Chapter Text
As soon as Gina gets back home from EJ’s house, she texts Ricky and asks him if they can talk.
There’s a pit in her stomach as she does so. If her own heart hurts this much at what she’s about to do, then how is Ricky going to feel?
He actually knocks on the front door this time. Gina can’t believe that she’s going to miss him climbing up to her window every night like an idiot.
She opens the door for him, and as soon as it’s closed, Ricky is greeting her with a soft “hey” and giving her a kiss.
Gina knows she can’t let herself get caught up in it. Not with what she’s about to do. But she wants to. She brings one of her hands up to Ricky’s cheek, gently stroking the skin there before forcing herself to break the kiss.
“We need to talk,” Gina blurts out. The loudness of her voice does a good job of breaking the quietness of the moment.
Ricky blinks at her. “Uh, sure. What’s up?”
Gina can’t look at him while she tells him what she has to say. It would break her even more.
She moves her hand from his cheek and sits down on the couch, staring straight in front of her instead of at Ricky.
“I went to EJ’s today.”
“…Okay?” Ricky says, clearly confused where this is going.
Gina can feel tears welling up in her eyes. She’s glad she’s not looking at Ricky.
“He apologized and we’re gonna try to make things work.”
Her words are met with silence. Gina blinks her tears away and steels herself before glancing over at Ricky.
His mouth is slightly dropped open from surprise. He looks stunned.
“I — I thought you wanted to be together,” Ricky stammers.
“I…I did, I do, I don’t…” Gina’s voice breaks off in frustration. She feels like she can’t form a single coherent sentence, her mind is too scrambled. “Ricky, of course I wanted to be with you. I went to EJ’s today to end things with him. But then we started talking and he was crying and I couldn’t…I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hurt him like that.”
“Gina, he hasn’t been there for you at all,” Ricky says earnestly. “It doesn’t matter if he was crying. What about all of the times that you cried and he was nowhere to be found?”
Gina can hear the anger in Ricky’s voice. It takes her by surprise a little; it’s so different from the soft, caring voice he usually uses with her. She knows the anger isn’t directed at her, though. It’s directed at EJ.
“He said he’s going to be there for me from now on.”
“And you believe him?” Ricky asks in disbelief.
“Yes, I do,” Gina says, trying to sound sure of herself. She’s not sure if she succeeds. “Water polo season is over so he’ll have more time—“
“You shouldn’t come second to fucking water polo!” Ricky exclaims. “God, Gina, do you even hear yourself right now? You deserve someone who prioritizes you over everything, who always puts you first—“
“I know!” Gina interrupts, standing up. “I know, okay? But I was with EJ first. I owe it to him to try and see this through. You and I, it…it should’ve never happened.”
She watches as Ricky’s face falls and hates herself all over again. Before she can stop herself, Gina walks over to him and lightly takes his hand into hers. She’s at least a little relieved when Ricky doesn’t shy away from her touch.
“I’m so grateful to you, Ricky,” she tells him, getting a little choked up at how much she means the words. “I’ll always be grateful to you. But I feel like this is what I need to do right now. Please understand.”
Ricky looks down at their hands joined together. “All I know is that I want to be with you. That I have for a really long time.”
“I know,” Gina whispers. She thinks a part of her has always known that her friendship with Ricky wasn’t entirely platonic. That there were underlying feelings there for the both of them. It just wasn’t until these last couple of months that she was forced to deal with that and what those feelings meant.
“I’m so sorry, Ricky,” Gina says. “I wish…I mean, if EJ wasn’t—“
“You don’t have to say it,” Ricky tells her, moving his hand out of hers. “There’s no use thinking about what ifs.”
Gina knows that he’s right. But there’s still a part of her that will always wonder about what would’ve happened if Ricky had made a move before EJ did. About how different her life might’ve been.
“So…what now?” Ricky asks. “We just go back to acting like friends?”
Gina hates this so much. She must make a face, because Ricky immediately takes a step back from her.
“You don’t even want to be friends,” he says. It’s not a question. He just sounds defeated.
“Ricky, I don’t…I don’t know how to be just friends with you. We tried that and look where we are now! I can’t be close to you without thinking about what it feels like to kiss you, and fall asleep in your arms—“
“Okay,” Ricky chokes out, sounding like Gina’s words have pained him. “We’re done, in every sense of the word. I’ll go on with my life and you’ll go on acting like you’re so happy with EJ. I’m glad you two are working things out, I really am.”
He clearly doesn’t mean the words. He sounds miserable.
“Ricky,” Gina says pleadingly. She’s not even sure what she’s pleading for. For him to stay? For them to not end it like this, with all this bitterness and hard feelings?
“Bye, Gina.”
Ricky looks at her for maybe a second too long, like he’s committing her face to memory, before walking to the front door and leaving.
“Bye, Ricky,” Gina murmurs under her breath, feeling the tears start to form all over again.
Ashlyn quickly helps Maddox get to her feet, having the other girl lean into her side. It’s easy to see just how weak she is; she can barely stand. There’s no way Ashlyn will be able to fend off a killer while also supporting Maddox.
Her hopes rise a little as she watches Jet, though injured, turn around and stab Ghostface in the side. Whoever is behind the mask lets out a deep groan of pain.
“You two need to go,” Jet grunts out. “Get to safety, okay? I’ll keep him busy.”
Ghostface doesn’t seem to like that. They make to free themselves from Jet and attack Ashlyn and Maddox instead, but Jet tackles them to the floor.
“Go!” He yells out.
Ashlyn hurries her and Maddox over to the stairs, though Maddox hesitates, her face lined with tears as she looks at Jet.
“Jet, I don’t—” She starts, but Jet shakes his head at her.
“It’s okay, Maddie. You need to go. I’m just so glad you’re alright.”
Maddox nods, even though she clearly doesn’t want to leave Jet. Ashlyn helps her up the stairs and they’re almost to the door when they hear a cry of pain from below them. Maddox’s head whips around to look behind her. She looks like she wants to run right back down the stairs to help her brother, but Ashlyn holds on tighter to her waist to stop her.
“I’m so sorry, Maddox,” Ashlyn tells her. “But we need to go. Jet wants you to be safe more than anything else.”
“Okay,” Maddox chokes out, fresh tears falling from her eyes.
Ashlyn opens the basement door and then quickly closes it behind her and Maddox. Ashlyn is surprised and a little scared to see that no one is in the living room. She knows that Gina and EJ were upstairs, but where’s Ricky? Big Red? Val?
Unfortunately, Ashlyn also knows that her and Maddox don’t have a lot of time to make it out of here. There’s no way they’d be able to look for the others and also get to safety before the killer comes after them.
Her and Maddox hurry out of the front door. Ashlyn grabs her car keys from her jacket pocket, suddenly infinitely glad that she drove here tonight instead of walking. She unlocks her car and helps Maddox into the passenger seat before going over to the driver’s seat. It’s not until she has the car started and is driving away that she allows herself to take a breath.
“I’m sorry to ask you this right now, but I have to. So I can try to warn my friends. What happened? Who kidnapped you?” Ashlyn asks.
Maddox lets out a shaky breath, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I was leaving rehearsals on Tuesday when Big Red offered to give me a ride home,” she starts. “I thought it was a little weird because we’ve never been close, but I appreciated it, so I said yes. As soon as I was in the car, he knocked me out. I woke up tied up in his basement.”
Ashlyn’s grip on her steering wheel tightens. “Big Red?” She asks in disbelief. “Why would he do that?”
She had been with him for over a year. Never in a million years would she think he’d be capable of doing something like that. Of being…a killer?
“I think he could tell that you were going to break up with him. That you and I…” Maddox trails off, looking a little embarrassed. “Had something. It’s not like he would really talk to me about it, but sometimes he’d go down to the basement and just…talk to himself. About making you pay. He said…”
Maddox winces as she remembers. Ashlyn keeps one hand on the steering wheel, the other gently taking one of Maddox’s hands in her own to comfort her.
“He said he wanted to kill me in front of you and then kill you, too.”
Ashlyn can’t hold back her gasp. She can feel her heart breaking at the words. No, she might not have feelings for Big Red anymore (definitely not anymore), but it hurts to know that someone she spent so much time with could be capable of something so awful. Especially someone that Ashlyn loved and cared about deeply. Someone that she thought wouldn’t hurt a fly.
“Did he say anything about having a partner? About who it was?” Ashlyn asks.
Maddox shakes her head. “No, never.”
As soon as Ashlyn is in her driveway, she texts Gina, EJ, Ricky and Val to let them know that Big Red is the killer, offering a brief explanation about how she knows. She tells them that he’s still in the house and armed, so be careful.
She then calls 911.
Gina can’t believe what she just heard. Ricky was right; EJ knows. He’s known all along.
“How — how did you find out?” Gina asks.
EJ looks at her like she’s stupid. It’s so different from how he usually looks at her that it sends a chill down her spine.
“It wasn’t exactly rocket science, Gina. I’d have to be seriously dumb to not notice the way you two were always looking at each other at school. So I went over to your house one night, and…” EJ breaks off, like he’s trying to control just how angry he is. “His car was in your driveway. Did you not think about how obvious that would be?”
Admittedly, Gina hadn’t been able to think about anything back then except RickyRickyRicky. So, no. She hadn’t thought about just how obvious they probably were, even if they were only together together for about a week.
“I’m sorry,” Gina apologizes, trying to show just how much she means it. “I never wanted you to get hurt. It just happened one night and—“
“I really don’t want to hear about it,” EJ spits out.
Gina’s phone pings with a text. She reaches to pull it out of the pocket of her denim jacket, but before she can look at the message, EJ snatches it out of her hand.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” He asks her. “We’re having a conversation here.”
Gina can feel her heart beating rapidly in her chest. EJ has never been like this before. Still, she tries to remain calm.
“EJ, give me back my phone,” she tells him.
“I don’t know, maybe I’ll keep it. Go through your messages with Ricky and see if you two are still going behind my back.”
Before Gina can respond, there’s a knock on the bedroom door. It immediately sets Gina on high alert. She’s all too reminded of the last time the killer was behind her bedroom door.
Gina really wishes she had her phone. Maybe it’s just one of her friends asking where she is. Or maybe one of them found out something about the killer. She wonders what would happen if she made a reach for it in EJ’s hand, but she honestly doesn’t trust EJ not to hurt her if she does.
“It’s Ricky. Can you please let me in?” Comes the voice from behind the door.
“Speak of the devil,” EJ says. His hands are balled into fists.
Great, now she has another thing to worry about; EJ hurting Ricky if he sees him. Still, Ricky’s voice had had an urgency to it. Before EJ can be the one to open the door, Gina hurries over to it and opens it.
Ricky has his phone in his hands and a wide-eyed look in his eyes. He walks into the bedroom and quickly locks the door behind him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” EJ asks him. “Although I guess you interrupting private moments between Gina and I isn’t anything new.”
Ricky glares at him. “This is a lot bigger than you trying to get laid.”
Gina’s eyes go wide and she feels herself flush at the words. How did Ricky even know about that?
EJ looks like he’s contemplating beating the shit out of Ricky until Ricky holds up his phone for both Gina and EJ to read.
“I just got a text from Ashlyn. She found Maddox tied up in the basement and they were attacked by Ghostface down there. Jet fended him off so they could escape, but…Ashlyn said she’s not sure it’s likely he survived.”
Gina brings a hand to her mouth in disbelief, blinking back tears. She can’t believe that she was just talking to Jet tonight, and now he might be gone.
“But why would Maddox be in Big Red’s basement?” Gina asks. “Unless…”
Ricky nods. He has tears in his eyes, too.
“Red’s the killer. He wanted to get back at Ashlyn for leaving him for Maddox and I guess it turned into this whole fucking thing. I really don’t know. But I know that he’s still in here and it’s not safe.”
Gina can’t imagine how Ricky is feeling right now. One of his best friends was attacked and possibly killed by one of his other best friends. She wants to hug him, but she knows that she can’t.
“What about Val?” Gina finds herself asking.
“What about her?” EJ asks.
“She’s still down there! Ashlyn and Maddox might’ve been able to get away, but Val is down there by herself. We have to make sure that she’s okay.”
Ricky lets out a breath. “I’ll go.”
Gina is immediately shaking her head. “No. I know you might be in the self-sacrificing mood, but you’re not going by yourself. EJ and I are going with you.”
She looks over at EJ. “Right?”
EJ looks worried, but he still nods. Gina knows how close he is with Val. She can’t imagine him not wanting to help her from danger.
“Let’s go, then,” EJ says.
Ricky unlocks the door and the three of them slowly make their way out of the bedroom. They stick close together, trying to be as quiet as possible as they make their way down the stairs. It’s Ricky first, then Gina, then EJ.
Gina doesn’t really approve of the lineup they have going on here. If it were up to her, she would be first instead of Ricky. She can’t stand the thought of anything happening to him.
Luckily, they make it down the stairs without encountering Big Red. Gina hurries into the living room, EJ and Ricky at both of her sides, and sees Val is still on the couch watching the movie from earlier.
“Oh, look, signs of life!” Val says sarcastically as soon as she sees the three of them. “Some friends you are. You all left me down here by myself!”
“Do you…do you really not know what’s going on? Ashlyn didn’t text you?” Ricky asks her.
Val holds her phone up. It has a black screen. “Phone’s dead. Why?”
“Shit,” Ricky curses under his breath. “Well, what about when Ashlyn and Maddox were leaving? They didn’t say anything to you?”
“Maddox?” Val asks in surprise. “She was found? But, no, I didn’t see them. Maybe I was in the bathroom when they left. I didn’t even hear the front door open and close.”
“Look, I didn’t want to bring this up,” EJ starts. “But I figure it’s now or never. The night that Nini was murdered, Val left the football game around halftime and never came back. I don’t know where she went.”
Val quickly stands up from the couch, giving EJ a disbelieving look. “What the hell are you talking about? Are you seriously trying to insinuate that I’m the killer?”
“Maddox told Ashlyn that Big Red is the one who kidnapped her. But he was with Jet and I all night on the night that Nini was murdered,” Ricky recalls. “So…there must be two murderers.”
Gina thinks back to her conversation with Ricky earlier today. He’d said that EJ had heard Nini that day at lunch when she announced her theory that the killer was in their friend group, but so had Val. EJ had been at the football game, but once again, so had Val.
But she also thinks about how angry EJ had been upstairs, in a way that she had never seen from him before. It had scared her.
“Gina,” Val says. Gina looks over at her, a little caught off guard, and is met with a pleading look from the blonde girl. “Look, I never told you this, because we were never that close. I considered myself more as EJ’s friend, but…EJ used to talk to me all the time about what happened between you and Ricky. He would get so angry, and he would…say things…”
Gina feels herself go cold at the words. Once again, she’s on full alert, ready to go into attack mode if necessary.
“What would he say?” She asks, even though a part of her already knows.
“Oh, come on, Gina, you can’t believe—“
“That he wanted to kill you.”
And there it is. It feels like the world stops spinning for a moment, everything coming to a standstill as one of Gina’s worst fears comes true.
“I never thought he would act on it! Gina, I’m so sorry,” Val apologizes tearfully.
“Since Big Red doesn’t want to fucking help,” EJ says and pulls a revolver out of his back pocket. He aims it at Val, but Ricky is close enough to him to try and wrestle the gun out of his hand. EJ’s arm gets knocked out of the way, making the intended shot for Val go through the wall instead.
Gina takes in her surroundings, and fast. She can’t watch as Ricky inevitably gets himself shot by wrestling for a loaded gun. She has to do something.
There’s a lamp on the stand next to the armrest of the couch. It’s not very big and won’t do serious damage, but it’s what Gina has in the moment. While EJ is distracted with Ricky, Gina picks up the lamp and slams it down on EJ’s head.
It’s enough to knock EJ out, at least for the time being. He goes lax, slumping against the couch, dropping his gun to the floor.
“Holy shit, Gi,” Ricky says, looking at Gina like he’s never seen her before.
“Get the gun,” Gina tells him. She’s still in fight or flight mode, because they’re not out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot. There’s still Big Red to worry about and EJ will likely only be out for a few minutes.
Ricky does as she says, picking the gun up. He looks a little awkward holding it, so Gina sighs, carefully taking it from him.
“Let’s try to get outside,” she says.
Her, Val and Ricky head to the front door. However, when they open it, they see that Big Red is in the front yard; either looking for Maddox and Ashlyn or assuring that no one else leaves. Maybe both. He’s grasping at his side, where Gina assumes Jet had stabbed him.
“Fuck!“ Ricky exclaims, quickly shutting the door and locking it. “He has a keypad to the front door, so he’ll be able to unlock it and be in here in no time. Especially now that he saw us at the front door. We need to hide.”
“I’m gonna go to the kitchen and get a knife, so I’ll hide down here,” Val says. “You two go upstairs with the revolver.”
“Are you sure?” Gina asks her.
Val nods. “I’ll be okay.”
Ricky doesn’t waste a moment to grab Gina’s hand and pull her up the stairs as Val runs to the kitchen. They’ve only just gotten to the top of the stairs when they hear the door begin to automatically unlock.
“In here,” Ricky says frantically, and that’s how Gina finds herself closed in a tiny, dark towel closet with Ricky.
“Of all the hiding places,” Gina breathes out. She’s trying not to think about how her and Ricky have no choice but to be right in front of each other, eye-to-eye, only a couple inches away from touching.
“Hey, it’s not like I had a lot of time to pick the Four Seasons of hiding spots!”
Gina gasps out a laugh at that, until she realizes she’s not laughing at all. She’s panicking. She’s so worried and scared and overwhelmed right now that she feels like she can’t breathe.
“Hey,” Ricky whispers, taking her into his arms. Gina supposes that’s the one good thing about having to hide in a tiny closet with him; it makes hugging way easier. She allows herself a moment to breathe him in, rolling her eyes affectionately when she picks up on a whiff of weed.
“We’re gonna be okay,” Ricky assures her.
“But what if we aren’t?” Gina asks.
“We are.”
Gina wants to believe him, but all she can think is but what if we aren’t?
There’s so many things that she wants to say to Ricky, that she wants to apologize for. The thought of either (or both) of them dying without Gina having said anything makes her feel terrible.
“Ricky,” she starts, backing away from him with the couple inches of space she has. “In case something happens, and we don’t—“
“Don’t say that,” Ricky murmurs. “There’s no need for that. We’re gonna be okay.”
“You keep saying that, but what if we aren’t? I have so many regrets when it comes to you,” Gina says honestly, her voice thickening from held back tears. “I can’t die knowing that I never got to tell you what I wanted to say. Or, God forbid, something happens to you. So, please just let me say it, okay?”
“Okay,” Ricky agrees quietly.
“I’m sorry,” Gina starts off, because it’s what she wants to say most. “I’m so sorry for hurting you and all of the pain I put you through. The day that I ended things with you still haunts me. And I know I said back then that us being together should’ve never happened, but that’s not true. It should’ve never ended. Every day I wish that I had called things off with EJ and been with you instead.”
“Gina—“
“No, I mean it. I really do. I’ve missed you so much, Ricky. I’ve missed everything. Hanging out with you and watching those cheesy kid’s movies because you knew that they’d make me laugh. All of your stupid jokes and the way you would always listen to everything I had to say, understanding me better than anyone else has in my life. I don’t know if you realize just how much you helped me during the worst two months of my life. I did such a bad job of showing you how much that meant to me, how much you meant to me.”
Ricky wraps Gina back up in a hug, and she lets out a shaky breath against his shoulder.
“You still do,” she whispers. “I still—”
“I know,” Ricky interrupts softly. “Me too.”
Gina feels a part of her settle at the words. Ricky still cares about her, just as much as she cares about him. If that’s going to be her last thought, it’s not a bad one to have.
Ricky backs away slightly so he can press his lips to Gina’s in a gentle kiss. It makes Gina want to cry. She doesn’t want to die. She wants to share infinite more kisses with Ricky; to finally be together with him in the way she’s always wanted.
They’re interrupted by Ricky’s phone vibrating. The sound makes Gina’s breath hitch in her throat, looking frantically at the door in front of her. Her hand goes to the gun in her jacket pocket.
“It’s EJ,” Ricky says, his voice low and scared. “He says we have two minutes to show ourselves or Val gets it.”
Gina winces at the words. She knew that her and Ricky couldn’t stay in here forever. She makes to grab for the doorknob, but Ricky stops her.
“I texted Carlos to call the police as soon as Ashlyn told me what was going on. I’m sure Ashlyn called the police, too. They should be here soon,” Ricky tells her. “We just have to stall until they get here.”
Gina nods, trying to convince herself that they can somehow come out of this unharmed.
They just have to stall.
The scene they’re met with is EJ, Val, and Big Red, all in the living room. EJ is holding Val down with a knife pressed to her throat, while Big Red watches with a bored look on his face.
“This is so unfair, dude,” he complains. “You get to get your revenge, but Ashlyn and Maddox are out there, unscathed?”
“It’s not my fault you were too much of a pussy to kill Maddox when you first kidnapped her.”
“I wanted to make Ashlyn watch!”
“Look, we kill Ricky and Gina, then we can go to Ashlyn’s. Okay?”
“Whatever.”
It’s not the best moment to walk in on, but Ricky and Gina don’t have much time to waste until the two minute mark is up and something happens to Val.
Gina walks into the living room, her gun pointed straight at EJ.
“You wanted to see us?” She asks.
EJ scoffs at her. “Shoot me and this knife goes straight through Val’s throat. Is that what you want?”
Gina knows that he’s not bluffing. Slowly, she lowers the gun.
“Give it to Red.”
Gina looks over at Ricky, giving him an unsure look. She doesn’t want to give up the one weapon they have.
Ricky nods at her, though he doesn’t look too pleased about it either.
Begrudgingly, she hands the gun over to Big Red, who wiggles it with a little grin.
“Well, Val, I think you’ve served your purpose,” EJ says with a fake apologetic tone to his voice.
“No!” Gina yells. She tries to run over to EJ and Val, to stop him, but Big Red grabs her and holds her back. Ricky tries to do the same, but Big Red immediately points the gun at him.
“I’d stay right there if I were you,” Big Red warns.
Ricky gives him a betrayed look, his gaze shifting rapidly between Red and where EJ is with Val.
It’s a moment’s hesitation too long. Val tries to squirm out of EJ’s grasp in a last, desperate attempt to get free, and is met with a knife slicing through her throat.
“No!” Gina screams, unable to do anything but watch as Val’s body slumps to the floor. Gina lets out a strangled sob and quickly looks away, the sounds of Val’s labored last breaths filling the room until it’s silent.
“She was your friend,” Gina whispers, trying to keep her voice steady despite how much she’s shaking from both fear and anger. “She was your best friend! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
EJ slowly walks over to Gina, using the tip of his knife to lift her chin up and force her to look him in the eyes. She can see Ricky a few feet behind him, his eyes filled with tears at what he just witnessed. He looks worried out of his mind, clearly wanting to free Gina from Big Red and EJ, but Gina very slightly shakes her head at him. She wants to believe that she has this under control, because she knows EJ. If there’s one thing he loves doing, it’s listening to himself talk.
She also just doesn’t want Ricky getting hurt. Gina has no doubt that Big Red wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him if he takes a single step toward her.
“Would you believe me if I said this whole thing didn’t even start with you?” EJ asks.
Gina gives him a confused look. It’s hard, being forced to look him in the eyes, knowing that he killed Nini and now Val. That he wants to kill her, too.
“What do you mean? Who did it start with?”
“Think about it, Gina. What happened a year ago today?”
Gina’s entire body goes cold. She’d been so busy mourning Nini’s death that she’d forgotten what today was; the one year anniversary of her mom’s death.
She feels like she’s going to be sick at what EJ is insinuating.
“W-What does my mom have to do this?” Gina asks, begging, pleading for EJ to not be saying what she thinks he is.
“It all started when one Terri Porter decided to have an affair with a married man. A father. When she decided to destroy a family.”
“No,” Gina murmurs. “Please, no.”
“Maybe you’ve heard of him? Cash Caswell?”
Gina closes her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks.
“If you ask me, the bitch got what she deserved. I made sure of that.”
“Fuck you!” Gina spits out. “Why…why would you date me, knowing that you were…” She tries to say ‘knowing that you were going to kill my mom’, but the wound is too fresh. She can’t say it. “Knowing that you were going to do that?”
EJ shrugs. “I thought it’d be funny, fucking around with you a bit. Breaking the heart of Terri Porter’s daughter while she was still mourning the death of her mother. It was one last fuck you to that home wrecker.”
He takes a step closer to Gina, the edge of his knife pressing against the skin of her throat.
“Imagine my surprise when I found out just how similar you were to your mother!” EJ laughs. “Suddenly, breaking your heart wasn’t enough. I’d killed once, what was a couple more times? I even had a partner this time. Big Red had told Ashlyn she was the one for him, and she told him she was leaving him for a girl she’d just met. Love’s a bitch, huh?”
Gina fights the urge to spit right in EJ’s face. She can’t believe that the guy she’s been with for over a year, the guy she’s kissed and confided in is the one who’s behind the worst pain she’s ever experienced in her life. Two of the worst pains, if Nini’s death is included.
“Before I could come for you, Gina, I wanted to scare you a little bit. That’s what Antoine and Lily were for. Antoine was Big Red’s suggestion. Apparently he’d made a move on Ashlyn at rehearsals one day and Red had hated him ever since. It was pure luck that he happened to be at Lily’s house that night. Ricky’s ex girlfriend! I thought, hey, maybe we can scare Gina and cast some suspicion on Ricky. We were killing two birds with one stone!”
Gina looks over at Ricky and sees that he’s at scowling at EJ. He looks just as mad and disgusted as Gina feels. She remembers Ricky suggesting to her earlier today in her bedroom that EJ had killed Lily first to get at him, and is hardly able to believe that he was pretty much right.
“I snuck into your house the next night while you were asleep. Big Red was the one you had the pleasure of speaking to on the phone. When you said I should show myself, I agreed. I’d been getting tired of waiting; I wanted to kill you already.”
EJ then shakes his head in frustration. “But you just wouldn’t die! You put up a pretty good fight against Ghostface, so I thought I’d finish the job as myself. You were so trusting, ran right into my arms. But then you told me you’d called the cops, and I knew I wouldn’t get out of there in time. So I waited. I didn’t want to have to kill Nini, but she saw me at the game with two phones and put two-and-two together. Unfortunate, really, but at least it sent you a message.”
“Fuck you,” Gina repeats.
“Hm, well, that was one thing I could never accomplish. But at least I tried.”
Gina is going to be sick. She’s sure of it. But she’s also so mad that the entire room is tinged with red.
She knows the cops will be here any second. That she’s done a good job at stalling. But suddenly that’s not all that Gina wants. She wants to make the man in front of her pay for all he did to her.
Gina recalls the way Big Red had been grabbing his right side while walking around outside, so she jams her elbow into his injured side, hard. Big Red yells out in pain, letting go of both Gina and the gun as he grasps at his side. Ricky takes this as his opportunity to move and he lunges for Big Red, holding him down on the ground so he can’t hold Gina back again.
They’re lucky that they both had the element of surprise on their sides, because for just a second, EJ freezes in place. It buys Gina enough time to shove EJ away from her and not get stabbed in the throat. She quickly reaches down and grabs the gun from the floor, right when EJ recovers and stabs Gina in the stomach.
Gina gasps out in pain, and she hears Ricky call out her name, but all she can focus on is the gun she’s pressing into EJ’s chest.
“You won’t do it,” EJ taunts. “You’re not strong enough.”
“No?” Gina asks, and pulls the trigger, watching with some kind of sick satisfaction as EJ falls to the ground. “That was for my mom.” She pulls the trigger a second time, his deep groan of pain like music to her ears. “And that was for Nini, you sick, psychotic son of a bitch.”
Gina sees a flash of red and blue lights outside and she points her gun at Big Red, where he’s still being held down by Ricky on the floor.
“Either you tell the police everything that you and EJ did, or I put a bullet through you, too. Got it?”
“Yes, yeah, got it,” Big Red stammers in fear.
Gina sets the gun down onto the coffee table, then sits down on it as well. Now that the adrenaline is wearing off, the pain from her stomach is starting to overtake her. She thinks that EJ probably stabbed her pretty deep, but at least he didn’t pull the knife out of her. She would’ve lost a lot more blood if he had.
“Hey,” Ricky says, and Gina blinks heavily at him. “Just stay awake for me, okay? The police are here. We’re gonna explain everything to them and then get you to a hospital, okay?”
Gina nods, then wishes that she hadn’t. She feels dizzy. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
Once the police come inside, Ricky and Big Red are the ones who do most of the explaining so that Gina can be taken to the hospital. She can see how much Ricky doesn’t want to leave her, his eyes going from the police officer he’s talking to over to Gina every couple seconds.
“I’m okay,” Gina assures him once again, before being aided by a paramedic over to an ambulance waiting outside. Ashlyn must’ve texted every single person she could think of, because Gina is surprised to see that Jamie is waiting for her inside of the vehicle.
“Hey,” Gina greets him. She doesn’t have the strength to hide her surprise.
Jamie’s eyes well with tears at the sight of her. “Gina, I’m so…I’m so sorry about everything. When mom died, I didn’t know what to do with myself, much less my baby sister. I never thought I’d come this close to losing you, too. So I’m here now, okay? I’m staying. You’re all I have left, I can’t…I can’t lose you, too.”
Gina feels her eyes well up with tears, too. Maybe it’s just because she’s too exhausted to doubt him, but she actually believes him.
“Okay,” Gina says, a small smile on her lips. “I’d hug you if there wasn’t a knife sticking out of my stomach.”
Jamie groans at her attempt at dark humor, causing Gina to breathe out a tired laugh. The doors shut to the ambulance and they begin the drive to the hospital.
When Gina wakes up in her hospital bed the next morning, the first thing she sees is Ricky sitting in the chair next to her bed, his eyes closed as he sleeps. Despite everything that’s happened in the last 24 hours (or, honestly, 48 hours), Gina has to smile at the sight. She can’t believe that Ricky stayed here all night with her, but then again, he is always going above and beyond for her.
“Hey,” Gina says softly, reaching out to grab onto his hand and wake him up.
He must’ve been in a light sleep, because he almost immediately blinks awake. He smiles when he sees that Gina is up, too.
“Hey, you’re okay,” he says.
“Told you I would be.”
Ricky lets out a relieved breath, holding on tighter to Gina’s hand. “I was so scared. I know you weren’t too badly hurt, but I kept assuming the worst. I didn’t know what to do except wait here for you to wake up.”
Gina’s heart breaks at the words. She knows how scared she would be if she were in Ricky’s shoes. She wouldn’t want to leave his side, either.
“I’m right here, okay?” Gina says softly. “I’m not going anywhere. In fact, you’re probably going to see so much of me that you’ll get sick of me and wish that I would go somewhere else.”
Ricky huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. “That could never happen.”
Gina smiles because she knows that’s true.
“So what all has happened since I’ve been in here?” She asks.
“Well, Big Red was arrested. The paramedics went down to the basement and found Jet was still alive, but he’s pretty bad off. He’s in the hospital, too.”
Gina breathes a sigh of relief that Jet is alive. She had feared the worst when Ashlyn told Ricky that Jet had tried to fight the killer off. With everything that Maddox has been through this past week, it’s nice to know that she’ll at least have her brother by her side.
“And EJ?” Gina asks, feeling a pit in her stomach at just the thought of him.
“He’s dead,” Ricky confirms.
Gina nods, feeling relieved at that news, too. She’s glad that she killed him. After everything he did to her, to her friends…to her mom. Gina truly feels that he deserved to die. She wouldn’t even feel safe with him just being behind bars somewhere.
Gina thinks of Val, of how horrific it had been to witness her death, and her relief drains right out of her. That familiar feeling of grief and remorse takes its place instead. She’s seen enough dead bodies for the rest of her life.
“Poor Val,” Gina whispers. “I know that EJ was terrible and psychotic, but…a part of me still can’t believe that he killed her. Just like that. Like she…meant nothing to him.”
“I know,” Ricky agrees quietly. “I keep thinking about how I wish I had done something to help her, you know? I just stood there.”
Gina squeezes his hand at the words. “Hey, you can’t beat yourself up over that. Big Red wouldn’t have wasted a second to shoot you, and then you’d be gone, too.”
She understands all too well what it feels like to blame yourself for a death that happened. She hates that Ricky has that same guilt now.
“Yeah,” Ricky agrees softly, but Gina can tell it’s still weighing on him.
They’re quiet for a little while after that, just glad to have the other close by with everything that’s happened recently.
It’s Gina who breaks the silence.
“Can I hug you?” She asks Ricky.
Ricky chuckles lightly at the words and immediately stands up from his chair. “Yeah, of course.”
Gina leans up and reaches her arms up as far as they can go with the IV and other tubes sticking out of them. Ricky makes up for it by leaning down as far as he can, his arms wrapping tightly around her back as he buries his head in between the crook of her shoulder and her neck.
It feels so good to have him near. To know that he’s okay; that they both are.
“Are we gonna be okay?” Ricky whispers, like he read her mind.
Gina runs a hand through his curls to comfort him. “I think so,” she says. “Eventually.”
That’s all she can promise him. But with Ricky in her arms, she’s never found her words to be more true.
They’re going to be okay.