THE WALK THERE is one Ellie-Marie is hoping she won't remember when this is over.

It's nothing special.  She can't think too much of her ankle stinging each time the gauze shifts or the way her mind starts to wander when someone isn't talking to her,  scratching the itch of distraction without the problems she's already causing herself.  This is the most peaceful fifteen minutes that she's received in the last forty-eight hours,  but that's the problem.  It's peaceful.  Her life feels close to normal,  less like a walk to whatever her maniacal neighbors were hiding and more like a family stroll.

If every family is violently shaken, two of the members include a special agent and a detective she doesn't know well,  and none of them are exactly mentally well,  then it would be perfect.

Ellie-Marie wants to be fine.  It's a motivator for her to keep these absentminded conversations going,  making quiet comments about passing places like she doesn't still have blood crusted into the creases of her palms or a scream still looping in her head.  She's the one who typically has herself together, has a semblance of a plan or at least a method of shining when everything around her has shorted out.  It's less of an expectation from her than it is a routine.  Ellie can pick up these little pieces and craft a mirrorball to hang in the middle of a dancefloor.  She's the only one now who isn't still tearing up at random, choosing to think about literally anything else.  Like how Tara’s hand runs rough only around the outside of her knuckles before softening out everywhere else.  Maybe how Mom and Dad keep glancing at each other,  maybe how Kirby-

Yeah, no.  Not gonna think about Kirby.

“Is she gonna show us proof or is she taking us for a tour around the city?”   Tara asks in what only succeeds as being a stage whisper,  breaking the fifty-six seconds of silence that Ellie has been trying to maintain in order to not seem as hopeless as she feels.

“In her best purple pantsuit?  Never.”

Tara chuckles under her breath,  that same raspy sound that makes Ellie-Marie feel a little less doomed every time she hears it.   “Figures.  She doesn't seem like the type to enjoy sweating.”

“She's not.”   Another glance is spared her mother's way when Ellie confirms this, lips quirking briefly.  “I don't think anyone does,  though.  Especially not in a cute outfit.”

“Now you sound like Rory.”

Ellie can't help giggling now,  shaking her head at the comparison.   “I’ve learned a lot from our group mother.  Rule number one: never endanger a super-cute outfit.”

Tara doesn't get the chance to respond before the murals come into view.

The chill that runs down Ellie-Marie's spine is enough to raise goosebumps along her arm.  Tara's hand tightens around hers as their little group goes further down the alley,  this surrounding emptiness feeling more like a trap with each passing second.  Nothing should be this barren when the walls have the content of a movie theater lining its halls with promotional posters.

She supposes it's nothing new for many.  The Stab franchise has operated for years based on the past Ellie-Marie,  her family,  and her friends have all fought to get away from for good.  Fans are everywhere,  and after reporters finally got a hold of Ellie-Marie Tatum Abigail Riley,  the legacy daughter last year,  she hasn't heard the end of it.

To say she doesn't enjoy these multiple installations of what's haunted her for years would be an understatement.  Dad still partially deserves the side-eye he gets for his brief involvement,  and Mom's coverages certainly have never helped matters.

This franchise is her birthright, it seems.

There's no relief when they slow to a stop.  It only gives more time to observe the writings on the wall,  only allows her eyes to slide over where Tara stands to spot the greeting of the past.

Wanna play a game?

I don't play games with strangers.

I don't play games with strangers.

I don't play games with strangers.

The knife to her stomach,  the cool metal against her skin,  the way her little hands curled into fists tight enough to speckle crimson against her nails.  The sight of blood pooling on their floor from the back entryway,  dark enough that Ellie had questioned if it was ink at the beginning.  The glove around her throat,  the tears in her eyes.  What will Daddy's guts look like on the floor?

She's not nineteen.   She's not in New York.  She's not safe,  nowhere is safe,  and if she doesn't save herself soon then she's gonna get everyone killed,  everyone including herself.

“Ellie?”

No.

“Ellie, what's wrong?”

I don't wanna die.

“Ellie-”

“Els?”  Buffy's voice is as gentle as it was when they were kids,  hoarse yet strong enough that she manages to break through what's building around Ellie now.  “Ellie, hey.  You good?”

A laughable question.  None of them are good,  Ellie thinks.  She's doing the best out of all of them yet here she is,  acting like she has the same level of trauma as a veteran returning from war on the fourth of July.  Her hands are shaking as she pulls away from Tara's hold,  running her hands over her face.  It's almost been thirteen years.  She has to get over this.  Fighting in her sleep is one thing,  but her friends need her now.  She already couldn't save Anika.

There's this absurd idea that clarity lies in death.  Ellie will be the first to argue against that.

“I'm fine,”  she forces out,  shaking her head once more before her gaze diverts.  Most of their little group has already gone inside,  whatever inside is lying beyond that open door.  It's only her,  Tara,  Buffy,  and Lou remaining outside.  The ones straggling in the back are the same ones this little memory is holding from answers.

And by the looks of it,  Lou isn't buying into what Ellie's trying to sell.

“I'm fine.”   She repeats, aiming for another smile.   “Seriously.  Just psyched out,  I guess.”

It's enough of a truth to get those looks of concern to fade,  though she can tell no one buys into this eighth of a truth.  She can't blame them; she's spacing out staring at crappy graffiti of all things.

It's only when she motions for Tara and Buffy to enter ahead of her that Ellie realizes how little she was believed.  All the internal bracing she's trying to accomplish crumbles the moment she turns to face the door,  her back not to Lou for even a second before her cousin is stopping her.

“Ellie.”   As always Lou’s voice is stern,  emotionless in the way Ellie-Marie knows isn't the case.  She has a heart,  a big one,  just like Mom does.  Neither of them have to say anything about how they were raised when someone sees how similarly distant they each try to behave.

Turning back around Ellie looks up to Lou,  trying to ignore that same damning question in her peripheral vision.  She's not going to let this get her.  She won't let this get her.

“Yeah?”

“That's a trauma response.”

She should have expected this, honestly.  Lou is a psychiatrist,  a professional,  and she's spent a good amount of time psychoanalyzing to do it to everyone around her at all times.  Ellie's not new to her cousin's skills,  even-  she's had her own analysis performed a great deal of times.  Even if one in particular ended with Ellie crying in her bedroom facedown into a pillow,  she can't say any have been wrong.

Still she chooses to play dumb,  shifting on her feet to avoid that damn wall.  There's gotta be an alternate exit out of here,  right? She won't have to see this again.  She just has to avoid it,  and that's fine.   “What're you talking about?”

Lou arches a brow.   “You know.”   Pointedly her eyes flicker to what now lies behind Ellie-Marie,  the question she dreads like the quiet kid dreads being picked on in class.

“It didn't-”

“You don't have to tell me.”   Lou cuts her off with a learned disinterest,  arms folding over her chest the way Mom's always do.   “It's not your obligation to tell me anything about that night.  All I know is what your parents told me and I am content to keep it that way.  However,  it isn't your responsibility to pretend you have been in the correct headspace to revisit memories you have evidently been burying.”

“Lou-”

“You aren't fine, little light.  No one expects you to be.”

The uncommon reassurance hits Ellie right in the gut.  Despite how difficult it feels she finds herself with a sorrowful,  watery smile,  barely withholding tears at the words she's been longing for without even realizing it.  They're not necessarily true-  as the guiding light of their group,  Ellie is meant to be fine-  but they're needed now more than ever.  She knows better than to cry in front of her cousin,  who is once again similar to Mom with the inability to emotionally navigate these things,  but the knowledge doesn't negate how much the assurance means regardless.   “Thank you.  For checking on me,  that is.  It's...yeah.  Thanks."

“I don't require gratitude for basic decency.”  Lou's words are a stark contrast to how her face softens,  this miniscule shift that Ellie can pick up with ease.  “You never have to lie to me,  Ellie-Marie.   One,  you're shit at it.  Two,  I don't believe you.  Three…well.  I would hope you know by now that I am trustworthy.” 

“I do.”   Ellie can swear this without thinking.  There is no one she trusts more in this world than her family,  or the people she considers family,  and she's confident enough to be open with such a fact.  Her people are safe.  They wouldn't hurt her on purpose,  and if they did,  Ellie loves enough to forgive without an argument.

There's normally only one way she would close out a moment like this.  A chronic hugger like Ellie-Marie only knows one solution above all else.  It's the same one that Lou doesn't take anywhere near the same amount of pleasure in.

Second option it is.

“Air hug?”   Opening her arms Ellie steps forward slightly,  sure to not accidentally brush against the other woman.  Lou doesn't like being touched.  This,  Ellie's own alternate invention,  is meant to be the next best thing.  Maybe even the first once she figures out how to make it less awkward-seeming.

Despite how no one else will probably ever believe her,  Lou accepts.

EVERYTHING IS FINE when she first steps into the shrine.

It’s creepy,  inarguably so,  but it's nowhere near as threatening as a knife readying itself to be stabbed in her chest.   That makes it far less horrific than some things Ellie has already faced.  Like a secure roller coaster next to crawling across a ladder over fifty feet in the air,  this can be on the lower end of help me now dear God.

Mom and Dad have lingered back in a way that tells Ellie-Marie they were waiting on her.  No words are needed for once,  no tension to cut as she slots between them the way she always has.  Auntie Abi is standing at Uncle Luke's case,  twirling the ring that she never takes off around her finger.  Tara is pointedly striding by Amber's collection,  Buffy lingers near Wes’ while not quite looking that way.  Rory is making a deliberate goal of not even glancing back.

“They made a shrine?”  She asks anyway,  knowing Mom's got an entire inventory of information on this.  Sure enough Gale straightens beside her,  steadying herself in the way she always does before launching into an explanation.

“They were dedicated.  I’d admire their determination if it weren't fucking insane.”

“Gale.”  Like Ellie-Marie hasn't been a target of attempted murder more times than she can count on one hand,  Dad scolds Mom's language with the same tone he always has.  It's a familiarity that brings a strange comfort to their uncertain situation,  met with the same look Mom has always given him in response.

“She's nineteen,  Dewey.”

“Doesn't matter.”

“You're being overprotective again-”

“Do they have everything here?”  Ellie cuts in,  softening her tone in the way she knows can still make her parents melt.  It wasn't too long ago that the three of them were in sync.  Truth be told,  she's beginning to think that it was never really lost despite distance and heartbreak.  “Like…everyone?  The victims,  killers,  artifacts or whatever?”

“Mhm.  They got it all from police evidence.”

“How?”

“Most cops are idiots.  If they're not idiots starting off,  they're easily persuaded into becoming idiots.”   Mom glances over Ellie's head once again,  not even bothering to don an apologetic expression.   “Sans one,  obviously.”

Dad's silence doesn't get to extend long before Mom continues,  lowering her voice for only Ellie-Marie and Dewey to hear.   “For example,  I don't trust Wayne Bailey.”

“He just lost his daughter,”  Dad whispers back.   “Don’t you think it's a little too soon to point fingers his way?” 

“Yeah, and Quinn mentioned that her brother died a little while ago, too.”  Hearing Dad wince sympathetically Ellie is quick to continue,  hoping he's not thinking of last year's potential misfortunes like she is.   “I don't know if he'd be all in on killing people right now.  That wouldn't be too ‘grieving father’ of him.”

“I see your point,  but consider this.”  Mom raises on hand to point towards the back of the shrine, where the killers seem to be clustered together.  Only two cases stand out amongst them;  aunt Julie and aunt Rebekah, right alongside their brothers.

And for aunt Rebekah,  right between her brother and her mother.

Her killer.

“Most parents, after losing one child, would do everything they could to make sure the others aren't in danger,  wouldn't you think?”

Dad's noticeably tense right now.  He's trying not to be,  Ellie can tell,  but he's not doing great at it.  His eyes have fixated somewhere else.  Without thinking Ellie-Marie reaches for his hand,  squeezing thrice before using her free one to tap against her mother's hip.  Careful.

Whether Gale realizes it or not,  that's up for debate.  Ellie thinks that she does,  watching her mother's face soften in a way she remembers from being a little girl.  “Nancy Loomis didn't do that,”  she continues,  carefully piecing her words together.   “After Billy died,  she took it upon herself to kill her remaining child.  No one said she enjoyed it,  but her motive was getting the family back together.  It was a practical suicide mission in the end.  Even though Rebekah's death is arguably one of the quickest we've seen,  it was a murder done by her own mother in the name of revenge and grief.”

Ellie-Marie cannot help the sound she makes at the recap,  squeezing her eyes shut in disgust.   “She wasn't a mom.”

“I agree.  Rebekah Loomis was her own tragedy,  but it was all brought on by her mother.  Or, in my humble opinion, her incubator.”  Mom completes this in the same author way she completes any story,  tearing her eyes from the shrine to face Ellie and Dewey once more.  “Who's to say that Wayne Bailey wouldn't have a similar motive?”

“But his son wasn't murdered.”  

“The how never means anything to these people.”  Dad answers,  seemingly not realizing he spoke until two sets of eyes are on him.   He clears his throat in a way Ellie knows she inherited from him,  running his free hand through graying hair.   “I wouldn't…I mean,  you know,  I wouldn't be the same person if I lost my kid.”  He very pointedly doesn't address Ellie directly here,  squeezing her hand like a different,  hypothetical child is the better option.   “The how doesn't mean anything.  Grief's, uh, it's weird.  That doesn't give someone a reason to get all-”

“Stabby?”  Ellie provides.  Like she knew it would, the comment makes him crack a smile,  finally looking back down to her.

“Yeah.  Stabby.  I'd just-  I don't think-”

“We don't have to think about that.”  Mom cuts in.  It seems to sever a rope of tension in Dad's shoulders,  relief slackening his grip on Ellie's hand ever so slightly.   “Because we're not losing a kid.  Point is, Wayne lost his son.  If he's anything like Nancy-  I’m not saying he is,  but the possibility is there-  who can say he wouldn't take out his remaining child and whoever was connected to her?  Maybe he's trying to reunite everyone in death.”

“That wouldn't explain targeting me, though,”  Ellie begins, confusion pushing her brows together.   “Quinn and I weren't super close.”

“No, but you're close with Bella.  She’s Quinn's cousin,  correct?”

“Yeah…?   But they just reconnected.  They haven't been close long enough for Detective Bailey to be this determined.”

“Doesn't matter.”  The answer is clipped.  Something about the tightness of Mom's throat tells Ellie everything she's afraid to ask now,  suddenly wishing they were bonded enough to reach for her mother the same way she could reach for Dad.  Mom has never been one for physical comfort,  especially not the way Ellie-Marie is,  but something about her says that she needs it.   “Combine that with your closeness to Tara-  Quinn's roommate-  and he’d have every reason to go for you.  At least,  he would in his mind.”

Dad's grip tightens once more.  It's like he believes he can keep her here,  living and breathing at his side,  if he just holds her.

It's the same method Ellie believed in as a little kid.  After last night,  she's beginning to think she'll indulge in it again.

“So we gotta keep an eye on him.”  Ellie-Marie finishes,  side-eyeing the case where Wayne stands now.  Richie Kirsch,  that freaky Reddit movie fan,  seems to have caught his eye.   “Don't let our guards down and everything.”

“Never.”  Gale affirms.   “He's in a position of power.   When the wrong people get there,  they only do one thing: abuse it.”

The warning makes Ellie's blood feel cold.  Snagging the skin of her lower lip between her teeth she nods,  slowly beginning to rescan the room.  She's enough of her mother's daughter to know how to investigate.

“Can we look around?”  Ellie doesn't have to fill in the blanks as to why.  Mom may not know her well,  may not know much about her at all,  but she knows of that detective streak Ellie-Marie has inherited.  Both of her parents do.  Perhaps that's why Dad lets go of her hand with a relenting allowance,  not needing to look Mom's way to see her nodding in approval.

“Go ahead.”

SHE GETS TEN minutes in.

Diving deep into the world around her is a nice distraction from what's surfacing within.  Each time she starts to think of Anika,  starts to think of Buffy,  starts lingering on what-ifs and what-abouts,  there's always a new detail to zero in on.  This Ghostface seems to be taking more than a bit of inspiration from the past,  from beginning with college students to mimicking Cici Cooper’s death with a climactic fall,  everything seems to be a direct callback-  as Buffy has probably already stated.

She can scan the room,  let her eyes linger on Judy and Wes’ memorials,  pluck at her nailbeds and play detective like she's been doing since she was old enough to remember.  It's a game of avoidance and Ellie-Marie would like to think she's good at that after all the work she's put into it, averting her eyes from Charlie's knife when she passes by the casing, choosing to narrow her eyes at Jill Roberts’ photo instead.  She made it more personal than Charlie did, after all.  She betrayed auntie Abi and aunt Sidney, she nearly killed Mom, Dad and Julie.  She was the definition of evil, which is easier to focus on now than it was at seven years old.  Her parents are fine.  Her aunts are all fine.  The trauma,  while irrevocable,  has a resting spot more on the memory than with a grave.

Ten minutes.  That's all Ellie-Marie gets before her eye catches a glimpse of something bright in her peripheral,  head turning because colors have always lit up her life even when she didn't believe they could.

When the rainbow pajamas come into her line of sight,  she can't see anything else.

She’s tried explaining it to her therapist.  It's like your brain becomes one of those rooms cartoon characters wind up in.

What do you mean by that?

Like…like you're in the middle.  You're always in the middle of the room, but there's a window that you can see out of.  You live in the room and yeah,  it's not great,  but you can force yourself to push open the window,  you know?  Then one day the person who put you in the room passes by the window and slams it from the outside.  You don't have a window anymore.  There's no way for you to leave, to see something better,  and the worst part is that the last thing you saw before realizing you're doomed was the person who got you there.  The walls are squeezing together,  your window is gone,  and if you close your eyes to try and make it go away then you just see that person.  No matter what you do, you're in this windowless room that's gonna press you into nothing and the last thing you see is that person.

You're saying the walls close in.

Yeah.

And there's no way out?

I mean, I hope there is.  I think there is.  I just haven't found it yet.

She's seven years old again.

Her shirt rides up each time Charlie Walker tauntingly drags the knife along her stomach.  The tip of it is sharp enough to feel like a pinch from a feather,  painful yet faint enough in the moment that she feels as though she could be dreaming it up.  Threats are whispered to her between chuckles and audio crackles that send shivers down her spine,  silent tears streaming down her chubby cheeks because the last whimper she let out was answered with a thin line of blood beading above her belly button.  He has one gloved hand wrapped around her throat,  squeezing hard enough that her inhales come with tiny wheezes yet she doesn't see stars against a fading background,  in pain but not suffocating.  Trapped but alive.  

“You're so small,”  he had whispered then,  the voice modulator making every deep breath sound like a threat.   “If I squeezed too hard,  I’d kill you before you got your third act.  Don't worry,  deputy junior.  You'll get your role.”

She was trying to understand then,  what would happen if she really did have to choose between her life or Daddy's.  She'd do anything to make sure her parents were okay,  but once she fell off the swings and he was equally teary eyed as she was while patching up her scrapes.  If she got hurt bad enough to go wherever aunt Tatum went,  Daddy would have to watch.  Hurting her would be hurting him.

Of course she fought back when he kicked in the door.  Of course she bucked and screamed,  of course she bit and scratched.   Between her life or her father's,  there was no real question.  Being the cause of his pain,  though?   That was,  and the answer was simple:  it would never happen.

She can't remember much after the searing pain went through her hip.  The world was a mess of crimson and black,  sounds a mess of gunshots and Daddy repeating her name like a prayer. 

“Elliebaby,”  he'd said,  speaking it like one word.   “Elliebaby no,  don't you go t’sleep baby I know you're tired but no,  don't you do that baby don't shut those pretty eyes of yours don't please.”

Sirens.  Pleading.  Blood,  hot and sticky and the same dark red that had pooled on their living room floor,  soaking her palms.   A haze of arms and doctors and kisses to her forehead,  each one more fierce than the last.  Only one image in her mind when she came to.

Maddie Reed,  her babysitter,  her friend,  her savior,  face-up behind the couch with her guts spilling over both sides.

Her bleach blonde locks had been stained a damningly bright red.  Her fingers were curled,  her mouth was open as though caught mid-scream.

Ellie couldn't go to the funeral,  but she knows they barely managed the open-casket.

Memory is more of a weapon than the knife that pierced her years ago.  Each wrongdoing against her makes Ellie-Marie chase kindness even more,  never wanting to be the hand around someone's throat,  never wanting to be the knife at the stomach.  You could either gut someone and permanently split them or you could stitch them back together with threads of love and compassion.

She's always going to choose the latter.

The knife of guilt guts Ellie enough as is.  She can be the best woman she dreams to be and it will still lie in her hand and her hand alone,  tip still pointed to her stomach,  her own hand now wrapped around her throat.  In a way,  she's been finishing Charlie's job for over a decade.

It's a room closing in on her.  Her window has disappeared.  She's keeping these walls from crushing her entirely with hands that have helped as much as they have hurt,  and for now that's got to be enough.

“You look pretty pale.”

The voice from behind her rattles Ellie-Marie from her glazed state.  One hand places itself on her hip as she whips around,  heart kicking into gears at the race track before she realizes who's spoken.

Kirby.

If anymore possible,  the knife twists deeper.

“I’m sorry!”  Ellie exclaims,  morbidly grateful for the abrupt distraction.   “Oh my God I am so sorry,  I didn't realize it was you!”

“Relax,  kiddo.  I’m a special agent,  I’ve faced worse.”  Kirby's hands remain casually by her sides as she steps closer to Ellie and her casing,  gaze flicking to where Ellie was fixated moments ago.   “I should've expected that,  actually.  You okay?”

“Yeah.”   Ellie responds immediately,  ignoring how much the lie seems to burn her throat.   “Yeah.  I was just thinking.  Sorry if I,  uh,  stressed you out or something.”

“You sure do apologize a lot,  don't you?”

“Yeah.  Sorry.”

The apology  (genuine,  amusingly enough)  is met with an eyebrow raise from Kirby,  arms folding over her chest as she steps closer.    “I don't need you to apologize to me,  y'know.  For anything.”

For anything.  Ellie-Marie knows what that's meant to be without any specifics,  knows that she's pretty noticeably darted away from Kirby as of late.  The only reason she makes no attempt now is because everyone is preoccupied,  meaning she has no conversations to try forging.   “Agent-”

“Kirby.  I’ve known you since you were five, kiddo.  You don't have any reason to address me with that formal shit.”   Kirby flashes a smile with the assurance,  shifting her hands from her pockets to her sides.  “I was actually wondering if we could have a little talk.” 

“Oh.”  Fine by her.  Anything to get away from this casing.  “No, yeah, no problem.   What's up?”

Kirby's face softens with what must be empathy,  eyes shifting back to rest on the pajamas Ellie stands in front of.  They both know.

That's the worst part.

“Twelve years.”   Comes the answer,  a patience to Kirby's tone that Ellie supposes was learned in her years of training.   “It's time,  Ellie.”

Not for the first time today,  the walls begin to close in.