Finney stands outside in the dark. It's almost midnight, but he won't sleep. Because whenever he does, he's back on that mattress in that basement, waiting for those same damn footsteps down the stairs. Waiting for someone who's dead, who he's glad he kills and still wishes he hadn't have had to be the one to do it.

Leaning up against the side of the house, he hollows out his cheeks as he takes in a generous puff of smoke from the joint, exhaling. Finney knows Gwen, his younger sister, is worried. That she hates him smoking. Knows his dad can smell the weed on him and ignores it. Finney fucking knows, he knows because he's angry at himself. At that man who grabbed him, took him, killed his only best friend in the world and held him there.

And because of it he was different now. He would always be different.

But he wasn't Finney anymore. No, he was Finn, and he was the kid who killed a serial killer. He was the kid who was supposed to die, but didn't. He was the angry kid who came out swinging, who started out quiet, who fractured into pieces and burned them, watching the sharp edges melt into something molten and something so disfigured you couldn't recognize it, even if you tried. And believe you him, you tried.

You were the one who showed up late, when he was high and hearing ringing, seeing that masked face, and who took the joint from him. Who took a drag and reminded him that there were other screw-ups in town. Other angry kids.

It was exactly one of those nights. He was leaning up against his house, but was focused in the distance, at that phone booth down the street. His eyes were wide, flickering between the unlit booth and the bushes on the edge of the yard.

“If you touch me. I’ll scratch your face”

He mumbles. Like he’s speaking to someone. Outwardly, he doesn’t look scared. He looks angry, defiant. But you know what this is. This, after all, Is Finn, not Finney.

And Finn is still surviving.