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Maddie stayed silent for as long as she physically could. Her and Kate were running interference, ducking between aisles and checking the few windows they could see. About three minutes went up before she spoke up. "So... you and Josh?"
Kate rolled her eyes, but her cheeks burned. Just before they'd all split up, Kate had marched up to Josh in front of everyone and pulled his face to hers. Josh stood there and let her kiss him, but when she pulled away and walked off like nothing happened, he looked like he was about to pass out.
Maddie had a wide smile on her face, and she patted his arm gently, giving him a squeeze before running after her.
"Don't," she warned, smile fighting its way onto her face. "What about you and Simon, huh? Since February?"
"We hooked up once or twice," Maddie shrugged. "It stopped when we became friends,"
Kate raised an eyebrow and Maddie relented. "Fine, it was more than once or twice. But we did stop,"
"All that time Simon had a crush on you, and I thought you had to be the most oblivious person to not notice him," she said. "He's loud, he's bright, he's everywhere and everything and yet you would always act like you didn't know he existed,"
"Says you!" Maddie shoved Kate gently. "You've known Josh for what - ten years? You know nothing about him,"
"That's because he was just the little brother of my friend," she admitted quietly. "But he's..." she struggled to find the words, but Maddie knew.
"I know, Kate," Kate pulled her into one last hug before the two of them split off down different aisles. The smell of Sam's blood wafted through the air, smeared over all of them. The killers would be there soon.
The store was silent, aside from the distant sound of footprints. Kate was a few aisles down from her, Josh was over in the frozen foods section and Simon was in the stockroom, checking the doors.
Sam and Deena were crouched behind the counter, Sam downing the first pile of pills.
Maddie heard her shoes, a pair of boots she'd pulled from the lost and found that barely fit her, echoing out as she walked down the produce section. It was a small store compared to others, but they had a lot of ground to cover.
She hated the silence. Every creak the shelves made, every breathe she took reverberated around the store. But once she reached the bakery section, she would have given anything for the silence again.
Deena screamed, Sam was spluttering as best she could after having just vomited, and Ryan Torres, skull mask killer raised his knife to attack.
