Quantum Entanglement ~ Tamber

|Çħåpțëř 21|

Welcome to act three.

Upon hearing this, Tara panicked even more than she already had been in the tiny closet. The last time she heard Amber utter that phrase, she had just shot one of their friends in the head without warning. When she closed her eyes, she sometimes could still see the pattern of blood, brain, and skull fragments splattered against the wall or envision the way Liv's body fell helplessly, crumpled like discarded trash. It was enough to make her instinctively shake her head in hopes of somehow erasing the memory.

She wasn't sure if it was the PTSD, asthma, or claustrophobia, but she couldn't breathe. It was too dark and too small, and she couldn't fucking breathe. Her skin was crawling, itching with the need to get the fuck out of there and do something before she lost everything. Being helpless and out of control was something she promised herself she'd never let happen again, but there she was, tied up in the same fucking closet she'd be forced into the first time.

After far too many attempts at clawing through the tape, she vaguely remembered something she'd watched when she was younger with Amber. It was some survivalist show that said if your hands were ever bound with duct tape, you could strike aggressively downward with them together to break the binds. She and Amber had tried it half a dozen times or so until Mr. Freeman got home and scolded them for using up his duct tape. It was one of the only times she'd ever seen the man truly care about anything, and Tara remembered thinking he was probably a serial killer. Nope, but his daughter sure was.

Trying to remember the positioning, she swung her hands down several times, ignoring the tearing pain of her hand, until she managed to break free. She peeled off the tape from her mouth and charged out of the closet, just in time to see Chad covering Liv protectively and Amber pointing a gun in their direction.

"Don't!" Tara screamed as she burst through the door. "Don't shoot them!"

Amber whirled toward the sudden noise, gun still up and ready to shoot.

"Get back into the closet, Tara. Now!"

But she wasn't fucking listening, because of course she wasn't. She needed to make sure Amber didn't shoot Liv, and she needed to kill the piece of shit predator that was lurking somewhere in the house – somewhere she couldn't see.

"Don't shoot them," she tried again, practically begging.

She slowly approached her girlfriend, who had lowered her gun towards the floor. Amber couldn't meet her gaze; she was too busy anxiously looking around the room.

Moments later is when chaos struck. Richie made his appearance behind Amber, placing his hand on the small of her back, armed with a gun of his own. Tara saw red. How fucking dare he touch her. How dare he show his face after all he'd done – all for his stupid fucking movie. She charged at him, throwing her entire weight at him and crashing fists and elbows into him as they both fell to the floor. It was easy to ignore the pain when it had been replaced by pure fucking hatred.

"Baby, no!" She felt her girlfriend's hands gently tugging at her body, trying to rip her off the boy, but she refused to be moved.

She felt stronger hands pulling her away and looked up to find Chad. She kicked and squirmed in his hold.

"Richie's the fucking killer. Let me the fuck go! He's the killer," she panted as she scrapped desperately to get free.

"I know, T. I know."

Still holding Tara as if she were some type of small animal, Chad delivered a swift kick to Richie's disheveled form and uttered, "That's for Wes!" before carrying the feisty chihuahua of a girl over to her sister. Sam moved herself in front of the small girl, still being held by Chad.