Annalise stood in Wes´ apartment, her face blank while Laurel, Michaela, Cassy and Connor explained what Wes and Rebecca told them, their voices overlapping as the tension in the room rose to a breaking point.
"Shut up!" Annalise silenced them and everyone took a deep breath, realizing just how much they were spiraling down in their fear. "Please Wes. Make sense of this."
"Everything they´re saying is true." He simply replied with a shaky voice
"So you think Rebecca killed Lila?" Annalise wanted to make sure and Wes´ eyes teared up as his peers looked at him, needing to hear it from him.
"Sam might have been innocent." Wes said and the room felt a lot colder as soon as the words left his mouth. Cassy pressed her lips together to avoid sobbing, making them tremble and her breathing shaky. Annalise didn´t say a thing. Instead she walked into the bathroom to where Rebecca was crouching on the floor and closed the door behind her. As soon as the door was shut everyone let out a deep breath, as though they had held it in the whole time.
"What if she didn´t do it though?" Cassy whimpered, getting the others´ attention. "I mean it still could have been Sam, right?"
"Like Wes said that night – we have to make a decision and commit to it." Michaela answered in a monotone voice before Rebecca screaming for help tore them out of their clouded state of mind.
Annalise ordered everyone to bring Rebecca to her house where they could discuss things in a safer environment. Michaela and Connor held the woman on each side as they entered the house, Laurel, Wes and Cassy walking behind them, Frank looking at them strangely with disappointment in his eyes.
"What the hell?" he hissed at Cassy who simply raised her hand, gesturing him to stop it.
"Not now Frank." She said as she walked by him and into the living room, where they sat Rebecca on the couch and Annalise removed the tape over her mouth, telling her to behave.
"Otherwise we stow you in the basement. You won´t like it." Frank added and the students looked at them, shocked at how natural this situation seemed to Frank and Annalise.
"Untie her hands." Annalise ordered after Rebecca promised to be good, resulting in them arguing that she would just run away. "We´re not animals. We don´t tie people up and hold them captive against their will!" the attorney shouted. "Who have you all become?" she said before walking into her office. Cassy walked to Rebecca staring her down with a blank face as she untied her hands. They locked eyes, neither of them willing to give away what they were feeling or wanting to say. The rest sat down on chairs and watched Rebecca closely so she couldn´t escape when suddenly Annalise burst into the living room again.
"We´re having the trial." She announced and everyone looked at her confused. "You´ve all convinced yourselves that we were wrong, that Sam didn´t kill Lila, that we got Rebecca off for nothing. And you feel unfairly persecuted, trapped." She said with a look to Rebecca. "Let´s figure it out once and for all. Let´s give Rebecca her day in court." Annalise explained that each of them would be a prosecutor on Rebecca´s case and they had to work out their evidence against her and statements to convict her. Everyone dug back into the case files Annalise had stored in the basement when Bonnie came and Frank explained her the situation.
"This is a recording I made from Rebecca´s psych evaluation with Sam." Annalise held up a flashdrive for everyone to see. "Watch it. Look for any discrepancies with what she said compared to police interviews. One hour. Then I wanna hear each of your cases against the defendant." She explained before leaving the students to their work. Cassy stood up and walked out into the hallway where she leaned against the wall, letting out a shaky breath, pressing her eyes together to keep the tears in them.
"You okay?" she heard Frank ask her and she looked at him, wiping a tear away that made its way down her cheek. "This must be hard for you."
"I really don´t want to talk about this now." Cassy tried to slip past him but Frank blocked her way. "Frank…I thought I could leave Lila´s murder behind me after we killed Sam, that the killer got what he deserved. Now I find out there´s more evidence against Rebecca than we thought and I don´t know what to make of it anymore." She admitted and Frank nodded, looking her straight in the eyes. He wanted to pull her into a hug but she quickly stepped back. "No. Not here." She reminded him of their agreement of not telling anyone that they were siblings when she walked by him to go back to the living room but his voice stopped her shortly before she reached it.
"I´m sorry." Frank whispered just loud enough for her to hear him and she smiled faintly.
"Don´t be. None of this is your fault." Cassy told him before heading back to her place where she continued going through the files.
Connor presented the motive of jealousy, in which case Rebecca would have murdered Lila for her beauty, money and social standing. Michaela argued that Rebecca talked about Lila being strangled in her first police interview, at which time the cause of death was not public knowledge yet. Laurel pointed out that in the psych evaluation Rebecca said that Lila left her phone at her apartment, although records on Sam´s phone show that he talked Lila several times that night, which means that Rebecca lied about that too. The sun has already risen when it was Cassy´s turn.
"Miss Robinson?" Annalise tore Cassy out of her thoughts.
"I don´t have anything." She stated as she leaned back into the chair she was sitting in.
"What do you mean you don´t have anything?" Michaela asked her confused, followed by Connor pointing out the evidence there was against her.
"Cassidy. What is it that you´re not telling us." Annalise asked the girl, clearly noticing that she had an inner conflict with herself.
"There´s one thing that´s not in any files or reports." Cassy finally gave in and started talking while she looked over to her nemesis. "I was on the roof that night."
"You what?!" Laurel asked her loudly while the rest looked around in shock, Cassy locking eyes with Rebecca.
"Some guy that had set up a meeting with Lila to deal drugs showed up at the sorority looking for her and said that she didn´t come. I was worried because she came home from Griffin´s frat party crying, running to the roof." Cassy started to tell them what happened that night and everyone looked at her tensely. "I was afraid she might have done something to herself so I walked upstairs and went on the roof to check up on her. But she wasn´t there…at least not alive anymore I guess."
August 29
1:55
"Lila! Please just talk to me!" Cassy shouted, desperately looking around the roof for her friend. "I´m sorry okay? I´m sorry we had that fight but please come out. I´m really worried about you." She walked to the edge to look down and check if Lila had jumped off the roof, her head feeling dizzy as soon as she registered the height of the building. Suddenly she heard footsteps approaching from inside and someone opening the door. Knowing full well that the sorority girls weren´t actually allowed on the roof and not wanting to get into any troubles with their house mother, she hid in a nook behind a wall.
"Lila!" she could hear Rebecca shouting. "Look don´t ignore me if you´re up here." Cassy pressed herself against the wall, not wanting for Rebecca to see her. However, she got even more worried as she realized Rebecca didn´t know of Lila´s whereabouts as well.
"Thankfully the fire escape was right beside me and I climbed it down and got back in through an open window." Cassy told her colleagues with tears in her eyes. "I´m sorry Rebecca." She said looking at the woman who clearly didn´t notice her back then and stared back with a confused look on her face. "I´m so sorry for not telling that when you were on trial."
"Why didn´t you?" Rebecca wondered and Cassy swallowed, the silence around her feeling heavy.
"I was afraid of how it looked." She confessed with a shaky voice. "I lied to the police, told them I barely knew Lila and if they found out about our huge fight and that I was on the roof probably only moments after she was killed…I would have been the first choice. And not knowing who did it almost killed me so it was easy to believe that it was you. To have you go down for it."
"That still doesn´t proof her innocence." Connor interfered and Cassy looked at him confused. "You said yourself Lila didn´t want to talk to you. Maybe she just hid from you and came out for Rebecca once you were off the roof."
"That´s very farfetched-" Cassy wanted to say but Michaela cut her off.
"But it is possible. Very likely actually. Your story is cute and all but she still lied about many details that just speak for her being the murderer." Michaela explained and Cassy looked to Annalise who had a thoughtful but tense expression on her face.
"Wes." Annalise sighed, not saying anything to Cassy about her secret.
"I don´t have anything either." He said with a doubtful look to Cassy and then to Rebecca.
"Of course you do. Rudy. He saw Rebecca the night Lila was killed wet, and she dosed him with PCP because she knew he was a potential witness." Michaela reminded him but Wes still didn´t say anything. Instead Annalise now started degrading their cases they presented.
"Where´s the actual evidence that this was a crime of passion?" she asked Connor before turning to Michaela. "And the detectives could have told her that Lila was strangled before they started taping her confession. "And Rebecca lying about having Lila´s phone doesn´t mean that she´s a killer." She told Laurel before turning to Cassy with a sigh. "And you. When you came clean to me about your relationship to Lila I asked you if there was anything else I needed to know and you decided that you being on the roof that night was not viable information?"
"I was afraid-" Cassy tried to defend herself but Annalise cut her off before she could finish.
"Afraid of me thinking you did this? Afraid of what the others thought of you? Afraid of looking guilty? Or were you afraid that Rebecca wouldn´t go to jail for that crime and you couldn´t see it as punishment for her driving a wedge between you and Lila?" Annalise asked and Cassy looked at her hands, unsure herself if there wasn´t a part in her that just wanted to do everything to have Rebecca suffer.
"Everything that you are presenting is speculation. You´ve been working with me for nearly six months now and this is the crap case you present me with?" Annalise was interrupted by a knock on the door to which everyone looked up scared as Bonnie went to answer it. It turned out to be the new prosecutor on Nate´s case, Emily Sinclair, who had an appointment scheduled with Annalise. Bonnie tried to send her away but the woman was persistent to speak with Annalise until the attorney herself came to the door and asked her to meet her in her office in an hour.
After Annalise and Bonnie left the office to meet with Sinclair the students took turns with watching Rebecca while the rest could get some sleep. Cassy was sitting on a chair opposite of Rebecca, not daring to say a word after she revealed her secret.
"So, you were really gonna let me rot in a jail cell for something I didn´t do?" Rebecca asked out of a sudden and Cassy looked at her regretful, not saying a word before looking back down to her hands. "You know, before you came Lila talked about you a lot. First I thought you were just another privileged girl but then she told me about your struggles and I was actually excited to meet you. Really thought we could be friends." Cassy looked up surprised. "No kidding."
"Lila wasn´t just using you, you know that right?" Cassy wanted to make sure and Rebecca nodded. "She was just scared to admit it."
"Look at us becoming friends over this." Rebecca joked and Cassy scoffed.
"Don´t get ahead of yourself. We are not compatible. We just want the same thing for Lila – justice. Do I think you did it? I don´t know. Everyone else certainly does. Do I hope it was Sam? Yes I do. That makes me feel a tiny bit better about killing him." Cassy nodded with a faint smile which Rebecca replied.
"Time´s up…my turn." Connor interrupted them and Cassy nodded as she stood up and walked to the kitchen to get a snack when she got startled by Frank standing in a dark corner with a cup of coffee.
"Geez, creepy much?" she exhaled as she grabbed a water bottle and banana.
"So, you were on the roof that night?" he asked but it didn´t seem much like a question. Cassy simply nodded and Frank seemed very keen on wanting to find out more. "And you didn´t see anything?"
"No, like I told before I only heard Rebecca and then climbed down the fire escape." Cassy furrowed her eyebrows as she took a sip from her water. "Do you think I lied?"
"No, just maybe you left out some more details." He shrugged making Cassy sceptic about his sudden interest.
"Are you suggesting I did something?" Cassy wondered confused but didn´t get an answer when suddenly they heard Asher knocking and flashbacks of the night of the bonfire came back to her.
"Since when do we lock this door?" the two heard his muffled voice when the joined the other students in the living room. Frank gave Rebecca a warning look before answering the door, telling Asher that he couldn´t come in while the rest watched Rebecca closely.
"My guess is that you don´t want me here because you´re pissed about me and Bonnie." They could hear him say before everyone looked around partly shocked and partly disgusted about the new revelations.
"Surprise." Cassy whispered with a faked cheery voice when Laurel looked at her. Rebecca used the distraction to take Michaela´s phone and text someone before they were able to take it away from her. Cassy´s eyes widened when Michaela covered her mouth with her hand in shock, once she saw that the woman actually sent something to someone.
"What are we gonna do?" Cassy mouthed scared, hearing that on top of things Frank wasn´t able to shake Asher off.
"We´re gonna have to get her to the basement." Laurel whispered not less nervous and Wes nodded, standing up and walking over to Rebecca.
"No, no, no-" she warned him before he put his hand over her mouth and pulled her up. Michaela took her other side while Cassy looked out for Frank and Asher before rushing them down the basement stairs where Connor and Laurel followed them to. The six of them could hear their classmate urging Frank to promise not to tell anyone about him and Bonnie before Annalise came in and talked to him, making him leave the house.
"She texted someone." Michaela announced once they heard Asher had left and Cassy and Frank were busy tying Rebecca against a post. "Eggs 911, Lawyer´s house. What the hell does Eggs 911 even mean?"
"Why don´t you call it and find out?" Rebecca answered to Laurel asking who´s number it was.
"Whoever it is, they have my number now." Michaela realized followed by Connor adding that this whoever knew they had Rebecca.
"We´ll deal with it later." Frank tried to calm them down as he and his sister finished tying her up.
"Just like you´ll deal with me later?" Rebecca wondered, still not seeming too bothered by the whole situation. "What are you gonna do to me, by the way? Are you just gonna leave me down here forever? Or are you gonna kill me Sam-style?" she asked with a stern look to Wes while the rest looked around, unsure themselves what they´re gonna do.
"Everybody upstairs." Frank ordered and they hesitantly walked up, Cassy wondering what he was going to do.
"Don´t hurt her." She warned him quietly and he gave her a side-eye.
"Go with the others." He simply replied with a cold demeaner.
Some hours went by and the five students lounged in the living room when suddenly Annalise came up from the basement, her angry face clearly showing that her talk to Rebecca didn´t go well. She started to scold Wes about his mopey attitude and that he should man up and talk to Rebecca.
"She doesn´t trust me anymore." He whimpered with tears in his eyes as the others watched them with interest.
"Then make her damn it." Annalise shouted and Cassy exchanged awkward looks with Laurel while Wes made his way to the basement. "Are you a man or not?"
"You sure he shouldn´t take the trophy?" Connor asked Annalise who looked at him with warning eyes.
"You think she´s gonna talk to him?" Michaela asked her peers and Cassy rolled her eyes with a deep breath.
"No. Her game´s not over yet." Cassy answered convinced and Connor scratched his head nervously.
"How do we know the game´s over?" he wondered and Cassy looked at him with a serious expression.
"When either we or her are behind bars." She replied in a monotone voice, sending shivers down everyone´s spines.
A few minutes after Wes went to Rebecca he came back to tell them what she told him.
"Rebecca was wet because she was hiding in the water tank. She went onto the roof to find Lila, just like Cassy said, and she did. Dead in the water." Wes explained and Cassy sighed, relieved to know that she was wrong about her playing a game.
"So Lila really was dead when I went to check on her." Cassy slowly realized and Laurel put her arm around her shoulder to spend some comfort. "If I had just gone up there a bit earlier, maybe I would have been able to save her." She said with tears in her eyes as she leaned into Laurel for a hug.
"Or you would have seen Sam and he would have killed you too." Connor tried to make her feel better.
"Why did she never tell us that story?" Laurel asked Wes, who simply replied that she knew no one would believe her which sparked an argument with everyone saying Wes shouldn´t believe her either.
"She´s messed up! That´s what happens when you grow up like she did. People take advantage of you, you think everyone´s out to screw you, so you do stupid things like lie and deal drugs and hurt people before they can hurt you." Wes explained, his love for her clearly still there as everyone silently listened to him. "That doesn´t make you a murderer. Please…I believe her." He turned to Annalise who nodded in agreement.
"We´re done trying this case." Annalise announced, causing Michaela to lash out and say that they couldn´t believe her. "What do I always tell you? There´s no truth in the courtroom, there´s just your version against theirs. That´s how the justice system works. It´s not what´s right and what´s fair, it´s who tells the most convincing story."
"So what do we do now?" Connor asked the attorney, knowing that Rebecca wasn´t gonna keep quiet about them holding her captive, however, Annalise also didn´t know what they would do.
After Annalise went out to talk to Nate the five students discussed what they could do about Rebecca.
"I mean we still have all that evidence against her. We could pin Lila´s murder on her." Connor suggested but Wes immediately shut it down, not wanting to hear any more of that case.
"Do you think we could bribe her for her silence?" Laurel thought out loud and Cassy scoffed.
"All she´d do with that money is take it, get a new identity and give the police an anonymous tip about our crimes, landing us in jail." She said pointing around her to her classmates.
"How about we pin Sam on her?" Michaela proposed, earning confused looks.
"But Nate´s already on trial for that." Laurel pointed out but Michaela shook her head.
"Not if we say that she killed him because he killed Lila. An act of revenge." She explained and Connor nodded.
"And we could testify that it actually was her who did it." He added and Michaela nodded happily with having found an escape for them.
"Wait guys…what´s holding her back from telling the court that we tied her up in Annalise´s basement?" Cassy wondered and Frank, who was just a silent listener to that point stood up to join in.
"She was already on trial for Lila´s murder, now she will be for Sam´s, no one will believe her. Besides it´s five against one. She´s got no chance." Michaela promised and looked to Frank for approval.
"Cassy´s right. And even if the court doesn´t believe her, we went to great lengths to frame Nate, the police will find it suspicious that we always come up with new suspects." He told them but Michaela shook her head in disbelief.
"No one asked you to frame Nate." She mumbled quietly but Frank heard her.
"Oh so you´d rather have your asses rot in a jail cell?" he asked sarcastically, making Michaela roll her eyes before he walked to Bonnie´s desk. "Make up whatever story you want, Annalise will not approve of this."
"If we do this we all have to be on board." Cassy said, looking over to Wes, indirectly asking him for his consent.
"No. I killed Sam. I will not pin this on her." Wes stated confident and Michaela sighed when they suddenly heard Annalise come in.
"How about we let her decide?" she stood up and walked up to their boss, swiftly followed by Connor and Laurel as they presented the idea.
"Stop. We can´t go changing stories with the police, telling a different version every time we feel like it." Annalise cut them off and Frank annoyed them with a told you so. "It´s over. We have to let it go."
"She´s gonna go straight to the police." Connor worried but Annalise said she would convince her not to. "How?"
"I´m gonna ask her nicely." The attorney sighed before leaving the living room, making the students scoff and shake their heads, unable to believe that her plan was actually going to work.
"Anybody wanna go out for a last meal?" Cassy asked with a fake smile, not lifting the mood in any way. "Nobody? Might be our last chance to eat something good." The girl sat down on the couch when they suddenly heard Annalise calling for Rebecca from her backyard. They collectively ran outside just to see a distraught Annalise standing there anxiously asking who let her out. Cassy started to breathe shaky when she realized what this could mean for them.
"She wins. She wins her game." She whispered as her eyes welled up and the rest also was hit by the realization of them going down for all they did.
Cassy sat on the couch in Frank´s apartment, her knees pulled to her chest and her face buried in them. She sobbed lightly as the thoughts of Rebecca tipping them of to the police, Sam, Lila and everything bad that had happened this semester wouldn´t leave her head. She straightened up and walked to her purse on the floor to grab her phone before dialing up a number.
"The number you have dialed does not exist." She heard a computer-generated voice say on the other end.
"Hey Lila, it´s me…Cassy. I know you can´t hear me anymore but this feels close enough." Cassy sobbed into the phone. "I miss you. I am so sorry for our fight, I wish I could go back in time and take it all back-" she had to cut herself off as the lump in her throat cut off her airways and she struggled talking, tears running down her red and puffy face. "I loved you so much, more than you ever knew. You were my best and for a long time only friend and I-…I just miss you so incredibly much. Rest easy." She cried before hanging up and crying out loud, being able to let all her emotions out because Frank was still at Annalise´s. Suddenly her phone rang and Cassy twitched, a cold shower running down as she looked down and saw an unknown number.
"Hello?" she asked carefully before a familiar voice greeted her happily.
"Hey darling, it´s me mom, I got a new phone. How are you?" she heard her mother´s voice and Cassy tried to keep her composure.
"Good, how are you?" she lied, her throat in pain of her pressing down the urge to cry.
"Are you sure? You sound a little off." The woman asked worried and after a short pause Cassy couldn´t hold it in any longer and started crying uncontrollably.
"I lied. I´m not okay. I need you mom. I messed up and I need you real bad." She sobbed into her phone, finally ready to let her mother see that she wasn´t okay all the time she said she was.