18th October, 2013

Woah.

That was pretty insane. Whatever doubts about Chloe were in my mind beforehand, they certainly weren't there anymore. She lay beside me, awake, simply enjoying my company. I was doing the same, still breathing heavily. She was silent; I wasn't sure what to make of that. Was I not good enough? Was I boring? We both wanted this of course, but I couldn't shake my anxiety, the feeling of inadequacy.

As if sensing my uncertainty, Chloe turned on her side to face me. She kissed my cheek innocently. I smiled at the feeling of her lips against my skin, and turned to face her. Oh, she was beautiful.

'How do you feel?' She asked following another kiss, this one on my lips. I couldn't really put into words the way she made me feel, but I tried regardless.

'Fantastic. Great. Uh...'

'Speechless, huh? Guess I was pretty good. I get it, Max. You don't have to say anything,' she said.

I understood, and appreciated her words. We let the silence hang in the room for a while, my mind still buzzing with various thoughts before Chloe spoke again.

'Max... I know what you're thinking. You're upset this wasn't my first time, too.'

She was right, of course. I had a feeling this was going somewhere; I let her continue.

'It's difficult to explain. I've had sex before, but I've never... made love, before, you get me?' My heart leapt. 'My first time wasn't great, and I've never had a boyfriend or a girlfriend, but you... you're different. You're someone that I can finally let my guard down around. 'Cause... I love you, Max.'

My entire body exploded. Again. I knew that eventually she would say it, but hearing it now just brought my mind to its knees. Especially from a girl like Chloe. A girl who had been abandoned by everyone she loved, all her life.

'Chloe... you have no idea how that makes me feel.' I saw her brow begin to furrow. 'Ever since I saw you in the car park, there was so much I felt. I never thought that in two weeks I'd be here.' I paused to take a breath. 'But I'm so glad I am. There's nowhere I'd rather be, and being with you? It feels right. Like, for the first time in my life, I know where I want to be, I know what I should have been doing for five years.'

'Me?' Chloe giggled. I loved that sweet, girly side of her.

'I wish I'd never left Arcadia Bay. I love you, Chloe Price. Always did, and I always will,' I sighed.

I wanted her to say it again. It made me feel like I was right to choose her, that all of this really was fate.

'Fuck, I love you so much. Alright babe, I'm going for a smoke outside. I'll be five minutes,' she promised, kissing my lips. Once again my heart was catapulted into my throat. She stood up, and I watched as Chloe made her way over to her clothes to get dressed very slowly and gracefully, keeping the best parts of her body in full view. After a reverse strip tease, she left, and I sat up, breathing deeply, my head still spinning.

I reached over to the nightstand to check my phone. There were a fair few messages from Warren left about an hour ago. He wanted to meet again, then canceled, then decided he did want to meet after all. What was with him?

When Chloe returned, I was already dressed in a pair of grey jeans, a checkered shirt, and a green hoodie. My phone buzzed - another text from Warren.

Alright, I'm away working atm. Sorry. Won't be back for a while.

I sighed, and quickly typed a reply.

-_- How far away?

His reply was swift.

A few hours. Look this really isn't a good time.

Chloe came over, grabbing my phone. I yelled in protest, but she just giggled. Watching her fingers tap frantically on the screen, I sighed again, waiting for Chloe to hand my phone back.

Stfu and tell us where u are

Manners still weren't one of her strong suits.

You aren't going to like this.

Just tell me.

There was a long pause before his reply came through.

Arcadia Bay.

Chloe gasped from behind my shoulder. I looked over at her, and she was looking at me. I wanted to meet Warren... but I really, really did not want to go back to the bay.

'Max?'

'Yeah?' I almost whispered.

'You up for a road trip? You don't have to if you don't want to, obviously, just-'

'Chloe. Wherever you go, I go. Like I said, I'm never leaving you. Especially with something important like this,' I assured her. She nodded in acknowledgment.

'Let's go then! Outta the house and into the truck! Let's move out, Bat-Max!' Hollered Chloe, her voice laced with enthusiasm, much of which I suspected was a just a show.

The trip was a lot more silent than I'd expected it to be. Of course, we were both nervous about returning to Arcadia Bay, but I felt something else. Warren had something to say, and I wanted to know what he had found. Besides, I had nothing better to do. Towards the end of the long drive, we began to recognise familiar parts of the countryside. And after what seemed like a short drive, there it was: Arcadia Bay, painted like a picture amongst the dark sky. With very little light pollution, the stars were in clear view, as was the moon; they were so beautiful.

There was very little activity in the town. Despite looking as if a rebuild project was underway, nobody was around. The only presence we noticed was a plume of brownish-green smoke down by the beach, that Chloe had pointed out.

'You wanna check it out?' Chloe suggested.

I hesitated for a moment. 'Of course.'

'Then let's go.'

The source of the oddly coloured smoke was an RV that was parked up in the lot overlooking the beach. Chloe and I exchanged quizzical looks, before ditching the truck. As we approached the RV, I noticed an oddly familiar stench that hung in the air. I couldn't think where it was from.

'You smell that?' Chloe looked at me, her face stern. I nodded. 'Meth lab. Taking advantage of the lack of activity, I guess. They're probably even paying off the builders. Let's get out of here. Leave 'em to it.'

Without warning, I heard a door slam shut behind be as soon as I had turned to walk back to the truck. I span back around to see who it was; the light spilling from the RV-meth lab hit his face, and as my eyes focused, I made out the familiar features on his face. Chloe shouted at the man before I had a chance to.

'Frank? Frank fucking Bowers?'

'Oh, look, it's Bonnie and Clyde,' Frank sneered. 'You want product, you make a call like everyone else.'

'We aren't here to buy, Frank. We were just leaving-'

Frank began to advance, cutting me off. He was wearing some sort of hazard suit, without a hood. From the few times I had met him, precautions like that seemed out of character.

'You didn't even tell me what happened to Rachel. Just save it Max,' he interrupted as I opened my mouth, 'I know she's dead. Chloe told me.' That made me feel pretty bad. It wasn't like we were close or anything, but I should have at least texted. Another thing that I did wrong.

'I'm so, so sorry, Frank.' I hung my head, rubbing the back of my neck awkwardly.

'Thought you were leaving, anyway?' He asked. It was more of an order than a question, so I turned around, and walked away, taking Chloe's hand and pulling her with me. We were on the edge of the car park when we heard a low rumble. Definitely a car engine. When the vehicle came into view, it was too dark to see exactly what kind of car it was. The car parked up, switching off its lights. The driver door opened, and out stepped a very confounded Warren, holding two pizza boxes.

'Max!? Chloe!? The hell?' He exclaimed.

'You're cooking meth, you fucking brat!?' Chloe yelled, angrily gesticulating with her fist.

'Chill out! After the storm, I, uh, needed something to do! Doesn't hurt that what I ended up doing brought in loads of cash, for me and my family to rebuild,' he reasoned. Despite his new, immoral, and completely out of character occupation, he had a point. Frank raised a finger to chime in.

'And he's really good at it. Like, I never really made my own stuff before except a few times? It was fucking dirt. You could get a better high from smoking baked beans. The stuff we cook now? It's like, eighty five percent pure. You have any idea how good that is for a hick dealer like me? And you know what's even better? I don't even have cancer!' Frank was practically yelling. His last sentence had confused me, so I looked to Chloe, who was trying to hide her smirk. She glanced over to me.

'TV show reference,' she explained.

I nodded. 'Ah. Right.'

'Show actually finished a couple of months ago. We should watch it together,' she suggested.

'Sure,' I nodded again. Frank directed his gaze towards me once more.

'Riiight, so if you dykes have finished whispering sweet nothings, you mind telling me why you're still here?' Frank asked, mocking politeness. Warren stepped forward, haphazardly balancing the pizzas.

'Here to see me, probably,' he sighed, 'I told you it was a bad time.' He looked down at his shoes. 'How long do I have, Frank?'

'Twenty minutes.' He exhaled sharply. 'Not a second longer.' Warren nodded, walking over to Frank, handing him his pizza. He returned, and started leaning against the hood of his DeLorean. I looked up into his brown eyes.

As an artist, I'd learned to appreciate everything about my environment, especially the details. A person's eyes can reveal so much about them. How they are. How they've been. Under Warren's eyes lay huge bags, and his eyelids were hanging far down his eyes. Red veins snaked their way around the white of his eyes, further emphasising his stress. He showed plenty of friendship towards me, but little affection; I guess he did like Brooke more than me, after all. He clearly missed her. Even so, the light in his eyes, the determination and enthusiasm was still present. His two great loves: science and esoteric television shows wouldn't abandon him, at least.

'So then, Heisenberg,' Chloe began, likely referencing that show again, 'what have you found that you couldn't just say over the phone? I'm only jerking your chain. It's good to see you, I guess.'

'Well... after researching Max, I decided to look up everything else weird that happened, and try and connect the dots - the snow, the dead animals, the double eclipse, the storm, and her powers. Then I thought - what if they aren't connected? Or maybe some are, but others aren't?' Warren paused, opening his pizza box, taking a slice. He then continued after taking a bite. 'It was a long shot, but I went down to the marina, handed the guy a wad of cash and asked for boat schedules. Maybe that would explain the dead whales. You'll never guess who took a ride out, off the books on Wednesday the ninth? Sean Prescott.' Warren finished the slice of pizza. 'That's not even the suspicious part. He took out his boat, loaded with a wooden crate, sailed out and came back without the crate. And his trip was way short, too short for a joy ride.'

Chloe opened her mouth as if to comment, but stopped and thought, before opening it again. 'So you think there's some sort of conspiracy? You think big Daddy Prescott is hunting whales with boxes?'

'I dunno. It's a stab in the dark, but if we could find more, we could connect this weird boat trip to the dead whales. I've also been working on trying to find out where the storm originated from, but I haven't gotten too far with that. Work's keeping me pretty busy.' He took another slice, biting into it. 'But it's definitely not from the middle of the ocean - it came from the bay.'

'And he rented a boat, instead of using one he owns. Why do you think that is?'

'Because what he did was illegal, which was why he went off the books,' I deducted.

'Very good, Caulfield. Thank you, human greed, for allowing me to buy that guy. So what I'm thinking, is you two get down to the marina, dig up what you can. I'll look more into the storm once Frank and I have finished with this batch,' Warren said. He talked about his crime as if it were just another daily chore. Then again, Chloe and I had stolen five thousand dollars from Blackwell - who was I to judge?

'Alright, Cap'n! Ready to trespass again, Mad Max?' Chloe chuckled.

'Cap'n? When did we become pirates again?' I giggled, kissing her on the cheek. She blushed. 'C'mon, let's go.'

'I could get used to this,' she muttered, shrugging. 'Catch ya later, Warren.'

'Yeah, see ya.'

'WARREN!' Frank's voice came from the RV.

'WHAT?' Warren shouted back.

'DID YOU GET THE PSEUDO?'

'WE WEREN'T RUNNING LOW ON PSEUDO, YOU TOLD ME TO GET MATCHES!'

'AW FUCK! SORRY! GET SOME PSEUDO, AND HURRY UP!'

I saw Warren clamber into his car as Chloe reversed the truck out of the car park, and back onto the road towards the marina.

'So what are we gonna do once we get there?' I asked eagerly.

'Obviously, the place is gonna be a wreck. If it's not completely fucked, then we're gonna look for some files, anything related to Prescott. See if we can pick up a trail. If not... maybe we should pay a visit to the Prescott Estates,' she briefed.

'Sounds like a planaroo.'

Chloe chortled. 'Planaroo? You're a dork.'

'Yes, but I'm your dork.' I smiled sweetly. She sighed happily.

'You got that right.'

It was a short five minute drive to the marina. We both tried to ignore the havoc that the storm had wreaked on the town, carrying on silently. The marina itself was in poor shape: the boathouse was obliterated, as well as the boats it contained. The surrounding trees were destroyed, in addition to all the house wreckages. However, the office building adjacent to the boathouse was still standing: it had sustained heavy damage, but it was still there. We parked up by the building, leaving the car together. The only question now was 'how do we get in?' Which wasn't too hard to answer, as the storm had left most of the Bay's buildings with less walls than they originally had. We entered through a broken section of the building - all that was left was to find the right office, and the right files. If they even existed.

The interior of the building was pretty damaged, too. Some walls had collapsed. At least this time, I wouldn't be making pipe bombs.

'Alright, so we're gonna split up, look for these papers. You know the drill, just get anything related to Sean Prescott,' Chloe ordered.

'Got it, sir,' I acknowledge, mock saluting.

'That salute would make David throw up,' she said. Poor guy. I wondered how he was doing.

Chloe had ventured off into an official looking room, with what I assumed was a computer. 'Aha!' She yelled, 'score! I'm gonna grab the hard drive. Keep looking just in case the drive's damaged.'

I sauntered up the hallway casually, using the light on my phone for guidance. A sign on the floor had caught my attention. It read 'HEAD OFFICE.' Well, that was easy, I thought, heading into the doorway where the sign had dropped. There was a smashed computer in this room, too - but this one was literally obliterated. The hardware was shattered all over the floor. Not getting the hard drive from that. Instead, I settled for searching through the weathered (ha) desks and metal filing cabinets. The desks were locked, for the most part. One drawer contained a somehow unharmed pack of smokes, and a lighter. Why the hell not, you could use some stress relief, I bargained, bringing a cigarette to my mouth while lighting the other. It tasted pretty shit, and I coughed a little as I inhaled, but I did feel a little better after my short smoke break. I pocketed the rest of the packet and the lighter.

The metal filing cabinets weren't locked: they were also handily marked by date. I figured I'd start from the bottom. Empty. I pulled the handle of the next drawer: also empty. The next drawer was a different story, however, and the first tab I saw was one marked 10/01/13.

Nice!

It was odd that in our modern age, some people still kept hard copies around. More than that, it was lucky. After sifting through a few files, I came upon the ones I was looking for: Sean Prescott, the time he left in the rented boat, the time he returned, the type of boat, and what was in it. There was another file - one for the Tuesday, the day before. A boat, rented by Mark Jefferson. Was he capturing fish, tying them up, and then photographing them? I doubted it. I took both files, and stood up, only to see a tall, lanky punk with blue hair, grinning mischievously at me.

'How long have you been there?' I asked in wonder.

'About half a minute. What have you got?' She replied, the smile still playing on her lips.

'Hard copies. You're gonna want to-' I was cut off by a completely unexpected noise. Or, noises. Voices, in fact. Men. Our heads perked up, grins vanished.

'Alright. Just find the files, plant the fakes. Boss wants it done fast, don't be seen, alright?' The voice was deep, and raspy. Menacing, to say the least. Chloe had shuffled to my side.

'The fuck do we do, Chloe? We gotta scram!' I whisper-shrieked.

'Fuckin' A,' Chloe said. 'You wanna go all sneaky-beaky, or just make a run for it?'

'Running is out of the question. You know, if we fuck up, I gotta rewind. I can't do that too much. How many?'I hissed. Chloe poked her head out for a few seconds.

'Three. They just went into different rooms further down the hall. If we're quick and quiet, we'll make it. Max... fuck, Max... they got guns! It's a fucking cleaner crew!'

'A what? '

'Later! Move it, soldier!' She barked, somehow managing to keep the volume down. We crept in unison, down the hallway, back the way we came. I didn't want to risk trying to find another exit, only to have no options. The 'cleaner crew' were making no attempt to mask their presence. The hole in the wall we had entered through grew nearer, and we practically jumped through it, sprinting back to Chloe's rusty brown truck. Chloe didn't even wait for me to shut the door before starting the engine. Actually, I'm fairly certain the truck had started moving before I even got in!

After turning into the road, Chloe slammed her fist against the dashboard repeatedly, shrieking and yelling in delight, yelling insults and curses of varying obscenity at the men in the building who probably couldn't hear her. After her... episode, she turned to me, greatly slowing the vehicle down.

'Did I frighten you? Sorry. Had to do something with all that adrenaline. Holy fuck, Max! That was some total Sam Fisher bullshit! I mean come on! We were fucking awesome!'

'The Blackwell Ninjas strike again!' I laughed, a triumphant grin engulfing my face. Chloe was right - I was pumped. What was even better, was that we had what we came for.

'Wow, Max, that was great, but I'm beat. American Rust? I doubt Frank will rain on our parade again. He seems pretty preoccupied with his ingredient shortage.'

So that's what pseudo is! An ingredient! Pseudo what? And what were the matches for?

'Uhh... Chloe,' I murmured, slightly embarrassed at my lack of street-knowledge. 'What's pseudo? Why did Frank tell Warren to get matches?'

Chloe smirked. 'Pseudoephedrine. They wanted matches, for the striker strips. Red phosphorous. Seriously dude, Breaking Bad is what sparked my interest in chemistry. Watch. It!'

'Alright, alright, I give in. I will,' I surrendered.

I took out my phone to text Warren.

Meet us at the junkyard in the morning. If you don't know where it is, ask Frank. XOMAXO

With that, I rested my head on Chloe's shoulder, until we arrived at her hideout.