THE SOUND OF her scream snaps Ellie into motion.

Her life isn't even a thought when she launches herself at Ghostface, fist slamming into that masked face with a force she hasn't used in a year.  It distracts long enough for her to aim another blow at the chest and that's long enough for Tara to stagger away.  Enough for what matters here and now.  All her brain can think is TaraTaraTaraTaraTaraTara and it's enough for her to fuel her next movements.

Of course she has a gun.

“FUCKER!”  She screams,  the name wrenching from her throat as she whips the pistol from the holster.  A shot's fired.

Ghostface collapses.

Tara's gotta get the fuck out of here.

“Tara,  go!”  Ellie yells.  Tara pushes herself to her feet,  throws herself forward and Ellie doesn't get the chance to open her mouth and ask what the hell she's doing before their hands are interlocked again, this time for a reason far worse than harmless popcorn.

“Tara-”

“I'm not leaving you!  Come on!”

The head.  It's the fucking head,  same thing as it was last time.  They always come back if you don't aim for the head yet Ellie can't bring herself to pull away now,  slamming her entire body into the door the same time it's yanked open.

Sam.  Sam and Abi are both here,  terror infused faces crumpling with momentary relief before there are more hands around Ellie than just Tara.

“It's Kirby-”

“Kirby's the killer!”

“No shit!”  Tara retorts,  grip on Ellie's hand unyielding.  She wants to stop.  She wants to tell everyone that Tara got stabbed and she needs to be the first one out immediately but she can't.  There's nothing in her bones now besides the fear so ingrained that Ellie-Marie thinks being born with this franchise may have meant she was born with a bone-deep dread.

“BUFFY!”  Ellie screams the moment she's back into the shrine room,  yanking Tara forward unintentionally.  It doesn't matter now.   They've got to move no matter what's happened and Ellie can't stop,  can't risk it all yet.  “BUFFY!  RORY!”

“I've got ‘em!”  

Chad.

For a beat Ellie feels nothing but the need for her legs to collapse under the strain of relief.  Blood pounds in her ears like it's demanding to be let out as she takes Tara and sprints to the middle of the room,  head swiveling in search of her sisters and aunt.

They're here.

They're alive.

Rory is bleeding.  Her arm,  her bicep and that pretty pink cashmere cardigan have both been slashed,  but she's not dead.  She's on her feet and she looks terrified in a way Ellie has never seen before.   Buffy's at her side with one protective one arm out and for a moment so fleeting that she may have imagined it Ellie feels like it could be Wes,  could be all a bad dream and nothing bad ever did happen in the way that would pierce through her sisters irrevocably.

But reality is back because she can't get lost anymore.   There are no what-ifs in the land of death and betrayal so brutal that it burns more than a knife.

How could she?

After everything.  After Maddie.  How could Kirby do this?  Ellie wishes she could say it's impossible,  that she knows Kirby and knows that she would never do anything like that,  but her younger self was naïve in a way she can never get back.  She knows too much now.  

Her gun still rests in her free hand and she holds it out now,  wielding it in a near desperation as she tries looking for an exit.

“She locked the doors,”  Sam explains behind her.  “She made this place a kill box-”

“For us.”  Jules finishes from her place beside Chad.  Ellie doesn't miss the look of what might be the scariest fucking thing she's ever seen flash through her aunt's eyes now,  a look she isn't unfamiliar with in the slightest.  Mom had it last night.  Lulu.  Dad and Abi last year,  even Randy when he arrived too late to the Freeman house.

And to think she believed the violence of parental rage was once an exaggeration.

“Is that an exit?!”  Tara sounds wild with undoubtedly both pain and horror as she points up above them,  the flashing red sign only made difficult by its place on the balcony.  “Maybe it leads to the roof or something!”

“There's only one way to find out,”  Chad fails to keep his voice from shaking as he attempts to close their ranks,  pulling Jules,  Buffy and Rory in tighter.  Eight against one.  Eight against one.  “Let's go!”

A protective hold fastens around Ellie's shoulders as Abi takes a hold,  leading her in a way that could easily be a march.   “Everything's gonna be okay,  my dove,”  she whispers.   “We're gonna be okay,  I'm gonna get you out of here.  I'm gonna get you out of here,  I promise.”

It isn't herself that Ellie is concerned about and she knows her auntie knows that.  It's the same soothing method that's pulled Ellie together all along though,  and while it doesn't comfort her she hopes it could comfort Abi.

“Bailey's on his way,  but-”

Sam is cut off by the screen curtains whipping apart.

Ellie doesn't get the chance to scream before she's thrown aside with Tara,  banging her head against the concrete.  Her body feels like it's locked on autopilot as she rolls to the side and attempts to ignore the blinding pain radiating through her skull,  barely rising to her knees in enough time to reach for her gun.  She can't tell which way is up or which way is down right now but she refuses to be unarmed,  refuses to be defenseless when she's needed.  Her hand closes around it and she's about to force herself to her feet and clear her head and understand what her family is saying between yells but she can't see Tara and the lack of her feels like a weight before Ellie feels it.

She's around her.

Ellie realizes it the moment her gun is back in her hand.  Tara has crawled to where she's barely inching on her knees and is trying to pull her up but she can't she can't and Ellie won't let her waste her time because she needs to-

“GO!”  She screams,  forcing herself to center.  “Tara,  go.  You've gotta go!”

“Not without you!”

“Yes!”  Ellie forces.  “SAM!”

“Tara,  we've gotta go!  Come on!” 

Sam can always be trusted with the things that matter most.

“Buffy!”  Ellie cries out.   “Buffy,  Rory,  GO!”

“Fuck no!”

“Els-”

“Smile for the camera,  motherfucker!”  Chad breaks through the protests with the force of his words,  slamming one of the film cameras into Ghostface's skull.  It gets him on the ground long enough for Ellie to force herself up,  closing her eyes briefly against the searing pain.  She can't be out of it.  She can have a concussion later,  for fuck’s sake.

If she makes it to later.

Chad's forcing her sisters away.  It's one by each arm,  both of them pulling against it even as the curtains flutter shut behind them.  It's what she wants.  It's just her,  Abi,  and Jules now,  and she can do that.

She's gonna do better.

“Auntie,  Julie-”

“Don't you dare tell us to leave you,  Ellie-Marie.”  Abi’s voice is sharper now than Ellie has ever heard it.  She's not winning this one; there's no Chad or Sam to force either of her aunts away.

Her blood runs cold when Ghostface gets back up.  Her head is still spinning and she can't get the gun to stop shaking in her hands.  She puts it into her holster once more,  backs away on trembling legs when her nightmare rises from the ground.

He's not looking at her aunts.

He's looking at her.

It feels like an identity that doesn't fit Kirby in the slightest.   For all she has suffered,  why now?  Why pick it up now?  Why push them through this now? It's not avengement nor is it atonement for not being the sister she wanted to be.  It's the same thing that killed Maddie.  It's the same thing they've all been fighting for over half their lives,  if not for the entirety of them.

It doesn't make sense.

Ellie doesn't get the time to resolve this before she's being charged at once more.  Her feet finally work to save her as she breaks into a sprint,  rushing towards the shrine with a guttural plea sent up to the only deity she has left.

Aunt Tatum's mannequin.

The knife makes a shrill noise as it slices through the air.  Distantly Ellie thinks she can hear screaming,  whether it be her own or elsewhere is uncertain.  She grabs the mannequin and whips around the fastest she can.

She falls.

Tatum falls on top of her,  a knife pierced right through the figure.  Right above Ellie's heart is where the tip of the blade pokes through,  unable to cut through the entirety of the sick recreation of her aunt.  A sound of terrified disbelief kicks through Ellie's throat and she rears back,  throwing the statuette off her and into Ghostface,  not bothering to see how far he staggers back when she takes off in a sprint and collides into Julie.

It's a fear that's hot and wild and screaming as Ellie grasps for her aunt,  only tearing her attention away when the curtains open once more and only four rush out.

Only four.

Buffy's wailing in a way that slices Ellie right down the middle.  She forces her aunt to let go of her and rushes forward to the rest of their family,  that scorching question sitting in the back of her throat.

Where's Chad?

“We have to go,”  Sam is saying,  repeating it to herself like she needs a goal to focus on.  Ellie thinks not dying is a pretty good one,  but who is she to voice that?

She turns to follow the lead,  run headfirst into whatever hell they're about to be entering now.  She's prepared.  It's seven against one.  It's seven against one.  It's seven against-

“Oh,  goddammit,”  she whimpers.

Two.

They're trapped.  There's one on either side, blocking the curtains,  blocking the cage.  There's no way to go,  even with one of them seeming to stagger with a limp.  She can't be the only one to shoot.  If she's not quick enough then they're all fucked.

A shot blasts through the air.

Ellie can feel her blood drain as the Ghostface blocking the cage scatters,  nearly giving herself whiplash with the force of how quickly she looks back to the curtains.

“Kirby?!”

“Stay back!”  Buffy screams,  the command coming out with more of a choked sob.  “We know it's you!  We know!”

“What?”  Kirby asks.  Ellie doesn't like how possible it's becoming that she isn't a conspirator in this.  “No.  No,  I wouldn't.  One of ‘em knocked me out!”

“Bullshit!”  Rory shoots back.  “How the hell are we supposed to believe you?”

“Kirby, stop!”

Bailey’s voice cuts off whatever response Kirby was going to give.  Ellie feels that pit of unease deepen as she watches the gun come back up,  goosebumps hatching along her skin at the sight of the detective.   “Stay away from the girls!”

“What are you doing?”  Kirby asks.  There's no way to miss the warble in her voice,  one she knows all too well.

They were wrong.

“Did you kill her?”  Bailey asks,  stepping closer slow enough that Ellie grasps for Tara's hand once more.   “Did you kill Quinn?  Did you kill my daughter?”

“What the hell?  No!”   Turning her attention to their small group Kirby widens her eyes,  the plea silent.  “Whatever he's been saying to any of you,  don't listen to him!  He's probably the killer.”

God, don't let that be the case.

Ellie-Marie brought him here.  She introduced him into their lives in a way she can't undo.  His on-and-off-again involvement has been strange,  no doubt,  but he can't be the killer.  He can't be.

“Behind you!”

He is.

Ellie can't hold back her scream when he fires the rounds into Kirby's chest, hand slamming over her mouth in a way that those stupid knockoff movies always use to exaggerate.

Apparently they weren't being dramatic.

The Ghostface standing behind Bailey seems like a bird cocking his head for approval,  swarming closer in a way that makes her skin crawl.  The other steps from the shadows,  and then. . .

Another follows.

“Four?”  Abi breathes out,  horror clear in her voice as she pulls Ellie further back.  

Bailey seems to ignore her,  attention turned away to face his murder of crows.  “Great job,”  he praises,  a tone to his voice that Ellie feels sick knowing that she's heard.   “All of you.”

“You?”  Julie asks.  There's a cold rage behind the prevalent terror her aunt wields now,  shifting her body to shield Buffy. 

“Yeah,  of course it's me-”

“It's always the FUCKING cop!”  Buffy interjects.  “Always!  You and your- your sad little-  little minions that are always butthurt for some bullshit reason!  I don't care what your motive is,  you're hiding behind a phone and a shitty costume that's been out of date for years. Get with the program! Even Myers switched things up."

Jesus,  she loves her sister.

Ellie can't bite back the smile that nips at her lips with the feist Buffy's brought back, a small satisfaction in how Bailey scowls in response.

“Frankly,  I expected more from each of you.  I think that you'll understand us much better after what's become of your cousins.”

Fuck.

Without needing to look Ellie's hand shoots out,  holding Rory back in her place at the reveal.  Cousins.  Mindy's not here,  Chad's gone…

Ethan was right.

They're picking them off.

“‘Us’?”  Tara asks,  a question that makes Ellie embarrassingly proud for a fleeting moment.  “What do you mean ‘us’?”

Then Bailey looks to the right.

The first Ghostface,  one third of those Ellie wishes she could beat properly circa Amber Freeman,  takes his cue like an actor in the world's most fucked up improv.

The world stills.

Abi's grip tightens around Ellie-Marie the moment that first mask comes off.

There's a special sort of hatred that catches itself cutting through the fear once she processes the sound Buffy makes,  hands balled into fists that she suddenly feels much more confident with despite not having a knife.  Iron tinges her tastebuds as she bares her teeth Ethan's way,  blindly thrusting one hand back to grab for her sister.

“Mindy was right,”  Ethan's saying.  Ellie couldn't care less about anything he's using to defend himself,  that hatred from last year nearly bursting from her veins.   “It was easy to juke the roommate lottery.  I mean,  all I had to do to meet you was room with a condescending,  conceited alpha literally named Chad!  Fuck,  it felt good to kill him!”

Buffy's trembling.

Buffy's been betrayed.

Buffy fucking loved him.

Ellie wants his head on a fire poke.

"You son of a bitch,"  she spits out,  voice barely rising above a growl before she's shoving the hands off her.  She's uncaring of the way Tara reaches to pull her back,  barely managing to contain herself to their pack.  "You're such a piece of shit.  You hear me,  Ethan?  You're a sick motherfucker.  You and your fucking dad,  both of you deserve to burn in hell!"

Ethan doesn't offer any sort of reaction to her declaration,  his smile more taunting than amused as he lowers his head.  For a blinding instant Ellie is nearly reminded of a bull before it charges,  her heart skipping a beat for reasons she can't understand.

"We'll see how long you keep that up, Riley,"  he sing songs,  spinning his knife in his hand before turning to the hooded figure beside him.

"What's behind door number two?"

SAVE WHO YOU can save.

This has been Ellie's motto since she was a little girl.  Her parents,  Lulu and Abi all tried to keep her from internalizing the five words that could either kill her or make her much stronger.  She's got her mother's eyes and her father's tendency to put everyone else before himself,  equal measures of love and fight weaved seamlessly into her DNA. She's taken the entire world in with open arms and a platter of welcome home cookies waiting for whoever walked through her doors.  It's a trait that's been heatedly debated between herself and the mirror.

When her neighbor moved in,  she took her in the same way she'd taken in the rest of the world.  A natural scene stealer in Ellie's world was what Bella Kinley became,  mingling in with her friends sooner than Ellie's ever introduced anyone before.  She's kept her as far from this as she possibly could.  She's protected her in the way she failed to protect Anika,  and up until now,  she believed she'd done an exceptional job.

In the back of her mind a voice that sounds a lot like Amber laughs. There's a goddamn reason for that,  isn't there Riley?

The second mask comes off.

Her knees go weak.

Auntie Abi is there to catch her, right there with Buffy as Ellie stumbles back from where one of her best friends stands. 

“You little fucking-”  Rory starts,  cut off by Buffy stepping forward.

“Bitch!”

Ellie isn't blind to how she needs to focus.  Buffy's in far worse shape than she is right now,  her pain palpable in the room even as she steers her attention away from Ethan.  She's got bigger matters at hand now,  and yet her heart breaks more and more as she looks at Bella.

“Bella…?”   She asks,  hating how weak she sounds in comparison to a few moments ago.   “You- you-”

“Like we said,”  Bailey picks up.  Bella isn't looking at her now,  chin crumpling in the way Ellie is sure hers is doing as well.  She doesn't understand.  “It's easy to juke the quarters lottery.  Putting the youngest two together was a stroke of inspiration for me, though I must say you were a lot easier than we thought you'd be.  We knew you were a naïve little girl,  but come on.”

“Don’t worry,”  the fourth voice comes from Bailey's other side.  Ellie rips her stare from Bella to land on Quinn Bailey herself.

Quinn smiles,  a dangerous,  cutting grin that slices right to the heart of the infection.  “You weren't the only one.  Who's up for a little reunion?”

It's four against seven.

With how she feels now,  Ellie thinks she may already be dead.