Ryder reacts a lot more violently to her "secret" than she did to his. "You what?"

"Nobody cares what you've done in your past life," sighs Kitty, rolling her eyes. "This is our life now, and we're living it the best we can." Her fingers curl around the railing behind her. "Sometimes I think it's because our lives sucked so bad that we're here in the first place."

Ryder doesn't say anything for a long moment. Kitty's just about to let the quiet, dying sun warm her face when Ryder starts barfing up words so fast that Kitty can hardly understand him.

"Whoa. Whoa there, mister," she yells. "Slow down."

Ryder takes a deep breath. He closes his eyes. Exhales… inhales. Turns to face Kitty again, his face solemn. "I've killed people." He looks down at his handgun. "I was a… a bodyguard, you could say. And in the world that I worked, killing the assassins first was something I had to do every other week. But… that's not why I'm here, I guess. That's not how I died."

Kitty gets that this guy's about to dump a shit-ton of emotional baggage on top of her. She's tempted to brush him off—if he wants hugs and kisses, she's not the girl to talk to. She's the one who pulls frying pans out of the same magic hammerspace that Tina procures her everlasting ninja stars from. Really, she'd rather give him the bird than comforting words.

But at the same time, Kitty knows that a listening ear is comforting enough.

And this guy's had a really rough first day.

So she doesn't say anything. He takes this as his cue to continue.

My girlfriend, Marley—she came down sick one day. Nobody knew what was wrong with her or how she caught it. She just collapsed one afternoon and didn't wake up for months. A coma, you know. And I was there with her every morning as soon as… after work, just waiting.

When she finally woke up, she didn't remember anybody. She'd forgotten everybody… except me.

Except she thought I was her older brother.

It hurt a lot at first—she'd get fidgety when I tried to kiss her, stuff like that… but I think it was just a month before I finally came around to loving her, not as a girlfriend, but as a sister. I just… I just loved her that much, you know? It's… yeah, it's confusing.

She didn't remember anything though. Not the colors of fall—and she was so excited the first time she saw snow, and those winter lights hanging on the trees at night…

I bought her a magazine every day. Fashion, food, house, technology, Christmas. She saw the mall and she really wanted to go. She wanted to be free of the hospital box—the only place she could actually remember. So I planned to ask her doctors; see if she could get a vacation or something, right? Just let her out of the hospital for one day, even if she couldn't walk, and I could just put her in a wheelchair and push her through the snow—hell, I could even carry her, she was so fragile and light and beautiful…

The doctors said no, of course. She was terminally ill; they were just waiting for her to die. Her parents disagreed too. They wanted her to die slowly, cooped up in that tiny hospital box. And I…

I had to take her out at least once. Marley had to see the world lit up at night for once in her life.

So I broke into the hospital after visiting hours. Nobody was around; it was Christmas' Eve and most everybody was at home. My entire extended family was at home too, everybody except me, because I was carrying Marley on my back.

I literally had a thousand bucks in my pocket. We were going to sit underneath the huge Christmas tree and make a wish on the Christmas star, and then we were going to go out and eat something… Christmas food, whatever. It was downtown; somebody was bound to still be open. And then we'd go shopping and I would buy anything and everything she wanted.

I would do anything for Marley.

It wasn't until we got to the Christmas tree that I realized that she was crying. Warm tears dripping down the back of my neck. Mumbling something. I couldn't hear.

By the time the ambulance arrived, she was gone. The crime that finally did me in was the involuntary manslaughter of my girlfriend. I still don't know what Marley's last words were, but I do know that I was the one who killed her.

Oops, I accidentally killed my girlfriend.

Oops, I accidentally raped my little sister's best friend.

It's all the same.

Kitty's body is shaking. Her arms are folded so tightly across her chest that she's shaking. Her handguns press tightly into her back and, for a split second, she has the urge to pull one out and put it to Ryder's forehead and blast out his brains, commit that last act of victory that she hadn't been able to do in a past life.

No, she's changed. Not all hot guys with muscles are like this. She's been here with Sam and Brody and Jake for so long and, for the most part, they're really nice guys and she can just tolerate them.

But past trauma is still trauma.

He smiled, though it never reached his eyes. Her young self observed that at least; but she failed to see what the dark, stormy look in his eyes really meant. It was her undoing.

She thought he was opening up to her. She thought he was confiding in her, telling her his hurt and grief and sorrow about his most recent breakup, and she just wanted to heal him.

She started the kiss. It never ended.

"I can't believe you'd say that. You told me last night that you had a crush on him!"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Clarington. My daughter has never lied to me before."

"Ohmigod, here she comes."

"Seriously, just look at her. Gro-o-oss."

"She probably wanted it."

"Kitty Wilde's just a jealous wannabe bitch."

"No way in hell would I fuck her ugly face."

The look of absolute fear in his eyes when, one year of terror and self-loathing later, she shot him once, twice, three times. When she walked up to his twitching, blubbering body and shoved the barrel of her father's pistol right between his eyes and… and then she couldn't do it. Her wobbly resolve collapsed and she was a monster and she ran in panic—only there were suddenly policemen all around her, and no longer thinking properly, she shot at them too. They tazed her. She pulled out the electrifying wires and tried to run for it. They tazed her again. She fell to the ground, no longer in control of her body, and the men were on top of her, holding her down, holding her still, keeping her in place and no please it hurts oh my god let me go—

"Kitty," Ryder calls, startling her out of her memories. "I…"

Kitty just walks towards the doorway leading back down to the music room. "Your past life is already past," she whispers. "This is our life now, right here. And screw those Reapers, we're going to live it."