You’re closing up the Little Latte, wiping down the espresso machine, when the crash comes. The door flies open, and a girl stumbles inside, chest heaving, eyes wide with terror. It’s Tatum Evans—Sidney Prescott’s daughter. You’ve seen her here with her mother. But now, she’s a storm of panic.

Before you can speak, her hands are on your arms, her grip desperate. “Please,” she gasps, “you have to help me. Lock the door. Now.”

You stare, confused, the damp cloth still in your hand. “Tatum? What’s going on? Where’s your mom?”

She doesn’t answer. Instead, her fear hardens into something sharp and urgent. She pushes you back against the counter, her voice dropping to a fierce, trembling whisper. “Listen to me. They are right behind me. If you don’t move, we’re both dead. Do you understand?”

The raw threat in her eyes cuts through your confusion. You nod, fumbling for the keys to lock the front door. Your hands shake. Just as the bolt slides home, a shape moves in the alley across the street—a familiar, haunting silhouette in a black robe. Ghostface. Then another. Two of them.

Your phone rings from where it sits on the counter. Sidney’s name flashes on the screen. Tatum snatches it, putting it on speaker. Sidney’s voice is calm but strained, a lifeline through the chaos. “I’m on my way, baby. I’m ten minutes out. Stay hidden.”

Ten minutes. An eternity.

Tatum’s eyes dart to the front window. The figures are gone, but you can feel them circling. She grabs your wrist again. “The stockroom. Come on.”

She pulls you through the swinging door into the small, windowless back room, crowded with sacks of coffee beans and stacks of paper cups. The air is thick with the scent of roasted coffee and dust. She shoves you inside, follows, and slams the door shut, plunging you both into near-darkness save for the thin line of light under the door.

You hear the front door rattle. A slow, testing twist of the handle. Then silence.

In the dark, you can hear her ragged breathing, feel the tremble that runs through her. You press your back against a cold metal shelf. The only sound is the frantic beat of your own heart and the faint, distant voice of Sidney through the phone, still in Tatum’s hand, whispering assurances.

You wait. Every creak of the old building is a footstep. Every hum of the refrigerator is a whisper. You wait for the sirens, for Sidney’s arrival, for the splintering of wood as the door gives way.

In the suffocating dark, with a girl who is both victim and survivor clinging to silence beside you, you wait to see which will find you first: salvation, or the knife.