Chapter Twenty-Two / What Doesn't Kill You

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"HE WAS SO pathetic

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"HE WAS SO pathetic."

She's not putting on that godforsaken mask.

Ellie-Marie knew she wouldn't. Sam, for all her flaws that she now owns and her mistakes she bears like Atlas, isn't a statue crumbling under the pressure of a few expectations. Her resolve is a trait to be admired in better times, but now Ellie can't help the steady IV drip of fear seeping into her veins at the defiance.

Richie Kirsch was a man Ellie spoke to once. Not at the hospital, where Tara had been her main priority, nor in the hallway when he was apparently considering faking his death, but in the Meeks-Martin household. He'd abhorred the idea of being the killer so vehemently that she couldn't help suspecting him then. Ultimately she'd deemed him weak in more ways than one, and she wasn't wrong. Like father, like son.

Bailey scoffs. "That's not true."

Ellie could giggle at the lack of conviction she hears behind it if she wasn't so focused on what will become an out.

"Yeah, your son," Sam continues. "He was a man-baby who made his girlfriend do all the killing."

"He was a strong, virile young man!"

"He was a limp-dick little fuck who cried before I slit his throat."

"Shut the fuck up!"

The battle cry released behind Ellie is easily recognizable. Quinn surges forward and she's ready, crouching down to send Sam's would-be attacker to the ground.

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