The message arrives on Wednesday morning. Different from Cameron's usual texts. Formal. Professional. Like a business proposal instead of a work order.
CLIENT REQUEST: High-value assignment. Client specifically requested Vedia Aquila by name. Recommended by previous satisfied client.
Project: Pre-sale cleansing, entire residential building Location: Albright Towers, 428 East Houston Street Timeline: This weekend (Friday evening through Sunday night) Payment: $25,000 Client note: "Heard she's thorough and discreet. Need someone who can handle scale work efficiently."
Accept assignment? Y/N
Twenty-five thousand dollars. For one weekend. More money than Mom made in two years. More money than seems real. More money than anyone should pay for cleaning.
But it's not cleaning. It's erasing. It's consuming. It's making problems disappear so rich people can get richer. And someone heard I'm good at it. Someone recommended me. Someone requested me by name.
I'm in demand. I'm valued. I'm the best.
The pride feels wrong. Feels dirty. Feels like something I shouldn't feel. But I feel it anyway. Can't help it. Can't stop it. Spent my whole life being nobody and now someone—multiple someones—think I'm worth requesting specifically.
I accept the assignment.
Cameron's response is immediate: Excellent. Client will be very pleased. Equipment delivery Friday afternoon. Building access codes will be provided. This is high-profile work. Represents significant opportunity for ongoing relationship with developer community.
High-profile. Significant opportunity. Ongoing relationship. Professional language. Business language. Like I'm a consultant instead of a monster. Like I'm providing a legitimate service instead of erasing victims of gentrification.
But the money is real. The demand is real. The reputation is real. And I'm good at this. Better than anyone. The Board's highest efficiency rating. The cleaner everyone wants.
That has to mean something. Has to matter. Has to be worth the cost.
Doesn't it?
Albright Towers. I recognize the address immediately. The luxury condos from the mirror job. The building where I accidentally opened a doorway. Where something came through. Where my reflection started moving wrong.
The building that sits on the edge of the Bowery like a wound. Like expensive scar tissue over old violence. Like gentrification made architecture.
Of course they want me back there. Of course the developer needs cleansing. Of course the building won't sell because it's infested with the ghosts of everyone it displaced.
I research Thursday night. Pull up building records. Development history. The story of how Albright Towers came to be.
2019: Block of tenements condemned. "Structural unsafe," "hazardous conditions," "necessary for public safety." Forty families evicted. Given thirty days to find new housing. In a city where housing doesn't exist. Where affordable means unaffordable. Where displacement means homelessness.
2020: Buildings demolished. Construction begins. Luxury condos. Studios starting at $3,000/month. One-bedrooms at $4,500. Two-bedrooms at $7,000. No affordable housing requirement. No units for the families displaced. Just luxury. Just profit. Just erasure of everyone who used to live there.
2023: Building completed. Sales begin. Marketed to overseas investors. Tech workers. Finance bros. Anyone with money. No one from the neighborhood. No one who used to live there. Just new people. Rich people. People for whom housing is investment instead of shelter.
But the building has problems. Tenants complain. Strange sounds. Bad dreams. Things moving when no one's there. Doors opening. Shadows in corners. The feeling of being watched. Being judged. Being hated by the walls themselves.
The developer tries normal solutions. Pest control. Security. Building management. Nothing works. Because the problem isn't rats or intruders. It's the dozens of families whose homes were destroyed. Whose lives were displaced. Whose existence was erased to make room for luxury.
And now he needs me. Needs someone who can erase them again. More thoroughly. More permanently. Make them disappear so he can sell units to people who won't know. Won't feel. Won't care about the bodies buried under expensive floors.
I'm gentrification's cleanup crew. The supernatural enforcer for displacement. The tool that makes ethnic cleansing clean.
I know this. Understand this. Recognize exactly what I'm doing and who I'm helping and what it means.
And I take the job anyway. Because twenty-five thousand dollars. Because Mika's college fund. Because my reputation. Because being needed. Because I can't stop.
Friday evening I arrive at Albright Towers with my professional equipment. Three large bags. Silver-inlaid salt. Blessed water. Ritualized bleach. Industrial sage. All the tools for efficient mass erasure.
The developer meets me in the lobby. Elf. Male. Fifties. Expensive suit. Polished shoes. The kind of person who looks at buildings and sees profit margins instead of homes. Who looks at people and sees obstacles instead of humans.
"Vedia Aquila?" He extends his hand. I shake it. His grip is firm. Professional. "Damien Thorne. Thank you for taking this on such short notice. I've heard excellent things about your work."
"From who?" I'm curious. Who's recommending me? Who knows what I do?
"Hotel management downtown. They said you handled a delicate situation with remarkable efficiency and discretion." The businessman. The one who attacked the prostitute. The one whose rage I still carry. "And the Property Board vouched for your capabilities. Said you're their top performer."
Top performer. Like this is sales. Like I'm employee of the month. Like erasing people is something to excel at.
"What's the scope?" I ask. Professional. Business-like. Pretending this is normal work.
"Entire building. Twenty floors. Eighty units. We've had complaints from nearly every tenant. The issue seems... pervasive." He looks uncomfortable. Doesn't want to say haunted. Doesn't want to admit the building is infested with the people he displaced. "I need it completely remediated before the investor tour next Monday. Complete cleansing. Every unit. No residual... activity."
Every unit. Eighty apartments. One weekend. Forty-eight hours to erase dozens of families. To consume their displacement. To make their suffering disappear.
"Twenty-five thousand," I say. "Half upfront."
"Of course." He pulls out his phone. Transfers money. My banking app buzzes. $12,500. Pending. Real. "The other half upon completion and verification. I'll need to inspect each unit Sunday night. Confirm the work is done."
"It will be." I'm confident. I'm good at this. I'm the best.
He hands me a master keycard. "Building access. Every unit. Security has been informed. You'll have privacy. Take whatever time you need. Just... have it done by Sunday midnight."
"I will."
He leaves. Drives away in his expensive car. Back to his expensive life. Leaving me alone in the lobby of a building built on bones.
I can feel them. The moment he's gone. The shimmer is everywhere. Thick. Concentrated. Decades of lives compressed into supernatural residue. Families and children and elderly and disabled. Everyone who couldn't afford to stay. Everyone who got pushed out. Everyone who lost their homes so this place could exist.
Through my Stain-Sight, the lobby glows. Not the soft shimmer of individual hauntings. This is different. This is collective. Accumulated. The rage and sorrow and desperation of displacement made manifest.
The building itself is haunted. Not by people. By history. By violence. By the systematic destruction of community for profit.
And I'm here to erase it. Make it clean. Make it sellable. Make it like none of those people ever existed.
I take the elevator to the twentieth floor. Start at the top. Work my way down. Systematic. Efficient. Professional.
Unit 20A. Young family. Human. Three children under ten. Evicted after rent tripled. Nowhere to go. Ended up in a shelter. The echo plays in the living room. Parents arguing with landlord. Begging for more time. Being told no. Being told progress can't be stopped. Being told they don't matter.
The children's echoes sit in the bedroom. Crying. Not understanding why they have to leave. Why their home isn't theirs anymore. Why the place they felt safe is being taken away.
I set up my salt circle. Pour blessed water. Apply the ritualized bleach. Professional. Efficient. The echoes fade. The shimmer dissolves. The family disappears.
Into me. Their fear flows into me. Their desperation. Their children's confusion. All of it settling into my chest like sediment. Like poison. Like foreign emotions I have to carry now.
I move to the next unit.
Unit 20B. Elderly orc woman. Lived here forty years. Watched the neighborhood change. Watched her friends leave. Watched rents rise. Couldn't keep up. Evicted at seventy-three. Her echo sits in the kitchen. Just sits. Staring at walls. Waiting to die. Knowing she'll die soon. Knowing displacement at her age means death.
I cleanse her. Watch her fade. Feel her resignation settle into me. Her acceptance of death. Her understanding that the system doesn't care about old people who can't pay.
Next unit.
Unit 20C. Family of six. Beastkin. Wolf like me. Three generations in one apartment. Grandmother, parents, three children. Living cramped because it's all they could afford. Evicted when building condemned. Split up afterward. Couldn't find housing for six. Grandmother went to nursing home. Parents and children to different shelters. Family destroyed by displacement.
Their echoes argue. Blame each other. Blame the system. Blame themselves. The children cry. The grandmother stares out windows that don't exist anymore. The parents age visibly, dying from stress and separation.
I erase them. All of them. Feel their family bond breaking. Feel their love turning to loss. Feel it all flowing into me.
I work through the floor. Unit by unit. Each one the same. Different people. Different species. Different ages. But same story. Same displacement. Same erasure. Same violence dressed up as progress.
By midnight I've cleared floor twenty. Ten units. Ten families. Maybe forty people erased. Consumed. Integrated into my body as foreign emotions I'll carry forever.
I should sleep. Should rest. Should take a break. But the building is humming. The district is hungry. And I'm on a deadline. Twenty-five thousand dollars waiting. Reputation to maintain. Excellence to prove.
I keep working.
Saturday I cleanse floors nineteen through ten. Ninety units in twenty hours. Barely stopping. Barely breathing. Just salt and bleach and sage and erasure. Family after family. Elder after elder. Child after child.
All displaced. All erased. All sacrificed to gentrification. All consumed by me.
The emotions accumulate. Layer on layer. Fear and rage and sorrow and desperation. I can't tell which feelings are mine anymore. Can't separate Vedia from the dozens of people inside me. Their experiences blend with mine. Their memories—though I don't have their memories, just their emotions—feel as real as my own history.
I'm becoming container. Repository. Storage facility for displacement. For systematic violence against the poor. For the emotional cost of making poor people disappear so rich people can have nice apartments.
By Saturday night I'm shaking. Hands trembling. Vision blurring. The black veins have spread. Cover my entire left arm now. Solid black. No skin visible. Just veins. Like Marcus's arms. Like the final stage.
And creeping up my neck. Onto my face. I feel them branching across my jaw. Up my cheek. Toward my eye. Soon they'll cover my face completely. Soon I won't pass for human at all.
But I keep working. Can't stop. Won't stop. Have a deadline. Have a reputation. Have twenty-five thousand dollars waiting.
I'm addicted. The work is compulsive. Necessary. Like breathing. Like eating. Like something my body needs to function. The district's hunger is my hunger. The building's need is my need. I can't separate myself from the work anymore.
I am the work. The work is me. Nothing else exists. Nothing else matters.
Sunday I finish. Floors nine through one. Every unit. Every echo. Every family. All of them cleansed. Erased. Consumed.
By Sunday evening, Albright Towers is silent. Empty. Clean. No shimmer. No echoes. No evidence that dozens of families ever lived here. Ever suffered here. Ever lost their homes here.
Just luxury apartments ready to sell. Just investment properties for overseas buyers. Just profit margins made clean by erasing history.
I stand in the lobby at 8 PM. The job is done. Complete. Thorough. Professional. Exactly what the developer wanted. Exactly what I'm best at.
And then something breaks.
My left arm goes numb. Just stops working. Drops to my side like dead weight. The black veins pulse. Spread. Accelerate. I watch them grow in real-time. Creeping up my neck. Across my jaw. Up my cheek. Toward my eye.
My vision blurs. The world tilts. I try to stay standing but my legs don't work anymore. Give out. I collapse. Hit the marble floor hard. Taste blood.
Vomit. Can't stop it. Can't control it. My body is rejecting something. Rejecting the consumption. Rejecting the accumulated emotions. Rejecting all the people I just erased.
Blood. I'm vomiting blood. Dark blood. Black blood. Blood that looks wrong. That smells wrong. That is wrong. Mixed with something else. Something that isn't blood. Something that came from the cleansing. From the consuming. From eating eighty apartments worth of displacement.
I hear footsteps. The developer. Damien. He found me. Sees me on the floor in a puddle of blood.
"Jesus Christ. I'm calling an ambulance—"
"No." I manage to speak. Voice weak. Broken. "No ambulance. Can't explain. Can't help."
"You need a hospital. You're bleeding—"
"Can't help me." I try to stand. Can't. My left arm won't work. The veins have spread too far. Consumed too much. "Just... just need to get home. Please. No hospital."
He looks torn. Wants to help. Wants to call 911. But also doesn't want complications. Doesn't want questions. Doesn't want his building associated with someone dying in the lobby.
"I'll call you a car," he says finally. "But if you collapse again, I'm calling 911. I'm not letting you die here."
Not letting me die here. Fine if I die elsewhere. Just not in his building. Just not associated with his property. Just not complicating his sale.
The car arrives. He helps me to it. I drag myself inside. Leave blood on his expensive suit. Leave evidence of what his cleansing cost. Leave a mark he'll have to clean.
Appropriate. Poetic. Meaningless.
The car takes me home. I drag myself up three flights of stairs. Each step agony. Each movement requiring effort I don't have. But I make it. Get inside my apartment. Lock the door.
Mika isn't home. At a friend's house. Study group. Won't be back until late. Good. He doesn't need to see this. Doesn't need to see his sister collapsed in a pool of blood because she spent the weekend erasing people for money.
I crawl to the bathroom. Pull myself up using the sink. Look in the mirror.
The black veins cover my entire left arm. Solid. No skin. Just black pulsing veins like Marcus's. Like the endpoint. Like the transformation nearly complete.
And my face. They've reached my face. Creeping up my jaw. Across my cheek. Branching toward my eye. Soon they'll reach it. Soon they'll cover it. Soon my face will be black and everyone will know. Everyone will see what I've become.
I made it two weeks as an official cleaner. Two weeks before the transformation reached my face. Before it became visible. Undeniable. Obvious.
Mom lasted seventeen years. Marcus lasted twenty. I'll last maybe three months total. Maybe four if I'm lucky. The professional equipment accelerates everything. Makes me more efficient. Makes me consume faster. Makes me burn out faster.
Maximum value extraction. That's what the Board calls it. Get the most use out of cleaners before they transform completely. Before they stop being useful. Before they have to be discarded and replaced.
I'm being used up. Consumed. Transformed. And I can't stop. Won't stop. Even now. Even after this. Even after vomiting blood and collapsing and barely making it home.
I check my phone. Banking app. $12,500 pending. Second half of payment. Job complete. Client satisfied. Reputation enhanced.
And Cameron's message: Excellent work. Client extremely pleased. Already requesting you for future projects. Word is spreading. You're becoming the go-to cleaner for high-value assignments.
Word is spreading. I'm becoming known. Requested. Valued. The best at what I do.
Which is erasing the victims of gentrification so rich people can profit from displacement.
Monday morning I drag myself to the bodega. Need food. Need supplies. Need to pretend I'm still human enough to eat normal food.
Samira is working. She sees me and her face goes pale.
"Jesus Christ, Vedia."
I know what she sees. The veins on my face. Visible now even under makeup. Can't hide them anymore. Can't pretend they're allergic reaction or stress or anything normal.
"I'm fine," I say automatically.
"You're not fine. You look—" She comes around the counter. Grabs my arm. "You need a hospital. Right now. This isn't normal. This isn't anything I've seen in my pre-med classes. This is—"
"They can't help me."
"How do you know? Have you tried? Have you seen a doctor?"
"I know." Because the contract acknowledges transformation as expected outcome. Because the Board tracks my degradation scientifically. Because doctors can't fix supernatural consumption. Can't reverse what the district is doing to me. "It's not medical. It's—it's something else."
"Then tell me. Let me help. Please." She's crying now. Actually crying. "You're killing yourself. I can see it. You're dying and you won't tell me why. Won't let anyone help. Just keep working and working and getting worse. For what? Money?"
For Mika. For his future. For his escape from the Bowery. For giving him the life I'll never have. For making my death mean something.
But I can't tell her that. Can't explain. Contract prohibits disclosure. And even if I could—if she knows, she's in danger. The Board threatens families. Threatens anyone who might interfere. Better she doesn't know. Better she thinks I'm just self-destructive. Better she hates me than gets targeted.
"I'm fine," I repeat. "Just stressed. New job. Long hours. It'll get better."
"It won't get better! You're getting worse! You look like—like something is eating you from inside. Like you're being consumed. Like—" She stops. Looks at me. Really looks. "What are you doing? What kind of work makes you look like this?"
I can't answer. Just stand there. Useless. Dying. Transformed. Monster wearing her friend's face.
"I can't watch this anymore," Samira says quietly. "I can't watch you destroy yourself and pretend everything's fine. If you won't get help—if you won't even tell me what's happening—I can't... I can't keep doing this."
She's ending our friendship. Cutting me off. Protecting herself from the pain of watching me die. Smart. Healthy. Exactly what she should do.
"I understand," I say.
"Do you?" She looks at me. "Do you understand you're killing yourself? Do you understand you're going to die if you keep doing whatever you're doing? Do you understand and just don't care?"
I understand. I know. I accept it. Traded my life for Mika's future. Signed a contract that acknowledges transformation. Agreed to it all. Eyes open. Fully aware.
"I'm sorry," is all I say.
"For what? For dying? For lying? For choosing this over everyone who cares about you?" She's angry now. Good. Anger is easier than grief. "Save your apologies. Just... just go. I can't look at you anymore."
I leave. Without buying anything. Without saying goodbye. Without trying to explain or defend or justify.
She's right to cut me off. Right to protect herself. Right to choose her mental health over my suicide-by-cleansing.
Another relationship gone. Another person I've lost. Another sacrifice to the work.
Soon there'll be no one left. Just me and the district. Just me and the cleaning. Just me and the transformation that's consuming me piece by piece.
Tuesday afternoon, Mrs. Kowalski summons me. Literally. Knocks on my door. Tells me to come to her apartment. Not a request. A command. The kind old women give when they've had enough. When they're done being polite. When they need to intervene.
I go. Too tired to resist. Too broken to argue.
Her apartment smells like sage and rosemary and old magic. Protection wards glow softly—visible to me now even without trying. The building itself hums with power. Old power. Protective power. The kind that keeps bad things out and good things safe.
The kind I'm erasing for money.
She sits me down. Makes tea I won't drink. Pulls out a photo album. Old. Leather bound. Carefully maintained.
"My father," she says. Opens to the first page.
Young man. Maybe thirty. Smiling. Surrounded by family. Looking happy. Healthy. Human.
"That's the last photo before he became a cleaner."
She flips through pages. Year by year. Watching him age. Watching the changes. Subtle at first. Weight loss. Tired eyes. Then visible. Marks on his hands. Shadows under skin. Looking sick. Looking consumed.
"He started at thirty-two. Dead by forty. Eight years." She points to the final photo. Man in a hospital bed. Completely covered in black veins. Face, hands, everything. Eyes empty. Not dead yet but not alive either. "The work took everything. Made him into this."
Marcus. She's showing me Marcus. Showing me my future. Showing me the endpoint of the transformation.
"I watched it happen," she continues. "Watched him disappear piece by piece. Watched him stop being my father. Stop being human. Become just... function. Just cleaning. Just the work." She looks at me. "And I see it in you. Same progression. Same signs. Faster even. You won't last eight years. You'll be lucky to last eight months."
"Three months," I say. "Maybe four. Board says I'm 70% converted. Critical threshold in three months. Complete transformation in four."
"And you keep working anyway."
"I signed a contract."
"Contracts can be broken."
"Not this one. It's binding. Perpetuity. The Board owns me."
"The Board doesn't own you. You just believe they do." She closes the photo album. "My father believed it too. Believed he had no choice. Believed he had to keep working. Believed his family needed the money. Kept believing until there was nothing left to believe with."
She pulls out another box. Filled with items. Salt. Herbs. Crystals. Different from mine. Not industrial. Not processed. Natural. Traditional. Old methods.
"There are other ways to cleanse," she says. "Ways that don't consume you. Ways that help spirits move on instead of erasing them. Peaceful methods. Respectful methods. Ways that acknowledge their humanity instead of destroying it."
She shows me. Old rituals. Passed down through generations. Creating safe passage instead of forcing erasure. Honoring the dead instead of erasing them. Making peace instead of making them disappear.
It's beautiful. Respectful. Human. Everything my work isn't.
"The Property Board wouldn't pay for that," I say.
"Then quit the Property Board."
"I can't. Contract—"
"Fuck the contract!" First time I've heard her curse. "You're dying. Literally dying. You have months left. Maybe weeks if you keep doing mass cleansings like Albright Towers. Is money worth dying for? Is a contract worth your life?"
"Mika—"
"Will lose his sister either way! Either you quit and live poor or you keep working and die rich. Either way he loses you. But at least if you quit, he gets more time. Gets to say goodbye. Gets to have you in his life a little longer."
She's right. Of course she's right. But she doesn't understand. The money isn't just money. It's security. It's opportunity. It's escape. It's everything we never had and now can have. Everything Mom couldn't give us and I can.
"I can't quit," I say quietly.
She looks at me. Long moment of silence. Then: "Child, you signed your death warrant."
"I know."
"And you're not going to change your mind."
"No."
She stands. Gets something from her cabinet. Small vial. Dark liquid. "When it gets too bad—when the transformation reaches the point where you're not yourself anymore, where there's more of them than you inside your head—take this. Quick. Painless. Better than letting the district finish converting you. Better than becoming what my father became."
Poison. She's giving me poison. Mercy killing for when I'm too far gone. For when transformation is near complete. For when dying is better than continuing.
"Thank you," I say.
"Don't thank me. Just promise you'll use it. Don't let them make you into infrastructure. Don't let them use you after there's nothing human left. Garrett told you the same thing. I'm just giving you the means."
I take the vial. Put it in my pocket. Next to my phone that keeps buzzing with job offers. Next to my wallet full of blood money. Next to the evidence of what I've become.
"I promise."
It's the only promise I can keep anymore. The only choice I have left. Not whether to stop. Not whether to quit. Just whether to die as Vedia or become something else entirely.
And I'd rather die.
That night I sit in my apartment. Alone. Mika is at a friend's house. Study group again. He's there more than here now. Avoiding home. Avoiding me. Avoiding watching his sister transform into monster.
Can't blame him. I'd avoid me too if I could.
My phone buzzes. New job notification. Then another. Then another. Three jobs. Five jobs. Ten jobs. The app is flooded with assignments. All requesting me specifically. All high-value. All urgent.
Word has spread. The supernatural community knows my name. Knows I'm efficient. Knows I'm thorough. Knows I erase people completely and don't ask questions and always finish the job.
I'm in demand. Popular. The go-to cleaner for anyone who needs problems permanently disappeared.
I should rest. Should sleep. Should let my body recover from the weekend. From erasing eighty families. From consuming that much displacement. From vomiting blood and collapsing and nearly dying in a luxury lobby.
Should. But I don't. Can't. The pull is too strong. The district is hungry. I'm hungry. The need to work is physical. Visceral. Like addiction. Like compulsion. Like the work has become the only thing that makes me feel real. Feel valuable. Feel like I matter.
I accept a job. Small one. Just one apartment. Just one family. Just $3,000. Easy money. Quick work. Won't take long.
Then another. And another. Five jobs accepted before midnight. All for tomorrow. All stacking up. All feeding the compulsion.
The district is pleased. Cameron texts: Remarkable productivity. You're exceeding all projections. Consider yourself our top priority cleaner.
Top priority. Best cleaner. Most valued. Most productive. Most efficient at destroying people.
I'm addicted to the praise as much as the money. Addicted to mattering. To being needed. To being good at something even if that something is monstrosity.
This is who I am now. Not Vedia the sister. Not Vedia the friend. Not Vedia the person. Just Vedia the cleaner. Vedia the eraser. Vedia the district's digestive system.
And I can't stop. Won't stop. Will keep working until the transformation finishes. Until there's nothing left to transform. Until I'm just function and hunger and foreign emotions wearing dead girl's skin.
Three months. Maybe less. Maybe only weeks if I keep working like this. Keep consuming like this. Keep burning through myself faster and faster.
But at least I'll matter. At least I'll be valued. At least I'll be the best at something.
Even if that something is dying.
Even if being the best means being nothing.
Even if mattering means erasing everything I am.
I'm Vedia Aquila. I'm twenty years old. I have weeks to months left. And I can't stop working because stopping means admitting I destroyed myself for nothing. Means accepting I chose this. Means facing what I've become.
Easier to keep working. Keep accepting jobs. Keep being needed. Keep mattering.
Until I don't matter anymore. Until I'm just another dead cleaner. Just another body the district used up and discarded.
Just another name in Mrs. Kowalski's photo album. Just another warning nobody heeds.
Just another person who traded everything for nothing and called it purpose.
But at least Mika will have money. At least he'll go to college. At least he'll escape.
That has to be enough.
Has to be worth it.
Has to mean my death wasn't meaningless.
Even if it was.
Even if nothing I do matters except to make rich people richer and poor people disappear.
Even if I'm just tool. Just weapon. Just the thing that makes gentrification clean.
Tomorrow I'll work again. Accept more jobs. Consume more violence. Transform more. Die more.
Because that's what I do now. That's all I am now. That's all I'll ever be until the transformation finishes and there's nothing left.
Just the work. Just the cleaning. Just the compulsion.
Until the end.