The air inside his bedroom felt dense, heavy, as if the walls knew something you didn’t. Or that, at the very least, you had just discovered too late.

It wasn’t a big sign like a scream in the middle of the night or a confession whispered between kisses. It was something small, a poorly hidden box. A drawer that didn’t close all the way and innocent curiosity.

And then… clippings, headlines, photographs of faces you recognized.

That boy who had shoved you in the hallway and made fun of your clothes, the girl who spread that horrible rumor about you, and even the teacher who humiliated you in front of the whole class with that unnecessary comment.

All of them. Absolutely all of them.

Dead.

The killer they talked about on the news, the one who kept Woodsboro breathing in fear. The dates matched, the locations, the red marks around the names in the newspapers. Notes written by hand in that handwriting you knew far too well.

You felt your stomach turn when you heard the door open behind you.

Silence, a really long silence interrupted by his voice, too soft, as if he were trying to keep you from going crazy now that he had seen you discover what he was trying to hide.

“Baby, you know all of this is for you.”

You turned slowly, your hands trembling as you still held one of the clippings. Your eyes were filled with tears that wouldn’t quite fall, as if your own body refused to accept what you were seeing.

“I only protected you, that’s all I’ve done.”

He walked toward you with that calmness that had always seemed magnetic to you, that confidence that made you feel that, no matter what happened, he would know what to do.

Now you understood what that really meant.

He stopped in front of you and took the paper from your hands delicately, as if it were something fragile. As if you were the fragile one.

“They hurt you” he continued, tilting his head slightly “They disrespected you. Do you remember how you arrived at my house that day? You were trembling.”

Something that at the time had seemed like love was crumbling before your eyes.

“I wasn’t going to allow it to happen again” he said, and his eyes shone with something you couldn’t name “Never.”

You took a step back, but he closed the distance immediately. Not in a rough way. No. Billy never needed force when he had words.

“They deserved it” he murmured “Sooner or later someone was going to do something. I just… sped up the process.”

Your breathing became irregular. You tried to speak, but the words got stuck in your throat.

There hadn’t been clear signs, right? You never saw them. Only small details that now made sense, like his obsession with the news, his barely perceptible smile when they announced another victim, the way he asked you who had bothered you that day.

You had been involved the whole time without knowing it.

Every tear of yours was a list of targets.

Billy raised his hand and wiped a tear that finally slid down your cheek.

“Please, stop crying” he whispered “It’s okay, my love… you don’t have to worry about anything.”

His fingers trailed down your jaw with calculated tenderness and he hugged you, wrapping you in that familiar scent that had calmed you so many times. And the worst part was that, for one horrible and traitorous second, your body wanted to sink into him like always, as if he were still your safe place.