Quantum Entanglement ~ Tamber

Chapter 4

Amber immediately got up and sprinted towards the ringing phone. She was mumbling something about her mom, but Tara knew it was Richie again. She paused the movie and quietly crept over to where she could hear more of their conversation.

"What the fuck, Richie? How did you even get my parents' second line?" she heard her hiss. "I already told you I'm not fucking available tonight."

Tara couldn't help but feel proud of her best friend. She had always been fierce and outspoken, but there had been something different about her interactions with Richie. He treated the girl as if she were below him, but Amber Freeman was not below a single person on this goddamned planet.

Richie's relationship with Amber had always been a point of contention between Tara and her friends. Sam realized it was pretty fucked up, but nobody else did. The rest of the world just seemed to totally graze over the fact that he was pushing thirty and she was seventeen years old. Gale had confessed that the girl claimed she was radicalized to try to stop them from killing her, but wasn't she? What else do you call an adult trying to brainwash a minor – apart from the disgusting predatory assault that it was? No one else saw it that way in their friend group, which made her resent them.

Amber had done fucking terrible things. No one could deny that. But at some point, some manbaby was preying on her and none of them knew it. They failed her when she needed them most. It was something that haunted Tara almost as much as the sound of the gunshot and subsequent thud when she was forced to take her best friend's life.

"I'm not going to listen to you whine about this. Call me when you calm down, preferably tomorrow. I'm busy," she heard Amber say.

Richie was probably somewhere panicking, worried that his influence on his accomplice was slipping. Without Amber, he couldn't accomplish anything. He'd be just another limp-dicked predator with murder fantasies and an unhealthy obsession with shitty movies.

Hearing the frustration in her best friend's voice, she was starting to think that the solution could be as simple as killing Richie. Sam might be sad at the loss of her boyfriend, but at least he'd be gone. He wouldn't be able to further brainwash Amber. No one would die. The end.

The oracle – or whatever the fuck it was – told her that her first attack had to happen to bring Sam home. Killing Richie before that wouldn't work and apparently wouldn't change the outcome. But once he was in Woodsboro, it was fair game. There was at least a small window where Tara was left alone with him. She would just need to figure out a way to take him out while being full of stab wounds and having a shattered leg.

But would Amber be too far gone at that point – too entrenched in his dumbass master plan for it to change things? Would she only hate her more for killing her accomplice? Let's be real, Tara was never going to refer to Richie has her boyfriend, because that was fucking gross. She was his victim if anything. But still, he had some hold on her. Would it be stronger than their friendship like it had been the first time around?

Tara had killed before. She killed her best friend in defense of her sister, Gale, and Sidney, and it was by far the most painful thing she had ever done. She knew she could kill again – but not Amber. She prayed it wouldn't get to that point, because she didn't know if she could pull the trigger again. If it were Richie she was killing, though, she knew she wouldn't hesitate. Fuck that guy. Not only did he fuck with her sister and hurt her friends, but he also destroyed Amber. She would take delight in ending him, even if it sent her to prison for the rest of her life. It would be worth it.

Tara was so caught up in thinking of ways to kill off Richie that she didn't hear Amber unplug her phone and approach her.

"Um, what are you doing?" the taller girl asked her, folding her arms impatiently.