"You were supposed to be worse off. Because I saw it. I saw how they were mean to you, too. They talked shit about you like they did with me. We went through the same shitty things, and that's why I couldn't get why you weren't having a hard time like me."
Cen's hand slams against the wheel.
"Why did you still seem so fucking happy?"
She's shouting all of a sudden, and she starts pounding the wheel with every word she spits out.
"Why were you still so fucking nice?"
Bam,bam,bam,bam,bam,bam,bam!
"And how dare you fucking pity me when all you had was a pretty face?"
Pounding the wheel no longer seems enough for Cen this time, and she begins yanking at it so hard the whole car starts rocking precariously even as we race down the road at full speed.
You're human - nothing but a pathetic human—-"
Veins start to pop out of her throat, her screams so loud it's almost as if she believes she's trying to convince herself of her own words.
"And I'm the daughter of a demigod, so why are you the one who's happy and not me?"
"That's what started it all, you know. You made me SO ANGRY, so fucking angry that it's because of you I managed to do this."
Cen throws back her head with a laugh that I can only describe as soulless, and I can feel my blood turning into ice as I watch the girl's reflection reveal eyes that slowly darken from silver into red...and when she turns around to smile at me, she's transformed completely into a five-foot-tall frog.
My skin crawls as I watch the girl's thick amphibious lips part wide open, and her long tongue snaps in and out. Cen lets out a croaking sound that I suspect is another laugh, and then she's shapeshifting again, and it's all I can do not to scream as she turns into the face of my nightmare.
"Say hello to Hector, bitch."
Her tone is as deep as the man she now is, and so vilely amused that I can feel my fears completely leaving me until all that's left is rage.
"The only reason Hector left you alive is because we wanted to see you suffer," s/he snarls. "I even made Hector here blackmail Myrrha into becoming friends with me. I wanted you to realize you're nothing like me...but instead you ended up in fucking Rosethorne!"
Cen takes a hard right with a sudden yank on the wheel, and I can see her lips stretching into a smile of cruel pleasure while she watches the side of my head bang against the car window.
"Sorry about that," she sings out again.
Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.
"I was worried you'd be a little bored with too much storytelling, so I thought I'd make things exciting a bit."
FUCK YOU.
"Your eyes are swearing at me." Cen is pouting, but because she's in her other form, she just sounds like an adult trying to be cute by doing baby talk, and it's gross as hell. "That's not nice—-"
She forces the car to take another hard turn, and my head bangs against the window yet again.
"Learned your lesson yet?"
This time, I don't meet her eyes.
"That's better."
The car starts to slow down, and my heart begins to race.
"Now, where were we? Mm...oh, I remember now. Myrrha. Dear, dear Myrrha, who only died because you had me so mad I ended up telling her a little too much, and so she had to go."
Cen says the last words so simply, so, so simply that I know there's no innocence left in the other girl. Murder has ceased to mean anything for Cen, and now I also have Myrrha's blood on my hands.
"That's when I had my lightbulb moment, too, you know. It happened when Hector was raping Myrrha, and I started thinking, why shouldn't you go, too? So that's when I went "missing", and I just waited patiently, you know."
Cen searches for my gaze through the rearview mirror. "Things like this mustn't be hurried," she tells me earnestly, "so I was cool with waiting. But you know what's not cool? You showing up in club when I least expected you—-"
Her voice has started to rise again, and I know I have to prepare myself.
"And finding out later that you've become the fucking girlfriend of Sub Rosa's god!"
She slams on the brakes in the next moment, and even as I feel my nose break as I hit the back of the headrest at the wrong angle, I know it's now or never—-
"I hate you, I fucking hate you, I HATE YOU!"
And so busy she is at hating me that she doesn't even realize I'm not paralyzed like she thought I was, and I've already unbuckled myself—-
She's so fucking busy hating that she doesn't even hear me pull her knife out of the driver's throat—-