Chapter 2

Finally, Sam came back in, refusing to be made to stay outside.

Tara had seen the look on Sam's face when she learned that Richie, the boyfriend she trusted, had been the one that had been a part of the attack on Tara. She looked almost as if she wished her boyfriend were alive, so that she could kill him, herself.

And the police knew that the other Ghostface killer had killed Richie. That was why there were several cops outside of Tara's room. They knew that there was another Ghostface out there.

Tara almost laughed weakly at the thought. They had no idea that the person they were looking for was in this very room, standing by her bed, and who had in fact, just kissed her palm, almost as if in a declaration of devotion.

Sam sat on the other side of the bed as she said, "I'm staying here for the night. Not leaving for a second."

"Well," Amber remarked dryly, "That's certainly a change. Didn't even get here in time for her to not be nearly attacked by Ghostface a second time."

Sam glared at Amber and Tara looked up at Amber.

"Amber," she said, voice firm.

Amber looked at Tara. Tara always had her attention, first and foremost.

Amber saw the look that Tara was giving her, which essentially said, "Don't even think about hurting my sister."

Amber grunted quietly and nodded to her love.

Whatever Tara wanted. If hurting Sam in any way hurt Tara, that was inexcusable.

"Thank you, Sam," she said, looking at her sister, "Don't worry. I trust you." She added, looking to Amber, "If you want to stay here, Amber, then you need to be nice."

"Fine," Amber grumbled, nodding.

Begrudgingly, both Amber and Sam stayed by the bed, deciding to look after her the whole time she was here.

After the rest of Tara and Amber's friends made sure Tara was okay, and left, Sam and Amber stayed with her.

After about an hour, Sam went to get some food for the three of them, making Amber promise that she would stay with Tara.

Amber snorted, "Of course."

When Sam left to get food for the three of them, Tara looked at Amber as she said, "What exactly was the plan in the long run? What was going to happen, if you hadn't killed Richie?"

Amber hesitated, looking like she wanted to do anything else except answer. Then she answered, "I was going to kill everyone else. But it wasn't to isolate you. It wasn't. You deserve so much better than what you get. Mindy, do you know that she was making this into a whole game? Entertaining the possibility that you might die, by the "rules" of the Stab movies?"

Tara sighed, "Amber, that's just how Mindy is. She doesn't mean anything seriously by it."

When Amber looked like she was about to protest, Tara added, "You can't kill everyone that you think disrespects me, Amber. It's not right." She stared at the girl that seemed to want her more than anything else in this world. "Please, Amber," she said, "Tell me you know that that's not right."

Amber looked down, avoiding Tara's gaze, and nodded.

Tara took a breath as she asked, "Where was I supposed to be during all this? You realize I wouldn't have just let you kill all our friends, right?"

"Yeah, I know," Amber said quietly, "That's one of the reasons why we needed to put you in the hospital. So that you were out of the way. But if you ended up at the place where we were going to have our big movie, which I was planning to have at my house, then I would have taken precautions."

"Precautions?" Tara asked cautiously.

Amber shifted somewhat, appearing uncomfortable at the thought of answering, before she said, "I would have grabbed you, and bound your hands and feet and legs with duct tape, and put duct tape over your mouth and put you in a closet."

Tara gawked at the other girl.

"Amber," she said, shock in her voice, "Seriously? You can't…you know you can't do stuff like this anymore? You want me to be with you? You have to stop doing this."

Amber nodded.

Tara said quietly, "That's two rules for now. No more killing. You tell me if you even think about killing again. And don't ever put the Ghostface costume on again."

Amber nodded as Tara said quietly then, "Do you know how it felt for me to see Ghostface again in the doorway, when you went after Richie? After what happened at the house that night? I actually was hyperventilating and could feel my heart stop. Don't wear that costume again, if only for me."

Again, Amber nodded. She knew she should have thought of this as a possibility, but hadn't. But of course, it made sense.

After what Tara experienced, of course, seeing the Ghostface mask again would trigger Tara.

She was traumatized.

Amber's teeth clenched. She hated herself for what she had allowed to happen that night.

Either she should have done it herself and left those shallow slashes that she had mentioned to Tara, and not allow Tara to be as terrorized as she had been, or she should have just killed Richie from the beginning.

As much as she wished to indulge in making the franchise of Stab about what she wanted, nothing was worth what had been done to Tara.

She would keep the Ghostface costume somewhere safe, but would only put it on to get rid of anyone that meant Tara harm.

"So, what's the plan now?" Amber asked, "I mean, no one else knows that I'm the other Ghostface. And Richie's dead."

Tara said, "They'll probably be looking for the other killer for a while. But when they can't find who it is, they'll have to stop searching."

Amber nodded.

She added, "Oh, and Tara? One thing. You'll probably hear about it, but this other guy was killed. It was Richie that did it. His name was Vince. Richie stabbed him in the neck."

Tara sighed. Great.

So, what was that now, four bodies? And two of them had been at Amber's hands.

Tara said quietly, "We can date. After I get out of the hospital and am fully healed up. But Amber? Don't treat our friends badly. I don't want you to even think about threatening or hurting them, alright? That's another rule. Don't hurt our friends and family."

Amber sighed and nodded. Personally, she had a feeling that you could define "family" and "friends" differently, going off of how those friends and family treated you, but fine, if that was what her princess wanted.

Tara added, "My mom's getting back from her work trip next week. I know you hate her, but promise me that you'll make an effort to be polite."

Amber laughed, "Aren't I always making that effort? I call her a bitch behind her back regularly."

Tara chuckled. Well, that was true.

Tara then stiffened in the bed as a thought hit her.

She looked at Amber as she said, "Um, Amber? Please tell me that you weren't going to kill my mom after all this was done."

Amber flinched, telling Tara exactly what she needed to know.

"God, Amber," Tara whispered, "My mom?!"

"She's a shit mother," Amber growled, "She treated you like garbage. She got drunk and neglected you."

"That's still no reason to try to kill her," Tara said, staring at Amber now like she couldn't recognize this girl and that hurt Amber more than any look that Tara had previously thrown her today, "No hurting my mom. If you want this relationship to work, Amber, you can't kill or hurt my mom. Or our friends. Or Sam."

Tara watched as Amber clenched up, then nodded again. "Alright," she said begrudgingly, "I won't."

Tara nodded, wishing she could trust Amber more. But recent events had caused her to lose her trust for this girl.

Tara sighed quietly, shifting herself backwards on the hospital bed, making more room on it, "Lie next to me, please."

Amber looked at Tara, startled, a slight smile on her face at that. Then she said, "But your leg-"

"It's alright," Tara said, "As long as you stay on this side and don't touch my leg, I should be fine."

Amber understood this, but decided not to risk it. Instead, she leaned in close, while still sitting in the chair, she laid her head against the pillow, smiling at Tara.

Tara sighed, leaning close, pressing her forehead against Amber's as she said, "I should be so angry at you, you know?"

Amber whispered quietly, "I know."

Tara said quietly, "I do love you. I do. But it's going to be a long time before I can trust you again. Let alone trust you with the people I care about."

"Yeah," Amber said sadly. She knew she had brought this on herself.

She felt herself smiling, nonetheless, hearing Tara say that she loved Amber.

Nothing was worth hurting Tara or making her believe that she couldn't trust the people around her.

She thought that she could have it both ways. That she could have Tara's love, as well as the satisfaction of being covered in the blood of all of those that she had imagined hurt Tara in some way or another.

But she couldn't.

Tara said quietly, "So, you want to be with me. Sexually, as well as romantically?"

Amber nodded. She added, "You don't have to do anything if you don't want to."

"It's okay," Tara said softly, "It's going to take me a while before I can trust you ever. But I'd like to. I'll obviously will have to heal up before that," she joked quietly and Amber winced, Tara's tone softening, "But I'd like to."

Amber smiled hopefully.

Tara wasn't a virgin. She had slept with a boy a year younger than her two years ago, when she was sixteen.

Needless to say, the relationship hadn't lasted long, but she lost her virginity in that relationship.

But Tara had barely been in any relationship since then.

Amber didn't want to push Tara into anything, ever. But the things she wanted to do to Tara? The pleasure she wanted to inflict on Tara? It might very well be called wrong in its own right.

She wanted to put her mouth on Tara's cunt, devour the older girl until Tara passed out. She wished to overstimulate the other girl until Tara was sobbing for her to stop. Her desires were so carnal and Tara was so innocent, that Amber feared Tara becoming frightened.

She knew she would have to wait. But she couldn't deny that she wanted Tara. In every way there was.

She stayed next to Tara, until fell asleep.

Amber smiled as Tara slept.

She heard the door begin to open up. She lifted her head and turned to look at the door opening.

Sam was there, with some junk food in her arm.

Amber raised her right index finger to her lips. She whispered to Sam, "She's asleep."

Sam nodded, eyeing Tara and she nodded to the hallway. She said to Amber, "Can I speak with you for a second, Amber?"

Amber nodded, leaning in close to Tara again and kissed her forehead, then pulled back and lifted herself up from the chair, moving away from Tara's bed and going out into the hall to join Sam.

Sam closed the door slowly and checked down both sides of the hallway.

Several sets of police officers were in the hall, but were several feet away.

Sam turned back to Amber.

She said, "Amber, there's something I have to ask you."

Amber nodded. "Yeah?" She asked cautiously.

Sam took a breath as she said, "You're really protective of Tara, right? You love her?"

Amber tensed. this felt like a trap. She said, "Yeah, so? You got a problem with that?"

"No," Sam said, breathing out quickly, "What I need to ask is if you have to protect Tara, even if it's from me, will you do it?"

Now Amber was at attention.

Why would Amber need to protect Tara from Sam?

Sam took a few moments before she said, "Because…has Tara told you what I told her? About who my biological father is?"

Amber's eyes widened.

Oh, so that was what this was about.

This was about Sam being Billy Loomis's daughter.

"No, she didn't, why?" Amber lied. Yeah, she knew who Sam's daddy was, but Tara hadn't been the one to tell her-but she knew, and she certainly wasn't going to say it.

Sam took a breath before she said, "My biological father-he was Billy Loomis."

Sam faced Amber, waiting for the reaction. Amber gave Sam a likely believable reaction. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth dropped slightly.

"Holy shit," she said.

"Yeah," Sam grumbled, "To say the least. And there's something else. I…never mind." She shook her head.

Amber nodded. "Okay," she said, "Look, I know I'm judgmental of you, since you left Tara. But you know it doesn't matter who your biological parents are, right? What matters is who sticks around and looks after you."

Sam stared at Amber, startled at the other's insight.

Amber said, "My dad? My biological father? Trust me, he was trash and I'm glad he's out of my life. But my mother? She was by my side, taking care of me every second. She didn't even think I was a freak for being a huge fan of the Stab movies. What matters is who stays by your side." She added, deciding to throw in one more backhanded insult, before ending the conversation, "Remember that, if you want to stay in Tara's life."

Amber gave the warning to Sam and let Sam mull it over, as she left the hallway and went back to sit back down next to Tara's bed.

Sam followed her in and looked down at Tara, Amber watching her as she did.

Sam stared down at Tara with such softness and need that for a moment Amber had a hard time understanding what she was looking at.

But as Sam got closer, saw how Sam intensely was looking at Tara, with such tenderness, Amber's eyes widened in understanding.

Sam's dark eyes were filled with hunger and soft desire, and yet, such primal, carnal need.

Amber almost burst out laughing at not realizing this before.

Sam wanted Tara.

Sam was in love with Tara.

Sam romantically and sexually desired her own sister.

Amber almost scoffed in disbelief.

Well, there was this new thing to deal with.

She was going to have to speak with both Carpenter sisters about this, to understand how to react.

Sam had asked Amber if Amber was willing to protect Tara, even if it was from her sister-and this clearly was what that question was about. Sam was fearful that she might hurt Tara with her feelings.

Amber was going to have to speak with both Carpenter sisters about this.

She would need to speak with Sam, to make sure that she had no intention of hurting Tara, and she was going to have to speak with Tara, to see how comfortable she was with all this, and if she wasn't, if she wanted Amber to interfere in any way.