Terrible Trilogy

Part 14

You all sat in silence as the sun approached over the city you wanted nothing more than to run away from. Run away back home to your solitude, your dog, your security system, your privacy. Where everything made sense...But you couldn't.  None of you could.

You all barely had any sleep. Stu rested his chin on his forearms as he sat backwards in a chair. Billy was on the ground, his head leaning back against the wall behind him. You sat hunched over on the edge of the bed staring at the faint blue light of dawn creeping through the curtain.

You all were in your own private little hells in silence together. The stress getting to you all, lack of sleep, unable to leave, unable to fight back the one causing all of this. All of you were at a loss, unable to truly say anything out loud without it feeling pointless.

Stu broke the silence first, gazing over at the alarm clock on the table. "Shit...I have rehearsal." 

"You-" Billy drew out, closing his eyes with a heavy edge to his voice. "- Cannot be fucking serious." 

Stu sighed heavily with a glare. "What is your malfunction now?" 

Billy slowly rolled his head over to look at Stu. Dark under circles making him look older than what he was. Stu looked exhausted himself.  You could only imagine what you looked like. A red mark formed on Billy's cheek to match the healing gash on his temple from the steering wheel a few nights prior. Stu also had a red mark on his jawline you knew would bruise from their fight. 

Billy scowled at him as he mumbled. "This new guy has pictures of us and you want to give him more? Are you that out of your freaking mind? Or are you just...That. God. Damn. Stupid?" 

Stu gave him a bewildered look. "One is too many so what does it matter if he has one or a dozen? One is enough to get us caught! You want to just wait it out while he collects more because he's going to regardless! Besides, it looks more suspicious if I don't show up." 

"Or, hear me out, you could lay low like you should have from the beginning and see what this new guy's next move is." Billy ground out low in his throat. 

Stu's hands gestured wildly around the room with every word he ranted. "So, you wanna just sit around and wait for him? Just a while ago, you were ready to tear peoples throats out to get through that door and now you just want to wait here for Mr. Unoriginal to make his move?!" 

"Things changed after that call, alright?!" Billy snapped. "That fucking picture is enough to have a warrant on all of our heads...We fell into a trap and I'm fucking pissed off I let you both sucker me into it with you!" 

Stu released a mocking laugh. "Damn, you really lost your edge these last few years. You went from calling the shots and framing Cotton and getting away with murder to sitting in a crappy motel just waiting for the new meat to tell you how high to jump." 

Billy's lip rose in disdain as he hissed his words out towards Stu. "Do I need to remind you who suggested we wait a year before killing again so we could get away with it? Who fucking carefully planned all of it? If it wasn't for me, you would have got us caught with Maureen!" 

You listened, taken aback by them so openly talking about their plans and murders. Then again, in Woodsboro they lied and only told you the bare minimum. Windsor they told you nothing; and you tried not to bring up such a sore subject with Stu these last few years. This awful adventure with them just became more and more surreal by the day. 

Stu huffed with a haughty look. "Yeah, that really got us far, huh?...Look, I'm not letting this freak have the cops on our doorstep from waiting. At least if I go to rehearsal and act normal; I have a chance of throwing them off our trail!"