[A/N: This one goes out to the very patient anon who initially requested a rather dark story where Vortex!Kate took the place of Rachel Amber. I was uncomfortable with the idea at first, and they were willing to wait until episode 5 came out. Then it did, and they requested I make a few changes. A lighter tone was needed, and the more of this I wrote, the more I realized it was my own reaction to the game as a whole. I hope this lives up to months of waiting and all your expectation, anon. I don't know your name or your tumblr or pretty much anything about you. But you waited, and you were understanding, and you deserved a story with this much heart.]

I remember the first moment I met the infamous Kate Marsh. Classes hadn't even officially begun at Blackwell and we were already having our first party. It was a casual sort of thing, attended by the Vortex Club but not necessarily hosted, y'know? My parents said I could use our bay house for the occasional gathering. This just happened to be a very big and very spirited gathering. Frankly, I'm still kind of proud of that particular party – for how chaotic it was, there was very little damage or destruction that couldn't be cleaned or replaced with enough money.

Kate. Yes, of course. There was a group of us on the back porch partaking in Frank's latest batch of green. Decent shit, but when Nathan told me the attached price tag I was insulted. That was when She strolled over, all fluffy flowing hair and half-lidded eyes and...

I remember, above all, I remember the necklace. A gold cross – real gold, too. Trust me, I know these things. She was as drunk as any of us, as eager to get high as any of us, danced as dirty as any of us.

I couldn't help my curiosity, and she couldn't help notice my staring. Never mind the fact that the cross hung just above her chest. It was pure coincidence, and I think she knew that – knew it and didn't care in the slightest. She would tease me about it for weeks to come. But she met my eyes, waving a hand at me, as if trying to rouse me from a trance I most definitely was not in. "Earth to Tori~"

Tori. No one had ever done that before. I was a Chase, and everyone called me by my full first name, even Nathan. She knew me less than a half hour and she had already given me a nickname. I might have objected, but the way the smoke hung around her head, backlit by the porch light, she looked angelic. It took every ounce of my strength to fire back, to keep everyone from seeing what was going on inside my head. "Yes, Katie?" Two can play at this game, I thought. No one else really cared about our conversation, but it felt like we were in the spotlight and the whole world was looking on.

"You're staring. It's the cross, right?" I nodded dumbly. Whoever Victoria Chase had been before this night, she was changed around Kate Marsh. "How I can smoke and drink and curse like a sailor and still wear this? How I can be such a proud hypocrite?" To prove her point, she marched across our little circle of chairs to take up residence in my lap, draping an am around my shoulders, all the while drawing from the last few bits of the joint. There might have been some cheering, I was... distracted at the time. The smoke finally eased its way out of her mouth and nose in beautiful little coils and wisps and I thought how beautiful she was for the hundredth time that night.

Just as suddenly she sat upright, and for a second her whole appearance changed as she passed the joint off to Nathan, as though it were burning her. "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." And just like that she was back from pastor's daughter to milk and honey, melting against me. Her shoulders gave this little wriggle that was just so perfect. "That shit still gives me chills. Because I am all. About. Love."

Kate Marsh. She has this whole Good Bad Girl thing going on. And I will gladly fall for it every time.

Hmm? Oh my god, Victoria, yes! That girl is so precious. I was mostly just having a bit of fun at the party really. Or I thought I was. I didn't mean to flirt, and then all of a sudden I was. I figured at some point I would hit a wall like I always do with the uptight ones. And then I would go on my merry way and continue living life.

Only... she didn't stop me. And when I realized I wasn't pushing my luck, I actually looked at her. Even through all the weed and beer, I could see how she was looking at me. No one had looked at me like that in a while. All doe-eyes and actual interest. I thought I knew her type, but I was so wrong. I'm mature enough to admit my mistakes. It eases the sting somewhat when it works out in your favor.

So yeah, I asked her to dance. Well, I grabbed her hand and dragged her into the improvised dancefloor anyway. I think I said something in the form of a question. It's hard to remember. She was all for it, I remember that! And she was a good dancer. Okay, no, I don't remember that for sure either! A lot of the details from that night are hazy.

You want to know what I do remember? Eyes and lips and hands and hot breath and good beats and fun. Victoria. I remember Victoria. There's no way I could ever forget her. Not even when... Well, you know. I'm assuming we'll get there.

But! In the meantime, let's talk about the good stuff. Of course Tori and I had classes together, and we lived like fifty feet from each other. There was no getting around what went down at the party, the way she looked at me, the way I felt about her. We did our dances around each other for the first few days, but by Friday I was bored of it. I was tired of stammering choir boys and girls at youth group who didn't know what to do with me. Victoria was clearly interested and so was I. We were adults, for all intents and purposes.

So it happened. Yes, I'm sure your readers want the juicy details, Nancy Drew, but that doesn't mean I'm giving it to them. Tell them to use their imaginations. No, don't do that. I've changed my mind. Just tell them it's none of their damn business.

Look, I didn't even really care that much about the Vortex Club, that's the weird thing. And I think she knew that. Just a bunch of bored rich kids hanging out and being bored together. There was usually booze and drugs involved. I guess maybe it had a crueler incarnation before my time, but that was the one thing I tried to do. Cut out the bullshit, y'know? I can't tell you how easy it is to get up on the roof. What if some poor kid were bullied into submission or something? Fuck that. So I wore my cross necklace with pride and told everyone to have a heart and I guess it worked okay, all things considered.

Nathan? Nah, I mean, I thought the kid needed to mellow out. I didn't really... Look, can I work my way up to that stuff? It's only been a couple months, okay? Just... I'll tell you when I tell you.

Thank you.

So I guess I kinda did start to care about the Vortex Club. A little bit. I made it my mission to help them chill out and it worked, and everyone was pretty cool. Taylor kinda needed someone to lean on during that whole thing with her mom, and Courtney's alright. Yes, you too, Juliet. I guess I was kinda like the therapist for the Vortex kids, their conscience, their... um... Pinnochio's... Yeah, Jiminy Cricket.

Fine...

So.

So everything was good.

And then.

I um... fucked up.

She what? She said that? No, of course she did. Off the record please? I'm serious, she'll kill me. Kate Marsh is aloof until she's not. She is a party girl, totally, like any of us. But her heart is deep. Deeper than the ocean.

Shut up. No, we are not 'totes adorbz'. Shut up.

Anyway. Katie didn't fuck up. I did. I got bored because I'm a total princess and I don't know how to deal when I've got a good thing. And she's too smart. She saw how dull I got and I thought she just left. God, and I'm such an idiot, I knew immediately something was wrong. B-But...

No, ugh, this is not a counseling session. Shit, sorry, Watson. So. Um, I guess whatever happened exactly, it was over that particular weekend. So that next... Monday, I'm feeling like a complete waste, and I'm getting drunk by myself in my room at three in the afternoon. Taylor came by, and immediately went into best friend mode. And even when I tried to spin things to put myself in the worst light possible, she still couldn't believe that Katie would... y'know, just up and leave me like that. I guess in that moment Taylor knew her better than I did. Knew me better than I did. Which is kind of embarrassing.

And that was when we jumped into action. Me and Taylor, and I roped in Courtney naturally. Of course Max was immediately on board, which meant we also had a Chloe and Rachel Amber. Yes, you too, Madame Detective. We had our own little crime lab scattered across the entire girls' dormitory. Other people started volunteering, and I think it's safe to say we wouldn't have gotten everything we needed without Brooke.

The first snag emerged when I tried to get Nathan to help. He was distant. Avoidant. He never did that, not to me. He's like my kid brother, even if he is only a few weeks younger than me. He tells me stuff he wouldn't even tell a shrink. He was completely mum, wouldn't tell me anything, wouldn't help. But that snag was also our first major lead. If he was being difficult, it was because he knew something.

But involvement with the Prescotts wasn't much, they own half the town. Chloe used her "underground contacts" which basically just means she chatted up Frank while buying drugs from him. When he found out it was for Kate, well, he told her everything he could. She, Max, and Brooke had this whole elaborate set-up across both digital and analog sources. The entire hallway looked like some kind of conspiracy theorists' wet dream...

We worked fast and we worked efficiently. We were close. We were just missing one major detail...

Jefferson.

God, what a fucking prick. Like, I cannot say that name anymore without feeling ill. I'm still a Christian, though maybe my dad would say I'm not. But I'm Christian enough that I know what hell is, and I've always made it a point to never wish it on anyone. I hope Jefferson is in hell right now. I hope it's just him, and he has to sit there for all eternity, finally seeing himself as everyone else sees him.

As a fucking, no good, lousy, shit-eating, stupid-beard-having, pretentious, fucking prick.

Yeah, I know I said 'fucking' twice. I really don't like him. What do you mean, "So why did you go to him?" I already said I fucked up, do I have to spell it out to you?

He's attractive and I was trying to make Victoria jealous.

It's not exactly a complex math problem, okay? So. Jefferson.

It was Tuesday when Nathan broke. Frankly I didn't think it would happen so quickly, but his conscience is a lot stronger than anyone gave him credit for. Even me. He didn't tell me everything. Just enough. I still had to find out the gory details the hard way. Kate ended up going to Jefferson, flirting with him, going somewhere with him. But Nathan "didn't like the way he was looking at her."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I was furious. He'd kept this from me all weekend, and then continued to hide it until he couldn't take it any more. Multiple days he had this important lead, and he didn't tell me. Me, basically his sister. About Kate, my... well... my whatever. Things were complicated at that point. Of course.

He spoke in this hushed voice. "Look, I'm telling you, she went home with Jefferson, only I don't think they went home, okay? That guy has issues."

"Great, now I know to narrow our search parameters to 'Not Jefferson's House'. Thanks, Nathan, that's a huge help. I'll get Brooke right on that. I hope her computer can handle that much data." I was frustrated and not looking to be generous because he was giving me crumbs. If anything, all he did was complicate things. What were we dealing with? Just some illegal student/teacher liaison? Or did he mean what he said about Jefferson's issues?

We kept bickering until he finally gave me something we could actually use. "You'll find Kate at my family's old abandoned farm, there's something under the barn." It was all I could get, and after that he just ghosted. He's just lucky he turned himself in at that point. I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't been in police custody...

Look, I know The Weekly already ran those pictures of me. I was mortified, so I'm not going to give your readers any new torture-porn stroke-material. This isn't some television special, this is my life, and it hasn't even been six months. The assets seized from Jefferson and the Prescotts still haven't cleared, so the only thing I got out of this was my girlfriend back. So we're gonna talk about this how I wanna talk about it, and I'm going to approve anything you decide to print.

Thanks, Watson. That's why you're getting this story and not some asshat from Portland with a journalism degree.

First things first: I survived as long as I did because Jefferson thought I was some kind of perfect model. I don't think it's entirely possible to explain in relateable terms how horrifying that is, that he thought I was just on that perfect cusp between innocent and dirty. What really messes with me, is if he just hadn't been a weirdo about it, he might have gotten some okay shots of me. I would've posed for him! Instead, he was a total freak who kept me so drugged I only remember about thirty percent of what happened – and I am so thankful for that.

But that leads on to the second point, that there really isn't anything worth printing. Do you know what he did when he wasn't taking pictures? He talked. He talked so much I was looking forward to this whole killing thing he was building up to. I was already in his class, and then I had to deal with that. It was hell. Just pretentious nothing. He would start talking, and I'd black out into blissful darkness, and when I came to, he'd still be talking! But I'm a pastor's kid, and if there's one thing you learn how to do by the time you're five or six, it's pretending to listen to sermons.

That's the thing, though, right? He was preaching! Like, he was thinking after some amount of time, I'd suddenly say "Right on, sir, hit me with another dose of that sweet drug and let's get some real photography going!" After the first day, I wasn't terrified. I was bored. When those cops busted in, I was weeping tears of joy because something interesting was happening.

...Of course I'm being facetious, Juliet! It was awful. But there's no tear-stained version of this story that's going to make it any more easy to understand. This man had a sick fascination with innocence that was little more than disguised pedophilia.

You know what I'm really hoping you do? I'm hoping you take one, maybe two sound bites from me, and make the rest of the story about Victoria and Max and Chloe and everyone else who thought I was someone worth saving. They had no reason to believe I was anything other than a hurt little girl who went to sleep with a teacher as revenge. Talk about them, talk about their high school crime lab. Jefferson wanted to capture some messed up notion of idealized youth. But those students just wanted their friend back.

After... Well. Well, After.

It took some time for Kate to feel ready to dig in and ask about our investigation. The one thing she couldn't wrap her head around was Nathan's involvement, and what finally made him give up the location of the bunker. It was...

Nathan and I were going back and forth, getting nowhere. I would yell at him that he wasn't telling me something, and he would withdraw and say that I was getting in over my head or some other cliché. Finally he snapped I guess. "What is all this for?" He was barely able to get the words out because he was sobbing at this point. I was too. "What do you even care? She left you!"

And my mind just went white, which I know isn't exactly a trope or anything, but that's kinda how I would describe it. Not clear, not blank, not dark. It went white. And the words just left me. "Because I love her, okay?" Beat. Silence. Beat. Silence. Beat. And then he just told me about the barn and left.

He didn't have any reason to take that as evidence. Every teenager thinks they're love is true love, and that it will last forever. He could have laughed in my face. It would have been reasonable, in a dick-ish sort of way. And I guess that's why, even now, I try to visit him as often as I can. I tell him stories about Blackwell and how things are going. He's adjusting, he's getting better, he's medicating – properly now.

I still think a lot about that first night Kate and I met. Getting high and drunk at a party, dancing together. And I always think about her smoking weed and quoting the Bible. I don't think I could forget those things if I tried. I love her. Everyone does. She's this sorta... perfect storm.

Kate said what? Well, yeah, of course she would. She hates the spotlight. I would imagine that explains a lot. And she's right.

Terrible, awful, horrible things happened. But this isn't a horror story. It's not some serial killer drama. It's not even about the spunky teenagers who rescue their friend in trouble. It's a love story. My love for Kate. Her love for scripture and drugs. Your love of truth. Max's love of friendship. Chloe's – frankly unhealthy – love for Rachel Amber. Frank's love toward Pompidou.

Yeah. Go with that. It's a love story. I like that.