Scream 4

Chapter 32

"You... You lied," your voice hitched at the last word. Both of them did, but the one closest to you was the one that accused Randy right after you regained consciousness in the hospital. Stu took advantage of your memory loss. Took advantage of you when you were the most vulnerable. But then again, even that could have been Billy's idea. Billy was the one pulling the strings most times, after all.

"You LIED to me about EVERYTHING!" You choked out much louder, the rawness in your throat filled to the brim with heart ache. You only now noticed that you were visibly shaking, but you didn't care. Couldn't care. Caring only brought you more pain.

Stu met your glare with eyes that looked taken aback and yes, actually a little afraid. "No, baby..." He whispered, but then didn't seem the point in lying. "Please babe, calm down. Billy 'n me only did it to protect–"

"Protect me?" You stared at him stupidly for a moment, laughed, and scrubbed a hand furiously through your hair. "I don't think you know what protecting someone means. Keeping the truth from me isn't... Deleting someone's messages isn't–that's not protecting!" You continued, pressing on despite the tremor in your voice. "That's called being selfish and possessive. You even blamed a dead man for the shit you've done. Do you even realize how fucked up that is?!"

Billy held up a hand. "Easy," he said casually, his lack of emotions enough of an answer for you to piece together that yes, he knew all about Stu's lie. How couldn't he. What a shock. "Don't get so riled up."

And just like that, your anger was ignited like fuel thrown onto fire, exploding with heat as you turned on him, looking livid. "No way..." Your lips managed a weak, trembling smile. It wasn't a nice one, mirthless and not reaching your eyes. "There is no fucking way you have the balls to tell me I shouldn't get riled up! How dare you?" You yelled again in an undignified shriek. "What are you gonna do if I don't calm down, Billy? Kill me?"

The look on his face was priceless. You almost wished you had filmed it so you could play it out for him. "Go for it—" you opened your arms, as if inviting him to do it. "I don't fucking care anymore."

There, you'd said it. It was out.

Stu sagged at your exclamation, looking like he had been gutted with your words, eyes wide and face draining of color.

"(Y/N)..." He uttered your name, glancing up. "You don't mean that... This ain't you talkin' like that..."

Moving your vision towards the window, the morning light shining through the room caught the obvious fury and conflict in your expression as you fought the urge to close the curtains. You had developed something of a chronic fear of windows, much preferring them to be covered as long as possible in case someone was peeking through them, violating your privacy.

You inhaled an unsteady intake of air and let a smooth, barely controlled one slowly escape. "You can't keep people away from me. Jed has only been nice to me, and you went to destroy his fucking work place? Can't contain your jealousy?"

It took Billy less than a second to stand in front of you, now looking like his blood was boiling over as well. "You're really defendin' that rat?"

"Why wouldn't I? He's done nothing wrong."

You and him looked intently at each other, silent, like a Mexican stand-off. Anger rose, jangling your circuits. Billy looking like he was completely done with you was worse than any sort of physical pain. 

"You choose him over us."

You didn't say anything. You couldn't. The words got lodged in your throat. Billy's statement that sounded more like a question was a trap. No matter how you answered it, it was always going to be the wrong response.

You swore, you swore you could see the whites of Billy's eyes turn red, but not from anger because his eyebrows dipped down not to form a scowl or a glare, but a thoughtful expression.

"Stu," Billy murmured, gaze stuck on the floor. There was a beat of silence before he said, "let's get outta here."

You were left stunned into speechlessness, watching Stu press the palms of his hands into his eyes before he unlocked the door and disappeared around the corner muttering something that sounded awfully close to goodbye.

Goodbye? Why?

After what felt like a long while of just waiting for the other to say something, Billy seemed to have gathered his thoughts, made up his mind about something. "(Y/N)," and the way he spoke your name it was like he was apologizing, even though you knew you'd never get an apology out of him.

In the next passing seconds, you heard that rare spark of vulnerability flare up in his words. "We're always watchin' over you, yeah? Take care of yourself."

Before you could even process of what to make of that sentence, Billy pulled you to him for what was the longest embrace you had ever gotten from him.

And then he was gone.