Celeste

“Is this how people die?” I asked Joy quietly, standing beside her near the coffee station. “So suddenly. So violently.”

The entire office was subdued today—voices hushed, movements careful, as if everyone was afraid to make too much noise. The news had broken yesterday morning: Mina’s body was found in Riverside Park by joggers. The details that had leaked were horrifying.

“I still can’t believe it,” Joy whispered back, her face pale. “I know she could be... difficult. But no one deserves that.”

“No,” I agreed softly. “No one does.”

Despite everything Mina had done to me—the humiliation, the cruelty, the deliberate torture—I’d never wished her dead. Never imagined...