THE LEGACY OF MEMORY ; Scream

Prologue / A New Shade of Red

HER TREK UP to the Freeman household isn't one Ellie-Marie Riley believes she'll ever recall.

Maybe she isn't meant to. Maybe it's going to play a part in her recovery later, this step-by-step blockade that's forming in synchrony with the slow, measured steps she takes up these stairs. Maybe she's meant to forget what happens tonight, because whatever simmers in her veins at the moment is the furthest from who she is. What her memory plays back isn't reminders of how she has never wanted to hurt anyone, isn't how she promised her mother and aunt Sidney that she wouldn't do anything that could get her out in danger. It isn't even that one damning sentence, they wouldn't want you to get hurt.

No, it's Dad. It's how he wheezed her name, reaching for her despite the injuries she fears may still be fatal. It's auntie Abi, using her body as a shield when a fifth stab was aimed Ellie's way. It's how she knows now, knew the moment she checked Mom's location, that Amber Freeman was involved.

The door is open. In another headspace she may think more of it, but for the moment she walks to the repetition of Dad and Abi Dad and Abi Dad and Abi.

There's a crash from upstairs. She ignores it.

There's a plea in the kitchen.

She follows it.

The sight of Amber boils her from her veins to her bones, heating her from the inside out as she strides into the kitchen. Mom is here still, she registers faintly, aiming a gun towards Amber's head with the expression that typically makes Ellie-Marie wince in sympathy for whoever receives such hatred. At the moment, though, she knows she doesn't look any kinder.

"Ellie! Ellie, please," Amber starts, all pleading eyes and hands in the air like Ellie is somehow meant to believe her after all they have been through. "Please, I'm sorry. They don't know what they're saying, I swear, I'd never-"

The feeling of bone beneath Ellie's fist is deeply, deeply satisfying.

She feels bad somewhere in the distance of her soul, watching Amber's head whip around like a ragdoll thrown against a counter. She knows what she's doing isn't meant to feel good in this moment, isn't meant to make her feel the slightest relief in knowing Amber is about to receive a quarter of the pain that hospital hall wrought upon her family, but she doesn't care. She doesn't have the ability to.

Amber catches herself on the counter with a white-knuckling grip, head hung at an angle that pleads for Ellie's next move.

So she delivers.

The sound of Mom saying her name is a faraway thing. Ellie couldn't be paying less attention to her surroundings anymore, not waiting for Amber to recover from where she has found herself crumpling. Her fury is bitter and all-consuming with every rigid move, memories expanding from a slideshow to a full movie with each breath Amber manages to draw in. She doesn't know if she'll ever see her dad again. She doesn't know if she'll ever see her aunt again. She doesn't know if her final act for them was one of failure, and that's something that will never be forgiven. One more punch sends Amber to the floor and shocks her system into that animalistic rage that originally pulled her from that hospital bed.

Her core aches with stitches pulled in the sharp move she makes to lower herself, straddling Amber's hips with a force that surprises even her. The cold fury eating away at her bones brings her fists raining down on the face of the girl who looks more and more like a monster with each passing second, ignoring the nails clawing at her arms, ignoring the hands trying to pull at her shoulders. Amber could have taken everything. This may still be for nothing if her entire family hasn't made it. The potential to walk to an empty trailer or clean out an empty home remains. The imagery only fuels her fire.

She's gotta fucking pay.

It feels like blood is everywhere, like it soaks through the fabric of her clothes, sinking beneath her skin to pool with whoever she's believed she was this entire time. She feels dirty to her soul but she can't stop. She won't stop until Amber feels how it felt to have her heart ripped out and mutilated. She won't stop until the end of the Earth announces her reunion with her family. She won't stop, not even as she's pulled back by a second attempt to land on the floor. It encourages only a change.

One harsh shove to whoever is trying to get between her and her heart's killer is all Ellie spares before she is staggering to her feet, winding back before she can think twice, delivering a kick to Amber's ribs sharp enough to feel the break through her shoe. She doesn't bother to gather her balance before she is aiming for more, driving every ounce of the pain her family has been dealt into the feeling of Amber's bones breaking apart with each blow. There's nothing that can be done to save Dad and Abi from hours before. There's nothing that can be done if they don't make it through surgery. There's nothing that can be done if Amber got what she wanted at the end of the day, but she can guarantee Amber goes out in a pain similar to what she feels when she considers a world without them. Like every bone is being destroyed, like there is an enemy drenched in her blood, like she will never again see the daylight. Even if they make it through, the pain they endured is too much to expect anyone to ever entirely heal from. The attack killed a piece of each one of them, and until her entire heart comes back together to begin mending, she can't let it go unpunished.

One final kick to the temple, Amber's limp form rocking with the movement. The flash of her father when he was finally unable to beg for her. The feeling of her aunt's hand going limp in hers. One final kick to the temple isn't enough, isn't even close-

"Ellie?"

It's like the sun beaming through a hurricane.

The fog disbands around her mind when the voice, her voice, rings through the air. Her head lifts on what's become reflex, her shoulders loosen, her fists uncurl.

She's here. Standing in the doorway, supported on crutches with more relief than concern written on her face, she's here.

"Tara."