And I said, please put up your fists
Put on a smile, and blow them a kiss
'Cause darling you're nothing but brave
And I know that you can be saved
Both the Caulfield's and the Madsen/Price families crowded into Max's hospital room the next morning. Chloe paced back and forth as much as the suddenly cramped space would allow, adjusting her beanie, then her hair. Walking back and forth in front of the window. Max felt like she was watching a tennis match, her eyes tracking every move the blue hair girl made. She could practically see the gears turning in Chloe's head. David and Ryan murmured softly in the corner, a pinched, stressed out expression on David's face was in stark contrast to Ryan's calm, almost but not quite relaxed look. Vanessa sat in the chair next to Max's bed, a place she had claimed from the first day Max had been brought there. Joyce stood next to her, both trying to make small talk with Max and each other. Both women sharing concerned glances between Max and Chloe.
The air was tense and full of fake casualness, all the parents pretending every was fine, that this wasn't a big deal. Both Max and Chloe knew it was a lot more seriously they had been lead to believe.
The night before, Chloe had heard David shouting followed by harsh loud whispering which lead to even more shouting from David. She couldn't make it all out but what she had was enough to ring alarm bells in her head.
"I told you Chloe was going to cross a line one day!"
"How can we afford a lawyer?"
"She caused this mess, we should let her figure it out!"
Chloe wanted to hate him for that last one but she couldn't because he was right, this was all her fault. It was her fault for getting Max shot, she'd brought a snarky attitude to a gunfight and Max paid the price.
"That's just great, Joyce, now we have to worry about that little shit going free!"
That was the one that made her blood run cold, her mind race, her stomach churn. That was the one that was running through her mind all night and was still ringing in her ears as she paced back and forth in the hospital room.
She couldn't face Max, couldn't look at the other girl, laying in her hospital bed, so small in that big bed, her right arm useless, a hole in her chest. One look and Chloe knew, she knew, Max would know, would see the panic and guilt in Chloe's eyes. Then Max would start with the bullshit absolutions, telling Chloe none of this was her fault, she was going to be fine. It didn't matter how genuine Max meant every word or how earnest her voice sounded, how her eyes shined with nothing but love, even the prettiest of lies were still lies. Everything that was happening, that was about to happen, was all Chloe's fault, she couldn't handle Max lying to her. She definitely didn't want Max's forgiveness because, God, how fucked up would that be? Chloe still couldn't forgive Max for leaving her, not completely, but Max was all too willing to let Chloe off the hook for almost getting her killed. And now, the fact that Chloe's actions might get that fucking weasel Nathan off from almost...for shooting Max, no, unacceptable. Chloe knew she was an epic fuck up but never, in her wildest dreams, had she imagined she's ever pull Max into her blast zone of bullshit. They hadn't seen each other, let alone talked to each other in five fucking years. And yet Chloe's penchant for ruining the lives of those closest to her had of course spilled over to the one person she thought would be the safest from her blast zone. Five Years! Of course, the Universe or whatever would have Max in that bathroom, at that moment, because the Universe or God or Buddha or The Flying Spaghetti Monster, whatever the fuck controlled these things never ran out of fun new ways to fuck with Chloe.
"You're making me dizzy." Max finally couldn't handle Chloe not looking at her, barely acknowledging her. Self-doubts was flooding Max, she was certain she would drown in it soon if Chloe kept avoiding her.
"Chloe, dear, sit down." It wasn't a suggestion or even a request, Joyce pointed to the chair on the other side of Max's bed.
"I've got too much energy to sit." Compromising, Chloe leaned up against the window, picking at her nails. "When is this dude gonna get here?"
"He should be here any minute. Relax." Joyce once again commanded, though pointlessly, Chloe was never one to listen to demands even in the best of times.
David opened his mouth, like he wanted to say something, but closed it, settling on shooting Chloe a warning look not that she noticed, she was too busy pretending to find her cuticles fascinating.
"Do you want something to drink, sweetie?" Vanessa asked Max, picking up the water pitcher and a plastic cup. She'd stopped forcing drinks on Max but she still asked her every ten minutes if she wanted a drink, or something to eat, or a magazine to read. Unfortunately, Vanessa couldn't give her daughter what she really wanted and that was for Chloe to just look at her.
"I'm fine, thanks." Max mumbled, as she watched Chloe moved from staring at her fingernails to reading the cards on Max's flowers, snorting and rolling her eyes when she got to Warren's card. Max still hadn't even read it, it had completely slipped her mind. She felt a bit guilty about that.
There was a knock on the door, then an older man with salt and pepper hair with short cropped curls, walked into the room carrying a briefcase. He was dressed impeccably in a dark, gray, three piece suit, a yellow tie disappeared under his buttoned suit jacket. Despite his graying hair, he had a youthful look about him but also an air of professionalism around him that commanded your attention.
'Now there is a man who understand the importance of a good facial and skin regiment.' Vanessa thought, standing up to greet the man who must be their attorney.
"Hello, everyone, I'm Sebastian Sendal."
"Hello, Mr. Sendal, I'm Ryan Caulfield, this is my wife, Vanessa, our daughter, Max." Ryan shook Mr. Sendal's hand and started making the introductions pointing each person out. "That's David and Joyce Madsen, their daughter, Chloe."
Sebastian made the rounds, shaking each parent's hand and sending a friendly smile of perfect, straight, white teeth at each girl. After the pleasantries were exchanged, Sebastian set his briefcase down on the side table and opened it up, pulling out a couple folders, one already looking impressively full.
"Ok, I need each of you to sign these papers before we say anything case related, that way you are all covered under client, attorney privilege, meaning anything you say stays between us. A bit of legal junk to get out of the way in case any of you confess to shooting Kennedy or liking Nickelback, your secrets are safe with me." Sebastian took off his suit jacket, carelessly tossing it on the back of a chair. He unbuttoned his shirt sleeves and rolled them up to the top of his forearms, to reveal muscular, tattooed covered arms that stopped just above his wrists.
Max immediately felt at ease, he wasn't what she was expecting at all. He was incredibly friendly and likable already. He had a nice even speaking tone that sounded like one of those radio talk show hosts but not the crazy ones that were screaming about alien conspiracies at 3am. From the corner of her eye she saw Chloe visibly relax too. His tattoos and casual manner seemed to have the opposite effect on David as he stared at the attorney with narrowed eyes.
He passed a form out to each person, stopping when he got to Max. "Ok, Max, I know you can't sign your signature like you normally would but if you could try your best with your left hand, that'll work."
Max signed the paper left-handed, it was pretty messy, resembling more of a toddler's attempt at writing their name than an educated 18 year old. After everyone had signed their paper and handed them back to the attorney, he placed them in a folder in his briefcase. "Great, now that that's out of the way, let's get down to business."
Chloe took a few steps closer to where she was almost touching Max's bed, the closest she'd been to the younger girl since she'd walked into the room. She made every effort to avoid eye contact with Max but still needed to be close to her. This moment was something big, she knew it was there was a lot was riding on this guy's shoulders, hell, her future very well could be in his hands along with Max's.
"First, I'm going to go over what we know so far then I'll speak with the girls, first individually and then together. It's crucial that you tell me everything you know, don't hold back, and don't lie. I'm not here to judge you, that's not my job or my place. Then I'll talk with the parents, don't be upset when I don't tell you what the girls said. The less you know, the less you have to answer when it comes to questioning because believe me, there will be more questioning. You weren't kidding, Ryan, those Prescott's are bastards. My private investigator started looking into them right after we got off the phone and we already have two files worth of crap and we've barely begun." Sebastian nodded towards Ryan. The attorney was relaxed but clearly all business for the moment. Picturing him in a courtroom was easy, he had the manner and presence that demanded you pay attention to him.
"Wait a minute, you mean you're not going to tell us what the girls tell you? How can we protect them if we don't know everything?" David asked incredulously. Chloe knew Joyce had told him that already last night because she'd sat at the top of the stairs after the shouting started and caught that part of the conversation. Besides, she doubted David wanted to know so he could protect them. He probably wanted to put it all in one of his creepy little files Chloe had seen in the garage.
"I do mean that. I know, it's hard as a parent," Chloe couldn't help snorting a bit in disbelief at hearing that. Sebastian glanced over at her, did some quick calculation in his head, sizing up the situation between the blue haired girl and her step father instantly. "You want to protect your child, but it's my job to legally protect them. That includes from one of you accidentally saying something that appears completely harmless at the time but to the sharks that the Prescotts have hired, it would be like blood in the water. As of right now, Max and Chloe are my priority."
David grumbled a bit under his breath but backed down. This guy was impressing Chloe more and more as he went on. It wasn't often David backed down, usually the only person who had that effect on him was his wife.
"Now, as I was saying, the Prescott's have hired some of the best defense attorney's in the state, pretty nasty bunch that have no qualms tossing a couple innocent girls under the bus if it means getting their client off. But they didn't hire the best, you did. If there is one thing I cannot stand in this world it's a bully and the Prescott's are nothing but bullies." Sebastian's green eyes grew hard, giving his face a dangerous look to it. "And I will not allow them to drag either Chloe or Max's names through the mud or create trumped up charges against these girls."
This guy was a complete badass, of that Chloe had no doubt. Who knew that there would be an adult besides her mom and Max's parents that Chloe would honestly respect.
"I don't understand though, how can you do anything against the Prescotts attorney's? The district attorney is going to try the case against Nathan, not you." Joyce asked, feeling out of her depth.
"You are correct, Mrs. Madsen, I won't be arguing in the criminal case against Nathan, I'm here to make sure that there is no criminal case filed against the girls and to handle the civil case, if it comes to that, against the Prescott's for what happened to Max and to Chloe. That being said, we all know that the Prescott's basically own the entire legal system in this town from the cops to the judges. They aren't the only ones who have some pull and my friends have a lot more pull than small town politics."
"If that's true, then how can you have any say in what happens to the girls or to this case for that matter?"
'And David comes up to bat again.' Chloe thought bitterly.
"Mr. Madsen, I understand your concerns, but trust me when I say, there are bigger fish than the local justice system at play here. What Nathan did, bringing a gun to school, private or not, that is not a local case, which is a federal crime. He injured a fellow student with that gun, which is also a federal crime. The local judicial system has no say in this case anymore. It's a federal case, where the Prescotts have significantly less pull. Anything they could try to pull out their asses to discredit the girls, or to try and get them arrested, as far as I know at this time, there is nothing that would go beyond the state level and therefore would be handled here. I am here to make sure it doesn't come to that. Also, when Nathan goes to trial, we need to make sure the girls are well aware of the types of things they will be asked so there will be no surprises on the stand." While not being condescending towards David, it did walk the line but yet again, David simply dropped it.
"And a swing and a miss." Chloe mumbled, low enough that only Max heard her. Max glanced at Chloe, wishing she could reach out and take her hand, something to get her attention, to make sure she was alright, but of course Chloe was on her right side. Stupid, worthless arm, you could bend time and space to save Chloe but now you can't even reach out to touch her.
"Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to speak to the girls. Afterwards, I'll talk with each of you and then we can all meet up again and I'll tell you what I think our next move should be. Sound good?"
"The hospital said we could use the family room down the hall for a few hours. I can show you." Ryan said as he walked towards the door. Out of all the parents, Ryan was the one who was by far the calmest. It wasn't because he wasn't concerned but he'd learned early in life that stressing out and worrying about things you couldn't control didn't do any good.
"Great, Chloe why don't you come with me." Sebastian snapped his briefcase closed, it was a beautiful dark brown leather with silver fasteners and corners and it more than likely cost more than Chloe had paid for her truck.
Acting much more nonchalant than she felt Chloe followed their attorney and Max's father to the door. Before she left the room, she finally turned around and shot Max a smile.
"I'll be back." she said in a really bad Terminator voice. Maxed smile for the the first time that day, filled with relief but also concern as she noticed the hesitation and fear in Chloe's blue eyes.
The hospital family room was set up more for comfort than an interview, lowlights, muted colors, puffy chairs and long sofas with a few side tables. There was a small dorm sized fridge in the corner with a coffee machine on top of it with cups, cream and sugar along with some tea packets. Fake flowers sat in white vases on various small side tables. It was the most generic, non offensive room Chloe had seen, so non offensive that Chloe almost found it offensive for it's lack of anything remotely interesting.
Sebastian grabbed one of the end tables and placed it in front of one of the puffy chairs. He set his briefcase down on it then grabbed another chair and set it across from his then gestured for Chloe to sit down.
Chloe's mouth felt incredibly dry, she took a deep breath to steady her nerves, even the air felt like it was thick and hard to swallow. She didn't want to admit she was afraid but she wouldn't say that she was not afraid either. This was big time trouble, she knew that even before she heard her Mom and David arguing the night before. This was the kind of trouble where someone who probably made more in an hour then her Mom and David made in a week was required. She didn't even want to begin to think about where the money was coming from. She knew her family didn't have it so it had to be the Caulfield's, which made her feel like a bigger loser than she already thought she was.
"OK, Chloe, no need to be worried, whatever you say is between us. Do you want some water?" Sebastian grabbed a couple bottles of water from the tiny fridge that was in the corner before sitting down in the chair across from the younger woman. Not waiting for a reply he handed her one of the bottles. "The only rule here is do not lie to me. If you do, I will find out and then you and I will have a problem because I can not help you or Max if you lie to me, do you understand?" He took an educated guess that Chloe would want to keep Max safe more than herself.
Chloe nodded her head, taking a drink from her water. It was hard to calm down when she knew she was going to have to tell him everything. That she was hella responsible for Max getting shot even if she didn't pull the trigger herself. Her stomach was churning, she felt like she was going to be sick.
"I'm not going to play coy little games with you like the cops will. They will let you have just enough rope to hang yourself. To make the best use of our time, I need you to tell me everything, the good, the bad and the ugly because I am pretty certain I already have a good idea of what was going on between you and Nathan." A few notes were scribbled on his note pad.
Chloe took another deep breath and cleared her throat. The back of her neck was feeling a little sweaty, and she couldn't stop bouncing her left leg up and down. She crossed her arms as if to protect herself from what she was about to tell the attorney sitting across from her. For once her hard, jaded mask was lost leaving an incredibly frightened and scared teenager in it's place.
Sebastian gave her a reassuring smile, placing a small digital recorder on the table between them. "OK, I'm going to record our interview so I can refer to it later. Let's start with the most obvious question, why were you in the bathroom at Blackwell, a school you had been kicked out of a year before?"
Chloe rubbed her nose and looked all around the room, staring at one of those generic painting that hospitals and hotel rooms had in common, it was a field with yellow flowers, a few white clouds in the sky. "Ah, I had asked him to meet there… because, uh, I needed money and uh, something happened between us that I knew he wouldn't want anyone to know about."
"OK, why don't we start at the beginning, tell me your version of what happened, what lead up to you and Nathan meeting in the bathroom?"
Chloe grimaced, this guy wasn't holding back or easing in but might as well get it all out and see where the chips fell.
"First, let me explain about my friend, Rachel Amber. She's been missing for 6 months and I've heard rumors that Nathan might know where she was or know something. A few weeks ago I was in a bar and Nathan was there, throwing money around, getting loaded. I thought it might be a good time to pump him for some info, because he was looking pretty wasted already." Chloe thought there was no need to tell him how she wanted to rob Nathan all things considered and since the night definitely took a turn for the fucked up it was a moot point.
"So, ah, I started talking to him and he was buying me drinks and we were just talking, I mentioned Rachel a few times but he kept changing the subject. I, I don't know, I felt like he wasn't telling me something, that there was something just off the way he kept dodging the issue." Grabbing her water bottle, Chloe took a huge gulp. Maybe skipping the wake and bake this morning was a bad idea because she really could have used something to calm the beating of her heart right about now. "So it was closing time and Nathan was acting pretty smashed, I thought that maybe I could get him to talk about Rachel, if I was able to catch him wasted maybe he would slip, say something, maybe he knew where she was, maybe he helped her leave town or something, Nathan had a thing for Rachel. Hell, almost everyone had a thing for Rachel."
"Let me just stop you for a moment so I know I have this right so far, ok?" Sebastian looked down at the notes he'd been taking while Chloe was talking. "You thought that Nathan might have some information about your friend, Rachel Amber, who has been missing for 6 months. You saw him in a bar a couple weeks ago, drinking and started talking to him. He then started buying you drinks and when you would ask him about your friend, Rachel Amber, he would change the subject, is that correct?"
"Yeah, like he would get all, I don't know, it was weird, man, he would get sad for a second and then say, 'We need another shot' or he'd point someone out in the bar and be like 'Look at that sad sack, he doesn't stand a chance with that broad he's chatting up.', the entire situation felt sketchy." Flashes from that night came at Chloe with a new clarity she hadn't experienced since it had happened.
"And what bar where you two at, do you remember the name?"
"Yeah, it's biggest dive bar around, the one right off the highway, Captain Jim's. They serve anyone."
"Why were you there, at the bar that night?" It wasn't an unfair question and one Sebastian knew the cops would ask. Every question he was asking were ones the cops would ask in one way or another so he needed to see how Chloe would answer them with him first, to find any holes or inconsistencies to make sure they had an answer for everything and leave no room for the cops or the Prescott lawyers to make up their own answers.
"I was having a shitty day, my step-dad and I got into an argument about me getting a job. I had been putting up missing posters all over town again for Rachel and I was really missing her. I wanted to blow off some steam, the bar seemed like as good a place as any at the time."
"You can't keep wasting your life, Chloe! How long do you expect your mother and I to support you? You're not in school, you're not working, what the hell are you doing with yourself? You're wasting your life away and you don't even give a damn!" David yelled at Chloe, it was a conversation they'd had many times in the past few months. It was a conversation Chloe was so over having. She had just spent the last four hours putting up missing posters for Rachel. She was missing her friend more than usual that day, the daily physical ache she felt in her heart was like sharp pains. The feeling of missing Rachel was more intense than it had been in weeks. There was a desperation as the days kept adding up that something very bad had happened to her friend, it was getting to the point where it was hard to deny it anymore.
"So you didn't know Nathan Prescott would be there, you didn't go there specifically to seek him out?"
The question threw Chloe off, why would she have been looking for Nathan? "No, I didn't know he would be there. It wasn't as if I had ever sought Nathan out. We'd had maybe three or four conversations in my life before that night and it was always when Rachel was with me. He would come up and talk to Rachel when we were together or Rachel would see him and stop and talk to him when we were together but we never, like, hung out or anything. We run in completely different crowds, the only person we had in common was Rachel."
Nathan was sitting at the bar, as if he owned the place, whiskey in one hand while raising a shot glass up in the other, shouting to the bartender to get the dozen or so other people there another round. He gave Chloe a smirk when she sat down next to him on the wooden barstool, as if he had been expecting her to come over. He told the bartender to get her whatever she wanted so she ordered a Jack and coke. Nathan made a comment about not seeing her around lately, she mentioned how she'd be expelled. They talked about how much Blackwell sucked. Nathan had been alternating between being funny and bitterly sarcastic. There was some country crap playing on the jukebox and the air smelled of stale beer and cigarette smoke. A couple older guys were playing pool, one of them holding up the game as he tried to flirt with a woman sitting at the bar by herself, watching them play.
"OK, so you saw him at the bar, you drank together, you talked, what happened next?" Having talked to hundreds of clients by this point in his career, Sebastian usually had a pretty good feel for a situation and he already knew where this was headed but he needed Chloe to tell him all the same, the police and the Prescott attorney's would certainly grill Chloe on this, make it seem like she was setting him up from the very beginning to try and extort money from him. Sebastian had to be certain that that wasn't the case. He'd heard about the texts that they had from Prescott's phone sent from Chloe's phone. He was confident he could get around them as they seemed to be all they had presently against Chloe.
"Um, so, yeah he was pretty wasted, I told him he probably shouldn't drive, then he said I probably shouldn't be driving either. I hadn't had nearly as much as he had though so I offered to drive him home, I thought maybe he would open up, say something if it was just the two of us." Don't you dare fucking cry, Price. Chloe's leg kept bouncing up and down, she crossed her arms tighter across her chest, hugging herself to keep all her emotions from spilling out and onto the expensive, leather shoes in front of her. "He, uh, made some crack about my truck, I can't remember what exactly but it was more like, like a friendly joke, not like a sarcastic kind of joke. Anyways, I drove him home, we didn't really talk about anything. He was flipping through the radio, talking about how it was hard to get any decent stations out here and how I really needed to get satellite radio. He was being really friendly, like not at all how he'd been before when I'd seen him, he seemed kind of sad, actually, he seemed really lonely, thinking back now."
Nathan sat in the passenger seat of Chloe's truck looking as out of place as a steak at a vegan potluck. He kept messing with the radio dial, not staying on any one thing longer than a few seconds.
"Ugh, what's with all this country music? It's like we're living down south. If it's not country, it's whiny, indie, folk crap. The stuff sad hipster listen too. You need to get yourself satellite radio, thousands of channels so there's always something good on. You got any decent CD's in this death trap?"
"Dude, stop fucking with the radio, I'm trying to concentrate and you're hella distracting me here. I don't want to get pulled over."
"Fuck that, if you got pulled over with me in the car they'd give us a police escort, my family owns this shit hole town and all the cops in it, relax, Price." Nathan had howled laughing at the idea of getting into any trouble.
Chloe stopped unable to avoid the next part of the night any longer, Sebastian sat back, letting her take her time, holding off his questions for now, he knew this was going to be hard for her to get out if his suspicions were correct, which they almost always were.
"So we got to Blackwell and he went to open the door and kind of slipped, fell, he didn't hit the ground but he was holding onto the door like it was a life raft. I offered to help him to his room, I mean, we weren't friends but I thought if we could at least get on friendly terms he would, I don't know, let his guard down a bit, open up a bit, tell me anything I could use to find Rachel."
Nathan opened the truck door and went to step out, immediately grabbing the door as he almost fell out of the truck, laughing. "Oh damn, I almost bit it, I guess I'm more fucked up than I realized."
Chloe ran around to his side to help. He unwrapped his arms from the truck door and threw an arm around the blue haired girl's shoulders. Either he was a lot heavier than he looked or she was a bit more drunk than she thought because she almost fell down when he rested his weight against her. This only caused him to laugh even harder.
"Ugh, dude, you gotta put yourself on a diet, you weigh a ton." Chloe groaned as she tried to help him up the stairs to his dorm. He reeked of whiskey and sweat, not the best combinations, especially when he kept laughing, his hot breath in her face smelled sour and bitter. His hand "accidentally" grabbed her breast when he stumbled. She wanted to just dump him on the doorstep of his dorm and be done with it but he was flashing a lot of cash and she could really use it, a lot more than his rich boy ass needed it.
"When we got to his dorm, he couldn't get the key in the door, he dropped his keys like two or three times, so I ended up grabbing them and unlocking his door, helping him in. It was weird, afterwards, when I was thinking about it, like he was fine to walk out of the bar but was acting a lot more drunk when we got to Blackwell. I didn't think anything of it at the time but, yeah, maybe I should have been more alert or suspicious or something. I was looking around his room because how often does someone like me get to see a rich kids room, you know? He had this projector up and I was looking at this weird black and white film that was playing, it was kind of creepy."
He kept laughing loudly as she half walked him, half dragged him up the steps to his floor.
"Last on the left...Oh, man, people would freak out if they knew I brought Chloe Price back to my room!" Chloe wasn't sure if she should be offended or what. She was sure if she had any friends left, they'd be hella freaked that she was helping Nathan to his dorm room too.
"Please, little boy, you couldn't handle this, I'm too hardcore for you." Chloe decided to use a bit of sarcasm, not sure how it would play with an inebriated Nathan. That only made him laugh even harder. He wasn't being a complete asshole, in fact he seemed to be taking it pretty well, able to take it as well as he dished it.
"Ha, yeah, yeah, you wish, Price." They had stopped in front of Nathan's dorm room as he dug out his keys, dropping them on the floor. He put one hand against the wall to steady himself as he bent down to pick them up, trying to fit the right key in the lock, failing and almost falling over as he leaned a bit too far to the left.
"Yeah, you got me, I totally dream about you, Prescott." Chloe rolled her eyes as she caught him from completely doing a faceplant on the floor. He somehow grabbed his keys without falling and tried again, almost dropping them again before Chloe reached over and grabbed them, unlocking the door.
Chloe walked in, helping Nathan to his bed. She looked around, there was a projector with some weird film playing, no sound, it was all these weird images. It looked like a pagan ritual with a guy wearing a goat head, holding a knife with a lamb lying on a slab in front of the guy, surrounded by candles. With a shudder she looked at the rest of his room, littered with expensive camera gear, a high end computer, the room oozed of money.
"He offered me some water, to 'help sober me up' he said for the ride home. I took a drink of it and then I started feeling really dizzy, like immediately, it was so weird, everything felt far away, and then the next thing I knew…."
"Here, have some water before you head home, sober you up some. The cops won't let you off if they catch you driving." Nathan leaned over and grabbed a bottle of water out of a small mini fridge that was next to his bed then tossed it to Chloe who caught it.
"Ah, thanks." She was mildly touched by the kind gesture, Nathan wasn't known for being a nice guy. She pulled the cap off and took a huge gulp. She blinked a few times, the water tasted a bit off, it had a weird aftertaste. She barely had time to register that thought before things started getting really foggy, the room was spinning, her head felt like it was made of lead, everything was really slow and getting darker.
"The fuck…...you dosed me?" Was the last conscious thought Chloe had, not even sure if she actually said it or only thought it. Everything went black as she felt herself falling.
"Ah, he must have put something in the water, because the next thing I remember was coming to, like falling into consciousness, it wasn't like waking up from sleeping. He was like yelling at me, and crawling towards me, with a camera. I still felt out of it and dizzy, I was on his floor." Chloe went to take another drink of water but then grimaced at the bottle, setting it off to the side, out of her sight.
"You stupid bitch, stop moving." Nathan yelled, it was more like a harsh whisper but it sounded like a yell in the quiet of the dorm.
Everything felt heavy and impossibly slow, like someone had turned Chloe's reflexes down to 25% speed. It was hard to concentrate, her eyes felt fuzzy, out of focus. She felt the carpet under her and realized she was on the floor, slowly her eyes started to focus again. Blinking her eyes, she saw Nathan, crawling towards her, on his knees holding his expensive fucking camera up as he was taking pictures of her.
"Oh, that's a great shot, you look so confused, so helpless." Nathan cooed, like a proud parent whose baby smiled for the first time. It turned Chloe's stomach.
"He was taking pictures of me. I kicked out to get him off me, he crashed into his side table and broke the lamp. I got a hit of adrenaline and got up, pushed past him and got the hell out of there. I ran all the way to my truck and drove home. I didn't stop until I was in my room at home." Chloe swallowed the lump in her throat, pushed back the tears that threatened to fall. She was not going to cry, she was not going to breakdown. NAthan Prescott did not deserve one more tear. She had brought it all on herself. She had went there to steal from Nathan and in the cosmic joke that was her life, he had ended up stealing something from her instead.
As he advanced closer, Chloe shot her foot out, an attempt to kick Nathan in the nuts. She missed and ended up kicking him in the stomach, knocking him into the lamp on his side table. The lamp crashed to the floor, breaking. Nathan dropped his camera.
"Look what you did, you fucking bitch."
The needed adrenaline finally kicked in, with strength and energy she didn't know she possessed, Chloe jumped up, pushed past Nathan and out his door. Chloe ran down the hall and out the door not stopping until she was in her truck and had thrown it in reverse, tires squealing as she peeled out of the Blackwell parking lot. It was only when she was almost home that she, thankfully, realized she was still fully clothed.
"I know this is hard, Chloe, but I need to ask you some more questions because the police are going to ask you the same things. Did you have your clothes on when you woke up? Do you know if there was any sexual contact?"
"I still had all my clothes on, so I don't think there was any um, I don't think he, um, you know sexually assaulted me. I had a few bruises on my arms, like he had lifted me or moved me or something." It was hard to talk about but not as embarrassing as she thought it would be to tell a stranger what had happened. It was actually a relief, mostly because Sebastian wasn't giving her any looks of pity or anything, he was friendly but a bit clinical about it, of which she was incredibly grateful for. There was no way she could handle anyone giving her pity or fake platitudes of understanding.
She stripped her clothes off, throwing them in the furthest corner of her room. She had never felt so dirty, so unclean in her entire life. She got into the shower, the water as hot as she could bare and scrubbed her skin until it was red and raw, she still didn't feel clean. She didn't know when she had started crying, in the hall of the boys dorm, in her truck, in her room, in the shower, she didn't know. She ended up curling up in her bathtub, holding her knees to her chest, crying like she hadn't in years, as the water from the shower continued to fall on her, like everything else, her argument with David, missing Rachel, being kicked out of school, arguing with her mom, missing her father, being drugged by Nathan, possibly almost raped, it was too much. It was all crashing on her like the hot water.
'I'm so fucking stupid, what the hell did I think was going to happen? He'd pass out and I could just rob him? Seriously, how did my life get so fucked up that I thought that was a good plan, that I thought of it at all? When did I become that person? What the fuck is my problem? No wonder everyone leaves me, who would want to be around a fucking disaster like me. Dad. Max. Rachel. It's only a matter of time before Mom kicks my sorry ass out.'
"Did you tell anyone what had happened? Your mom, a friend, Max, anyone?"
"No, there wasn't anyone to tell. I mean, my best friend, Rachel, has been missing for months, I hadn't seen or talked to Max in five years. I didn't even know she was back in Arcadia Bay until I saw her, until I saw her in the bathroom, when Nathan... I don't really have friends, just a few people I know but none I'd call an actual friend. Things are kind of strained between my mom and I, there was no way I could tell her what happened. And the step do… David... was out of the question, we don't talk about anything. There wasn't anyone to tell. You already know the cops wouldn't have done anything about it. It would have been his word against mine and no proof beyond the pictures he took, which who knows if he still has them."
Chloe sat in her tub, letting the water run over her, washing away her tears but it couldn't touch how dirty she felt herself, in her very core. She sat there until the water got too cold and she didn't know if she was shivering more from her emotional state or the temperature of the water, having used up all the hot water a while ago. On shaky legs, she got out, wrapping herself up in her mom's robe, smelling her mom's perfume and cooking grease on it, needing the comfort it gave her because she couldn't wake her mom up to hold her, to tell her everything would be alright. Chloe knew it would never be alright because she wasn't alright, she was a curse, a fucking menace to anyone who came in contact with her, everything she touched turned to shit.
She crawled into bed, pulling Joyce's robe tight around her, a poor substitute for an actual hug from her mom and fell into a fitful sleep.
"Alright, you didn't tell anyone. Now, about Max, you said you haven't seen or talked to her in five years before that day in the bathroom?" Sebastian continued when Chloed nodded. "Ok, we'll come back to that but first, how did you end up in the bathroom with Nathan, after everything that had happened?" Sebastian made some more notes. He had hoped he was wrong but some type of assault had happened, unfortunately it was to long past to get any type of evidence from Chloe but maybe Nathan had been stupid enough to keep those photos. He seemed the type not to get rid of little mementos and Sebastian would bet his Law Degree this wasn't the first time Nathan had done something like this.
"Um, I was pissed, like I knew the cops wouldn't believe me, I'm poor white trash and compared to the Prescott's golden boy, they wouldn't have done anything. The more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got because it was like this bastard was going to get away with it and it wasn't fair. I wasn't planning on hurting him or anything like that. I figured if the cops wouldn't do anything than maybe I could get him to pay me to not tell anyone, like his parents. I wanted him to feel violated like I did." Chloe let out a shaky breath, twisting and pulling at the beanie on her head.
The next day Chloe didn't leave the house, only leaving her room a few times to use the bathroom and grab something to drink. Most of the day was spent in bed, feeling like she'd been hit by a truck, she ached all over, her shoulders and back being the worst. Her emotions kept flipping between disgust with herself and a boiling rage at what Nathan had done to her.
'I can't let him get away with this that fucking weasel, I'm going to fucking kill him. I'll take a bat and bash his fucking face in and his fucking camera, the creepy fucker.'
On the third day of Chloe barely leaving her room, Joyce hesitantly knocked on Chloe's door.
"Sweetie, are you alright?" Joyce asked, her voice muffled through the door.
"Ah, yeah, Mom, I haven't been feeling well, I must have caught a bug or something."
Joyce opened the bedroom door, her face etched in concern at the state Chloe was in. The room was dark and smelled of stale cigarette smoke, "What's wrong, Chlo? Do you want me to make you some soup or anything?"
Chloe was huddled under her covers, her face was pale, she had dark circles under her eyes like she hadn't slept in days. She pulled back as her mom tried to feel her forehead to see if her daughter had a fever. "No, I'm better now, I just want to sleep."
Lying to her mom wasn't a big deal for Chloe, she'd been doing it for years, it was second nature to her. She was upset that her mom hadn't been there to comfort her even though Joyce didn't know that Chloe needed it, so Joyce attempts now felt too little too late. It was completely unfair, it wasn't as if Chloe had told her mom what had happened with Nathan but weren't mom's suppose to have like maternal instincts or some shit to know when their kids needed them?
"I could make you some tea?" Joyce hovered over Chloe torn between leaving Chloe alone like she wanted and making sure her stubborn daughter was alright.
"No, Mom, I just want to sleep." Chloe snapped at Joyce, immediately realizing she was being an ass but unable to help herself. She didn't want Joyce's concern now, she didn't feel as if she deserved it, she's brought this all on herself.
"Alright." Joyce walked towards the door, casting one more concern look at the girl in the bed. Chloe rolled over to face her wall, turning her back on her mom, on everything.
"You wanted him to feel violated, I understand that but you need to tell me everything you did and said to him. This is important because this is basically their entire case against you, why they're pushing so hard for you to be arrested. I don't have to tell you that if they are able to get enough evidence to arrest you for threatening Nathan then that will only make his case for self defense that much stronger." Sebastian laid it all out for the scared girl, he wasn't being harsh, simply stating the facts so she would realize how important it was she told him everything.
"I was pretty shaken up for the first few days, I felt sick and disgusted with myself for being so stupid. But after about a week I stopped laying in bed and decided I wasn't going to let him get away with what he did. So I sent him a text, told him if he didn't want me to spread all his secrets then he'd better find a few thousand reasons to keep me quiet."
"You didn't threaten to hurt him physically or make any death threats or hint at them?"
Chloe pulled out her cellphone, pushed a few times on the screen and pulled up the text conversation between her and Nathan. She handed the phone over to the attorney to read through the few texts that were exchanged.
Chloe: Yo, you twisted little fuck, if you don't want all your secrets spilled you better find 3000 reasons to keep me quiet
Asshat: Who the fuck is this? I'll fucking kill you, who the fuck do you think you're messing with?
Chloe: Captain Jims ring a bell, you get off on drugging girls? How would your parents feel about that?
Asshat: Fuck you, Price, who is going to believe a loser like you? You owe me a lamp, bitch
Chloe: Blackwell, girls bathroom by the main entrance, 3:30pm tomorrow, bring those reasons or everyone knows your business, everyone
Asshat: You say anything to anyone and it will be the last thing you do
Chloe: See you there
Sebastian allowed himself a little grin reading the messages. While yes, it showed Chloe had tried to blackmail Nathan, it painted Nathan in a much more negative light. He took a screenshot of the conversation then sent it to his own phone. "You didn't send him any other messages that you've deleted or get in touch with him any other way? Email? Phone calls?"
"No, that was the only conversation I had with him after that night and until the bathroom." Chloe said, shaking her head.
"Seeing this, they'd be foolish to want to use these texts as evidence. Yes, you are clearly attempting to extort money from Nathan but he's the one who is making the violent threats. He mentions you owe him a lamp which collaborates what you said about being in his dorm room. These texts raise more questions than I think his attorney's are going to want to address." Sebastian said as he wrote a flurry of notes on the his notepad.
"Now, what happened in the bathroom?" Sebastian knew Chloe had already told the police what had happened in the bathroom, it was unfortunate she'd already spoken to them on her own but hopefully she hadn't said anything that could be damning to her.
"I was a few minutes late and Nathan was already there when I walked into the bathroom. He was by the first sink, he was not looking good, he was gripping the sink like it was holding him up. I checked a few stalls to see if anyone was there. I really didn't think anyone was there. I asked him if he had the money, he said he his family had money not him." Chloe's heart sped up, her palms were getting sweaty, a chill went down her spine. She had tried to forget everything about this moment, about how she was responsible for almost getting Max killed, it was all her fault. It was burned into her brain, she saw it whenever she closed her eyes. She never thought something bad enough would ever happen to replace the image of Nathan crawling towards her with the camera. She was so so fucking wrong, now all she saw was Max getting shot over and over.
"I mentioned how he was selling drugs to the kids at school, maybe his family would want to know. I might have pushed him a bit, ah, verbally, saying how I was going to tell everyone how he was crazy and a punk ass but that was as far as I had gotten before he pulled out a gun and pointed it at me. He started waving it around, yelling how he was so sick of people telling him what to do. He was hella unhinged. I told him he'd get into a lot more trouble for the gun and then he pushed me, he had it against my stomach. I was so sure I was gonna die." Chloe started visibly shaking, she was right back in that moment.
"OK, Chloe, you're doing great, just take a breath." The older man put a comforting hand on Chloe's shoulder. Chloe took a few moments to calm her pounding heart down, it felt like it was about to come right through her chest. The feel of the gun, pressed against her, she could still feel it.
"Then, out of nowhere, there's Max. I thought it was like a hallucination or something because I was about to die… She yelled at him, she yelled 'Hey, leave her alone!', like some badass action hero." Chloe had hoped it would be easier to tell the story again, especially after telling it to Max but it wasn't. It still brought up all those feeling of terror, surprise, confusion, they all bubbled around in her stomach, in her veins, she was feeling lightheaded. So much blood. Deep breathes, almost done.
"Nathan, he, we both were shocked, surprised, he, um, he turned around and fired... Like Max was standing there, her hand out like she was trying to reach me from the other side of the bathroom...he fired the gun… it was like slow motion, Max did a spin, like a little spin when it hit her… I still couldn't believe what I was seeing, it was Max, I hadn't seen Max in five years but it was her, it was her voice, it was really Max… in the bathroom…" Chloe still thought maybe she was in a dream and the last week or two would have only been a nightmare, that she had not gotten her best friend from childhood shot in a dirty bathroom of a school she despised by a guy who had almost (she was pretty sure) raped her. Seriously, was the Universe that much into fucking with her? What the hell had she done in a past life to deserve this? Was she Hitler or something?
"Um, Max, she fell and Nathan, he dropped the gun and he was yelling, I didn't really hear what he was saying because all I saw was Max, on the ground and the blood… I ran over to her and I took off my flannel. I was trying to remember what I learned in first aid. I held my flannel over where I thought, where the blood… you know, apply pressure to the wound...Fuck...I got my best friend shot… she was almost killed because of me…" Unable to keep sitting, Chloe jumped up and started pacing the small room, her beanie now in her hands as she twisted it around.
"But she's not and you didn't do that, Chloe, Nathan Prescott did and we're going to make sure he doesn't get away with it." Sebastian said calmly while taking down notes, he wished he could tell her that it was alright, she'd told him enough and could stop but he needed her to tell him everything. He'd seen a lot of upset people, had heard a lot of horrible stories over the years but only a handful had truly affected him, watching Chloe Price recount what happened, he could feel her pain and self loathing as if it was his own.
"Yeah, right, he wouldn't have been there with a fucking gun if it wasn't for me…"
"Chloe, you can't say things like that, especially to anyone else. That would be very bad for the case, understand? I know you blame yourself but you can't say that because it would be taken the wrong way. Nathan shot Max, it's Nathan's fault, not your fault." His stern tone pulled Chloe out of the dark place she'd been spiraling into. She took another deep breath, her pacing slowed down, her shoulders pulled back as her face took on a determined look.
"Ok, right….Um, Nathan was curled up on the floor, under the bathroom sink, the gun was a few feet away from him. David came into the bathroom, he looked at me and Max, then Nathan started moving, he was moving in the direction of the gun. David tackled him and while he was trying to subdue Nathan, he was telling me to apply pressure, to look for an exit wound. When he got Nathan cuffed he came over and he was helping with Max, to get her in a better position, to slow the bleeding." Chloe looked down at her hands expecting to see Max's blood on them still. "Nathan was making this sound, like he was laughing while crying. The principal was there, I don't remember seeing him come in but he was next to Nathan, then the police were there and the EMT's. They made me let Max go, they pushed me away as they started working on her." Finally, after getting it all out, Chloe collapsed on one of the little couches in the room, her hands over her eyes as she cried, as it all hit her again, all her mental strength leaving her, she didn't give a shit if she was crying in front of a stranger. She almost got Max killed and she had the nerve to still be mad at the girl for not talking to her for the last 5 years? She had probably been safer, she'd been back in Chloe's life, what for 2 seconds and was almost killed?
Sebastian sat down next to Chloe, handing her a box of kleenex. He put a fatherly arm around her shaking shoulders. He wasn't an emotional type of guy, in his type of job, you couldn't allow yourself the luxury but the girl next to him was so broken anyone with eyes could see that. She was carrying the weight of the world by herself on her thin shoulders. "You did good, kid, I know it was fucking brutal but you did good. That fucking little prick, Nathan and his shithead father are not going to buy their way out of this one. You didn't shoot Max, you didn't bring the gun, that piece of shit, Nathan, did not you. Max being shot is not your fault, do not take the blame for a worthless, self entitled, pussy like Nathan fucking Prescott."
Hearing her attorney swear grabbed Chloe's attention. In any other circumstance she wouldn't have allowed some guy to put his arm around her but it was comforting, for a moment, if she closed her eyes, she could almost feel her own father sitting next to her. Loudly blowing her nose, Chloe wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Are you sure you're an attorney and not a sailor with a mouth like that?" She weakly joked.
"In another life I might have not been this suave, sophisticated gentleman you see before you now, a misspent youth and all that you might say." He smiled at her, ruffling her hair as he got up and walked back to his recorder, turning it off.
"Ah, thanks." Chloe wasn't sure what she was thanking him for but it felt like it needed to be said regardless.
"There's a restroom across the hall, why don't you get cleaned up, splash some water on your face. I'm going to talk to Max now, I'll get you when I'm done." It was the part of his job he liked the least, where he had to drag out all the secrets his clients tried to hide in the deepest darkest parts of their minds into the bright light of the day. There was no way to avoid it, there was nothing worse than being caught unaware during a trial. He knew he had asked a lot from Chloe but maybe he'd been able to help her see how what happen to Max wasn't her fault. Or at least get her starting to let go some of the guilt she was carrying around, he'd seen people break under a lot less than what that kid was carrying around.