all hers | tara carpenter x fem!reader

part 6

For as long as Tara could remember, she'd had this thing inside her.

This hot, horrible, blackout anger that lived in her bones. Lurking just under the surface. It left her in shivers, cold sweats. It left her aching, panting. There was nothing quite like it.

Her Dad used to call it "The Rage".

"Get a handle on The Rage, Tara." He'd warn before dropping her off at school, "Remember. It's just an emotion. Like any other emotion. You can control it."

He was wrong, Tara couldn't control it. No matter how hard she tried.

She couldn't control it the day Peter Millwood stole her crayons. She'd whacked him across the face with her ruler with all the might of a four year old girl. Might have done worse had Mrs. Parker not frog-marched her straight to the Principal's office.

She couldn't control it the night her older sister Sam had stolen her barbie when she was six. She'd wrapped her hands around Sam's throat, choking, choking, choking until Sam was screaming and her mother was prying her off and smacking her so hard over the backside it left angry, red welts for days.

Her childhood was scattered with incidents like that. Possessive. Child councilors had whispered to her father. Doesn't share well with others.

They'd prescribed therapy sessions, pills that made her so sleepy she couldn't concentrate in class. Her Dad hung up a poster on the back of her door; a picture of a thermometer. A sliding scale of five numbers: one, a little picture of a cartoon boy smiling, was happy. Five was a little old man, scowling and angry.

She'd gone to their sessions over and over. Their words in one ear and out the other. Nothing they said ever worked. "Five." She'd growled at her father in the backseat of the car on the way home from a soccer match. A girl from the other team had tried to take the ball from her. The coach had stopped Tara before she could tackle her to the ground.

"One." She'd announced happily sitting in the nurse's office after recess with a swollen hand. A boy much bigger than her had tried to bully her out of her lunch money. Tara had punched him square in the jaw.

Months flew by. Tara watched as her father turmoiled; no pill, no therapy session could fix her.

The night before Tara turned thirteen, her father walked out on them.

Sam blamed herself, but Tara knew the truth. It was her. It was the Rage. He'd spent every spare dime he had trying to fix her but it was impossible. She was a lost cause, after thirteen years, he'd finally figured it out.

Her mom seemed to think so too. She buried herself in work, business trips, vacations, boyfriends. Anything that kept her away from Woodsboro. Away from Tara.

Tara cried herself to sleep for two months straight the night he left.

The Rage had cost her a father, a mother and a sister. It wasn't what she wanted. She didn't like the things it made her do. It was like this thing inside of her that took over. Like a demon, swallowing her whole. It was angry, violent. It wanted to hurt.

And nothing or no-one could help her.

Sam moved out. Tara learned to spend her nights alone. She taught herself how to make simple foods, like pasta and steak. Her Dad hadn't taken much when he'd left, so Tara worked her way through his film collection. She didn't care much for the westerns, or the gangster flicks. She scrunched her nose up at the heist films and the rom-coms. But the horror movies? It was love at first sight.

She worked her way through the Halloween movies first. Then Nightmare on Elm Street. Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Finally, came the Stab movies.