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Shauna hasn't slept in weeks. The house is too big. Too quiet. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees them: Van bundled up in a rug, the picture of Lottie's corpse, Nat's terrified expression. Tai is her only teammate left, and she won't even look at Shauna now.
Bright headlights shining through the blinds jolt her back to reality. That's the sixth car in twenty minutes early on a Saturday. Significantly more than usual. She peers through the window. How long has that silver Toyota been parked across the street? She doesn't recognize it. Fuck.
She doesn't remember locking the door or turning the key in the ignition. But next thing she knows, she's outside of Misty Quigley's house, banging on her door with poorly restrained rage.
Misty looks as bad as Shauna feels. Her hair is greasy and deflated, with no sign of her usual nearly manic energy. Dark bags rest under her eyes. Even the fucking cat on her sweater looks depressed, framed by edgy leather.
Without a hint of emotion, she says, "You again?"
Shauna pushes past her into the living room. "Stop stalking me, Misty. Tell your boyfriend to stay away from my house or whatever it is you're having him do. Honestly, what is your fucking problem? Wasn't destroying my family enough for you?"
"If Walter is stalking you, it's of his own volition." Misty crosses her arms. "I want nothing to do with you. And you should be grateful I didn't turn your daughter in, considering she murdered our friend. You know, I should have gone to the police after she roofied me! Maybe then Lottie would still be alive!"
"Oh, please. Misty Fucking Quigley, mad about a little Rohypnol? We all—" She cuts herself off once she finally takes in the state of the living room.
There are cardboard boxes strewn haphazardly about and keepsakes sitting in piles on the floor. Trinkets and souvenirs, piles and piles of lint, old books and DVD players and magazines, every type of junk imaginable is spread out across the room. The house looks ransacked. An antique coffee table sits in the eye of the hurricane, the only surface left untouched from the Hoarders scene surrounding it. Shauna's brow furrows. Messy. That's not like Misty at all.
Misty keeps talking ("Sorry, remind me who cleaned up your poorly planned crime of passion?") but Shauna tunes her out, walks over to the box closest to the couch, and grabs a plastic card sitting on top of it.
It's small. One of those store-bought Valentine's cards kids pass out to their classmates out of obligation, because if they were to single anyone out, the teachers would get upset. Shauna remembers buying them for Callie when she was younger.
This one has an owl on the front with a little speech bubble saying, You're a hoot! She rolls her eyes and turns the card over. Familiar neat handwriting spells out To: Misty Quigley, with hearts dotting the i's.
Shauna knows what's written below before she reads it.
From: Jackie Taylor.
A decades-old conversation comes to mind. You have, like… boy handwriting, Shauna. No, don't get mad! Not in a messy way. Just, with the sharp angles and everything. It suits you. You're free-spirited like that, you know? Good at being yourself. But I need to write like a girl. Girl handwriting is pretty. With the round letters, and the little hearts… So I'm going to train myself to write nicer! My mom says it's totally possible. Handwriting isn't genetic or anything, it's learned.
She used to be better at compartmentalizing. Lock it all away. Move on, move on, move on, like Jeff always tells her. But after everything that's happened in the past few months, something boils to a head and bursts out of her, violent and angry and raw.
"What the fuck is this?" she hisses, waving the card in Misty's face.
Misty's eyes widen behind her glasses, and with her hands caught in the sleeves of her too-big leather jacket, worn over the same teal cat sweater that got her bullied back in middle school, she looks like a little kid. Lost and frightened in a way Shauna's never seen from her before.
"It's not—" she sputters. "I mean, I was just going through some keepsakes. Cleaning up."
"Why would you keep a shitty three decade old valentine? You're so weird. What's wrong with you?"
"I just… wanted something to remember her by. And, it's none of your business, anyways!"
Claws dig into Shauna's heart and send a jolt of raw possessive emotion through her veins. She feels like an animal. Starving and cold, and now comes along someone trying to steal the last morsel she has. "Did you like her?" she whisper-shouts. The words are too childish to capture the ache in her chest. "Have you spent the last thirty years hung up on her just because she gave you a store-bought card? You're such a creep! Leave us alone!"
Misty looks at her like she's sprouted not just a second but a third head. "What? I mean, sure, I had a crush on her in high school, but…" She gestures at her jacket. "I think it's pretty obvious that I found someone else." Her smirk is sad, pained. Masking sorrow with dry humor.
Shauna hadn't noticed. She'd never bothered to look. But it makes sense, the way the two of them always were. Misty following Nat around and accepting the verbal abuse with a smile when she would have made anyone else's life a living hell. Nat always making excuses for Misty. Defending her, almost. Shauna chooses to ignore the strange flash of jealousy.
"Poetic, isn't it, Shipman?" Misty continues. "We're both in love with our dead best friends."
Shauna scowls. "Don't call me that."
She realizes her mistake too late. She's shown weakness, and like a shark smelling blood, Misty bites down hard.
The fear is gone, replaced with a predatory glint. "Why not? You aren't going to change it back now that Jeff's gone? Funny. You married him to hold onto her, but he left too."
Shauna's hands ball into fists at her side. "Yeah? Look at you, in your stupid little jacket. Natalie threw herself on a syringe to get away from you. No one likes you, either."
"I don't have to take shit from you," Misty recites calmly. She doesn't even have the decency to look guilty. "You don't get it, and you never will. That's the difference between us. I moved on from Jackie. I know Nat never hated me. But you'll never get that closure, because you're obsessed with torturing yourself."
Shauna sees red. Stupid fucking Misty Quigley, with her ugly card and stupid jacket and lonely house, with her shitty loser boyfriend, with her self-righteous condescending superiority complex…
She's so smug about it. Always a pain in the ass. Always sticking her nose places it doesn't belong.
Misty tilts her head. Adjusts her glasses. "Can you leave now? Take the card, if you want. I was going to throw it away anyways."
The valentine falls to the ground. Shauna tramples it beneath her feet as she steps towards Misty. She flinches back, just slightly, but it's enough to make Shauna feel the phantom weight of a crown and the confidence it inspires. "Behave yourself."
"Or what? You can't stab me like you do your lovers. Who'd clean up the crime scene?"
With a single hand pressed firmly against Misty's chest, just below her neck, Shauna pushes her back onto the couch. Then she takes a step back to sit on the coffee table. It exaggerates their already noticeable height difference. They size each other up, and a memory is called to mind: a feast in the snow, Misty looking up at her just like this with a plate of meat, first choice reserved for a queen.
"Tell me about her."
"Who? Nat?"
"No." She doesn't want to think about Natalie, overdosing on the frozen forest floor. "Jackie. You said you had a crush on her. Why? Did you ever think about women that way, before her?"
Misty stares at her, apprehensive. Shauna doesn't know why everyone does that when Jackie comes up. It's not like she'll have a complete mental breakdown just hearing her name. Do they think saying it said out loud will be a harsh reminder, as though Jackie isn't everywhere anyways? She sees her in the color of Callie's hair. Feels her in the cold Jersey breeze. Every street in Wiskayok has a pair of ghosts haunting it, running hand-in-hand and blissfully unaware of the tragedy yet to come.
Sometimes Shauna thinks she's going crazy. Like maybe she just made her up, all those years ago, and everything she sees now is just a figment of her imagination. It takes other people saying her name to remind her that, no, there really was a Jackie Taylor, an individual who existed outside of the context of Shauna Shipman.
The fact that she could forget to begin with would make her teenaged self giddy. Now it just fills her with an empty sort of dread.
When Misty still doesn't respond, Shauna bites out, "Oh, so you only shut up when people want you to talk," which seems to piss Misty off enough to get Shauna what she wants.
"She was nice to me. Before… everything, she was the only one who was. I mean, I know we weren't friends, but she never made fun of me the way everyone else did. She listened to me, told me I was beautiful… No one else would have done that. She was special."
Shauna watches more than listens to her speak, rapt with almost animalistic focus. She feels her eyes start to burn, but she can't bring herself to close them, not if it raises the risk of missing it appear on Misty's face, in her posture, behind her words. "You didn't save her. You let her freeze."
The slightest hint of guilt passes over Misty's face. "Everyone did."
"Not everyone was in love with her."
Misty straightens her back. Her eyes sharpen while her brows furrow with just the slightest twinge of annoyance. There it is, Shauna thinks. "She didn't like me back," Misty says, like it's any justification.
She might claim to be over Jackie, but Shauna is intimately familiar with that tone of voice. She catches the way Misty's eyes dart downward for half a second, like she's afraid to make eye contact lest someone catch the anger, the bitterness. Never speak ill of the dead, keep all your regrets and damnations locked up tight, because now that she's gone she isn't yours anymore; she's a symbol, one you have to preserve for everyone who never saw beyond her mask. You can perform sadness, but nothing else. Nothing real.
Unnerved by the silence, Misty starts to ramble. "I mean, it's not like it matters, it was an accident, and motive doesn't change the reality of the outcome—"
That won't do. It breaks the illusion. She needs Misty weak, but focused. Present, but… quieter.
Shauna stands up and leans into Misty's space. Misty presses back into the couch instinctively. Good. Their faces are close enough for Misty to feel Shauna's breath when she whispers, "Don't fuck with me." Her hand moves up to just barely graze Misty's throat, and Shauna raises one knee to rest against the sofa and better box her in.
Misty's breath hitches.
She wraps her hand around Shauna's wrist in a vice grip. Holds it steady.
Her expression is eerily familiar. Soft brown eyes like a doe, widened in faux innocence. Betrayed by the slightest playful smirk she doesn't seem to notice.
When her eyes glance down to Shauna's lips for just a fraction of a second, it feels inevitable, equal parts calculated and instinctual. And as though they've practiced the choreography a million times, Shauna closes the gap.
It's not really a "kiss." More like consumption. Her teeth scrape Misty's bottom lip and she whimpers, so sweet and submissive; the power makes Shauna dizzy.
She crawls fully onto the couch and drops her hand to Misty's shoulder, holding her still as she mouths at her jaw. Misty digs her fingers into the back of Shauna's shoulders and pulls her closer. The sensation of nails leaving indents in her skin make Shauna shiver. It's been so long since she fucked someone physically smaller than her.
This angle is perfect. She can't see the details of Misty's face, but she can feel the warmth of her skin. Hear the soft gasps she can't mask. Glimpses blonde hair in her peripheral vision, just out of focus enough to hide how it curls.
"Shauna—" Misty whines, before Shauna shuts her up with her mouth. Shauna closes her eyes as Misty presses into her thigh, already desperate for friction. The fruity smell of her shampoo is so close to what Shauna needs it to be — she wouldn't even be surprised if it were the same brand and the only differences were slight changes to manufacturing practices implemented over the past two and a half decades.
Frustrated, she sucks on a spot behind Misty's ear that makes her squirm, if only to mask the way she buries her nose in Misty's curls. But it only makes the difference in perceived and expected scent that much more pronounced, and the texture of her hair is all wrong, and Shauna's face keeps bumping against the frame of her glasses…
She pulls away and takes in her handiwork. Misty looks a mess already, panting obnoxiously with her hair disheveled and face flushed. Shauna wants to mark her up and see bright purple bruises peek out from the edges of her teal sweater. But that stupid fucking jacket is in the way, mocking her, arrogant even as a ghost. Like she's rubbing it in Shauna's face that even Misty would choose her over Shauna. Misty, who never gave a shit about anyone but herself. Who stuck a syringe in the heart of the only person who even tried to tolerate her. Who couldn't keep a single person alive.
"Take that off," Shauna grumbles. "It's in the way. Here, I'll put it on," she adds, trying to be nice as she reaches out to start pulling it down Misty's arm.
Misty's demeanor changes on a dime. A hand slams into Shauna's chest, sending her tumbling to the floor; when she looks up Misty's face has paled dramatically. Her breaths grow shallower, lust replaced with panic, and her eyes dart around wildly when she snarls, "You don't get to wear it. You don't even deserve to touch it. It's not— It's not yours."
"Don't touch me," Shauna hisses. She stands up and takes a step back, giving Misty room to breathe. "What is wrong with you?"
Misty only shakes her head. "It's mine" are the only words she manages to choke out, clutching at the black leather hem of the jacket like it'll disintegrate the moment she lets go. She pulls her legs up so she's curled up in the corner of the couch, trembling like cornered prey.
It's a familiar single-minded possessive grief. The desire to hold it as property and stew in it forever.
Again, Shauna is shocked at just how much Misty cared. She didn't know she was capable of feeling anything at all quite so deeply.
Shauna starts to pace. "Oh my God. It's like dealing with Lottie all over again. Just… breathe. Pull yourself together." As much as she hates to admit it, she can understand the feeling. The sympathy burns, unpleasant and raw.
Eventually, Misty's breaths even out. She runs a hand over her arms, feeling the fabric under it, eyes scrunched tight. Then she opens them and finally takes in Shauna in front of her. She swallows, emotion Shauna can't quite name flitting across her face, before she hardens. "Upstairs," Misty says, something tired and distant in her voice.
"Are you sure? We don't have to…"
"I'm fine. Upstairs," she repeats, and stands on shaky legs to climb the stairs, leaving Shauna no choice but to follow.
She holds the door open and waits for Shauna to enter her bedroom. For some reason, she had been expecting something pink and garish — childish and unfathomably ancient at the same time, the way Misty always presented. Instead, it's surprisingly normal. A muted yellow, perfectly average furniture, and plain bedsheets. Like it came straight from a catalogue of normalcy. Somehow, it's more unnerving than if it had been full of plushies.
While Shauna takes in the room, Misty closes the door behind her. She slowly slides her jacket off. It seems to be difficult for her, both mentally and physically; the leather clings to her, tight against her arms, as though it doesn't want to leave her any more than she wants to take it off. But eventually gravity pulls it free. She hangs it on the doorknob, watches it droop limp and lifeless, and then sits on the side of the bed. "Now, where were we?"
Shauna isn't sure she's still in the mood. Misty's little episode had been a bit much. For a moment, she thinks it knocked some sense into her, convincing her to finally leave this bizarre mausoleum and retreat to the safety of isolation.
But then she follows Misty's gaze and finds it still locked onto the door, the jacket, like she's not even talking to Shauna anymore. It makes her angry, and for her, angry is only ever half a step away from really fucking turned on. Before she knows it, she's pushing Misty onto the bed and tossing her glasses onto the nightstand and pinning her down, claiming her mouth in a bruising kiss.
Misty's eyes flutter shut as she sighs into her mouth. She's somewhere else right now. Shauna knows from experience.
"How many times have you convinced a man to fuck you on this bed?" she whispers between kisses. Between bites. "How many times have you enjoyed it?"
Misty doesn't answer. Only slides her hands under Shauna's shirt to paw at her breasts, still looking somewhere past her.
Fine, then. Shauna grab the bottom of Misty's sweater and yanks up, taking her shirt with it. Misty pulls back to help. Once it's up past her tits, Shauna lets go while the knit teal-colored fabric is inside-out over her face and her arms are still trapped in the sleeves, raised over her head. Shauna pins her down by the wrists, leaving her restrained and effectively blindfolded. She squeaks, but the muffled sound quickly morphs into a moan once she takes a clothed nipple in her mouth and sucks.
"Shauna…"
Good. She wants to hear her own name in that breathy desperate whimper. There are no ghosts behind her. Only the one squirming half-naked underneath her. Shauna unbuttons Misty's jeans and slips a hand into her underwear, scoffing at the wetness she finds. She presses her palm rough against her clit and feels her buck against her hand, thrashing to try and get her head out from under the sweater.
Shauna slides one finger inside her. She's only starting slow because she assumes Misty doesn't get much action, but it has the added effect of taking her back to being young and hesitant, experimenting for the first time and telling herself it doesn't mean anything at all.
The memory is too soft. Too tender for what this is. She needs to remind herself that this isn't high school and the person under her isn't her best friend but a hardened killer. Misty doesn't deserve gentle and loving. And Shauna doesn't want that anymore either. They're both shells of the girls they used to be, violent and hungry and yearning for things that don't exist.
Just when she adds a second finger, Misty manages to break free. Not fully — one arm still trapped while the other flails desperately, sweater still covering her eyes but rucked up over her nose — but just enough for one hand to clamp down on Shauna's shoulder and drag her down on top of her. It throws her off guard just long enough for Misty to use her hand as a guide and sink her teeth into the meat of her bare shoulder.
Shauna recoils, the pain sharp and blinding. "You bitch," she hisses. Her fingers don't slow, but some prey-animal instinct tells her to fight back, stay alive and hurt what hurts her. Without fully registering what she's doing, she lets go of Misty's other arm and lets her hand slam into her jaw, her mouth.
She feels skin split under it, sticky red blood sticking to her palm. Her throat tightens. Her thrusts quicken.
Misty leans into Shauna's bloody hand as if hoping for another hit. Or she's just that desperate for any semblance of connection. She arches her back with a noise somewhere between a wail and a moan, clenching around Shauna's fingers. "Natalie," she sighs, a broken devout whimper. Her legs wrap around Shauna and pull her impossibly closer.
Misty wouldn't take that kind of abuse from anyone else, not even her or Lottie. Why Nat? Is it just the guilt or something more that compels her to do nothing but lick the blood off her own lips like it's a gift?
Still half-stuck in her sweater with what's soon to be a bruise forming on her face, she looks limp and broken, enough for Shauna to almost feel guilty. But she fucks her through it anyways. More gently, now. Until Misty's breathing evens out and she pushes her away, untangling herself from the sweater.
She looks different without her glasses. Sadder? Older? She stares at Shauna for a moment, impassive, before turning towards the jacket again. Now just in a bra and jeans halfway down her hips, she seems so vulnerable.
"Are… you okay?" Shauna offers, unsure how to reconcile this small and quiet Misty with the overeager sadist she's always known her to be. The kindness feels wrong, too, but what else can she do?
Misty blinks rapidly and turns away to grab her glasses. Her eyes look red. Shiny tearstains mark her cheeks. "Yes," she says. Voice steady and composed.
"…Okay. Well. Thanks." Shauna stands up to leave, but a hand grabs her wrist.
"Wait."
When she turns back around, everything is almost as it should be. Eyes bright and hungry, smile wide and cloying, everything about her visibly perking up at the first sign of attention. Like their seventeen-year-old equipment manager desperately looking to contribute to a team no one wanted her on. Gnawing on crumbs of affection like a wolf sucking the last drop of marrow out of a bone.
Her eyes are still unfocused. Glazed over, just a bit. There's blood on her teeth. From her lip or Shauna's shoulder, she isn't sure.
"Can I fuck you?" Misty asks with a tilt of her head. "I assume you get tired of doing all the work. And Nat never used to let me be on top," she adds after a brief pause.
It's pathetic. Pathetic. The guilt tripping. The desperation. As if Shauna is stupid enough to let Misty anywhere near her pussy again.
She pictures that same blunt enthusiasm in someone twenty-five years younger, trailing Jackie Taylor's shadow in high school hallways as if she'd ever give someone like her the time of day. She remembers the perfectly preserved old valentine crumpled downstairs on the living room floor.
The fact that she's giving Shauna the power to say no is hot. Her offering Shauna the opportunity to give her something Natalie can't is even hotter.
"Fine. Glasses off." She shrugs off her yellow flannel and tosses it at Misty. "Put that on. Be quiet. Make it fast and don't be weird."
Misty stares at the flannel, processing. After a second, realization dawns on her face. Shauna doesn't have time to react to that shit-eating grin before Misty says, "You can call me Shipman, if you want."
"What did I just fucking say?" Shauna grumbles. Still, she lets Misty push her on the bed and climb over her. Fists her hand in her hair and drags her lower, implication clear. Misty's hands tremble with eagerness when she unbuttons her pants and pulls them down.
"Is this okay?" Misty asks, breath warm against her underwear. It's a performance, obviously — Misty only cares about others when it benefits her own image. She's selfish to the core, only playing into Shauna's need for control to endear herself to her like the self-serving lapdog she is.
Shauna looks up at the ceiling. The mop of blonde curls between her legs is bright like a toxic frog. It makes her feel sick. Nauseous. Every instinct is telling her to kick her away. Those lips and teeth shouldn't be anywhere near her.
But with Misty out of sight, everything feels safely distant. This is all theatre. Misty isn't the person kneeling at her mercy. Shauna isn't the one waiting to be pleased.
She tightens her grip. "I told you. Make it fast."
And then Misty's fucking her hard and fast with her mouth on her clit, just like she needs it. Licking at her desperately like a mindless follower, hanging desperately on her every word, no care in the world beyond Shauna's wants. She shuts her eyes tight and focuses on the feeling of flannel brushing her bare legs, drifting into fantasy.
"Shit, fuck," she gasps. It would be embarrassing if she were herself, but she's not. She humps her face without any care for the person behind it, receiving no complaints. Good. She's perfect and docile. Utterly obsessed with her. She can string her along and use her, pathetic fucking Shipman…
She topples over the edge hard and fast with a loud, breathy moan.
As soon as she comes back to herself, the reality of what she's done hits her like a train. She pushes Misty off of her and stands on shaky legs, pulling her pants on as quickly as possible. Stupid, stupid…
Misty blinks at her. "You're leaving?"
Shauna hopes that Misty can only see her as a blur. "Give me my shirt back."
"Fine."
"This never happened." She buttons her flannel as quickly as possible,missing some buttons in the process.
"If you say so," Misty shrugs, self-satisfied grin still painted on her face.
"I mean it, Misty. We're not… This isn't…"
"No, we're not. You can leave now."
Her stare is calculating. Terrifying. "I am," Shauna grumbles, moving to the door. She hesitates over the doorknob for only a moment, then lets her hand settle over Nat's jacket. It slips to the carpeted floor when she turns the handle. Careful not to step on it, she leaves, not turning back.
She takes the steps one at a time, desperate to escape the empty house. Gets in her car and turns the key in the ignition. Leaves Misty with her ghosts, and returns to her own.