“You look absolutely beautiful, sweetie.” Britney’s mother was fawning over her. She gave random tugs to Britney’s hair and dress in an attempt to make them perfect.

Britney batted her mother’s hands away and then straightened out her flower crown. “I’m fine, mother. Go enjoy the festival with Mister Morris.”

“But I’m worried that-”

“I can handle myself, mom!” Britney let out an exasperated sigh. She waved as one of her cheerleaders ran up to her. “I’m going to go be with my friends now. Bye.”

If only her powers worked on her two-faced cunt of a mother. She was all smiles and joy, but deep down, Britney knew that her mother didn’t trust her. Why else wouldn’t her powers work? Her teeth gritted together as she followed the cheerleader back to the rest of the group.

“Your speech is at one. You have to be there fifteen minutes beforehand, and they’ll want you to spend some time at the suicide booth afterward.” The girl pulled out her phone and began to go through her checklist. “They also want you at the closing ceremony tomorrow, but you’re free to go about and do whatever.”

“Tell the girls to leave at four and prep my old house for a party,” replied Britney. She then stopped and put her hand on her hip. “And you-know-who better not be a fucking prude this time. Those boys work hard for us, and we do what we can to put out because of it.” Her eyes narrowed at the girl, who began to step to side nervously.

“... Y-yes Miss Britney.” The girl winced as her phone began to beep, and she fumbled to check the message. “They’ve secured your target.”

Britney’s lips spread into a wide grin. “Absolutely fucking amazing. I only just got here and they’ve already figured it all out on their own.” She let out a squeal of delight. “I love my boys!”

They worked their way through the crowd and to a fortified concrete building that was labeled off limits. Britney told the girl to go wait with the others and ducked under the chain barrier. Her boys had cut off the padlock blocking the back door, and there wouldn’t be anyone coming by for a long time.

Inside was a dusty abandoned building. This appeared to be a storehouse at one time or another. David and Nick, newly released on bail, had Mio tied up with duct tape at the center of the room. Nick had a bat resting on his shoulder, and he did the talking as Britney approached.

“We found her messing with the stage equipment. She had that with her.” He gestured to the smashed up laptop on the ground.

Great. As always, her boys were the brightest. “Did you even bother checking to see what she had?” They stared at her. “The videos! We needed to know how much she had gotten!” She tossed her arms in the air. “Whatever! Get that tape off of her mouth.”

Mio let out a yelp as the tape was ripped off of her. They were going to play a tribute video behind Britney as she did her speech, and the plan was to switch out the videos before anyone had noticed. She had sort of been ambushed before she could finish, and now she was terrified that her time had come.

“I thought it was weird,” said Britney in a low, calm voice. “You came over to get the scrapbooks, but how did you know about them? I mean, how did you know that Kara had them unless she was the one that told you?

Of course, after Eli had died, she could’ve had a chance of conscience. She might have wanted to make things right for you, little Mio, but why would you show up for them after Kara had run off? It didn’t make sense to me at all until I noticed the hidden camera in my room this morning. I know Kara wouldn’t have been clever enough to set them up, but she would know where to put them, and how to get into my old house to put cameras there as well.”

Mio didn’t say anything.

“Where is Kara?” Britney gritted her teeth again as Mio refused to move. “Did you know they hold this festival on the grounds of an old concentration camp? This is where they kept Japs during the war.” She gestured to the room around her. “They’d lock your kind up in this storage room during the winter when they acted up. Rumor is that it’s haunted by all sorts of ghosts as a result.”

Mio continued to not say anything. She only looked up and glared.

“You lost,” replied Britney. “You thought you’d go big, but you lost. There is nothing that you, little Miss Confidence, can do to stop me.” She held out her hand, and Nick put the bat in her hands. “Say hi to your great-grandfather to me.”

Britney swung the bat as hard as she could, and a sickening crack resonated throughout the room as it made contact with Mio’s temple. This was followed by a rattle as she dropped the bat, and thud as Mio flopped over. Her mouth had gone slack, seeming to be quite dead.

“I don’t think she’s dead,” muttered David.

“If she isn’t, then use her as a sex glove,” spat back Britney. “Or leave her here. Put the tape over her mouth again and make sure she can’t move. We’ll deal with her after I’m done working.”

She straightened out her dress with a quick tug and left the boys to their work. Figuring out the camera situation had eaten up the majority of her day, and she was almost late for her speech. Britney needed to get going… And who knows? If Mio was still somehow alive when she was done, they could use her as the main attraction at her party afterward.

The two teens began to argue back and forth on if they should tie her up like Britney wanted, of if Britney wanted them to rape her. David was leaning towards taping her up and leaving her be, while Nick thought the other. Neither would get that far into taking action, as they were interrupted by the heavy creak of the door opening and shutting.

They looked toward the back door and saw Austin walking up. David pulled out a pistol from the waistband of his pants and pointed it at him. Neither said anything as Austin put his hands behind his head and continued to walk towards them.

He stopped next to Mio and looked down at her. “Guess they never fixed the lock after we broke it last Halloween.” Austin looked between the two of them. “Remember that? We were here with the rest of the group, and Kara kept crying that she didn’t want to see any ghosts?”

David glanced over to Nick. “Get on the ground, Austin.”

Austin’s hands went from behind his head to his waist. “Are we really going to do this?”

“Yep.”

A laugh escaped Austin. “Sure, alright.”

He whipped out a tranquilizer gun from his waistband and fired it at David. Both of them jolted back as David fired off the gun and hit Austin in the gut. Nick went to tackle Austin but charged past as Austin nimbly stepped aside. Austin grabbed Nick by the elbow, tangled a foot in front of his shin, and slammed him face first into the ground.

“Wrestling team, mother fucker!”

Austin fumbled to pick up the gun from where he dropped it before Nick had a chance to scramble for it, and fired one off into his thigh. David was already stumbling about like a drunk, and Nick would soon be like him. There wasn’t time to worry about that though. He scooped up Mio and ran out of the building. Blood was leaking out of him fast, and both of them were in desperate need of medical treatment.

Naive to these events was Britney, who was being given a rundown of everything before she went up to speak. One of her cheerleaders handed her her notes, and she began to mumble to herself as she went through them one by one. She had bothered to get a nice camera team to show up to record the event, and she wasn’t doubting for a second that her speech was going to go viral the moment it hit online.

“Introducing your Spring Queen for this year, Britney Grove!”

Britney gave off a beaming smile, waving like a beauty queen as she got up to the lectern. A massive crowd had shown up to the field, and plenty of them were holding up signs with her name and face on them. She felt like a rock star. The first real taste of what popularity and fame would get her, and she was absolutely hooked.

“Thank you all for coming out here today!” She waved as the crowd cheered loudly. “My name is Britney Grove, and I am your spring queen. I am here to talk to you about the issue of suicide, and how it has affected my high school and fellow students…”

She continued to discuss the impact that those who had died left upon her friends and family, but her eyes became locked on a black silhouette as it walked through the crowd. It was a woman wearing a black lace dress, a wide hat, and veil. Britney instantly realized that it was Kara here to taunt her, but she would not be undeterred. Her speech would go on.

What she hadn’t realized was that the video tribute behind her had changed. It went static for a second before changing to a silent scene behind the high school. The camera appeared to be hiding between some bushes, recording an argument between Britney and Eli. They had a ladder set up beneath a tree, and a rope was lying on the ground.

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It wasn’t long before the person holding the camera walked up to confront them. Britney’s face had turned red from how angry she was, but it was obvious that she was yelling. She started to yell at Eli, and he decided to attack the person behind the camera.

The camera was dropped to the ground, and it recorded Britney and Eli dragging Julia on screen. He held her down while Britney tightened the noose about the neck, then she climbed up the ladder and used the branch as leverage. Both she and Eli grabbed onto the rope and began to yank Julia in the air.

Gasps rang through the crowd, and Britney stopped talking. She couldn’t understand. They should be cheering her, shouldn’t they? Why did they lower their signs? Why had some of them gone pale? Others had started to pull away their children, as some of them had started to cry.

Britney turned around just in time to see the last seconds of the video. Julia’s legs suspended in the air, growing weaker and weaker by the second before they stopped moving completely. The video went staticy again, and cut to a scene were Julia and Mackenzie were with the AP club. Mackenzie had a pencil underneath her nose, pretending that it was a mustache, and Julia couldn’t stop laughing at how stupid she looked.

She looked over to her cheerleaders. “Don’t stand there!” Her mic had been cut, and she was forced to cup her hands around her mouth. “Do something! Do something about this right now!”

The girls looked at each other. One of them pulled out a gun and pointed it at Britney. Someone shouted “Gun!” but people didn’t realize what was said until the trigger had been pulled. Suddenly there was full-blown panic as everyone started to scatter in every single direction.

Britney put a hand up to her cheek. The bullet had grazed her, slashing partway into her cheek and taking out a large chunk of her left ear. Her eyes widened as the girl lined up to take a second shot. Something was wrong. Everything had gone wrong.

She took off running, dodging through the panicked crowd as she went. They would assume that she had fled the festival completely and would look for her outside of it. Instead, she’ll go to where David and Nick were. David had a gun, and he would protect her if they somehow figured out that’s where she had gone.

But all that greeted her was an empty storehouse and a trail of blood from when Austin had fled from this place earlier. She looked around and assumed that the blood was Mio’s and that they had chosen to move her early for some odd reason. There were still plenty of places to hide here. That didn’t change her plan.

Britney settled herself in the corner and begun to wait. There were crates here that hid her view, but it also meant then no one could see her. She shuddered as she heard the heavy door creak open and close. Footsteps began to echo throughout the room, nearly taunting her to peek around the edge.

“I know you’re here,” said Kara.

Britney immediately stood up. “You bitch!” She started to storm towards Kara. “You just had to ruin it! This was my day! This was my platform to launch me into stardom! I don’t know how you got that video, or where it even came from, but you’re dead. You are absolutely dead.”

“I’m already dead,” she replied. The hat and veil were removed in a single motion, revealing a poof of hair and a set of glasses.

Britney scoffed. “You go away for a month, wash the straightener out of your hair, and take out your contacts. You can’t fool me, Kara. Pretend to be Julia all you want, but you’re not going to trick me into being scared!”

A cacophony of laughter against the walls of the room. High pitched chittering combined with low-voiced chuckles. Startled, Britney took a step back. Her falter would only be a momentary one, and she was quick to stand her ground again.

“So what? You put speakers here or something?” Britney flinched again as the shadows of the room appeared to move, almost seeming like a crowd of lost souls forming together. All here to enjoy the show. “... Alright, fine. You’re Julia… Are you going to kill me just like you killed Eli?”

“I’ve gone into a different line of work,” said Julia. Her glasses evaporated and turned into a butterfly mask. She then raised her hands slightly, and the crowd around them began to applaud. “I deal with desire, and killing you would go against your wishes. After all, you should be around to enjoy your fame.”

Britney stared at her, trying to understand if she was serious or not. Then she began to laugh. “Of course… Of course, I’ll still be famous! Julia didn’t have a camera with her, and Eli wasn’t there either! That was all one of your tricks. People will believe me if I say that it was fake. I’ll be free to enjoy my fame and you’ll still be dead!”

“I want my wish of being popular.” Julia was quoting Britney’s words from her first ritual. “I want to be popular enough that even people outside of this town know my name. I want to be famous!”

“Exactly! I’ll blame Kara for trying to take me down, and I’ll be even more well known after that! You can’t stop me!”

Julia nodded in agreement. “Austin sent a video of you to the police this morning. They’re still going through them now, and are working to put together a warrant for your arrest.”

“One fabricated video of me killing you isn’t enough to make an arrest,” she spat back.

Julia smirked. “But it isn’t just one video. It’s dozens. You ordering people to steal items for you and the other cheerleaders, organizing orgies, blackmailing students to comply with sexual demands or illegal crime with video you had taken of them. I doubt that they’ll believe what you say after they the blackmail evidence is retrieved from your computer and phone.”

“Of course they will, I still have my powers,” replied Britney confidently.

“I can see the news tomorrow,” muttered Julia. “Internet famous teen arrested on suspected murder charges and child pornography.”

“What child pornography?”

“Your blackmail videos, Britney. We’re teenagers, and that footage you got was of minors.”

Britney took a step forward, still holding her ground as she spoke. “I am still going to get away with it. You can’t take away my powers.”

“But you’re famous,” said Julia with a laugh. “Your name and face escaped this town, just like you wished. Everyone is going to know you as the girl who made a deal with Eli. You’ll rig Mackenzie’s car so it’ll fail on the mountain roads, and Eli takes out Kara so you can steal her position as head cheerleader and her boyfriend. People are going to be talking about you for years. I’m sure you’ll even get your own documentary on Netflix.”

“... What are you getting at?”

“You don’t need your powers anymore, Britney. You already have everything you wanted.”

Britney’s eyes went wide. “You can’t… You can’t do this to me! It wasn’t supposed to be this way, how dare you-”

Julia couldn’t be bothered to hear what Britney had to say. She didn’t deserve to get in one last word. What Britney deserved was to suffer a long and miserable life. That’s exactly what she was going to get.

She vanished in a swirl of ash and reappeared inside an operating room. Austin had gone into shock on the way to the hospital, and they had rushed him into surgery the moment he got there. Trill was observing the scene with interest. Medicine had advanced by leaps and bounds from what he had seen in the past.

“He will survive,” muttered Trill.

“I don’t care,” replied Julia. “It’s done. We can go.”

Trill gave her a nod. “I have a summoning to tend to. Go ahead without me.” Julia rolled her eyes and vanished again.”

Another glance at the surgery and Trill also vanished in a swirl of ash. He reappeared in Mio’s hospital room, where Kara was sitting in a chair by the bed. Trill calmly walked over and examined Mio’s condition. Her head had been wrapped and a tube was down her throat, but she stood a chance of recovering as well.

“What do you want?” Kara looked up at him with a heated look in her eyes.

“It’s done,” he replied.

Kara stood up. “What’s done?” She furrowed her brows. “Britney? She’s been arrested? Everything’s going to be fine now?”

“Your desire has been fulfilled. I owe you no more obligations.”

Kara sat back down and let out a breath of relief. “Good… Awesome, yeah… I can go home now.”

“You are mistaken in what your true desire is.” Trill knelt on the floor in front of her. “What you wanted was freedom. Freedom from your mother, who would control what college you went to and your career. Freedom from your sister, the twin whom you were always compared to.

I arrange for your parents to divorce, and for Julia to eventually take your place in death, but was faced with a new challenged. That girl’s mother was destined to marry your father, and you would be given a new sibling. A new danger who would overshadow you and bind you to a miserable life.

She was allowed to destroy herself, and will now no longer serve to challenge you. You, as a single child, will never be compared to anyone again. A new mother who will let you thrive, and a lover who will always be there to support you. The future is yours to do with as you wish. That was your desire, and I have finally granted it.”

Trill took a moment to bask in the horror across her face before vanishing again. He reappeared in the underworld temple, where Julia was talking with Eli. She was surprised to see Trill so soon. The demon tended to enjoy taking his time when it came to his rituals.

“Were they not eligible?”

“They were not,” he replied. Trill then glanced over at Eli with a noticeable sneer. Eli returned the look.

“Play nice,” scolded Julia. She then picked up a bag and slung it over her shoulder. “We’re ready to go.”

Trill immediately approached her and took her hand into his. “I will not be able to locate you easily once you venture outside of the city. You will still be able to receive energy from the rituals. There is little risk of you losing your sanity because of it.”

Julia maintained her stern look. “And you are going to help provide for Eli’s family and make sure good fortune finds them, right?” He frowned. “That’s the deal we have. You make sure his family doesn’t stay miserable, and I have a traveling companion to keep me safe.”

“I’m not happy about this deal,” said Eli, who still wasn’t over the whole being murdered thing, “but can’t say that I hate the sword.” He put a hand on his hip, where a scimitar was hanging.

Trill leaned towards Julia and whispered in her ear. “Your training is complete, and by that, I mean that you are a more competent fighter than he would be.”

“Shh. Let him have this,” she whispered back.

Trill shook his head. “I fully expect you to return here within a year. Either you have the girl with you, and we can begin to do what we can to repair what has been lost, or you have failed. Do not forget that no matter the outcome, you have agreed to serve as my god for all of time.”

“Blah blah blah, I got it.” Julia frowned all the harder as he stared at her with uncertainty. “I promise.”

“Very well,” he said. Trill then winced as he felt a familiar sensation. An actual ritual this time. He kissed Julia on the forehead and vanished.

Eli waited for a moment before saying anything. “I hate him.”

“A lot of people do,” she replied.

Eli paused again. “You sure you want to do this? He did say that there were billions of people of out there. We have no idea where she ended up.”

“We’ll be fine. Everything is going to work out because seeing her again is my true desire.” Julia grinned widely at him. “Come on. Let’s go find Mackenzie.”