The sun began to set in the distance, through the overcast, painting blood red fire across the sky. The tall girl drove, roughly north. The other stared out the window of the rusting cab of the truck. Almost catatonic. Almost, but not granted that sweet mercy.
"Where are we going?"
The taller girl was lost for words, this was the first time the younger girl had spoken in an hour, "...Portland. We're...going to Portland. Like...like...I promised."
"Mmm." She nodded her head against the window again. She knew there was blood cached under her nose. In her hair. On her shirt. She could smell it, somewhere, far off from wherever she was watching the world from behind her large blue eyes. And so much more on your hands, her own voice echoed to her from somewhere deep inside.
They rode in silence. The only sound the patter of intermittent rain, every drop a sledgehammer inside the smaller girl's skull, and the rough sound of the tired pickup truck's motor.
"Why are we going to Portland?", Maxine Caulfield's second fully formed sentence since leaving what they left behind them.
A moment of clarity, perhaps? The older girl thought, and desperately pleaded with whatever power was up there that wasn't the case, though she was sure she had used every last favor god had to spare.
"We're...going to a rave man. We're going to shows. We're gonna do all the hella fun things we couldn't do back home", she hoped Max didn't hear the choke in her voice at that last word, home.
Chloe Price was not a stranger to white lies. Or any other kind of lie, for that matter. She promised herself she would never lie to the girl across the bench seat beside her, though. But then, she had promised a lot of things in the last five days. And things had been promised. Taken back. Broken. Fixed. Died. Reborn. A never-ending cycle. Ororboros, she thought, diverting her attention from the road momentarily to look down at her ill, or perfectly, chosen shirt, I think he choked on his tail though.
"That sounds so nice", the brown haired girl mumbled from her resting position, somewhere between conscious and comatose.
"Yeah, Max. It does."
She had stopped at a shady looking gas station while Max was...passed out? Asleep? Somewhere else. As she had been consistently save a few sentences since they hit the road. There had been nobody there. Nobody at all. Chloe thought that the area surrounding the bay must have been evacuated somehow, but how, the storm came out of nowhere. A question for another time , she decided. Chloe, not a model citizen, simply hopped over the counter and took a carton of reds. She then took a bullshit souvenir backpack and stuffed it with as much preserved, junk and otherwise nonperishable food she could quickly, she refused to leave Max alone any longer than needed, even if she was dead to the world right now, grabbing a pack of bottled water on the way out. She simply filled the truck's fuel tank and replaced the pump handle, climbing back into the cab. It's an emergency situation, desperate measures, any means...blah blah blah, she thought, survivalist David would be prou...- a tear rolled down her cheek. No. Not Yet. No she would. not. go. there. Not yet. Not until she knew Max was going to pull through this.
She looked over at the smaller girl, sleeping restlessly against the door, my poor, poor Super Max. She carefully took a packet of tissues from the glovebox, reaching around the blue Manic Panic, old condoms and traffic citations. She licked her finger and carefully began to dab away at the blood under Max's nose, not wanting to wake her. A million thoughts were going through Chloe's head as she looked at her sleeping friend. A thousand voices screaming at once. She knew it was worse for Max. She didn't know if letting her sleep was a mercy or damnation. She was lost, as she had been often in the past five years, but to a greater extent. An extent she didn't know possible.
She decided to stick to I-101, knowing from the state of this main interstate that an sideroads were going to be in horrible shape and just keep heading north. The lack of other cars on the road, the strewn debris, downed trees, lack of streetlamps, none of it was lost on her. Chloe played dumb a lot. It was usually safer. But she noticed everything. No matter how vibrant and careless she showed the world she was, there was a part of her that heard everything. Saw everything. The whispers about her in public places. The unnaproving looks of people who were strangers to her. There's that queer junkie punk again. Hope she doesn't look this way. Or decide to bomb the fucking town one day. Turn it to glass. She sighed. Stop thinking. There's a horrible future with plenty of time to think. Just drive.
She mostly managed to drown out her inner monologue chainsmoking and watching the lines in the road. Occasionally slowing down to avoid debris or a dead car in the road. It was getting darker. She knew she couldn't keep driving for much longer without stopping without falling asleep at the wheel, possibly killing us both, which is what we deserve.
No.
Stop it. Max doesn't deserve that. She tried.
But she saved your stupid ass. Over everyone. Over David. Joyce. Everyone.
No.
She had to pull off the road for a while, the emotions she was so good at suppressing were starting to surface. She saw a sign for a "SCENIC OCEAN BYPASS DRIVE", ugh, good enough.
Stars. There were stars. The clouds had past. Had the storm passed? No. And the rush of waves breaking against rock and sand. The blue haired girl sat on the hood of the truck staring blankly out at ocean. She had stopped at some scenic tourist trap along 101 to gather her thoughts. Max was asleep. She took a long drag from her cigarette. She was on her second pack since leaving Arcadia bay a few hours before. She'd seen maybe three cars on the way. Three. On interstate 101. "Hella fucking hell", she said through the smoke to nobody in particular.
There wasn't enough punk grrrl attitude in her or the fucking world to stop what was starting to hit her. The guilt. The tiredness. The genuinely cruel irony of it all. Just the sheer weight of it all. She thought about her mother. David. Rachel. Max barely clinging to this plane in the truck, behind her. She began to laugh. It wasn't the laugh of a sane person. It wasn't the laugh of a psychopath, either.
It was the laugh of a broken nineteen year old girl.
Still laughing, she slid down the truck's grille, her boots meeting the pavement. She walked forward towards the sandy beach that should have still had Blackwell and other local students partying well into the night on it, despite being early october. She walked and walked until she collapsed, laughing all the way. Only when her neon blue head hit the sand did she stop. She then began to cry.
Something inside Chloe Price died that day.
Max was in the dark room. Or some place like it. Hellish, twisted, proportions warped into a hellish dreamscape, a vortex of bad memories and mixed emotions. She was restrained again. She could feel Jefferson watching her every move, camera in hand. She held her eyes shut so tightly she thought they'd burst. She did this for what seemed like eternity, all the while every voice from every person in Arcadia Bay screamed at her.
"WHY DID YOU LET US DIE"
"WAS THE PUNK BITCH REALLY WORTH IT"
"WE'LL BE SEEING YOU AGAIN MAX, REAL FUCKING SOON".
Eventually she simply couldn't take it anymore. She opened her eyes and looked up to face Jefferson again. It wasn't like it was the first time.
But the face she expected wasn't what she got, she was looking into her own eyes. At her own self, dressed as she had been five days ago, staring at her from the sofa across from the hellish portrait studio she was confined to.
"Maxine, Maxine, Maxine", her other self said, almost sadly, "wowser, right? Like we totally did it, we saved everyone just like you wanted. Just like that blue bitch wanted, we totally did it, we saved everyone, if everyone's name is Chloe Price, if not, you know, fuck 'em, right?"
"Shut the fuck up, you stupid bitch."
"Easy there, champ. I'm still you and you are still me, don't drag our self esteem into this, you might hurt our feelings or something."
"Why are you here, or why am I here, what is here, where am I?"
"What your little mind perceived Jefferson's glorified storm cellar as. That's where you are. As for the former, you know exactly why i'm here. You don't listen, Maxine. You never listen. I thought Chloe was the ADHD poster child, but you, god damn, you do not pay attention."
"That doesn't explain anything", Max retorted, she could feel blood dripping from her nostrils, taste it in the back of her mouth, "why would you be here now….now that….now".
The other Max sighed, standing up and stretching, boredly.
"Now that you killed everyone? Now that Chloe walked away from the truck two hours ago and hasn't come back, probably getting high or touching herself to memories of Rachel, yeah that deal was clearly worth everyone in Arcadia Bay and-"
"AND WHAT? YOU KNOW WHAT, NO. FUCK YOU. ENOUGH. JUST, TELL ME WHY", Max demanded, spitting blood to the concrete floor.
"You never let me finish, Maxine. Because, dumbass, you made the wrong decision. I was kind of the last chance to turn back, last bit of denial, final step of the grieving process to be conquered, and it didn't work, I only exist because you allow me to. I'm you. You're me. Happy family. Right? Wrong, I don't want to be here anymore than you do. But you know, when you can bend reality and go fucking with timelines and universes and substructures and...well, it doesn't matter. Because we're in this together."
"I...I didn't make….the wrong choice", Max whimpered, tears with the blood, "I didn't."
"Really now, interesting, and why was one person so much more important than everyone, hmm? Why would you ignore every warning. Why, Maxine."
"Max. Never Maxine."
"Heh. Heh. Heh. Nice redirect, Caulfield. Well, we both know the answer anyway. Unfortunately you believe it, too. You know, you created this shithole we're in right now, you can leave any time you like, I don't know for how long though, I mean, you belong here, after what you did, but, still…."
The other version of herself walked the small distance to her and undid the restraints on her wrists.
"You're on your own with the rest, Max Max."
"Why are you letting me go?"
"Because i'm you and I don't like being tied to a fucking chair."
Max undid the ankle restraints, stood up and took a few uneasy steps. She turned to face herself. She found herself smiling sadly.
"Maxine, you better go find out where your precious punk is, I have the rest of our short lives to torment you."
"I don't need you, I don't want you, just leave me alone."
"If that were true, I wouldn't still be here, but I digress, go find your number one priority", the last bit said with more sarcasm and resentment than she knew possible, "i'll be seeing you again, real soon."
Max was, for the first time in what seemed an eternity, but was probably only hours, acutely aware of her surroundings.
Chloe's truck, we were driving, I was there but I was also somewhere else, we stopped once. Chloe said something about gas and food. And cigarettes.
Max sat up, she instinctively reached up to brush the dried blood from under her nose, but found almost nothing. Well, there's that, she thought. She looked around, dark. Too dark. Way too fucking dark. The only light seemed to be the stars and even they seemed dulled somehow. And Chloe was nowhere to be found.
Chloe where the hell are you, I need you.
Heh. Hehheh. As much as she needs you right?
Max stopped herself from thinking further, her own voice taunting her was getting old really fast. She decided to think later, act now. There was too much. Too fucking much to consider. She couldn't deal with it alone, anyway, she'd rather have thrown herself off the cliff in Arcadia.
Maybe I should have.
"Maybe" you should have.
Ugh.
She rested her aching head in her hand for a moment, then reached for the door handle. She opened the door to a cold blast of seaside October air and shivered. She was freezing. She looked around. Chloe had left her jacket.
That's not good.
She put it on anyway, relishing the smell of stale cigarettes and cheap deodorant. Of Chloe.
She had no idea where to even start looking, or if she should just wait, maybe Chloe just went to take a piss or something.
Yeah right. Because anything is ever that simple.
Dying is supposed to be.
SHUT UP.
She knew she needed to find the older girl now, her own internal monologue could wait. She knew something bad was up, she just knew, the same way she knew every time Chloe was in danger. Like they were linked through….what had Chloe said, destiny? Yeah, that.
She found a maglite under the seat of the truck, her phone was long dead, along with some more questionable items, but then, what was normal, at this point? She was looking for her best friend on a beach in the middle of the night, coming from their destroyed town, destruction that she caused, by saving her best friend over and over again in the last week. Normal.
It didn't take her long to pick up the trail, she shone the light straight ahead from the truck and could see bootprints, long strides at that, in the sand. She knew they were the only people here, she just knew.
Which is...strange.
Is it?
She sighed, wondering if she was schizophrenic. A matter for later, she followed the tracks as quickly as her tiny, overtired and taxed body would allow.
"CHLOE", she called, "WHERE ARE YOU?"
Nothing. Fuck.
She stopped when she saw a large impression in the sand, like someone had fallen. She was becoming increasingly worried with every step and this was elevating it to new highs. Then she saw it.
A dark blue beanie.
Chloe had fallen here. But the tracks led away again.
God dammit, Chloe, where are you.
