Mindfuck | Amber Freeman

T W E L V E

12 | Complications

The stares lessened as the day went on, and if I had to see one more sympathetic glance, I'd probably loose it. What really pissed me off was that everyone was giving the same treatment to Amber, even more so because she was popular.

They, of course, didn't know the truth, but it still bothered me. She was the reason we were victims in their eyes, the reason for everything.

Amber insisted— more like subtly forced— me to let her drive me home. And just as I was about to get out of the car and into my safe heaven, she grabbed my wrist, pausing my actions.

My body warmed at her touch, but I had to remind myself who she was and what she's done.

"You're gonna stay with me tonight, okay?" I didn't say anything, but she must have saw the annoyance on my face. "I know you hate me, I understand. But with time, your feelings will come back."

"I don't want them to come back." I glare at her, taking my arm back from her grip.

"Yeah, well, we don't get everything we want in life." She shrugged. "I'll let you pack. I'll be back at four."

"M'kay." I slipped out of the car and closed the door, wasting no time at all before I was entering my house. Jayden was still at his friends house, and my parents were back from their work trip, but were currently already back at work.

I walked upstairs and checked the time. It was only two fifty, so I still had around an hour and more minutes before Amber would be back.

My phone rang, making me tense up, but when I looked at my screen, it was only Tara. "Hello?"

"What if we killed her?"

"I—what?" I furrowed my brows.

"What if we kill Amber?"

It was definitely an idea, but one that held too many problems. The first and biggest one— Amber finding out. She knows everything somehow, and I bet she'd figure out that we were plotting to kill her and, well, her threat still rang loud.

"I can't, Tara. You know I couldn't kill someone, not even someone like Amber."

Tara huffed on the other line. "You're right. Neither can I. She'd probably figure it out, anyways." Exactly my point. "Everything's so fucked up."

"Yeah." I agree, standing up and starting to pack my bag.

"We can't just like, run away?"

"Tara, how are we supposed to do that? Mindy and Chad are in the hospital in critical condition, and I can't just pack up my family and leave within the next—" I glanced over to the clock, seeing there was only forty minutes until Amber should be here— "forty minutes. She'll go after them if we leave, you know that."

My head pressed against the cool glass window. I watched as houses and trees passed by, and strangely enough, instead of turning right, how she would go get to her house, she turned left.

I brought my head up, turning over to Amber. "Where are we going?"

She spared me a glance before looking back to the road and taking another turn. "The hospital. The twins are awake, and I thought you'd want to see them."

"Oh." That was great news. The best I've heard in a while. "Awesome. Wait, how'd you know before me?"

Amber stayed quiet, which meant she knew I wouldn't like what she was going to tell me. "Amber. What did you do?"

"Relax, Scarlett, I didn't kill anyone knew. Gale, somehow, survived the stab wounds. I had to go finish the job." My stomach curled, because I knew exactly what she meant. "That's just Gale Weathers for you, though."

"So, she didn't. . .say anything to anyone?"

Amber snorted, pulling into the hospital. "No. The bitch was barely alive, much less conscious." She came to a stop and looked over at me, her face going serious. "Remember what I told you."

"Yeah, yeah. I know." I opened the door and got out.

I knew the conversation would come up, and it was hard putting on a facade. I had to listen to them speak in disbelief on how Sam was the killer. I wanted so badly to tell them, but I couldn't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't put their lives, and the lives of my family in danger.

I don't know how I was supposed to live with this, but I would try. Guilt would probably eat at me forever, and it should.

Ambers smart, and could get out of anything I threw at her, which really fucked up any plan I tried to think of. Besides, killers now a days don't get as much time in prison as they use to. Amber could get out in forty years and still be as blood thirsty as ever, because I didn't see her changing.

By then I could have moved everyone to Mexico, but something tells me she'd find me regardless.

And as I feel her presence behind me, her hands lightly rubbing my shoulders, I have a small part of me that doesn't want to, even if I could. Another part hated her for what she's done.

It was like the devil and angel on your shoulders, always whispering things into your ears, and making you constantly rethink things.

As I left the hospital, I shot a quick text to Tara telling her they were awake, because I knew she'd want to see them.

I walked out of the bathroom, brushing through my hair as Amber looked for a movie. Horror, of course. She turned over to me, looking at me with a playful grin. "How about stab?"

I glared at her, not finding her joke funny at all. I laughed a fake, sarcastic laugh. "You're so funny, A." I hadn't even meant to say her nickname, it just slipped out. I sat down my brush and climbed into her bed, making sure to lay as far away as possible.

She noticed and rolled her eyes. "Refuse all you want, it won't help."

Amber eventually found a movie and put it on. Thankfully she hadn't actually put on stab, instead she chose the Halloween.

Thirty minutes into the movie I hadn't realized she moved closer, I was so into the movie. I looked down at my leg when I felt Ambers thigh on my leg, rubbing it. "What are you doing?"

"Rubbing your leg?" She spoke with a 'duh' tone.

"Well, stop doing that."

She squeezed my thigh really hard, which hurt more than usual because I had to go to the weight room for gym class, and we worked on legs, which left them painfully sore. A gasp of pain left me. "You're telling me this doesn't feel good? I know you had to go to the weight room. I've done this several times before, so stop acting like you don't like it."

She was right. It hurt so good, and I didn't exactly want her to stop. The same hands that wielded the blade that killed my friends made chills erupt on my body, and I felt horrible about it.

"Fine. But if you try anything else, I will slap you."

She smirked, like the idea of that didn't sound to un-pleasing to her. I looked back to the movie and watched, but my attention kept going back to the feel of Ambers hand massaging my thigh, and I had to breath deeply, and stop my wandering thoughts because they were going to bad places.

"I'm so going to hell," I whisper, a slight frown on my face.

"Well, I'll see you there, then." Was Ambers reply.