"YOU WERE DEAD.”

Tara's voice is ragged from behind Ellie.  It's fascinating how different each of them seem to be right now,  gathered like flies in a flytrap and struggling with whatever fate that leaves them with.  Buffy is trembling at her side,  Abi’s breathing has gone shallow and Rory doesn't seem to be moving at all,  frozen in either fear or memory.

Ellie-Marie wants to laugh.

Hysterically,  maybe.  Deranged,  broken like a scratched record that's unable to play anymore.  Maybe she'll laugh like the child she was before her life warped,  maybe she'll laugh and maybe the tears threatening her eyes won't fall in perfect sonic cohesion.

Maybe the burning betrayal will fade and she'll get drunk off the saltiness that it leaves behind.

Her shoulders bow in like her body is reacting to an emotion she cannot convey fully.  Her mind is one big gray area and everything hurts and she's not entirely sure she's here anymore,  caged away the same way she's beginning to realize she's always been.  Trained by manipulators and ringmasters begging her to leap through hoops of survival,  coaxing her into wicked games only to take her loved ones away as a prize.  She's not interested in any of this,  not anymore.

But still Quinn talks.

“I really wasn't,  though,”  she grins.  That voice once so friendly now grates Ellie's ears to a pulp,  begging her to go into the same vengeful space she went last year.  She’s not a killer.  She's not a bad person.  She's tame, she's gentle and she's kind.

She wants this family dead.

She wants Bella to explain.

It's all very simple, really.

“It was a good way to get off the suspect list.  Stab Gale Weathers,  leave her and the other one for dead.  Stab Mindy on the train.  That sort of thing.”

Rory seems to choke on air behind her.  For a blink of an eye that's all Ellie can focus on,  tearing away from Bella to face her sister.  There's a crumple to Rory's chin that sparks the urge to hug her close and keep her protected as long as she lives,  beckoning her to step away until it processes.

“You,”  Ellie snaps, voice low.  “You attacked my mom?  Lou?”

“Eh, it was a team effort,”  Quinn shrugs with an ease so light it makes Ellie nauseated.  She doesn't have it in her to know if Bella was the other half of such a team.  All she needs to know is Quinn made the first move.  “It wasn't all about you,  though.  Had to get some legacies outta the way.”

“After the butchered job Amber did last year, we figured it was about time,”  Ethan chimes in.  “And Mindy…she was good.  Gotta admit she nearly had us a few times there, but she did what any good cousin would do and listened to her beloved Fifi.  Think she'll remember that next time?”

Buffy's heartbreak is a knife Ellie doesn't have to look in order to feel as it pierces the air.  This isn't what they spoke about as children,  watching their sets of parents falling further in love with the years that would pass.  A relationship of love,  of complete and utter devotion,  was what they learned to desire.

Ethan was supposed to be that for Buffy.  He was supposed to be the person,  the one.  Ellie-Marie has never been able to understand how anyone could look at her sister and decide to hurt her.  There was no way to prepare for the night she lost Wes.  There was no way to contain the debris of what happened that night, not for Buffy or Rory.  Just like there was no way to prepare for this.

What a lovely reminder of the lesson she's already learned a painful amount of times.

“All I had to do,”  Bailey continues.  “Was be the first on the scene.  A little fake blood,  a prosthetic,  you get it.  You'd be surprised at what a grieving father can get away with.”

Quinn and Ethan depart from where they've stood behind their father,  a blistering fact that only joins the list of lies Buffy has heard recently.

“I got Nancy Loomis’ mask,”  Quinn sounds conversational as she strolls around the myriad of memories surrounding them,  the smile playing at her lips now eerily playful.  “Figured it was only right, considering I lived with her granddaughter and all.  By the way,  Julie,  did you notice they kept the outfit she murdered Rebekah in?”

The way Juliette chokes on air is enough of an answer.  Ellie closes her eyes against the sound,  bile welling up in her throat.  It's a taunt cruel enough that only someone like this would make it.

“I got Stu's.”

Of course Ethan pours salt in the wound.

Buffy makes a sound akin to a wounded dog.  There's no doubting this set-up being intentional,  a mockery of what's haunted her forever.  Ellie wishes she could spit flames his way when she turns her head, still shielding her sister to the best of her ability. 

“Symbolism is important.  That's what my brother always said.  He used to include it in his movies,  explain them to me in grandiose rants.  Maybe that's why I tolerated you the best, Buffy,”  the sadism playing along Ethan's expression is straight out of a horror movie.  The irony of it all isn't lost upon Ellie,  watching with gritted teeth as he continues to circle them.   “We had to get to the fucking killers here.”

“Even Legacy Girl got her own.”

The Internet nickname has her head whipping back to face Quinn,  lips parting.  “What?”

“Oh, don't play all cute!”  Bailey chides.  “After that stunt you pulled last year we were half-debating involving you.  Five of us would have been something special,  but…ah,  I'll let Annabelle take it from here.”

Annabelle?

Ellie feels her heart sinking when Bella takes a hesitant step forward,  gloved hands still tugging on the mask she holds.  “I got Amber Freeman’s mask.”

“No,”  Ellie whispers.  “No.  No, Bee, no-”

“It still has your blood on it,  Riley,”  Quinn chirps.  “Go on!  Hold it up!”

Bella cuts Quinn a harsh glare before she's raising the mask shamefully,  still not meeting Ellie's eyes.  This isn't her.  This isn't her neighbor.  This isn't Bee,  this isn't the girl who brought her red velvet cookies or listened to Red with her or took in Sir Purrington when Ellie realized she might die.  This isn't her friend.

This can't be her friend.

“You've got Bella to thank for all this,”  Bailey's saying,  his words a distant sound against the roar in her ears.   “We were gonna kill you off from the get-go.  You know,  bring your dad here,  bring Abigail.  Make it one big party.  She was the one who found Jason's plans to kill you first and thought we should save you for last.”

“You've gotta be a shitty fucking neighbor,”  Ethan continues.  “All of your neighbors wanted you dead!  I didn't even think my sister had it in her.”

“Sister?!”  Because her mind can't catch the memo Ellie-Marie is back to facing Bella,  searching desperately for clarification.   “You-”

“I'm not Quinn's cousin,”  Bella rushes out.  “I'm her sister.  And-and I-I lied to you,  Ellie.  I lied.  I'm not Bella Kinley, I'm-”

“Not yet,”  Bailey interjects.  “Not yet.  I've got a gift before our grand finale- for you,  Sam.”

“What?”  Sam asks,  and it's now that Ellie hears the same familiar bleeding of her own rage in Sam.

“You didn't think I forgot,  did you?”  Stepping closer Bailey seems to invade their group,  a shark in a pack of minnows as he reaches into his jacket.  “Our masks are gone,  Samantha.  There's only one more left,  and I’m gonna need you to put it on.”

Billy.

“Fuck you!”  The mask flies across the room as Sam smacks it away from her as though its existence is the most vile thing that she has ever encountered.

Ethan reacts before Bailey does.  He lunges across the display he'd crept behind and Ellie isn't proud of the way she jumps, nails sinking into Buffy's arm to yank her away.

“Stay the fuck away from her!”  Tara’s scream is what alerts her that Sam has even been swung at,  grip falling away from her sisters.  The first calling card plays out in the blood seeping through Sam's fingers.

This movie isn't theirs to see through.

“What?  What is this?”  Sam asks.  “What,  you did this as a family?”

“Hell yeah, bitch!”  Quinn charges forward from the shadows once more with her teeth bared.  A feral animal with no restraints.   “You should know all about that.  All of you work as a fucking family!”

“They're still not getting it!”  Like a kid on Christmas Ethan laughs at the observation,  circling to stand at the front of the shrine.

Bella- Annabelle-  is the only one not making a move.

“Shut the fuck up, Ethan!”  Rory retorts, ripping Ellie's focus from where Bella seems to have frozen in place.  “If that's even your real name. I know a bitch when I see one.  You're just a fucking pussy!”

“And you!  It's cunts like you that made my job easier,”  Quinn snaps.   “You know how easy it was,  making Sam the most hated survivor?   Look at her entourage,  look at her crazy fucking Dad!  Of course the company's the reason she's batshit!”

“Because it isn't enough to just kill someone these days,”  Ethan continues.  “You've gotta assassinate their character first.  We all know how easy it is to make someone up in your head,  don't we?”

“I bet it's real easy to play a role that your Daddy made for you!”  It's too late to take back the words when Ellie realizes she's said them, one arm still protectively curled around Buffy.  “Isn't this the part you start bitching and moaning?  You're the antagonists, right?  Act like it!"

She isn't a fan of the smiling snarl that curls Ethan's lips back now,  but she'd be lying if she claimed her hospitality was any greater.

“Dear old Dad's gonna find you worse off than your aunt,”  he starts.  “When he finds your mutilated bodies scattered through here,  sees Sam with her mask,  he'll be able to tell everyone that some deluded,  chronically online freak-”

“Someone like you,  then?”  Rory interjects.

“-thought she was Ghostface and took matters into their own hands!”  Ethan concludes sharply,  turning on his heel to hold his knife out.

“Exactly!”  Bailey cheers like he's watching a sports game,  striding forward with outstretched hands.   “And that's why it's the perfect alibi.  All the best lies are based off the truth,  and you, Sam… you're a killer.  Just like your father.”

“No I'm not!”

“Yes,  you are,  you motherfucker!  You killed our brother!”

Quinn's screech is a primal sort of pain that Ellie has only heard a few times in her life,  one she's let out in hospital memories she can barely recall.  It's the truth despite how insane it sounds.  It's the truth despite how impossible it is.  

But how?

“Your brother died in a car accident,”  Tara asserts,  lacking any real conviction behind her voice.

“No, no,  no,  you sweet dumb thing-”

“Don't call her that!”  Ellie snaps.

He barely glances her way before continuing,  knife still pointed out.

“He died in Woodsboro.  At the hands of your bitch sister.”

Ellie feels her breath hitch in her throat.

This can't be right.  This isn't fucking right.  This isn't true,  this isn't true,  it's too goddamn insane to be true.  Her blood feels like ice as she glances Bella's direction,  eyes wide like a silent cry for help.

They're friends.

They're friends.

Nothing's true anymore.

If at all possible their circle closes in further,  a move led by Sam backing away.  Julie shakes behind her with the force of what must be sickening memories of repetition.

This is a film Richie would have played before.

This was for them.

“You're Richie's family,”  Sam says.  It's not even a question.  What's more,  she doesn't even seem afraid.

Bailey’s resolve crumbles right before them.  His lips quiver,  his eyes water.  A corpse resuscitated by grief lives in front of them now,  the answer known before he speaks.

“Yeah.”

SHE WONDERS SOMETIMES,  what Dad would have done if he was too late.

Maybe right on time,  just like he had been,  but not quick enough to get her to the hospital.  Maybe the wound was too deep or her body was too small.  Maybe she would have died when she fell unconscious in his car.  Maybe she would have died in the living room.  Maybe she would have left the world the same time as uncle Luke.

Or last year.  If Amber had gotten her in the heart,  if Dad and Abi realized too late that she'd stopped with the phone,  if she'd bled out in that hallway with or without them by her side.  What would they have done?  What would everything look like now?  She's not bold enough to claim she's anyone's reason for living,  but Dad can't even say her name in the same sentence as a mention of death and aunt Abi hasn't acknowledged what possibilities lie ahead.

Her entire life has been a pyramid of what if’s.  At least she knows this isn't the answer to any of them.

“I loved my son,”  Bailey is saying,  voice wrought with an emotion that should probably evoke some sort of sympathy.  “I loved my son.  Do you know what it was like to see the photos of what you did to him,  Samantha?!”

“So what,  you raise one sick fuck and decide to send the next three down the same path?”  Tara cuts in.  “Real great parenting job.”

“You shut your whore fucking mouth!”

As though operating on autopilot Ellie-Marie is pulling Tara behind her before Quinn can finish her warning,  her body a barrier between the next-in-line lunatic and one of the last people Ellie may ever be able to trust again.

“That’s rich coming from you,”  she hisses.   “That was part of your act, right?  Which seventies horror movie did you get that out of?”  Ellie shifts her glare Bailey's way with the question,  brow cocking because there's only one way to pretend she doesn't feel as betrayed as she does.  “Or was it Daddy's idea,  just like everything else?”

Bailey's scowl deepens as he steps closer.  Ellie-Marie raises her chin, a silent dare that she knows he's willing to accept.

He doesn't get the opportunity before Abi is pushing her back.

If it's a silent battle of wills Ellie has no clue,  peering out from behind her aunt like she's a little girl again.

When she was still in school,  the gym teacher tried to make her participate in class after she'd twisted her ankle.  The school had called Mom when she was sent to the office for disobedience and she'd stood right behind her mother,  watching the principal and her hardass teacher realize that her family wasn't an ideal target of unfair punishment.  That's sort of how she feels now,  watching this stare down between two people who might share the same protectiveness if one half wasn't lacking a heart.

Then Bailey is folding.

Ellie's pushed further back until she collides with a casing unit,  sandwiched between her aunt and someone who wasn't lucky enough to make it this far.  Julie's flung around Buffy and Sam's got Tara and Rory pushed back like she can protect them both alone and-

And it's Bella.

It's Bella driving the knife into Bailey's side.

The force isn't enough to even send her father to the ground before she's being yanked away by Ethan and Quinn,  knives out against who she now knows is their baby sister,  the one person they should be protecting like how Sam is protecting hers or how Dad protects Abi or Mom with Lou or Juno with Buffy,  and she can't get the chance to move before one of her best friends is being mutilated in front of her once again.

“BELLA!”  The force of which she screams comes from what must be the depths of her soul.  Her throat aches with how her body threatens to split with terror and the all-encapsulating feeling of being gutted without ever touching the blade.  “BELLA!”

Blood pours from Bella's mouth as she sinks to her knees.  Bailey's limped away,  wounded but not broken while Bella pays for the sins of her father like she'd ever done anything to deserve it.

She didn't.  She doesn't.  She's a good person.  Ellie doesn't care if the entire world argues it,  she's not a killer.

Not like her siblings are.

There are two sets of arms pulling Ellie-Marie back as she tries to force herself forward,  two heads of platinum blonde wrangling her when she doesn't need to be wrangled.

“A father never dreams of his children dying, Annabelle,” Bailey is saying.  “I never dreamed of killing you.  You brought this on yourself!”

“Fuck you!”  Ellie screams again.  Iron dances still on her tastebuds as she pulls against Abi and Rory.  She's not looking at Bella again.  She's not.

“I loved my son!”  Bailey doesn't seem to hear anything around him as he steps onstage, one hand pressed against his wound.  “I loved him!  You won't get to know what parental love does to someone.  He was taken from me,  and everyone who had anything to do with that has to die!”

“Fuck yeah,  they do!”  Quinn echoes the message obediently like she's part of a grand jury and not the one on defense,  knife bloodied as it raises into the air.  “You sons of bitches killed him!  You killed our brother!  We owe him this!”

Guilt is a sick breed of beast.  Ellie knows this like she knows her coffee order.

This is unlike anything else.

“So what?”  Sam counters.  There's a wave of admiration for how strong she manages to sound now,  still keeping one arm tucked around Tara.  “What happens after this?  You kill us and then what,  you disappear?”

“No!  We have to get over to the hospital and make sure Gale,  Lou and Mindy don't pull through!”  Like a grand announcer Bailey steps from the stage,  bypassing the bleeding body of his daughter like this is nothing.  “Because everybody dies!  Every single one of you!”

“It'll be Dewey and Randy last,”  Ethan picks up.  There's no missing the twisted grin he shoots Buffy's way, seeming to sparkle at the whimper that gets him.   “Grieving fathers do that,  right,  Dad?”

“That's right,”  Bailey grits out.  “That's right.  God knows that's how I felt after you killed my son!” 

Once again the gun is focused on Sam.  Ellie-Marie doesn't have to look to know how pale Tara is,  feeling her fear slice cleanly through the nausea forming in the pit of her stomach as Bailey cocks the gun.

“Now I'm gonna need you to put the mask on.”