SCARLETT. fear street (1994, 1978, 1666 )

ten. in another life

THE GIRL takes a bite off her cereal, watching as the morning news reported the incident from that night. Goode's pathetic face was plastered on the screen, along with the words of the reporter— "All is no longer good in Sunnyvale. New evidence continues to surface implicating Union County Sheriff Nicholas Goode the Sunnyvale serial killer. The family maintains they did not know Sheriff Goode's horrifying secret."

"Phoenix."

The voice makes her blood turn cold. She quickly eats what was left of her cheap cereal, wiping her mouth with her sleeve as she turns around to face the man. She was extremely scared, and the fact that the situation she was in right now was way more terrifying than the events of the other night spoke volumes. However, she did not want him to know that she was scared of him. "Yes, dad?"

"Police came to work," he started, while Phoenix prepared herself for the absolute worst. She still had a bunch of bandages from the event at the grocery store, and she wasn't that fond of needing more. "Told me about what happened with Goode."

But instead of getting a hit as she expected, her father said something else. "I knew him, you know."

"What?" Nixie asked this not because she didn't know this information yet (she knew very well that her father and Nick must've been together at Camp at one point) but she was confused at the fact that when she looked into his eyes, there wasn't any anger.

There was a concern.

"You know about Nightwing, right?" he questioned, taking a seat next to her. She visibly flinches, but he somehow doesn't see this. "I thought he was a good kid. Remember your Aunt Niki?"

Phoenix recalled the story Ziggy had told her, but she did nothing.

"Your Aunt Niki who died in Nightwing?"

"I know, Dad," she whispered, scooting away from the man. She knew that this was a sensitive topic for him.

However, he didn't do anything. He kept his eyes on the ground, taking a swig of his beer before speaking up after a few seconds.

"Hey, look." as she said this, he grabbed both of her shoulders gently, but her heart still thumped in her chest despite the change of attitude. "I know I'm hard on you sometimes."

She hummed. Hard wasn't even in the field of how he was to her.

"But I always see my sister in you, and it gets me a little tweaked, you know?"

He started chuckling, and Nixie forced herself to do the same thing.

"But you're a good kid." he paused, "And I love you."

Phoenix bit her lip softly. No, you don't. You don't hurt your daughter if you love her. You don't.

He suddenly wrapped her up in a hug, one she hadn't received ever since she was nine. It felt weird. It felt wrong. But she forced herself to hug him back, in fear that he would do something suddenly if she didn't.

"I love you too," she whispered, softly relaxing her body. Her father reeked of beer, and despite her heart telling her that she shouldn't feel comfortable in it, she did. Even if she knew that this moment would be forgotten in hours, she did.

She was just a girl, after all. A girl who desperately craved the comfort of her father's arms, even if it wasn't real.

...

For the first time in forever, Phoenix woke up way earlier than she was supposed to be, to be exact, six in the morning. The girl had always found comfort and solace in the feeling of adrenaline coursing through her veins whenever she would run late for school, but ever since Tommy the Nightwing Killer and Solomon Goode hanging her in a tree started appearing in her dreams disguised as a nightmare, she preferred to stay awake.