It was a loud pounding that rouses her the next morning.
At first, Sam assumes it was only her passenger attempting to break the imagined barrier she'd put between them the night before as she snuggles more into the inviting circle of arms that had snaked around her during the night. Their weight offered an odd sense of security she hadn't known since she'd first found the truth about who her true father was.
"Laura?! Laura get your stupid ass out here." A booming voice coughs "I know your in there. I can smell that mutt's stink from here." The disrupter of Sam's warm and fuzzy feeling calls out before the pounding of his fist sounds once more. At this, the soft brush of fingers along her arm stops and a panicked gasp sounds against the hollow of her throat as the owner of those teasing fingers nuzzles against her with a pleading "Don't let him find us." Whispered against Sam's skin. "Please," she begged holding on that much tighter to the still waking woman that was Samantha Carpenter.
"Laura, I swear to God if you don't get out…" the man still attempting to pound the door down starts to threaten only to be stopped by a heavier round of rough coughing.
"Bathroom. Both of you." Sam whispers back tilting her chin down to press a kiss against the bowed head still attempting to burrow its way into her skin. The act was so natural to her it was as if she'd been doing it most of her life. "Lock the door behind you and don't you think about coming out till I say the coat is clear, alright?" She adds when those nervously trusting eyes find her own.
At this, the woman-Laura- gives a little shake of her head in denial "That's the first place he'd look after he punches his way in." she whispers obvious fear still pouring out her in waves as she clings to Sam for dear life.
"Dammit bitch, get out here." The man on the other side of the door shouts
At this even Tara was gripping the end of her crutch hard enough to white out her knuckles as she glared at the trembling door to the room. Sam catches her younger sister's eye shaking her head as she reluctantly untangles from the woman in her bed.
It was only after she was positive Laura and Riley were safely hidden beneath either of the sister's beds and all other traces beside the lingering smell of wet dog that tainted the air was dealt with did, Sam crosses with cat-like quiet towards the door out of habit double-checking the baseball bat she'd left behind it was within easy reach before checking the chain was still on the door so it wouldn't open all that much before turning the handle.
If she wasn't holding back a gasp of shock at just who was standing on the other side of the thing, she would have laughed at the sight of the dark-haired man stumbling a few steps at the sudden opening. His bloodied fist still raised ready to start pounding away again.
"Oh, now this is funny." Billy's purr of a voice laughs at Sam's obvious sock at the striking similarities between Laura's brute of a boyfriend and the one she'd so recently gutted like a fish, not a month and a half before.
True Richie had been a leaner build in his physique and a few inches taller, his hair and the scruff of a beard at his chin far better kept that the unwashed state of this man's own but the manic gleam in this newcomer's eyes was the same.
Or maybe the stomach-turning feeling was when Sam caught sight of the rippling tattoo inked into the man's raised forearm.
A kitchen knife dropping ominously with the inked imitation of freshly spilled blood. The inked-on blood droplets leading to a message in the same dark red of imitated blood.
"What's your favorite scary movie?"
"Always nice to meet a fan, isn't it Sam?" her watching father coos as Sam was fighting hard to keep from sliming the door in the already angered man's face.
As it was 'Richie. 2. Jerk face' as Sam had dubbed him was already regaining his balance and staring with unfocused eyes at her before grinning like an idiot as he notices what she was staring at. "You a Stab fan too?" he asks flexing his arm as if that would somehow impress her.
"Hell no." Sam scoffs once again fighting down the want to throw up at just the title of that dumb franchise.
"Now, now. Sammy," her father chastises the same moment Sam's eyes catch another familiar image inked onto the man's skin.
That masked face not so easy to forget.
"Lucky your hot considering you obviously have no taste in movies." The man scoffs attempting to push the door wider as his gaze casts around what he could see of the room. "Now where the hell are you hiding them?" he demands to know.
"Oh, if you know knew, buddy boy." Billy laughs his voice so soft now that at first Sam had thought she'd imagined him speaking at all. "What do you think, Sammy girl? We take that blade and show him just what being in a horror movie felt like?" her father suggested the gleeful edge returning as his eyes like Sam's fall once more to the weapon tucked into the holder at the man's belt.
"Don't even think about saying there not here. I can smell that dumb dog of hers stinking up the place and no way in hell she goes anywhere without that mutt, so I know she's close by too." The man argues as Sam's eyes find his own once more.
"Come on Sam. He's asking for it." Billy says giving another slow lick to the sticky redness coating his fingers as he gives her a cool glare with a questioning. "Who do you think caused all those bruises and cuts to your girl?"
"She isn't." Sam snaps aloud for once grateful that the specter of her father was now standing at a point just over the abuser's shoulder, so she had a reason to continue glaring in the man's direction. She can see his point. Trying to hide her actions in the weak 'one less abuser in the world' defense but when really, he just wanted her to turn out like him.
Slicing up anyone and everyone she meets that upset her.
But she wasn't like him.
"Yet." Billy snickers "give it time baby girl." He smiles with a playful wink "Just give it time."
"What she isn't here?" the man asks still thinking Sam was talking to him. "You honestly expect me to…."
"I don't give dame what you think actually." Sam snarls her eyes finding those of both her backseat passenger as well as the man's as she speaks so they knew she was talking to both of them. "now I'm a real bitch before my coffee and you also interrupted a rather nice dream so that's already two strikes against you."
"Yeah, and we all know what happens when someone reaches three don't, we?" Billy laughs "They get the old Richie treatment." He smiles with a spooky kind of fatherly pride in his lifeless eyes. "Slice and dice baby." He grins
"Shut up." Sam yells but also quietly thankful the man she was still debating slamming the door was in the middle of a rant himself about what Sam had no clue, but her shout did quiet him for a few short beats. His startled state also triggered another round of harsh coughing.
"Tiiimmmbbbeeerrr." Billy laughs seconds before the man Sam still didn't know by name suddenly fell backward right outside the hotel doorway.
"No,"
The amount of panic in that single exclamation as Laura scrambled from under the bed to make the quick dash to the door then out to the downed man's side was enough to bring true tears to Sam's eyes even as she like Riley shadowed the hurrying woman just in case the act was just that, a simple ploy to flush her out.
"Despite it all, she's still a pure soul." Billy comments as he like Sam watch Laura's tensive movements in taking her boyfriend's pulse to brushing his soggy hair from his eyes and even taking off the jacket Sam had used for her the night before to pillow under his head. "not many of those around anymore." He muses "you hang onto this one tight, Sam."
Tara joins them the phone already at her ear as she mouths a soft "medics on their way" at Sam's curious glance. Riley now sitting in the small amount of space between the two his lip curled into a warning growl every time he'd be given a clear sightline to the downed man on the sidewalk.
Sam was already giving a guilty expression at Laura's startled yelp at the unexpected touch to her back as Sam knelt beside her at the man's side.
"We have to help him."
Again, the honest pain of Laura's plea broke Sam's heart as she feels her head nodding in an agreement she didn't fully want to make. "We will." She promises earning a ghost of a smile from Laura before the woman herself was leaning over to wrap her arms around Sam's shoulders with a sobbed "Thank you." Against her shoulder.