Hannah

You sat there panting, the haze of sensations slowly fading as Eddie’s head rested in the crook of your neck, catching his breath.

For a moment, everything felt oddly normal. Just you, sitting at your desk, post-sex with a guy you’ve had a crush on for what felt like forever. 

Then the cruel realization began to hit when you analyzed your surroundings: Eddie’s cloaked body and masked face pressed against your bare body, knife still gripped tightly at your side, and the looming fact that your former sorority sisters and friends were all dead. 

Every single one of them. Besides you.

The reality of it settled heavily into your chest as your gaze slowly drifted to the white mask still obscuring his face. For a long moment, neither of you spoke, neither of you moved.

Then, slowly, your hand reached up. Eddie stiffened; you felt that immediately. But he didn't stop you.

Your fingers found the edge of the mask and peeled it away.

Eddie stared back at you. Not a stranger, not some faceless monster, just Eddie. The same dark curls. The same amber eyes. The same face that had smiled at you every morning across a coffee counter. The same face that had called you sweetheart. The same face you'd spent months developing a crush on.

For a second, neither of you seemed capable of processing it. You already knew. Some part of you had known long before he started talking. Long before he'd mentioned the coffee shop. Long before he'd started listing all the tiny details he'd memorized about you.

Still.

Actually seeing him felt devastating. Eddie's expression shifted through a dozen emotions at once. Relief. Fear. Regret. Something dangerously close to panic.

"You shouldn't have done that," he said quietly.

Your throat tightened. "It was you."

Eddie looked away. For the first time all night, he looked genuinely exhausted. He leaned forward, grabbing a discarded shirt from the floor beside your desk before handing it to you.

"Put this on."

You stared at him. For one brief second, he almost looked embarrassed, like the situation had suddenly become too real for him too. Slowly, you pulled the shirt over your head.

Then the bedroom door opened, and both of you looked up.

A second Ghostface stood in the doorway. His gaze bounced between you and Eddie, then to the discarded mask sitting beside him.

"...Oh." The voice was familiar.

Gareth. The freshman. The one they'd all laughed about. The one Madison had humiliated. The one who'd ended up in the hospital.

Gareth slowly reached up and removed his own mask. "Well."

He blinked. "I guess we're past secret identities."

You stared, your brain struggling to keep up.

Gareth looked at Eddie, then at you, then back at Eddie. "What are you gonna do with her?"

The question hung in the room. Eddie's jaw tightened as he turned to you. 

"What do you want?"

You almost laughed. The question felt absurd.

"What do I—" Your voice cracked. "I want to be alive."

Silence. Eddie nodded slowly, like he'd expected that answer. "Okay."

Gareth frowned. "Okay?"

Eddie ignored him. Instead, he stood and began pulling the mask back on. The motion made your stomach drop.

"Eddie..."

He paused, then looked at you. The black eyes of the mask stared back.

"If you're the only survivor who walks out of this house untouched, they're going to arrest you."

The realization hit almost immediately, and your blood ran cold. Eddie continued.

"They'll think you did it."

"They'll think you helped."

"They'll think something."

Gareth shifted awkwardly. "He's got a point."

You looked between them, horrified.

"What are you saying?"

Eddie's shoulders rose and fell. "I'm saying I need them to believe you survived."

The room suddenly felt like it was impossible to breathe in.

"Eddie—"

"I'm sorry." Again, always with the sorry.

Before you could move, his gloved hand caught your shoulder. The next few moments blurred together. A shove, the edge of your desk catching your back hard. The cold tang of a knife slicing your arm. Then a straight plunge into the side of your hip. Pain began to explode behind your eyes.

Next, the floor rushing up to meet you. Voices becoming distant, muffled. Somewhere far away, you thought you heard Gareth arguing. Thought you heard Eddie snap back at him. Then darkness swallowed everything whole.

The next thing you became aware of was noise, so much noise. Radios. Voices. Footsteps. Someone saying your name. Your eyelids felt impossibly heavy.

When they finally opened, bright lights immediately stabbed through your skull, and you winced. A police officer was kneeling beside you. Another stood near the doorway.

The room was packed with people. Crime scene tape. Paramedics. Flashlights.

Questions. Questions. Questions.

"What happened?"

"Can you hear me?"

"Do you know your name?"

You swallowed, and your throat felt raw. The last thing you remembered was Eddie. The mask. His eyes. The apology. Then nothing.

As the room spun around you, a paramedic gently guided you back against the wall.

"You were very lucky," she said softly.

Lucky. The word echoed strangely in your head.

The hospital room smelt like antiseptic and soap, and the buzzing of the overhead lights did nothing to soothe the pounding in what felt like your entire head.

It’d been a long day of answering questions between doctors, police officers, FBI agents, and worst of all, your mom.  Every time somebody new walked into the room, it felt like the same conversation all over again.

What did you see? What do you remember? Did either of the attackers say anything? Did you recognize them?

You'd become very good at answering without actually answering.

"No."

"I don't know."

"It happened really fast."

"I'm not sure."

The lies got easier every time, which somehow made you feel worse. By the time the sun started setting outside the hospital windows, a detective was sitting across from your bed with a legal pad balanced on his knee.

"We're almost done," he promised.

He glanced down at his notes. "The nurses said you mentioned seeing two individuals upstairs."

You nodded. "I think so."

"You think so?"

Your fingers tightened around the hospital blanket. "I don't know."

He studied you carefully. "Do you remember anything else?"

The mask. The voice changer. Eddie's face. The flowers Gareth had brought Madison. Coffee cups. Blueberry muffins. Mornin', sweetheart.

You swallowed. "No."

The detective held your gaze for a moment longer, then nodded. "Okay."

It should've felt like a relief. Instead, guilt settled heavier in your chest.

Because you knew things; not everything, not enough, but more than you were telling them. More than anybody else in that building knew.

You'd spent hours trying to understand why. Why you were protecting him. Why every opportunity to tell the truth died before it reached your lips. It wasn't because he deserved it, you knew that much.

People were dead. Girls you'd lived with. Girls you'd laughed with. Girls whose names would be plastered all over the news for weeks. What Eddie did wasn't excusable. There wasn't a version of the story where it became okay.

And yet...

Every time you imagined saying his name aloud, something inside you recoiled.

Maybe because the version of Eddie sitting in your memories didn't match the version everyone was hunting.

Maybe because you couldn't reconcile the guy who fed stray cats and complained about hot dogs with the person standing behind the mask.

Maybe because part of you still couldn't believe they were the same person.

Or maybe because you were a coward. You honestly weren't sure anymore.

The detective eventually left while your mother stayed, unfortunately. The second the door clicked shut, she crossed her arms.

"There's something you're not saying."

You nearly choked. "What?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I know that face."

"There is no face."

"There absolutely is."

You groaned. "Mom."

"I'm serious." She sat down beside the bed. "You look guilty."

"I survived a massacre."

"I know."

The teasing disappeared immediately, and her expression softened. "I know."

After a moment, she reached over and squeezed your hand.

"The police said you can't go back."

You nodded; you already knew that much. 

The sorority house was still an active crime scene. Forensics. Evidence collection. Photographs. Investigations. The place wouldn't be reopened for months, maybe longer.

The thought felt strange. Your entire college life had taken place inside those walls, and now they were covered in yellow tape.

Your mother sighed. "I found you an apartment."

You looked up. "What?"

"Off campus."

"When?"

"Today."

"Mom."

"What?" She shrugged. "I was stressed."

"It's in a good neighborhood."

"According to who?"

"According to me."

"That's not reassuring."

"It has security."

"Mom."

"It has locks."

You rolled your eyes.

She pointed at you. "I'm being serious."

A few hours later, after discharge papers and prescriptions and a dozen final instructions from nurses, you found yourself standing in front of a small apartment building on the edge of town.

It wasn't fancy. Just brick, three floors, quiet. The kind of place students rented when they wanted to avoid roommates and campus drama. Normally you'd have hated it. But tonight, it felt like a fortress.

Your mother helped carry in your things. A few bags of clothes. Textbooks. Your laptop. The essentials.

Neither of you acknowledged how little there was. Most of your belongings were still sitting inside a house nobody was allowed to enter.

Eventually she hugged you goodbye, a little too tightly, then she left. And for the first time since last night, you were completely alone.

You brushed your teeth, changed into sweatpants, and locked the front door twice. Checked the windows, and then checked them again.

By the time you crawled into bed, exhaustion had settled deep into your bones.

The mattress wasn't comfortable. The room didn't feel like yours. The ceiling looked wrong. Hell, everything looked wrong.

You rolled onto your side and pulled the blankets higher.

A week passed. At least, you thought it had been a week. Time felt strange now.

Days blurred together in a cycle of police interviews, missed classes, awkward condolences from people you'd barely spoken to before, and the constant feeling that everyone was looking at you differently.

The Survivor. The Final Girl. The Poor Thing. You hated all of it. The apartment helped a little.

You'd settled into a routine of locking every door twice before bed and checking the windows every night before sleeping.

The bruises across your body had faded from deep purple to sickly yellow, and the stitches in your scalp had finally stopped pulling every time you brushed your hair.

On the surface, things were beginning to resemble normal again. At least as normal as they could. Work had helped more than anything. The coffee shop was familiar, predictable.

Most mornings, you could almost convince yourself your life hadn't exploded. The problem was that every morning at seven, your eyes still drifted toward the front door.

The bell would jingle, A customer would walk in, and for one stupid second, your heart would jump. Only to sink again.

Because it wasn't him, never him. No dark curls. No leather jacket. No crooked smile. No "Mornin', sweetheart."

At first, you'd told yourself it was because he was hiding. Then because he was smart. Then because he was gone. The truth was probably all three. By the end of the week, you'd stopped expecting him altogether.

Which was exactly why you nearly dropped your keys when you walked into your apartment Thursday night.

The place was dark. You'd spent the entire day on campus meeting with professors and trying to convince everyone that no, you didn't need special treatment.

You were exhausted, and all you wanted was a shower and eight consecutive hours of sleep. You pushed open the door, stepped inside, and locked it behind you.

Then, you reached for the light switch, but the lamp in the corner flickered on instead.  You froze.

Somebody was sitting on your couch. For one horrifying second, every muscle in your body locked. Then the figure leaned forward.

Dark curls. Black jeans. Familiar tattoos.

"Eddie."

He was sitting there like he'd been waiting for you, one arm draped over the back of the couch, and an open bag of pretzels resting in his lap.

Like, this was completely normal. Like he hadn't been the subject of a statewide manhunt seven days ago.

Eddie looked different. The dark circles beneath his eyes were deeper than you'd ever seen. His jaw was covered in several days' worth of stubble. But it was him. No mask. No voice changer. Just Eddie.

For a long moment, he simply stared at you, like he was making sure you were actually there. Then he glanced toward the locked door, back at you.

And said the first thing that came to mind. "You didn't rat me out."

You blinked. Of all the things he could've said, of all the possible openings, that was what he landed on.

"You broke into my apartment."

A faint smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "That wasn't a denial."

"Eddie."

"It wasn't."

You stared at him, and he stared right back. The familiar smile slowly faded, until there was nothing left except something that looked suspiciously like disbelief.

"You didn't tell them."

"No."

"Why?"

You looked away first. "I don't know."

"That's a lie."

"Probably."

Eddie exhaled quietly, his gaze dropping to the floor, then back to you. "I kept waiting."

"For what?"

"For the cops to kick my door down."

You swallowed. "Do they know where you live?"

"No." The answer was immediate.

"I haven't exactly been staying there."

Of course he hadn't.

You suddenly realized you'd never actually asked yourself where he'd been.

Eddie glanced around. "You got a nice place."

You looked at him incredulously. "That's your contribution?"

"What?"

"You vanish for a week."

"Mhm."

"I find you sitting in my apartment."

"Technically your living room."

"And your first real observation is that the place is nice?"

He considered that. "Second observation."

You folded your arms. "And the first?"

For the first time since you'd turned on the light, something softened in his expression. The concern you'd seen in your bedroom that night. The concern he'd spent the last week trying and failing to hide.

"You look okay."

You swallowed hard. "I mean, I'm not okay."

The words came out quieter than you'd intended. "How can anyone be okay considering what happened?"

The moment the sentence left your mouth, something changed in Eddie's expression. The concern disappeared; his jaw tightened and his eyes hardened.

He looked away and laughed once, a short, bitter sound. "Right."

"Eddie—"

"No."

He stood abruptly, pacing a few steps away from the couch before dragging a hand through his hair. "No, you're right."

His voice was growing sharper now. "I should've just killed you."

The words hit like a slap, and your stomach dropped. "Eddie."

"I'm serious." He spun back toward you. "This is exactly why I shouldn't have come here."

"Eddie—"

"I knew this would happen."

His hands were shaking, not with fear, but with frustration. "I should've left you alone."

You stared at him, trying desperately to reconcile the guy standing in your living room with the one who'd spent months making you coffee-shop playlists and complaining about professors.

Finally, you found your voice. "Why?"

The question stopped him.

His expression flickered. "What?"

"Why did you do it?"

Silence.

"Eddie."

He looked away immediately. The first genuine hesitation you'd seen from him all night. "Don't."

"Why?"

His jaw tightened. "Because."

"Because what?"

"Eddie."

His refusal somehow scared you more than his anger. Slowly, you reached for your phone resting beside you on the couch. The movement was instinctive; you barely realized you were doing it.

Eddie did. His eyes snapped downward; then he was moving. His hand wrapped around your wrist hard before your fingers ever reached the phone.

You flinched, the reaction hitting him just as hard as it hit you. Eddie froze, staring at you while you gave him a look with scared eyes. Then his grip loosened immediately.

"I'm sorry."

His voice dropped, the anger disappearing almost as quickly as it'd arrived.

"I'm sorry."

He slowly released your wrist. You pulled it back against your chest, both of you breathing harder than before.

"I wasn't gonna call anybody." The lie sounded weak even to your own ears.

Eddie looked unconvinced. Finally, he sat back down and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.

"The plan wasn't supposed to be this. We were angry."

His eyes remained fixed on the floor.

"After Gareth."

You thought about the stories. The hospital. The rose. The humiliation.

"Originally, it was only supposed to be Donovin."

“The pledgemaster?”

Eddie nodded.

"Just him. We spent weeks planning it."

His laugh was humorless.

"Actually planning it. The mask. The voice changer. The calls. The whole thing."

He shook his head.

"Then Madison happened."

You closed your eyes briefly. The name still hurt.

"She wasn't the only one."

Eddie's voice had grown colder now.

"They all knew. They all laughed, all helped."

You thought back to the common room. The stories. The laughter. The way nobody had seemed bothered. Still.

"They didn't deserve—"

"No." His head snapped up. "They deserved worse."

The intensity in his voice made you recoil. Immediately, he saw it, and immediately, he hated himself for it.

"Eddie..."

He looked away. "You know what the funny part is?"

You didn't answer.

"I didn't even know you were one of them."

That surprised you. "What?"

"The sorority." His eyes found yours. "The day I asked your name."

Your stomach dropped. "My sweatshirt."

"Kappa Delta."

You remembered. "Oh."

Eddie laughed quietly. "I went home, and I was pissed."

The admission caught you off guard. "Why?"

"Because I liked you." Its honesty made your chest ache.

"And suddenly I find out you're one of them."

His gaze drifted toward the window.

"I thought I'd been wrong about you. So I started watching."

The words should've terrified you; they did. But they also sounded deeply pathetic and deeply human.

"I kept waiting for proof."

"Proof of what?"

"That you were like them. You never were."

He looked down.

"I watched you leave parties early. You spent Friday nights reading. You worked extra shifts. You brought leftovers home for the girls who couldn't afford takeout."

Your eyes burned.

"I watched you defend Gareth."

The room fell silent.

"And then I realized you weren't one of them."

A tear slipped down your cheek. "Eddie."

"No." He shook his head. "I know what you're gonna say."

"Do you?"

"They were your friends."

The words shattered something inside you immediately. Because they were. You started crying before you could stop yourself.

"They were." Your voice cracked. "They were my friends."

The apartment blurred.

"I lived with them. I knew them. They had families. They had—"

"I did you a favor."

The words cut through your sentence. You stared at him, horrified.

Eddie looked almost offended by your reaction. "They were awful to you."

"What?"

"They talked about you constantly."

The anger was back. Not directed at you, but at them.

"You think they liked you?"

"Eddie—"

"They made fun of you."

His voice rose. "They called you weird. They called you desperate. They thought you were embarrassing."

You shook your head. "No."

"Yes. They did." The certainty in his voice made your stomach twist.

Eddie leaned forward. "They had plans for you."

The apartment suddenly felt very quiet. "What plans?"

His jaw tightened. For the first time all night, he looked genuinely furious.

"The end-of-year retreat."

You frowned. "What about it?"

"They were going to frame you."

The words hit like ice water. You stared. "What?"

"They wanted to dump all the chapter finances on you."

His eyes darkened. "They were planning to accuse you of stealing."

Your breathing stopped.

"They thought it'd be funny."

"No."

"They did."

"Eddie."

"I heard them."

The conviction in his voice left no room for doubt. "They thought because you were quiet and not that involved, nobody would defend you."

He laughed bitterly. "Madison called you expendable."

The tears kept coming. You didn't know what hurt more. The possibility that he was lying, or the possibility that he wasn't.

Across from you, Eddie sat silently while the tears kept coming. You hated it, hated crying in front of him.

Hated that he was seeing you like this. Hated that some sick part of your brain still found comfort in the fact that he was here at all.

Your vision blurred as you wiped angrily at your face.

"Eddie, they were my friends." The words came out broken.

"They were awful friends." His response was immediate, like he'd been waiting to argue.

You laughed bitterly through your tears. "You don't get to decide that."

"No?"

"No." You shook your head. "You don't get to decide who lives and dies because they were mean."

For a second, you thought he was going to get angry again. Instead, his shoulders slumped.

The fight seemed to leave him all at once. Slowly, he moved closer. You should've moved away; you really should have. But you didn't.

"Eddie—"

"I'm not saying what I did was right."

You looked at him skeptically. "Really?"

"No." The honesty caught you off guard. "I'm saying I'm glad you're alive."

His voice had gone quiet, almost tired. "If that makes me selfish, fine."

You simply stared at him, and he simply stared back. Not like Ghostface, not like the guy the police were hunting, just Eddie.

The same guy who used to lean against the coffee counter every morning and give you butterflies with a simple grin. The same guy who remembered your favorite pastry. The same guy who somehow existed inside the same person who had destroyed your life.

"You deserve more than that place." His voice softened. "You deserve more than people who treat you like an afterthought."

You looked down. "They weren't all bad."

"No." His expression softened too. "I know."

The admission surprised you.

"I know they weren't."

Then Eddie carefully reached over and wiped away a tear you hadn't realized had escaped. The gesture felt strangely intimate.

"I was terrified you died."

Your eyes lifted to his. "What?"

"The night at the house." His jaw tightened. "When you got knocked out."

“Got knocked out.” Not, “After I knocked you out.”

The memory flashed through your mind. The bedroom. The mask. The darkness.

Eddie looked away. "I kept checking the news."

A humorless laugh. "Turns out every news station in the country was talking about you."

The corner of your mouth twitched despite yourself. "That's creepy."

"I know."

The fact that he agreed immediately made you laugh weakly. For the first time all night, the tension eased. Enough for you to finally ask the question that had been lingering in the back of your mind.

"So where have you been?"

Eddie leaned back into the couch. His expression immediately became more guarded. "What do you mean?"

"You and Gareth."

You shrugged. "It's been a week. No arrests. No suspects. No police showing up at your door. So, where have you been?"

For a moment, he seemed to debate whether he should answer. "Moving around."

"Moving around?"

"We stayed at a motel for two nights."

Your eyebrows rose. "A motel?"

"It was disgusting."

"I can imagine."

"The shower looked like it had diseases."

You snorted.

"I knew you'd find that funny."

The brief smile faded, then Eddie shrugged. "After that we split up for a little bit."

Your stomach twisted. "You split up?"

"Temporarily."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "We figured if they started looking at one of us, they'd find both of us."

Its practicality made your skin crawl, as they'd planned for this. Maybe they had.

"They haven't questioned you?"

Eddie shook his head. "Not once."

"What about Gareth?"

"Nope."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

His expression darkened. "They've been focusing on people connected to the sorority."

Your stomach sank. Of course they had.

"Campus security. Ex-boyfriends. Former pledges." Eddie laughed quietly. "One detective apparently thinks it was a drug deal gone wrong."

"What?"

"I know." He shook his head. "It's ridiculous."

The fact that he found the investigation amusing made you feel sick all over again.

A week ago, that would've been the biggest red flag in human history. Now it barely cracked the top ten.

"So you're just..." You gestured vaguely. "...hiding?"

"Pretty much." His eyes met yours. "We're trying to stay quiet. In case somebody finally starts asking the right questions."

You nodded, looking down at the floor.

You don’t know why you felt the need to tell him this next part. It felt almost as though you owed it to him. Why? You don’t know.

“You know…the uh, hospital had asked me some questions.”

He tilted his head. “What kinds of questions?”

You nervously bit your lip, a nasty habit you picked up somewhere after the events of this week. 

“When they were giving me a full-body exam, you know…checking me out and whatnot. The nurses, they—” you paused, searching for the correct way to put it. 

“They said that my vaginal tissue looked damaged. They assumed that you, that whoever it was—”

“No.” 

You looked at him then, his eyes shifting to a combination of fear and sincerity. 

“I would never do that to you. Do you think—did I?” 

The question hung between you.

For the first time since he'd shown up in your apartment, he looked genuinely afraid of the answer. Not scared of prison. Not scared of getting caught.

Scared of you. Scared of what you might say.

Slowly, you shook your head. “No.”

The tension in his shoulders immediately eased.

“No,” you repeated. “I don't think that.”

Eddie let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for days. “Okay.”

You looked down at your hands. “The nurses kept asking. They asked if I remembered everything.”

Your throat tightened. “They asked if somebody had forced me.”

Eddie's jaw clenched. You could practically see him replaying that night in his head. Every moment. Every choice. Every mistake.

“And?”

You swallowed. “I told them no. I told them I wasn't assaulted.”

Eddie stared at you, the realization slowly settling across his face.

You laughed bitterly. “Which was apparently not the answer they expected.”

“Sweetheart—”

“They wanted to do a rape kit.”

His expression immediately darkened.

You continued before he could interrupt. “And I refused.”

Eddie didn't move, didn't blink, didn’t breathe. He simply couldn’t.

You looked away. “The only DNA they would've found would've been yours.”

The words sounded strange spoken aloud, like you were talking about somebody else's life.

“They would've found evidence you were there.”

His eyes never left you.

You forced yourself to continue. “So I said no.”

Eddie looked stunned. “Why?” The question came out almost immediately.

You laughed once. “That's kind of what everybody keeps asking me. What I keep asking me.”

“No.” His voice was softer now. “Why?”

You rubbed your forehead. “I don't know.”

It wasn't entirely true; you did know, you just hated the answer.

Because somewhere between the coffee shop and the apartment and the hospital room...You'd made a choice.

A terrible one. A great one. One you still couldn't explain.

You looked up at him. “I knew what would happen.”

His brow furrowed.

“If they found your DNA, they'd start asking questions.”

“You covered for me.”

You nodded.

“You covered for me.”

Neither of you spoke for several seconds, then Eddie leaned back against the couch, looking completely bewildered. Like this outcome somehow even surprised him.

“You should hate me.”

The statement caught you off guard. “What?”

“You should.”

His eyes found yours. “Everybody else does.”

The sincerity behind it made your chest ache.

You shook your head. “I do hate you. Part of me does.”

Eddie nodded once, accepting it. “That's fair.”

Tears burned behind your eyes again. “Eddie, I don't understand anything anymore.”

His gaze softened immediately. “I know.”

“I hate what you did.”

“I know.”

“I hate that I lied.”

“I know.”

Your voice cracked. “And I hate that you're sitting on my couch right now and all I can think about is whether you've eaten anything this week.”

The confession slipped out before you could stop it.

Eddie froze.

Eventually, he looked down at the floor, a faint smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.

“I had a gas station hot dog yesterday.”

You stared at him, then groaned. “Eddie.”

“What?”

“A gas station hot dog?”

“It was surprisingly good.”

“You are unbelievable.”

The laughter faded quickly. Not because anything was funny, but because reality was still sitting between you on the couch.

"So what now?" He asked.

You stared down at your hands. You'd spent the entire week avoiding that exact thought. Now here it was, sitting beside you, looking at you, waiting for an answer.

"I don't know."

Eddie nodded once, as he'd expected it.

You swallowed. "I don't know what this is."

His gaze stayed fixed on you.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

Then you laughed bitterly. "Part of me still likes you."

The admission hurt more than you'd expected. Because it felt wrong, terribly wrong.

"But every time I look at you..." Your eyes stung. "I see what happened."

Eddie's expression faltered. "I know."

"I see the house."

His jaw tightened. "I know."

"I see Madison. I see all of them."

Eddie looked away first. "I can't change that."

The honesty caught you off guard.

"I know."

"I wish I could."

"What if… I tried?"

You frowned. "Tried what?"

"To make it up to you."

A short laugh escaped you. "How exactly do you plan on doing that?"

"I don't know. But I'd figure something out."

You stared at him. There was something absurd about the conversation.

As if the two of you were discussing a bad breakup instead of mass murder. And yet...a part of you wanted him to prove you wrong, to fix his mistake.

"Okay." The word slipped out before you could stop it.

Eddie blinked. "Okay?"

You nodded slowly. "Okay."

You weren't sure what you were agreeing to. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. But for now, it was all you had.

Then Eddie's eyes drifted toward the dark circles beneath yours. The bruises still fading along your jaw. The way your eyelids kept drooping.

"You look tired."

You let out a laugh. "Observant."

"I'm serious."

"I know."

He stood slowly and almost reluctantly. Something in your chest dropped: the realization that he was about to leave, that you'd be alone again.

Eddie shoved his hands into his pockets. "I should go."

You nodded. Then, something took over you. 

"Eddie."

He stopped immediately, turning back. "What?"

The question sat in your throat for several seconds. Long enough that you nearly changed your mind. "Stay."

Your face burned. "I just..."

You looked away. "I don't really want to be alone tonight."

The confession hung awkwardly in the air.

Eddie stared at you, for once looking genuinely surprised.

If anything, he thought you’d want to be alone, at least away from him. He’s the reason you’re afraid of the dark in the first place. But who was he to complain?

His expression softened then, the same way it used to in the coffee shop when you'd hand him a free pastry at the end of your shift.

"Okay."

Your chest tightened. "Okay?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

The answer was simple, like there had never been another option. You watched him settle back onto the couch. Then he patted his lap once, and you scootched over, resting your head on his thigh. 

Within seconds, his fingers began raking through your hair. And within minutes, you drifted off without a second thought.

When you woke up the next morning, you were in your bed. Blankets wrapped around you just the way you liked, somehow in your pajamas, hair brushed, makeup off.

And Eddie was nowhere to be seen. 

You looked around for a moment, scanning the room. Then the front door clicked open, causing you to jump upright. 

“Who’s there—”

Eddie peeked his head in the doorway with a carry-out tray of coffee in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other, kicking the front door closed with his foot.

“Just me, sweetheart.” He chuckled. “Have you ever seen horror movies? You should never ask ‘who’s there?’ You’re basically asking to get mu—” He paused, reading your expression. 

“Anyway, I got your favorites.”

Your chest fluttered despite the comment. You turn to hop out of bed but pause at your keys still on the nightstand, raising your eyebrow while looking at Eddie.

“How did you…”

“Oh, I uh…made a second set.”

You nodded once, like that made sense. It shouldn’t have made sense.

But, in the series of events from the past week, this was one of the most normal ones. 

"Anyways..." Eddie slid the coffee toward you before taking the seat across from you. "Got any big plans today?"

You pulled out one of the barstools at the small kitchen island. "Class at noon and then another at five."

He nodded.

"After that, I've got some staff and TAs mixer at one of my professors' houses."

"Sounds riveting."

"It'll probably be painfully awkward."

"You're definitely getting cornered by somebody who wants to talk about their dissertation."

"I wouldn’t even know what their dissertation is on."

"Doesn't matter." He shrugged, "They'll find a way."

A laugh escaped you as you unwrapped your breakfast sandwich.

For the next half hour, the conversation drifted effortlessly between complaints about professors, the coffee shop, Gareth's inability to cook anything that wasn't boxed macaroni, and Eddie's insistence that gas station coffee "wasn't that bad."

"It is."

"It builds character."

"It builds stomach ulcers."

"Semantics."

By the time the coffee cups were empty and the paper bag sat crumpled between the two of you, it almost felt normal.

Like you weren't sitting across from a murderer, and like he hadn't shattered your life barely a week ago.

Eventually, Eddie stood, gathering the trash before tossing it into the kitchen garbage.

"I should probably disappear again."

You nodded. "Probably."

He lingered for another second. "You'll lock the door?"

A small smile tugged at your lips. "I'll lock the door."

"And the windows."

"Yes, Mom."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm serious. There are some weirdos out there after all."

"I know."

Satisfied enough, he gave you one last look before slipping quietly out the front door.

The rest of the day passed in a blur.

Your classes came and went without you retaining much of anything, your notebook filling with half-finished sentences and absent-minded doodles instead of lecture notes.

Every so often, you'd catch yourself staring out the classroom window, wondering whether Eddie was somewhere out there doing the same.

By the evening, the faculty mixer felt like the last place on earth you wanted to be. You almost skipped it.

Instead, you showed up fifteen minutes late with a bottle of cheap wine and every intention of making a polite appearance before slipping out after twenty minutes.

That plan lasted exactly twenty minutes. Someone handed you a drink, then another. Your professor insisted you stay for dinner. Another TA challenged everyone to a ridiculous card game. Before you knew it, hours had disappeared.

Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was the relief of pretending, just for one evening, that your life hadn't become the lead story on every local news station.

Or maybe trauma had a funny way of convincing you to stay wherever your thoughts couldn't catch up to you.

Whatever the reason, by the time you finally stumbled back toward your apartment, the streetlights had already flickered on.

Your head buzzed pleasantly. You fumbled your keys into the lock and pushed the door open.

"...Huh."

The apartment was completely dark. No lamp by the couch. No light over the stove. You reached instinctively for the switch beside the door.

Click. Nothing. A power outage, perfect. You sighed to yourself, kicking your shoes off by the entryway.

“Fuck it,” You slurred. "I guess I'm going to bed."

Using the light from your phone, you carefully navigated the familiar apartment, shadows stretching strangely across the walls as you made your way toward the bedroom.

You sighed, already reaching for the bedside lamp out of habit, when a gloved hand clamped over your mouth from behind.

Your scream died against warm leather. The phone clattered to the floor, screen cracked but still glowing faintly.

"Shhh, sweetheart," his voice danced right against your ear. "It's just me. Missed you."

Your heart slammed against your ribs, half terror, half something far more dangerous. The alcohol still buzzed warmly in your veins, loosening the edges of your fear into something slick and needy.

You felt the hard press of his body against your back, the robe, the familiar weight of him.

He slowly removed his hand, but the knife's cold, flat side traced lightly down the side of your neck instead.

"You've been drinking," he observed, voice low.

"Did you miss me, too?"

You swallowed hard. "Eddie..."

He spun you around and shoved you back onto the bed. The mask loomed above you in the near-darkness, white and expressionless, knife glinting as he climbed over you.

Straddling your hips, he pinned one wrist above your head.

"I hope you don’t mind, but I read your diary, pretty girl."

The words hit like ice water. Your eyes widened. "You—"

"While you were out playing normal at that mixer." He tilted his head, the mask's black voids staring down at you. "Couldn't help myself. You left it right there on your nightstand like an invitation."

His free hand roamed down your body, squeezing your breast through your top, thumb dragging over your nipple until it peaked.

"All those late-night entries about the mask. About the knife. About wanting to be chased. Caught. Used." He chuckled lowly. 

"My sweet, filthy girl. You get wet thinking about the man who slaughtered your friends, pinning you down and ruining you."

Heat flooded your face. Shame. Arousal. The conflicting storm that had lived in you since that night.

You squirmed beneath him, but his weight kept you trapped.

"Eddie, I—"

“Uh, uh,” he tsked. “I know what you really want, princess. We can have fun, but I don’t want to hurt you."

He tilted his head in thought, slowly sliding the knife down the side of your face.

"How about we make a safe word. You know what that is, sweetness?"

You nodded once, “Mhm.”

“Good girl. If anything gets to be too much, just say ‘red’, okay, sweetheart? I’ll stop the second you say it. No questions."

You nodded pathetically and quickly. 

"Good girl." The knife slid lower, slipping under the hem of your shirt and slicing upward in one clean rip.

Fabric parted like paper, baring your breasts to the cool air. 

He groaned. "Fuck, look at you. Been hard for days thinking about this."

He rocked his hips against yours, letting you feel how hard he already was under the robe.

The knife traced circles around one nipple, the sharp point never quite breaking skin, just enough pressure to make you gasp and arch.

"You like this, don’t you?" He leaned down, mask brushing your cheek. "The monster in your room while you’re drunk and helpless, begging to be caught."

You whimpered, hips rolling up to meet him. He laughed darkly and shoved your skirt up, yanking your panties aside.

Two fingers pushed into you without warning, curling deep.

"So fucking wet already. Greedy little thing." He pumped them slowly, scissoring, stretching you while the knife stayed pressed to your sternum like a threat and a promise.

You moaned, clenching around his fingers. He added a third finger, fucking you harder, thumb grinding against your clit.

"Eddie—please—"

"Please, what?" He pulled his fingers out and flipped you onto your stomach, yanking your hips up so you were ass-up, face pressed into the mattress.

The knife traced down your spine, then lower, teasing between your cheeks. "Please fuck you? Please hurt you? Please remind you exactly who you belong to now?"

You heard the rustle of fabric as he shoved the robe open. Then his cock, hot and bare, nudged against your entrance. He rubbed it through your slick folds, teasing.

"Say it."

"I want it," you gasped, pushing back against him. "Want you. Want all of it. Please."

He slammed into you in one brutal thrust, burying himself to the hilt. You cried out, the stretch burning so good.

He didn’t give you time to adjust. He fucked you hard, one hand fisted in your hair, the other pressing the flat of the knife to your throat from behind.

"Such good little girl," he growled through the changer, hips snapping relentlessly.

He perfectly dragged inside you with every stroke, hitting that spot that made stars burst behind your eyes. 

"Taking my cock so well. You tremble under me, and yet, you’re still creaming all over the monster who owns you."

You were babbling, moaning, pushing back to meet every thrust.

The knife stayed at your throat, a constant cold edge that made your pussy flutter tighter around him. He reached around and rubbed your clit in tight, merciless circles.

"Cum for me, sweetheart. It’s all yours."

The orgasm crashed over you violently, your whole body shaking as you clenched and pulsed around him. He fucked you through it, snarling praise and filth, until your legs gave out.

He pulled out, flipped you onto your back again, and straddled your chest. The mask hovered above you as he stroked himself fast and rough. 

"Open."

You obeyed, tongue out, eyes locked on the white mask. He came with a guttural groan, painting your tongue, your lips, your tits in thick ropes. You swallowed what you could, dazed and trembling.

Eddie dropped the knife to the side and finally tugged the mask off, tossing it aside. His real face, flushed, curls wild, eyes dark with obsession and something softer, stared down at you.

He leaned down and kissed you messily, tasting himself on your tongue.

"Still with me?" he murmured against your lips. 

You nodded, boneless and floating. "Yes..."

He huffed a quiet laugh and collapsed beside you, pulling you into his chest. His fingers stroked through your hair, gentle now, the chaos temporarily sated.

“That wasn’t too much?”

You shook your head against his chest, humming something incoherent. Your body still buzzed, boneless and warm, the ache between your thighs a pleasant reminder of how thoroughly he’d wrecked you.

Eddie pressed a kiss to the top of your head, one hand rubbing slow circles on your back while the other tilted your chin up for a lazy, lingering kiss. “C’mere. Let me take care of you.”

He slipped out of bed after a minute, disappearing into the hallway. You heard him fumbling around, then a few distant clicks. 

The lights in the apartment hummed back to life, the lamp on your nightstand flickering on and bathing the room in a soft glow.

Eddie reappeared in the doorway, wearing nothing but his boxers and that crooked, satisfied smile.

“Breaker box in the hall closet,” he explained with a shrug, like breaking into your apartment and knowing its secrets was the most normal thing in the world.

“Figured you’d want to see my pretty face afterwards.”

He returned with a warm, damp washcloth from the bathroom, a glass of water, and one of your oversized t-shirts.

Settling back into bed, he gently cleaned you up; careful between your legs, wiping away the mess with tender strokes and soft murmurs of praise.

Once you were clean, he helped you into the shirt, then tugged you back against his chest under the blankets.

His arms wrapped around you securely, one leg tangled with yours as he pressed lazy kisses along your shoulder and the side of your neck.

“You okay, baby?” he whispered, voice low and sweet. “Need anything else?”

You smiled and shook your head sleepily, curling tighter into him. It was strange, really, the stark contrast from how he had acted ten minutes before to now.

The switch was so effortless it made your head spin, as though the tenderness and the terror had always belonged to the same person. 

hope y'all enjoyed ;)

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You sat there panting, the haze of sensations slowly fading as Eddie’s head rested in the crook of your neck, catching his breath.

For a moment, everything felt oddly normal. Just you, sitting at your desk, post-sex with a guy you’ve had a crush on for what felt like forever. 

Then the cruel realization began to hit when you analyzed your surroundings: Eddie’s cloaked body and masked face pressed against your bare body, knife still gripped tightly at your side, and the looming fact that your former sorority sisters and friends were all dead. 

Every single one of them. Besides you.

The reality of it settled heavily into your chest as your gaze slowly drifted to the white mask still obscuring his face. For a long moment, neither of you spoke, neither of you moved.

Then, slowly, your hand reached up. Eddie stiffened; you felt that immediately. But he didn't stop you.

Your fingers found the edge of the mask and peeled it away.

Eddie stared back at you. Not a stranger, not some faceless monster, just Eddie. The same dark curls. The same amber eyes. The same face that had smiled at you every morning across a coffee counter. The same face that had called you sweetheart. The same face you'd spent months developing a crush on.

For a second, neither of you seemed capable of processing it. You already knew. Some part of you had known long before he started talking. Long before he'd mentioned the coffee shop. Long before he'd started listing all the tiny details he'd memorized about you.

Still.

Actually seeing him felt devastating. Eddie's expression shifted through a dozen emotions at once. Relief. Fear. Regret. Something dangerously close to panic.

"You shouldn't have done that," he said quietly.

Your throat tightened. "It was you."

Eddie looked away. For the first time all night, he looked genuinely exhausted. He leaned forward, grabbing a discarded shirt from the floor beside your desk before handing it to you.

"Put this on."

You stared at him. For one brief second, he almost looked embarrassed, like the situation had suddenly become too real for him too. Slowly, you pulled the shirt over your head.

Then the bedroom door opened, and both of you looked up.

A second Ghostface stood in the doorway. His gaze bounced between you and Eddie, then to the discarded mask sitting beside him.

"...Oh." The voice was familiar.

Gareth. The freshman. The one they'd all laughed about. The one Madison had humiliated. The one who'd ended up in the hospital.

Gareth slowly reached up and removed his own mask. "Well."

He blinked. "I guess we're past secret identities."

You stared, your brain struggling to keep up.

Gareth looked at Eddie, then at you, then back at Eddie. "What are you gonna do with her?"

The question hung in the room. Eddie's jaw tightened as he turned to you. 

"What do you want?"

You almost laughed. The question felt absurd.

"What do I—" Your voice cracked. "I want to be alive."

Silence. Eddie nodded slowly, like he'd expected that answer. "Okay."

Gareth frowned. "Okay?"

Eddie ignored him. Instead, he stood and began pulling the mask back on. The motion made your stomach drop.

"Eddie..."

He paused, then looked at you. The black eyes of the mask stared back.

"If you're the only survivor who walks out of this house untouched, they're going to arrest you."

The realization hit almost immediately, and your blood ran cold. Eddie continued.

"They'll think you did it."

"They'll think you helped."

"They'll think something."

Gareth shifted awkwardly. "He's got a point."

You looked between them, horrified.

"What are you saying?"

Eddie's shoulders rose and fell. "I'm saying I need them to believe you survived."

The room suddenly felt like it was impossible to breathe in.

"Eddie—"

"I'm sorry." Again, always with the sorry.

Before you could move, his gloved hand caught your shoulder. The next few moments blurred together. A shove, the edge of your desk catching your back hard. The cold tang of a knife slicing your arm. Then a straight plunge into the side of your hip. Pain began to explode behind your eyes.

Next, the floor rushing up to meet you. Voices becoming distant, muffled. Somewhere far away, you thought you heard Gareth arguing. Thought you heard Eddie snap back at him. Then darkness swallowed everything whole.

The next thing you became aware of was noise, so much noise. Radios. Voices. Footsteps. Someone saying your name. Your eyelids felt impossibly heavy.

When they finally opened, bright lights immediately stabbed through your skull, and you winced. A police officer was kneeling beside you. Another stood near the doorway.

The room was packed with people. Crime scene tape. Paramedics. Flashlights.

Questions. Questions. Questions.

"What happened?"

"Can you hear me?"

"Do you know your name?"

You swallowed, and your throat felt raw. The last thing you remembered was Eddie. The mask. His eyes. The apology. Then nothing.

As the room spun around you, a paramedic gently guided you back against the wall.

"You were very lucky," she said softly.

Lucky. The word echoed strangely in your head.

The hospital room smelt like antiseptic and soap, and the buzzing of the overhead lights did nothing to soothe the pounding in what felt like your entire head.

It’d been a long day of answering questions between doctors, police officers, FBI agents, and worst of all, your mom.  Every time somebody new walked into the room, it felt like the same conversation all over again.

What did you see? What do you remember? Did either of the attackers say anything? Did you recognize them?

You'd become very good at answering without actually answering.

"No."

"I don't know."

"It happened really fast."

"I'm not sure."

The lies got easier every time, which somehow made you feel worse. By the time the sun started setting outside the hospital windows, a detective was sitting across from your bed with a legal pad balanced on his knee.

"We're almost done," he promised.

He glanced down at his notes. "The nurses said you mentioned seeing two individuals upstairs."

You nodded. "I think so."

"You think so?"

Your fingers tightened around the hospital blanket. "I don't know."

He studied you carefully. "Do you remember anything else?"

The mask. The voice changer. Eddie's face. The flowers Gareth had brought Madison. Coffee cups. Blueberry muffins. Mornin', sweetheart.

You swallowed. "No."

The detective held your gaze for a moment longer, then nodded. "Okay."

It should've felt like a relief. Instead, guilt settled heavier in your chest.

Because you knew things; not everything, not enough, but more than you were telling them. More than anybody else in that building knew.

You'd spent hours trying to understand why. Why you were protecting him. Why every opportunity to tell the truth died before it reached your lips. It wasn't because he deserved it, you knew that much.

People were dead. Girls you'd lived with. Girls you'd laughed with. Girls whose names would be plastered all over the news for weeks. What Eddie did wasn't excusable. There wasn't a version of the story where it became okay.

And yet...

Every time you imagined saying his name aloud, something inside you recoiled.

Maybe because the version of Eddie sitting in your memories didn't match the version everyone was hunting.

Maybe because you couldn't reconcile the guy who fed stray cats and complained about hot dogs with the person standing behind the mask.

Maybe because part of you still couldn't believe they were the same person.

Or maybe because you were a coward. You honestly weren't sure anymore.

The detective eventually left while your mother stayed, unfortunately. The second the door clicked shut, she crossed her arms.

"There's something you're not saying."

You nearly choked. "What?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I know that face."

"There is no face."

"There absolutely is."

You groaned. "Mom."

"I'm serious." She sat down beside the bed. "You look guilty."

"I survived a massacre."

"I know."

The teasing disappeared immediately, and her expression softened. "I know."

After a moment, she reached over and squeezed your hand.

"The police said you can't go back."

You nodded; you already knew that much. 

The sorority house was still an active crime scene. Forensics. Evidence collection. Photographs. Investigations. The place wouldn't be reopened for months, maybe longer.

The thought felt strange. Your entire college life had taken place inside those walls, and now they were covered in yellow tape.

Your mother sighed. "I found you an apartment."

You looked up. "What?"

"Off campus."

"When?"

"Today."

"Mom."

"What?" She shrugged. "I was stressed."

"It's in a good neighborhood."

"According to who?"

"According to me."

"That's not reassuring."

"It has security."

"Mom."

"It has locks."

You rolled your eyes.

She pointed at you. "I'm being serious."

A few hours later, after discharge papers and prescriptions and a dozen final instructions from nurses, you found yourself standing in front of a small apartment building on the edge of town.

It wasn't fancy. Just brick, three floors, quiet. The kind of place students rented when they wanted to avoid roommates and campus drama. Normally you'd have hated it. But tonight, it felt like a fortress.

Your mother helped carry in your things. A few bags of clothes. Textbooks. Your laptop. The essentials.

Neither of you acknowledged how little there was. Most of your belongings were still sitting inside a house nobody was allowed to enter.

Eventually she hugged you goodbye, a little too tightly, then she left. And for the first time since last night, you were completely alone.

You brushed your teeth, changed into sweatpants, and locked the front door twice. Checked the windows, and then checked them again.

By the time you crawled into bed, exhaustion had settled deep into your bones.

The mattress wasn't comfortable. The room didn't feel like yours. The ceiling looked wrong. Hell, everything looked wrong.

You rolled onto your side and pulled the blankets higher.

A week passed. At least, you thought it had been a week. Time felt strange now.

Days blurred together in a cycle of police interviews, missed classes, awkward condolences from people you'd barely spoken to before, and the constant feeling that everyone was looking at you differently.

The Survivor. The Final Girl. The Poor Thing. You hated all of it. The apartment helped a little.

You'd settled into a routine of locking every door twice before bed and checking the windows every night before sleeping.

The bruises across your body had faded from deep purple to sickly yellow, and the stitches in your scalp had finally stopped pulling every time you brushed your hair.

On the surface, things were beginning to resemble normal again. At least as normal as they could. Work had helped more than anything. The coffee shop was familiar, predictable.

Most mornings, you could almost convince yourself your life hadn't exploded. The problem was that every morning at seven, your eyes still drifted toward the front door.

The bell would jingle, A customer would walk in, and for one stupid second, your heart would jump. Only to sink again.

Because it wasn't him, never him. No dark curls. No leather jacket. No crooked smile. No "Mornin', sweetheart."

At first, you'd told yourself it was because he was hiding. Then because he was smart. Then because he was gone. The truth was probably all three. By the end of the week, you'd stopped expecting him altogether.

Which was exactly why you nearly dropped your keys when you walked into your apartment Thursday night.

The place was dark. You'd spent the entire day on campus meeting with professors and trying to convince everyone that no, you didn't need special treatment.

You were exhausted, and all you wanted was a shower and eight consecutive hours of sleep. You pushed open the door, stepped inside, and locked it behind you.

Then, you reached for the light switch, but the lamp in the corner flickered on instead.  You froze.

Somebody was sitting on your couch. For one horrifying second, every muscle in your body locked. Then the figure leaned forward.

Dark curls. Black jeans. Familiar tattoos.

"Eddie."

He was sitting there like he'd been waiting for you, one arm draped over the back of the couch, and an open bag of pretzels resting in his lap.

Like, this was completely normal. Like he hadn't been the subject of a statewide manhunt seven days ago.

Eddie looked different. The dark circles beneath his eyes were deeper than you'd ever seen. His jaw was covered in several days' worth of stubble. But it was him. No mask. No voice changer. Just Eddie.

For a long moment, he simply stared at you, like he was making sure you were actually there. Then he glanced toward the locked door, back at you.

And said the first thing that came to mind. "You didn't rat me out."

You blinked. Of all the things he could've said, of all the possible openings, that was what he landed on.

"You broke into my apartment."

A faint smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "That wasn't a denial."

"Eddie."

"It wasn't."

You stared at him, and he stared right back. The familiar smile slowly faded, until there was nothing left except something that looked suspiciously like disbelief.

"You didn't tell them."

"No."

"Why?"

You looked away first. "I don't know."

"That's a lie."

"Probably."

Eddie exhaled quietly, his gaze dropping to the floor, then back to you. "I kept waiting."

"For what?"

"For the cops to kick my door down."

You swallowed. "Do they know where you live?"

"No." The answer was immediate.

"I haven't exactly been staying there."

Of course he hadn't.

You suddenly realized you'd never actually asked yourself where he'd been.

Eddie glanced around. "You got a nice place."

You looked at him incredulously. "That's your contribution?"

"What?"

"You vanish for a week."

"Mhm."

"I find you sitting in my apartment."

"Technically your living room."

"And your first real observation is that the place is nice?"

He considered that. "Second observation."

You folded your arms. "And the first?"

For the first time since you'd turned on the light, something softened in his expression. The concern you'd seen in your bedroom that night. The concern he'd spent the last week trying and failing to hide.

"You look okay."

You swallowed hard. "I mean, I'm not okay."

The words came out quieter than you'd intended. "How can anyone be okay considering what happened?"

The moment the sentence left your mouth, something changed in Eddie's expression. The concern disappeared; his jaw tightened and his eyes hardened.

He looked away and laughed once, a short, bitter sound. "Right."

"Eddie—"

"No."

He stood abruptly, pacing a few steps away from the couch before dragging a hand through his hair. "No, you're right."

His voice was growing sharper now. "I should've just killed you."

The words hit like a slap, and your stomach dropped. "Eddie."

"I'm serious." He spun back toward you. "This is exactly why I shouldn't have come here."

"Eddie—"

"I knew this would happen."

His hands were shaking, not with fear, but with frustration. "I should've left you alone."

You stared at him, trying desperately to reconcile the guy standing in your living room with the one who'd spent months making you coffee-shop playlists and complaining about professors.

Finally, you found your voice. "Why?"

The question stopped him.

His expression flickered. "What?"

"Why did you do it?"

Silence.

"Eddie."

He looked away immediately. The first genuine hesitation you'd seen from him all night. "Don't."

"Why?"

His jaw tightened. "Because."

"Because what?"

"Eddie."

His refusal somehow scared you more than his anger. Slowly, you reached for your phone resting beside you on the couch. The movement was instinctive; you barely realized you were doing it.

Eddie did. His eyes snapped downward; then he was moving. His hand wrapped around your wrist hard before your fingers ever reached the phone.

You flinched, the reaction hitting him just as hard as it hit you. Eddie froze, staring at you while you gave him a look with scared eyes. Then his grip loosened immediately.

"I'm sorry."

His voice dropped, the anger disappearing almost as quickly as it'd arrived.

"I'm sorry."

He slowly released your wrist. You pulled it back against your chest, both of you breathing harder than before.

"I wasn't gonna call anybody." The lie sounded weak even to your own ears.

Eddie looked unconvinced. Finally, he sat back down and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.

"The plan wasn't supposed to be this. We were angry."

His eyes remained fixed on the floor.

"After Gareth."

You thought about the stories. The hospital. The rose. The humiliation.

"Originally, it was only supposed to be Donovin."

“The pledgemaster?”

Eddie nodded.

"Just him. We spent weeks planning it."

His laugh was humorless.

"Actually planning it. The mask. The voice changer. The calls. The whole thing."

He shook his head.

"Then Madison happened."

You closed your eyes briefly. The name still hurt.

"She wasn't the only one."

Eddie's voice had grown colder now.

"They all knew. They all laughed, all helped."

You thought back to the common room. The stories. The laughter. The way nobody had seemed bothered. Still.

"They didn't deserve—"

"No." His head snapped up. "They deserved worse."

The intensity in his voice made you recoil. Immediately, he saw it, and immediately, he hated himself for it.

"Eddie..."

He looked away. "You know what the funny part is?"

You didn't answer.

"I didn't even know you were one of them."

That surprised you. "What?"

"The sorority." His eyes found yours. "The day I asked your name."

Your stomach dropped. "My sweatshirt."

"Kappa Delta."

You remembered. "Oh."

Eddie laughed quietly. "I went home, and I was pissed."

The admission caught you off guard. "Why?"

"Because I liked you." Its honesty made your chest ache.

"And suddenly I find out you're one of them."

His gaze drifted toward the window.

"I thought I'd been wrong about you. So I started watching."

The words should've terrified you; they did. But they also sounded deeply pathetic and deeply human.

"I kept waiting for proof."

"Proof of what?"

"That you were like them. You never were."

He looked down.

"I watched you leave parties early. You spent Friday nights reading. You worked extra shifts. You brought leftovers home for the girls who couldn't afford takeout."

Your eyes burned.

"I watched you defend Gareth."

The room fell silent.

"And then I realized you weren't one of them."

A tear slipped down your cheek. "Eddie."

"No." He shook his head. "I know what you're gonna say."

"Do you?"

"They were your friends."

The words shattered something inside you immediately. Because they were. You started crying before you could stop yourself.

"They were." Your voice cracked. "They were my friends."

The apartment blurred.

"I lived with them. I knew them. They had families. They had—"

"I did you a favor."

The words cut through your sentence. You stared at him, horrified.

Eddie looked almost offended by your reaction. "They were awful to you."

"What?"

"They talked about you constantly."

The anger was back. Not directed at you, but at them.

"You think they liked you?"

"Eddie—"

"They made fun of you."

His voice rose. "They called you weird. They called you desperate. They thought you were embarrassing."

You shook your head. "No."

"Yes. They did." The certainty in his voice made your stomach twist.

Eddie leaned forward. "They had plans for you."

The apartment suddenly felt very quiet. "What plans?"

His jaw tightened. For the first time all night, he looked genuinely furious.

"The end-of-year retreat."

You frowned. "What about it?"

"They were going to frame you."

The words hit like ice water. You stared. "What?"

"They wanted to dump all the chapter finances on you."

His eyes darkened. "They were planning to accuse you of stealing."

Your breathing stopped.

"They thought it'd be funny."

"No."

"They did."

"Eddie."

"I heard them."

The conviction in his voice left no room for doubt. "They thought because you were quiet and not that involved, nobody would defend you."

He laughed bitterly. "Madison called you expendable."

The tears kept coming. You didn't know what hurt more. The possibility that he was lying, or the possibility that he wasn't.

Across from you, Eddie sat silently while the tears kept coming. You hated it, hated crying in front of him.

Hated that he was seeing you like this. Hated that some sick part of your brain still found comfort in the fact that he was here at all.

Your vision blurred as you wiped angrily at your face.

"Eddie, they were my friends." The words came out broken.

"They were awful friends." His response was immediate, like he'd been waiting to argue.

You laughed bitterly through your tears. "You don't get to decide that."

"No?"

"No." You shook your head. "You don't get to decide who lives and dies because they were mean."

For a second, you thought he was going to get angry again. Instead, his shoulders slumped.

The fight seemed to leave him all at once. Slowly, he moved closer. You should've moved away; you really should have. But you didn't.

"Eddie—"

"I'm not saying what I did was right."

You looked at him skeptically. "Really?"

"No." The honesty caught you off guard. "I'm saying I'm glad you're alive."

His voice had gone quiet, almost tired. "If that makes me selfish, fine."

You simply stared at him, and he simply stared back. Not like Ghostface, not like the guy the police were hunting, just Eddie.

The same guy who used to lean against the coffee counter every morning and give you butterflies with a simple grin. The same guy who remembered your favorite pastry. The same guy who somehow existed inside the same person who had destroyed your life.

"You deserve more than that place." His voice softened. "You deserve more than people who treat you like an afterthought."

You looked down. "They weren't all bad."

"No." His expression softened too. "I know."

The admission surprised you.

"I know they weren't."

Then Eddie carefully reached over and wiped away a tear you hadn't realized had escaped. The gesture felt strangely intimate.

"I was terrified you died."

Your eyes lifted to his. "What?"

"The night at the house." His jaw tightened. "When you got knocked out."

“Got knocked out.” Not, “After I knocked you out.”

The memory flashed through your mind. The bedroom. The mask. The darkness.

Eddie looked away. "I kept checking the news."

A humorless laugh. "Turns out every news station in the country was talking about you."

The corner of your mouth twitched despite yourself. "That's creepy."

"I know."

The fact that he agreed immediately made you laugh weakly. For the first time all night, the tension eased. Enough for you to finally ask the question that had been lingering in the back of your mind.

"So where have you been?"

Eddie leaned back into the couch. His expression immediately became more guarded. "What do you mean?"

"You and Gareth."

You shrugged. "It's been a week. No arrests. No suspects. No police showing up at your door. So, where have you been?"

For a moment, he seemed to debate whether he should answer. "Moving around."

"Moving around?"

"We stayed at a motel for two nights."

Your eyebrows rose. "A motel?"

"It was disgusting."

"I can imagine."

"The shower looked like it had diseases."

You snorted.

"I knew you'd find that funny."

The brief smile faded, then Eddie shrugged. "After that we split up for a little bit."

Your stomach twisted. "You split up?"

"Temporarily."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "We figured if they started looking at one of us, they'd find both of us."

Its practicality made your skin crawl, as they'd planned for this. Maybe they had.

"They haven't questioned you?"

Eddie shook his head. "Not once."

"What about Gareth?"

"Nope."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

His expression darkened. "They've been focusing on people connected to the sorority."

Your stomach sank. Of course they had.

"Campus security. Ex-boyfriends. Former pledges." Eddie laughed quietly. "One detective apparently thinks it was a drug deal gone wrong."

"What?"

"I know." He shook his head. "It's ridiculous."

The fact that he found the investigation amusing made you feel sick all over again.

A week ago, that would've been the biggest red flag in human history. Now it barely cracked the top ten.

"So you're just..." You gestured vaguely. "...hiding?"

"Pretty much." His eyes met yours. "We're trying to stay quiet. In case somebody finally starts asking the right questions."

You nodded, looking down at the floor.

You don’t know why you felt the need to tell him this next part. It felt almost as though you owed it to him. Why? You don’t know.

“You know…the uh, hospital had asked me some questions.”

He tilted his head. “What kinds of questions?”

You nervously bit your lip, a nasty habit you picked up somewhere after the events of this week. 

“When they were giving me a full-body exam, you know…checking me out and whatnot. The nurses, they—” you paused, searching for the correct way to put it. 

“They said that my vaginal tissue looked damaged. They assumed that you, that whoever it was—”

“No.” 

You looked at him then, his eyes shifting to a combination of fear and sincerity. 

“I would never do that to you. Do you think—did I?” 

The question hung between you.

For the first time since he'd shown up in your apartment, he looked genuinely afraid of the answer. Not scared of prison. Not scared of getting caught.

Scared of you. Scared of what you might say.

Slowly, you shook your head. “No.”

The tension in his shoulders immediately eased.

“No,” you repeated. “I don't think that.”

Eddie let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for days. “Okay.”

You looked down at your hands. “The nurses kept asking. They asked if I remembered everything.”

Your throat tightened. “They asked if somebody had forced me.”

Eddie's jaw clenched. You could practically see him replaying that night in his head. Every moment. Every choice. Every mistake.

“And?”

You swallowed. “I told them no. I told them I wasn't assaulted.”

Eddie stared at you, the realization slowly settling across his face.

You laughed bitterly. “Which was apparently not the answer they expected.”

“Sweetheart—”

“They wanted to do a rape kit.”

His expression immediately darkened.

You continued before he could interrupt. “And I refused.”

Eddie didn't move, didn't blink, didn’t breathe. He simply couldn’t.

You looked away. “The only DNA they would've found would've been yours.”

The words sounded strange spoken aloud, like you were talking about somebody else's life.

“They would've found evidence you were there.”

His eyes never left you.

You forced yourself to continue. “So I said no.”

Eddie looked stunned. “Why?” The question came out almost immediately.

You laughed once. “That's kind of what everybody keeps asking me. What I keep asking me.”

“No.” His voice was softer now. “Why?”

You rubbed your forehead. “I don't know.”

It wasn't entirely true; you did know, you just hated the answer.

Because somewhere between the coffee shop and the apartment and the hospital room...You'd made a choice.

A terrible one. A great one. One you still couldn't explain.

You looked up at him. “I knew what would happen.”

His brow furrowed.

“If they found your DNA, they'd start asking questions.”

“You covered for me.”

You nodded.

“You covered for me.”

Neither of you spoke for several seconds, then Eddie leaned back against the couch, looking completely bewildered. Like this outcome somehow even surprised him.

“You should hate me.”

The statement caught you off guard. “What?”

“You should.”

His eyes found yours. “Everybody else does.”

The sincerity behind it made your chest ache.

You shook your head. “I do hate you. Part of me does.”

Eddie nodded once, accepting it. “That's fair.”

Tears burned behind your eyes again. “Eddie, I don't understand anything anymore.”

His gaze softened immediately. “I know.”

“I hate what you did.”

“I know.”

“I hate that I lied.”

“I know.”

Your voice cracked. “And I hate that you're sitting on my couch right now and all I can think about is whether you've eaten anything this week.”

The confession slipped out before you could stop it.

Eddie froze.

Eventually, he looked down at the floor, a faint smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.

“I had a gas station hot dog yesterday.”

You stared at him, then groaned. “Eddie.”

“What?”

“A gas station hot dog?”

“It was surprisingly good.”

“You are unbelievable.”

The laughter faded quickly. Not because anything was funny, but because reality was still sitting between you on the couch.

"So what now?" He asked.

You stared down at your hands. You'd spent the entire week avoiding that exact thought. Now here it was, sitting beside you, looking at you, waiting for an answer.

"I don't know."

Eddie nodded once, as he'd expected it.

You swallowed. "I don't know what this is."

His gaze stayed fixed on you.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

Then you laughed bitterly. "Part of me still likes you."

The admission hurt more than you'd expected. Because it felt wrong, terribly wrong.

"But every time I look at you..." Your eyes stung. "I see what happened."

Eddie's expression faltered. "I know."

"I see the house."

His jaw tightened. "I know."

"I see Madison. I see all of them."

Eddie looked away first. "I can't change that."

The honesty caught you off guard.

"I know."

"I wish I could."

"What if… I tried?"

You frowned. "Tried what?"

"To make it up to you."

A short laugh escaped you. "How exactly do you plan on doing that?"

"I don't know. But I'd figure something out."

You stared at him. There was something absurd about the conversation.

As if the two of you were discussing a bad breakup instead of mass murder. And yet...a part of you wanted him to prove you wrong, to fix his mistake.

"Okay." The word slipped out before you could stop it.

Eddie blinked. "Okay?"

You nodded slowly. "Okay."

You weren't sure what you were agreeing to. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. But for now, it was all you had.

Then Eddie's eyes drifted toward the dark circles beneath yours. The bruises still fading along your jaw. The way your eyelids kept drooping.

"You look tired."

You let out a laugh. "Observant."

"I'm serious."

"I know."

He stood slowly and almost reluctantly. Something in your chest dropped: the realization that he was about to leave, that you'd be alone again.

Eddie shoved his hands into his pockets. "I should go."

You nodded. Then, something took over you. 

"Eddie."

He stopped immediately, turning back. "What?"

The question sat in your throat for several seconds. Long enough that you nearly changed your mind. "Stay."

Your face burned. "I just..."

You looked away. "I don't really want to be alone tonight."

The confession hung awkwardly in the air.

Eddie stared at you, for once looking genuinely surprised.

If anything, he thought you’d want to be alone, at least away from him. He’s the reason you’re afraid of the dark in the first place. But who was he to complain?

His expression softened then, the same way it used to in the coffee shop when you'd hand him a free pastry at the end of your shift.

"Okay."

Your chest tightened. "Okay?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

The answer was simple, like there had never been another option. You watched him settle back onto the couch. Then he patted his lap once, and you scootched over, resting your head on his thigh. 

Within seconds, his fingers began raking through your hair. And within minutes, you drifted off without a second thought.

When you woke up the next morning, you were in your bed. Blankets wrapped around you just the way you liked, somehow in your pajamas, hair brushed, makeup off.

And Eddie was nowhere to be seen. 

You looked around for a moment, scanning the room. Then the front door clicked open, causing you to jump upright. 

“Who’s there—”

Eddie peeked his head in the doorway with a carry-out tray of coffee in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other, kicking the front door closed with his foot.

“Just me, sweetheart.” He chuckled. “Have you ever seen horror movies? You should never ask ‘who’s there?’ You’re basically asking to get mu—” He paused, reading your expression. 

“Anyway, I got your favorites.”

Your chest fluttered despite the comment. You turn to hop out of bed but pause at your keys still on the nightstand, raising your eyebrow while looking at Eddie.

“How did you…”

“Oh, I uh…made a second set.”

You nodded once, like that made sense. It shouldn’t have made sense.

But, in the series of events from the past week, this was one of the most normal ones. 

"Anyways..." Eddie slid the coffee toward you before taking the seat across from you. "Got any big plans today?"

You pulled out one of the barstools at the small kitchen island. "Class at noon and then another at five."

He nodded.

"After that, I've got some staff and TAs mixer at one of my professors' houses."

"Sounds riveting."

"It'll probably be painfully awkward."

"You're definitely getting cornered by somebody who wants to talk about their dissertation."

"I wouldn’t even know what their dissertation is on."

"Doesn't matter." He shrugged, "They'll find a way."

A laugh escaped you as you unwrapped your breakfast sandwich.

For the next half hour, the conversation drifted effortlessly between complaints about professors, the coffee shop, Gareth's inability to cook anything that wasn't boxed macaroni, and Eddie's insistence that gas station coffee "wasn't that bad."

"It is."

"It builds character."

"It builds stomach ulcers."

"Semantics."

By the time the coffee cups were empty and the paper bag sat crumpled between the two of you, it almost felt normal.

Like you weren't sitting across from a murderer, and like he hadn't shattered your life barely a week ago.

Eventually, Eddie stood, gathering the trash before tossing it into the kitchen garbage.

"I should probably disappear again."

You nodded. "Probably."

He lingered for another second. "You'll lock the door?"

A small smile tugged at your lips. "I'll lock the door."

"And the windows."

"Yes, Mom."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm serious. There are some weirdos out there after all."

"I know."

Satisfied enough, he gave you one last look before slipping quietly out the front door.

The rest of the day passed in a blur.

Your classes came and went without you retaining much of anything, your notebook filling with half-finished sentences and absent-minded doodles instead of lecture notes.

Every so often, you'd catch yourself staring out the classroom window, wondering whether Eddie was somewhere out there doing the same.

By the evening, the faculty mixer felt like the last place on earth you wanted to be. You almost skipped it.

Instead, you showed up fifteen minutes late with a bottle of cheap wine and every intention of making a polite appearance before slipping out after twenty minutes.

That plan lasted exactly twenty minutes. Someone handed you a drink, then another. Your professor insisted you stay for dinner. Another TA challenged everyone to a ridiculous card game. Before you knew it, hours had disappeared.

Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was the relief of pretending, just for one evening, that your life hadn't become the lead story on every local news station.

Or maybe trauma had a funny way of convincing you to stay wherever your thoughts couldn't catch up to you.

Whatever the reason, by the time you finally stumbled back toward your apartment, the streetlights had already flickered on.

Your head buzzed pleasantly. You fumbled your keys into the lock and pushed the door open.

"...Huh."

The apartment was completely dark. No lamp by the couch. No light over the stove. You reached instinctively for the switch beside the door.

Click. Nothing. A power outage, perfect. You sighed to yourself, kicking your shoes off by the entryway.

“Fuck it,” You slurred. "I guess I'm going to bed."

Using the light from your phone, you carefully navigated the familiar apartment, shadows stretching strangely across the walls as you made your way toward the bedroom.

You sighed, already reaching for the bedside lamp out of habit, when a gloved hand clamped over your mouth from behind.

Your scream died against warm leather. The phone clattered to the floor, screen cracked but still glowing faintly.

"Shhh, sweetheart," his voice danced right against your ear. "It's just me. Missed you."

Your heart slammed against your ribs, half terror, half something far more dangerous. The alcohol still buzzed warmly in your veins, loosening the edges of your fear into something slick and needy.

You felt the hard press of his body against your back, the robe, the familiar weight of him.

He slowly removed his hand, but the knife's cold, flat side traced lightly down the side of your neck instead.

"You've been drinking," he observed, voice low.

"Did you miss me, too?"

You swallowed hard. "Eddie..."

He spun you around and shoved you back onto the bed. The mask loomed above you in the near-darkness, white and expressionless, knife glinting as he climbed over you.

Straddling your hips, he pinned one wrist above your head.

"I hope you don’t mind, but I read your diary, pretty girl."

The words hit like ice water. Your eyes widened. "You—"

"While you were out playing normal at that mixer." He tilted his head, the mask's black voids staring down at you. "Couldn't help myself. You left it right there on your nightstand like an invitation."

His free hand roamed down your body, squeezing your breast through your top, thumb dragging over your nipple until it peaked.

"All those late-night entries about the mask. About the knife. About wanting to be chased. Caught. Used." He chuckled lowly. 

"My sweet, filthy girl. You get wet thinking about the man who slaughtered your friends, pinning you down and ruining you."

Heat flooded your face. Shame. Arousal. The conflicting storm that had lived in you since that night.

You squirmed beneath him, but his weight kept you trapped.

"Eddie, I—"

“Uh, uh,” he tsked. “I know what you really want, princess. We can have fun, but I don’t want to hurt you."

He tilted his head in thought, slowly sliding the knife down the side of your face.

"How about we make a safe word. You know what that is, sweetness?"

You nodded once, “Mhm.”

“Good girl. If anything gets to be too much, just say ‘red’, okay, sweetheart? I’ll stop the second you say it. No questions."

You nodded pathetically and quickly. 

"Good girl." The knife slid lower, slipping under the hem of your shirt and slicing upward in one clean rip.

Fabric parted like paper, baring your breasts to the cool air. 

He groaned. "Fuck, look at you. Been hard for days thinking about this."

He rocked his hips against yours, letting you feel how hard he already was under the robe.

The knife traced circles around one nipple, the sharp point never quite breaking skin, just enough pressure to make you gasp and arch.

"You like this, don’t you?" He leaned down, mask brushing your cheek. "The monster in your room while you’re drunk and helpless, begging to be caught."

You whimpered, hips rolling up to meet him. He laughed darkly and shoved your skirt up, yanking your panties aside.

Two fingers pushed into you without warning, curling deep.

"So fucking wet already. Greedy little thing." He pumped them slowly, scissoring, stretching you while the knife stayed pressed to your sternum like a threat and a promise.

You moaned, clenching around his fingers. He added a third finger, fucking you harder, thumb grinding against your clit.

"Eddie—please—"

"Please, what?" He pulled his fingers out and flipped you onto your stomach, yanking your hips up so you were ass-up, face pressed into the mattress.

The knife traced down your spine, then lower, teasing between your cheeks. "Please fuck you? Please hurt you? Please remind you exactly who you belong to now?"

You heard the rustle of fabric as he shoved the robe open. Then his cock, hot and bare, nudged against your entrance. He rubbed it through your slick folds, teasing.

"Say it."

"I want it," you gasped, pushing back against him. "Want you. Want all of it. Please."

He slammed into you in one brutal thrust, burying himself to the hilt. You cried out, the stretch burning so good.

He didn’t give you time to adjust. He fucked you hard, one hand fisted in your hair, the other pressing the flat of the knife to your throat from behind.

"Such good little girl," he growled through the changer, hips snapping relentlessly.

He perfectly dragged inside you with every stroke, hitting that spot that made stars burst behind your eyes. 

"Taking my cock so well. You tremble under me, and yet, you’re still creaming all over the monster who owns you."

You were babbling, moaning, pushing back to meet every thrust.

The knife stayed at your throat, a constant cold edge that made your pussy flutter tighter around him. He reached around and rubbed your clit in tight, merciless circles.

"Cum for me, sweetheart. It’s all yours."

The orgasm crashed over you violently, your whole body shaking as you clenched and pulsed around him. He fucked you through it, snarling praise and filth, until your legs gave out.

He pulled out, flipped you onto your back again, and straddled your chest. The mask hovered above you as he stroked himself fast and rough. 

"Open."

You obeyed, tongue out, eyes locked on the white mask. He came with a guttural groan, painting your tongue, your lips, your tits in thick ropes. You swallowed what you could, dazed and trembling.

Eddie dropped the knife to the side and finally tugged the mask off, tossing it aside. His real face, flushed, curls wild, eyes dark with obsession and something softer, stared down at you.

He leaned down and kissed you messily, tasting himself on your tongue.

"Still with me?" he murmured against your lips. 

You nodded, boneless and floating. "Yes..."

He huffed a quiet laugh and collapsed beside you, pulling you into his chest. His fingers stroked through your hair, gentle now, the chaos temporarily sated.

“That wasn’t too much?”

You shook your head against his chest, humming something incoherent. Your body still buzzed, boneless and warm, the ache between your thighs a pleasant reminder of how thoroughly he’d wrecked you.

Eddie pressed a kiss to the top of your head, one hand rubbing slow circles on your back while the other tilted your chin up for a lazy, lingering kiss. “C’mere. Let me take care of you.”

He slipped out of bed after a minute, disappearing into the hallway. You heard him fumbling around, then a few distant clicks. 

The lights in the apartment hummed back to life, the lamp on your nightstand flickering on and bathing the room in a soft glow.

Eddie reappeared in the doorway, wearing nothing but his boxers and that crooked, satisfied smile.

“Breaker box in the hall closet,” he explained with a shrug, like breaking into your apartment and knowing its secrets was the most normal thing in the world.

“Figured you’d want to see my pretty face afterwards.”

He returned with a warm, damp washcloth from the bathroom, a glass of water, and one of your oversized t-shirts.

Settling back into bed, he gently cleaned you up; careful between your legs, wiping away the mess with tender strokes and soft murmurs of praise.

Once you were clean, he helped you into the shirt, then tugged you back against his chest under the blankets.

His arms wrapped around you securely, one leg tangled with yours as he pressed lazy kisses along your shoulder and the side of your neck.

“You okay, baby?” he whispered, voice low and sweet. “Need anything else?”

You smiled and shook your head sleepily, curling tighter into him. It was strange, really, the stark contrast from how he had acted ten minutes before to now.

The switch was so effortless it made your head spin, as though the tenderness and the terror had always belonged to the same person. 

hope y'all enjoyed ;)

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