I'm not the only one in my reflection.

Part four

Katherine felt like a bad person. She wanted to cry for her brother, but she couldn't squeeze out enough tears to make it seem decent. It was as if Vince had been dead to her for several years.

It must have been strange for Sam and Tara that she felt bad about the death of a stranger. They didn't know. No one in this room except Judy and Amber knew that Vince was her brother. And only Freeman knew her girlfriend's family secret, knew that Stu Macher was her uncle.

Judy put her hand on Murphy's shoulder once, squeezed reassuringly, and began questioning Sam about the attack on her in the break room.

When it came to the fact that the Ghostface was using Amber's phone number for the second time to contact her victims, Katherine tensed and nuzzled her lover's neck harder.

Freeman hissed something to Richie about where he was during the attack, while simultaneously placing his hands on the redhead's forearms, rubbing the pale, slightly sweaty skin with a massaging motion of his thumbs.

Sam looked at their interaction for a second and looked away, focusing on Tara and what the Sheriff was saying, who didn't really like her.

— The officer who will be guarding you is already waiting at the door, along with Tara's guard. — Judy said at the end of her speech and put her hands on her hips, saying these words to Murphy, who lifted her head, forced a smile and buried her nose back into Amber's chest. Freeman ran her red hair through her fingers with short movements and fingered them. Then she ran her fingers through the red mane and began massaging the scalp.

Richie replied that he was in the toilet during the attack, he was seen by several other men who were there, and before that he was sitting in Tara's room and watching Netflix. Amber, without looking up from playing with her girlfriend's hair, thereby calming her down, continued to mock Kirsch and his alibi.

The sheriff asked Sam to talk in private and the woman was the first to leave the room. As the girl passed by, Katherine touched Carpenter's hand, briefly running her fingers over the skin of her hand, expressing her support.

Samantha returned a minute later and joked that the sheriff was still the same cutie as five years ago.

Murphy went out into the hallway when Judy opened the door a crack, looked into the room and asked the girl for a few words alone.

— I just wanted to say that I've already released your mother, so she should come visit you soon. — The sheriff said with a smile, hooking her thumbs into the loops of the belt of the officer's trousers.

— Did you release it? What do you mean? — The redhead frowned, perplexed. Why would Sheriff Hicks detain her mother and take her to the station for questioning? Wes's mother, of course, tried to interview every resident of Woodsboro, but she didn't «invite» everyone to a private conversation.

— Yes, I brought her to the station for additional questioning. You know, the standard questions. Does she know if you had any enemies, detractors, and so on. Nothing important.

And how Katherine hated the hope that flared up in her chest at the thought that Leslie hadn't come, not because, well, she didn't want to, but because she just couldn't. It's a pity that Vince will never be able to come to his sister again.

Amber went out into the hallway when Samantha asked her and Richie to leave so she could talk to her younger sister alone, took her girlfriend's hand, intertwined their fingers.

— Let's go to your room, baby. Let's go to bed together, we can just take a break and watch a movie. — Freeman muttered in Murphy's ear, leading her to the exit, even though she didn't need help. Any pain Sam's knee might have caused when it slammed into her stomach was long gone.

The two girls were followed by a man in uniform, with a pistol holstered on his hip, and a serious expression on his face.

Katherine turned around, hearing Amber babbling in the background about what they could do together, and saw Sam hugging Richie, crying into his shoulder about something. The brown-haired woman lifted her head, resting her chin on Kirsch's shoulder, and their eyes met. Blue and brown.

The redhead would like to be the one the elder Carpenter could come to for reassurance. They used to be that for each other. A safe, peaceful harbor. Love. Everything.

But not now.

Now they both have lovers, their soulmates, where there is no place for past feelings, no place for regrets about something that has long been in the past.

Murphy was the first to look away from Samantha and smile at Amber, kissing her on the cheek. Freeman deserved that her partner was faithful and loved her, and the redhead would never break her heart, would not betray her, having indulged in past passion and love.

No matter how sweet and tempting the prospect of plunging back into the feelings that Katherine had experienced for a very long time, more than five years ago, she could not have done this to Amber.

Freeman has been nothing but loving and gentle all this time. A little possessive, but that's the kind of character she has.

Katherine Murphy would not trade what she had with Amber Freeman for a slim chance to be with Samantha Carpenter again, who had already broken her heart once, although she promised never to let it happen. She might miss her past relationships, miss Sam, but she loved Amber, and she would continue to do so.