Jade opened her straining eyes to the sun, her eyes fluttering back and forth. A soft sigh escapes her lips, a fleeting moment of calm escaped her before the shattering flood of memories…the shattering realization.


Joyful sights flickered into her eyes, a momentary reprieve, and then, the harsh reality struck her once again. The previous night was not a hallucination; it was real, and the heavy and chilling taste of it blew across her chest. As a result, mutual appreciation is replaced with an old familiar love.


What was typically seen as a golden beacon of hope, the morning sun looked more like the intense glare of an interrogation lamp to Jade. But fret not, she was prepared to change the outcome, prepared to flip the script, so to speak.


With a final nod of resolve, she pulled on her running clothes, the fabrics well known to her and a comforting armor. She had a quick look at the clock. It was interestingly half an-hour early for her run. It was as if the gods and father time had supported her decision to get rid of her ex-husband for good.


Her own gaze looked at her in the mirror as her hand reached for the scrunchie. While she was pulling her hair up into a ponytail, a shaky breath entered her lungs, the air an acute, burning reminder of the very rush of fear that had beaten down on her for a moment. Holding it was a small rebellion, which she then released in one long exhale. She felt her shoulders drop; the tension disappearing from her whole frame.


A real smile formed ever so faintly on her lips as the insane vibrating noise within her head dimmed down, leaving behind a fragile but palpable calmness. The panic was still there but now, for the first time in what seemed like forever, she could control her breath, her mind.


She unlocked the door to her bedroom, locking it last night before she went to sleep, just in case, and casually walked into the living room to find, low and behold, Randall.


She stopped, her entire body freezing. Her gaze, once casual, became flat and hard, chilling, suspended in a way to be punched as if his face was an object.


He was in the void so to speak, a space he had for so long dominated. He sat in his favorite chair, gazing meticulously at a piece of mail, as though nothing had ever come into existence, pardoned, had been declared dead and then reborn almost expecting her to resume her role as his wife.


Her lips curled at his obvious display of control, at his attempt to rattle her. A feeling of heat hit her skin. The pounding of the blood down her ears was a drumbeat furious with anger. Fire of memory and bitterness rose in her chest, threatening to consume her.


The rage was a tight coil in her gut, like it was a physical presence that made her hands tremble to this moment while she kept glaring at him with a clenched jaw. Her eyes fell on the glass vase that rested on the kitchen table. It was so beautiful, with its white lilies, but she felt it get heavy in her mind-a solid one, almost a weapon.


The room was very much alive with a shifting spirit within it. The light grew brighter, putting into sharp relief the chiseled lines of his visage and his moseyed-to-the-side mouth. Time stretched and broke. In her mind, her hand was already on the vase, fingers grip around its cold neck.


Her footsteps were heavy as she suddenly grabbed the vase sitting on the kitchen counter, and with a frustrated screech, chucked it at her ex-husband’s head. Her arm draws back, the muscles in her shoulder straining. The vase was a perfect weight. The cool glass felt good in her palm. She saw the arc of the vase in flight, the satisfying thud of it hitting his head, his shock breaking into pieces with the glass. He falls to the floor, his blood pooling out a wound from his head, staining her newly pristine white rug.


A surge of powerful dark euphoria embraced her. This was not anger. It was sweet, now bitterly so, sweet revenge. She was a god in this very moment, a righteous kind...a goddess of fury at whom the ransom was now paid. She could almost hear it: the sharp, brutal crack of glass breaking against human skull, and that sound was a symphony for her ears.


Then, his laughter shattered the spell. Her eyes blinked, and the room was back to normal. The vase was still on the table, the lilies still innocent, and her ex-husband was still there, oblivious. Her hand frozen in the air, slowly descended back at her side.


Flutters of anxiousness thundered in her heart and cold sweat broke out on her forehead. A hot flash of rage evaporated away, only to be replaced by a cold, dismal feeling of disappointment.


He had no clue. He was just a ghost from her past…a face that unleashed an inner monster of her own she had never even known about. That he had never known about.


Randall Strong had no idea what his presence had truly done to her.


Jade shook her head, rubbing her temples. This had to be the moment she would begin her performance. She made slow and hesitant steps. There was a slight tremble in her hands as she tucked away a stray hair behind her ear-an endearingly human trait he cherished during her weak moments. She met his eyes; hers widened in a minute way enough to silently convey shock and bewilderment.


“I-I’m going for my run.” She whispered, her voice cracking just enough to sound fragile. Randall gave a smile, although his next words otherwise contradicted his outward mood.


“Good. You always look best when you’re flustered.” He paused, his expression suddenly becoming unreadable, “You need to exercise more, anyway. You’re too thick.”


Jade's stomach twisted. That compliment, heavy with the casual cruelty she was too well acquainted with, felt like a solid blow to the abdomen. She forced herself to give a small, bewildered nod.


What she really wanted, right at this moment, was to kill him. She swallowed bitterly.


“I won’t take long.” He chuckles.


“Don’t rush yourself for me, darling…I have all the time in world.” His lips slowly curled into a knowing, satisfied smile.


A final, frightened look sent Jade out the door. As soon as she was on the thunderously quiet street, with the cold air deep inside her lungs, the performance stopped. Her facial expression drops, her shoulders, which had been hunched over in fear, straightened with resolve: the cold, hard resolve.


“Fucking bastard.” She grumbles with a clenched jaw.


She ran with a purpose granting her the strength of the last five years. It was no longer an exercise; she had a well-laid-out mission to complete. Loud were her feet, pounding the pavement, each step marking a beat of frantic rhythm in her scheme.


Faster she ran, all while her sight down the street was cast upon the coffee shop whose warm lights shone through the thick gloom of the pre-dawn.


The cafe was quiet. Damon was already there, sitting a table in a corner with a dark coffee, his back facing the door. He was a master of inconspicuousness. Just a man with a laptop, a neighbor starting his day. Jade ordered a Latte in a calm tone. With her drink in hand, she walked to an empty booth across from the counter, facing away from Damon. She looked out the window, a position that gave a clear view of the street and, more importantly, the path she had burned via life from her apartment.


Damon didn't lift his eyes; that was when she chose to sit. He took out his phone, dialing her number. Jade’s cell phone rang. She answers with no hesitation.


“You doing alright, Jay?” Damon asks, his voice warm and concerning. Jade lets out another breath, this time of relief.


“Yeah, I’m okay. Fucker didn’t hesitate with his usual bullshit of insulting and complimenting me in the same damn sentence!” Her voice rose with her increasing frustration.


A rumbling sound erupted from his chest. Damon was delighted to hear the old Jade again. His lips curl into a warm and boyish smile.


“Damn, it’s nice to hear the old you again.” Jade remained silent, nodding her own head. He continues, emotion leaving his voice and getting down to business.


"Nasty place to find yourself again."


"Not quite as nasty as the grave from which he crawled," came her low retort, the pitch entirely flat. Someone places a newspaper on her table. She opened the paper. There was a whole list of names and numbers inscribed there. "What's this?"


"A list of names," he said simply. "Randall's contacts from his old life. Before he 'died.' The people who helped him disappear. Most of them are small-time forgers, grifters, and the kind of lawyers who bend laws until they break. One of them is a death certificate forger."


Jade's eyes went wide. "How did you get this?"


"I'm good with computers," he said with a dry smile. "He never did change his passwords. It seems he never thought he'd have to." He took a sip of his coffee, his eyes never leaving the laptop screen. "Fucking moron. He thinks he's invisible, Jade. That he's in control. We need to use that. We need to use his dead status against him."


Jade’s fingers tightened around her phone as she stared at the paper. Names, and numbers nothing but a blot. She looked out at the now, graying sky…as if the gods could sense her dark intentions. Her resolute look changed to something too dangerous to be mentioned.


"These names are of no use to us," she said barely audible. "Not right now, at least. Calling the police, exposing him...These are temporary solutions. He has proved he can fake his death already, and even if we manage to take him to the police, he’ll still paint me as his co-conspirator. Prison can't hold him forever. He'll find his way out, and then he is going to come back for me."


Damon's brow furrowed, concern sparking in his eyes. "What are you suggesting, Jade?"


"Something permanent," she said, the word hitting the air with a chilling finality. "Something outside of the law that guarantees he is gone for good."


He was well-aware of what she meant. His whole countenance grew pale, yet he kept his gaze fixed on his black computer screen.


"Jade, we can't—"


"And we won't." She cut him off, leaning forward in a staged air of secrecy. "I’m not going to prison for that asshole. As much it would be a nice reprieve from the chaos he brings…just no. I have an idea. I know someone who hated me but hated him even more."


Damon listened as Jade recounted. "Nadine. His mistress. She had always been obsessed with him, always competing for his attention with me. She was so desperate that she begged him to leave me exclusively. She once told me she'd do anything to have him." A cold smile glistened on Jade's lips. "She also told me she'd do anything to destroy him if he ever betrayed her."


"He did," Damon offered as the last pieces clicked into place. "He faked his death and left her high and dry for five years…that’s the biggest betrayal ever."


"Exactly," Jade said. "And that's the catch: she doesn't know it. She thinks he died, and I'm living off his money. Bringing her back into the action is long overdue."


"You want her to kill him?" Damon asked, strained breath. "In a jealous rage?"


"She was always a jealous person," sat Jade, looking down into her cup. "The one she desired to have in her possession. Her biggest problem was her impulsiveness. She never thinks through her actions or the consequences. She will act out of love, out of hate, and out of a sense of righteous indignation. She would be the perfect weapon, only to be pointed in the right direction."


"Risky," Damon said under his breath. "She could turn against you. She could come back to implicate us."


“That’s why the idea to kill him has to come from her," Jade answered, her eyes screaming danger. "We give her the information she needs, present it in such a way that she feels wronged most of all, frame it so that she is avenging his betrayal of her-it must look like an act of passion."


Damon shied away from engaging in thought for a moment, trying to weigh the moral implications with the brutal reality of their situation. The colder fury reflected in Jade's eyes was the declaration of that acceptance. She was right—there was no other way to be truly free.


"So, what's the first step?" he asked. "How do we get to Nadine?"


Jade gives a malicious grin. “That's the beauty of this whole situation, Damon. We won’t have to do a damn thing, because Randall will do it for us. He will never realize his demise was his own doing.”


Damon stares, frozen in place, his eyes widening at the ruthless brutality of Jade’s plan. He nearly dropped his phone, utterly shocked at Jade’s brilliance.


“Remind me to never piss you off, Jay.” He says in a shaky voice.


Jade just gives a boisterous laugh.