Amy had become an expert at hiding things from her husband. She had to be. Long ago she had given up on guessing exactly what would set him off, so she simply just stopped telling him things.

It had worked most of the time.

She had learned how to phrase questions for compliance. "You were meant to do this dishes last night" would likely get a defensive response. However, "Would you like me to do the dishes for you?" would get them done faster than a magpie finding a fresh head to swoop.

Her husband had helped her through a lot. He was patient with her. The fact that she understood he had demons of his own was something that helped keep them together. She trusted him to lay down his life for her. All she could offer was a head nod, no questions about the night terrors, and not to question his insistence that the beds must be made in a very specific way.

His temper was no secret. When confined to a room with a bunch of strangers that he had a tenuous relationship with at best, she decided against letting him know that she had the knife that they'd struggled away from Victor days before.

She had changed hiding places when she could. For a while, she tried to keep it on her person, but every now and then it would give her a small cut. She tried to hide it in her bedding, but with Emilio so close, she had to change that around too.

Every so often, she would make sure it was still where she left it. She didn't know what it would be used for, just that if it was with her then at least it was an option. Today was the day that she would utilize that option.

Everyone except for Victor was asleep. With the knife flat against her side, she found her way to the corner of the room and gently bent down to pick up one of the candles. Her eyes fell on the face of each person in the room. She wanted to remember each of the people she had spent her final days with just like this. Blissful. At peace.

It seemed like every other person in the room thought that they'd just got the timing wrong. The thing was, even if they were right, she didn't want to live in a world where her past continued to simply be traumatic. She couldn't go through that again.

Everyone always said she was a survivor. Pats on the back didn't stop her own dreams from being just as scary as the ones Emilio would wake up from screaming.

Therapists would tell her that her university days were over. The naked photos that circulated around campus wouldn't harm her in this day and age. The burn marks from ex's past would fade with time. That no one thought any less of her. That no one worth their salt would ever hold it over her head. "It's current year," they'd tell her, "no employer would hold that over your head. No one thinks any differently of you. You're a champion."

It didn't stop her shaking. It didn't stop the panic attacks when she had to be reminded of what she went through every day when something similar happened in the news. Sure, progress was made, but the cost was her sanity every. Fucking. Day... And it's not like she could ask people not to stop talking about the abuse they went through. It made her a monster to not want to hear about it, because it would make her a monster to silence others.

When her doctors told her that she didn't need drugs, she just needed mindfulness, of course she found other ways to medicate. Journaling what she was grateful for wouldn't stop men printing out her photos found on the depths of the internet so they could then send them to her boss, covered in what appeared to be semen, hoping for a reaction. That job didn't last long, even if the boss told her she wouldn't be fired over something like that. She knew they looked at her differently. She could feel her status of liability even if no one ever said anything outright.

Emilio found her only after she'd gotten to rehab. Only after she'd done things she wasn't proud of for a lot less than what Violet made. If her body had been deemed a vile, public asset, she may as well use it to afford the high that helped her feel better. Even if it was temporary.

Organisations helped her find work in a new town. He bought a used car off her. After the deal was made, he asked if she'd like to go for a drink to celebrate.

She told him everything. She warned him what could come his way. In truth, she wanted to scare him off.

He simply nodded and said "I have thick skin, but thank you for telling me."

She was never scared again. Maybe it wasn't very feminist of her to say, but she secretly felt that his love for her is what had brought her value back.

As she continued to walk softly up the stairs, hiding the knife at her side, holding the candle with the other hand, Victor didn't really pay her any mind. She just looked towards the bathroom, hoping he just assumed she was heading to chuck a late night splash.

She looked down at the candle that never seemed to drip. It never seemed to get any lower. Wax never seemed to pool.

Perhaps the candles were time, and perhaps they were frozen.

She felt safer in this moment than she ever did when she had to simply live in the light.

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Even if the light came back. Even if every one of her tormentors died the deaths she felt they deserved... She knew she wouldn't be happy.

Her new, free life in the light would still carry her old scars. Her body would still shake when someone called her a bitch. She was sure she would still have dreams about reliving the very first day those images were published. Just, from now on, they'd be interspersed with a fear of the dark. They'd be spliced with the sounds of Masina gasping for air, clutching wildly at her hands, watching the blood vessels in her eyes burst like tiny, bloodied fireworks.

The scars in her life could never heal because there was always some new, jagged edge of the human experience that would carve across the wounds to rip them back open again and tear her soul to pieces.

What she did know though, is that she wanted to cause as little trauma as she could to those that she had loved. If they did choose to stay, and if the sun did rise, she hoped that their wounds would have the proper care to really heal. She hoped any wounds she left on others would be able to fully close before life just happened to run it's claws across their souls again.

She tried to open the double doors quietly, but by this stage she knew that would be impossible so she acted as fast as she could. As soon as she was out, she held the candle up to see the signs in the cinema hallway. When she found the directional arrow for "Projection Room" she broke into a sprint.

After she was past all the other double doors, she found a plain black door. It was so inconspicuous, she almost mistook it for the janitorial closet. By sheer luck, the minimum wage employees did not leave it locked. "Thanks, Donovan," she whispered as she softly closed it behind her and made her way up the stairs.

The projection room was more of a long hallway. She walked past projector after projector, each one pointing into a different theatre. Each theatre was pitch black until finally she saw the only one with lights. Looking down, she saw the figures of the cinema now awake and frantically buzzing at her disappearance.

She didn't want them to worry that she had been taken.

She began pounding on the glass and yelling out to get their attention.

The saw the group below freeze and look up at her.

This would be her last chance to say goodbye and she knew it. It was the last chance to leave and let them know there were no hard feelings. She only had one final thing she wanted to say to them.

First she sat the candle down on the desk in front of the window. She turned to face away from the glass, as to not leave them with the emotional scarring she had been burdened with for what seemed like her entire life.

When the wound was deep enough, and even the shallow edges of the laceration had small beads of blood, she pressed her arm to the glass. She wiped her arm over the glass in one big arch, then finishing off the other arch to form a heart shape. It was illuminated by the candlelight, just enough so those in the booth could see.

The pain in her arm made her smile for a minute. Her head didn't hurt anymore. Her head was almost silent. Stinging pain in her arm made her brain feel like it was embraced in a warm blanket for once. The usual chatter in her brain fell silent. She felt peace, as she smiled down from the shadows to those that she would need to say goodbye too. The shadowy phantom of an existence that just wouldn't hurt anymore once the blood stopped.

She saw Emilio running up the aisle.

He would always want to save her. She couldn't be that burden to him anymore. He had so many other things to mourn that one day she knew she would just be a distant dream to him. Her husband deserved better. He deserved a life where he could finally work on himself, and he'd understand one day.

The movies always made it seem like blood loss would take less time. She felt woozy, she felt at peace, but she didn't feel like death.

The door she had entered through opened and she heard a number of footsteps run towards her. She wouldn't let them change her mind.

She grabbed the candle from the desk and began to run through the projection hallway to the other end, praying that there would be a second exit. "Surely," she thought, "there was enough media out there about cinema fires that they can't just have one exit."

Fire safety laws had her back. She slipped out the other exit as the footsteps closed in on her. She ran back through the foyer and started moving towards the escalators. However, with the loss of blood, she was not able to move as quickly as before.

Elizabeth, Saleem, Gowan, and Emilio stood a short distance away from her.

Emilio stepped forward. "Oh my god, babe. Oh my GOD!" He saw the mess she had made of her forearms. "Please. Please babe. We can talk about this." There was a begging in his voice. She had never heard desperation from her husband like this. "We've got bandages. We can fix you up. Please."

All Amy could do was smile. There were tears in her eyes, but she would go out smiling.

She placed the candle on the ground nearby, leaving drops of blood as she bent down. "I don't want to wait anymore." She looked to the others. "Maybe the timing is wrong. Maybe the sun will rise. It doesn't matter."

She took a step towards her husband, who relaxed his shoulders. "You know what I've been carrying, Emilio. This extra load," she held out her hands, "all of this? I can't carry all of that too for the rest of a lifetime."

Emilio took another step towards her, he put his hands on the sides of her face and looked intently in her eyes. "You have me, baby. I'm strong. I'm so strong. It doesn't matter how much baggage you have in this life. I will always help you carry it. Please, let's go inside."

She closed her eyes. "To carry someone else's baggage, you need a free hand. I can't ask that of you for an entire lifetime." She looked deep into her husband's eyes and put her hands over his. "I love you. I love that you loved me. I can never repay how wonderful you have made me feel. You deserve time to finally work on saving yourself."

She used her hands to remove his hands from her face. She gave them one last squeeze and began walking backwards towards the railing to the balcony beside the tops of the escalators. "I will always cherish the way you loved me so deeply."

In one quick move, Amy placed her hands on the bar of the balcony and pushed herself up and backwards, feeling herself fall. She closed her eyes with a soft smile. She did not regret a thing.

"No!" Emilio cried, instinctively holding his hand out to grasp her ankle.

He was not fast enough.

There was only one level between the cinema and the polished floor of the ground level. A metallic thunk rang out as Amy's head hit an ATM below. A smaller crack and softer thud followed as her head and body made contact with the polished floor.

Nobody needed to guess if Amy had survived the fall. Lavender smoke rose up in front of the frosted glass panels of the balcony. The smell of vanilla cookies and honey lingered around the group.

All that was left for Emilio to do was pick up the candle from the floor, the same way he'd always picked up the pieces after cyclone Amy.