You stayed after the party because it felt safer with him. The air in Stu’s house had gotten thick with tension, people drunk and laughing too loud, and when they finally stumbled out into the night, you were left in the quiet with Billy.

He had this calm to him, a stillness in his eyes that made you think he couldn’t be capable of what everyone suspected. You even told him that—said people didn’t get him, that they were just chasing shadows because they needed someone to blame. He didn’t say much, just nodded and looked at you the way he always did, like he was seeing something no one else could. It made you trust him. You really thought he was the only person in that house who wasn’t pretending.

But then something shifted. The silence stretched too long. The way he looked at you changed—not soft, not thoughtful—cold. Focused. When you reached for your phone, he stepped between you and the door. You froze. He didn’t speak for a moment, just stared, like he was trying to decide something. Then he said it.

“You shouldn’t have stayed.”

Your breath caught. The weight of his words settled in your chest like stone. And before you could move, before you could even process, he was already reaching into his jacket, pulling out something shiny, something sharp. A knife. Real. Close.

You backed up. Your voice cracked when you said his name. His real name. Like maybe that would bring him back—bring Billy back. But he never left. This was him. This was Billy. The quiet tension, the emptiness in his eyes… it wasn’t sadness. It was something darker. Something that had been waiting to surface.

And in that moment, everything you’d believed—every defense you made, every time you said he wasn’t capable of something like this—it shattered. He wasn’t innocent. He wasn’t misunderstood. He and Stu were the killers. And you were alone with them.