𝐍𝐎 𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘, 𝐍𝐎 𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐄 - kiara carrera²

𝒙𝒙𝒙𝒊. 𝒃𝒓𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒔

"BOO!"

For minutes, Tatum Quinn had been secretly awake, planning her attack. Hooked to an IV drip and blood trailing out of her veins, she grinned as she jumped onto the back of Leroy, tearing the needles out of her arms carelessly.

He flinched, snapping his whole body around to face his home-hospitalised little sister with an annoyed, but slightly relieved, sigh. "You're such a dick, you know that, right?"

"Yep!" She jumped up off the bed with a burst of energy, blood trailing down her arms and dripping onto the old floor of the destroyed Quinn - what used to be a family - home. Her curious fingers trailed up the metal stick of the drip and she raised her brows, impressed. "Where'd we get this fancy equipment, then?"

Leroy opened his mouth, ready to sit the girl down and tell her everything that had gone down today, just as the pouges had recited to him. Pope finding out Denmark Tanny was one of his ancestors, John B tricking Carla, TJ being rescued, and -

"That was me," announced a new, happy voice as Cameron Limbrey strolled into the room.

Tatum's grinning face immediately hardened into a glare. "What the fuck are you doing here?" she spat, grabbing hold of a sharp, bloody needle and pointing it in his direction.

The third triplet raised his hands in defence and smiled a little at his sister's threat. "Wow, way to thank someone for saving you," he said with humorous sarcasm.

Once he had delivered baby TJ back to his family, Cameron promised he'd do whatever he could to save the life of Tatum Quinn - and he was pretty damn confident that he could do it. He called in a bunch of doctors, who brought tonnes of equipment, which literally brought the girl back to life. So, thanks to the wealth Cameron's name held, Tatum was able to be performed on professionally and without the consequences of the cops coming to take her.

The pouges still didn't trust him, of course - especially not Kiara and JJ - but that was okay, there was only really three people he wanted to trust him. And that was his three siblings, the last of the five Quinns, who he was ripped and stolen away from at six years old. His whole life he had dreamed of seeing his brothers and sister again, and although half of them were dead, he was still grateful to have Leroy and Tatum back. Plus, their new baby brother was just an extra bonus. At least he'd be in his life from start to finish.

"You knew mom was drugging me!" Tatum accused furiously, pointing the sharp end of the needle dangerously close to his throat.

"No, actually, I didn't," he denied, his hands raised, defenceless against The Midnight Ghoul, serial killer, mass murderer, his twin sister. "And when I did work it out, I tried rescuing you, but you were already running away with your friends."

The needle was through his skin now, millimetres away from drawing blood. "Where are my friends?" she demanded, looking in between her two brothers. "And where the fuck is the baby?!"

Leroy sighed, too exahsted for all this drama but glad to have his little sister alive and clearly well, considering she was already trying to kill people. She was back to being herself, at least. "JJ's watching him for the night - doesn't trust Cam around him."

"Good," she said, turning around to face Leroy, lowering her weapon from Cameron's throat. "At least JJ has common sense."

"JJ and common sense doesn't even sound right in a sentence," her big brother argued, having known the dumb, blonde boy since he was a little kid, and remembering the countless times he'd came up with bad ideas and gotten himself into trouble for absolutely no reason at all.

She huffed and flopped back down onto her bed with crossed arms, blowing her messy hair away from her face.

"Tate..." Leroy thought for a moment as he settled down beside her, carefully picking out his words, still finding the world of emotions strange, uncomfortable and often overwhelming. "...you hurt yourself again. Why?"

She furrowed her brows, tried to remember her exact mindset she had earlier that day. "I was thinking about TJ - about how much time we had to save him," she begun, causing both her brothers to watch her intently, listening to her every word. "And then I started to think about time, overall. It's like...it's not even real. It's just there. It's made up. It's not a thing. Nothing is anything. And then that really confused me because I need an explanation. And then I couldn't stop thinking about it, and then I just....I don't know."

Cameron nodded understandingly, recognising her breakdown from some book he had read on psychology once. He really enjoyed learning about things like this, getting into the dark minds of serial killers, picking out their thoughts, really understanding them and the terrible things they did. Not that Tatum was terrible, obviously.

Leroy sighed again, his whole body stiffening when his sister reached over to wrap her arms around him. He paused for a moment, unsure of how to react, then patted her lightly on the head, his brows knotted in confusion.

"I forgive you, Lee, really."

A small, genuine smile stretched across the man's face as he finally returned the hug of his little sister - the first hug he had had since a little boy, before his mother was shot to death by his father.

"If you're feeling up to it, you should probably go to The Wreck," he told her after a moment of comfortable silence. "Your friends are there, and TJ. They'd wanna see you. And something else happened today - a big part of the problem is over."

She nodded and stood up off the bed, not bothering to clean up to blood on her arms, or change from her dirty pjs. All she wanted right now was to wrap her arms around her baby brother and apologise for almost leaving him.

With one final glance at her twin brother and big brother, she left the house of horrors and made her way to Outerbanks' most famous restaurant - probably not a smart thing for a wanted person to do, but she didn't really care all that much. If the cops wanted her that bad, they would've come by now.

a/n: can't sleep so i wrote another chapter. im kind of loving this leroy redemption.

and who's ready for a tiara comeback?? like, actually this time