Beth stood in front of the mirror of her dorm bathroom, dabbing black lipstick onto her lower lip with calculated precision. The act was more ritual than vanity, a mask more honest than her own face. She pressed her lips together once, then leaned in closer to study her reflection.
The eyeliner was perfect. The braids were tight. The piercings gleamed under the fluorescent light.
She looked like herself again. That meant she was ready.
Behind her, the notebook lay open on the bed, her pen stabbing down on a name written in harsh strokes: Brandon Whitfield.
She didn't know what it was exactly.
He hadn't done anything.
He hadn't said anything.
But her instincts — the same ones that had helped her pick out every previous victim — screamed whenever he was near. She'd sensed something last night. The kind of gaze that wasn't just curious or friendly. It was cold.
Dissecting.
Predatory.
And not the fun kind.
Beth closed her lipstick and capped the pen in the same motion, walking back to the notebook with bare feet silent on the old dorm tile. She sat cross-legged in front of it, like a student at altar.
Brandon hadn't flinched when she prodded him earlier today. Hadn't even blinked when she suggested someone might be watching her.
That told her everything.
He was good. Really good.
But so was she.
And unlike him, she had nothing to lose now. Jamal was gone. Her reason for holding back, for staying in control, had been gutted and left to rot.
She flipped the notebook's page. The next one was blank. Clean. It would be Brandon's.
She drew a little sketch of a hoodie, tall frame, a scythe-shaped blade — just a doodle. A placeholder for the kill.
She was going to make it beautiful.
Her outfit for the night was classic.
Black tank. Plaid skirt. Fishnets. The jacket Jamal gave her last Halloween — the one with the stitched-up crow design on the back. She touched it briefly, fingers tracing the threads. It smelled like old smoke and leather.
Like him.
"Fuck," she muttered under her breath.
She didn't have time for grief tonight.
She had a kill to plan.
Campus at night was a dead thing. Empty. Echoing. It made everything easier.
Beth ducked into the maintenance tunnel behind the old gym, kneeling behind one of the rusted lockers to open her stash. A mask. A switchblade. One of Jamal's spare burner phones. Her kill kit, as she liked to call it. She pulled out the blade and admired it under the pale hallway light. Sleek. Polished. Hers.
Brandon was too obvious to be Jamal's killer. She still believed that. She liked to think that Jamal wouldn't have gotten caught off guard by someone like him. But Brandon was still wrong. Something about him was cracked beneath the surface.
She remembered his eyes. The way he looked at her like he already knew her secrets.
She couldn't let that stand.
He knew something.
She started talking aloud to herself.
Whispering.
"Don't enjoy it too much," she warned her reflection in the blade. "He's not a prize. Just a test run. Warm-up act. First act."
The real killer… the one who took Jamal from her… they were still out there.
But Brandon? He could be her message.
She cleaned up the scene in her head. Maybe she'd set it up to look like a suicide. Maybe make it look like an accident — a bad fall from one of the off-limits rooftops. Or maybe…
Beth paused, eyes narrowing.
Maybe she should wear the mask again. Just once. For nostalgia. If someone saw her, they'd think Ghostface was back. That'd stir things up.
Panic always made people sloppy.
And if Brandon was hiding something?
That would flush it out.
She went to the third floor of the abandoned shop class building. It was quiet there, unused. She had a perfect view of Brandon's dorm window.
Sure enough, his light was still on.
She knelt behind a desk, phone pressed to her cheek as she dialed a number she hadn't used in weeks — one of the old burners. A line she and Jamal used when they were planning kills. It rang once. Then voicemail.
She hung up.
Just muscle memory. Just mourning in disguise.
Beth stood and leaned against the window frame, watching the light flicker in Brandon's room. She wondered if he was asleep. Reading. Planning.
"Soon," she whispered. "You'll be nothing but a smear on the page."
Back in her dorm later, Beth dumped her gear back under the bed and crawled beneath the covers without bothering to undress. She didn't sleep — she just stared at the ceiling.
Every breath felt shallow. Not quite enough.
She needed it again. That feeling.
The rush. The power. The blood on her hands.
Tomorrow, she'd pick her moment. She'd isolate Brandon. She'd make it perfect. No distractions. No witnesses.
She could practically hear Jamal's voice in her ear:
"You always did like the slow ones."
Beth smiled, eyes dark.
"Only when they don't know they're already dead."