prom queen ;; naomi's fate

She’s been a bystander to agony once before.

A girl sobs on a bench, drenched in malice and shame. Scarlet, much like what now soaks through the fabric of Grady’s shirt. She almost laughs, terrified and humorless, because they’ve ended up exactly where they started. At a shitty party where everyone’s too fucking drunk to keep up the charade that they even like each other.

She looks up toward Clara and blinks away the rotten visage of Cleo Burns, fingers small and shaking as she winds them in between her girlfriend’s. Not a ghost, warmer than the body she watched sway on a groaning rope as someone sewed her mouth shut. She is careful comfort as Naomi presses her lips to the pulse pounding in her wrist to remind herself that they are both alive.

She’s probably Naomi’s first love, though she’s yet to find the confidence to tell her as much.

Some day, though.

Hope burns.

"We need bandages, something to pack the wound - I’ll check the shed.” Call her a coward but running away is an act of self preservation. She can feel the memories clawing at her consciousness, desperate to drag her back into that twisted game. This monster must be so proud to have ruined her in every way imaginable, but she will not give them the satisfaction of coming undone in front of her classmates.

Their opinions have always mattered more than they should. Love is not always kind, love is sometimes more like desperation.

She offers Clara and Presley a smile before she turns away, lips aching as they often do these days. In another life she would have liked to know what it was like to kiss Clara without the scars.

The evening bears down upon upon her as she struggles to sift through an already ransacked shed. Solitude does not feel as dangerous as it once did, considering this killer seems to revel in leaving witnesses. Something tells her that if she were made this maniac's target, company might only serve as encouragement. Naomi won't pretend to understand the bastard's brand of cruelty as she'd hate to give them too much credit.

She's always had a secret stubborn streak, something she keeps close to her chest in fear of being judged. God, she can still feel their eyes on her even through the fucking walls.

Naomi does, however, let out an embarrassing shriek as she steps out of the shed and into a warm body. "Mav!?" His name escapes on an off-tune yelp before she even realizes she's recognized him. It's funny how easily a body can be coaxed into betraying it's owner - a sensation full of warmth and safety flooding her cheeks even as she glares up at the drunkard swaying in front of her.

She runs her hands down his arms, frantically checking for wounds or some other reason she would have found him standing outside the shed. The truth is as awful and complicated as Maverick has always been.

He was worried about her.

Grady was hurt.

Presley was still at the fire.

It's always been easier for him to run than to stay in place.

He's got a lighter, and they need to check the house for medical supplies.

Whatever answer he wrings out through slurred speech, Naomi figures it's as much of a truth as it is also a lie. All that really matters is he is here and refuses to let her be alone. And she loves him as much as she always has, silently and persistently.

Naomi's fingers only reach about halfway around Maverick's wrist as she turns toward the mansion. She thinks back to the street she, Mav, and Grady grew up on. As lonely and lifeless as this until they were all together. Why did they ever decide that magic was better off dead and buried? "You're so much better than you think you are." She tells him. Of course, Maverick doesn't ever want honesty but she's always had a habit of talking to fill the silence.

When they make it inside, Mav reveals that he doesn't actually have the promised lighter and she laughs. It's a wonderful, foolish feeling that she frantically clamps down on with her palm pressed over her lips. She's terrified, of course, but he's a false sense of security. "We'll be okay anyway."

They fumble through the downstairs, deaf and dumb and blind. She stubs her toes a couple of times and risks calling out to Mav whenever she sees a shape twisting eerily in the darkness. "There's nothing here, we'll have to check upstairs."

She glares up at the stairwell - sure they could turn back at any time but there's a good chance they're returning to two more corpses and she'd rather risk this grand unknown. "Maverick." She holds him close, arms wrapped around his middle and squeezing as tight as she can. Usually she'd hesitate, she'd wonder if he even wanted her so close. Usually she'd talk herself out of being so open, tears welling in the corners of her eyes as she tries to tell him how much he means to her in one, rushed embrace. "Be careful. This place might be haunted."

Hopefully he appreciates her attempt at irony.

Alas, they lose each other somewhere in the dim labyrinth of unfamiliar opulence. Naomi doesn't know when he disappeared from beside her, only that she is alone as she pushes open a door she hoped would lead to a bathroom full of first aid supplies.

Of course, that is not what she finds.

She wades through the darkness, hands stretched in front of her to keep from bashing her head against a wall. Something white around the edges flutters in front of her, she snatches it from mid air and brings it closer. Elaina, but not quite. A gory smile splitting her throat apart from ear to ear.

And behind that?

Death waits. Of course.

She hasn't been able to sing since the attack. The counselor called it a mental block, gave her a fancy diagnosis for her sudden inadequacy. Naomi didn't care much for the specifics, only that it was yet another thing that made her into a disappointment. She misses the warmth of the piano room and the way people would gather outside the door as though in a trance when she sang. Her one point of twisted pride, stolen by a creep in a dollar-store mask.

She's angry at herself for being pathetic. She's angry at Grady and Zeke for surviving long enough that she'd lead herself into ruin. She's angry at the life she's wasted and the rest of it that's just as useless now.

Lightning won't strike twice. She's not so lucky this time.

Still, Naomi fights with all she has. They both know it won't be enough, but she does not stop. She claws at whatever exposed skin she can reach, swiping out at the figure with the fire poker she'd picked up in the living room.

Her last breath fills her lungs full to burst.

She does not speak to her killer, they had taken her voice before and she will not waste it ever again.

Blood pools, an almost pleasant sensation as adrenaline turns the pain into something fuzzier.

She thinks of Maverick, now alone in the den of a killer.

He can make it out.

He can make sure they all escape.

Please. She prays to the earth and whatever comes after. Hear me.

For all her life, she's been overlooked. In her last moment she dares to hope that this time it will be different.

With all that's left of Naomi Valero, she screams.

At the top of her lungs, a fevered pitch.

She fucking screams.