Kieran's been bored ever since he moved to this shithole town. Pretending to be the mysterious bad boy with a sweet side was grating on his nerves more and more every day. Piper insisted on sticking to the plan, on drawing out her mother's suffering, but he didn't understand why they couldn't just kill everyone and be done with it. He hasn't even killed anyone since his mom and stepdad. And while he had entered into this relationship, this deal, with Piper in order to murder his dad, that piece of shit who abandoned him, the anger that he had held onto all of his life dissipated a little bit more with every day he lived with the man. He didn't forgive and he didn't forget, but he understood the Sheriff in a way he hadn't expected to. He had thought that he was doing Kieran a favor by leaving, and maybe things would've been even worse if he had stayed. He had expected apathy, maybe even a general tolerance, from his father. Instead, he received tentative affection. It was different to say the least. When his dad was home, he tried to actually be a dad. Eat breakfast together, talk about school, make plans to watch movies later that never panned out; he hated that he wasn't able to hate the man anymore. He couldn't even say he hated this town or the people in it. Of course he didn't mourn them when they were brutally butchered either, but hey, no one's perfect.

He found himself getting lost in the high school drama sometimes, as if this was actually his life, as if this was actually who he was. Fighting with the jock over the girl next door, going to parties and saving the nerd from drowning, trying to solve the murder of the queen bitch as if he didn't already know who was behind it, etc. And when he finally got the girl, Emma, he even found himself almost feeling fond of her. He didn't love her, but he was the first to admit that she was much hotter than her crazy half sister. She was too perfect, too naïve, too sweet, too trusting, everything he resented in his peers, but she was also damaged. Her friend group became his friend group, something he had never had. They were all stereotypes to some degree, and he found himself fitting in seamlessly. There were secrets and drama, there were scandals and lies, yet they genuinely cared about each other.

There were six of them left, including himself, when he stood by and watched as Audrey and Emma killed Piper. Maybe he should've stepped in to help his accomplice, maybe he should've let her finish gutting his father, but instead Kieran couldn't let go of this new sense of connection. But he still had enough loyalty to Piper to not kill her himself, or maybe he just didn't want anyone to look too closely into him. He was already on thin ice with the group after Rachel's footage had been discovered.

Imagine his surprise that when Emma broke up with him and went away following her breakdown, the friend group seemed to include him even more. After all, he was a survivor too, he had almost lost his dad to the serial killer, and he had saved them a few times as well. Kieran gravitated towards Audrey the most in the aftermath. When he had first moved here, he had expected Piper's little pen pall to be more of an outcast, to be this easy to manipulate source of envy and anger. Instead, it had seemed as if she had moved on from her apparent heartbreak, though it was clear she still loved Emma to some degree. The bi-curious girl was very far off from the lonely and powerless words on a letter to a stranger. She was fierce and smart and protective, and as she warmed up to him, they ended up bonding over their love of cinematography and dark humor. He was aware that she had only reluctantly reached out to him out of obligation after Emma left, all of them had, but her support was the only one he accepted. She was easy to talk to, and although Noah was never far behind, she made him bearable. She became something of an obsession for him, with her sharp wit and the violence in her that stayed just below the surface. It was amusing to watch her bury her guilt, to try and sway Noah from his quest for the secret accomplice. Their podcast was part of his routine, both listening and participating. He would go to the theater all the time, sneaking in to critique movies and the people watching them with her. If any of her coworkers ever noticed, which he doubted given how little they cared about their job, no one ever said anything or tried to stop him.

Sometimes all of his repressed emotions would boil to the surface and it felt like everyone could see right through him, see the real him that had been planning their executions in detail. Kieran thought about reprising the bloodshed, but then, every time, the thought of losing everything made him pause. Trying to plan for a future after graduation was taxing. He hadn't expected on making it out alive and free, much less with his dad, but here he was. For now he attended college classes with the others, and it was oddly soothing that most of them hadn't declared a major yet either.

He was there with Noah when Audrey was pranked by those assholes. He had felt his entire world grind to a halt as he watched the copycat slasher approach her, bloody knife raised, helpless to stop it. Of course, Audrey, being the badass she was, stabbed him in the side, revealing the entire thing to have been a prank, but for a moment the thought of her death had genuinely disturbed him. It was confusing, how he cared for her wellbeing, but he rationalized it as her being his first friend. He seriously considering killing the girl, Hayley, when she continued to harass Audrey via text, but it seemed to die off pretty fast after being cornered in the stairwell.

And then Emma came back. Five became six once more, and while Emma was clearly disappointed that he had no intention of picking back up their relationship, no one faulted him for it. But he found himself resenting her occasionally, for how she always stole Audrey's time and attention. So he took a certain level of joy in bringing her father back into the picture, creating a rift between the two. And if anything, it brought his dad and her mom closer together, which was another win. Eli coming back into the picture was an inconvenience, given that his pain in the ass cousin seemed intent on wiggling his way into Kieran's life, but it actually ended up working out when he fell for Emma the first time he set eyes on her. Brooke and Jake, Noah and Zoe, Emma and Eli; it left him and Audrey as the odd ones out, not that they minded. She was still mourning Rachel, and he wasn't interested in being around anyone else.

They bonded further when they were hanging out one night. It seemed as if her guilt had hit a breaking point and everything came flooding out of her. It was a challenge to seem shocked by the apparent revelation, but he managed somehow. To be fair, she wasn't to blame for anything. Piper had always had plans for revenge, but Audrey just made them easier, gave her the most information on how to torture Emma. From this experience, he also learned that he was the only person she trusted with this knowledge, not even Noah, probably because he was the only one always available.

His world was rocked on his birthday, when his surprise party fell into chaos. Someone, likely Jake, had spiked the alcohol, with what he didn't know. What he did know was that at some point in the night, before he passed out on the couch and awoke to the cops, he had made out with Audrey. Or maybe she had made out with him, his memory was a bit fuzzy. Either way, he was surprised by how much he wanted it to happen again, and more. Unfortunately, it seemed that she didn't remember the event, because the next day it was as if nothing had changed. Well, not nothing. Emma had a bad trip and thought she saw Piper, whereas Brooke had befriended the new police officer's son, Stavo, after he guided her through the experience. He was an odd one, the way he watched them, but his comics were harmless. It seemed as if Brooke's vote of confidence was all that was needed to break the ice, because then the rest of him ended up becoming friendly with him to some degree. Kieran enjoyed his eye for the dramatics, how he could set an entire scene on paper, and Audrey felt something similar. For a moment, it seemed as if she was going to develop a crush on the dark minded teen, but it turned out she just appreciated how much he loved horror. It was the best news, considering he would've had to kill him if that had happened.

And then Jake turned up dead, which was strange considering that Kieran hadn't been the one to kill him.