Scream the MTV Series S4E4 - "The Hunt"

The Lakewood sky is a clear blue. The snow had completely melted off the ground and it’s as warm as it’s been since early October. Emma Duval lays in bed with another restless night. Gina is locked up somewhere in a field and she had only this night to make her decision on how she would deal with it.

The person behind this had the only stipulation set that Emma goes alone, but as easily as Emma could do that, the killer could also be setting up a trap. Gina had told Emma never to speak to her again, so thoughts raise on whether the killer is actually holding her ransom or she’s playing the silent game. Emma decides not to call the bluff though, after a sleepless night of thinking. She feels guilty about accusing Gina of being the one to kidnap Audrey. She feels like she owes her something.

The only problem is: Maggie is out of town since finding out that Kevin is back in town and Emma doesn’t have her own car. The gun field is miles away from Emma’s house. She has no way of transportation. Her problems begin to fade though, one by one, when she receives and unexpected text. She pulls up her phone. It’s Andrew.

Meet me outside of your house, be there in five. 6:34pm

Emma has no clue what this is for, but she can tell by the tone of the text that it’s important. She begins to get dressed. Nothing fancy, but she doesn’t want Andrew to see her in her pajamas this early into what could be an eventual relationship. She puts on a tad bit of makeup before she knows it, her doorbell rings.

Like expected, Andrew stands on the other side of the door. “You can come in.” she opens the door wider. “My mom is out of town.”

“It’s going to be hard for me to ‘meet your parents’ if your mom is never home and your dad punches your friends.” He jokes with Emma, trying to make light of the awful night they had just had. Emma goes into shock about the relationship joke, but she recovers with a fake laugh.

Inside, Emma is surprised Andrew still wants anything to do with her after last night. “To be honest, if she weren’t locally famous, I’d have a hard time believing she’s still around.”

“Why’s that?” Emma asks him, just in an attempt to carry on conversation and avoid awkwardness.

“I don’t know.” He responds. “Because she’s like… never home and well, you seem pretty independent.” He smiles to her with the compliment.

“Yeah, that comes with people trying to kill you, twenty-four-seven.” She laughs, flirting back. “But no, seriously, you have to be when you’re the only person you can trust, and sometimes you don’t even trust that.” She darkens the mood accidentally. “Sooo.. what’s up?” Emma ends the brief silence. “Well, let’s cut to the chase.” Andrew says to Emma. “Yesterday, in your car.. Your phone was loud enough that I could overhear your conversation, while talking to whoever it is that took Gina.” Andrew allows a dramatic pause to pass. “You can’t honestly be thinking about going, can you?” Andrew raises his tone. “It’s basically suicide, plus Gina has something against you. She literally told you she never wants to see you again.”

“It doesn’t mean she deserves to die, Andrew.” Emma retorts.

“That’s true, but it does mean you shouldn’t try risking your life for her.” Andrew shrugs. “If you go, at least let me go too.” He says. “I’ll just sit in the car if need be.”

“You can’t!” Emma proclaims. “You heard the call, they said come alone or they’ll kill her.” Andrew stands with his back to the door, his hands are in the pockets of his designer blue jeans. His shirt doesn’t have a brain name. His dirty blonde hair spiked up into a fauxhawk like usual, with a matte look, as if there’s no gel in it.

“If there truly are no games, it’d be pointless for them to be there, right?” Andrew responds back. “They’ll never know I was even there.” He winks.

“You’ve never been through this. They find out, one way or another.” Andrew cuts off Emma at the end of her sentence.

“Neither have you Emma. Piper’s dead. Kieran’s dead. This is a whole new killer. They’re unpredictable, you don’t know who they are or what they’re going to do. I want to be there to help you if something were to go wrong.” Emma’s blood begins to boil.

“Neither have I? Andrew it doesn’t matter that this is a new killer. I am a victim! You didn’t grow up in Murderville like I did. You don’t know how these things work.” She tries to be as nice as possible even though he’d obviously upset her.

“Emma. I’m just trying to help you.” He tries to assure her without getting frustrated. “Please let me help you.”

The two look at each other for a second. “Okay.” Emma submits. “I’ll let you take me. I want you to stay in the car though. No exceptions.” Emma demands.

“I can do that.” Andrew responds.

The hospital room is gloomy. Dark. Eerie, almost. Audrey Jensen lays in her bed with the generic blue hospital sheets over her. An IV is in her arm and she’s being assisted in breathing. Audrey is unconscious, has been for days now. The doctors predict she will wake up any day at any time. Audrey’s short hair lies flat on her head, barely messy.

The room is silent. The only thing heard is the footsteps coming from a distance away. The footsteps appear to be getting closer. They stop for a minute then start again. This time, closer than before. Seemingly outside the door.

Right before they enter Audrey’s room, the steps stop again. The sound of a knife slinging is heard. That’s when the average sized person walks into the room wearing a black poncho. Face covered by the signature, yet chilling, Brandon James mask.

The person holds a knife. They hover over Audrey, suddenly her eyes open, almost as if she was aware of the situation. Now fully aware, she still can’t move, but she has to face the killer in her hospital room. Audrey tries to react but nothing happens. The person looks down at Audrey and tilts their head. The two meet eyes and she knows instantly who it is by the look on her face.

The person continues going through drawers and cabinets beside Audrey’s bed. Finally, they find an envelope that it seems as though they were looking for. They lay it on top of Audrey’s cabinet. After that, the killer quickly yanks the IV out of Audrey’s arm. The shock of the IV tearing out wakes her out of her coma. She grabs her own monitor and smacks the killer with it. They stumble back of a moment as she rolls out of her bed.

Audrey follows up by grabbing a clipboard and throwing it at the person attempting to kill her. They then charge her and throw her back on her bed. The knife plummets through her neck. The blood pours down her white hospital patient gown, Audrey’s blue blankets quickly turn blood read. Her life line quickly goes from steady to flat and she quits breathing.

Audrey Jensen’s soul exits her body along with her blood.

✟

“Gina?” Emma yells out. Emma stands in an open field. Nothing in sight besides Emma and Andrew’s truck, sitting off to the side of the road. Andrew attends the driver’s seat, in case Emma has to hurry away.

“Giiiiinaaa” Emma calls out again, trying to get a response. This time she hears rustling in the high grass. Emma stops walking and listens. Once again she hears movement. Her phone begins to buzz. The call is from Noah. Emma red buttons him, trying to stay quiet.

The movement continues and Emma follows the noise. She locates where it’s coming from and goes to it. When Emma approaches the noise, she can hear it again. She looks down and Gina is unconscious, barely moving. Her arms and legs are roped together. Her mouth is duct taped shut.

Emma kneels down and unties Gina’s ankles. She pulls the rope off of her ankles. Emma props her up straight to the point she is standing. Emma then lightly tears the duct tape off of Gina’s mouth. “Emma, is that you?” She asks Emma.

“Yes, it’s me. Don’t try to talk, you’re going to be okay.” Emma says untying Gina, noticing a large cut in her side. “I’m going to get you out of here, just relax.” Emma gets Gina’s hands completely free. Gina stands on her own, but is neither conscious or aware.

Everything is going like the killer said it would. She’d gotten Gina with no trouble. Gina tries to talk again. “I saw him. I’ve never seen him before in my life.” Emma gives Gina a confused look. That’s when a signature sound is heard. Chiiiiiing. The sound of a knife blade. Emma recognizes the noise instantly.

“Run.” Emma demands. Gina falls over quick through in the sprint. Noah’s voice rings through Emma’s head. Rule number two, every person for themselves. Emma hesitates. After a split second, Emma turns around and runs towards Gina. Emma throws Gina’s arm around herself and starts running. She is slowed down by Gina.

Emma spots a person wearing a Brandon James mask pop out from the tall grasses that she’d just came from. The sight is enough to get Emma to speed up. The two reach the car. Emma throws Gina in the backseat and jumps in the passenger seat. “DRIVE! DRIVE! DRIVE!” Emma yells. She looks over to realize Andrew isn’t in the driver's seat. Emma jumps to the drivers side and looks over at the killer. She realizes they haven’t moved from their spot. They cynically peer on at Emma struggling. Emma notices the key is still in the ignition as she drives off, as the killer watches.

As the speed of the car picks up, she receives another phone call. It’s Noah again. This time, she answers. “Hello?” she’s exhausted by the tone of her answer, but she’s still curious as to why he’s calling.

“Emma…” He says very simply. Emma can instantly hear the pain and sorrow in his voice. She instantly knows something’s very wrong.

“What’s wrong?” Emma asks Noah through the phone, knowing he’d been crying.

“It’s Audrey.” Noah responds. Emma’s heart drops. “We’ve lost her.” Noah says trying to keep a straight face, fighting back more tears.

Emma’s reaction is different. Emma instantly drops her phone. Her car speeds up, seemingly as fast as it possibly can. It appears as if she’s racing. Emma is headed towards the direction of the hospital. Suddenly a police cars siren begins to go off. Emma punches the dashboard as she comes to a stop. Emma recognizes the officer. He’s a friend of Sherrif Acosta, Gustavo’s father. She doesn’t know his name, though. He looks into the window, shining his flashlight into the eyes of Emma. The sun is just starting to rise. It’s clear that she’d been crying. “Um, do you know why I pulled you over, madam?” He asks. His name tag reads ‘Officer Douglas.’ “You were going twenty over the speed limit.” He answers his own question, not giving her a chance to answer.

“I’m rushing my friend to the hospital, officer. She was attacked. There’s another killer on the loose sir, and you’re more worried about handing out speeding tickets than finding out who’s going around killing people and putting them behind bars!” Emma rolls her window up and drives off ignoring Officer Douglas’s warning. Emma continues speeding as she pulls her phone out and begins to dial Andrew. She has no clue where he’d went. She awaits for him to pick up, until she realizes his phone is buzzing beside her. Emma ends the call with complete rage and shoves Andrew’s phone into her pocket. She continues to drive as she nears towards the hospital.

Finally, Emma pulls into the hospital parking lot, after a few minutes of driving. The first thing she is greeted with is a body bag being carried on a stretcher, exhorted by a policeman that she’d never seen before. Caution tapes surround the hospital’s entrance. Emma knows exactly who’s in the body bag. Audrey.

Emma pulls Gina out of the back seat and hooks her arm around her. “My friend’s been attacked!” Emma yells. “I need in!” The police officer opens the front door for Emma and Gina. The first thing Emma sees when she walks into the hospital is Andrew. Emmaa, was was already fighting off tears, now breaks into a full anger.

“Officer! My friend here needs your assistance. Can I trust she’s in good hands?” She asks the police officer that Andrew was having a conversation with. The officer puts Gina’s arm around him and takes her down the hallway.

“Where the hell did you go?” Emma confronts Andrew as soon as they’re the only two in the room?”

“Let me explain..” Andrew says softly.

“No, you tagged along in case something went wrong. Well, Andrew, something went wrong and you weren’t there.” Emma is in a whisper yell.

“I didn’t want them to see me. I saw the mask. I was visible. I know that I wasn’t allowed to be there. I snuck away from the site and hitched a ride to the hospital with Officer Dagwood, who just took Gina into medical care.” He says, “I left the keys in the car for you to get away. I was going to text you, but I had to think quick and I’d left my phone behind too.” He continues, defensively and suspiciously. “Speaking of that, you wouldn’t have happened to see my phone while you were on the way, would you have?” Emma starts to reach into her pocket but then stops herself. She shakes her head, no. “Alright, I’ll find it before we leave.”

“What’d the police have to say?” Emma changes the subject to Audrey.

“Well…” Andrew darkens the mood with a pause. “It was a murder.” He says, “Officer Dagwood must be new. He hit me with the signature ‘I’m not supposed to leak anything… BUUUUUUT…’” Andrew pauses again. “He said her throat was slit and her IV was ripped out of her arm.” Andrew stops as a tear rolls down his face. Emma’s face is red from crying. “This wasn’t just another kill to the killer. This was vengeful.”

“This was a statement kill.” says a voice, coming from the corner of the hospital’s main room. Emma had thought they were alone. The voice was raspy. An altered version of a familiar voice, as if they’d been crying. Emma and Andrew shift their focus to the person in the corner, trying to recognize him. It comes clear when he stands up that Noah Foster had been sitting in the corner of the room the whole time. Noah walks over to Emma and Andrew. “This is a statement kill. Piper had one. Kieran had one.” Noah wipes tears from his eyes. “Piper’s was Nina, Kieran’s was Jake.”

“Wouldn’t Kieran have been this killers ‘statement’ though?” Andrew asks Noah.

“Some could argue it, but in my opinion, that was more of a killer’s kill. As in, they picked off Kieran to assert themselves as king of Lakewood. Not to state their prominence amongst our crew. Now we all want them dead just as much as they want us dead. They’re playing mind games with us and our only option is to pick up the controller and play back.” Noah tells the two.

“Oh, okay. I understand, so when Kieran was killed, that made the person Lakewood’s Murder Academy's Valedictorian of murderers.” Andrew replies to Noah

“Essentially, yes.” Noah confirms.

“So what now?” Andrew asks as if Noah can look into the future.

“Now we stay together. We quit fighting. We quit pointing fingers until we have one hundred percent evidence of something.” As he talks to them, Emma notices something out of the corner of her eye. Something hanging off of Audrey’s door. She goes to it.

Normally, the check-in counter girl would have stopped Emma but she’d been nowhere to be found. Emma pulls a long neck strap off the door handle. It’s Dr. Douglas’s Doctor’s ID, symbolizing the fact that he’d been in the building when or shortly after Audrey was killed.

“I didn’t see him.” Emma says.

“What are you talking about?” Andrew responds with a question, hovering over Emma’s shoulder, looking down at the ID.

“Dr. Douglas.” She says. “Audrey’s nurse. He wasn't here. I saw the staff outside with the police. He wasn't out there. He was to be attending to Audrey when she was killed. Who could have possibly gotten ahold of his ID?”

“What are you saying?” Noah attempts to follow.

“Either the killer made a critical mistake, or they wanted us to see this for some reason. Either way, I think we’ve found a lead.”

“Emma. What did I just say about pointing fingers?!” Noah asks Emma.

“No fingers are being pointed!” She exclaims. “I just think that this is important and we need to get to the bottom of his.” Emma then pulls her phone out of her pocket and snaps a photo of the ID hanging on the door.

“What are you doing Emma?” Andrew asks Emma.

“The ID has his address and his hours. It also says he’s a widower. We’re going to his house tomorrow. After school.” Emma gives Andrew an answer that makes Noah facepalm.

“Emma are you crazy?” Noah softly yells. “That’s literally breaking and entering… WHICH IS ILLEGAL.”

Emma cracks a sadistic smile before responding. “I’m going.” She gets serious. “If you don’t want to come, don’t, but I am.”

“If she’s going, I’m going.” Andrew shrugs at Noah. Noah lets out his ‘I-know-it’s-wrong-but-I’m-going-to-do-it-because-they’re-my-friends’ sigh.

“If we’re going to do this, we need some back up.” Noah says, “Either of you mind if I invite Larius?” Noah asks, but on the low is just trying to get more scoop on Stavo from Larius, and this is the best way to do so.

Andrew looks at Emma for confirmation. Emma shrugs, indicating she allows Larius to tag along.

✟

Brooke Maddox stands in her room, she appears to be organizing her closet. She hasn’t spoken with anyone since earlier in the day when Noah had broke the news to her that Audrey was murdered. Brooke and Audrey had, at one point, despised each other, but the two had been forming a solid friendship in recent months. Brooke is clearly still rattled by the death of her new found friend.

Her cleaning was halted when her phone whistles at her from her bed. She sees her phone lit up. A text from Larius.

Wyd? 1:22am

Brooke wonders to herself why he’d be texting her this late at night. Obviously, she initially thinks it’s a booty call.

Not hooking up with you 1:23am

Brooke sets her phone down to let it close on its own, but Larius texts back almost immediately.

Not what I want… yet. 1:23am Can you meet me past the pasture in ten? 1:23am

He double texts her, trying to explain. Brooke doesn’t know if she should go. By pasture, she knows he means the James farm. There’s another killer on the loose, Larius and her barely know each other, and the only times they were together, they just bickered back and forth the whole time.

I’ll be there. 1:25am

Brooke decides she doesn’t have anything to lose. Dying is the ‘worst’ thing that could happen and recent days, that doesn’t seem to fall under the bad category anyways. Brook begins getting ready to meet Larius past the pasture, when she hears a knock at the door. She quickly walks down the stairs to get it. Behind the door stands the last person Brooke would have expected. Her mother-- Monica Maddox.

“Mom?” Brooke doesn’t understand anything surrounding her mother’s unexpected visit or her feelings of the visit. She feels so many emotions, happy, sad, angry, scared. The only one she recognizes is overwhelmed.

“Brooklyn.” Her mom replies with tears in her eyes. Seeing her mother this teary eyed brings water to Brooke’s eyes too. Still though, she doesn’t know her mother’s intentions. Brooke’s mom takes a step into the house, hugging Brooke. Once the hug breaks, Brooke finally asks the question.

“What are you doing here?” Her mom gives her a confused look.

“I came as soon as I got out of rehab.” Monica tells Brooke. “I saw about Quinn-- um-- your father on the news. That’s awful. Him and I never saw eye-to-eye, but heck, I loved that man.” she says, “I would have never wanted that for him. I’d sure as heck never want this for you.”

“This? What’s this?” Brooke replies quickly.

“Death.” Monica says back. “I’d never wish death upon your father and I’d never wish somebody close to you death.” “Well, I don’t know what else you’ve seen on the news, but everyone I’m close to has been dropping.” Brooke whips her hair out of her eyes.

“Yes, I saw! It’s not natural. Jake was murdered, Nina was murdered, Riley was murdered. Your father, Brooke.. All by those psychopaths, Piper and Kieran!” Monica yells out.

“Now Audrey.” Brooke says breaking down in tears again. Her mother is clearly confused by that statement.

“What do you mean?” Monica asks her daughter.

“There’s a new killer, mom. They killed Audrey earlier today.” Brooke continues to sob.

“Audrey Jensen? That dyke you used to make fun of?” Monica gives her daughter another confused look. Brooke gets angry instantly at her mom after bringing up her past with Audrey.

“She was a Lakewood 6, mom.” Brooke retorts. “She grew into one of my best friends.” You can see the guilt on Monica’s face.

“I’m so sorry Brooke-- I didn’t know.” Monica is red in the face.

“What’s with the guilty look?” Brooke steps aside not allowing her own mother to advance to her house.

“Guilty?” She responds. “This is concern. I feel for you. I feel bad about everything that happened and if that’s guilt, than yes I’m guilty.”

“What are you guilty about?” Brook asks back almost accusing her mother of something.

“I’m guilty that I wasn’t here. I feel guilty because there have been two killers, now three after you-- my daughter-- and I’m just now here because of bad choices I’ve made.” Brooke stares at her mother. “These past few years have been Hell. I’ve made the worst decisions of my life and I really don’t want to lose you for making my best decision in years, in coming back to you.”

Brookes eyes begin to water again. She steps aside allowing Monica in the house. “You can stay here, we have a lot of catching up to do. Please don’t prove me wrong for giving you the benefit of the doubt.” Monica steps in the house and looks around as her eyes water too.

“I’ve gotten a boyfriend that I want you to meet, Brooke. I told him if all worked out, he could come over tonight and meet you.” Brooke’s phone dings and she looks down at it. You’re late. 1:36am “Now, if you don’t mind, mother… I’ve got someone to tend to.” Brooke smiles and whips her hair sideways. She’s happy that her mother had come home from rehab and wants to be back into her life. She’s also intrigued as to why Larius had texted her telling her to meet him. He’s starting to grow on her in the midst of Stavo’s recent absence. Brooke exits the house through the same door that her mother entered through. “Make yourself at home… Almost like you’re not.” Brooke laughs exiting the door.

✟

Brooke Maddox approaches the old James pig farm that she’d been summoned to by Larius, on her feet. She stands on the side of the road on the warm winter day. An eerie feeling comes through the air along with a cool breeze. This spot sends chills down the spine of anyone who enters after the recent connections to it and… serial killers. Especially to anybody that had to go through what Brooke had to with it. She wonders why this is the place that Larius called her to, but she thinks it’s just because he likes to toy with her. It’s become evident that he’s taken a liking to her.

She takes a few steps further towards the barn that her father was murdered in. She glances to the right and looks at the house that Troy James had used to live in. Her body trembles at the sight of the area that she has had so many negative, life altering memories of. She finds her feet wandering mindlessly. The next thing she knows, her hand is up against the Troy James barn. Her cold hands up against the even colder, rotting wood in the winter air. Each breath being visible.

Brooke’s eyes dart towards the old James house at the sight of movement. A glimpse of a shadow in the window of the seemingly abandoned house. Could Emma’s father, Kevin Duval be in there? He’d previously noted that he’d been living in the barn for shelter as he’d been homeless since leaving Emma’s life again, but if he were living in the barn, why would he be inside the abandoned house? Brooke once again finds her feet wandering, this time towards a potentially dangerous situation. The shadow continues moving as Brooke gets closer to the window, but it’s behind a curtain. A sliver of light shines through the curtain, Brooke could probably see through it if she gets close enough.

With each step, the figure behind the curtain grows clearer and clearer, however right before she’d seen the figure behind the curtain, the shadow disappears. The heartbeat in her chest grows silent. Everything grows silent. She puts her face to the window, looking around the house to see if she can see anything; nothing in sight. Her heartbeat grows to normal pace, thinking the shadow was just a figment of her own imagination, due to all the traumatic events that she’d gone through in the past.

She lets out a deep breath and laughs as she backs up a little bit. When she backs up the first thing drawn to her eye: The Brandon James mask in the reflection right behind her. Brooke lets out a shriek as she turns around and pulls pepper spray out of her pocket, she sprays it onto the mask. “Oh my God, what the Hell, Brooke?” A shocked Stavo stands in front of Brooke holding the Brandon James mask. “You almost freakin’ maced me.” “I’m so sorry! Stavo, where have you been?” Brooke jumps, latching onto Stavo, who’d been missing and without his phone for days. “I was starting to assume the worse…” Brooke’s voice darkens, showing her fear that Stavo had been killed. “What… what are you doing here.. With that?” “I swear Brooke, it’s not what it looks like.” He says to Brooke as she’s once again trembling, now backing away from her boyfriend. “You couldn’t possibly think that I…” Stavo doesn’t finish his sentence as he’s following Brooke’s backwards pedal, getting closer and closer with every step.

After a few seconds of Stavo trailing Brooke, she trips over a branch. While on the ground, she notices a knife attached to Stavo’s belt loop. She lets out a gasp when she notices it, still trying to crawl away.

“Come on Brooke, it’s me. You know me.” Stavo extends his hand towards Brooke, offering to help her up. She still is trying to crawl away on her back clearly not believing Stavo that he’s got nothing to do with the recent murder of Audrey Jensen.

“Yeah Brooke, come on.. Don’t you trust your own boyfriend?” A voice is heard, stepping out from the brush. It’s Larius. “Take his hand.”

“What the Hell are you doing here?” Stavo jerks his attention towards Larius, coming out of the brush. He shows hostility with his facial features, but his voice tone also is easily to be observed as hostile, as he reached towards his knife in his belt loop.

“Hold on big guy, I could ask YOU the same thing.” Larius retorts himself. “I texted Brooke to come here because I wanted to talk to her about something privately.” Larius lets out a sigh/laughter combination, “but clearly we can’t do that when there’s a killer on the loose.” Larius then steps up towards Stavo, getting in his face. Stavo releases the hold on his knife and lets out a sigh.

“So it wasn’t you who left the damn pig heart on my doorstep?” Right as the words leave his mouth, Brooke’s heart drops and Larius grows quiet as his eyebrows fold downwards with a confused look on his face.

“A pig heart?” Larius questions as Brooke covers her mouth and lets tears roll down her face with the thought of a pig heart. A trademark from the James farm because when Troy James was in town, it was a pig farm. The very farm they stand on.

“Yes it had some twisted, bloody letter that was telling me I’d find my phone here.. I’ve been missing it for days.” Stavo says, knowing that it wasn’t a good sign. He’d clearly been through this before, when Kieran was doing the killings. He knows how this works.

“We need to get out of here” Brooke says quickly, knowing that it probably wasn’t a good thing that Stavo had been told to get his phone there. The killer is definitely in the area, probably waiting for one of the three to branch off from the rest.

“You were going to stab me, weren’t you?” Larius asks Stavo under his breath, Brooke is still close to the two, but they’d branched off far enough for Brooke to not hear him talking. “You’re going to stab all of us, just like you did-” Larius’s tone gets angrier and Stavo cuts him off, pushing him away.

“Why did you follow me here, Larius?” Stavo shoves Larius again and storms off in the other direction. Brooke turns around yelling at him to come back, but he doesn’t listen. Brooke stops in her tracks, watching Stavo run off until he’s out of sight. “I’m just protecting Brooke from you!” Larius yells back as Stavo disappears into the darkness of the late night or early morning, depending on how you look at it. Brooke still stands in place, shocked at what had happened. Larius tugs on her arm signaling that they need to go. She slowly starts walking away with him.

“So, what was it that you needed to talk to me about?” Brooke asks Larius, with a concerned look on her face, clearly lightening up to Larius. Her words stop Larius in his tracks, his face grows serious as he turns back and looks at Brooke. The two get face to face, each face close to the other.

“Brooke-” It seems like Larius is about to tell her what he’d called her there for in the first place. Concern is also shown in Larius’s eyes, showing that he cares about her well being. He’s cut off before he can continue, though. A phone ring. The ring of the phone is very close to where the two are standing. Just a few steps to the left and they find the phone in the weeds. It’s the phone of Gustavo Acosta. Brooke picks up the phone, the call is coming from Kieran Wilcox cell phone number. Brooke hits the answer button. The voice sends chills down her spine. “Hello Brooke… Did you miss me?” Tears roll down the face of Brooke instantly, Larius stands in front of her, still concerned about her. The tone is deep, the same voice that’d haunted her over the past year. The same voice that was once used by Piper Shaw and the same voice that was used by Kieran Wilcox. “I’ve missed you, that’s for sure. I’m just calling to tell you that I’m happy you’ve let me back in your life… You’ve always been forgiving… Just like you forgave your slut of a mother tonight when she asked to be back into your life after abusing drugs for years, missing out on your childhood in a dazed out state. You forgave her. That’s what I love the most about you, Brooke.”

Brooke gasps as the phone clicks and the call ends. At this point, she’s bawling. Larius grabs her and pulls her close, hugging her. Instead of fighting it, like she normally would, Brooke submits to him, crying into his chest. Larius watches over her shoulder, keeping watch for her. Protecting her.

✟

“Thanks again for the ride…” Brooke Maddox says, in the passenger seat of a car. “I really do appreciate it, Larius.” The camera pans out to show Brooke is sitting in the passenger seat of Larius Shore’s car. He has an innocent smile on his face. A tone we’ve never seen from Larius.

“You really think I’d let you walk home alone in the middle of the night after that Brooke?” Larius laughs, but before the next words that leave his mouth, he grows serious again. Maybe even concerned. “Who hurt you like this?” Larius’s face remains soft as Brooke and himself have a long, lingering moment. Each of the two staring into the eyes of the other. Each slowly leaning closer and closer to the other. Right before their lips meet, Stavo’s phone buzzes, the two had taken it with them. It’s a text from the contact saved as ‘Dad’

Hey, this is Stavo. My dad had my phone tracked, Brooke. Have you had it this whole time? 2:51am

Brooke hesitates at the text message, quickly losing trust in Stavo. It’s safe to say that she thinks that Stavo saw her pick up his phone and rang it from Kieran’s. In her defense, it’s very sketchy how that all happened. Gustavo had conveniently been “sent” to the James farm for his phone and right after he ran off, his phone got a call, while hiding in some weeds. Not to mention the fact that whoever called talked about what they love about Brooke and Stavo is her current boyfriend. The chances that Stavo being involved are pretty high, especially considering the fact that it seems like Larius knows a secret about Stavo that Stavo definitely doesn’t want anyone to know, judging off of the way Stavo has responded to Larius mentioning it, or literally even being around.

“I’ll let you deal with that.” Brooke says opening the door without picking up the phone with her. “These days, I’m starting to think that you know him better than I do.” She raises her eyebrows as if it was a shot at Stavo, but chances are, Larius actually does know Stavo better than she does.

“Oh believe me, I do.” He agrees. “Be safe, Brooke. Don’t trust Stavo. He’s not who you think he is.” Brooke nods, agreeing with him. She no longer feels like she knows Stavo like she thought she had before.

Brooke exits Larius’s car after his words, they give each other a reassuring look as she closes the door. She walks up towards her house’s door and takes a glance back at Larius, seeing that he’s still parked beside her house, refusing to leave before he sees her enter her house safely. Brooke looks back and smiles at Larius, assuming he’s smiling back, she enters her house.

“Was that your boyfriend?” Monica, Brooke’s mom asks her as she stands in the doorway separating the entrance room from the dining hall. She’s smiling, clearly happy that she is back in her daughter’s life.

“No… That’s-- he’s just a friend.” Brooke responds with uncertainty in her own words. “Larius is his name.” Monica raises her eyebrows, knowing that Brooke’s stuttering over her own words and not buying into denying Larius as her boyfriend.

“Whatever you say…” Monica responds. That’s when headlights pull forward, shining through the curtains blocking off the outside world. “Oh! That’s my boyfriend! He said he was on his way.” Monica exclaims happily. “I can’t wait until you meet him, you’re going to love him.”

After she finishes her sentence, there’s a knock on her door. Brooke’s curious eyes wander to the door. Monica smiles as she runs over the door to open it. Once she opens it, a scarily familiar face walks through the door.

Kevin Duval walks into the house, hugging Monica Maddox.