tease, ethan landry

four.

— chapter four.

"I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU punched gale!" leah laughed hysterically as she took the empty space from between tara and ethan. "well fucking deserved though."

tara chuckled softly as she dropped her bag to the floor, pointing her sharp gaze to mindy, who stood in front of the group ready to give the low down of the new rules.

"okay, listen up." mindy announced, earning the attention of all her friends, "as terrifying as this all is, i'm actually quite glad i get a chance to redeem myself for not calling out the killers last time."

the faint smile on leah's face faded as she was picking at her nails, looking directly at the ground, "the way i see it someone is out to make a requel."

anika eyed mindy in confusion as she lifted her hand a bit, "um, what's a requel?"

mindy looked anika in the eyes, "you're beautiful, sweetie. let's save the questions for the end."

leah softly smiled at the interaction between the two girls. when mindy first told her about anika, she could tell that she was head over heels for the girl. leah could tell that anika felt the same.

"stab one took place in woodsboro," sam glanced around at everyone before crossing her arms.

leah held her legs up to her chest, folding her arms and resting her head on them, "stab two took place in college." she muttered before moving her head to lean on ethan's shoulder.

"okay, so, we think the killer is trying to copy the movies?" tara asked, glancing between the three girls.

mindy nodded pressing her lips together, "that's one possibility. heroes now in college, check." she pointed towards tara, who sighed, "suspicious new characters brought in to round out the suspect list and/or body count; check, check, and check."

leah lifted her head off ethan's shoulder and looked around at the new members of the group and stopped at ethan. "i don't like this." he muttered, turning towards her, wrapping her arms around her waist and pulling her to lean her body weight on him.

mindy looked around to everyone in the group, "but it can't just be about stab two."

"why not?" tara looked up at mindy with her eyebrows furrowed, waiting for a response.

"it would make sense if this were just a sequel." mindy inched closer to the group, "but we're not in a sequel because nobody just makes sequels anymore.

mindy gets excited and peers around at everyone, waiting for guesses but nobody responded.

leah lifted her head of ethan's shoulder, intrigued about what mindy was going to say, "we're in a franchise!" mindy threw her arms out. "and there are certain rules to a continuing franchise."

sam sighs, dropping her head to look at her legs, "i had a feeling."

"rule one: everything is bigger than last time. bigger budget, bigger cast, bigger body count."

anika listened to her girlfriend intrigued, while tilting her head.

"longer chases, shoot-outs, beheadings." mindy continued. "you gotta top what came before to keep people coming back."

"beheadings?" chad lifted his pencil from his paper, questions the beheadings.

"beheadings." mindy made eye contact with him and pointed at him. "rule two: whatever happened last time, expect the opposite." she threw her arm out.

sam moved her neck, trying to stretch it out, tired of mindy explaining rule by rule of a new franchise.

"franchises only survive by subverting expectations. if the killers last time were whiny, snowflake film nerds with Letterboxd accounts instead of personalities, you can bet the opposite will be true here"