Chapter Text
“What—!” Sam’s chest heaved as she stared at the white rubber mask that decorated the concrete floor of the Washington’s basement. It looked deceptively harmless. Not at all out of place within the sprawling maze of film props and costumes curated by Hollywood’s very own ‘Head-Honcho of Horror’. Ugh. Sam should’ve never doubted her initial suspicions. She knew better! Hanging around the Washington family came with unique fine print and a developed patience in regard to theatrics. Horror clichés were the Washington family’s bread and butter. Literally. They lived, breathed, and—most importantly, monetized Horror cliches. Notes written on shower steam fogged mirrors, corn-syrup blood, and perfectly timed flickering lights had practically been an initiation for Sam when she was thirteen.
In hindsight, the mask had probably been fished up from one of the many boxes scattered haphazardly around her. Maybe even from the very same one Chris snooped through to find the monk robe he used to spook them with. Had that Psychopath costume been stashed away down here the whole time? Had they bypassed it on their way to the boiler? It hurt to think about how gullible she might’ve been. Between the graffiti decorating the foregrounds of the mountain to the Saw inspired game she’d been forced to watch on the big screen in the home cinema, it was all undeniably Josh’s work.
Even with her newfound awareness she was unnerved. It wasn’t unusual for them to play pranks on each other; to try and trick one another into increasingly embarrassing situations was a staple of their friend group. Sometimes, like last year, it went too far. And sometimes, like this year, it was in bad taste.
But hey, screw Sam for thinking this year would be any different, right?
“—the fuck, Josh?” Sam hissed.
Goosebumps shivered down her arms as the few fake strands of hair wrapped around the business end of the baseball bat brushed above her bare bleeding knee and across her nearly numb toes. Sam’s anxiety was only furthered by the cold draft that slipped up the exposed skin of her thigh. She shifted discreetly and tried to pull the hem of the towel a little further down. It was rare for her to feel so aware, so self-conscious.
In Sam’s defense, she was recovering from a scare of a lifetime in damn near next to nothing. If Josh thought that she would laugh the whole thing off, he had another thing coming. After last year, Sam had hoped that common sense—especially when in concern to pranks, would have circulated among them. Obviously she was wrong.
Still, it felt surreal to watch as his large, clunky boots made timid half-steps in Sam’s direction. Slowly, as if not to scare her— and hah, wasn’t that the funniest joke of the night? —Josh raised his hands in surrender. Insignificant as it may be in the wake of her indignation, she couldn’t deny the action did soothe a few frayed nerves. It felt a little hypnotic. Could’ve been charming if not for the smarmy grin she just knew would be plastered on his face.
That’s why Sam couldn’t bring herself to look at him yet. She’d lose it. And as pissed as she was, she didn’t want to say something she’d regret. Instead, she glanced over his glove covered fingertips, let her eyes roam past his broad palms, and found herself captivated by the blood splatters that ghosted along his forearms. It was stupid, but… Sam couldn’t help the way her eyes caught on the bare slip of flesh between the cuff of his glove and rolled sleeve. Really, it was nothing more than a dumb tendency she’d cultivated over the years of knowing Joshua Washington. A nonchalant habit that was encouraged by the handful of too-hot summers and not quite chilly enough winters; a tiny, insignificant fixation prompted by a boy who ran just a little too hot. Truthfully, it made the proverbial cut just that much deeper. How could he ruin that beautiful, inconspicuous association for her? He’d taken what Sam associated with good , and casual , and twisted it into something terrifying; Josh had purposely rolled up his sleeves while he chased her down a flight of steps like it was all hunky-dory, no big deal. Just another typical night on Mount Washington!
Then again, with their track record maybe it was.
Stiff fingers flexed and curled around the handle of the bat. What she needed to do was calm down. Think about things a little more rationally. Josh might have scared her shitless, but she had been the one to hit him. Twice. Once with the vase and then again with the bat. Sure, the angle might not have been great, but Sam knew she clipped him on both occasions. Had she hurt him? Ugh!
Sam hated that she felt bad for defending herself.
Sam hated that she made herself let go of the bat even more.
But she didn’t need it now, right? It—the psychopath, was Josh. Immature prank notwithstanding, he wouldn’t hurt her. Right?
Pins and needles spread across her empty palms. The dull ‘ thunk!’ of wood hitting concrete served to thicken the silence between them. It almost made her laugh. Everything seemed so much louder in the dark: a dropped bat, silverware in the sink, closing doors, and of course, Sam’s own rapidly beating heart.
Without the rush of adrenaline fueling her actions Sam felt sick. Previously dull sensations were now cranked to ten. Her thighs absolutely burned ; they twitched and trembled from the unexpected exertion. The tremors jolted her sensitive, nausea ridden stomach. Each attempted calming breath made the stitch in her side ache. What remained of the bath water dappled across her skin had combined with the cold, clammy sweat she’d worked up during her frantic sprint. It made her feel gross.
Electricity shot down her spine as another drop of water dripped from the tips of her sweat matted hair down to the tightly clutched, mostly damp towel at her chest. Hot air created small white clouds from her lips. It was cold. Freezing! Yet there she was, daring Josh to—fuck, she didn’t know… blink first, when she ran the very real risk of catching a cold, or God forbid pneumonia! It was so stupid. She was so stupid!
What were they even doing?
Sam’s privacy had been invaded. She’d been thoroughly humiliated. And for what? Some sort of sick joke? A prank? Out of all the people she could’ve expected to pull such a miserable, pathetic—!
She sank down into a crouch. Splinter filled palms bit into the high jut of her cheek bone and blanketed her eye sockets. The rough, damp texture of the skin of her hands helped pull her back in the moment. She just needed a minute to breathe. To compartmentalize. Something that Sam was normally so good at. Something she fumbled with now.
Really, Sam didn’t even know where to start. It all happened so fast, too fast. Everything from the bath to the screening room felt like one big blur. Her feelings, though, were prominent. There had been anxiety. Anxiety and then terror. She could recall the pounding in her chest; it had ricocheted across her ribcage and sat heavy in her throat, in her ears. The sound had almost drowned out his slow, methodical footfall as he followed her down the stairs.
Naked with nothing more than a shitty W-for-Washington embroidered, Turkish cotton towel she’d sprinted across the first floor of the lodge certain that Josh—her situationship , as once christened by Jessica, was dead. That Chris had made an impossible choice. That Ashley was in very real danger.
“Seriously not cool, Josh.” Colors bloomed behind her closed eyelids as her palms pressed harder against her eyes. Sinus pressure burdened the bridge of her nose. She wouldn’t dare give that asshole the privilege of seeing her upset. It wasn’t worth it. That’s what he wanted out of her, right? A reaction? “Why would you—? Did you think that was funny?” Sam asked.
Nothing.
Not a peep.
She tore her hands away from her face. Well, fine then! Fuck him. Fuck letting him think she was hiding from him. Let him see what he did to her. Could he tell she was pissed? God, she hoped so.
There was not a thought in her mind as she closed the distance between them. If Sam had been thinking clearly, she wouldn’t have engaged him at all. She’d have let him sit and stew in the wake of his colossal, blockbuster sized fuck up. No. What Sam should have done was march back up those stairs, find her stashed clothes, and get far, far away from Blackwood Mountain. But Sam didn’t. Instead, her bruised toes stubbed against the rubber sole and protective steel plating of his scuffed Timberland boots.
And, yeah—fucking ow it hurt, but Sam was a woman on a warpath.
Without her thick soled sneakers Sam was an astounding, unfortunate, whopping five foot tall. Josh five-nine. That meant that Sam had a fantastic view of his chest. Of the grimy but warm looking flannel shirt he’d neglected to fully button up. It exposed the too pronounced cut of his collar bone, the strained tendons of his throat, and the bob of his Adam’s apple.
It was a chore to crane her neck far enough to meet his eyes. Josh wasn’t a large man per se; no, that descriptor went to Matt who had bulked up two summers ago and hadn’t stopped swelling since. Still, he wasn’t exactly scrawny. At least, not in the way that Chris was. Josh was broad in the shoulders with corded, thick thighs, thanks to a few years of unwanted but parent-enforced extracurricular swimming lessons. Add in his hulking costume to the equation and he absolutely dwarfed Sam.
It didn’t discourage her.
What she might have lacked in stature she made up for twice-over in tenacity. So, yeah, maybe no one would ever mistake Sam for being tall. Or even of average height. But that was okay. She didn’t need the physical advantage. Sam would scrape up every previous ass-chewing and third-degree spiel she could and force it down his throat. Down at her hip her fingers twitched, eager to twist his ear like she might’ve a year ago.
Sam exhaled. Anger was foreign to her. Rarely, if ever, did she let herself boil over, explode. She preferred to let her feelings simmer; to allow her time to come to terms with what she felt before she acted. Sam couldn’t help herself this time. She still wasn’t over last year. Hadn’t even wanted to be here this year. But she’d done it for Josh. Josh, who managed to drain her dry of every drop of sympathy she harbored for him with his dumb stunt.
When she was through with him—!
—and she was. Through with him, that is. Or at the very least done with his hot-and-cold attitude; his stupid little ‘ talk to me tonight, so I can ghost you for the next three days,’ mentality. Maybe she was being too harsh but, God, Sam was tired.
They’d been almost… close , following the accident. It hadn’t been an immediate connection. And it certainly hadn’t been easy. Not with the ghosts of Hannah and Beth lingering between them. But with time, they’d cultivated something entirely their own. Something that Sam had thought was more than their shared grief. It was an escape, direct messages over Instagram and reposted Twitter memes. A new snap streak to replace the two she’d lost. A specialized emoji combination—purple devil, eggplant, and a clapboard, as insisted by Josh— decorating his name in her contacts. And then, somewhere between then and there , it got a little more serious.
They’d texted Before. Not a lot. Nothing deep, anyway. Mostly reminders: Sam staying the night, Hannah’s tennis practice running long, Beth needing more Red Bull. That had shifted following the accident. Before Josh dropped out of college, he’d taken to sending her snippets of psychology from his lectures that Sam struggled to wrap her head around. After, it was spontaneous movie dialogue: quotes and philosophy. He liked it when she tried to guess what movie they came from—liked it even more when she gave up and tried to guess the genre instead. It was usually horror.
It wasn’t always riddles with Josh though. Sometimes it was simple. Cup Pong and 8-Ball at three a.m. and ‘ good morning ’ texts at eleven. She penciled Josh in so carefully, so deliberately around her class schedule that he became a constant. A fix she depended on to get through the day. And then, when he took to calling—to nightly FaceTime chats, Sam might’ve let herself fall in love. She couldn’t have resisted even if she tried. Not when he was the voice that soothed her to sleep at night. Not when his face became synonymous with the rising sun and the promise of a good day.
Sam would even argue that it was inevitable. The two of them had existed adjacent to each other for so long; close, but never touching. Josh had always been Hannah and Beth’s brother first. Sam’s friend second. Following the unofficial memorial for the twins that line blurred. Communication flowed freely between them. Or, it had. Maybe it wasn’t what she’d daydreamt about years prior. It wasn’t the wild, renegade confessions she’d pictured or the small, but sincere asides meant for no ears but her own. But it was something. It was grief. It was consolation. And it had been honest, or at least she thought it was. Whatever it was that they had… it came to a rather abrupt stop roughly two, two-and-a-half months before he’d invited them back to the mountain.
Sam’s lips pinched together. It all made sense now. He’d been so dedicated to his sick little slasher project that there was no room for Sam. Maybe there never was. She might’ve just been a side project, a distraction. An unused, discarded manuscript. A place holder for something bigger, better.
God, she’d been such a fool. The whole trip was fishy from the start. Sam had thought it was odd that he’d arrived nearly a week ahead of them to film the invitation but hadn’t bothered to verify the integrity of the generator or the boiler in the meantime. It all made so much sense now. He never intended for them to stay for long. For all she knew, the whole thing was Joshes elaborate way of saying ‘ bye’ and ‘ fuck off’ and ‘ I hope to never see any of you again’ .
Josh let his shoulders fall with a disgruntled sigh at her pointed silence. Bent his knees a little in that condescending way he sometimes did to emphasize that, “ Yes, Sam. I am paying attention to you. Totally. One hundred percent. ” It was infuriating! How long was he going to keep up his dumb charade? How could he not take her seriously? What else could she do to get through his thick skull? She shoved him, “Uh, hello?” Sam hummed, “Earth to Josh! Are you listening to me? Really, Josh, I’ve had enough .”
He stumbled back. Blinked down at her once or twice like he couldn’t believe she’d taken initiative to touch him. What a prick! Did he think he could play innocent and she’d just cave, let it go? God, Josh frustrated her. It certainly didn’t help his case that there was such an overwhelmingly thick air of ‘ learned helplessness’ that surrounded him. One that she couldn’t help but feel she’d probably attributed to.
How often had Sam written off his pranks in the past? Tried to see past his occasional outbursts? Situations she’d chalked up to puberty, to an overload of testosterone, were nothing more than the distortion of rose-colored stained glass. The worst part about the realization to Sam is that she had no choice but to believe that he genuinely remained clueless about the consequence of his actions. Even now as he awaited her judgment he pouted. The mental image of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar superposed over a grown man. Sam couldn’t unsee it.
And, you know, maybe if it were a year prior, she would have laughed it off. Would have let her shallow crush defuse the situation. Sam could see how it would have played out. She would have made up an excuse for him. They’d go upstairs and she’d begrudgingly let him tell the tale of how he scared the pants off her; but now, submerged in the frigid isolation of the basement Sam knew that it wasn’t an option.
She had to hold him accountable. It just— it was hard, really, really hard. Because Sam could have fooled herself into thinking he was sorry. Could’ve seen the apology in the “defeated” slump of his shoulders or in the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it tremble of his fingers. It would’ve been easy to hear the apology in his audible swallow or in his too fast breath; but, right, there was the catch. Joshua Washington was never easy.
Sam had known him too long to be beguiled by those deep-set, ooey-gooey doe eyes.
Especially when he peered through his eyelashes to pin her in place like she was the one who lost her mind staging some sort of pseudo-slasher vengeance scheme. It was crazy, all of it. The jig was up, the villain was unmasked, and yet he said nothing. He just watched her. Like it was all just some sort of inevitable commercial break before the big plot twist. That, more than anything else—more than those big, blown out pupils or the definitely-not-a-prop bulky gas canister—scared her witless.
“Well, Funny-Guy? Got nothing to say?” She huffed out wearily.
Still nothing.
Sam grimaced, “Hey,” a little softer this time, “I’m talking to you.” For all his boyish pouting and overall kicked puppy demeanor, there was something that unsettled her. Josh had frozen. Hadn’t moved a muscle since she’d started talking. It made it hard to stay frustrated. Hard to continue humanizing him and his actions, as sick as they were. So, Sam stopped talking. She watched as tension gradually built along his neck and jawline. Watched as nerves progressively twitched and jumped beneath his skin as he ground his teeth together. It set the fine hair along her arms on end when his nostrils flared out during a particularly harsh exhale.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.” Josh bit out. Strangely, Sam wasn’t entirely sure he was speaking to her. Not with the way he looked through her. Not with how he angled his chin up and slightly to the left. Sam wondered if Josh even saw her at all. If he wasn’t acting out some bizarre drug induced hallucination or an especially extravagant sleepwalk. “Sam wasn’t supposed to know yet. No one was!” Josh murmured over his shoulder. He snorted and murmured to himself a little longer. Sam swallowed. She was Freaked the fuck out, okay? Drugs. He had to be on drugs.
“Hey,” she whispered. Childishly, Sam pretended her teeth were chattering because of the cold, and not because she was afraid of Josh. That’s how you had to handle addicts, wasn’t it? You went along with them. Stayed passive. Unassuming. You didn’t upset them. So why, oh why did she think it was a good idea to reach out to him? Her fingers had barely skirted the fabric of his rolled-up flannel before he jerked away stiffly.
“Surprise!” Josh yelled abruptly, “You—” His hands clasped over her shoulders, “—ruined!” His copper and whiskey breath scattered over her face, “The—!” Josh was close enough she could see every freckle, every pore, “—Surprise!”
Sam lurched away from him. Okay. Okay. Oh-kay ! Static electricity scattered beneath her skin. She felt more energized than a live wire. The tremors that ran up and down her spine had nothing to do with the cold anymore. She inched backwards feeling far too much like a fly trapped within the spider’s web. It was a literal rock and a hard place scenario. Josh was blocking the exit. A wall bracketed her behind. She was trapped.
A quick glance down. The baseball bat had rolled devastatingly far out of reach. Not that Sam would have used it. She wouldn’t have. Josh wouldn’t make her do that. She fisted the fabric of her towel in her clammy right hand and reached out again with her left, “Josh!” His eyes focused on her again; Sam was ashamed to say it made her skin crawl, “Hey,” she repeated, “listen to me, okay? You’ve got to tell me what’s wrong.”
Josh giggled. She caught a brief flash of his tongue as it swiped against his top lip. Her heart shot up into her throat as he hunched inward, his shoulders almost touching his ears as he stooped to her level, “Hey.” Josh parroted back at her, “Hey,” he said again, “hey, hay, hay! What am I? A horse? No, no,” he shook his head, “You, my friend,” Josh said seriously as he poked her exposed collar bone, “are the one with the long face. But that’s not right!” He straightened back up as he slurred the tone of his voice into something more high-pitched and obnoxious. “Sammy can’t be a horse. She’s a bird. A beautiful, unbothered, little bird. She flies above it all. So hiiiiigh up nothing can reach her!”
“Josh—!"
“That’s my name!” Josh beamed down at her, “Don’t wear it out.” For every inch she moved backwards he progressed forward. God, Sam could taste her heart in her goddamned throat. She shook her head to cool the heat rising in her cheeks, behind her eyes. He got her. Prank Over! Chris would jump out from the shadows and congratulate him on a job well done. The others would join in, clap, and jeer, but ultimately restore her sense of comfort.
It was just her luck that they didn’t.
And she knew they wouldn’t, but she had—Sam had hoped .
Red hot fire flared up her calf as her foot caught on an older, miscellaneous box of knick-knacks. There was a brief moment—just a tiny, little fucking second, where she was forced to look away in order to regain her footing. It was enough for him to close the gap between them. To make her press religiously into the frigid brick and mortar. Sam had hit the wall hard enough that it stole the air from her lungs. Tiny specks and grains dug into the unprotected expanse of skin between her shoulder blades. It burned! Fire caught at her back and licked away at bath-soaked soft skin. There was nowhere to run. Sam was cornered. Tears she was so certain she’d hold at bay threatened to spill over. It was unbelievable. The whole situation was wrong ! The man that pressed her against the wall couldn’t be her Josh. He’d always made her feel so safe, so understood.
Sam shuddered as his gloved fingers once again gouged into her shoulders, “Why are you doing this?” She whispered as he came to rest his forehead against her own, “Do,” she choked around the tightness in her throat, “you want to hurt me?”
Josh recoiled before staring her down at her in disbelief, “Sam. Sam. Sammy.” He tutted, “ I wouldn’t hurt you.” Josh shook his head slowly—uncertainly, as if he wasn’t the one who called the shots, “Not you. Never you. The Final Girl can’t get hurt.” Sam nodded. A moment. A heartbeat. Josh leaned back in, content with her silence. But not content in the silence. He fidgeted. Swayed. Rocked them back and forth. It hurt. It hurt so bad. A cheese grater strapped to her back. And then the humming. Awful, beautiful humming. A familiar tune, just out of reach. It curled liquid-smooth through her ears.
Painfully, Sam rolled her neck and lifted her arms. It was a pale mimicry of his prior surrender, of affection. Her ring and pinky fingers trembled hard enough they brushed against one another. It was slow going, like Sam was forced to move through molasses as her fingertips skimmed along his shoulders. When he didn’t lash out, she let them creep around his neck. Denim scraped her cheek as she pulled him in close; pressed their bodies flush together as his hands traveled the distance from her shoulders to rest on her waist. Josh groaned into her hair. He’d folded into her as if burdened by his own weight. Sam could hardly hold herself up, much less Josh, but she made a valiant effort to support him regardless. To pretend she didn’t want to hide away, cocooned in his warmth.
Trembling, but ever confident, Sam tightened her grip around him. Josh wouldn’t physically hurt her. He wouldn’t—he never would have, Sam knew that. The confirmation was a relief, nonetheless. Still, Sam was confused. Terrified beyond belief. The anger, the questions still rattled furiously around her skull. But there was a time and a place for all of it; and that time, that place, was not here . So, Sam let herself be caught in the moment. Let herself pretend the circumstances were different.
Josh seemed content to be held against the crook of her neck. He spoke softly into her flesh, still murmuring to someone Sam couldn’t see—he said awful, terrible things. His plans for her, for Chris and Ashley. The cruel, perverse traps he’d set for Mike, Jessica, Emily, and Matt. But the feeling of his lips fluttering against her sweat slick skin sent butterflies—both good and bad— crawling inside her stomach.
Josh was just… sick. And he needed to get help. A lot of help.
And, even if just for the moment, he trusted Sam. Depended on her. Clung to her like a child, vulnerable. There was a choice laid out before her. It would be smart to run. To push him away while he was unaware. She could, should run.
She could run or… she could stay. She could try to help him. Be there for him in a way that she hadn’t been for Hannah or Beth. Sam’s fingers curled around the back straps of his overalls. All it would take was one quick shove…
The hot breath saturating her throat felt like atonement.
There had never really been a choice at all. The answer was obvious.
“Okay.” She said into Josh's chest, “Okay. I believe you.” She unlocked the vice of her hands from around the denim straps. Sam trailed soothing circles up the column of his spine before sinking her fingers through the disheveled, greasy waves about the nape of his neck. “Can you tell me what’s happening?” His weight was heavy against her sternum. The rough fabric of his clothes scratched against her bare skin, “I want to help you, Josh.”
Warm clouds puffed against her neck, “Everyone wants to help.” Josh grumbled, “But no one ever really helps, you know?” Sam stiffened as he inhaled, “Dr. Hill was supposed to help.” Josh whined and pressed closer to her. Even through her admittedly thick towel Sam could feel the blunt bite of his nails against her hips. It was like he couldn’t get close enough. Like he wanted to peel back her skin and slip inside of it. “I think I’m passed the point of help, Sammy.” A knee had slid between her thighs. Sam could’ve been wrong but, for a second—for one precious second, he sounded lucid. Paranoid, sluggish, but lucid nonetheless. He sounded like Josh .
“You aren’t.” Sam was proud of herself. She sounded much more confident than she actually felt. “No one is beyond help, Josh.”
Josh laughed. Maybe? He might’ve scolded her. She couldn’t tell. Breathy little ‘ ah-ah-ah’s’ tickled her ear and left her with too many confused feelings to sort through. “Hannah and Beth are.” His shoulders hitched, “Were.” His ice-cold nose pressed achingly hard into her raw collarbone, “Y’know? T-they never even said sorry , Sam. They didn’t—they don’t care , not about me, or—” he stuttered, “—or about Han’ and Beth. All they worry about is who’s next in line to fuck next.” He’d all but barked into her skin. Sam shivered as the drawn out eff of fuck reverberated through her brittle, cold-sore bones.
Sam froze as his body jerked against her own. Too precise to be unintentional, he ground his pelvis into her navel. Heat generated from the back-and-forth friction, but Sam only felt a breath-catching cold. Josh paid her no mind, “C-Chris, too! He was my best friend. My best!” He yelled, “Fucking!” Sam didn’t think about the warm heat pulsing beneath his overalls, “Friend!” She didn’t think about what he said. Or why he said it. Instead, she stared above him. Watched as the dust that drifted peacefully overhead danced through the occasional moonbeams that crept in from the tiny windows lining the walls.
“I know,” Sam whispered, “I’m sorry.” It was hard to speak. Her head cracked against the cement behind her as her brain thought about the context of the word. Hot, salty tears burned her waterline as she fought against the urge to close her eyes. It was hard to ignore what he said, what he did, when he was seemingly determined to get himself off using her body. Her face became wet when she felt it start to gain definition—a shape , beneath the coarse fabric of his trousers.
“Do you know what he did, Sam? He sat next to Aashhhley ,” Josh moaned their friend’s name out extendedly, obnoxiously into Sam’s ear. And, God, that hurt for a whole slew of reasons Sam didn’t even want to think about, “at the memorial and told her—” His hips stuttered, and Sam wondered if her back would ever recover from being shoved against and against and into the wall, “—he fuckin’ told her that it wasn’t her fault.” Josh stilled over her. Still warm, still hard; unfinished. His words sloshed together until they turned into near indecipherable hiccups, “Wasn’t her fault, a-and if it wasn’t Emily, or Jessica, or Mike’s fault—So!” Josh’s fingers found the soft give of the towel, “Whose fault was it? Was it mine?” His voice broke and Sam’s heart broke with it.
The whistling shriek of the wind against the window disguised the pathetic sound that spewed from her mouth. Her tongue, previously dry and thick unglued from the roof of her mouth. A gasp. The dam in her throat deconstructed. And suddenly Sam was crying just as hard as Josh. She sputtered and gasped as a wet patch bloomed across his chest.
How was she supposed to respond to that?
Josh had been suffering for so, so long and Sam had been blind to it all.
She couldn’t, in good faith, walk out of the basement without him. She couldn’t rewind time; couldn’t unsee what hid behind his mask. Sure, Josh might’ve played the part of a psychopath, a monster for them to fear—but Josh was a monster that they had created, no matter how unintentional.
Still, there were no words. None that could absolve him of his guilt or make the hurt go away. She could say it wasn’t his fault, because it wasn’t—or, she could throw the rest of her friends sans Chris under the bus. It would be so easy to shift the blame. It wouldn’t be a lie, either. Jessica orchestrated the prank. Emily and Ashley encouraged it. Mike participated. Matt voluntarily recorded it. But then again, Sam wasn’t so innocent either was she?
While she hadn’t been included in Jessica’s original scheming, Sam, in theory, had learned the truth early enough to prevent the prank from occurring. Matt, who couldn’t lie to save his life, had let it slip even before she confronted Emily and Jessica. He’d crashed into the home cinema looking for his selfie stick while she’d been helping Beth in her attempt to pick up the lodge. She’d been scouring between couch cushions and under side tables for discarded bottles of Cayman Jack and Smirnoff in a futile attempt to spare the Washington siblings from their inevitable chew out when Matt tripped over her. Intoxicated and high off the feeling of social inclusion, he spilled without prompting.
Sam had intercepted Em and Jess once she’d learned the barebones of the prank. She had tried to stop them once she’d realized just how cruel the ‘prank’ really was. Sam knew she could’ve tried harder, put her foot down and stood her ground. It would’ve been so easy to call off the prank. She could have followed them. Stood in Washington guest room number whatever and ruined the surprise for them all. But she didn’t. She crept around the lodge like a specter whispering after her friend instead of shouting as if she was committing a crime by refusing to follow along with Jessica’s idea of a good time.
The fact of the matter was that Sam would have to live with the possibility of Hannah dying assuming that Sam was in on the prank that sent her into the forest, never to be seen again.
Not like Hannah had a reason to believe otherwise. They’d ripped Sam’s drawing out of her sketchbook to write that shitty love letter. How hadn’t she noticed? Why didn’t she try harder to stop them? Sam knew the answer. She had been so, so tired of Hannah’s stupid crush. Mike this, Mike that. Hannah hadn’t shut up about Michael Monroe, class president, and over all fuck-boy extraordinaire since Prom. So, as much as Sam hated to admit it… in some small way she had supported the prank. If only just to show Hannah what a tool Mike really was.
“It’s mine.” Sam eventually croaked out. She buried her head into his neck, “I didn’t stop them. I tried, I swear.” Josh had stilled in her arms, “Just not hard enough.” Sam didn’t deserve to cry, but here she was. Bawling into Josh’s shoulder like she had any right to his forgiveness or atonement. “It was a fucking goose chase trying to find the room they’d hunkered down in. By the time I did…” His thumbs ran soothing circles over her hips, “It was too late. Beth and Hannah ran and I…”
“You woke me up.” Josh finished quietly. His weight had become too burdensome. They’d both sunk down onto their knees by the end of her confession. At some point during the slide down the grit of the cellar wall had shredded what remained of her skin to bits. It ached and she was certain the slick heat that slid down her neck was blood, not bath water or sweat. “You woke me up and I vomited on your shoes.” His chest stuttered through a strained caricature of laughter and pulled back enough for him to look her in the eyes, “You, uh, you called the park ranger.” Josh nodded and sat back, finally giving her some breathing room. “And,” He sniffed, “Mom and Dad; I tried to beat the shit out of Mike.” Weighed down with alcohol sluggish muscles and a disoriented, barely awake brain, Josh only managed to get a single hit in before he’d been forcibly pulled off of Mike by Matt and Emily. Josh hadn’t been entirely aware yet, then. He’d just known that his little sisters weren’t in the lodge. And that everyone looked a whole lot guilty. That Jessica and her big mouth had tried to downplay the situation. That Mike tried to defend her, her actions.
“Yeah,” Sam laughed in equal parts regret and fondness, “you did. You got him good, Josh.”
A moment of silence was shared between the two. Josh staring unseeingly at the wall just above her shoulder. Sam played with the baggy, frayed hem of the leg of his overalls. An eternity stretched between the both of them. He stood, eventually, and Sam knew whatever moment they shared—whatever fucked up, little slice of peace they had, was gone. It was time to get back to the shitshow of half an hour passed.
“I don’t know what to do, Sam.” Josh held his hand out, “Sometimes everything is all so clear and makes sense, but it’s not good . It’s loud and I hear... I—I, see …” He shook his head. Coughed and rethought his sentence, “And other times it’s just static. The pills make everything so fucking fuzzy, Sammy. I hate them.” His fingers curled around her wrist, “I didn’t take them. Not today, not yesterday. I ran out a month, month and a half ago? I never got them filled.”
“Pills? Josh, what pills?” She let herself be pulled up, “I—, we can get more, okay? First thing tomorrow we’ll go down to the nearest pharmacy, I swear.” Sam hissed under her breath as she heard rapid footsteps on the floor above. She hadn’t forgotten about the others. But down in the basement, entirely consumed by Josh and his episode , she had felt so far from them all.
Josh had to have felt the same. She didn’t need to see his blanched face to know. He’d fucked up a lot tonight. And while Sam might be able to brush it off, let bygones be bygones, their friends upstairs would be hard pressed to agree. She could hear them now, getting closer to the basement, calling out her name. Unimportantly, she wondered if Josh turned off the projector or if her naked body was still displayed up on the screen looping for everyone to see.
“Sam—I,” he stuttered, “I can’t go up there. I’m supposed to be dead. Chris and Ash think I’m dead.”
She felt her eyebrows pitch up to her hairline, “That’s what you’re concerned about?” She groaned, “They’re going to kill you, Josh. You’ll be good as dead then. You’ve got to apologize.”
Sam used to think it was cute when he scrunched his nose up. He only did it when he lost debates. Or came face to face with asparagus. It wasn’t nearly as cute now, “Sam, I am not apologizing. It was just a prank, remember?” He grinned nastily.
It was exhausting keeping up with his mood changes, but she had to keep him amicable. In the moment. She couldn’t have him regress into his psychopathic character. Then again, it just might actually help her case…
“Okay,” she skirted around him, “okay. Just,” She bit her lip and adjusted her towel. Sam needed to fix everything—like, yesterday . “Stay here, I’ll go up and—!”
“No!” His hands locked into an oh so familiar vice around her shoulders, “You can’t leave me, Sam.” What felt like claws raked along her spine. Her legs wobbled as the pain crashed over her. She bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder. Josh had pressed himself against her devastated back. Even through his layers she could feel the rapid thud-thud-thud of his heartbeat, “Please, you can’t leave me. Not you. You’re here . I trust you.” His words shot through her. That ugly, sickly feeling of guilt threatened to crawl back into her chest. He’d said the word so empathetically. Like it meant something to him. Something she wasn’t privy to. “I trust you.” He repeated close to her ear.
“Yeah, okay.” She repeated softly. Rock, meet hard place. Again . Cautiously, she pried his hands from her arms. Josh snatched up her open palm as soon as she’d offered it, “We are going to go up there. There’s going to be a lot of yelling. You won’t apologize, but I wish you would—” he shook his head, “Chris is going to get really sad. You know that, right, Josh? He’s crazy about you.”
Josh squeezed her hand, “No. Not anymore.” Sam couldn’t help but laugh. Josh was such a spoiled rich kid. He wasn’t used to sharing. Even if Josh did support Chris’ budding little romance, he was reluctant to give Chris the room to shoot his shot. “He killed me, you know? The dummy Josh—” Sam interjected that he was the dummy. Josh ignored her,”—I mean, it was rigged, it would have gone to the fake regardless. I’ve known him since third grade, Sam.” Her lips thinned. There was no way to comfort him. No words could soothe that ache.
“I know, Josh.”
He stopped her right before the stairs. His vice grip around her palm prevented Sam from taking the first step out of their dank, secluded pity-party. The moment felt heavy. Sam had a feeling that however she replied would determine the outcome of their entrance above. It was oppressive knowing that Joshes’ fate rested on her shoulders.
“Would you have picked me?” Sam looked back at him. He looked like a shell of himself as he asked her again, “If you had to make a choice…” She tilted her head back as she considered the question. It made her very tired.
Large fingers tightened around her palm. Her silence had disturbed him. Josh wouldn’t let her progress without receiving an answer. She hated that he put her in that position. It was a grim reminder of how unsafe he could make her feel.
“I would.” Sam said. It wasn’t even a lie. Not really. It was undeniable that his self-esteem and ego needed bolstering. But that wasn’t why she had said it. Before she’d settled down for her bath, she thought they had shared a connection. And maybe they did, once; it was just as possible that Sam hadn’t really known him at all. That the Josh she clung to after the twins’ death was nothing more than a façade. The Josh before then, too. It is with startling clarity that she comes to term with that. It makes her sick to feel satisfaction from it.
Nobody else, not even Chris, would get to see him as raw as she had. She’d been traumatized out of her wits, yes. But she also remembered the way he clung to her; the feeling of his pelvis thrusting against her as he cried into her hair. What they’d felt then was real. The terror. Anguish. Regret. Fondness. Arousal.
It would stay between them and the dust motes.
She licked her lips before continuing, “I’d save you. If I had the chance.” Something not unlike adoration crawled across his face, “If you’d let me.” Josh briefly loosened the hold he had on her hand. The shock of crisp, cold air over her palm was quickly rectified as Josh adjusted their fingers until they could thread together seamlessly.
Sam led Josh out of the basement.