Chapter One: Never

Flashes of orange and pink illuminate the darkness behind my eyelids. The smell of chlorine almost overpowers stale cigarette smoke. She's there. The bed sinks lower with each breath and raises as she exhales. As usual—a usual that this Chloe doesn't and will never know—she is sprawled out across three-quarters of the bed, leaving me a tiny sliver at the edge. I don't open my eyes. I can't. One of her hands is less than an inch away from my thigh, radiating a warmth that makes me shiver.

No, I won't look at her, but I will take her hand in mine and roll over to hold it against her stomach, creating a timeline where I wasn't afraid to nuzzle into her hair until my nose draws small circles on her neck. In every one of the million timelines I've walked, I always try to get her to quit smoking. It's disgusting—everything about it—how it smells, how it tastes on someone's tongue, how it rots your lungs, but none of those stop me from hyperventilating against her neck, trying to get a second-hand high.

"Max?" Chloe jumps as she wakes up, trying to pull away, but I hug her tight, "Max, dude, wake up."

She twists in my arms to face me, and I bury my face in her chest. I can't. I can't. But my shaking gives me away. Warm tears soak through Chloe's shirt.

"Oh my God. Max, what's wrong?"

"I-I muh-miss you so m-m-much."

"Wow, Max. I'm right here. What's going on? Talk to me."

She puts a hand on my shoulder, but I shove her away.

"Hey. Come on. You're kinda stealing my thunder. Angry crying and pushing people away is supposed to be my thing."

"Y-you don't understand."

"Yeah. You're right. I've got no fucking idea what's going on. Hang on. Is this about breaking into the pool? God, this is the first time you've ever broken a rule, isn't it?" Chloe laughs, "You're too damn cute."

"N-nuh-no," I sob, "I-I-"

"Hey," one hand gently tips my chin up until I'm looking into her eyes, "Talk to me."

All the shit I've seen melts away like new-fallen snow. All the pain it's—well it's not gone—but it's bearable. I could take anything if I got to come home each night and feel her arms wrap around me.

"I love you, Chloe Price."

Time freezes. Take it all back. The moment flows backward and out of existence. Another timeline vanished, forgotten to everyone except me.

And Max Caulfield. Don't you forget about me.

"Never," I whisper as the world flashes white and I jump back to my empty bed, "Never."

Sometimes I wish I could. Three centuries of jumping between timelines just to find one with her left me colder. Cruel, old me might say. All along, Chloe thought I the better one, but I would throw a match on this world and watch it burn without a second thought if it meant a lifetime with her. She's the one who couldn't take it. No one knows what they're capable of until they're pushed to the edge. I ease out of bed, pausing to push the memories out of my head. No matter how long I live, there's always a little piece of me in that bed on the morning my life changed forever.

My house is the same one I've dreamed of since I was a kid, old school warm and cozy. When I realized I had to settle in this timeline, I tried, I really did. I bought my dream house, forced myself to take pictures again, even went on a few dates. She would have wanted me to. I know that. She would have wanted me to be happy, but I can't be. Not without Chloe. At some point in every timeline, people start telling me how "time heals all wounds," but it's bullshit. I'm the second oldest person alive when you count all my time manipulation, and time has killed a lot of who I used to be, but it's never been able to touch Chloe.

The old map from the lighthouse, the one Chloe marked our super-secret pirate base on, hangs on the wall beside a window. I bought it from Arcadia Bay for sixty thousand dollars. Chloe would have laughed at that. Like anyone would care if I stole the graffitied sign at the abandoned lighthouse, but some things never change. Outside, raindrops hang suspended in the air, catching the last rays of sunlight and transmuting them into a thousand drops of pure gold. A raven is frozen mid-flight above the trees. It's been seven o'clock for hours. I had to freeze it to get some sleep before the tenth annual Price Photo Exhibition.

Ten years for the rest of the world. Ten years and they've already started to forget, but three hundred years has changed nothing for me, and these ten years might have been another hundred with everything I've done. The sharp sting might be gone, but it's been replaced by this horrible void, like my bones are rotting and collapsing inside me. Ten years spent trying to build a better Arcadia Bay. Because it's hers. She died for it.

She died for the world too, but I found out not everything can be changed. I won Arcadia Bay after two decades of war with Sean Prescott, and in exchange, he and Mark Jefferson fled into the night with the FBI on their heels. I won the town's freedom, but I surrendered the world to its fate. Chloe would have hated that. Who knew Chloe Price would be my conscious one day? Scary.

I keep time in a standstill as I change into a plain black dress like the one I wore to the funeral. The black-tie dress code has special significance to Joyce, David, and me. Even though they don't know the full story, they are the only others who know the price of this world, no pun intended. Ok, maybe a little intended. After all, I've got to keep Chloe's memory alive somehow.

I smooth out the dress and slip on a pair of flats. Our—Chloe's and mine—exhibition is being held outside this year after the first five hundred tickets sold out within an hour of going on sale. I doubled the tickets, all profits going to a gun violence prevention super PAC that Joyce runs and I fund, and they were gone fifteen minutes after I tweeted about the addition.

Young me, this would be everything she ever wanted. Critics from all over the world know my name and will spend thousands of dollars to come out to Arcadia Bay for one night. Old idols ask for tickets to be reserved for them in advance. This will be Chema Madoz's third year coming, and Hiroshi Sugimoto has been to every exhibition except the first one. Bloggers and reporters will camp outside, waiting and hoping for a three-second interview to pin to the top of their site or put in their arts and culture section. None of it means fucking anything anymore. No artwork or "better" world will ever be worth Chloe's life.

I keep the standstill going while I walk to the show. The power that used to be a shallow dish, just enough for a few sips, is now deeper than the ocean. I have jumped through photos I didn't take—once back to the first photo ever taken in 1826—built and dismantled entire timelines, and manipulated time in small pockets of space. That was a fun one to figure out. I aged a couple of wine casks three hundred years last year on our anniversary—an anniversary that will never happen now—and drank until I died, or as close to it as I can get anyways.

Whoever or whatever decided taking Chloe wasn't enough. God, I have tried so many times, but I can never be reunited with her, not even in death. Not many people can say they've tasted a shotgun blast and lived, but I can. Three times in our backyard with Chloe's broken body in my arms, I put the gun against my forehead and pulled the trigger. My body betrays me every time. No matter what I do, it always rewinds me back to life at the last moment. Just like it will never let me forget what it felt like to hold Chloe in my arms or feel her lips on mine, rewinding in my sleep, so I have to wake up and let her go again and again and again.

I still have our rings on the chain I wear under my clothes. After everything, Chloe didn't want her mom's ring, not that I blame her. We settled for matching meteorite banded in silver, hers with a sapphire and mine with a ruby—because fuck diamonds. There's an inscription on the inside of each ring. We didn't even plan it. My partner in crime for her and my partner in time for me. I touch them through the dress, pushing the cool circles against my skin like two dead kisses. Luckily no one can see me crying in a standstill.

Don't you forget about me.

"Never."


I weave through the crowd gathered outside the white fence that blocks the lighthouse and my exhibit from their view. Three guards from David's security company stand at the gate as if anyone could steal from me, but he insists. The inside contains a series of black pavilions protecting photos on whitewashed backboards. I put it all up myself. After all, I've got nothing but time since Chloe died.

As I walk through the displays trying to find a place out of sight to release my hold on time, my eyes slip over each photo without sticking to any of them. The most recent series I've created are "faux" historical photos, typically the same moment captured in famous photos but taken from different angles. I've got a picture of every president from John Quincy Adams on while they're sitting at their desk. I've got pictures of Tesla and Einstein in the middle of never before seen work. I've captured the atrocities of every war since 1826. And I don't remember taking any of them. When there is so much to remember, all but the most important pieces slip away, and none of this is important.

The central exhibit, the only one that never changes, stands where the map used to overlook the bay, a wall of photos like the one I made in my dorm at Blackwell so long ago. Chloe and I as kids, fingers and faces sticky with melted popsicles. The last photo of us before William died. Chloe dancing on her bed, wreathed in smoke. Chloe sitting on the same bench on the other side of the exhibit, her electric blue hair glowing in the setting sun. A silver plaque at the center dedicates the show to her. If a reporter asked me to name one of the pieces around me, I doubt I could. They are so trivial, so worthless next to Chloe's life. I double check that no one's looking before letting time go.

My eyes devour each picture again and again, but no matter how hard I try, all I see is a collage of death. Chloe bleeding out on the bathroom floor. Chloe doubled over from a random ricochet. Chloe splattered against the front of a train. Chloe laying over Rachel's grave with a hole in her forehead and Mark Jefferson standing over her.

"Ms. Caulfield?" one of David's security guards interrupts my thoughts, "We're ready to rock and roll whenever you are."

"Let them in," I say without taking my eyes off the wall, waiting for him to walk away before smiling, "I'm ready for the mosh pit, shaka brah."

Oh, Chloe. I miss you so much.

Once I tried to drive my car into a concrete barrier, and at the moment before my body betrayed me, the impact of going from one hundred and twenty miles an hour to zero in less than a second crumbled the car like it was tinfoil. Deep shockwaves coursed through every bone, every muscle, and more than pain, there was the fundamental sense that something was wrong. Two-ton cars don't collapse like aluminum cans. They don't soar through the air like they weigh nothing. I was never made to go at a speed where one mishap liquifies my bones. And I was never made to live without Chloe.

I walk to the edge of the cliff overlooking Arcadia Bay as the guests wander in, some sprinting to be the first to see an exhibit. They all care so much. How do they lie to themselves every morning, convince themselves that any of this matters?

"Uh, excuse me? Ms. Caulfield? I was just wondering if you had a second."

"I've got more seconds than I know what to do with," I don't have to look at him to know it's Jordan Hamilton, a young up and coming intern from The New York Times Edith sent as a favor since she had the flu. She warned me in an email yesterday, "Just don't ask me which piece is my favorite. It's the same every year."

"Don't you think," the smug voice I'd recognize in any timeline cuts in, "It would be a good idea to look at the photos before you start asking Ms. Caulfield questions? Or did you jump the fence to sneak a peek while the rest of us had to wait outside?"

"Oh. Right. Yeah, I'll do that."

Once, I never would have taken my eyes off the man behind me. Once, the memories of his darkroom gave me nightmares. Now. Now he is nothing but a cockroach. In every timeline, the self-assured grin and douchebag hipster glasses and suit combo is the same, so what's the point in looking? If only he could see the things I've seen. If only he knew how many times I've framed him in a dark corner and captured him in a moment of desperation. For Rachel. For me. And a thousand times over for Chloe.

"You know, Max," Mark Jefferson says, "I always believed in your vision. I wish I could have been your teacher for longer. We could have learned a thing or two from each other. This latest experiment, the faux historical pieces, is so genuine it's almost magical. Almost as if you'd gone back in time to take the shot. Brilliant work."

"You better have a good reason for being in Arcadia Bay."

"Sean sent me."

"Are you going to tell me why?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter. Does it?"

"No," I turn and smile, "It doesn't."

He has just enough time to smirk before I raise my hand and time stands still. It would be so easy to kill him. Just one push and I could say he slipped off the edge. How many times would his body bounce off the steep slope of the cliff before breaking against the rocky shoreline?

I push my hand forward. Time bends backward at my command. Mark Jefferson moonwalks back to his car, and I follow, the two of us sliding into our seats for his last car ride. It feels good. There, I admitted it. There's still some part of me who hates what I've become, but I can't deny how good it feels to have this fucker at my mercy. I can't deny how good it's felt to kill him so many times. Power hums within me, slams against my core, and I take hold of it, pushing my hand into the river and pulling the water by until the four-hour drive to Seattle is over in four seconds. The trip is nothing but a cacophony of light and color, all consumed by orange and pink light like a burning polaroid.

His hotel is made of white blocks of stone stacked together on the Seattle waterfront in a modernist's sandcastle. Huge one-way windows warp the reflection of the surrounding city, and Mark Jefferson walks backward through the crowd outside with glazed eyes, never looking anywhere but straight ahead. He is so above it all. After all, what point is there paying attention when you can see the future? This Mark hasn't felt the futility of his power against someone who can rewrite the future at her every whim. But he will.

The lobby of the hotel is sleeker than the outside. The tile floors are polished until they house a perfect reflection of us. Teak accents are soft and smooth to touch, and even in the rewind, I can smell the hotel freshness that only comes with multiple treatments of bleach. Mark takes the stairs to the top level, where two black doors show his suite takes up the entire floor, but when we slip inside, the same old do not disturb tag hangs on the interior door handle. I snort. All the dramatic tension, ruined by the stupid little card you can find in every cheap motel.

Mark's style is the same. The entire room is split between clinical whites and blacks so deep they seem to absorb light. Behind the double doors, a hallway constricts my view into the room beyond, but I can see the tripods, the umbrellas, and the softboxes. Mark walks ahead, sitting in one of two chairs on either side of a polished black coffee table with an incredible view over the waterway. The world twists, and I have to lean against the wall to steady myself, swallowing the vomit as it tries to force its way out of my stomach.

You knew. You let him go, and you knew he wouldn't stop.

I look up, and my blood freezes. Mark Jefferson is looking at me. No. No, not at me, where he thinks I will be. He knew as soon as the future went dark I rewound, and it wouldn't take a detective to figure out I'd follow him back to his hotel room.

You knew, Chloe says in my head, You promised to make them pay for what they did for Rachel, and instead, you let them go.

Each step into the room is as hard as climbing to the rooftop with Kate on the edge because I know what'll I'll find. I knew the consequences of letting Sean and his dog go. There's a fruit basket on the tv stand with two glasses and a bottle of champagne. On the other side of the room, a high school age girl bound and gagged on the couch. Dead. Mark Jefferson's eyes bore into me.

I close the distance between us in two steps and punch him as hard as I can in the face. His body animates as long as my fist is in contact with it, long enough to wipe that fucking grin off his face. He freezes in midair, eyes wide open in shock. What does he see now? Does he know how I'm going to make him suffer?

The cork exploding from the bottle behind me sounds like a gunshot in the absolute silence of the standstill, and I spin with one hand raised. Sean Prescott stands before me in a suit that undoubtedly cost more than my house, pouring the champagne with one hand and holding a gun against his thigh with the other. He moves through frozen time as easily as I do, the only remarkable thing about him. His suit is cut well, obviously expensive, but it wouldn't be out of place anywhere in the last fifty years, and his face is even more timeless.

"You going to shoot me again?"

"The gun is for you, yes, but not for your life. For your faith. Mark Jefferson is yours to do with as you will. You have my blessing," his voice has hints of an accent I've never heard anywhere in the world, an amalgamation of living through countless cultures.

"Why?"

"Because this timeline is coming to an end. All our attempts to prevent your fate will crumble," he sets the gun down beside the welcome basket, "She is coming, Maxine. The usurper, come to try and take my throne by force, and you will be called back to meet her."

"Have you been drinking your own Kool-Aid?"

"It was never my intention for you to be brought back, you know. It's how I've dealt with you spinners before, let you weave your own web to get caught in, but I see now trying to separate you was impossible. I'll admit I underestimated you, Maxine. I only hope these last few years of adolescence have been enough to prepare you for what you will have to do."

"Cut the riddles, Nostradamus."

Sean smiles, "You know, whenever you try to sound tough, you sound just like her."

"Don't."

"I wish you had found peace here without her. For your sake."

"Don't you fucking dare talk about her. You—you monster."

"You've seen now how you have to be pragmatic if you hope to do the right thing in this world. You've seen the cost of the common good. Don't pretend you're above it all. Maxine Caulfield, you have done more with your childhood—"

"I am not a child."

"No matter how long you live, even if you live to see the end of time, as I will, you will still be blind to the millions of alternate realities that form the weave of history. And now a thread has come loose. A thread that, if pulled, will unravel all of creation.

I know you don't believe me yet, but you will. You will. All I ask is for you to remember this moment when you are called back to the true reality."

"I don't know where you get off," I say, "I really don't. And to be honest, I don't really give a fuck. We had an agreement. Break it if you want. I wasn't the one who begged for it."

Sean smiles, raising his glass, "To your good health, Maxine Caulfield."

He leaves as silently as he entered, padding out of the room like a graying wolf, but he leaves the gun on counter. It's a nice touch; I'll give him that. What he doesn't know, can't know, is that I haven't just fucked around reliving the same few years over and over. Chloe and I lived for five years, then seven, and a final nine before I realized there was no magic combination that could keep her from—keep her with me.

He may see every reality, but only I have seen the future in dozens of them, and none of Prescott's prophecies ever came true. I was a bit disappointed, really. Doomsday cults are stupid in every timeline. Nothing kills the theory of ultra-special spirt selection like these dumbasses. Either that or whoever is doling out these powers is a fucking moron. Which makes sense, actually.

With great power comes great bullshit.

I take the gun and turn back to Mark, still frozen mid-fall. With a snap of my fingers, time resumes, and he collapses to the floor. The familiar horror that always makes me smile blooms on his face.

"Let's play a game, Mark Jefferson. Tell me where I'm going to shoot you first."


I look around the hotel room one last time. Everything's wiped down. I'll take the gun with me and throw it away later. One of the nice things about being a time traveler is that I'm uncatchable. Sorry officer, I don't have an alibi for the time of the murder, but I was visiting a friend less than a second after it happened in a town four hours away.

There's still a piece of me that's disgusted, that knows everything Mark did doesn't justify me torturing him to death, and I can almost hear Chloe telling me what I used to tell her all the time, that the ends don't justify the means. But fuck that. It was the universe that decided the ends justified the means when it gave me powers I never asked for and demanded her for payment. It was God who decreed none of us matter in His grand design, so fuck Him and His plan. Nothing that He or I build will ever be good enough to be worth Chloe's life.

One snap, and I'll be back at the photo exhibition. One snap, and I could be thousands of miles away in a whole different time period. Unlimited power at my fingertips, and for what? She's gone.

I sigh. I don't have to snap. I don't need to raise my arm either, but come on, it makes me feel like a fucking badass mage, and I've got to take whatever small joys are left in this life.

With a raise of her arm, the mighty mage Mirirassa, last Oracle of Chronos and only hope for the world, commands time itself. With a snap of her fingers, she tears a hole to another universe, one where Vohadon the Creeper never made it to her photo exhibition.

And then returns a split second later because she forgot to put the do not disturb sign on his door. The world is totally screwed.


"Do you have a second?" the reporter asks again.

"Don't you want to check out the photos first?"

"Oh."

"There'll be plenty of time for an interview, don't worry," keeping your memory alive, Chloe, one bad pun at a time, "Just please, for the love of Christ, don't ask me which is my favorite. It's the same every year."

"Right. Uh, sorry."

Chloe and I stood here. It was our second kiss, the first real one. The only one that stuck through all the different timelines. The fear and desperation and love all intermingled in the air around us like lightning, and ten years later, the air still has a charge that raises the hairs on the back of my neck. All the others—I mean, they happened, and I get that. But, they're not real. Not anymore. I close my eyes and rest my chin on my chest.

My powers might not last, Chloe.

That's ok. We will. Forever.

But we didn't. We didn't. The power is still here, but you aren't, Chloe.

"Max Caulfield," Joyce says.

Oh no. Not now.

"You need to visit more often, honey."

"Hi, Joyce."

I don't know what happened. One second I'm there, looking at her and the frown hidden behind her smile, and the next we're hugging each other and crying.

"I muh-miss her so much," I say, "And I w-was never there with her. I should-should have visited."

"You were there for her at the end, Max, and that's all that mattered."

"N-nuh-no it's n-n-not. I'm so, so sorry, Joyce. I'm so sorry."

"Look at us," Joyce pulls away and wipes a tear from her eye, "Cryin' and all. Chloe would want us to be happy. This is all so great, Max."

David steps in, resting a hand on Joyce's back. She's lucky to have him. First William, and then Chloe. David is the only thing keeping her together, and he really got his shit together for her when it counted.

"You gonna give us the tour?"

I look at the two of them, "I don't give a shit. I know you don't either. I can bring them by tomorrow if you really want to see, but let's go."

"You sure?" David asks.

Joyce looks down, dabbing her eyes again.

"Yeah."


Moonlight casts the world in silver. The art show, a distraction for Joyce and me, and then a visit to Chloe's grave is our yearly tradition. Complete silence hums in the darkness like ripples in a bottomless pool of black water. Grief is unending. No mother should have to bury her daughter. No girl should have to bury her best friend. Chloe's gravestone is a reminder of the most important lesson I had to learn. What should be is nothing more than naivety and willful ignorance. The world doesn't work around what should happen. What happens does, and that's the end of it. I should not torture someone to death, but he should never have drugged all those girls. I should not have cut a deal with Prescott, but if I hadn't, we would have torn each other and the world apart.

I'll always love you, her voice whispers in my subconscious.

My lips burn with a thousand kisses that will never be. My shoulders are heavy with a thousand hugs that will never happen. My heart bleeds from a thousand deaths that will never occur. Everything I did to try to secure a life for us, and she bled out on the fucking floor of a high school bathroom without knowing any of it, without knowing how much I loved her.

All those moments between us were real, and they'll always be real.

It is more than just a voice in my head. I can hear her. I can hear Chloe's voice like she is standing beside me, but she's not. And neither are Joyce and David. They are gone. Instead, William Price stands beside me in full technicolor against the monochromatic grey night. His blonde hair—the same color as Chloe's—drifts lazily in a nonexistent breeze.

"I wish I could have been there to walk her down the aisle."

"William?"

"I always told her. Joyce. I always told her you'd fall for each other. Prophecy, that was my gift. Always was," he looks at Chloe's headstone and shakes her head, "I would have liked to see her before she called you back, but there is only one reality for me."

"William, I-"

"No. I'm sorry," he looks to the sky "Beautiful, aren't they? The stars. No matter how long the storm rages, eventually the stars will shine. After everything you've seen, everything you've done, all you need to do is hold on a little longer. She needed you, and now you need her. And I want you to know that even though I can't be with you two, nothing has made me happier than seeing your love for each other grow. You are my daughter now too, Max, and I am so happy."

The air ripples. A splotch of bright blue, brighter even than William. The butterfly floats down to land on Chloe's gravestone.

"I am so happy," he says, "So happy to see you together.'

The butterfly's wings beat lazily, each time buffeting me with wind.

"Tell her, won't you? Tell Chloe I love her."

The wind roars. Dirt swirls around me, digging into my skin and blasting my eyes. Thick trees scream as they splinter. I am falling. Or floating, swept away by the storm. Nothing makes sense anymore, and I can't see anything but darkness. William lied. There are no stars.

"I love both my daughters."

I reach out with both hands, trying to grab time anywhere I can, but it slips through my fingers. Something grabs my waist and holds on like the world will be torn apart if it lets go. Something soft presses against my lips. My heart tries to break its way out of its ribcage prison, and my brain burns against my skull, but for the first time in ten years, I am happy.

It only lasts a second. The grip on my waist loosens, and something pushes me backward. My skull cracks open, and darkness turns to light. I am nowhere, cast adrift in time without any of my power, and yet I feel as if a million flaming fishhooks are caught in my skin, reeling me in.

"Hang on, Max," William says, his voice faint, "Just hang on a little longer."

Freezing rain lashes against my skin like the tongues of a thousand whips. Wind slams into me, screeching in one unbroken cry of pain and anger and hate.

"I'll always love you. Now, get out of here, please! Do it before I freak."

I fall to my knees. Mud soaks through the knees of my jeans. My vision fades in and out, and there is no sound in the world. I try to breathe, but instead, I throw up a stream of blood. My arms shake at the strain of holding myself up, but someone pulls me away, turns me over, and instead of the bloody ground, I am looking up into Chloe. Her electric blue eyes. Her beautiful face. The smell of cigarettes on her ragged breath.

"Chloe."

She is saying something, but I can't hear her. I reach up, hesitating before cupping her cheek. She's real. She's really here. I sink into her lap, into my home, and I cry like I haven't cried in decades, maybe even centuries. I can't stop touching her face, her arms, her legs, making sure she's real, afraid she'll disappear.

"I missed you so much."

"Max," she screams over the wind and rain, "Max! You have to go!"

"I already did."

"What?"

"I already did. Oh, Chloe, I love you so fucking much."

"But Arcadia Bay. My mom. The storm," Chloe looks up, and her eyes widen, "Max, what did you do? Look. Look!"

She props me up against her. The cyclone bearing down on the town is losing momentum over the ocean, dropping the boats and signs it had picked up on its rampage. Water falls back into the ocean layer by layer until only a fine mist more suspended than swirling conceals the eye of the storm, but it isn't enough to block out the girl in a bright red plaid shirt levitating with her mouth open in a silent scream. Chloe stands, leaving me sitting in the mud.

"No fucking way," she says, "Is that—Rachel?