I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and hop down onto my feet, holding tightly onto the mattress as it becomes more and more apparent that my knees are way too wobbly for me to walk safely on. So, I stand in one spot, staring blankly at the wall ahead of me with my ringing phone in my other hand, trying not fall. Wait a second, when did my phone start ringing? I have a pretty good idea of who might be calling, so I click the accept call button and bring the phone up to my ear, opting to sit on the side of the bed for this conversation.

"Dude, it's like eleven AM. You can't be drunk already."

Forcing out a weak chuckle, I sink into the bed and close my eyes. After a couple seconds of putting on a facade, the chuckling gives way to an equally feeble sigh as my pull my other hand away from the edge of the mattress and watch as it lands limp on the bed far from the rest of my body.

"You're right," I say, forcing myself to talk at a volume louder than a strained mumble. "I'm not drunk. I just woke up, however, and didn't expect someone to randomly text me with news of their dirty little secret getting a dented skull. Apologies."

"Lazy bitch."

"Hungover bitch is more accurate. You'll never guess where I woke up."

My voice grows in natural confidence as I steer the conversation away from Philippe. Not because what parts of the story that ended with me in my dad's tub was particularly interesting or anything like that, but because I don't have the possibility of spilling the beans.

"Some shithole little no-tell motel, in bed with that alien thing who wants to jump your bones?"

"No! Wait a second, how much thought did you put into that scenario?"

"More than you'd be comfortable with."

"Probably. Still wrong, though. There was no way I'd be able to stand another night in the same apartment as you and Jacob moaning into the early hours of the morning, so somehow I wound up in the bathtub at my dad's house after I killed Philippe."

Oh, why did I just say that? My jaw clamps shut just a few seconds too late and now I wait for the silence on the other end of the phone call to break. She wouldn't turn me in for this, would she? No, I was doing her a favor. My heart begins to beat rapidly in my chest and I take deep breaths in through my nose and out the same way to lower the risk of her hearing my breathing. My free hand clings onto the blanket that it's sitting above for dear life and just as the five hundred pound weight on my chest is about to crush me entirely, laughter cuts through the tense silence. I feel all the tension and nervousness glide off as quickly as it came and loosen up all the muscles that I didn't even know I clenched.

"Right, you killed him. I totally believe you."

I actually begin to laugh too.

"Yeah, don't see what's so hard to believe about that."

"You suck at this whole sarcastic confession thing."

"Thanks, babe."

"So, your dad's place? Are you gonna need someone to pick you up or something? Because if so, I just want you to know, I'm going to be busy from about right now up until you make it home. Sorry, ain't fuckin' going to that posh ass neighborhood of his. Last time I even went through that area someone called the police on me. Me! Cunt."

"I don't need the history lesson, I was there. For the record, the speed limit was twenty five, not sixty."

"The speed limit is always sixty."

"That's why you've totaled every car you own."

"Not all of them."

"I give this one three more weeks. Tops."

"Just like your next attempt at sobriety?"

"Ouch."

"Right. Hey look, I gotta go. I'm driving under a bridge in the middle of an underwater railway. Talk to you later."

"I don't doubt the legitimacy of that," I stick in right before she hangs up the phone and once the line goes dead I lay my phone down on the bed right next to my ribs before pushing myself up and off the bed. As in all the way off the bed and just far enough to be completely out of reach of the mattress. Which causes me to fall forward and land on my knees, almost smacking my forehead off the ground with it. It isn't until I try to lift my head that I feel the same throbbing ache in my skull and crumple down to the ground, with both hands pressed against my temples and my eyes closed as tight as I possibly can. For some reason, I stop. Everything. I don't move an inch and hardly even breathe. It isn't until I start to become light headed that I roll over onto my back and open my eyes slowly. Lazily, I raise my head up off the ground and try to shake out the lingering remnants of my hangover. Shakily, I push myself up to my feet and start to walk on weak, shaky knees over to the pile of dusty clothes in the corner of my room. Things I never bothered to take when I moved out, and right now I'm really glad I didn't. Without thinking, I grab a handful of the pile and smack them off the wall to remove the dust. Most of it's stuck to them and doesn't come off no matter how hard I hit them, granted it's been years since I actually set foot in here so that isn't too much of a surprise. So, slightly frustrated at the prospect of ending up more dust than person but still wanting to get the show on the road, I take my first actually steady steps out of the bedroom and back towards the bathroom that I started today in.

An hour and a half later; two thirds of it dedicated to showering and trying my hardest to wash off whatever remaining evidence of my involvement in Philippe's death and the dirty feeling that came out of it, and I find myself in some small cafe in my dad's neighborhood sipping a cup of lukewarm coffee because I've officially lost all control of my life. Seriously, willingly going to a coffee shop alone? I don't even like coffee and yet here I am, with a cup half finished and sitting on the table in front of me like the de facto symbol of my new transition. Out with Kendall Savannah Sawyer; drunken loser who gagged at the mere thought of coffee. In with the new, improved, killer Kendall Savannah Sawyer-Richardson who devours cup after cup. Maybe I should adopt my mom's last name again just in case I get caught. Hell, that'd almost be worth turning myself in over.

However, my train of thought is interrupted by something I didn't quite expect to see today. Nor did I really want to see it. Azrael Erebus appearing out of thin air and right beside my table. I half expected at least one person in the building to have a heart attack, but they're all too concerned with their own little worlds to notice anything. A tornado could rip through the city and no one would even look up. Azrael looks down at me with a smile before taking the seat opposite mine.

"Why?" One word. All it takes, I think.

"Would you believe it if I told you I got into some trouble with a mob of native Siberians, a secret Russian research facility and one very aggressive polar bear?"

"Given what I know about you, yes. I would. I don't even care if that wasn't the reason. It is now in my head."

I grab the cup off the table and take a sip, retching in my head as the cold liquid slithers down my throat but on the outside keeping a calm demeanor.

"Something's wrong."

For some reason, I squint my eyes at him and lean across the table until I'm about nose to nose with him before spitting out with a cold whisper:

"What makes you say that?"

"Well," he begins, crossing one leg over the other in a figure four shape and smirking. "There's that little outburst for starters. I mean, no one asks a question like that unless they already know the answer. Also, there's the way you're slouching in your seat. Granted, you always do that but that's probably because there's always something eating away at you. After all, you're only a human."

He flashes that fucking smirk at me and I sit on my hands to resist the urge to smack him upside his head.

"Also, there's smudges of make-up across your forehead and your hair's a mess. I'd think a sorta celebrity would take some pride in their appearance, right?"

"Gah, I hate when you're right."

"So, what is it?"

Well, here's a dilemma. I highly doubt he of all people would turn me into the police but at the same time, do I really want anyone else knowing about my actions last night? I already have one person I never even met before that night out on the street and there's always the possibility he'll turn me to get out of some drug charge or hell, he could be there right now, telling the police. Shit, how much time do I even have? I mean, he didn't know my name which is good but he could give a good description of my face. Why did I think that using a druggie would help me out here? I am a goddamn idiot.

"Well?" he asks, inching closer to me.

Fuck it.

"Promise not to tell?" I whisper, sounding more like a high schooler spreading gossip than a woman confessing to murder.

He nods and rolls his eyes at the same time.

"I, killed somebody."

I see his eyes widen for half a second as he tries to figure out whether or not I'm joking before my stone faced glare confirms that I'm not. Then, he smiles an almost half smirk and cocks his head before whispering: "That's it?"

Now it's my turn to be confused. Instead of saying anything, I furrow my brows and stare at him, jaw agape.

"I mean, that doesn't register too high for me. I've killed billions of people. Multiple billions, all at once. One tiny human isn't a concern."

And then, almost as if he realized just who he was talking to, his face changed entirely. Wait, considering that he has the ability to literally change his face that's probably a terrible choice of words. Either way, he drops that ridiculous half smirk which makes things a lot more bearable.

"Why? What happened to cause it?"

I sigh, and mentally weigh out the pros and cons of telling him the full story. Pros: all of the context. Cons: Everything else.

"He was harassing my roommate; stalking her even. I saw him out, lured him to an alleyway and attacked him. I, I slammed his head off the ground like five or six times and then saw all the blood. Then I ran off. I just wanted to get him to leave Kara alone, I didn't intend to kill him or anything."

I feel my hands begin to shake as I tell this story, which in a way makes me look like a better and worse person at the same time. Sensing that he sees it too, I try to move them out of sight nonchalantly but instead end up elbowing the glass that held my coffee off the table, staining me with what's left of the disgusting swill and sending the cup flying to the floor where it shatters on impact with the ground.

"Fuck!" I exclaim, which accomplishes just what I didn't want; drawing attention.

"Are you okay?"

"Sure. A little cold and wet now, but fine nonetheless."

"Not about that."

I smile.

"I know. To answer your question, no. Not really. Something about it just doesn't sit right with me, you know? Like, how I could just do it, not even stopping to think about the repercussions?"

"You regret doing it then. We can go back and reverse it, y'know. I can do that. Unless of course it's a fixed point in time then in which case we can't but something about your situation doesn't seem like that to me."

"No. I don't need that. Yeah, I kind of do regret it but that doesn't mean I need to go back in time to change it. I fucked up, and now I have to live with it. But, I have one question."

"Shoot."

"Do you ever feel guilty? Because I don't know whether or not this aching in the pit of my stomach is because I feel guilt, or because I don't."