Showdown

Joana said what she said so that Cassandra would be unsettled and it worked. As Cassandra looked down at the road from the upstairs window, she began wondering if she had underestimated Grace. If she did, then everything may not go smoothly as she wanted it to go.

"She is spineless, they all are!" She reassured herself and placed her focus back on the road. Grace would be there any minute.

Soon enough, Grace appeared and was standing in front of the building. She brought out her phone and dialed Cassandra.

"I'm outside now."

"Yeah, I see you. Come inside."

"No, how do I know that my friends are inside? How do I know you won't kill me the moment I step in?"

"Well you will just have to step in and find out, won't you?" Cassandra replied but Grace didn't seem to budge. "Tick tock Grace..." She said finally before Grace took a deep breath and step came in.

"I'm inside now." She said.

"Keep going further, enter the room at the end of that passage there."

Grace did just as Cassandra had instructed and opened the door to find Margret and Joana.

"Guys!" She said rushing to meet them as she tried to free them. Margret was the one to caution her.

"Grace, watch out! She is with a gun!" She yelled.

Grace immediately spun around to see Cassandra resting by the door with a devilish smile.

"Hi there, it's nice to finally meet you in person."

Grace began trembling where she stood but she did her best not to show it.

"Cassandra," She said, raising both hands as she tried to move forward.

"Hmm hmm, not another inch closer from you," Cassandra said pointing the gun at her. "Go sit over there." She added gesturing with the gun to a chair at the far end of the room. "Move!"

"Okay, I'll go, don't shoot." Grace surrendered and went to sit down without taking her eyes off Cassandra.

"Okay so I think it's time to clear the air," Cassandra said. "It's time for a little confession session... But first, I will give Grace the courtesy of telling you girls what she found out from my mum. Grace, tell them."

"Veronica has a split personality known as Cassandra, and right now she is in control of Veronica's body... Veronica's parents sent her to a mental facility last year and they thought she had gotten better but then she managed to stay and remain in hiding somehow."

"Yeah, but what they will never tell you is how awful I was treated... I mean, fine I wasn't a good girl from the beginning, and when I was caught trying to kill mum, it was because I backed out at the last minute but no one believed me. Instead, they chose to drive me away by torturing me with different experiments, one of which was hypnosis which I ended up picking by the way."

"Is that how you were able to make us think we killed Sylvester and Raymond?... And those people at the hotel, you made them not remember you?" Grace asked.

"Yes, like I said I picked up some hypnotism in my six-month stay in that nuthouse and it proved to be really useful here."

"Fine, you said no one believed you," Margret said. "But we weren't even there when it happened, how did we ever wrong you? What did we do to deserve all this?"

"Well I figured since no one believes that I can change, then I will just be the bad girl they all want me to be... And you girls are my stepping stone into a world of serial killing."

"What do you mean?"

"After killing you girls here, I can go on to killing my parents and then every other person I don't like."

"But there's no way you can get away with this," Grace said. "they will know that you did it."

"They won't think it's me once I show them your confession of you being the killer," Cassandra said to Grace.

"What?"

"I am going to record you admitting to everything from the start, and I will call the police and hand it over to them, and then I will ask to see June and kill her too... Ugh, this will be so fun! Let's start." She brought out her phone. "Okay, once I hit the record button, you will say; I killed Sylvester and I killed Raymond, I planned everything from the beginning... Go on."

"Bitch, you crazy! I'm not doing that." Grace replied immediately.

"I'm crazy huh? Okay, okay... How about saying it with a gun pointed at your head?"

"I'm not saying shit, you are going to kill us either way. Just how dumb do you think we are?"

Cassandra, whose patience was wearing thin, decided to fire the gun a few inches away from Grace's ear. Margret and Joana screamed at the sound of the gunshot, thinking Grace was hit for sure. Grace also thought she was dead too as she became stiff but her heavy panting told her she didn't.

All expression was erased off Cassandra's face as she shifted her aim to Grace's face.

"Don't you for once think I am joking... Last chance, talk!"

Grace gulped. She was now shaking intensely but she still wasn't going to surrender. If I die, I die.

"Go to hell." She replied looking straight at Cassandra.

"Very well then," Cassandra said. Just as she was about to pull the trigger, a familiar voice spoke from behind.

"Veronica,"

Cassandra looked behind to see Hakim walking slowly towards her with his hands up.

"Uncle Kim, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Whoever you are, just calm down, you don't have to do this." He said coming closer.

"Stay back!" Cassandra barked as she pointed the gun at him.

At that moment, Cassandra forgot about Grace and Grace wasn't going to let that opportunity slip. She quickly rushed at Cassandra with a diving tackle. Cassandra whose instinct kicked in immediately began shooting in all directions as they both went to the ground.

The next thing Grace did was to snatch the gun from Cassandra's unsteady hand then throw it aside as far as she could. Finally, it was down to physical strength as the two girls struggled with each other on the floor. Grace was on top of her so she had an advantage but Cassandra wasn't planning on going down easily.

She kicked and punched but Grace countered by pinning Cassandra's legs with hers and warding off the punches with her hands although some of them managed to hit her face before she grabbed hold of Cassandra's hands. Seeing no option left, Cassandra tried sending a headbutt to Grace's face.

Grace anticipated quickly and used her hand to shield her face but it turned out that Cassandra wasn't after her face after all as she bit Grace's hand. Grace screamed as she tried to endure the pain but the damage was done already. She released her grip on Cassandra"s wrists and Cassandra had the upper hand immediately as she twisted her body, forcing Grace to the ground and getting on top of her.

She immediately reached for Grace's neck with both her hands and started strangling her. Grace tried all she could to remove Cassandra's grip but it only made her apply more pressure, Grace was losing and everyone else knew it.

Suddenly, Hakim's eyes came across the gun Grace threw away. He picked up the gun and pointed it at Cassandra with his shaky hands. He tried to steady himself but he couldn't, he was pointing a gun at his boss's daughter!

Still, he knew he had to stop her...

"Let her go or I'll shoot!"