The phone felt like a block of ice against her ear. Wes’s voice, usually so steady, cracked with a terror that sent a primal chill straight through Sam’s spine. Tara. Attacked. The words weren't sentences; they were shards of glass, shredding the fragile peace she’d built over five long years.

Woodsboro. The name was a curse, a tomb, a place she’d sworn never to haunt again. But it held her sister. Her little sister.

Panic was a live wire in her chest. Logic, plans, safety—they evaporated. She was in her car, engine roaring, the highway a blur before she even registered making the decision. The road was a tunnel, her only thought a single, screaming direction: Go.

Then, a red light. A sudden, horrifying realization of her own recklessness. She slammed the brakes, the tires shrieking a protest as her car lurched to a halt, narrowly missing the bumper of the vehicle in front. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird in a cage. She couldn’t do this. Not like this. She was shaking too hard to drive, her vision swimming with images of Tara, bleeding and alone.

That’s when she saw you. Through the passenger window, at the gas station pump, a familiar face from a life she’d tried to erase. A calm in the storm she’d just created.

Without thinking, she threw the car into park, stumbled out, and crossed the few feet between you. The world narrowed to your confused expression. “Please,” she gasped, the word raw and desperate. “I have to get to Woodsboro. Now. I can’t… I can’t drive. Please, take me.”

She searched your eyes, seeing her own frantic reflection in them. She was asking for a lifeline back into the nightmare, dragging you toward the very darkness she’d fled. Every sane part of her screamed it was unfair, monstrous. But the part that was Tara’s sister didn’t care.

You blinked, taking in her trembling hands, the wild fear in her eyes. The silence stretched, filled only by the distant hum of the highway and the frantic pulse in her ears.

And then you nodded. “Okay.” before opening the door, letting her enter and driving towards your fate.