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You toss the pack underhand, sending it sailing through the air.
Her eyes fix on in, gleaming sharply behind her rose glasses. She reaches up for it, hands grasping before it arrives, then catches it like a drowning woman catching a life preserver. She takes a few steps back, grinning triumphantly. "Oh, honey. You don't know how much this means to me." She slides a long fingernail along a seam in the plastic wrap and slices through it, dropping the wrapper to the ground as she opens the box and slides out a cigarette. She places it between her lips and cups her hands around it. You see her press a fingertip to the end. There's a faint flash of light and fire. She puffs, taking a long drag. She backpedals a few more steps and sits down in the shade of the tree before exhaling, blowing a long stream of smoke. "Oooh yeah," she says. "That's good." She grins at you. "Thank you, sugar." The cigarette bobs as she speaks.
You're still impressed about the fire thing but you do your best to hide that. "I asked before but I'll ask again. What are you?"
She chuckles softly, blowing smoke. "You wouldn't understand." She shakes her head. "Honey if I knew just how little you knew about what was going on here then I don't know that I would have talked to you in the first place." She nods at you. "I saw those marks of yours and thought maybe you were savvy. Either you didn't make them or you don't know what they mean. Or maybe both."
You wonder how much Candi understood what she was doing when she did this to you. You wonder how much Virginia understands about what was done to you.
"Try me," you say. "I'm a quick learner."
She chuckles and takes another long drag. She purses her lips at blows a smoke ring. "Damn that's good." She sighs when she sees you waiting for an answer. "Time was I was somebody important around her. Time was folks respected me, came to me for help. Time was–" she pauses to smoke again, closing he eyes and savoring it. "Mmm." She opens her eyes again. "Time was I was just a person like you." She laughs humorlessly. "Living forever ain't such a great deal when you're stuck in a cell. Dig? Kinda becomes a lot like…"
"Hell?"
She gives you a look but continues. "Turns out I had people out to get me, folks I thought I could trust. People who wanted more than I was prepared to give." She stares out at the woods.
"How long have you been out here?" you ask, sensing she's said all she wants to about that.
"Hmm. You know, I left my calendar at home."
"When did you get trapped?"
"November," she says. "1978."
If she's telling the truth and you're right that she's never left then she's been in this ring for almost fifty years. You stare at her, trying to comprehend that. You wonder if she really understands exactly how long she's been in there.
"Why? What year is it?" She asks.
"Not 1978," you say. "And if you're not mortal anymore, what are you?"
