Lifeline

Shallow breathing is what Audrey woke up to- calm, even breaths. Her eyes opened slowly and she immediately was greeted by long red hair and soft pale skin. The sight brought a nice feeling and a sense of familiarity and she closed her eyes again. The morning sunlight was streaming through her bedroom window and she could still see it through her eyelids. The comfort of her bed was slowly pulling her back to sleep, but her eyes jerked back open when the girl next to her rolled over and wrapped her arms around Audrey's torso. Audrey took a deep breath and looked toward the window. The light coming through was warm, and it made Audrey feel comfortable. She was comfortable, and felt peaceful; but she knew that the safe feeling she had was a lie.

She was startled by her phone vibrating on her nightstand, and she leaned over to pick it up. The caller ID read "Noah" and Audrey sighed. The clock said 6:40 and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Class was in less than half an hour. She quickly answered and held the phone up to her ear.

"I know, I'm late, I know. I'm on my way, I swear. I woke up late, I'm coming." Were the words that came out of her mouth as she sat up, allowing Gina to roll off of her.

"Alright, I was just making sure you weren't dead or something." Noah said, and Audrey hung up without saying anything else. She swung her feet off the side of her mattress and she could feel Gina's glare boring into her back.

"Sorry, Sorry, babe, I'm late for school." Audrey said, and she stood up. Gina stood as well, grabbing her clothes off of Audrey's dresser and pulling on her sweatshirt. Audrey guessed she'd decided to go home, which was probably a good thing, in case her dad decided to come home for lunch. It probably wouldn't be good if he found Gina in Audrey's room when he hadn't previously known about it. There was a long silence while Audrey put clothes on, and then she turned to her girlfriend and wrapped her in a hug.

"Babe, don't be upset..." She said quietly, adopting a silly, almost whiny tone in her voice. She knew if she made Gina laugh, she'd be off the hook.

"I just wasn't ready to get up," Gina said shortly, and Audrey pressed a kiss to her cheek.

"I know, but I'll see you at work later, okay?" The short-haired girl replied, and she kissed her girlfriend on the cheek again. "Come on... Don't be all grumpy all day."

Gina didn't budge, and Audrey knew she had to leave, but she really didn't want to leave Gina feeling upset all day. She pulled away from their embrace and grabbed hold of the redhead's hand.

"I'll . . . buy you dinner?" She phrased it like a question. Gina shrugged, but smiled nonetheless. That had done it. Audrey did a little victory dance of sorts and then grabbed her keys. Gina was grinning now, and Audrey smiled back. God, how had she gotten so lucky? They walked out the door together, and Gina drove away first.

The whole way to school, Audrey's thoughts were filled with the tape she had been mailed, and what school was going to be like today now that she and Emma were aware that they still weren't safe.

_________________________________________________________

After school, Audrey waved 'bye' to her friends and got into her car. She then stopped and texted her dad to make sure he knew she wasn't going to be at home, and she ran to her house to change into her work clothes. On her way in the door, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed Gina. She answered almost immediately with a "hello?"

"Hey, I'm short on time, so I'm just gonna pick something up and then you and I can eat in the back before my shift starts- is that okay?" She asked, hoping that the answer would be yes.

"Yeah, that's fine. I'm already here, Joseph is ready for you to get here so he can leave." Gina replied. Audrey rolled her eyes.

"Well, he'd better get comfortable, because there's still forty-five minutes before my shift starts," she said while pulling a black t-shirt and her vest out of her closet.

"Okay, I'll see you in a minute," Gina said, and her voice was followed by a loud clang that Audrey assumed was Joseph dropping something, because there was a rather high-pitched scream right after. "And I have to go save Joseph from the popcorn machine again."

"Okay, I love you." Audrey said, chuckling lightly.

"Love you too." and Gina hung up.

Once Audrey got to the theater, she was met immediately by Joseph insisting that his shift was over, and Audrey stubbornly disagreed, and they argued for almost ten minutes before she got tired of it and just pushed past him toward the back room.

Audrey and Gina were eating and talking about their day when Audrey's phone suddenly rang in her pocket. A glance at the screen told her that it was Emma calling, and even though she wanted to answer, she opted not to. She silenced her phone, put it down on the little break room table, and continued listening to Gina explain how much she hated her college classes.

After Gina had gone home and the last screening had finally started, and Audrey was supposed to start cleaning up the equipment, she picked up her phone and called Emma back instead. Whatever she had called about had to have been important, because Emma Duval almost never called. She always texted, if she could. As soon as Emma answered, Audrey knew something wasn't right.

"Audrey." Was the first thing out of Emma's mouth.

"Em, what's going on? I'm at work- I couldn't answer earlier." Audrey only slightly lied. She was, in fact, at work; but she could've answered earlier. That wasn't important right now, though. She was getting increasingly worried about Emma with every passing second.

"I just- I just was expecting you to answer and when you didn't I freaked out a little, I guess. With all this that's happening, you know.

"Yeah, I know. The last screening's just started, so I have a little bit of a break. Was there something you needed, when you called?"

"Actually, I was just wondering if you wanted to hang out tomorrow- just us. No freaky serial killer stuff."

Audrey stopped for a second. Just them, nobody else. No distractions, nothing to keep her from losing herself in Emma Duval. It sounded nice, but scared her. She had a girlfriend- a girlfriend she loved. She couldn't keep thinking about Emma like this. But she couldn't help herself.

"Yeah, sure, yeah. I don't have work tomorrow- I'm off, so there shouldn't be a problem." She found herself smiling a little. She was hanging out with Emma again- finally. There shouldn't be any problems that arise. But that doesn't mean much.