Hello again. :) Thank you for your reviews on the previous chapter. I hope you enjoy this one as well. :D

This chapter is a little shorter than usual... But hey, that happens sometimes:

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As Sidney pulled her car slowly into the motel's parking lot, she quickly scanned her eyes over the scene. There were three cars in the parking lot and she didn't recognize any of them. Dewey's police car wasn't here. One was probably Gale's camera man's car... The others could have very well been the cars of other patrons of the motel. Everything seemed eerily quiet. The parking lot was lit by street lamps and a blue glow could be seen coming from the direction of an outdoor pool. Since there were so few guests at the motel, it would be easy for someone planning murder to take out the few potential witnesses prior to doing whatever he or she had planned.

She gasped as she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. It looked like someone had just run out of her sight and behind the building.

"Did you see that, Randy?" she whispered, "I think someone's over there," she gestured toward the spot where she had seen the movement.

Randy peered through the windshield and shrugged, "I guess I missed it."

Sidney inhaled a deep breath to prepare herself for the uncertainty of what was to come. She gripped some pepper spray on one hand. It was the only thing she had that she figured might be of any use, "you ready?" she turned toward Randy.

Her friend nodded, "more ready now than I'll ever be," he held a tire iron in his hands. They were working with what they had. Since they had been in such a rush to get here, they hadn't even thought to bring any sort of weapon until they were already on the road.

As carefully and quietly as they could manage, the two of them got out of the car and closed its doors behind them. Of course, they had very little idea of what they were dealing with. From what Sidney had been told, she knew Gale and Dewey should be around here somewhere, and of course the killer would likely be with them. She did not know, however, who the killer was, or whether there was one killer, or two, or even three... She didn't know if Gale and Dewey were even still alive. She just knew that they might be, and that she couldn't abandon them to the killer's mercy.

As the two of them began to walk cautiously toward the building, Sidney froze in her tracks. She narrowed her eyes as she saw someone approaching from around the back of the building, not the same side the other shadowy figure had darted off around though.

"Cotton?" she whispered. Following behind him were Gale and Dewey.

"Sidney?" he looked and sounded very confused as his eyes darted between Sidney and Randy, "what are you guys doing here?"

"What are you doing here, Cotton?" Sidney gripped her pepper spray tightly in her hand, which was stuffed out of sight in her jacket's pocket.

"The killer called me," Cotton answered, "he told me he was going to kill Gale and Dewey if I didn't meet him here. But I got here, and he was nowhere to be found, so we're gonna go back into town and call the police."

"The motel manager is dead," Dewey began to explain, "and so might be Xavier and whoever is staying in the room next to Gale's. They won't answer when we knock and the key cards are all gone out of the office. The killer also attacked Gale earlier and took both my car and my gun," the officer averted his eyes as though embarrassed, "It was hectic..." he said in his own defense.

Sidney looked back and forth between Cotton and Dewey. She glanced at Gale, who it seemed Dewey was purposefully keeping behind himself, as though to shield her from any unforeseen danger which may spring up, "are you guys okay?" she asked. It looked like Gale was developing a bruise on her cheek, but it may have just been a shadow.

"We're fine," Gale assured her, "but I think we should get out of here."

Sidney nodded. This was way too easy. She narrowed her eyes at Cotton again. Why would the killer call him? And why would he risk his life to save Gale and Dewey? He didn't really know Dewey... Did he really care about Gale either?

"Alright," Cotton sounded nervous, as he often did, "I'm parked right there," he gestured toward one of the cars, "who's riding with me?"

Gale began to walk toward Cotton's car, but Dewey stopped her, "why don't we go with Sidney, Gale?" he suggested. The officer clearly didn't trust Cotton either. Gale looked disappointed. So did Cotton. Dewey turned toward the other man, "you can meet us at the police station, but it's a crime scene, so wait outside once you get there. I'll go in and find help and we'll organize a way to take down any witness statements from anyone who saw anything, which is all of us, I think."

"Fair enough," Cotton sighed.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Randy finally spoke.

As they turned toward their cars, a booming sound echoed through the night. At first, Sidney wasn't sure what it was. It seemed Randy was confused as well, as she found herself staring at him with confusion, and he stared back, equally confused. She looked toward Dewey, who was sort of bent down and appeared to be shielding Gale with his body. He reached a hand out and grabbed Sidney's wrist as another boom rang out.

It finally occurred to her that these were gunshots they were hearing. She grabbed Randy's arm and they all ran toward the building as three more shots rang out.

When they made it to the sidewalk next to the rooms, they all glanced around at each other. There was a roof over this part of the sidewalk, so she felt a bit more shielded than she had in the parking lot, though she wasn't sure where the shots were even coming from. She looked around at the others. All five of them had managed to make it over here.

"Is anyone hit?" Dewey looked frantically from one person to the next. Sidney shook her head.

"Gale?" Dewey looked down at her, "you okay?"

"I'm fine," she sounded out of breath.

"Randy? Cotton?" Dewey looked from one to the other.

"Holy shit," Randy spoke, "I think it's safe to say that, yes, he's got your gun, Dewey."

The officer rolled his eyes and then looked toward Cotton, "you okay?" he clapped the other man on the shoulder.

"He was shooting out our tires," Cotton remarked as he looked out over the parking lot and gestured toward their cars, "he corralled us all here for a reason, and he's making sure we don't leave."

"I think the shots were coming from the roof," Dewey noted, "he shouldn't be able to hit us here."

"How long are we gonna stay here though?" Randy wondered, "Sure, he can't hit us if he stays on the roof, but do you think he'll stay up there forever? And then, if he does, do we just stand here forever?"

"He's probably going to come after us if we stay down here too long," Cotton guessed, "that is, if he's not already on his way down here. It seems like the point of that was to disable the cars, which he's done. All that's left for him to do now is kill us. He doesn't need to be on a roof top to do that. Especially when he's armed and we aren't."

Sidney's heart sank. The only reason the killer would call them all together like this would be if he was ready to kill them all. But he didn't even take the opportunities given. He could have hit at least one, if not more of them just now, but he went for the cars instead. He wanted them all to die together. He was ready to finish this.

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