Chapter 182 – Vengeance of the Wicked Girl – Holly Hayfield

Ms. Sampson was staring at me in absolute silence after my declaration. She didn’t look angry or upset. She was just staring at me blankly, trying to measure how serious I was. Lilith, on the other hand, was giving me a much more wide-eyed, speculative look.

“You... Holly…?” Ms. Sampson asked. “Do you even understand what you’re saying?”

“Absolutely.” I said with a sly smile. “Why do you think I’d lie about something like that?”

“I think you’d say anything to save your friend here… The Killing Cat has done things that you’d never imagine. She’s a killer! An absolute psychopath! And you claim to…”

“I know who the Killing Cat is, more than anyone else.” I said. “I didn’t do all those things lightly, I should add. The blood on my hands came at the cost of a significant part of my soul. I’ll never return to being the Holly that I once was. But you already knew that didn’t you?”

“What?”

“My file.” I said. “You’ve seen it. You know exactly why I was sent to Meredith’s School for Troubled Girls. You always knew exactly what I’m capable of.”

Ms. Sampson’s went from being mystified and confused, to being utterly dumbfounded. Even if she wasn’t willing to admit it to her conscious self, she knew the possibility existed. I was always a killer. That day that I saved Ellie changed me irrevocably. A few months at an alternative school wasn’t going to fix me.

“I can’t believe it…” Lilith said, staring at me with even more astonishment than Ms. Sampson. “Holly… You mean… This entire time…? You were the one who…”

Lilith’s voice went weak before she could finish her thought. I grimaced in aggravation. This wasn’t something that I ever wanted her to find out, especially not like this. However, if this gamble was capable of saving her life, then…

“I’m still not buying it.” Ms. Sampson said, giving me a hard look. “Holly, I know you too well.”

“Not well enough.”

“And the Killing Cat killed both Angel and Abby.” She continued. “You expect me to believe that you were the one that killed them? I know for a fact that you were fond of both of them. If you think that you can buy time to save Lilith, then you’re going to be disappointed.”

“It’s true. I was fond of them. However, that doesn’t change the fact that they were both killers, same as me. They sealed their fate back when they sealed Malorie’s. It’s as I told your friend Crystal before she was arrested… You girls performed a ‘Ritual of Blood’ to summon the Killing Cat and you got her. Here I am.”

Ms. Sampson was huffing angrily before I could even finish talking. She held the knife closer to Lilith’s throat and glared at me.

“I’m sick of your lies! Get out! Get out of here right now!” She shouted.

If she continued raising her voice, then there was a real chance that someone from the party downstairs might hear her and come running this direction. That could be either a good thing or a bad thing. We needed help from more people, but at the same time she might simply take Lilith down with her.

I couldn’t risk that. I needed to be smarter about this.

“So that you can kill the wrong girl?” I asked. “What are you hoping to accomplish by this?”

“I’m done talking to you, Holly. Leave, or I’ll do the deed right here in front of you.”

“What if I could prove what I’m saying to you?” I asked. “I can prove that I was the one that killed those people.”

“You…” She started to say suspiciously.

“This story begins far closer to home than you might realize.” I said. “The very first agent that I took under my wing was Erica, back when you two were still living together.”

Ms. Sampson jumped in place a little at the mention of Erica’s name.

“She was an unwitting agent, but an agent.” I explained. “Tell me, where were you on the night that Vivian Hale died?”

“Yes. Erica admitted to lying about where she was going that night.” Ms. Sampson said. “What’s that got to do with you?”

“Everything… I knew about your meeting with the others through Angel. She never mentioned specifically what was going on, but she mentioned in passing that she was going to attend a short reunion with you and some other friends. I planned my timing wisely.”

“It can’t be…” She said in disbelief.

“It can be.” I explained.

“Your admitting to killing Abby then…?” Ms. Sampson asked. “A woman that you defended in an argument with me…? You can’t be serious…”

“Killing her was… An unfortunate necessity… But yes, I put her out of her misery. The goal of that murder was to get the police involved and have them question Ms. Hoffman about what happened all those years ago between the members of your club.”

“Ms. Hoffman…?” She asked. “You pushed that police siege onto her?!”

“Some good it did...” I said in annoyance. “She ended up taking her own life before the police could breech her door. Things would’ve been so much easier had she just cooperated with the police instead. I even went out of my way to talk to her alone and prepare herself for going forward with her information. She was too cowardly, even at the end.”

Ms. Sampson looked overwhelmed by this admission. Her grasp on the knife she was holding up to Lilith was trembling with fear.

“Then… Angel…?” She asked.

“She took Sylvie Brooks hostage, another one of my agents.” I said. “She put up a fight and I nearly lost. It was only because of Silver picking up Angel’s gun that I managed to survive. The fallout of her conspiratorial links shrouded my involvement in her death from the police.”

Ms. Sampson was filled with terror as she stared at me. Lilith was staring at me in equal awe.

“She saw my face before she died.” I said. “Just like you, she refused to believe. She thought that I was too kind-hearted to get involved with the bloody goals of the Killing Cat. The thing is though, my sense of justice has always overwhelmed my ‘kind heart’. She didn’t know me as well as she thought she did and paid for it.”

Ms. Sampson slowly lowered the knife that she was holding to Lilith’s throat but didn’t let go of her. Ms. Sampson gritted her teeth while looking between me and Lilith. She suddenly raised her knife back up to Lilith.

“Then why shouldn’t I kill her?!” Ms. Sampson demanded angrily. “Why shouldn’t I take your friend’s life for all the lives you’ve taken of mine?!”

“You could do that, but you know I’d kill you immediately afterwards, consequences be damned. Or…” I said, putting my hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. “Or you can take me as your hostage instead.”

Ms. Sampson gave me a skeptical look.

“Why would I agree to that? Lilith here will just go get help from someone downstairs and send the police after me.”

“The police will take time to get here, and no one will risk getting involved with you while you’re holding me hostage.” I explained. “Whereas if you were to kill Lilith, I promise you that I wouldn’t even need my knives to take you out.”

Ms. Sampson thought about it carefully, looking between Lilith and me while weighing her choice.

“Besides,” I said. “I have valuable information that you want. Every question you’ve ever had about the Killing Cat and your dead friends… I can answer them. Everything from how I acquired your constructed language code, to how I snuck Silver into the Women’s Institute for Art and Humanities.”

Ms. Sampson pulled her knife away from Lilith’s throat and threw her to the ground. She pinned Lilith on the floor with one foot. Lilith groaned in pain.

“No tricks!” Ms. Sampson demanded.

“No tricks.” I agreed.

I slowly walked towards her with my hands still in the air. She turned me around and put my hands behind my back when I reached her. She pressed the knife against my back threateningly.

“You and I are going to walk out of here quickly and quietly.” She explained. “And if you try any funny business, I’ll end you on the spot.”

“Then we’ll have to go out the back door.” I said. “People were expecting my return.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m parked up the street. We’re going to go for a little detour.” She said.

Ms. Sampson raised the hood of her hoodie and made sure her sunglasses were on correctly before pushing me into the hallway. Lilith was left to recover off the floor as we walked out. Ms. Sampson pulled me down the corridors of the Meredith Estate quickly, trying to avoid any hallways with people in them.

Her knife was hidden behind my back, and she stayed uncomfortably close to me in order to keep the knife obscured. The threat was subtle or non-existent from what anyone else could see. The few people that we passed by paid no attention to either of us walking out of the back door.

The land behind the Meredith Estate was once an area filled with botanical gardens, but not anymore. All the garden beds, plant holders, and raised containers were full of random weeds. The only things that remained of the old garden plans were the pond, overgrown hedges that were roughly my height, and an empty greenhouse.

Ms. Sampson pulled me past several rows of bushes, walking me beside the greenhouse building. The lights of the greenhouse building weren’t on, so it was fairly dark outside. I wondered if her sense of direction was misconstrued when we walked through the hedges. We didn’t seem to be heading anywhere in particular.

I was getting the feeling that she didn’t even know where she was going. She was going so far out of her way to avoid crowds that we ended up getting turned around as she walked through the hedges. Slowly, we moved away from the greenhouse building and towards the pond area.

“You’re lost.” I said flatly.

“I’m not.” Ms. Sampson said. “I just need to be sure that no one sees us leave. This place is bigger than I thought…”

She continued pulling me by the arm, making sure to point her knife at me whenever she felt I was slowing down. In truth, her hold on me didn’t feel that tight. She wasn’t as strong as Crystal or Angel. I might be able to fight my way out of her grasp.

The question was if I could defeat her decisively without any weapons on me. My dress wasn’t made with hand-to-hand combat in mind. My movements would be more constrained than usual. She probably wasn’t a fighter herself, but I wasn’t going to underestimate her after facing off with Crystal.

“I can’t believe you…” She said as we walked. “All this time, you’ve been living a double life. You played me like a fiddle, didn’t you? I put so much trust in you, promoted you to a member of the school staff, trusted you with sensitive information… God… Now that I think about it, I was such a tool for not seeing this sooner.”

She was speaking hysterically. Her voice was on edge, like she was struggling to keep from raising it in anger. I said nothing to her in return.

“It hurts to know that someone I thought was little-miss-perfect was actually a devil in disguise. I can only imagine what went through Angel’s mind before you killed her… Do you know how much she loved you? And you took her out just like that…?”

“She was guilty of…”

Ms. Sampson stopped me and pressed me against the nearby lamppost.

“The only thing she was guilty of was doing everything that I told her!” Ms. Sampson shouted. “She… She was my best friend! Holly…! You… I don’t even want to think about it. Just… Come with me and don’t say a single word. If you say anything, I promise I’ll end you on the spot.”

We continued walking in silence. Ms. Sampson was unwittingly walking in a giant semi-circle. She stopped when she realized that we were headed back in the direction she came from. The tall hedges and infrequent lamp-lighting made it difficult to find our way through what was essentially a maze.

Each hedge bush was tall and unkept by any professional trimmers. Branches were poking out into the walkway, it was impossible to see over any of them, and bushes that were too close together could obscure the path ahead. Normally this wasn’t a problem because people rarely came out here, let alone at night. Ms. Sampson was beginning to accept that she was lost.

“Let me help you.” I said.

“Shut up!” She shouted uncontrollably. “What did I just say to you?!”

“By this time Lilith will have gone for help.” I said. “Every second we remain here, you lose your lead on the police.”

She held the knife against my throat.

“Then I should kill you here!”

“And never have your questions answered.”

“It might be worth it to do away with the Killing Cat, and a treacherous liar!”

“I lied to you. I don’t deny it.” I said. “But you lied to the entire world. Whatever you think of me, what you girls did to Malorie was worse! Like my deeds or not, they were exactly what you all deserved!”

Ms. Sampson was trembling in anger. My words definitely weren’t making things better. She suddenly pulled her hand back as she prepared to stab me. It was only because she was so slow that I was able to push her forwards. The knife still made contact with my shoulder as she brought it down.

I screamed as it impaled me, and I pushed her away. Pain throbbed through my whole upper arm as I pulled the knife out and tossed it away. I reflexively held onto my bleeding wound as I dropped down to the ground on one knee, doubling over in pain. Ms. Sampson fell into the nearest bush but was quickly recovering.

“I hate to have to do this, Holly, but you’ve left me no choice. I wish I could say that it’s been nice knowing you, but apparently I didn’t know you that well.”

She kicked me in the gut while I was trying to get up off the ground. I fell back, gasping for breath after the air was knocked out of me. The knife wound in my shoulder was making it hard to think decisively. The pain overwhelmed my senses and left me at her mercy.

She pulled me to my knees by my hair, only to pull out a secondary weapon. It was some type of thin metal cable. She quickly started wrapping it around my throat in an attempt to choke me. The moment I realized what she was doing I put my hand in the way of the metal wire to try pulling it away.

She pulled the cable tightly, meanwhile I tried to pull it away from my neck with both hands. She had so much more leverage on me due to her standing position behind me that I was losing this fight. Even both hands weren’t enough to let me get a full breath of air.

The way that the metal wire bit into my skin was increasingly painful. It was only thanks to one of my hands being in the way of the wire that she wasn’t able to use it to saw into my neck as she pulled. However, that didn’t save me from the pain of having the metal dig into my bare skin. My hand began bleeding as she repeatedly pulled the wires against me.

Suddenly, there was a high-pitched metallic ‘CLINK’ sound and Ms. Sampson immediately went down to the ground. The metal cable came loose, and I tossed it away from my throat. I fell down to the ground beside her, gasping for breath, wondering in confusion what the hell just happened.

The first thing that I saw was Ms. Sampson staring vacantly at me with both eyes wide open. She was dead. The back of her head was bleeding dramatically. The blood was already beginning to fall onto her face and pool onto the sidewalk beneath her. I thought it might’ve been a gun, given how quickly she was taken out. Were the police already able to respond?

“Lilith, go get Holly’s mom! I’ll bring her inside!” Val shouted. “Her shoulder is bleeding badly! We need the first aid kit!”

“O-okay!!” Lilith shouted.

Valentina picked me up off the ground and carried me in her arms. I got a more complete picture of what happened when Valentina dropped the bloodied gardening hoe in order to pick me up. Going by the sound the hoe made when it connected with Ms. Sampson’s skull, Valentina must’ve used her full strength in that attack.

“You… You saved me…?” I asked, confused to see her out here. “How did you…”

“I was coming to check up on you and Lilith since you were gone for so long. Lilith ran into me and told me that you were taken hostage. I didn’t know that it was Ms. Sampson trying to take you hostage! Lilith was short on details and we both ran here in a hurry. I heard you scream when we came outside. We were lucky to make it in time!”

“My arm feels like its on fire…” I said while gritting my teeth. “I think I need to go to the hospital.”

“We’ll get help inside! Just hang on tight!” She said while carrying me.

Valentina carried me all the way back to where the main party was going on. The music stopped when people realized that there was an emergency happening and the room went quiet, save for some confused murmuring. Mrs. Wilson was the one that took charge of things when she saw me, but the details of what was said were hazy to me.

They brought me to one of the secondary rooms and put me on a couch. Valentina stood back and let Alyssa’s grandmother take over from here. She had proper medical training and began bandaging my wounded shoulder. Once it was clear that I’d be okay, Valentina left the room with Mrs. Wilson to show her where Ms. Sampson was.

Surprisingly, Lilith was crying hysterically by my side. I’d laugh at her dramatic reaction if I weren’t in such great pain. She was kneeled beside the couch I was on and holding my hand. Even Alyssa was put together better than Lilith was. Then again, Alyssa was more used to seeing me injured. My mom was pacing on the other side of the room while talking on the phone with emergency services.

“Please don’t die, Holly!” Lilith cried. “Please don’t die because you took my place!”

Her words were probably meant to be encouraging, but they felt painful given the situation. My wound wasn’t immediately life threatening, especially with the care that I was receiving.

“Lilith…” I said in a mix of aggravation and pain.

“Yes…?”

I turned my head towards her and forced a smile.

“Can you keep a secret for me?” I whispered.