"You shouldn't be in here."
Victoria looked up, her neck snapping around at the sound of the brash, choked voice. A dark figure stood in the threshold, the light spilling in from the hallway obscuring her face in shadows. But Victoria knew exactly who it was, and felt her upper lip curl. "I actually go to this school," she replied back dryly.
"Have you no respect for the dead?!" Chloe snarled, advancing into the room and grabbing Victoria's arm and yanking her up off of Max's bed. "What do you think you're doing here?! You have no right!"
"I have every right, Price!" Victoria snapped, twisting her arm out of Chloe's pincer grip, frowning as she smoothed out the sleeve of her shirt.
"No, you don't! You didn't even cry at her funeral! You're just a cold-hearted bitch, and you didn't deserve Max at all!" Chloe growled, advancing into Victoria's space, putting her nose right next to Victoria's.
"And you think you did?!" Victoria scoffed in disbelief, drawing back slightly as she placed her hands on her hips. "Please. That's absurd. You were nothing to her."
"Max loved me!" Chloe roared, stepping into Victoria's space and seizing her by her collar. Then she started shaking her. "How dare you even suggest that you were worth more to her than I was! You've never said a word to her in your life!"
"And you would know, would you?" Victoria smirked, reaching up and grasping Chloe's wrists, trying to pull them away. "You don't even go to this school anymore, how would you know what she got up to in her free time while she was away from you?"
Chloe gasped, the sound low in her throat as her eyes flickered nervously back and forth between Victoria's eyes. "If you're insinuating...," she started, her voice dark with shock, climbing higher into anger with each syllable.
"I don't have to insinuate anything, Price," Victoria jabbed, finally pulling Chloe's hands free from her shirt, before pushing her head forward into Chloe's space now. Dominance asserted. A smirk played over her lips again as her eyes roamed Chloe's contorted expression, "Because it happened."
"You're fucking lying!" Chloe screamed, her breath hot and assaulting as it overwhelmed Victoria's senses. "Max would never betray me like that!"
"Oh, Victoria!" she mocked, pitching her voice as she seized Chloe's chin in a vice grip, wrenching her head down just slightly so that Chloe was forced to meet her eyes, "Again Victoria! You make me feel so good – ah! Fuck me harder, please!"
Chloe's eyes burned for a moment and her face changed in Victoria's grasp. "You'll regret that," she hissed, latching onto Victoria's wrist abruptly and, using that hold, combined with a rough hand at her waist, as a lever, she shoved Victoria over onto Max's bed and kissed her. Just to get her to shut up. Just to show her who was boss. Just to assuage some of the pain she was feeling.
"Max always liked it rough you know," Victoria said breathlessly, as her collision with the mattress had winded her slightly. "She would beg me to bend her – fuck! Price!"
"I don't know what Max saw in you," Chloe snarled, shoving her thigh between Victoria's legs as she tore at Victoria's sweater with her hands, leaving tattered strips fluttering about her waist.
"Looks like you're about to find out," Victoria goaded, biting her lip as the friction from Chloe's jeans rubbed against crotch in just the right away.
"Whatever, Chase," Chloe bit out, before latching her mouth to the skin of Victoria's neck. She had finished talking. She was always better with her actions anyways.
Not Victoria. She had found Chloe's weak point and was planning to utilize it to their full potential. If Chloe wanted to this, as an outlet for her grief or something, Victoria wasn't going to stop her. But she wasn't going to let it go to waste either.
"She would go on and on about how good I could make her feel," she gloated, her breath hitching as Chloe's nails scraped down her now bare back. She hadn't even recalled when Chloe had discarded it. "About how I knew exactly where to touch her, and how I could really get her off -"
"Shut the fuck up Victoria," Chloe said roughly, rocking up on her knees to claim Victoria's lips in a bruising kiss. Her teeth found the soft, pliable flesh of Victoria's bottom lip and bit down, hard. Victoria tasted blood almost immediately as sought turn the tables.
But Chloe was strong, and almost all of her body weight was pressing Victoria into the bed, leaving Victoria with no leverage. Even less as Chloe forced Victoria's arms above her head before settling back onto her haunches momentarily and tugging the suspenders off from around her waist and fastening Victoria's hands to the bed posts.
Victoria jerked in panicked, images flashing in her mind of camera shutters and needles and dark shadows - "Chloe, don't.. please, C-Chloe.. stop."
"Is that how Max liked you, huh?" Chloe sneered, ignoring Victoria's fearful protests, settling herself back over Victoria's frame, hands braced on either side of her shoulders. "Pleading and doe-eyed and submissive?"
"N-no.. it's not.. please, Chloe. Untie me," Victoria begged, flinching inwards on herself, "Don't do this, I'm.. scared."
"You should be. It's only fair," Chloe said darkly as she trailed a hand down Victoria's soft stomach, coming to rest at the hem of her pants. "Max went through twice the shit you did – you don't get -"
"I went through it too!" Victoria cut in, her voice rising sharply with fear as she tugged at the restraints. Chloe paused, confusion and infected fear flickering in her gaze. Victoria swallowed visibly, continuing on in a small whimper once she realized that she had Chloe's attention, "I.. I was there. In.. the dark room – w-with her."
Chloe sat back slowly, her grip tightening on Victoria's pants, more as an anchor than an enraged threat now. "Shit...," she breathed, running her free hand through her hair, distantly realizing that her beanie must have fallen free earlier in their encounter. "Shit..," she mumbled again as she looked at Victoria and really saw her as she laid there. "Victoria, I'm... I'm not sure..."
"The only thing you have to be sure about," Victoria started, her words stronger now, more confident, even in her vulnerable position. But Chloe could still hear the tremors underneath the mask. "Is your ability to untie me, Price," she spat, rattling her wrists for emphasis.
Chloe's anger flared initially, but she tamped down on it as she wordlessly reached over Victoria again and deftly loosened her belt from the post so that Victoria could slip her hands free. "Look, if what you're saying is true, Victoria, then I-"
"Save it. I don't need your pity," Victoria huffed as she sat up abruptly and rubbed at her wrists.
"And I wasn't going to give you any," Chloe fired back, but then softened as she reached over and took one of Victoria's hands in her own, "But I think that that's what Max would want. From both of us."
"You want us to be friends," Victoria scoffed in disbelief, "After all this?" she gestured to her nearly bare torso, the developing hickey on her neck and her bloody lip.
"I don't think she'd expect us to bond any differently, really," Chloe barked out a laugh as she shrugged out of her jacket. "Here," she offered, holding out the black leather garment to her.
"You really do have some sort of bondage fetish, don't you?" Victoria rolled her eyes, but accepting it even so. And there was a soft smile playing around the corners of her lips that Chloe almost missed in the darkness.
"Well maybe there's something I find appealing about it," she shrugged as she dipped her chin in response, rubbing her bare arms subconsciously. "I mean, it's all about safety. Trust. Things I.. don't really have in my life anymore."
Victoria regarded her as she slipped her arms into Chloe's jacket. It was still warm and slightly damp from Chloe's exertions. But she couldn't bring herself to care. "Max would want you to feel safe," she said softly, placing a hand on Chloe's knee. "And.. I think I can help you with that."
Chloe stared at Victoria's hand covering her hand for a moment before turning her hand over and lacing their fingers together in the darkness of Max's room. Then, so quiet that Victoria almost missed it, "I'd like that."