The Love Interest (Ethan Landry x female!Reader 18+)

Chapter 10: Cat & Mouse

"...why aren't you texting me?" Tara's voicemail beams are you.

Stupid no signal. Stupid New York. Stupid subway. Stupid heart. You wipe the back of your hand against your cheeks, tears still flowing.

Oddly enough you didn't care much that you were crying in public like you normally would. Not that the people of NYC cared. They stood crying behind their own masks, hiding from the world pretending to be anywhere but here.

You stuffed your earbuds in both of your ears, letting the music flow through you while you held the hand loop to steady yourself. Despite being alone and surrounded by strangers it didn't bother you that bad, probably due to the anger still pulsing through you. You kept telling yourself that anyways, ignoring the fact you missed the presence next to you. Without your anger you weren't sure how you would be standing here alone on the subway, especially just after watching your friend get stabbed on one. You did your best to shove that thought aside.

Halloween masks danced as the subway car swayed, threatening to throw you off balance. You drowned out the screeching noises of the subway train in favour of the beat playing from your phone.

What little time you had waiting to arrive you decided to try and formulate some semblance of a plan.

The core four doubtlessly already arrived and set up before you got there. Running right into a trap set for Ghostface didn't seem to be the best idea, so you figured you'd head to Danny and go from there. Immediately your brain went to consider if you should trust him, having not sunk in fully that it was in fact Ethan who was a Ghostface all along, there was no more guessing.

Why... Why did I trust him? How could I be so stupid?

It was as if all of the pieces of the puzzle fell together perfectly in front of you after Ethan's confession. Though, you are still confused over the text messages calling you a family wrecker. Was it that Ethan really had cut all ties with them that he was able to? Or was this merely a ploy to get your guard down and back stab you- just not figuratively this time. Your body shudders at the thought, sending fresh hot tears down your face.

Your mind falls onto Anika, her beautiful smile looking back at you in the bright orange pumpkin top that seemed like it happened years ago yet was only two days ago. Her tight warm hugs, her ability to push you out of your comfort zone, you missed everything about your new roommate. You couldn't help but wonder that if it was true Ethan refused their plan because of you, that that's the reason Anika was murdered. To get back at you. A bitter feeling rose in your stomach.

Fuck. Your mind buzzed on all of the choices, wondering exactly what to do. Was this a stupid idea to go back and help them instead of going to safety? Yes but you felt like you deserved to make it up to your friends if there was even the indirect chance that Anika's death was caused by you, which it seemed to be. Although that idea would absolve Ethan of using you as a cover for innocence, perhaps her death even being a threat to him of what would happen to someone he let become close to him. There was no way to know which was true and your head started spinning trying to figure it out.

Regardless, you couldn't leave your friends alone. Even if you had to act as a temporary distraction until your own demise, you felt like you owed Anika that. Whether it was for causing her death or for unintentionally siding with a Ghostface.

You tried to put the thought of Ethan out of your mind, his smile, his brown eyes. The thought of him right now made you sick. Thinking back it made a lot of sense. Not that it hurt any less, if anything you put yourself down for not being able to see it sooner. You did your best to shove the thought away and focus on what to do.