“I swear it was this big,” Horace wheezed, throwing his hands as far to the side as he could.

Pilar and the other two men laughed, though Letzl shook his head. “Ain’t no way you caught a fish that big. Why would they even have fish that big in the koi pond?”

Pilar ran her fingertips down the condensation beading on her soda water. “The hexes do strange things sometimes,” she answered quietly, her amusement snuffed out at the thought. She could feel the men’s eyes on her, but kept her focus on her glass.

Marsh cleared his throat. “I believe you, Horace. I think I’ve seen some even bigger than that swimming around in Spring Day. Though I think it was in the creek, not the koi pond.”

The men continued their playful argument, but Pilar’s mind wandered, and she didn’t attend to it. So when Marsh’s hand slid onto her thigh, she jumped, and he quickly withdrew.

“Sorry,” he said, the word rushed. “But you do, don’t you?”

“Hmm?”

Marsh cleared his throat again, shifting in his seat and flicking his eyes to the older men as if asking for help. “You know one of the hexes? The apprentice?”

“Oh,” she said, nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, Twyla. Sweet girl.”

“Ask her then!” Horace barked, nudging Letzl’s shoulder. “This old cod would have to believe it if it came from the source itself.”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling, though she wasn’t sure what the question was. “I’ll ask her.”

As the men began again, she stood up. “Night,” she said, saluting the trio of men without giving them enough time to attempt to convince her to stay.

It had been another long day in the lab and an hour of socialization. It had taken a few days, but she’d finally caught up on the duties she’d missed and had trained the new techs enough to lighten her workload. Still, she had a lot to do, and a newfound respect for Nicola and all the woman was able to accomplish. Of course, Nicola didn’t also have a secret project to work on.

Pilar had finished the code to destroy the hex mutation. Given she would only have one shot at it–one nanobot canister missing had gone unnoticed so far, but the three dozen needed to inject all the hexes on board…well, she could only do that once. And hope no one happened to look in the cabinet and find it nearly empty. Her only solace was that they weren’t needed for any of the current studies, and as a Principle Investigator, she had the authority to lock access to the cabinet, which she did. Only Nicola would be able to override it.

Unlike the first code that she blindly tested upon herself, she inserted a single nanobot into a sample from the Trims study, and watched through the microscope as it cut and rebuilt the DNA, working flawlessly to remove the abnormality on gene twenty of the X chromosome. She had no doubts of its effectiveness, even more so when the voice offered praise and declarations of her brilliance. It had instructed her to program the three dozen canisters needed, and she’d done it. Still, they remained in the cabinet. But it gave her comfort knowing they were there. She was a viper, ready to strike.

“You won’t ask her,” the voice said as she walked back to her room. She’d avoided using her new powers, unsure how the hivemind-like cult worked and afraid of what might happen if the hexes were to be able to sense it.

“I might,” she said, though she had a feeling it knew she hadn’t the faintest idea what she was supposed to ask. “She’ll be released soon. Nicola said so.”

“You know that’s not true.”

Pilar didn’t know what was true anymore. Florence didn’t feel real. Her role in the woman’s death certainly didn’t feel real. Pilar still had moments when she felt her friend was still alive. And moments when she felt Florence had never existed at all. Just as she had moments when she was certain the hexes and Nicola were covering up Twyla’s death. And moments when she was certain she would run into Twyla anytime, the girl complaining about being grounded, but pleased to return to their stolen time in the seasonal rooms.

But the voice, it seemed to know the truth. And was very insistent on it. Pilar didn’t trust herself to know what was real and what was right. But she didn’t trust the voice either, though its constant presence and the comforting words it whispered to her was often successful at tearing down her walls.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

And tonight was one of those times.

“You really think they killed her?” she whispered.

“Of course.”

Pilar stopped, squeezing her arms tightly around her chest. Then did an about face and headed toward the lab.

Once inside, she thought of the girl and snapped her fingers. Again, nothing happened.

“See?”

She bit her lip, twisting her mouth around in trepidation.

“Do it, Pilar. Crispy, remember?”

She nodded decisively and unlocked the cabinet, carefully packing the nanobot canisters and corresponding syringes in a pack, along with an extra syringe she filled with something else. She clutched the case of revenge in her hands, awkwardly moving her wrist up to hold it so she could snap her fingers, imagining the hex wing.

The entranceway to the Victorian chateau sprung up around her, completely empty. Firelight danced upon the dark wood and crimson fabrics of the space. She didn’t know how the hexes had known she entered their wing when she arrived with Twyla, so she moved swiftly toward the hall ensconced with shadows, determined to get in and out as quickly as possible.

“No,” the voice said as she neared it. “Upstairs.”

She corrected her course and climbed one of the curved staircases two steps at a time to enter the darkened hallway of the upper level. As she jogged through, the firelight seemed to cling to her; the space she inhabited was always well-lit, but the areas ahead and behind remained hidden in shadows, making it impossible to navigate or tell how long the hall was. No doors appeared, only blank wooden walls surrounding the crimson carpet accented with golden filigree. “Help?” she whispered.

“Continue.”

She did, though she felt as though she was on a treadmill, nothing changing. Finally, the voice instructed her to stop.

Her surroundings hadn’t changed; there was still no door or new hall in sight. “What?” she panted, catching her breath.

“Place your hand upon the wall.”

She did so, and the wall shimmered away, revealing a lavish bedroom in the same archaic style. Quiet snores slipped from a woman tucked into a thick duvet, false moonlight washing over her delicate face. She looked younger than Pilar, and that gave the vengeful woman pause.

“Do it, Pilar. Taking her power is far more merciful than what she did to Twyla.”

Swallowing her hesitation, she took silent steps into the room. The click of the canister into the syringe seemed loud enough to alert the entire ship of her unscrupulous deed, and Pilar winced. But the hex remained sleeping.

Make it painless, she thought, snapping her fingers, hoping her powers would take care of the rest. Then she pressed the injection into the woman’s bare arm folded peacefully over her blanket.

The hex didn’t stir.

Pilar released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, and returned to the enchanted hall.

“One down.”

The voice guided her to each room of the three dozen hexes aboard the Renicoff, and Pilar repeated her task in each one.

Until she got to the last room. The room of the head hex who had struck down both her and Twyla, and had undoubtedly ordered the girl’s death.

Pilar stood at the side of her bed, looking down upon the woman. Her face was weathered with grey curls framing dark skin. In sleep, she looked peaceful. Kind. But Pilar knew better than to trust that assessment.

She extracted a syringe, but not one of nanobots. She repeated the command to her power, ensuring the needle’s prick wouldn’t wake the woman, nor would she feel the fiery pain that would accompany the toxin.

Then she waited, watching, as the potassium chloride coursed through the hex’s veins. The woman convulsed. Then stilled. Pilar snapped her fingers, and the corpse vanished.

“It was deserved,” the voice said, the comforting whispers circling Pilar as if in a phantom cyclone.

With two snaps of her fingers, Pilar returned the case and used syringes to the lab, then herself to her room.

“I’m proud of you, Pilar,” the voice whispered as she fell asleep, providing the validation for which she so desperately longed.

Pilar smiled.