"Where do we go from here?" Max sighed as she and Chloe curled up together in their hotel's bedroom.
"I don't know Max," Chloe whispered back. "But I know that wherever it is or whatever it takes us through, I will be with you," she vowed.
"Mmm," Max rolled over to face Chloe, pressing their noses together gently. "I know you will and I love you for it," she murmured.
"I love you too," Chloe replied, then she pressed their lips together gently. For just one small moment, there was a perfect silence between the two as they continued to share this intimate, affectionate moment. They had been through a lot in the past week, but it was all behind them now. At least for a time. No doubt, the consequences would catch up to them in time, but for now, the present was all that mattered and all that existed and they were the only two beings in the whole entire universe...
But the present could not last forever and, right in the middle of their moment, Max's phone went off.
"Urgh!" Max groaned in irritation, reluctantly pulling away from an amused Chloe.
"Who is it?" she asked as Max, reluctantly, broke their kiss.
"It's dad," Max grumbled in reply, peering at the screen through the dark.
"Old Ryan Reynolds?" Chloe quirked an amused eyebrow. Max's father's name might've been Ryan, but that was about all he shared in common with the famous actor, though of course Chloe still took every opportunity she could to call the man as such (strictly behind his back, of course).
"Yes," Max responded, chuckling despite herself. "Old Ryan Reynolds. Though he won't be too pleased you called him old."
"Whatever," Chloe rolled her hazel eyes warmly, but she fell silent as Max answered the call.
"Hey Dad," Max tried not to sound too annoyed as she greeted her father.
"Max? Oh, Maxy, is that you? Thank goodness! Oh, please tell me that you're ok!" Ryan answered, sounding quite worked up. Max knew at once from his voice, and the fact that he was using her childhood nickname, that something wasn't right.
"What? Yeah, Dad, I'm fine! What's wrong?" Max asked, growing nervous. She turned on the speaker so Chloe could listen in too.
"I just saw the news! Arcadia Bay got hit with the most massive storm the country has ever seen! I was just afraid that you had been among the casualties!" Ryan cried frantically.
Max, meanwhile, cringed in response to his words. Looks like the consequences were already catching up to them. Of course, Max had known ahead of time what the price would be if she allowed this storm to strike Arcadia Bay and even though she still did not regret choosing Chloe's life over the storm, she still felt bad about how much the storm had cost the rest of that part of the state.
"Yeah, we're fine Dad. Chloe and I are ok," Max answered, sounding a little subdued as she continued to try and calm her hysterical father down. Chloe looked away, guilt hitting her too as she heard Ryan continue to worry. If not for her, Max could've easily saved the bay and not have had to make such a sacrifice either way. But it was too late to go back now…
"Ok, good! Your mom and I were just so worried! We couldn't bear to lose another-" Ryan cut himself off at once, but it was too late, Max had already heard him. Another?
"Another?" she asked, a dangerous, serious note entering her voice.
"Nothing, sweetheart, nothing," Ryan replied, trying and failing miserably to sound calm.
"No, Dad! Tell me! Tell me now! What do you mean 'lose another'? Who else have we lost?" Max demanded.
"It's nothing, love. Really! We were just thinking about all the others who died!" Ryan was lying through his teeth and Max wasn't going to take it.
"No. Dad! I know you're lying to me. Now tell me what you're talking about!" she ordered, this time with even more force. Tension was filling the tiny, dirty room of the cheap hotel that she and Chloe were staying at and it felt like another storm was brewing. Max continued to argue Ryan down for several minutes before he finally yielded and confessed everything to his persistent, stubborn daughter.
"It's your older cousin, Lauren Caulfield," Ryan began cautiously.
"Go on," Max replied with equal wariness. She and Chloe both heard Ryan take a huge breath in, clearly agonizing on how to start.
"Your cousin, well, went missing. Several days ago, in fact, and there's still nothing about what happened to her," Ryan confessed and his tale only got darker from there. Max and Chloe then spent the next 10 minutes listening to this awful story, bitterly cursing life's cruelty that they should suffer the loss of their entire home only to come across another tragedy so soon after the storm. From one disaster to another.
Apparently, Max's older cousin, Lauren, went missing half a week ago. Two of her best friends, Kate and CR, were also gone. No one even noticed, however, until Lauren failed to return from visiting Kate's house. Max's uncle, Reagan, had finally grown worried enough by his daughter's absence and failure to answer his calls to actively drive up to Kate's mansion in order to figure out why Lauren hadn't returned yet. When he made his arrival to Kate's, nothing short of a horror story was revealed to him. The outside of the house seemed perfectly normal, but going inside revealed what looked like a battlefield. All the furniture was overturned and broken and they and the walls were entirely covered in crazed drawings and eerie, cryptic messages. In addition, half the power was totally out and there was no sign of life at all with the only traces of Lauren and Kate being their cars, parked by the mansion's garage. It was there that Reagan had found CR's car and realized he was missing too.
Instantly after that, Reagan sped home, calling the cops on his way there. Then, while he returned to break the horrible news to his wife, the cops sped up to Kate's house themselves and they wound up discovering everything that Regan had, ultimately declaring that it looked like a robbery and/or abduction even though nothing in the house was missing and there was no DNA found on the premises that did not belong to Kate, Lauren or CR. In short, nothing that anyone found in Kate's house made any sense at all and since there was absolutely not a single clue to be found, no one could even make a guess where the three teens might've suddenly vanished to, or who was responsible or how or why. It was like, after totally trashing the place, they all just vanished into thin air!
But that wasn't what Ryan was calling Max for. Instead, he wanted to make sure nothing had befallen the other Caulfield child and was more than relieved to hear that she and her best friend had survived the massive storm. It had officially been 24 hours since the storm had begun, but due to how intense it had been, although the entire country had been on watch for it, the press hadn't been able to get any coverage until then. By that point, Chloe and Max had just finished a 20-hour drive and were now far away, in a hotel about a state apart, just trying to escape it all.
"Perhaps Lauren and her friends are missing, but we're hunting them ceaselessly," Ryan tried to sound brave. "I just wanted to know you were ok."
"Yeah, Dad. Of course," Max choked out. She loved her cousin dearly and to hear that such a potentially horrific fate had befallen her was awful. And it was made all the more eerie by the fact that it was so mysterious and confusing. Not a clue to be found!
Max felt Chloe touch her arm then and she instantly felt better. She smiled at the blue-haired girl before speaking to Ryan again.
"I'm assuming you're visiting Uncle Reagan?" she asked.
"Yes," Ryan replied.
"Do you want me to come up there?" she asked next.
"No, darling," Ryan murmured sympathetically. "It's too hard for us right now, and none of us want you to have to leave one traumatic event only to step into another, but if you need a place to stay, please just go home to Seattle. Don't come up here to Canada. I've got it covered here. But I'm sure your mom would love to see you. Yes. Why don't you do that? Go home to Seattle, at least put your mother at ease," Ryan suggested finally.
"Ok," Max replied, then she turned to Chloe, asking the silent question of what they should do. Chloe only nodded back to express that she would follow Max no matter what she decided to do. Although this wasn't a very clear or definitive answer, Max saw the loyalty in Chloe's hazel eyes and that was enough to give her the confidence to choose an answer for herself.
"Ok," Max repeated, sounding firmer now. "Chloe and I will go back to Seattle, but you keep us updated on Lauren and you tell us if you need our help up there, ok?" she asked.
"Ok," Ryan agreed. "My brave little girl, everything will be ok in the end," he added, affection clear in his voice.
"I know it will," Max responded, feeling an intense love for both Ryan and Chloe and truly believing her words. "I know it will. Life is strange, but we will survive it," she promise. This earned a smile from Chloe and an agreement from her father. Then after that, he gave one final farewell to his daughter before hanging up, selfishly relieved that even though Lauren was missing, Max was ok.
Max, meanwhile, heaved a sigh as she set her phone down again.
"You think life could also cut us a break," she said. "After the storm, you think it would decide to go easy on us for once!"
"Yeah, but life is also cruel. We can't forget that," Chloe smirked grimly.
"I don't," Max deadpanned back, earning a dark chuckle from her best friend.
"Let's just say we get to bed. We can head out for your mother's tomorrow morning," she suggested.
"Ok," Max agreed, then a peace settled over them once more and despite all that had happened to them after the storm and the call concerning Lauren's fate, Max felt happier than she had felt in almost five years. She snuggled back up to Chloe and Chloe readily took her in her arms.
"Goodnight, my Everyday Hero," the blue-haired girl hummed softly.
"Goodnight, my Faithful Sidekick," Max chuckled back before kissing Chloe lightly, then both were lost to the dreamworld. But their dreams were very different. Chloe would not remember hers in the morning, but Max most definitely would.
Max woke up to find herself in a dark forest. It was full of trees with long black branches that twisted eerily off into a smoggy, starless sky. Papers fluttered around her head in a circle before dispersing out through the endless wood. Max counted eight of them flying off into the foggy night. She took a cautious step forward, feeling that familiar sensation she always got when she was about to use her Time Travel powers. But how was this possible? Max had lost her powers. After the storm, she had no longer been able to reverse the clock as before. It seemed that life had bestowed that gift upon her for a temporary time, to use her as a conduit for the judgment of Arcadia Bay. But with the Bay destroyed and the judgment passed, Max shouldn't have her powers anymore. But being in this forest made her feel like she had them again…
As Max moved past the trees, she noticed one perfect square of pure white paper contrasting sharply with the dirty and dark bark of the gnarled tree upon which the paper was attached to. She reached out to take it, but regretted doing so an instant later because an eerie drum beat that began to echo all around her, though its source was unknown. She shivered with fear before finally taking a closer look at the page she held.
"Always watches, no eyes?" then a screech that sounded human, animal, demonic and digital all at once came from right behind the bewildered girl. But before she even had time to scream, though, she felt something like the darkness itself swarm her entirely and engulf her whole, her scream drowned in her throat as masses of something long and hard, the tree branches perhaps, squeezed her tighter and tighter. The long black masses twisted around her body, slimy and hard things entangling her, holding her down, tying her up, squeezing the breath out of her, crushing, blinding her, binding, tighter, tighter, tighter, tighter! And there was no escape as her life seeped out of her body and into the surrounding night...
"Max! Max! Maxine Caulfield!" Max woke with a violent jerk as she realized Chloe was shaking her.
"What? What? What is it Chloe?!" Max asked, sitting up at once.
"I could ask you the same," Chloe sounded genuinely scared. "I was just sleeping when you sat up and just kept looking around blankly and it was really creepy, but then you started convulsing like you were possessed! It was freaking creepy!" Chloe began to shake and Max noticed herself shaking too. It was clear whatever nightmare Max had suffered had shocked them both.
"I don't know what it was," Max murmured. "I think it was just a nightmare, but it was so real!" she broke off to shake her head in despair while Chloe looked at her nervously, clearly concerned for the sake of her friend.
"It wasn't Arcadia Bay, was it?" she asked, worried that the nightmare might've been a manifestation of Max's guilt.
"No, it wasn't the bay at all," Max said. Chloe almost didn't believe her, but there was a note of awe in Max's voice that showed sincerity.
"Then where were you?" she asked, trusting Max.
"In some kind of weird forest," Max replied, frowning as she retold the dream to Chloe.
"Bizarre," the taller girl murmured. She shook her head, not knowing what to make of this and hoping it wasn't a sign of something else strange that life was prepared to throw at them. Max shook her head in agreement.
"Let's just get back to bed," she pleaded. Chloe seemed wary of this idea, but she knew Max needed the rest, so she carefully lowered herself and Max back onto the sheets, wrapping her arms securely around the shorter, stouter teen. Both of them were pleased to say that the rest of the night was entirely dreamless for both of them. The next day, however, would not yield the same results.
Thrice more in the early morning did Max suffer strange visions, though these were slightly different than the nightmare last night. In these new visions, she was a spectator, watching a haggard woman running through these forests, seemingly evading something unseen yet unspeakably evil and dangerous. Max might not have understood what was happening, but she instinctively knew this was a life or death situation and she only watched in hopeless horror as this innocent girl continued to run through the forest like a hunted animal.
These visions came when Max was taking a morning shower, eating breakfast, and then heading to the car to head out.
"Ok. That's it!" Chloe said at once. Short or not, these mass hallucinations were not safe. "I'm driving!" she said. "You've been freaking out all morning and you are absolutely not getting behind a wheel!" her voice was cold, but Max knew it was out of protectiveness and worry. She had tried, earlier, to protest that she was entirely ok and she even refused to tell Chloe what these visions were showing her, but at this point she knew Chloe was right. She couldn't risk blacking out behind the wheel.
"Ok," she yielded. "You're right," Chloe, however, was surprised at the meekness in Max's voice. Max had never been especially bold, but she was never this terribly meek. Clearly whatever was eating at her was pretty bad and Chloe wished terribly that she could help.
"Hey, if you want, you can drive a little when we get closer to Seattle," she offered, but Max shook her head.
"It would be safer if you drove," she said. "And I promise I'm not saying this out of anger."
"Don't worry," Chloe touched Max's arm. "I know you aren't. I know you'd never do something like that. I trust you."
"Thank you, Chloe," Max replied, voice soft with relief that broke Chloe's heart. But it was true! She would always believe Max.
"Always," she vowed, then she gave Max one more loving look before both of them entered the car and headed out.
Max had several more blackouts on the long drive to Seattle and Chloe saw each of them, but Max still refused to spill any of it and Chloe couldn't risk pulling over or going into interrogation mode. She could only hope that Max would tell her soon so she could know what was wrong. These blackouts were scaring her because the last time she had them this often was with her time travel powers, but even then it wasn't more than maybe a couple a day. Now though? She'd suffered three before they even left the hotel! And then she went through two more on the drive to Seattle that were both frighteningly long! And while Chloe had her eyes on the road, Max had hers on a forest, but both of them were worrying for Max's life. If these hallucinations and visions continued, would there ever be a time when Max failed to wake up?
On the fifth vision, Max found herself in that eerily dark forest again, the broken, beaten, bruised and bloody girl still at her side, limping as fast as she could through the shadows and away from her unseen, dangerous pursuer. Max wished dearly that she could speak with this poor, broken girl, but she knew that the girl would not be able to hear her, so all she could do was plod after her and pray that whatever predator was after her would fail again. And then, right when Max began to wonder about the identity of this young stranger, a particularly harsh beam of moonlight illuminated her face and Max suddenly found herself staring into... her own face! Perhaps it sounded insane, but as sure as Max was Max, so too was this stranger. This girl, running through the haunted forest alone and hunted, was Max...
Max had three more blackouts, but on the third (eighth blackout overall), some answers were finally given to the poor, confused and frightened girl. The dream began the same as always, Max and her presumably future self running through the forest in attempt to escape, but what was different in this one was that now, Future Max almost seemed to be going somewhere specific instead of just darting around the forest at random. And where was she going? To some place called "Kullman Mines". It didn't exactly look like a good place to be, but given what Max had seen in the other visions, she figured that at least the mines couldn't be worse than whatever she was already destined to be running from. So she, silently and obediently, followed her future self into the mines and ran deeper and deeper inside until they were far away from everything else.
That was when this particular vision took a very strange turn. Future Max looked right into the eyes of Present Max and Present Max suddenly realized that this was no future vision. This was a dream! But at the same time, it wasn't just a dream either. It was some kind of special, magic communication between her and this other girl. (Oh, give her a break, stranger things had happened to her before!) Then, at the same time as Max realized this, she realized that the girl was not her future self either. It was her cousin Lauren Caulfield.
Max's jaw dropped in horror as she realized that this brutalized woman standing before her now was living in real-time and that it was her own cousin. It wasn't just some shady future vision of herself, it was actually happening right now and it was happening to her missing cousin who was, for all intents and purposes, still technically missing. It was almost surreal to think that technically, Max knew exactly where Lauren was despite not being involved in the search while those involved, like her dad, mom, aunt and uncle, still hadn't had a clue. But there wasn't time for Max to muse on the irony of that. Clearly, Lauren had something she needed to say, and she didn't have much time to say it.
"Alright Lauren, what is it?" Max asked at once. Her words might've sounded blunt, but her voice indicated the kind of resignation that came with agreeing to do anything somebody said if it meant helping them out. Lauren detected this underlying surrender and gave a bruised, messy smile in relief, tense body loosing just slightly, causing blood to gush from some of her wounds as her body changed its position. She took Max's willingness as consent to skip long intros and she began to explain right away.
"I don't have a lot of time so you'll have to save your questions and I need you to believe every word I say," she said.
"Go," Max replied. Lauren gave her another relieved smile and she then explained.
Nobody was sure when His arrival was, but speculation said that He had come from Germany. Or more specifically, a large forest in Germany, where He had preyed upon all the children who were foolish enough to travel into His realm. For centuries, He spread this evil influence across the globe before managing to reach the place right around where Kate lived. After that, He began to haunt the entire family, stalking them from generation to generation until he finally attacked one particular family of three, the Mathesons: Charles, Diane and Charlie Jr. He kidnapped the son which drove the wife to leave the husband, never to return, which drove the husband to suicide. From then on, He and the boy remained as master and slave in a nearby forest that would someday become Oakside Park. The boy was imprisoned within his own, abandoned home, a cruel torture from a cruel and nightmarish monster of a master.
Charlie and his evil master stayed that way for years before one foolish girl reopened the curse. That girl was Kate. She was a good girl, but she loved ghost stories and those stories would bring about her demise. She and her best friend, CR, often hunted Oakside Park for ghosts and, on one specific trip, they finally found a ghost. They found Him. From then on, from high school through college, He stalked them both and made their lives a living Hell. In the end, CR suffered Charles' fate while Kate suffered Charlie's, and all of this transpired a mere few hours before Lauren stepped onto the scene, finally uncovering all of these secrets that had been hidden so well for so long. She had taken it upon herself, then, to try and rescue her two friends, but she arrived far too late. CR was dead and Kate was nothing but a mindless proxy, slave to this horrible creature. And now that brought everyone back to the present, Lauren still desperately on the run from Kate and this creature, still trying to find her way out of this nightmarish forest and back home.
"You, Max! You are my ticket out of here!" Lauren cried at last, almost delirious at this point. She gestured psychotically to Max, giving an insane little laugh as she did so. Max could only stare agape. Ok. She was used to strange and weird, but this was freaking insane. But at the same time, Max couldn't deny her belief in Lauren's story. Mad and fantastical as it was, it all added up. Without even meaning to, Max found herself believing every single word Lauren said. Lauren could sense this belief from Max and the relief of it was starting to tug at her sanity.
"I know about your time travel powers," Lauren continued desperately. "And I'm begging you to come out here and use them to save me! We can try to escape the forest together and, maybe, you can use your powers to find us a safe path out of here! And if anything goes wrong, you can just use your powers to bring us back to safety! It'll be like a checkpoint in a videogame!" Lauren gave another unhinged laugh again while Max could only stare, mouth moving, but no sound escaping. At last, however, she was finally able to form a coherent sentence.
"But Lauren," she finally began, voice hoarse. "This isn't a videogame..." Ok, so perhaps that wasn't the best reply, but it was all she had while the rest of her brain tried to understand this crazy nightmare scenario that Lauren was presenting to her.
"I know it's not! But your powers can help it act like one!" Lauren cried frantically as she sensed Max's waning belief.
"But my powers… They don't work anymore. And how could you possibly know about them?" Max pleaded next.
"They may not work now, but it's only because they're in an inactive state! Your powers were only the result of a curse. All we need is for you to return to the magical source for your powers to return and I know this because they're from Him!" Lauren wailed. "Please believe me!"
"Him?" Max gasped. Lauren nodded so hard that Max thought her head would fall off.
"Over the past few days, I've been doing research!" Lauren hissed desperately. "I know that after that foolish family summoned Him over, He began to stalk their bloodlines, killing them off one by one, but always leaving at least one person alive in order to propagate the rest of the family."
"And I'm guessing Kate is a descendant of this line?" Max asked.
"Yes!" Lauren began to nod frantically again. "That was why He took her! And now me, being in the crossfire, makes me another potential food source, and that includes you too because you're my cousin!"
"But that's insane!" Max cried in denial, though she believed every word Lauren was saying.
"It's not!" Lauren argued, close to hysteria. "I know exactly what happened because I found it all here in the books and junk scattered around this evil forest! How else would that be possible if it weren't true?"
"What do you mean you know everything that happened?" Max pressed, almost as hysterical.
"I know about you and Chloe and the time travel and all the mysteries and murders you solved!" Lauren cried. Max felt her heart begin to pound as Lauren reeled off exactly what Max had been up to after all this time. It was terrifying to hear it because it was all totally accurate. Lauren was able to correctly recall every time travel adventure that Max, and Chloe, had ever had together. That shouldn't have been possible... But it was!
"I know about the storm and your final choice and about your powers seeming to die after the storm!" Lauren finished in a last attempt at getting Max to believe her. An agonized look crossed Max's face at the memory, but Lauren ignored it. "It was all because of Him! He was testing and tormenting you and now I'm asking you now to come to me! I want you to save me and help me put an end to all of this! Before he ends you! We can bring your powers back just this once and you can save me! Maybe we can even make Him pay for what He did. To Kate and Arcadia Bay and all of us!" Lauren's sanity was clearly slipping again so Max quickly reached out to touch her face.
"Ok, ok, ok! Shhhh! I believe you! I really do! And of course I'll come help! But you've got to tell me how exactly and you've got to give me at least a bit of time to… adjust to all of this," Max pleaded as she gripped Lauren's face hard. Something in Max's agreement and tough grip brought Lauren back from her little slip and she shut her mouth at once, nodding and fighting hard against totally losing it.
"Ok, ok, thank you," Lauren rasped, shaking violently but growing quiet again. "Here's what you need to do…"
Lauren finished her instruction just in time to see His arrival into the Kullman Mines.
"He's here!" Lauren rasped, horror and terror unlike anything Max had ever known seeping into every inch of her body. Suddenly, Lauren was cowering and wild, breath as ragged as her body and clothes. It was an awful transformation, but Max could only watch.
"Oh, please! Come quickly, Max! Now you know what to do! Come find me! Find me, Max!" then the dream went dark.
Max and Chloe arrived at Max's mother's house an hour later and enjoyed a relatively happy evening, but Lauren's brutalized face was forever in the back of Max's mind and even though her night was dreamless, she could feel Lauren's spirit still pleading with her to come and save her as soon as she could. It was a restless and burning demand that Max could not ignore, try as she may. Then at last, the worry for Lauren and desire to do something grew so strong within Max that she finally made a decision...
"You want to go to Canada?" Max's mother, Vanessa, asked in confusion. "But you only just got here like three days ago!"
"I know, Mom" Max tried to speak calmly. "But I think Dad and Uncle Reagan could really use the help and you can't leave because of your job."
"You're right," Vanessa murmured unhappily. "You are the best person to go north, but I just don't want you to."
"I know you don't," Max continued to speak gently. "But I have to, please?" Max continued to plead gently with her mom, masking the true urgency she felt about getting this request granted. At last, though, her patience paid off and Vanessa agreed.
"When will you leave?" she asked as she finally gave Max her blessing to go to Canada.
"ASAP," Max replied grimly. Vanessa's frown deepened, but her consent didn't waver. Instead, she only had one last question.
"Will Chloe be joining?" she asked. Max turned to her best friend.
"Of course," Chloe answered for herself, knowing that Max's reluctant look meant she was about to deny. Like Chloe would let her do that! Ha! The blue-haired girl had been trying to get an answer about those visions out of Max for the past three days now and there was no way Chloe was just going to let her run off now without telling her about what the heck was going on!
So, it was settled, Max and Chloe would leave for Canada ASAP. Vanessa even managed to find them plane tickets that very day!
"Your seats will be the worst on the plane, but it was all I could get at such a short notice for such a low price," Vanessa said.
"Don't worry Mom, it's perfect!" Max said, fighting not to dance for joy and give away the fact that she wasn't going up north to see her father.
A few hours later, it was time.
"Call as soon as you get there!" Vanessa requested as she dropped Max and Chloe off at the airport.
"Of course!" Max replied, then with one last quick farewell, Max bolted to the plane with a semi-confused Chloe in her wake.
"So why are we really going to Canada?" she asked Max as soon as they sat down. "And don't you dare say it's just for your dad and uncle, because I can see it in your eyes it's for something far bigger!" the blue-haired girl accused quickly. Max cringed. Sometimes Chloe's perceptiveness sucked. But there was no more getting out of answering the question so Max reluctantly explained her dreams. Although she hadn't had a single blackout since the eighth one on the drive to Seattle, Lauren's terrorized and begging face had yet to leave Max's memory, and that was just as bad as any of those creepy and chilling blackouts had been.
"Are you mad?!" Chloe screamed, disturbing their whole section of the plane. "You got a deluded dream about Lauren in a forest and your first plan is to actually check it out?! I mean, even if it were true, wouldn't logic tell you to get help first?"
"No!" Max said quickly, trying to hush her shouting friend. "I believe the dream because it feels like the ones I used to get when I still had my power, and those dreams were never wrong. Besides, it's got to be true, because what Lauren said made sense! And in regards to help, who would believe me? Who would say yes? Besides, I think that if I tried to get real help, it would only make things worse…" Max broke off with a worried frown. "If you don't want to help, it's ok. I think this is going to be far worse than the whole Arcadia Bay thing, and I don't want to drag you into it just because you feel obligated. You can just stay with my dad while I-"
"Now I know you're insane!" Chloe groaned. "As if I'd let you do anything, especially if it was dumb, without me!" then despite the disbelief upon her face, Max saw Chloe give her a real smile that promised true loyalty and, not for the first time, did Max feel tears of gratitude prick her eyes. Chloe hadn't been bluffing when she told Vanessa she'd come along to support Max.
"Thanks, Chloe," she whispered.
"Always," Chloe replied, then the pair spent the rest of the flight planning…