So it is done

Rats ready, set...

After the deed was done, Cinder waited a few more minutes, not to stew in the decision, but to let the driver of the inconspicuous car to drive back to the hotel. After that, she used the teleportation mark Jonathan had given her, appearing inside the stopped car, back in front of the hotel. The perfect crime.

Despite the success, though, her inside was simultaneously empty – and yet this emptiness did not frighten her. It wasn't the emptiness she'd felt trying to break Miss Sunny's head, or the emptiness that had begun to devour her from within the moment she hadn't. Contrary to her expectations, it only felt like contentment, as she felt a smile appear on her face as she looked at Amanda and Lee huddled in their seats – dead.

It was a strange emptiness, as if...

As if you had already jumped off a cliff – and were now free-falling, feeling your freedom, the unity of mind and body, at that brief moment before impact. Knowing that you could not take back the second that had passed as you pulled the trigger...

As you watch the ground approach.

Cinder made her way to the doors leading inside the hotel lobby, ignoring the silent agents who didn't even move their gazes in her direction the moment she entered. Like procedure, they guarded the elevator, and as Cinder entered, they deftly pressed the button for Cinder's floor without prompting.

The last floor, rented entirely for Jonathan's needs.

Second by second, Cinder just stood silent, staring into the polished metal, seeing her reflection in it.

A reflection of whom?

Second by second, floor by floor – the first passed, the second, the third...

And before Cinder knew it, she had arrived at the floor. The soft sound of the indicator and the barely perceptible change in pressure served as signals to Cinder as the steel doors opened quickly and without a sound in front of Cinder's face.

The rather long corridor was empty – except for the four RATS agents. They were like immovable statues at their posts, with the cold detachment of a machine, they guarded their posts. They were of course not actually machines, no matter how thorough their training, and yet, perfectly aware of the purpose of their work, they stood alert, unchanging, as best they could.

It only took Cinder a few steps to find herself in front of one of the two doors on the floor – the second led to the helipad, while this one led to Jonathan's chambers.

One of the agents, seemingly without changing his expression at all, only nodded slightly imperceptibly, answering Cinder's unasked question – whether she could go inside at the moment, whether Jonathan was ready to meet her.

Of course, Jonathan knew that I was coming to see him. He knew about who I was even before I knew it myself.

Cinder turned the doorknob slightly, and then took a step inside, closing the door behind her.

Jonathan was sitting on the couch across from the low coffee table with two cups smoking next to him – one filled with coffee, an extra-strong one.

Of course, he knew.

Cinder made her way to the couch and took a seat next to Jonathan, under his silent gaze. She turned slightly to the side, to be able to look into Jonathan's eyes.

There was a pause, a long five or ten seconds of silence, as father and daughter looked eye to eye, before Cinder said what she had to say. "I killed them."

The fall was over, and hitting the ground was the last memory that reverberated in Cinder's mind.

"I know," Jonathan said calmly and quietly.