October 11th, 2013  – Original Lost Week Timeline

Max could feel the rigid confines of that chair beneath her, its sharp angles biting into her as its cold dug in deep. Her whole body ached, and she had no idea how long she had been here, but she had already thought this place left behind, abandoned in a previous reality. She was supposed to be in Blackwell now; was in Blackwell.

Yet here she set, that tape binding her wrists and ankles (at least one of them), wound so tight it felt as if the restraints were cutting off her circulation. In the grand scheme of things, those bindings were only a minor agitation — not like the drugs coursing through her system, slowing and fogging her thoughts, nor like the stinging and throbbing in her head. Had she been struck? She didn’t know, and without clearing those damned drugs out of her, she couldn’t shake the haze and focus enough to be certain. And even with all these thoughts — the worries about the drugs and what damage they were doing, about her head, and how she was even here, back in this room, about where Jefferson was and how long he planned to keep her alive — it was the constriction of those bindings that kept nagging at her, the pressure like an itch that she just couldn’t scratch. She glanced to each, taking in her bindings. She needed rip that tape, rip that tape and scratch that itch. It was an overpowering drive, but no, that wasn’t right.

None of this is right. You’re in Blackwell , she thought. Not here. Not again. Is this a memory? Am I still on that lawn?

She had to be there, there at Blackwell; not here, not back in the Dark Room. Everything looked just as it had, just as it had been on that night, which gave credence to the reliving a memory theory, which had to be what this was? Just some effed up PTSD hallucinatory nonsense, right? Yet the hallucination looked so real, smelled so real — felt so real.

Fuck. God, no… I’m back here, again?! (I can’t be.) I thought I fixed everything.

Her focus on reality shifted again. The light before her faded and a shape coalesced out of the white fog of memory( ? ): Jefferson leaned over her, his brows furrowed together above those god awful, look-how-hip-I-am, dark-rimmed and white-templed glasses.

“What did you say, Max?”

The white fog vanished completely, and there he stood, just a couple feet away, still in his slacks and his white button-up, with his sleeves rolled up and his arms crossed, standing almost as if he was ready to jump into another of his lectures. In a sense, he was, wasn’t he?

What? Jefferson should be in jail (yes, jail), not here.

“Jesus. It’s like you’re back in my class. You’re still spacing out.” He leaned over, his face pressing so close to Max, she could feel his breath tickling at her hair and she wanted to pull it out, to burn it, to rid herself of everything that any part of him, any particle of him touched. “It might be cool,” he continued pushing back into his disapproving professor stance, “if you took one of your patented selfie’s now…”

She couldn’t look at him. Her eyes wandered searching for some escape but still true focus eluded her. Everything at a distance might as well have been blurred, so she tested the routes close at hand instead. She pulled once more at her restraints, ever so gently so as not to catch the psychopath’s attention.

“…the transformation between the old Max and the new Max…” he continued.

Let him ramble. Her arms were still bound. Yes, she knew that; that itch that she couldn’t reach, that adhesive digging at her skin. Her ankles however, one of them had give. She didn’t know what advantage that might be ( yanking the cable ), but maybe it was something. Careful not to alert Jefferson to her movements, she shifted back into place; a proper prisoner bound and immobile as he wanted.

“…Anyway,” he leaned forward again, his oh-so-hip stubbled face pressing so close to hers as he waved his hands at her for emphasis. Shit, those are latex gloves he’s wearing. She could smell that rotten mix of chemicals and a cloying hint of vanilla mixed with the stench of his hot breath. “Answer my question please,” he finished, emphasizing each syllable with his gloved hand (and the connotations that came with that glove). How many girls had he tortured here? How many before coming to Arcadia Bay? How many binders had she and Chloe found? Chloe, who this bastard had shot and killed.

“Eat shit and die,” she said forcing herself forward into his face, seizing what little power and control she had in this situation. This psychotic ass had stolen Chloe away from her. He wanted to watch her innocence die; he wanted to bathe in her fear. Fuck that. She wouldn’t show him fear. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. And yet, she could feel herself trembling? She didn’t appear to be trembling. Why did she feel like she was? And where was the smell of grass coming from, and that warmth on her skin, not of his rancid breath, but of an all over dappled heat.

“Something’s wrong. What did you do!?” It was a girl’s voice, but Max couldn’t place it and Jefferson seemed to pay it no mind, rocking back to his full height, his voice almost smiling as he applauded Max.

“Good answer. Good answer.” Didn’t he hear her?

“I don’t know. Max!” Another voice cried out for her, but it was just as formless as the one that had preceded it. It didn’t exist here. Only Jefferson and the Dark Room.

Yet the room wavered. A tree sprouted through one of the nearby speed lights, and a squirrel dashed over the couch behind Jefferson; and the darkness, it was retreating, fading beneath a great, warm light from above.

Suddenly, Max could taste the blood in her mouth, two rivulets trickling down from her nose. Instantly, Jefferson was there, reaching those horrible gloved hands to her face.

“Hey, your nose is bleeding.” She tried to dodge those hands, to wiggle her head away from his grasp, but it was no use. Those sterile, gloved hands clutched the sides of her face firmly as he leaned in to examine her, his thumb brushing the blood from just above her lips.

At his touch, those other voices, the girls’ voices vanished. Max heard a soft pop not so much of a banging, not an explosion of presence, but more an implosion in absence, as if all those background sounds that make up the daily soundtrack but that are never noticed, just ceased — or in this case half of them. It was like something natural had died and all that was left was the mechanical hum of the bunker. More, in that implosion all the intrusions vanished as well, the squirrel disappearing mid-leap and the tree retreating from trunk to root, until once more the Dark was as it had been.

And still his fingers danced across her cheeks, his thumb rubbing just above her lips. Just a little closer and she’d bite that damned thumb, do what damage she could. “Probably gave you too big of a dose,” he continued, and rose once more.

“Sorry about that, Max…” he said, the false concern and sympathy dripping from him with every word. “But, considering you’re about to die, a nosebleed is a first-world problem.”

The lights flickered and Max turned away from him, looking over her shoulder towards the nearest speed light and the shadow at its base; at the absence, a different unique absence, before it. Something was supposed to be there. Someone…

“Oh, I had to let Victoria Chase go.”

Almost instinctively, Max returned her gaze to Jefferson as he spoke ( Jefferson, not Mr. Jefferson, not Mark; never again. ) He was implying something. Victoria, Victoria had been there. Now she was gone… Let go?

“You let her —” Max started, but Jefferson’s rage cut her off instantly.

“Don’t be stupid, okay? She’s exactly where she deserves to be.”

“No…” She couldn’t be. It was Max’s fault she’d sought safety in Jefferson. It was her fault that Victoria had been caught; but that still wasn’t right. Victoria was right there… At Blackwell. In that little nook above the breezeway. She had just been with her… Hadn’t she?

“Oh, as if you care,” Jefferson said, his tone clearly demonstrating how little he believed Max felt for his latest victim. She did care, though, didn’t she? She had. She knew that she had. Did she still? So much had changed. Or had it? Was she still here? Did she ever really leave this room?

She blinked, frozen in place, trying to clear her head. To sort past from present from future; when from where. It didn’t make sense; but this man, this man had been the cause of it, hadn’t he? He’s the one that had manipulated Nathan. He’s the one that ultimately caused Rachel’s death. Caused Chloe’s death — in the bathroom and there by Rachel’s grave. He was the monster here, the big, bad boogeyman hiding in the dark.

She lifted her eyes up to this looming monster. She would look darkness in the eyes. ( No, no, you can’t.) She would stare into that void, and she would consume it. ( Run, you have to run. ) She would destroy it. ( No, You can’t be here anymore.) She could do this. ( couldn’t… he’ll devour you, warp you, leave you unrecognizable. ) She was strong enough ( broken, utterly broken ). For Chloe she could be ( For Chloe. ).

“Your iris,” he said, leaning in for a closer look. “That… dilation like a shutter… the pictures you’re taking of me now. Too bad you pissed away your gift. You could’ve won the contest, but you destroyed your own beautiful photograph. What a waste.”

He hung his head as if ashamed of his star pupil, then gestured toward the nearby rolling rack. “Sorry. I burned all your stuff. I got a little carried away.”

Following the implied line of his gesture ( ha, there’s that implied line, Principal Wells. Too bad I can’t take this picture. Ha. Why am I laughing? What implied line? What assignment… Why does my head hurt so… ), Max looked towards the rolling rack. The remnants of her diary, nothing more than ash, lay in a burnt heap at the bottom of a developing pan.

Fuck! He burned my diary! That’s why I’m still here (is it?).

He’d been saying something else, but she didn’t care. She missed it in the haze. Too many drugs. Too many thoughts. Too many whens and nows.

“… especially,” he continued on from that lost rant, “since you’ve developed from nerd to hero within a week.” ( And back again — there and back, again — nerd to hero to nerd. Or is it more just loser now… the broken, deranged hipster of Blackwell )

“There’s something…” he started, pausing as if searching for the right word. “…weird going on with you,” he finished.

The lights flickered again, more intensely this time. Max could feel the breeze against her cheeks, and she could smell the fresh air. A bush flickered into existence just beyond the discarded rolling rack, and the darkness was fading again.

“Max, can you hear me? Max?”

( Hello formless voice, the now-her thought. What are you doing here? )

“Taylor,” that voice continued, desperate and pleading. “Taylor, what do I do?”

“I don’t know,” the other voice ( why are there so many bodiless voices ) returned. “Courtney… I sent Courtney —“

“Courtney’s about as useful as  —”

“Whoa!” ( Oh, that’s a proper voice, the now-her realized. His voice. It has body and form. And terror. ) “Did you see how crazy it is outside?” Jefferson chuckled then leaned in close to Max’s dazed form again. As his breath choked her, the darkness sped back in, the bush turned to dust and the dust to nothingness, and the voices died on the lifeless breeze that was no more. “Like I said… something weird.”

Max couldn’t focus. Were the drugs kicking back in? Was this a delayed effect, or had her photo jump given her strength over the drugs for a time, a strength that now waned. He was so close, this monster, this murderer. She could feel the violent echoes of his touch all over her, taste the salt of his sweat, and the smell of rot on his lungs.

“There’s that fear,” he said, studying her face as if studying a masterpiece of art. “Oh, Max… it’s an honor working with you on these final sessions. I hope these images will be appreciated for what they truly capture. The loss… of youth.” He paused, then as if basking in his own genius; both a psychopath and a narcissist; though the two went hand in hand. He chuckled surveying his work. “At least… that’s the last lecture you’ll ever have to hear from me. And I promise you, no more nosebleeds.”

This was it. He was going to kill her. He was going to get the final dose, and that would be that. Her life would be over ( and I can join Chloe ). She’d be dead, just more fertilizer for the soil, just dust and bone and rot, so much rot, like Rachel. ( Chloe, doesn’t want me dead. Not me or anyone in the Bay — save for maybe Jeffer-Shit and Prick-Scott. ) There was nothing that she could do. Not with her hands bound, with that damn tape strangling her wrists. Nothing but plead, as powerless as it was; as much as the groveling would feed his narcissism; his deranged vanity. She had to do it, much as it sickened her.

“Mr. Jefferson,” she said, her voice breaking — her strength and anger vanishing in desperation. “Please… don’t do this. You don’t know what’s happening.”

“Shh-shhh… Quiet,” he said, his latexed hand shushing her, that chlorinated vanilla stealing over her. “Quiet, Max.”

“Max!” That bodiless voice yelled at her again. It was louder now. She could feel the heat of flesh against her cheeks, and a great pressure on either side of her face. “Oh God, Max, wake up!”

Jefferson turned, walking away from her, taking all hope with him. How could he be both hope and despair, her only chance, and yet the instrument of such wrong?

“Please…” she begged. “Don’t do this!”

“I’m sorry,” the bodiless voice continued, and it was so desperate now, begging as she had begged; pleading and broken, and a great white light overtook her and she could feel the heat on her face, on her lips, and the breeze, as the dark room vanished, and that great white overexposure blinded out all else. She was gone.

The Dark Room was gone.

It was gone. She was gone.

Max was gone.

Dec 2, 2013 – First Choice Timeline

Max was gone. Victoria knelt beside her, one hand cupping Max’s cheek, but she couldn’t reach her. Max wasn’t there, not in that moment with Victoria. She was somewhere else, somewhen else, and Victoria didn’t know how to bring her back.

“I’m sorry,” Victoria said, her voice cracking. She didn’t mean to do this. All she had wanted was for Max to take a photo, any photo, just one damn photo. The girl had been imploding ever since that Price girl got herself shot in the bathroom. Victoria’s best friend, Nathan Prescott, had snapped and shot her, and in the process he had destroyed the lives of the most gifted photographers in Blackwell other than herself: his own life and Max Caulfield’s life.

Victoria couldn’t fix Nathan. She couldn’t even face him now, not knowing what he had done; how he had killed Rachel Amber, how he had aided Jefferson, how he had killed Chloe Price. He had called her since being released on Tuesday – a lot – but she never answered. How could she?

She should have seen it coming. She should have understood that he needed help. She had been his best friend and she’d noticed his manic behavior, but she had chalked it up to just the usual stress with his overbearing father. Now… now, she just didn’t know. Had he always been broken?

It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she had to undue her role in this psychotic teen melodrama. She’d apologized to Kate; she’d made good with the girl the best that she could, and Kate had forgiven her. If she hadn’t, then Victoria doubted that she would have been able to keep going with any measure of sanity.

Yet, no matter how many times she’d pulled Max aside and tried to get her to stop her self-destructive spiral, that girl still seemed to be on a crash course with the gutter, her life spiraling and falling completely apart. Victoria hadn’t pulled that trigger; she hadn’t placed Max in that bathroom to watch Nathan kill her childhood friend ( her best friend, that’s what Taylor said, little sense as that makes ), yet she hadn’t gone easy on the girl either. Her hipster nonsense drove Victoria up the wall; her little shy, retro, nerd girl persona grated at her. How could she care so little about what others thought? Worse, how could she be so oblivious to her talent, talent that she’d been wasting even before Nathan destroyed her will to go on? It made no sense, and so she had targeted her, ridiculing her and harassing her and for what? What had she really gained? Now, for her own small part in Max’s torment, she had to make this right.

And that’s all she’d wanted. Max hadn’t snapped a photo in nearly two months. She’d practically been in love with that Polaraoid camera of hers before all hell broke loose in Blackwell. Now, she never even took out her camera unless it was to set it unused on her desk in Photography. Victoria just needed to know that Nathan hadn’t forever robbed that passion from her. Max was simply too talented to let that gift be taken away forever; especially without even putting up a fight for it.

Just a few photos to remind her of that passion, a few snaps of that silly old camera, that’s all Victoria had intended. Sure, Kate and Dana had been helping Max, but they were both too soft – unwilling to accept that their friend’s tenure at Blackwell balanced on a precipice, and soon there would be no coming back. So, skipping out on the one and only graded assignment that they’d even been assigned since that October afternoon, that had been the last straw. Victoria had needed Max to take that camera in her hands, again. She’d needed her to take any photo, even one of her damn, narcissistic, analog selfies. Whatever. Just something. Something to show that she still could.

Now, Victoria could barely look at what she had done.

Max sat, knees hugged to her chest, rocking against the brick wall of Blackwell, a deep trail of silent tears drenching her cheeks, and —

— and a bloody nose?

Victoria tilted Max’s face up towards her own with that hand on her cheek.

“Hey,” she said, just talking to Max, saying anything to try to bring the girl back to the present. “Your nose is bleeding.” With her other hand she grasped at Max’s other cheek, Max squirming as if to evade her grasp.

“Sh-shhh…” Victoria whispered, trying to calm her. “Quiet. Quiet, Max.”

Max’s struggling had stilled and Victoria gently thumbed at the blood pooling just above Max’s lips, wiping it away. Why had she told Max to be quiet? She hadn’t been talking, just sort of wiggling her face from her hands; yet the words had come to her. Victoria winced and swallowed away the thought. There were more important matters right now.

“It’s okay, Max,” she whispered, trying to make her voice as soft and soothing as possible. The girl trembled beneath her hands, literally trembled. Shit. You always have to take the direct approach, don’t you? Yet what other choice did she have? Whatever Kate and Dana had been up to, that sure as hell wasn’t working either.

Wait a second. Victoria froze. Max’s eyes still shone with that glassy, dazed look that they’d taken on the moment Victoria had made her snap that selfie, yet, there was recognition there now. Max was looking straight at her.

“Max, Max, can you hear me?”

Max simply stared forward, unblinking, but there was a life there now, wasn’t there? Victoria wasn’t imagining it. No.

“Taylor,” she called. “I think she’s back.” She turned her attention once more to the hipster whose face she still held cupped in her own hands. “You see me, right? You’re here with us, now? Yes?”

Max just trembled, those tears still flowing; not even a hint revealed itself of the slightest inclination to speak. Yet, Victoria knew she saw life in those eyes.

Taylor had stepped closer, glancing over Victoria’s shoulder, and had now resumed pacing behind her. “What did we do… what did we do…” the girl mumbled, biting at her nails. “What did we do…”

Maybe she doesn’t see it, Victoria thought; yet she knew what she had seen. She’d seen that spark come back. She’d seen so much more, too. Seen and heard. She’d heard Max mention Jefferson.

“Mr. Jefferson… Please… don’t do this. You don’t know what’s happening?”

Her soft, desperate voice kept playing, looping in her head, and Victoria couldn’t shut it out. Things were so much worse than she had realized; so much fucking worse.

And what was happening, Max? Were you just pleading with him, or is there something else or someone else mixed up in all of this? 

As Max sat there rocking and trembling and uttering that name, Victoria had been able to picture him clear as day, him and his fashionable stubble and his stupid, messy hipster hair that she used to find so attractive. Now that image repulsed her, his smug little face making her want to retch. And that voice, she could almost hear him, a faint whisper, taunting Max.

“Whoa! Did you see how crazy it is outside? Like I said… something weird.”

He’d paused then, the words carried away, just Victoria’s imagination, right? Then, there came his voice again, an echo carried on gentle eddies of wind.

“There’s that fear. Oh, Max… it’s an honor working with you on these final sessions.”

Why had those words come to her? She’d never heard them. They’d just wrapped around her in his sickening voice, slithering in with the breeze as she clung to Max, as she tried to stir the girl back from her panic. It had to be her imagination, yet, it had almost been as if Max was reacting to those whispers of the wind, recoiling and trembling in concert with the misty threats.

“Can you answer me, Max?” Victoria tried again. “Taylor and I are right here. You see me, right?”

At last, Max nodded her head. Thank fuck! She’s finally responding.

“Good, good. That’s great, Max.” Just keep saying her name. Keep calling her back.

Behind her, Taylor’s pacing had not let up in the slightest. “What did we do… what did we do…” whispered over and over in some desperate mantra.

Fuck! Someone besides me hold it together.

“Just stop pacing for a damn second!”

Victoria lightly squeezed Max’s face in an act of soft reassurance, forcing the girl to look her in the eyes. “Max, I’ll be right back. Will you be okay?”

Max said nothing. She did nothing. She just kept staring.

Well, it’s not a no. That’ll have to be good enough.

Victoria rose to her feat, pivoted on her heel, and immediately reached out, grabbing her best friend, and bringing her to a sudden halt, even her mumbled mantra ceasing. “Taylor, you didn’t do anything, okay?”

“But – ”

“But nothing, look at me.”

Taylor froze in Victoria’s hands, and Victoria paused, making sure that the girl was completely focused on her, before starting again. Once she was certain that Taylor had given her her undivided attention, Victoria spoke slowly and clearly, enunciating each word with as much force and conviction as she could muster.

“You. Didn’t. Do. Anything.”

Victoria seemed to be getting through to her friend, but she continued, nonetheless. Taylor had always suffered from anxiety, but right now Victoria needed her to snap out of it, so she could give Max her undivided attention. “This here,” she continued, “this was all me.”

“But – ”

“Not hearing it, Taylor. All me. You tried to stop me. Now, I need to help Max. So here. Take this.” Victoria handed Taylor Max’s camera. She hesitated, then handed Taylor Max’s cigarettes as well. “These too, I guess.” After what she had just seen, she couldn’t really blame the girl at the moment. “Now, tidy up her things and pack up her bag, while I look to Max, okay?”

“Okay.” Finally, Taylor seemed to regain some measure of focus. Good, good. One less person for Victoria to deal with. Taylor had something to do now, and Victoria could put all her attention back where it belonged — with the girl that she had just tortured into an absolute mental breakdown.

Kneeling back down beside the trembling girl, Victoria brushed her hand over Max’s hair, then tilted her face up, so that they locked eyes once more. Max shook harder at the touch, at the way Victoria had just angled her face up by the chin, and suddenly an unbidden image forced its way into Victoria’s subconscious — an image of Jefferson doing much the same, a gloved hand tilting Max’s face towards his. Victoria let her hand drift away at the unwanted imagery.

“Max, are you okay? Can you stand up?”

Max rocked back and forth, that terrible trembling still overtaking her, those glassy eyes, still staring but not responding.

“Please, Max. Can you stand?”

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Max shook her head. That light sobbing returned and new trails of tears carved their way through the salty remnants of tears past.

“I’m so sorry, Max. I… I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?” Crap. Now she shows up.

Victoria looked back over her shoulder and up to a very angry cheerleader. Why was Dana in her full cheer uniform?

“Practice was just starting,” Dana said, clearly reading the question written in Victoria’s puzzled expression. “You didn’t know what?”

Kate and Courtney turned the bend as Victoria stood to face Dana, but before anymore could be said, Victoria’s shift, revealed Max’s sobbing form pressed back up against the wall, still hugging herself tight in that curled up little ball.

“Jesus,” Dana gasped, pushing past Victoria. “What the fuck did you do to her?”

Victoria needed to tell her. She knew that. Max needed help; real help that she was not getting. Victoria needed to tell Dana that she had triggered some sort of flashback. That’s what it was; Victoria was certain of it — some sort of PTSD hallucination. She’d read about it, back when the school hired Mr. Madsen to replace Skip. She’d stolen a look at the new head of security’s personnel file, looking for future leverage and she discovered an ex-soldier recovering from the horrors of war. She’d done her research after that, but she’d never thought she’d see anything like this in one of her fellow students. Mr. Madsen had been a soldier. PTSD made sense… but Max…

Yet, there was no denying it. She had to tell Dana… Dana or Kate; someone who might actually be able to get the girl help.

“Victoria. What didn’t you know?” Dana again.

Victoria looked back to Max. Dana was hovering over her, glaring Victoria’s way, while Kate had knelt down beside her, stroking Max’s hair and whispering soft assurances. Max, however, she had eyes for neither of them. Her gaze held frozen, locked squarely on Victoria.

And there was something new in those eyes. They still held a hint of fear, but there was a pleading there now, as well, as if begging Victoria, begging her to keep quiet. Max shook her head, ever so slightly, her gaze never wavering. Fuck , Victoria thought. What have I gotten myself into?

She wanted to tell the girls’ friends; she wanted to wipe her hands clean of this; but it wasn’t her story to tell; it wasn’t Victoria’s place to reveal this secret, and Max seemed so desperate to keep it hidden.

“I didn’t know,” Victoria started, searching, looking for a way out. Any way out. “I didn’t know how bad it was.” Playing dumb it is. “How bad Chloe and Nathan had shaken her up. I just… I thought she was milking it, I guess.” Dumb and mean. They’ll buy that.

“Milking it!” Dana practically erupted in rage. Great. Focus on that. Focus on the mean girl. Don’t see what I saw. “She saw her friend shot and killed and you thought she was milking it for attention! Go to hell, Victoria!”

She should say something. Normally if someone spoke to her like that, Victoria would have been right back at the girl, spitting venom and vitriol and pushing right up into their face. She wouldn’t have stood for that. Right now, however, she couldn’t budge, she couldn’t speak, she could only stand there and take everything that Dana threw her way.

Dana turned back to Kate. “Kate, can you get Max?” She then shifted back towards Courtney. “You, too, please. We need to get her back to the dorms.”

To Courtney’s credit, the girl didn’t even hesitate. She knelt down on the other side of Max from Kate and the two girls lifted her to her feet between the two of them.

“I’m so sorry,” Victoria said, her voice finally returning, a meek whisper of its former self.

“Fuck your apologies, Victoria,” Dana growled. “You can shove them right up your haughty, uptight ass. If Max didn’t need me right now, I’d be going straight to Wells. This, this is beyond the pale,” she said, waving at Max held suspended from Kate and Courtney’s shoulders. “You like torturing smaller girls. It makes you feel all better about your miserable self? Well, fuck you. Fuck you and your Vortex Club elitist bullshit.”

Victoria lowered her head. She hadn’t meant for this to happen, but deep down she knew that Dana was right. Off to her side, she noticed that Taylor had gathered up Max’s bag. She nodded Taylor towards Dana. No words needed to be exchanged. Taylor understood immediately and walked over handing the bag to the cheerleader.

Dana snatched it, letting out a strained, “thanks,” through gritted teeth; then she stood there for another moment, still squared off with Victoria as if waiting for anything, anything that might explain the girl’s actions; or maybe just waiting for Victoria’s trademark fight. Victoria had nothing left in her, though; she couldn’t speak up; she couldn’t fight back. She was the holder of a secret now, a secret that she didn’t want to know. So, she stayed silent.

Finally Dana shook her head, pivoting, and leading Courtney and Kate off towards the dorms as they carried Max. Over her shoulder, she called back to Victoria though, before they vanished around the bend.

“Enjoy your last moments at Blackwell, Victoria. I’m going to make it my personal mission to get your queen bitch ass expelled.”

Victoria ignored the words. She stood there with Taylor as the other girls disappeared from sight, but none of that anger lingered. Not the anger, nor the confrontation. What stuck with her were those eyes, that pleading look from Max, and the panic in her trembling form; Jefferson’s voice on the wind.

Max had been in the Dark Room. Victoria didn’t know when. She didn’t know how. She didn’t know why it had never been reported or if no one even knew. But she did know that Max had been there, and unlike Kate, Max remembered.

Max could feel the fog slowly lifting, as Dana opened the door to the dorms. She couldn’t quite bring herself to stand yet, hobbling along between Kate and Courtney. She also couldn’t quite figure out why Courtney was carrying her, but that was a mystery for another time.

She let the three girls help her inside, down towards the central hallway and the main stairwell. A few eyes turned their way and Max couldn’t help but to wonder how many people had watched her be carried in through the quad. How many were watching her now, as she hobbled up the stairs between Kate and Courtney? As she reached the landing, she tried to shift off their shoulders, to take on her own weight.

Her knees immediately buckled, and she fell forward, Dana catching her before she could hit the cement floor of the landing. “Take it easy, Max,” Dana said, helping her to her feet, and back between Kate and Courtney. Dana took one look at her then rushed up the last flight of stairs. “Let me check that the coast is clear,” she called down, then opened the door peering out into the girls’ hall.

Max didn’t respond. She let herself settle back against the two girls at her sides. She didn’t have the strength to stand on her own. Kate was whispering something into her ear — more words of calm, Max guessed. Her mind was wandering again, as if in realizing she couldn’t stand on her own, she let go of the hold she had on the present as well.

She was back leaning against Blackwell, the camera in her hands, turned to take a selfie. Victoria pressed her fingers to the shutter release and the world went white and… time stopped. She had stopped time. Was the storm coming? Had all this suffering over Chloe’s sacrifice been for nothing. Had she been holding back all this time, refusing to use her powers, just to fail now. Would stopping time cause the storm, or did she have to use her rewind to create it? Or did it only trigger when she saved Chloe? For all the sacrifices that had been made, she still didn’t have the faintest understanding of how her power worked; not of where it came from; not of how she had caused the storm. All she had were muddled notions of the butterfly effect and chaos theory, and none of them fully formed.

And there on that tiny stretch of lawn, after time had started again… had she been remembering, or… or had she been in a memory? Had she actually traveled back to the Dark Room or had it all been in her head? It had seemed so real, yet, it had been as if the present reality were invading the memory, as if she could feel them both, hear them both, see them both, at least in snippets; as if they had been overlapping. Then, when she’d finally come to, when finally that white of the void returned and faded back into the greens of Blackwell, then, her nose had been bleeding. Was that from her time stop in the white of the void, or was it from an actual jump back to that place and time? Is the storm coming?

The questions wouldn’t go away. She had been trying so hard to save Arcadia Bay, to do what Chloe wanted. She’d missed her so much, cried for her so much, and yet she had been trying so hard to live for her as well. Now, was that all for nothing? There was nothing to do but wait and find out.

Is the STORM coming? 

She’d been there; hadn’t she? In the Dark Room on the morning of the storm, just before David busted in after her. It had been raging outside with every flicker of the lights. Had she brought it back with her? Had it ridden on the tails of time to the here and now? Had he? Was Jefferson here?

He had been so real? And those trees, that squirrel, they had bled over. If the present could bleed into the past, could the past bleed into the present? What exactly had she done? Could she bring someone forward with her?

She couldn’t face him, again. She’d been there… there in the dark room… again. Her breathing hitched and Max could feel the panic returning, but she couldn’t control it. She felt so… powerless. That’s what it had been like there, unable to raise her hand, unable to grasp onto the flow of time. Powerless.

“Max, calm.” Kate’s voice. Distant. So faint, but it was there. Max tried to focus on it, to ground herself through Kate, but her mind still swirled with everything that she had seen and heard; everything that she had experienced.

All that had been ripped away from her. He had bound her. He had killed Chloe, and he had taken her and she had been there in that room, again. Now, much as she tried to tell herself it was only a memory, she couldn’t be sure. Her nose had been bleeding. Time had stopped. That blinding white of a jump had overwhelmed her. He had to still be there. No one had ever traveled with her before. It wasn’t possible, was it?

“Dana,” that faint voice called. “She’s hyperventilating.”

Another voice cried out, this one much more distant, a faint echo through an endless void. The world around her blurred in and out of focus. She could see the hall around her. There was Dana’s room, door wide open, but they weren’t stopping there. Up ahead, she could see a faint form, a blurred shape, but she couldn’t make it out. It had a voice though, of that she was sure; but what voice she didn’t know.

“Okay,” Kate yelled back to that blurred someone, that amorphous shape in the beyond of the distant hall.  “Just a little further, Max,” she said.

Just a little further until what?

Why was she slipping again? Why couldn’t she just snap out of it? She had to do better. Yet, something else was clawing at her; another image from that lawn. Max trembled and she could feel the tears welling up once more. Her body began to rock, as if pulsing to that muscle memory of that moment, curled up against the wall as Victoria looked down at her. As Victoria looked into her eyes, and she saw her, saw her for who she really was, for everything that she had seen. Victoria’s voice had called to her from the present into that past. Had her own voice called back?

Those eyes had seemed so aware, so aware of everything. Victoria knew. Oh, Dog, she’d seen it. Max had seen that look of recognition in Victoria’s eyes. That wasn’t the look of someone surprised by the blubbering, damaged girl collapsed at their feet. That look… that look in Victoria’s eyes was the same look they had all given Kate; that look of pity and shock, that look that came with her scarlet letter. Now it was Max’s burden as well. Victoria knew. Max had seen it in Victoria’s eyes. She knew. She knew Max had been in the Dark Room.

Where did that leave them? And just who would she tell?

Fuuuuck! Victoria slammed her hand against Taylor’s wall.

“Calm down, V. It’ll be okay.”

Victoria laughed. “I don’t see how.”

“She won’t do it.”

What , Victoria thought. What the hell is she talking about?

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Um…” Taylor took a step back picking once more at her hem. God, she needed to break that habit. “Dana,” Taylor sputtered. “There’s no way she’ll try to get you expelled.”

Oh. That. That didn’t matter.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“What?”

Taylor and Courtney had both gone along with her for the most part when she’d asked them to tone it down with Kate and Max; yet, old habits died hard. They were both still stuck in the idea that they owned the school; that they three were the rightful sovereigns of Blackwell, right there with the Zachary Riggins and Logan Robertson’s of the world — the Nathan Prescotts of the world. After Nathan did what he did, Victoria couldn’t hide behind that veil anymore. None of that seemed to matter; it was all just drama, unnecessary drama that soon enough wouldn’t mean a thing. Not once college started in just under a year for her. Maybe, two if she decided to go super senior with the extension program. No, none of it mattered. She’d destroyed a girl just a few hours earlier, broken down her defenses, and forced her to relive a hell that she could barely imagine. The rest of this, threats of expulsion, her status in the Vortex Club, it was all meaningless.

“Maybe she will,” Victoria said, pulling herself back to the present. “Maybe she won’t. It doesn’t matter. It’s meaningless. You saw what I did to her, to Max. Accident, no accident, it doesn’t matter.”

“She’s been crazy a long time, V. You’d didn’t cause it.”

“You know I did. You were the one muttering ‘what did we do, what did we do’ over and over again.”

Taylor shut up. She couldn’t deny that could she?

“Look, I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but it’s not going to help.”

“So, what is?”

Victoria sighed. She knew what she had to do. She just didn’t like it.

Max pushed herself up against the wall, bracing a pillow under her back, as she propped herself up. Courtney and Kate had settled her onto the bed when they reached her dorm room. She had barely moved since; yet she hadn’t slept either. She’d only really started to calm down, to truly return to the moment, about an hour ago. The sun had already set, and both Kate and Dana were still there. They had tried to get her to talk, but she hadn’t been able to find the words.

Kate had told Dana what happened, the parts of it that she saw, and Dana had almost stormed out then and there, ready to throw Victoria to the wolves. It was the one time Max had managed to get out more than one word.

“Don’t. Please.”

She knew Dana didn’t understand. Max was furious, too; but she had seen the good in Victoria before, and fucked up as this afternoon had been, she had seen that same Victoria then. She’d been there for weeks, if only Max could have turned off her own rage-and-grief-filled blinders. Victoria wasn’t Kate and she wasn’t Dana. Her help, it didn’t look the same. It came direct and harsh. She didn’t polish the hard truths; she just confronted them.

Of course, Max hadn’t been able to explain this. Her head had still been spinning, still caught in questions of the storm and time travel, of the Dark Room and Jefferson.

She knew she should say something. She couldn’t sleep and she wasn’t doing her friends any good sitting there in silence.

She’d heard her phone go off a few times. Dana had checked the messages. Just some worried texts from Warren and Alyssa. And Courtney. Juliet, too. Dana had texted them back. Max had been more nervous that her little breakdown had reached the school rumor mill. Nothing to be done about it now, though.

Unable to open up and unable to sleep, Max had finally relented to Kate’s offer of tea. So she had pulled herself up, accepting a warm cup of chamomile. Blowing on the tea, Kate casting her a nervous smile from across the bed, Max paused as a knock sounded at the door. Dana rose from her place on the futon.

“I got it.”

She still wore her cheerleader outfit. She hadn’t returned to practice. She hadn’t even bothered to go to her room and change. Slowly crossing the room, Dana made her way to the door and cracked it open.

“Seriously. What do you want?”

Max couldn’t quite see out into the hall. Dana had barely opened the door at all, and she was blocking what little opening there was. The voice that greeted Dana, however, and Dana’s own irritation, made the speaker quite obvious.

“I need to talk to Max,” Victoria said. Max swallowed back the lump of apprehension forming in her throat. Victoria wouldn’t tell them, would she? She’d kept her secret there by the main building, there when Kate and Courtney had been kneeling beside her. She’d keep it now, right?

“To hell you do.” Dana made to close the door, only for it to halt almost immediately. “Get your foot out of the door.”

“No. Something’s wrong and I need to talk to her.”

“Something? Something’s wrong? Like you don’t know what? You bullied her into a fucking panic attack. You’re the last person she needs to talk to.”

“A panic attack from what, taking a picture?”

You know what, don’t you, Victoria? Please don’t say it.

“I don’t know.” Dana shrugged. “Maybe all the bullying reminded her of Nathan.”

“She hasn’t told you anything, then.”

Nope. Not me. Mum’s the word.

“Told me what? How you fucking tortured her until she could barely stand on her own. Until she couldn’t speak. Until she couldn’t stop crying for over three hours. No, she didn’t say a word.”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay.”

“Great. All better now.”

“I need to talk with her.”

“You said that. Will you move your foot now?”

“I’m not leaving.”

They both stood there, at an impasse. Maybe she should speak to her, Max thought. Although that would be hard since she was still speaking in single word phrases. Could make conversation difficult. Finally, Kate chimed in.

“Dana, maybe…”

“No. I get it. She’s nice to you, Kate. Maybe the ice queen actually has a heart and you, you she cares about. I’m even glad she’s been there for you. But she’s not talking to Max.”

“Gawd,” Victoria sighed. “What are you, her bouncer?”

“Yes. Apparently.”

Speak up, Max. Say something. Just anything.

“Fine.” For a moment Max thought Victoria might be leaving. From the looks of things, from how Dana’s shoulder relaxed, it appeared Dana thought the same. Then there was a loud thunk as Victoria’s shoulder slammed into the door, sending Dana pinwheeling back a couple steps; just enough for Victoria to wedge her way in.

“Max,” Victoria said, Dana already advancing to push her back out. “Are you okay?”

“No, she’s not okay,” Dana spat, trying to shove Victoria out the door.

“Hands off, you lanky baton twirler. Let her speak for herself. Max?”

“Eep.” It’s all Max could get out, just a little squeak. Not even a word, but it stopped Dana in her tracks.

“Um… does that mean you’re okay,” Victoria asked.

Max managed to nod this time; but that didn’t seem like enough. “Y-yes,” she followed up.

“Thank fuck.” Victoria breathed a sigh of relief. “When, Max?”

Victoria’s words were vague, but Max understood her meaning instantly. Fuck. She had to bring it up. Max’s eyes went wide.

“When what?” Kate asked.

Please don’t say. Please don’t say. The words rose unbidden, her own uncontrollable mantra.

Victoria was looking straight at her. Could she see the panic in Max’s eyes.

“It’s private,” Victoria said at last. Thank Dog.

“Then it can wait.” Dana stepped back between Victoria and Max. “We’re here for her. She doesn’t need you.”

“It’s okay,” Kate added. “We’ll watch out for her.”

Victoria glanced towards each of them, Max watching her intently. She could see the gears turning. Victoria was planning something.

“Kate,” Victoria started. “You’ve got a great heart. You do. You’re nicer than the world deserves. But I’m sorry. You’re not helping her.”

“B.S. Total B.S.” Dana was back in Victoria’s face, instantly. “Just get out.”

“Dana, you’re smarter than this. The two of you want to help, but you’re just enabling her. You keep this up, you’ll pity her right out of her scholarship.”

“Where do you get off —”

“You think this is fun for me. Fine. You’ve got tonight. If you can kumbaya your way into her somehow finishing her photography assignment tomorrow and turning it in before she flunks right out of the program, then great. I’ll wipe my hands of her, of all of it. Done. But when this proves not to be some minor one-off panic attack, some grief-laden block that she can push through, and she still hasn’t taken one photo, then I’ll be back. And I’m stepping in.”

“Go suck an egg, Victoria.” With that Dana finally shoved Victoria out the door and slammed it shut.

Max could still hear Victoria on the other side of the door though. She hadn’t left.

“Whatever,” she said. “I’ll be back in the morning. She’s not getting booted from Blackwell for this.”

“God, I can’t stand her.” Dana fell back into the futon. “I swear, you should let me just go talk to Wells, Max.”

“N-no,” Max said, still staring at the door. She knew Victoria. That girl would be back; and she wasn’t going to take no for an answer a second time.