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Callie Sadecki might not have inherited her mom's Ivy-League brain, but that didn't make her stupid. She knew that this was a bad idea. She knew that going to visit the woman she had shot two months ago, behind her parents' backs nonetheless, was absolutely crazy. But at this point, she was desperate. And desperation lead her, as it did so many others before, to Charlotte Matthews.
Callie steeled herself as she walked into the courtyard garden of the mental hospital, where Charlotte - who she had told the receptionist was her aunt when she scheduled this appointment three days prior - was waiting for her. She reminded herself that her parents thought she was at Ilana's place, that her best friend had agreed without hesitation to cover for her. All the chess pieces had been set up, so now Callie needed to make her move. After coming all this way, she wasn't going to chicken out, even if her stomach was turning uncomfortably as she approached the picnic table where Charlotte sat.
"Callie," the woman said, and her voice was warm, pleasant. Not at all what Callie had expected from someone she had fired a bullet into. "It's so good to see you. Please, come sit."
Callie did, sitting cross legged at the picnic table, right across from Charlotte. The woman's dark eyes remained fixed on her face, as if she were looking for something there, something that no one else could see. As if she could look past Callie's skin and into her soul beneath it. The thought was unsettling, sending a shiver up Callie's spine.
"Ms. Matthews," she said, trying to sound confident, in control, and only sort of succeeding. "I hope you're, er, recovering well."
Charlotte laughed lightly at that. "I'm recovering just fine, Callie, thank you. But please, call me Lottie."
"Oh. Um, alright," Callie said, taken aback. She paused for a long moment, before adding, "I'm sorry for what I did, by the way."
"You know, I don't think you are," Lottie replied, eyes glittering wickedly in the sun. Callie gulped nervously, but Lottie's smile remained soft, unaccusatory. "I don't mean that rudely, of course. I just mean that your conviction, when it happened, was clear. You simply wanted to protect Shauna, and that is an admirable thing. I hold no ill will towards you for it, I only want you to own what happened, to be truthful with yourself about it."
Callie didn't know what to say to that. Then again, who would?
Lottie didn't seem phased by her lack of a response. She just rested her arms on the table and kept looking at Callie with the too-keen gaze that all the Yellowjackets shared - like they had never quite shook themselves free of the wild. Like they were always ready to hunt, to fight... Or, in Lottie's case, to make everyone else hunt and fight, to make the world bend to her will. Cult leader and all that. "How are you, Callie? How's your family?"
