mess it up, ˢᵃᵐ ᶜᵃʳᵖᵉⁿᵗᵉʳ

𝟎𝟏𝟓.

Sam's fingers clamped around her sister's wrists, knuckles turning white with effort as she tried to haul Tara up from the edge.

Just behind her, Madison clung to Sam's waist, her arms like a lifeline, keeping her grounded, keeping her from slipping over the railing too.

Her injured leg buckled beneath her, searing pain radiating up through the muscle and bone, but she didn't loosen her grip.

Madison gasped, through gritted teeth, fighting back a fresh wave of tears.

From below, Wayne's laughter echoed like a death rattle through the vast, echoing chamber.

"Go get her. Get her!"

He was laughing with Ethan. Like it was funny. Like this was all a fucking joke to them.

"I can't—I can't," Tara stammered, breath hitching as she tried desperately to find something to hold onto.

Her hands flailed, slick with sweat and blood. Her eyes were wild with panic, darting between her sister and the drop beneath her. Madison's chest cracked at the look on her face, raw, terrified, so young.

"It's okay. It's okay." Sam repeated the words like a prayer, her voice barely holding steady, as much for herself as for her sister.

"I can't grab on—I can't grab on!" Tara cried, voice cracking as tears streaked down her face.

Below her, Ethan leapt upward like a feral animal, slashing wildly with his knife. The steel caught glints of light with every vicious swing. He was aiming to make her fall.

"No!" All three girls screamed in unison, a choir of raw desperation.

"I've always wanted to stick something in you, Tara!" Ethan bellowed, the words thick with venom and filth.

"Fuck you!" Tara spat down at him, eyes blazing with defiance even through her fear.

"Fuck you!" Ethan roared back, livid at the resistance.

Madison's jaw clenched so hard she thought it might break. Her grip on Sam tightened, even as pain throbbed from her leg with every heartbeat.

Blood soaked through her jeans, hot, fresh, terrifying. Still, she refused to let go. Not when everything was hanging by a thread.

Then Quinn stepped into the doorway.

Everything froze.

Her face, still swollen and battered from earlier, split into the widest, cruelest grin it could manage. She looked like something out of a nightmare.

"You guys are so fucked now!" Ethan called gleefully.

Madison's heart sank. A sharp, painful pulse of grief and fear shot through her as she stared at the girl who'd once held her hand when she cried over nightmares.

The girl who once brought her ice cream after a panic attack.

That girl was gone.

This thing standing in front of them wasn't Quinn.

It wasn't her friend. It wasn't the girl who used to sit on the floor with her in flannel pajamas and talk about nothing for hours.

This was someone else. Something else.

A mask peeled back to reveal the monster underneath.

Quinn dragged her knife slowly, purposefully across the rusted metal bars as she approached, sending an earsplitting screech through the air. Madison winced, head pounding. Fear curled in her stomach like a live wire.