Chapter 2
In the Closet
Ever since she was a little girl Tatum had learned three things. The first was that on the anniversary of the Woodsboro Massacre you stayed home, no questions asked. Second was that you could never truly know what was going on inside someone's head, anyone could be secretly a killer, even family. And third: her mother was a badass.
She and her twin brother, Randy, despite having a famous mom and a cop for a father had been able to avoid all the chaos that had littered their lives. In fact, serial killers did not often cross the minds of either of them. When the phone rang they did not worry, when they saw the ghost face mask, they barely batted an eye. Life had been good.
It was late as Tatum pulled her dark hair up into a high ponytail to wash her face as she got ready for bed. One more day and her mom would be going on a retreat with her father and Aunt Gale, leaving them to enjoy the town while staying over with Uncle Dewey.
Dewey never interfered much with their lives, though he always wanted them to be safe, he always seemed hopefully optimistic that everything would just be okay. She loved that about the old man. Despite surviving countless horrors, being married to Aunt Gale, and raising a hellion for a son, Danny Reily, he still looked at the world with a boyish charm. She loved her Uncle most of all. Maybe it was because she was named after his sister, but she seemed to be his favorite, too, but don't tell that to Randy or Danny.
People often told Tatum that she looked like the spitting image of her mother, a compliment that brought her pride. Her mother was her idol. Strong, powerful, confident, and a woman that people knew better than to mess with. She wanted to be that, but if she was honest, most days, she thought that Randy was the most like her.
Randy was tall, effortless waves of deep brown upon his head, and eyes that mirrored that of their father Detective Mark Kincaid… aka the only man that wasn't secretly emasculated by their mother on some level. But back to Randy, despite being named after the self proclaimed geek that was their mother's best guy friend, Randy Prescott-Kincaid was nothing of the sort.
Tatum finished rinsing her face, drying it off and then hit the lights to shroud herself in darkness. For the briefest of moments she felt a chill run up her spine, feeling as if she was being watched, but she scoffed imagining what Danny would say. 'One too many scary movies, Kit-Kat,' he would tease, calling her that stupid nickname that had been born of her childhood obsession with the candy.
Exiting the bathroom, she went straight to her room, opening the door and instantly regretting it. Her and her brother, being right twins, had insisted that they share a massive room (which had been intended to be their father's office) that had once been two separate rooms in the lavish home. Even now that they were Juniors in high school, neither of them wanted their own room… but in moments like these she wondered why she felt that way.
There on her brother's full sized bed was, well, her brother which was fine, but… it was who was on top of him that made her groan in disgust. Danny, yes Dewey and Gale's son, was there lip locked with her brother. Their hands were all over each other, groping and pushing clothing aside, not stopping even as she opened the door and she knew damn well they heard her.
Rolling her eyes, she swung a hand to knock over her brother's track trophy which made a very loud clang as it hit the hardwood floor. Reluctantly the groping boys pulled themselves apart. Danny Riley had dark brown eyes, and though his hair was naturally as dark as his father and mother's, for the last several years the jock had bleached it out.
"I could have been mom, you know?" Tatum said, pursing her lips.
Randy sighed, wiping a hand over his mouth, "Mom knocks."
He had a point.
"Don't you have a girlfriend?" She shot at Danny, eyes narrowed.
Randy grinned as Danny looked away, "They broke up."
Danny nodded his affirmation.
If Randy had been a girl and been with Danny they would have been walking stereotypes in Tatum's opinion. Randy was a cheerleader, along with his sister, but Randy was also the head cheerleader and secretly dating (this week) Danny, who had defied all expectations and became a full blown football jock and captain of the football team. The two couldn't seem to make up their minds if they were actually dating and Tatum had stopped trying to decipher the angst.
That was one of the things that made Randy so much like their mom. He had come out of the closet in middle school, not caring what anyone said. He had tried out for cheerleading not caring what anyone said. He was strong willed just like her and knew how to go for what he wanted, and crazy smart on top of it.
You are probably wondering why Randy and Danny shouldn't have been seen kissing? Well, the simple answer is, Danny is very much a stereotype in more than one way… he is very much in the closet and cant seem to make up his mind. He was terrified that people would find out and change their mind about him and he wasnt sure if he was gay or not on top of all of that. Danny… well, he was a mess. For so many reasons.
He never worried that Tatum would tell, though.
Ever since she found them groping after a football game and Danny freaked out and started actually crying he had quickly learnt that Tatum didn't care. She quickly found out, however, that he was more scared of the other teens than his parents. He knew Dewey and Gale would accept him no matter what, but kids… kids were cruel.
Tatum closed the door with a sharp snap and fixed her eyes on the boys, "Even if my mother is your god mom, Danny, if she finds you groping her son after curfew she might break your arm."
Danny looked terrified for a moment, fixing her with his eyes that often times could pierce right through a person… something that reminded her all too much of Aunt Gale. Tatum was a little scared of her, and to be fair, when she was a kid she had witnessed her aunt, and god mother, verbally assault a paparazzi making the grown man cry and with the greatest of ease. She was intense.
"I think I am more scared of your dad," Danny lied, using that little bit of toxic masculinity to rebuff the idea that he was scared of a woman.
Danny was very much his mother's son, and that was just a fact, but he would never admit it. He was nosy, meddling, hard headed and stuck in his ways but he had a heart of gold. He stood there, broad shouldered and shirtless with the body of a Greek god and all of the tells that you would find in a scary movie dude bro. But Tatum knew there was something more in him, something that Randy often brought out in him.
Strolling over to her own full sized bed, she hopped up onto the mattress and curled onto her side, propping her head on her hand with an impish grin. The two boys peered at her as Randy picked up Danny's Ambercrombie shirt and chunked itat his face. Like true twins she didn't need to guess what she was about to say. He knew.
"You gotta go, Dan," Randy said firmly, "Mom is about to check in on us. It's almost midnight."
Tatum held up five fingers and began to count down. It all happened so fast, Danny barely had time to pull on his shirt as there came a knock on the twins door just as Tatum's fingers counted down to one. The truth of his lie from earlier was made apparent as Danny looked terrified and threw himself into the closet that was automatically pinned closed by their opening door.
"Hey you two," Sydney said, her voice sounding like she had just yawned.
"Hey, momma," both twins chimed affectionately at once.
Their mother's long hair was pulled up into a messy bun on top of her head, dressed in sweats and a long bath robe as she leaned against the doorway, "Getting ready for bed?"
They both nodded.
"Home work done?"
They both nodded.
"Got everything ready to stay with Dewey for the weekend?"
They both nodded.
"Did you tell Danny it's time for him to go home?"
The both nodded and then stopped half nod to exchange looks.
Without missing a beat, her keen eyes on the twins, she unblocked the closet door and opened it pointing for the jock to exit. Never once did she stop looking at her children, fixing them with a look that said that they knew better than to think that she wouldn't know. Finally she looked at Danny who, for all of his bravado earlier, looked like he might piss himself at any moment.
"Your dad called twenty minutes ago and said you snuck out. He's on his way." Sydney said, her eyes drifting between the three of them and for the briefest of moments she looked as if she were reminiscent of something. Something long from her past, "What couldn't wait til the morning, hm?"
Danny sputtered,
Randy met her gaze without faltering.
Tatum simply shrugged and looked at Randy.
"Are you three going to behave this weekend?" Sydney said, looking stern, "Because as important as this event is Gale and I can call it off. We can stay here and make sure that you all behave—"
Randy cut her off, sighing and standing up, "Mom, Danny just needed to talk to someone. He broke up with his girlfriend."
"You mean she broke up with him," Tatum corrected.
They both shot withering glares at her.
It wasn't exactly a lie, honestly. The twins would never outright lie to their mother, because they knew exactly who their mother was. And on top of that, their father was a freaking detective… and Danny's dad was the Sheriff. Teens or not, they weren't stupid.
Sydney's brows furrowed, not because she doubted the truth, but because she was riddling out how to react. She knew her god son was a bit of a player and the girls he usually dated were very frivolous and usually the type of girls that Sydney did not like. The types of girls who stood in bathrooms and gossiped about things they had no idea what they were talking about.
"That Kristen girl," she asked, placing a hand on Danny's shoulder and looking him in the eye before cupping his cheek. There was a pause until Danny nodded his head as she looked over the handsome youth, and sighed, "Danny boy, you can do so much better."
Danny's shoulders slumped a little bit, eyes dropping to the floor with some unspoken emotion. For a moment Sydney's eyes lingered upon him and then she brushed his blonde locks out of his face. She felt a pang in her heart as that blonde hair made him look just like his aunt. How she missed Tatum… everyday. Which was why she had named her daughter after her, something that had made Dewey sob, no less.
Tatum knew what her mother was thinking because she had confessed as much in private. Sydney didnt much talk about the past because she felt like it was a drum that had been beat on endlessly for the majority of her life. She couldn't escape being the hero of the horror story that was her life, but that was not who Sydney wanted to be.
Randy and Danny exchanged looks and Tatum rolled her eyes again just as the sound of cop sirens firing in two short burst signaled Dewey's arrival. Danny instantly looked like a kicked puppy, knowing he was in for a lecture, and Sydney chuckled and kissed his forehead before messing up his already messy hair.
"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, now come on, get…" she nodded her head to the door and immediately held up her hands as the twins started to follow. "Not you two. You two, stay. Bed."
"But, Uncle Dewey," Tatum pouted like a petulant child.
Sydney shook her head, "You'll have all weekend with your Uncle Dewey."
Giving the twins one final look, she exited the room with Danny and closed the door behind her with one last look at Randy. Sometimes Tatum got the feeling that their mother knew more than she let on but the second she brought that up to Randy he would always shoot her down. There was no way his mother would think that a big macho jock like Danny, who had taken baths with them as children, would be into their son. Randy didn't think his mother was that savvy.
"One of these days—" Tatum began to say.
"—you're gonna get caught." Randy finished, rolling his eyes at her this time.
Getting up from his bed, he walked over to the window and looked out at the scene. Danny was getting into the police cruiser with his dad as he and Sydney shared a hug and no doubt talked about the plans for the weekend. There was a moment as he looked out the window that he felt sad, but he was quick to brush it off and push it away.
"We won't get caught," he said, sounding more like he was talking to himself than her, "because that's the last time."
Tatum paused, hearing the sounds of crunching gravel as the police car left the Prescott-Kincaid residence. Her eyes were fixed on her brother, pushing to the edge of the bed, hands resting on the soft fabric.
"Is it though? I've heard this before."
Randy sighed, "It has to be. After this weekend—"
Tatum frowned, "Yeah, after this weekend."
Neither of them said anything else, sharing a dark look
