002,  everyone is always connected

           AS CHAD walked Adelaide to her door, they both stopped for a moment. Chad watched as she pulled out her house key, unlocking the door.

After the group had got kicked out of the bar, Chad insisted he would take her home. Of course Adelaide accepted, seeing as after her interaction with Vance, she was a little on edge.

           "Stay safe, Adel." Chad farewelled as the brunette opened her door. stepping inside. "You too." She responded, watching as he sent her one last smile before walking away.

         She bit her lip, hoping the words that were on the tip of her tongue wouldn't escape, but they did.

            "Chad!" The boy span around, "Can you stay? Please?"

          Despite Adelaide being a strong woman, it didn't mean she wasn't scared that maybe Vance would turn up or even the killer.

           Chad hesitated for a moment, knowing he shouldn't, that maybe possibly this was all a set up and she was about to kill him.

             But he knew his Adelaide best. And he knew it wasn't her.

           As she trailed up the stairs, he followed after her. "There's some of your clothes in my wardrobe." Adelaide knew he knew where everything was in her room, so she didn't need to point it out.

             She grabbed a pair of pyjama shorts and a small top, before entering her bathroom to change.

         She accidentally slammed the door too hard, which caused it to bounce back, leaving it slightly adjacent.

           As Chad opened her wardrobe, he soon spotted a jumper of his he had been looking for for months.

            "I've been looking for th—" As Chad looked over his shoulder, he was greeted with Adelaide's bare back. His mouth opened slightly in shock.

             His eyes scanned over her body, watching as she pulled on her tank top. He pulled his eyes away, shaking the thoughts out of his head before simply grabbing a pair of shorts and a shirt.

             He quickly got changed, jumping onto Adelaide's bed.

            He had slept at her house, in her bed, with her by his side, countless times.

           Adelaide left the bathroom, letting out a yawn as she got into her bed, immediately snuggling into Chad's side like it was an instinct.

            He got under the covers, holding her close to his chest. "Everything's going to be okay, Adel." He placed a light kiss on the top of her head as she listened to his heart beat, forever feeling safe in his arms.

            He knew she was scared, because he knew her better than anyone.

✧˖*°࿐

            "Chad! Adelaide!" Adelaide's eyes fluttered open at the use of her name. "Adel!" Adelaide's eyes now focused, making her realise that Mindy was
stood in her room.

               Adelaide looked down, noticing Chad's head was now rested on her chest as he remained asleep.

               Adelaide lightly tapped the boys cheeks, as he left out a muffled groan, clearly trying to stay asleep.

            "Chad, wake up." Adelaide spoke, trying to pry his hands off of her waist, but his grip was to strong.

             "Chad, I swear to god!" Mindy shouted, causing the man to shoot up.

             Mindy gave her twin an overly innocent smile before speaking, "Get ready, love birds."

✧˖*°࿐

           Adelaide sat silent on the couch in the Meeks-Martin household, with her legs thrown across Chad's lap, whilst he drew circles on her thighs.

             Mindy had gathered together the whole group, including Dewey.

            Adelaide always felt out of place when she was around the infamous man, since her uncle was one of the dozen people who had tried to kill the man.

            "Woo, suspects." Mrs. Meeks entered the room, carrying a tray of food. "My brother would be so proud."

              "Hey, Martha." Dewey greeted as the woman pulled him in for a hug. "Dewey, hi! You look..." Martha was at a loss for words, and nobody could figure out if she meant it in a bad or good way.

            "How's the wife?" Martha questioned as Adelaide winced. "Okay, mom. We're good, thank you." Chad urged his mother to leave the room.

            "Alright, kids, have fun. Hi, Adel." Martha whispered her greeting as the brunette gave her a small wave.

              "I asked Mindy to call everybody here, because there's something I have to tell you." Sam began.

            She then informed the group of her relation to Billy Loomis, which freaked everyone out. But Adelaide wasn't bothered, seeing as she was related to a ghostface too. Maybe not the original, but still a sociopath. Though, what did confuse Adelaide was that Sam then further went on to say that the killer was someone within the group.

            "So let me get this straight. You're saying that you're the daughter of Billy Loomis and, what, that one of us is the killer?" Chad recapped.

            "The killer told me he knew my secret. He attacked Tara to lure me back here."

              "But then why immediately go and murder some douch-nozzle that was stalking Adel?" Chad questioned.

           "Why does it have to be one of us? What about Deputy Dewey here? Maybe he's the killer. No offence."

             "None taken, but what's my motive?"

              "You got stabbed a billion times, got dumped by your famous wife and crawled into a bottle. I think it's safe to say you're on the suspect list." Wes honestly voiced.

                "Well maybe your the killer, because that cut deep." Dewey leaned back in his chair, sighing.

            "That douche-nozzle is connected. I googled him, his mom is Leslie Macher. Stu Macher's sister." Amber commented.

             "So the first three attack are all on people related to the original killers." The dots began connecting as Mindy stood up.

               "Oh, my god. He's making a requel!" Everyone stared at the curly haired girl with a confused expression. "What?"

                "Or a legacyquel. Fans are tom on the terminology." Chad groaned, "Go, please speak english."

            "Okay, remember the Stab movie that came out last year?"

            "Oh, yeah! The one the Knives Out guy directed, right? I actually really liked that one." Adelaide voiced.

                  "Of course you did, you have terrible taste." Mindy looked over to Chad as she spoke. Chad flipped her off, understanding what she meant.

               "I hate you." Adelaide mumbled.

               "The point is, the hard-core Stab fans hated it. You go on 4chan and Dreadit, all they're talking about is how Stab 8 pissed on their childhoods. How they crammed in social commentary just to elevate it. How the main character's a Mary Sue!"

              "What's a Mary Sue?" Richie questioned. "You really don't want to know." Wes replied.

              "What's wrong with elevated horror? I mean, Jordan Peele fucking rules." Amber commented. "Obviously, but that's not Stab. Real Stab movies are meta slasher whodunnits, full stop."

                "Come on, its just a movie." Sam sighed. "No, it's not. To some people, the original is their favourite thing in the world. The movie that made them love horror. That mom or dad showed them when they were ten, that bonded them together. And God help anyone who slightly fucks with that special memory. Who makes a movie they think disrespects it. It sounds like our killer is writing his own version of Stab 8, but doing it as a requel."

               "Which is?" Dewey urged the girl to continue. "See, you can't just reboot a franchise from scratch anymore. The fans won't stand for it. Black Christmas, Child's Play, Flatliners... That shit doesn't work. But you can't just do a straight sequel, either. You got to build something new. But not too new, or the Internet goes bug-fucking nuts. It's gotta be part of an ongoing story line, even if the story shouldn't have been ongoing in the first place. New main characters, yes, but supported by and related to legacy characters. Not quite a reboot, not quite a sequel, like the new Halloween, Saw, Terminator, Jurassic Park, Ghostbusters, fuck, even Star Wars! It always, always goes back to the original!" Mindy grabbed the disk from the table, holding it up as it revealed the first Stab movie.

              "Are you telling me that i'm caught up in the middle of fan-fucking-fiction?" Sam hissed. "Not just in the middle, Sam. You're the star."

              "So, not to put too fine a point on it, but, according to requel rules, who's next?" Adelaide asked.

              "Going by the pattern, whoever it is has to be connected to someone that came before." Mindy's eyes glanced between Dewey and Adelaide.

             "I'm starting to regret coming." Dewey mumbled.

             "Jesus, my mom was a main character in one of them."

             "No one cares about the shitty, inferior sequels, Wes, you're safe. With Randy as our uncle, and Mickey as yours, we're all probably screwed." Mindy glanced over to Chad and Adelaide.

              "But you said nobody cares about the shitty, inferior sequels." Adelaide voiced. "Yeah, but your uncle was quite literally a ghost face. That's slightly different."

                 Adelaide let out a shaky breath as Chad kissed her shoulder, giving her some sign of reassurance.

               "Or you're the killer, and this whole elaborate monologue is just to cover your tracks."

               Mindy scoffed, "I think it's pretty clear who the killer is at this point."

              "Who?"

               "You. It makes perfect requel sense." Sam frowned at this accusation.

              "That actually does make a lot of sense." Adelaide hummed in agreement with the boy beside her.

               Sam glanced around, feeling betrayed at the fact they believed it could be her.

            "Fuck this." She spat, storming out of the room, with Richie following close behind.