The favor || ROS? ft Vsoo

"Rosé?" Lisa asked, tentatively, when her friend didn't speak for some time, "You alright?"

"I dunno," Rosé answered softly, as she moved out of the room toward the top of the stairs.

"What's wrong?"

She couldn't answer her. She wasn't sure why, but she didn't want to talk about the bizarre statue anymore. Indeed, she was growing increasingly cognizant of the fact that the only thing she really wanted to do was get out of the Kim' house. She couldn't articulate why she felt this growing need. Indeed, she was loath to utter the words, mostly because to utter the words was to make every suspicion taking root inside of her horrifyingly real.

"Rosé?" Lisa muttered again, "Rosé, answer me. You're starting to freak me out."

"Well, that makes two of us," she whispered finally.

"Why? What's going on? Why are you whispering?"

"I gotta let you go, alright?" Rosé answered softly, "I need to call Jisoo"

"Rosé," Lisa stalled, "Rosé, I swear if you don't tell me what the heck is going on."

"If I don't call you back in five minutes, I want you to call the cops and give them that address I gave you earlier."

"Rosé!" Lisa exploded, "What is going on over there?"

"I'm starting to think maybe that clown isn't a statue."

Lisa was going to say more, but Rosé had already hung up. Lisa stared at the phone in her hand, feeling helpless. She kept thinking about her friend's directive: call the police if she didn't hear from her in five minutes. Five minutes. Five minutes. Lives were won and lost in less time.

"I'm sorry, Rosé," Lisa croaked, shaking her head decisively, "but I can't do that."

A second later she was picking up her phone again and dialing 9-1-1.

"Hello?"

Rosé couldn't help noticing that Jisoo's voice was strangely agitated when she answered the phone.

"Jisoo?"

"Rosé we're on our way," Jisoo volunteered, "we should be there–"

"Jisoo," Rosé interrupted, "Jisoo, I need to ask you a question about that clown statue we were talking about earlier."

"Rosé, listen to me," Jisoos voice carried within it a tone of command and Rosé found herself unable to say more even though she wanted to, "Rosé, there is no clown statue. Do you understand me?"

"What...?" Rosé stepped backward, allowing herself to partially collapse against the cold metal of the refrigerator behind her, "What do you mean?"

"Rosé, listen to me," Jisoo's voice quivered slightly in spite of her efforts to keep her composure, "I need to you go upstairs and get Lillian. Do you understand me? I need you to go get her. I don't care if she'd asleep. Bring her outside and sit with her on the steps. We're less than ten minutes from the house."

"What's going on, jisoo?" Rosé's voice cracked somewhat as she choked out the question, even though her mind had already processed her situation.

"You need to get out of that house, Rosé. You need to get out of there right now."

As if pushed by some strange need for answers, She stepped forward woodenly and moved through the kitchen so that she could look all the way down the long hallway toward the library. And there, where the long corridor should have terminated in a closed, wooden door, there was a tall, dark, vertical rectangle. The door to the library was open.

Tears formed at the corners of Rosé's eyes almost immediately as the reality of her situation hit her like a steel fist to the stomach. That statue... the one that she'd investigated not once, but twice... the one she'd photographed... was not a statue. Suddenly, the whole train of events unfolded in her mind. The open window in the sunroom, the news report, all of it. And now, that madman, that escaped killer, that thing, was loose somewhere in the house... and Lillian lay sleeping upstairs completely unaware that danger was lurking so close beside her.

"He's in the house," Rosé whispered finally, "he's in the house... I dunno where he is, but he's in the house."

"You need to go upstairs and get our little girl, Rosé," Jisoo whimpered, her voice revealing plainly that she was teetering dangerously close to hysterics, "you need to get Lillian... you need to get her out of the house."

Rosé knew that she could not linger. If she hesitated for more than a moment, she knew she'd run from the house and never look back. In truth, her first instinct was to get herself to safety. She had no interest in climbing the stairs and moving down the long hallway to Lillian's room. She had no interest in spending another second within the walls of the Kim' house, let alone the precious moments it would take to make her way upstairs to rescue a child she hardly knew. Suddenly she felt her whole body seethe with resentment. After all, she wasn't even supposed to be there. This was Lisa's job. Lisa's. This is what I get for being nice, she mused. My father was right: no good deed goes unpunished.

Anger pulsed within her. Well, if this was what she had to do, she wasn't going to make it easy for anyone. She eyed the butcher block automatically. All the knives were in place. She reached over and grabbed the largest of them, gripping it tightly in her right hand. She was about to leave the kitchen, when it occurred to her that he might decide to use them as well. Without thinking more, she grabbed the whole block and shoved them into a nearby cabinet. At least she would know where they were if she needed them.

"I'm going upstairs now," Rosé muttered into the receiver without emotion. Rosé could hear Jisoo saying something, but she wasn't listening. She was trying to steel herself against her own terror. Then, without even saying goodbye, Rosé hung up the phone.

She moved out into the living room and opened the front door as wide as she could. Then she made sure every outside light was burning brightly in the driveway. She turned her back to the door and moved to face the staircase. Taking a deep breath, she focused her attention on her objective. She was going to run up those stairs and down that hallway with the speed of a gazelle, grab Lillian, and run out of there like her tail was on fire. She knew it wasn't much of a plan, but it was all she had.

A second later she was sprinting up the steps. She took them two by two, pausing only briefly to catch her breath at the top of the stairs. She was slightly relieved to see that the hall light was still burning brightly. Surely, if that creep had come this way he would have shrouded the area in darkness? She did not linger to contemplate the mind of a psychopath, she merely steadied herself before running full speed down the hallway. When she reached Lillian's door, she kicked it open wide. She hoped this move would scare the girl awake so that she wouldn't have to carry her down the hallway. But, it wasn't Lillian who got the scare. There, standing in the muted glow of the hall light, half-leaning over Lillian's fainting couch, was the statue of the clown come to life.

She wasn't able to process his presence there for an instant. She took in the cracked white paint on his face, the sloppy make-up on his eyes and lips, the tattered clothes, the nappy wig... and the dirty right hand clutching the little, plastic princess crown that Lillian had worn to bed that night.