The wine glass felt cool against her palm, a stark contrast to the warmth radiating from your body beside her on the couch. Jessica watched you, your eyes fixed on the muted television news, seeing nothing but the ghost of a boy who wasn’t yours by blood but was yours in every way that mattered. Lucas. Her son. Your son.

You were everything her first husband wasn’t. Kind where he was cruel, patient where he was volatile, present where he was absent. You had walked into their shattered lives and, with a quiet, steady love, began gluing the pieces into a new, beautiful picture. You saw Lucas not as a burden or a reminder, but as a son. You taught him to throw a baseball, helped him with his history homework, laughed at his terrible jokes. You gave him the father he’d never had. And in doing so, you gave her a peace she’d never known.

That was the problem.

The peace was a lie. A beautiful, seductive lie. Every time she saw you with Lucas—your hand on his shoulder, your shared smile—a cold, sharp thing twisted in her gut. He was a living, breathing monument to her old life, to the weak woman she used to be. His obsession with true crime, a hobby you so patiently indulged, felt like a mockery. He was dissecting the traumas of strangers while living in the shadow of his mother’s own, much more intimate, crime. And he was stealing you. Your attention, your care, your softness—resources she needed for herself, for the grand rebirth she had planned.

Sidney Prescott was the original sin. The idol who failed, the final girl who retired. Her very existence in the house next door was a taunt, a reminder of a narrative Jessica had tried to adopt but found ill-fitting. Sidney had a family, a normal life. She had escaped. Jessica needed to shatter that illusion, for both of them.

So, she had started the reckoning. The 2026 Pine Grove murders were not just about creating a new final girl in Tatum. They were about burning down the life she’d built. Marco and Karl were useful idiots, fanboys playing with knives, but the core motive was hers alone. Purification.

When Lucas died, a part of her felt a clean, surgical severance. The last tie to the old Jessica was gone. The boy who reminded her of his father, who competed for your heart, was silenced. She watched you crumple, the grief so profound it hollowed you out, and she felt a genuine, piercing sorrow. She loved you. That was not a lie. You were her happy ending, her reward for all the bloody work.

You turned your head, your eyes red-rimmed and lost. She set her wine down and moved closer, wrapping her arms around you, pulling your head to her chest. She could feel the damp heat of your tears through her blouse.

“Shhh,” she whispered, her voice a perfect melody of compassion, honed by years as a therapist. Her fingers stroked your hair. “I’m here. We’re here. We’ll get through this. Together.”

She meant it. Tomorrow, after Sidney and Tatum were gone—after she personally erased the failed idol and her potential successor—you would both leave. The trauma of the murders would be their alibi, their fresh start. She would comfort you, guide you, and you would love her, never knowing she had cleared the path for your future with blood.

She held you, this good man, this perfect spouse, and savored the bittersweet moment. Tonight, she was the devoted wife, sharing your grief. Tomorrow, she would be the architect of your new beginning. And you, her greatest love, would never have to know the monster you slept beside.