"Kenny?!" Gale exclaimed.

"You said you would be right back!" Kenny shouted back.

There he was. Gale's knight in shining Top Story branded jacket. She never thought she'd be this happy to see her bumbling, portly cameraman.

"You hadn't come back and I got worried. So I came looking for you."

Gale smiled. For as poorly as she treated him, he still came to rescue her from potential danger. Perhaps their professional partnership had blossomed into a mutual respect for one another. Or he realized Top Story might dock his pay if he lost their reporter. But Gale chose to believe he somewhat cared about her well-being. She needed a win.

Kenny looked her up and down. "Are you okay?"

Gale glared at him and began sarcastically "Oh, I'm fine. Just a little chilly- HE FUCKING STABBED ME, KENNY!"

The cameraman tensed at her sudden volume. There's the Gale he knew. Even with a couple of stab wounds and missing pints of blood, she still managed to berate him. "Right, sorry!" he apologized. He spared a glance down at the unconscious deputy. "Deputy Dewey?" he asked Gale, not entirely believing it himself.

"Yep," she confirmed. "Woodsboro's finest," she added drily.

"Y'know… I kinda saw it coming."

Gale cocked an eyebrow at him. "No, you didn't!"

"I had a hunch, but I wasn't the one blinded by a crush," he said with a shady judgment.

Gale side-eyed him. "I was just doing my job; there was never a crush," she shot back, maybe too defensively.

"Maybe you would've seen it too if you weren't so caught up in his 'endearing naivety'," he said, miming quotation marks with a knowing smirk.

"You went through my notes?" Gale gasped as she recognized the quote from her confidential writings. The reporter had been keeping notes of every event and person she came across to reference for her book. She was slightly embarrassed knowing someone had read it because she may have accidentally gone into extra detail on Dewey's pages.

Kenny brushed her off, "In hindsight, it makes a little too much sense."

"Okay, Columbo," she quipped, "Could you give me a hand?"

"Can you walk?"

"Not really," she replied, gesturing to the gash through her left ankle.

Kenny winced. "Alright, just hang on to me, we'll get you back to the van and call an ambulance." Setting his tripod against a tree, he wrapped his co-worker's arm around his shoulders to support her. It was a struggle to move as they trudged through the brush. Crunching and scuffling of dead leaves hissed in their ears, drowning out each other's voices. "I'm surprised you're still standing. Must've missed the vitals."

"Well, if the blood loss doesn't kill me, the infection will," Gale said, right arm protectively wrapped around her middle.

"Still lucky," Kenny insisted.

"Don't jinx me," she asserted. Kenny tapped his knuckles against a passing tree to reassure their good luck. Gale let out a brief chuckle that made her abdomen tense in pain.

"Wait," Kenny said, shrugging off the woman's arm. "I need the tripod."

Left to lean on a tree for support, Gale hissed, "Seriously?!"

Kenny turned back to her. "That thing costs hundreds and it's not coming out of my paycheck!" he protested, "Hang in there, I'll be right back, okay?"

A few yards away, Kenny returned to the spot where he found Gale to retrieve his equipment. Looking around the area, he was certain he was in the right place because of the blood splattered along the ground. He followed the trail to the tripod's location and crouched to search for it. Curiously, it wasn't where he remembered leaving. Noticing the blood staining the earth, Kenny's eyes drifted to where the deputy had laid, only to find an empty patch of leaves in his place.

"Shit."

Kenny's expletive was immediately followed by a strike to the temple. Behind him was Dwight Riley, aflame with bloodlust. Holding the tripod, he raised it over his head and swung it down. He was gonna show that camera-toting lackey how badly it hurt.

"Kenny!" Gale shouted as she watched the previously incapacitated assailant brutally bludgeoning her co-worker with his own equipment. She pushed off the tree and tried to run, but was hindered by her bad leg which brought her to the ground after a few strides. After lifting her face out of the dirt, something caught her eye. A silvery glint of metal amidst the leaves shined under the moonlight. She grabbed it and began awkwardly crawling on hands and one knee toward the two men.

Meanwhile, Riley continued his violent rampage on Kenny who was beyond winded from receiving blow after blow to his body. "You just had to be a fucking hero!" the deputy shouted. He took out his rage on the man with each swing. Why did this guy have to show up and ruin everything? Why did he have to kill someone else tonight?

Grabbing the rotund man by the collar and lifting him up, Riley reached to his belt for his knife but found nothing.

Suddenly, a shockwave ran through his leg. The source was a stab to the back of his knee with his own knife. He looked down to find a vengeful Gale Weathers clinging to his foot. She glared up at him, making sure he saw the hate in her eyes as she dragged the blade down his calf, cleaving the muscle in twain.

The man's back arched as he let out a broken scream at the searing pain that lanced through his body. Riley shook her off of him in retaliation, but the moment his foot hit the ground, his leg buckled and dropped him to his injured knee. He let out a vocally fried, broken cry of agony before desperately fumbling with his belt to retrieve his gun.

Distracted and unbalanced, Dwight was ambushed by a furious Gale lunging at him with the knife. Before he could defend himself, she stuck the knife into his left shoulder. Gale unsheathed the knife from his body to retry for a more fatal strike. As she reeled it back, Dwight grabbed her wrist and twisted it until he felt the subtle snapping of bone. She gasped in shock watching her hand lose its grip on the handle. He winced in pain as he grasped the weapon on the exposed blade in an attempt to wrench it from her hand.

Shoving her away, he spun around to face a still discombobulated Kenny charging him. Before the larger man could land a hit on him, Riley pulled him close by his hair. With a flourish of his knife, he stabbed him in the throat and ripped the blade out the side. Kenny stumbled back, desperately clutching at his neck as blood spurted from his punctured jugular, briefly splattering on his killer's face.

Fury and adrenaline clouded Riley's vision. In the heat of the moment, he barely recognized the dying man in front of him. It was no longer a man, but an obstacle. The rustle of movement came from behind his left shoulder, the source of which was outside his peripheral. Another obstacle. He gripped a handful of unknown fabric. Instinctively, he brandished his knife, turned around, and plunged it into the person's skull.

Into Gale Weathers' skull.

Reality settled in as Dewey slowly released her jacket in shock and stared back into the terrified eyes of the woman. Surprisingly, she wasn't quite dead yet. Her trembling hands weakly rose in defense; they hadn't yet realized their owner's fate. Nerves took their final journey down her arms. Gale took quick, shallow breaths and struggled to form words. It was as if her brain hadn't yet processed what was happening. Dewey panicked. This wasn't supposed to happen. She should be dead. Why wasn't she dead? Why was she making this more difficult than it already was?

The man struggled to remove the knife deeply embedded in her, bolster flush against her forehead. It took a considerable amount of work since the suction had locked the blade firmly in place. He managed to wrench it out from her head. Cast off specks of blood hit his cheek. He gripped the handle, raised his arm, and took a deep breath. The woman's eyes bored into him. Before he put her out of her misery, he whispered a low, "I'm sorry, Gale." His voice hitched when he spoke her name. The sound felt unwelcome on his tongue.

With a thrust of his arm, he stabbed her in the throat and slit it open. Blood spurted out of the severed carotid artery and splashed onto his face. He tried to close his eyes and lips before the impact, but the bitter taste in his mouth proved he'd been too late.

Dewey felt Gale's legs begin to give out from beneath her and protectively wrapped his arm around her waist. As he slowly lowered her to the ground, she gave him one last look that resonated in his soul. One familiar look that he knew would keep him up at night for years.

Betrayal.

Complete and utter betrayal.