>>9947395>Later that nightThere is total silence, except for the sound of Cassie's heels on the pavement as she leaves Wayne Parker's home in the wee hours of the morning. She halts next to her car, and scrolls down her phone's contact list before making a call.
"It's me," she says, upon receiving an answer. "He gave me what I wanted, I'll be seeing Foster soon." She frowns as the person on the other end of the line speaks. "No, Parker pissed me off, a longterm business arrangement with him won't be possible now. Hopefully his replacement won't make the same mistake. Send some men to his home, I'll text you the address. I made a bit of a mess in there, so just make it look like it was a robbery that went wrong."
Cassie hangs up the call and enters her car, sitting in silence behind the steering wheel for a few moments. "What am I doing?" she asks herself. Having one of her thugs follow Sola. Her numerous ploys to ruin things Sola cared about. And now everything that happened between her and that executive, all to get to Sheila Foster when she least expects it, for the sole purpose of sending a message to Sola.
Rationality is something Cassie deeply values. She always felt she had to. But this... this obsession is anything but rational. A lump forms in Cassie's throat. This wasn't supposed to be her. Not again. She had moved on from this. First there was her mother. Now her sister. They're the ones that are like this, that couldn't beat it. Not her. She was supposed to be different. Better. Tears well up in her eyes. She was supposed to resist it.
She wipes her eyes and turns the key in the ignition. Once before in her younger days she almost fell into the same abyss of insanity that claimed her mother, and that is doing the same to her sister. But she wiped out every last trace of the obsession that triggered it. And this time, the trigger is Sola Fire. Cassie grips the staring wheel. "Bishoujo at the Beach," she mutters, "Sola I'm gonna obliterate you."
