It felt, to Rosalie at least, that the entire world had stopped, that time had slowed down and that each second now lingered for longer.

Christopher was standing in front of her, the man who killed her parents, the man who killed her friends, the man who probably killed her boyfriend.

Maybe this was fates cruel trick and maybe she had lived this long, seen this much death only to succumb to the same fate, or maybe this was her time, maybe this was her opportunity to finish the heartbreak, to stop the destruction.

Her eyes flicked to the gun which lay on the ground a few feet from her.

‘Now, where is Parker?’ Christopher looked around them. ‘He must be around here somewhere.’ Christopher stood a little distance from her, playing contentedly with the knife in his fingers, eyeing her carefully.

‘He’s safe.’

 ‘No one’s safe from me Rosy.’ Christopher laughed. ‘You should know that. He isn’t safe, you’re not safe, even that little sister of yours isn’t safe from me.’

A shot of fear ran through Rosalie at the mention of Mackenzie. Not one of them made a move, Rosalie still on the ground as Christopher lurked a little distance away. The long cut along Christopher’s face had stopped bleeding, but the dried blood now stuck to his cheeks and neck, staining his skin an awful shade of deep red.  

Christopher’s gaze moved from Rosalie to the surrounding trees, searching for Parker.   

She didn’t waste a moment, getting up and running towards the river, stopping only to pick up the gun. The move wasn’t something that Christopher expected but he was only seconds behind her, the knife in his grasp.

Rosalie ran, stopping only a few feet from the water and turned around, pointing the gun towards Christopher.

The man stopped right in his tracks, his green eyes wide. Rosalie realised that he didn’t know about the gun until now, the barrel pointed towards his chest, only a few feet of distance between them. Christopher seemed to tighten his hold on the knife, but his face softened forcibly.   

‘Rosy, you don’t want to do that.’ Christopher spoke slowly and carefully with obviously fake emotion filling his voice. ‘You don’t want to hurt me more than you already have.’

Rosalie felt anger rising up in her chest at every one of Christopher’s words, ‘Hurt you? You?’ She spat out, ‘You killed my family and you hurt my friends! How have you been hurt here?’

The calmness that covered Christopher was gone in an instant, ‘They deserved that! All of them!’ He roared making Rosalie step back a few steps even though she was the one holding the gun. ‘We were so happy Rosy, I was happy for the first time in my entire life and they all ruined it! How can you so easily forgive them for everything they did?’

‘What they did wasn’t nice but you have killed people Chris,’ the anger was slowly being replaced by sadness and grief for all that she had been through, for the situation they were in. Her voice broke as she spoke. ‘We weren’t happy Chris. I know that you thought that we were perfect, but we weren’t.’

‘Yes we were!’

The sound of gushing water was loud in her ears and her heart was thumping erratically in her chest. She was scared, her body shaking slightly, causing the gun to shake considerably in her hand. ‘You are sick Chris, please stop this,’ she pled. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’ Rosalie wanted all of this to end, for all the violence and suffering to stop. ‘Look at where we are Chris,’ her eyes wondered to the gun and then to the knife held low in Christopher’s hand. ‘Please just go, please stop this,’ she begged.

Christopher scowled, ‘No, I won’t stop until everyone who hurt me is dead, and that includes you.’ Christopher took a threatening step forward.

‘Get back Chris,’ she tried to make her voice as strong and commanding as she could as her finger ghosted over the trigger of the gun in her hand. ‘I don’t want to hurt you but I will.’ Rosalie tried to take another step back but she was up against the bank of the river and she was cornered.

He shook his head condescendingly, ‘No Rosy, you won’t shoot me.’

Rosalie’s eyes filled with tears which she refused to shed as she looked into Christopher’s eyes. Christopher was the first person who made her feel special, loved, like she was the most amazing and precious thing in his world. Because of that she had overlooked so many things, the way that he was short with people, the way he would speak to her friends and the violent behaviour she told herself was ‘just a phase’. She had turned a blind eye so many times that apart of herself actually started to believe it. She never spoke up, never made a move, she let herself be a pawn in Christopher’s games, she had facilitated behaviours that lead to so much death and pain, but that was over now. She wasn’t going to make the same mistakes again. Her eyes were open and she had seen so much suffering and pain, but today that ended. She wasn’t going to be the victim today.

Rosalie’s face hardened, ‘Step back Chris or I will shoot you.’

Christopher lunged forwards, bringing the knife up in a smooth motion.

Rosalie squeezed the trigger the moment he moved towards her and the next moments seemed to happen in slow motion. The bullet left the barrel, slicing through the air and burrowing in Christopher’s chest. The man gasped at the impact, his eyes widening as he looked down at his chest.

He stood for only a few seconds, blinking in shock and making inaudible noises, before falling to his knees and then onto his back with a thud.

Rosalie dropped the gun, staring at her hand in shock before turning her eyes to Christopher who was on his back, sucking in his last breaths.

She fell to her knees and watched silently as Christopher’s eyes closed and his ragged breaths stopped.

I just killed Christopher. It’s over. He’s dead.

Rosalie didn’t realise that she had been holding her breath until she was gasping for air. She had to pull herself together, Parker was still out there. She blinked back tears, pulling herself back up to her feet. She walked along the riverbank, stopping at Christopher’s body.

She tried not to focus on the blood that covered his clothes and pooled around his torso, she tried not to look at his face, at the face of the man she had killed.

Her thoughts raced around her mind as she kept going, following along the riverbank on stumbling feet.

She didn’t know how long she walked or how far, it seemed like she was separate to her body as if she was in a dream. Her ears were filled with the sounds of the river, the gush of water just made her think of blood, gushing blood, Christopher’s blood, Sadie’s blood, Parkers blood, Deon’s blood. Too much heartbreak and suffering to be condensed into lines of thought, instead images of death jumbled around her head, mixing in with reality. She stumbled and fell numerous times while walking, but she kept going, she had to.    

At some point she realised that the sun was rising, a light orange glow caressed her skin now.

She only really snapped back to reality when she looked up to see houses.

Civilisation. Safety. Help.  

She ran then.

The houses near her were small and old fashioned in mostly neutral colours. She ran to the closest one, banging on the door with as much strength as she could muster.

A few moments later a woman opened the door. The woman couldn’t have been older than thirty, her blonde hair messy, clad in simple black pyjamas.  

The blonde had a slightly annoyed look on her face, but the moment she took a second to fully look at the girl in her doorway, her expression changed completely.

‘Are you alright?’ The woman asked with wide, worried eyes.

‘I s-shot him’ Rosalie said, her face expressionless, ‘Please help me.’

The woman blinked a few times, ‘A-Are you Rosalie? The girl everyone’s been looking for?’

Rosalie couldn’t even process what the woman was saying, suddenly the world seemed to be spinning. The woman caught her just as she was falling, leading her inside the small house to a couch.

‘Honey, you stay right here, alright?’

Rosalie just sat there, blinking a few times as if she was trying to stay focused on something. The woman left and came back with a phone to her ear.

‘-she’s at my house, please come.’ The woman tried to hand Rosalie a glass of water but the girl just looked at it, as if calculating the odds of it being dangerous. The woman placed the glass onto the coffee table as she continued to speak into the phone.

The lady shook her head, ‘No, she’s alone – yes I am sure-’

‘Paul, she is covered in blood.’

Rosalie looked down at her body to see that she was covered in red. Blood stained her shirt and jeans, her arms and hands were covered in the stuff and the ends of her hair were dripping with the liquid.

Rosalie was so confused, when she was running in the woods she had been dirty, yes, but defiantly not covered in blood. There were dark patches in her memory from just after she had shot Christopher, she realised that she must have gotten down on the ground next to him and held him. Maybe she had tried to revive him?

She shook her head, her own memories were getting away from her.

The woman was suddenly looking at her, no longer holding the phone.

‘Rosalie? I’m Katie, I was on the phone to Paul, my husband and the local sheriff. He is going to be here any moment with some help, ok?’

Rosalie nodded, causing Katie to look slightly relieved that the girl was understanding what she was saying.

Katie leant towards Rosalie slightly, speaking slowly and carefully. ‘Paul, he said that you were with other people, where are they?’

Rosalie shook her head, blinking back tears, ‘I don’t know, I think he killed them, but I don’t know, I couldn’t find them, they left the cabin, they- they-‘

‘Shhh’ The woman linked her hand with Rosalie’s, the young girl falling against the woman, her head resting heavily against her shoulder.

‘It’s going to be ok Rosalie.’ The woman cooed as Rosalie pressed further against her side.

Rosalie didn’t cry, she wasn’t going to let the tears fall. She didn’t know who survived, she had to be strong, for all she knew Parker and Sadie and Ben were ok, somewhere.

They stayed like that for a few more minutes before all hell broke loose.

Men in uniforms swarmed the room, multiple people were talking to Rosalie, but all she could see was blood. Every time she blinked, every time she allowed herself a sliver of memory she saw blood. Imagined it leaking out of Benjamin, remembered the pool of blood that surrounded the man she killed. Even her body was covered in the horrid, red liquid.

The next thing she knew, the room was cleared except for Katie, a man who was holding her hand and two other men. These men looked different from the others, more professional. One was older and the other was quite young.

They both sat on the adjacent couch, not crowding Rosalie, and she finally felt like she could breathe. Katie and who she assumed to be Paul had stood behind the couch the other men were on but the cops said something to them both before the couple left the room.

‘Rosalie?’

Rosalie’s attention came to rest on the older cop.

‘Yes?’ she asked softly.

There was a relieved sigh from everyone in the room and Rosalie wondered how long she had been unresponsive for.

‘Is it alright if we ask you some questions?’

The girl nodded hesitantly.

‘Are you hurt?’

Rosalie shook her head, but looking down she could see that behind the foreign blood was some of her own from the struggle and falling in the woods. Cuts and scrapes lined her arms and legs, but she wasn’t in any pain.

‘We have people who are about to reach the cabin, they are searching for your friends. Are your friends at the cabin?’

Rosalie shook her head.

The older cops face turned more worrisome, ‘Is Christopher Bryant at the cabin?’

She shook her head again.

‘Was Christopher Bryant at the cabin?’

Rosalie nodded.

‘Can you tell me what happened?’

Rosalie ignored the question. ‘Please find them. Please.’ Rosalie whispered.

‘Where are they?’

This was her chance to get help, she snapped herself out of it and spoke up. ‘Parker, he’s at another cabin, near the river. The rest are d-dead, I-I think, I don’t know.’

The cop nodded slowly, ‘Did Christopher Bryan kill them?’

‘Y-yes, he-he had a knife, he attacked us, slashed our car tires. We, we were stuck out there, and I didn’t know what to do.' she stuttered. 'D-Deon was killed, Parker found him, but then Sadie went missing and Ben never came back and Parker and I had to run, we had to.’ She told them, ‘Please find Parker.’ She pled.

The young cop pulled his phone out of his pocket then, walking out of the room. Rosalie hoped that he was going to tell people that Parker was at that cabin. The idea of Parker still all alone in that cabin, not knowing whether he was safe or not, sent shivers up her spine.

‘Where is Christopher Bryant now?’ The older cop asked.

The image of Christopher lying still next to the river came to her mind. ‘I killed him.’

She looked down at her hands.

I killed him. I killed someone. I killed Christopher.

I'm a murderer.

So Christopher's dead! Who's happy? I know that I'm relieved to see him gone!

Next chapter will reveal who survived!

Only one more chapter then the epilogue left!

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