I'm not the only one in my reflection.

Part seventeen

Carpenter smiled briefly, kissed Katherine on the cheek, and entered the house. The second girl followed her, ready to watch her back, as always.

Murphy had to squint, as if that would help her see something in this smoky room, illuminated by the dark blue color of the spotlights, and almost nothing could be heard over the loud music and the screams of local teenagers. Yeah, it all clearly reminded her of another party, at the end of which she had to beat her own mother to death with a meat hammer.

Fun.

Stu's niece breathed a loud sigh of relief when she and Sam found themselves in a hallway lit not by eye-piercing blue spotlights, but by normal light bulbs and fixtures.

Someone tried to squeeze past her and, unable to keep his balance, leaned sideways, thereby hitting the brunette with his shoulder. She cursed and looked at the guy coldly, wondering why it felt like everyone in New York was trying to knock her shoulder out.

— I see Mindy! — Samantha shouted, and as if by accident, walking up to her girlfriend, she elbowed the guy still standing next to her in the stomach. She looked at him defiantly with a raised eyebrow when the teenager tried to get indignant and, after looking at her face, he quickly turned around and left.

There's a chance he recognized her. Or he was afraid of the taser she was clutching in her hand, who knows.

Mindy wasn't alone. She was sitting on the couch with her new girlfriend, Anika, and kissing her with abandon, ignoring the party going on around her.

— Sorry to interrupt, but have you seen Tara? — Sam, apologizing, interrupted the girls and asked what she was interested in right now, which was the specific location of her sister in this house.

Leslie's daughter smiled at Anika in greeting and waved at the Meeks-Martin girl, doing this for her lover, who was too worried about Tara to remember the proprieties.

The former redhead took a step forward, getting closer to Carpenter's back, engaged in conversation with Mindy, noticing a man in a Ghostface costume heading in their direction She carefully followed him with her gaze and, making sure that he had gone in another direction opposite to theirs, she again moved away from her girlfriend.

The brunette turned around, starting to try to spot her ex-best friend in the sea of other dancing drunk bodies, but her eyes couldn't catch on to anyone in particular, everything blurred into one big moving spot.

This is one of the reasons why she doesn't go to parties anymore and doesn't like them. The first and most important reason, of course, is her ex-girlfriend, a serial killer.

— I see her! — Anika exclaimed, getting up from the sofa and, grabbing Katherine by the wrist, dragged her along, squeezing between people to get to the stairs. Before that, she told her girlfriend to find her twin brother.

Samantha followed them without ceremony, pushing the teenagers out of her way, but that didn't stop her from losing sight of the two girls and leaving them alone.

Tara was dressed in a pirate costume, which Murphy couldn't see before, because when the younger Carpenter was going to a party, pacing around the apartment, she locked herself in her and Sam's shared room. She knew that if she went out and caught Tara's eye, she would spoil her mood and, consequently, spoil her own, so she remained in self-imposed exile, waiting for her ex friend to leave so that she could freely go out.

— Hey, Tara. — Anika approached Tara and the guy with whom she was going somewhere, going up the stairs, before she stopped them by grabbing her elbow. — Maybe you've had enough of the party for tonight?

— It's all right. — Sister Sam stretched her lips into a smile, which did not disappear when she saw Roman's daughter, and she even nodded to her with the same smile. Oh, yes, she was drunk.

When the younger Carpenter said she wanted to continue the party and this guy, Frankie, jumped into the conversation, saying he would take care of the girl, the former redhead paid all her attention to him, looking at him with an unimpressed look.

— Stop them, I'm going to get Chad. And Sam. — Anika whispered in the other girl's ear and, pushing her towards Tara and Frankie, who started to climb the stairs, left.

— Hey, Tara, can we talk for a minute? There's something important that I'd like to tell you. — The brunette got between the guy and the girl, "accidentally" shoving Frankie in the side so that he painfully pressed his lower back against the handrail of the stairs. — Something very important. Oh, uh, about our friendship.

— Friendship? — The smile did not leave Samantha's sister's face, and it seriously made Sidney's niece shudder. It had been a long time since she had seen her former best friend smile in her presence. — What about our friendship?

— I think you can talk about it later. She's busy with me right now. — Frankie said with his shitty grin, appearing in front of Katherine, hiding Tara's much shorter body behind his own. He loomed over her, trying to intimidate her. — Listen, giant, you better get away from my friend and hide in the fog, otherwise I'll take your sunglasses and shove them where they'll never see the sun again, is that clear? — Murphy took a step higher, approaching a guy who was almost a head taller than her, ready to start a fight herself to take her ex-best friend away from him.

— Hey, I'll deal with him. — Chad appeared behind the brunette and, gently touching her shoulder, asked her to give up the conversation and the subsequent possible fight with Frankie to him.

Leslie's daughter shrugged off the man's hand, nodded slightly, and while the boys were busy exchanging sharp phrases, she brushed past Frankie and approached Tara, who was unsteady on her feet, leaning back against the handrail of the stairs.

— Hey, Tara, come on, I'll help you. — It seems that Sam's sister came to her senses, because she pulled away from the girl as soon as she reached out to her.

Katherine jerked her hand away as if she'd been burned, mentally kicking herself for forgetting what her life was like now. The younger Carpenter does not tolerate her company, she should have gotten used to it in a year, but there are times when she forgets it.

When Frankie, grinning at Chad, reached for Tara, both Murphy and Meeks-Martin acted at the same time. The girl pushed him in the chest, forcing him to back away, and the guy grabbed him, pushed him down the stairs and started fighting with him already at the bottom.

The brunette smiled when she saw her girlfriend materialize out of nowhere and, separating the guys, hit Frankie with a shocker right between his legs, causing him to fall to the ground, shuddering.

Oh, she would give anything in the world just to be in the arms of those strong, but feminine and pretty biceps of her lover right now.

The former redhead nevertheless grabbed Samantha's sister by the arm and helped her down the stairs, after which the younger girl pushed her hand away from her, pushing her body away for persuasiveness.

— Don't touch me. — The younger Carpenter hissed and went to the exit, not forgetting to push her older sister out of her way on the way.

The party for all of them was clearly already over when the teenagers around, silently watching the scene, took out their phones and began filming their entire group, focusing on two specific girls, saying something like "Isn't that the psycho and her girlfriend?", "Oh, yes, it's definitely her. What's her name, Katherine Ma-" and "That's definitely them."

Katherine sighed heavily, exchanged glances with Sam, and followed her sisters, noticing out of the corner of her eye how Chad, Anika, and Mindy with Ethan followed them without delay.

Murphy walked behind the two Carpenters, silently listening to their conversation, not thinking that she should step in, taking sides, not that she could say exactly whose opinion was closer to her in this dispute.

Although, who is she trying to deceive?