From the moment Ryder had given chase to Beatrice, it had been a whirlwind of action. He had been hot on her heels as they burst from the basement door, and she immediately dived for her baseball bat. Ryder grappled with her over it, surprised at her physical strength.

It must have looked ridiculous to anyone watching as the two of them played a game of tug of war over the bat, with Ryder in the advantage. Both of his feet planted firmly on the floorboards, he gave an impressive wrench with both arms. Beatrice realized she was quickly losing this contest of strength and let go, sending a surprised Ryder flying backwards into a cabinet.

Crushed cans of soda, newspapers, and some sort of unidentifiable gunk flew into the air as he came crashing into the furniture, lances of pain arcing through his back.

“Beatrice! I’m not trying to-” Ryder entreated, before interrupting himself with a lunge to the side. Beatrice had taken advantage of his fall and snatched the bat from the floor. It nearly collided with his head as she swung it downwards. It bounced off the floorboards with a resounding thunk, a circular dent appearing in the wood.

“What’s wrong with you, Ryd?! Your dad’s gonna hear about this!” Beatrice shouted, turning and attempting to sprint out of the living room.

Ryder instinctually reached out from his spot on the ground, managing to grab her ankle and trip her. She landed with a thud, the bat flying from her hands and into yet another pile of trash. The room was quickly beginning to resemble a landfill.

He opened his mouth, perhaps to try and explain himself again, but Beatrice kicked at him wildly. Her foot grazed the side of his head, the impact forcing his teeth together with a painful clack. She kicked again, this time striking true, and he let go of her leg.

“Joss!” Beatrice shouted as she clambered to her feet. She looked around wildly, searching for her ever-present goon, but realized he must have still been out cold in the basement. Instead, she stooped, and swept the bat from the ground.

Ryder took his chance and came up behind her, his arms wrapping around hers as he tried his best to control her. “Beatrice. Calm down. I’m not trying to hurt you.”

He could remember a time, years ago, when he would have held her just like this. When she would have rested her head against his shoulders, and told him about all the aspirations she had for her own future. But that was long before, seemingly an entire lifetime ago. An entire lifetime with a different Beatrice and a different Ryder and a much, much cleaner house.

“Let go of me!” she shouted. Her head rocked back and smashed into Ryder’s mouth. He could taste the blood bursting from his lips as he recoiled backwards, nearly blinded by the unexpected impact.

In the flash of a second, Beatrice had violently spun around, following the motion with the bat. She held it extended, swinging with all her might at the spot Ryder had just been. It grazed his hair as he ducked. A deafening crashing sounded from his left as Beatrice’s swing traveled far past its intended target, and, instead, embedded itself in her TV. Glass shards flew in every direction, peppering the both of them with tiny cuts.

They stared into each others eyes, Ryder’s gaze full of wariness, and hers full of anger. The house was abruptly silent as they gauged one another’s intentions, the slightest hint of further violence promising to trigger another bout of grappling.

“Just tell me. Is she worth it?” Beatrice hissed, accusingly.

The both of them were heaving for breath, having expended every ounce of energy they had in their struggle against each other. This gave Ryder a moment of pause, just long enough for him to decide how to word his feelings.

“No. It’s not about Jane.”

Beatrice’s eyes narrowed. “Then what? Why are you doing this? Your dad will never forgive you for-”

“I don’t give a damn about what he thinks!” Ryder shouted, impulsively. His voice carried the anger he felt, a shaking timber that resounded throughout the room. Beatrice flinched.

Ryder blinked, and reached out, regretting his lapse of emotional control. “Hey-”

He did not get to finish his sentence as Beatrice bolted past him and flew up the steps. Ryder cursed. He had been to this house many times before as a kid, and he knew that the second floor had an old telephone. He had to make sure she never reached his father.

Glass crunching underfoot, he gave chase once more, his heavy steps pounding up the staircase after Beatrice’s.

The second floor, while still grimy, was at least somewhat respectable. The small piles of refuse were entirely absent, and the lights had been replaced with more modern fixtures instead of the dingy yellow of the lower floors.

“Beatrice? Come on, lets just talk,” he said, each step careful and balanced. The hall was lined with a multitude of doors, any of which could contain a lurking Beatrice as she waited for the right moment to ambush him.

The floorboards creaked somewhere ahead of him. Like a hunting dog, Ryder ran after the source of the sound, head held low so as to avoid a possible blow.

He reached the end of the hall and rounded the corner, every inch of his body prepared for a sudden attack. Instead, he nearly collided with a ladder that hung from the ceiling.

Strange, he thought. This hadn’t been here when he used to visit the Ruths.

Another creak, this time from above. Ryder wasted no time, and clambered up the ladder, hands slick with sweat.

Cold night air stung his eyes as he reached the top, his heavy breathing condensing in front of his face. The night was freezing, and it showed, as Beatrice stood near the edge of the rooftop, shivering.

Her hair was a mess, and glass shards glittered in the moonlight amongst the tangled dark strands. To Ryder’s relief, her hands were empty of weapons. Instead, they were wrapped around Victoria’s bound body.

“Don’t come any closer, Ryd,” Beatrice warned. “I swear, I’ll throw us both off.”

Though her face was cast in shadow, Ryder found he believed her. Her posture held a desperation he had never seen in her before, a shaking animalistic instinct that illustrated her willingness to commit double suicide.

“Okay, okay, lets just relax,” Ryder said, fighting hard to keep his voice steady. His eyes traveled over the short distance between them as he gauged how quickly he could cross it.

It was a futile exercise, seeing as Beatrice and Victoria were practically hanging off the roof’s edge. He wouldn’t dare risk their lives.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she replied. “You lost that privilege when you left me.”

Ryder’s eyes narrowed. “I never left you. We broke up. It was mutual.”

She didn’t seem to be listening at all. “…you left me, and my parents left me, and everyone leaves me and I can’t take it anymore-”

“Beatrice!” Ryder shouted. “Just put Victoria down. We can talk about whatever you wanna talk about after you do that.”

Incredibly, Victoria appeared to have remained unconscious through it all. Her mouth hung open as Beatrice supported her limp body, both arms wrapped around Victoria’s tattooed waist.

“You’re not stupid, Ryd. You know you’re throwing your whole life away. And for what? The beanstalk girl? Because you don’t like your daddy? And now you’re working against us? We all trusted you. I trusted you.” Beatrice’s voice was strained, both from the effort of holding an unconscious teenage girl upright and her quickly unraveling composure.

Ryder shuffled forward as subtly as possible, both hands extended forward in a placating gesture. His gaze shifted between Beatrice and the nearly three-story drop to the ground. There was no way either of them would survive a fall like that.

“Answer me!” Beatrice screamed.

Ryder’s attention snapped back to her. “Look, we both know you love yourself too much to go through with this.”

At first, he had thought they were simply the glass shards from the TV, glittering as they were embedded in her cheek. Upon closer inspection, he realized they were tears.

“Is that really what you think? What do I have anyway, Ryd? My parents are in hiding, I don’t really have any friends- I don’t even have you anymore.” Beatrice took a step back, her heel mere centimeters from the edge. Ryder could practically imagine her teetering off the roof as she struggled to maintain her balance underneath the weight of Victoria.

“Okay, wait, wait. What do you want from me? Come on, just step back from the ledge.” The panic was quickly reaching Ryder as he desperately struggled to think of a way out of this situation.

“I want you to answer me.”

Ryder took another step forward, now half way across the rooftop. The shingles were ever so slightly slanted to drain off rain water, and he found one side of his body was uncomfortably higher than the other.

“Okay, uh… answer you,” Ryder willed himself to focus, begging his mind to help him form a coherent sentence over the tension in his chest. “Fine. I’ll answer you. You really want the truth?”

Beatrice nodded, her eyes fixed on his, waiting for an answer that she didn’t want to hear.

“Because I hate you.” The words had left his mouth before he had time to soften them, and he found that he could not stop speaking now that he had started. “I hate this town, I hate my father. I hate this idiotic hero worship that everyone has for you and me. I hate the things we do together, and the people we work with. But, most of all…”

Ryder was in front of Beatrice now, with only Victoria and half a foot of cold air between them. This close, they could see the injuries that they had inflicted on one another, blood where glass had cut them and bruises where they had been struck.

“Most of all, I hate that hurting all of you is the only way I can escape.”

Her expression was impossible to discern. It seemed to shift, at one moment a look of utter hatred, and in the next, a pitiful mask of defeat. Her mouth tensed, as if she were thinking of what to say, but realizing there was nothing.

Slowly, carefully, Ryder extended his arms, and wrapped them around Victoria’s shoulders. Beatrice provided no resistance, allowing him to take her burden.

“Do you really hate me?” Beatrice’s voice was so tiny, Ryder had barely heard it. It was like a gust of wind, infinitesimal.

He shifted Victoria’s weight, moving her in such a way that he could carry her over one shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I-...” he paused, mouth partially open, “-before. Even back then. I never loved you, even before all of… this. I never did. Especially after you became this person. All those things you did, all the people you’ve bullied and intimidated and blackmailed. I could never love someone like that.”

Whatever fight had been left in the girl was gone. Beatrice looked up at him, her expression somber. She had no more sarcastic responses, no more manipulative lies, no more thinly-veiled threats. Only silence.

And she maintained that same silence as she followed Ryder back downstairs. The queen bee no more.