocity. Community care. Call it sisterhood.”
I think of Iris—the woman claiming to be my sister. I think of Dean. I think of Kelly, of my father, of all the hands that once tried to steer me. Everyone who betrayed me insists they were just trying to survive. So was I. I just did it better. I wasn’t broken. I was perfected.
And the best part? The Watcher.
The world assumed I’d collected another enemy. The reality is I put on the mask to boost ratings and launch myself into legend.
A cheap voice changer was all it took to dupe the internet.
I emailed Declan from an anonymous email asking for any recorded audio he may have access to while I was inside.
To say he was eager to help was an understatement.
That’s how I knew he was playing both sides from the start.
He wanted to touch the flame of infamy, but I saw him coming.
He was so easy to manipulate—a few seeds of affection was all the currency it took to get him to pocket a tiny thumb drive and deliver it to the anonymous podcast producer I hired to upload the first episode.
With so many expenses and royalties coming and going in my account, my lawyer didn’t blink when I asked her to cut a check to CAV Productions.
The box of letters from that storage unit in Pismo. The transcripts. Bishop’s interview. All fakes—bait for outrage, gasoline for attention, a shove toward Costa Rica. Another season. A bigger platform.
So why did I stop? Why did The Watcher vanish as quickly as they appeared? To build buzz. To dial up interest and create more questions than answers. To make the internet sleuths wild.
The body in the barrel that surfaced? Unrelated. Convenient. A cherry on top. And the breadcrumbs about Brianna? Intentional. Circumstantial is my favorite kind of evidence—useful, slippery, and impossible to convict. You can’t try me twice.
I’ve realized legends don’t need defending. They only need time.
I laugh—sudden, full of delight. God, I love ambition that wears perfume.
“Fine,” I say. “Assistant director. Partnerships. Fifteen percent net, not gross. You take the logistics I don’t want and you smile while you do it. You sign my NDA with your blood.”
“Ten percent gross,” she counters. “And I don’t sign with blood. I’m offering something better—loyalty.”
Blake pinches the bridge of his nose. “You two deserve each other.”
“We do,” Lila says, not looking at him. “Deal?”
I lift her phone, hold it over the edge of the counter, eyebrow raised.
She breathes. Then, without breaking eye contact, she deletes the draft. The trash icon flutters like a white flag. She turns the screen toward me—empty.
“Deal,” I say, offering my hand like a queen who stays queen either way.
She takes it. Warm, dry, strong—like she grew up shaking men’s hands and making them doubt themselves. Good. Useful.
“Flight’s at six a.m.,” Lila says, already on my laptop, already booking herself into my life.
“No checked bags. Resort car at noon. Cover stories and social captions queued. You’re in white linen, obviously.
I’ll be in olive. I locked a luxury activewear sponsor—yoga outfits that highlight your best angles.
Also secured a local videographer for b-roll so Blake can pretend to be objective. ”
Blake snorts. “I’m a documentarian, not a hostage.”
“Then document,” Lila says, sugary. “I’ll send the call sheet.”
I watch them spar and feel the old steadiness hum in my bones.
This is what I’m built for—moving pieces until the picture looks like I designed it in my head.
Luck is what people call the work you don’t show them.
I think of the Daughters of Persephone journal that’s currently tucked into my carryon.
A little light airport reading. The queens of darkness, keepers of the secrets of women.
How I’ve been chosen to carry the legacy forward.
“I think my favorite part,” I say, sliding into my coat, “is the opening circle.”
Blake glances up. “You already wrote it?”
“I don’t write,” I say. “I improvise. I walk barefoot onto that deck and make forty people feel like I crawled into their chests with a candle. I’ll say you survived like it’s a spell. Then I’ll say now I’ll teach you how to live.”
“And then?” Lila asks, fascinated.
“And then I take their phones,” I say. “Digital detox. Safety. Presence. Privacy.”
Blake smiles, quick and sharp. “Control.”
“Curation,” I correct. “Words matter.”
“Do the sponsors know?” he asks. “No live content from attendees?”
“They’ll get what I give them,” I say. “Scarcity drives demand.”
Lila’s already typing. “I’ll draft the waiver. They’ll sign anything to be near you.”
Sunlight knifes across the glass, catching the city and holding it hostage for one impossible minute. I stare because I like watching beautiful things when they don’t know I’m watching. It makes us even.
“She could still ruin you—posthumously,” Blake says, and something flickers: bathwater, bubbles, Harper sinking.
“She could,” I allow. “But the timing is wrong, and the world loves a neat story.”
He studies me. “And you?”
I smile. “I don’t need likes. I need obedience.”
Lila’s eyes glitter. “God, you’re intoxicating.”
“I’m practical,” I say. “That’s rarer.”
My phone buzzes. Unknown number. I answer without hello.
A breath. Then a woman’s voice, low and pleased. “You’re almost there.”
“Where’s there?” I ask.
“Dead,” she says.
Lila mouths, Who is it? hovering with a glass of wine she didn’t ask if I want.
I smile at the glass, at Lila, at the city, at the voice that sounds like a cliff edge in fog.
“If you’re who I think you are,” I say into the phone, “you missed your chance to stop me.”
“I didn’t call to stop you,” she says. “I called to remind you to wear flats on the deck. Wet wood is unforgiving. Deadly, even.” A pause. “You have a delivery.”
The line clicks dead.
I stare at the black screen a beat too long, then drop the phone on the table. Dean? Kelly? Someone smarter doing their dirty work? A new wildcard crawling out of the woodwork.
“Fan?” Lila asks, handing me the wine.
“Admirer. Stalker,” I say. “It’s a fine line.”
Blake grins. “B-roll is gonna be insane. Your eyes look like a storm warning.”
Lila excuses herself to the bathroom. The door clicks.
I move fast. Open the hotel door.
A manila envelope sits on the carpet like it grew there. My eyes flick down the hallway—empty. I bend, lift it. The flap isn’t sealed. Hand-delivered. Not mail. Not courier.
My gut drops as I slide out a single sheet. A family tree page torn from a genealogy binder. My name highlighted. Iris’s highlighted. One branch missing—where it should be is a bright red circle.
Inside it, in blunt handwriting: guess who else exists.
I check the envelope again and find a funeral program. My name—Shae Halston—typed across the top. The dates blank.
Fear cartwheels through my stomach as I shove everything back in, fold it into thirds, tuck it under my arm. I shut the door, turn—and bump into the broad wall of Blake.
“Another admirer?” he asks.
“They’re like cockroaches,” I say. “Coming out of the woodwork.”
He chuckles. “Fame is a bitch.” He rubs my shoulders in a way that should comfort me. It doesn’t. My skin crawls. “By dawn you’ll be a cult leader. A fucking idol, baby.”
I realize then that not everyone survives by escaping.
Some survive by being remembered wrong.
“I’ve been wondering lately how I’ll be remembered,” I muse.
“This retreat—your charity work—you’re leaving a legacy, Shae,” Blake says.
“A legend is defined by what people believe, not what’s true.”
Blake raises an eyebrow but doesn’t reply.
I wasn’t born into a legacy, I think. So I became one.
When I let Declan fall from the bell tower, I chose an ending that could wear the costume of an accident.
guess who else exists.
What does that even mean?
“You okay?” Blake asks.
“Yeah.” I slide the envelope onto the counter like it’s nothing. “Just a lot on my mind with the retreat. Don’t forget batteries. And a passport.”
He winks and starts packing his equipment bag.
Blake thinks he loves me. He doesn’t. He recognizes me. That’s better. Love makes people soft. Recognition makes them useful.
I sip the wine, stare at the view, and let the plan unroll in my head like a red carpet.
Costa Rica: forty attendees, seven days, six figures in the bank before I even touch a forehead.
We open the circle, dim the lights, turn up the self-help bullshit.
I count backward from ten. By seven they’re mine.
By five they call it healing. By three they beg to return next year.
By one their phones are in a lockbox with my initials stamped on top.
And on the last night, under lanterns and a sky swollen with stars, we’ll pass out ceremonial cacao and a new kind of waiver. We’ll call it an exercise in trust.
Because second chances are a business.
And business is good.
The End.