Nathan had the foresight to return to his room and grab his bag, although he switched out his binder of mutilated photos and tape for some additional spray paint cans. He figured that, now that he could reverse time, he and Victoria could essentially never be caught, so it barely mattered that he was already on suspension. All they had to do was move around frequently enough that he wouldn't have to reverse further than he was able to. He ran a brief experiment to make sure that his powers were back once he was in his room, rewinding about thirty seconds so that he never appeared anywhere in the boys' dorm. Kate Marsh may have been friendless, but if Max started getting it out that Nathan was connected . . .
Nathan crept his way back to the exit of the dorms, and was glad to meet no one on the way.
Once they had their pizza and beer, Nathan and Victoria sat with their legs draped over the edge of the planter bordering the school side of the parking lot. The pizza box sat between them and several beers sat in the planter, discarded or still waiting to be consumed.
CARS = DEATH, cried the planter.
They decided that they needed some easier topics. Nathan started, "So, did you hear back yet from that, like, gallery place you were scoping out?" He meant it entirely casually, not even looking up as he curled the pizza to fit into his mouth.
What he got was a sigh in response, and he turned to look at Victoria with pizza still in his mouth. Victoria didn't respond further for a few seconds, instead tapping her heel against the planter's wall.
"Yeah," she said, barely audible. Then, louder, "But they said no."
Once he'd gotten enough chewing done to manage a facial expression and answer, he said, "Aw, shit Tori, that sucks. What'd they say?"
She just shook her head, "Nothing. I mean, I just didn't cut it." There was a pause, then, as she lifted a slice of pizza to her mouth, but she stopped before actually biting, and added almost as an aside, "Mom's going to be so pissed. I told her this was like, a sure thing."
Nathan took a bite, munching to his thoughts. This was one area where there was very little he could do for Victoria - mediating things between her and her parents. Nathan was no expert in parent communication to begin with, and it didn't help that the Chase parents had little but disdain for the Prescotts, so much so that they'd discouraged Victoria from being in the Vortex Club and from spending time with Nathan at all. But maybe he could help with the photography problem? "Maybe you and I could look over your portfolio? I know I'm not really on your level but it might be good to have another eye-"
Victoria shook her head again, pretty vigorously to cut him off. "No, no, don't worry about it. I'm just really banking on this Everyday Heroes thing in class, but like everyone in each of Mr. Jefferson's classes is entering. Except, big surprise, Maxine Caulfield," she gave a brief sound of disgust to show what she thought of that. "Too busy dicking around with your life to take a shot at a career-starting opportunity. Bitch." She took a bite of her pizza.
"You sure?" Nathan asked, eyebrows raised, displaying sincerity. "I mean, even when you win, aren't people going to want a whole portfolio to vet you for other exhibits and stuff?"
She smiled a little at his use of 'when', but took another bite before responding. "Actually, yes - that's why I want to have a talk with Mark about my portfolio, make sure it's all nice and ready if I have to go down Friday."
Nathan lay on his side as well as he could, doing his best to seem casual. He hadn't really enjoyed being around Jefferson lately - he'd been in a bad mood ever since the fuck-up with the blue-haired girl. He hoped Jefferson didn't take his frustration out on his other students. "Don't you think that might be kinda . . . cocky? I mean, you know, asking about your victory portfolio before he's announced a winner?"
A small, pinched smile crept up on Victoria's mouth. "Oh, I'm very confident he'll be willing to help. Plus, that's basically his job - he may act like a teacher, but he's really more of a career-start adviser. Mark is not an academic, he's a professional."
Yeah, he's definitely not a teacher, that's for sure. Not for you.
Once they were nearing the end of their pizza, Nathan said, licking his fingers and rubbing them on the box, "Come on, let's go fuck with the campus a bit. I brought paint, and security's a bit busy shitting itself to do anything about it."
"God yes," Victoria replied, closing the box of pizza and standing up on the planter. "I need some casual chaos to keep me out of this funk. Let's do it."
As cheap as it was, Victoria and Nathan were both fans of tagging stuff as straightforwardly as possible. Victoria was just finishing a small tag of nothing but smooth lettering - when she finished, Nathan handed her a rag to wipe up the corners to keep it looking rounded, but precise.
She stepped back from it when it was complete. "And here we have a noir belle, the likes of which Jefferson has never achieved."
It was simple, and pretty much just dickish. The bold lettering proclaimed: "Victoria Chase Rulez!", like she had just discovered icanhazcheeseburger last week.
Nathan looked a bit skeptical, but his lips curled at her mock pride, her upright posture and showy gesturing at the little vandalism. "Well, I'm sure glad we decided to deface the property of the mighty motherfucking otters for that."
She gave a smirk, holding the can in an otherwise limp hand. "Yeah, well, me too."
They were both in a pretty giggly mood by the time they sat across from each other in Grant's science lab, having just finished off the weed that Nathan brought in his pack. It turned out there were not a lot of things that they could tag without getting into some pretty serious shit, and Victoria actually had some stake in staying in Blackwell.
Victoria decided to shoot for a topic that they could usually joke about after a few minutes. This was not one of those cases where they would.
"So, why's your dad been riding you so hard lately? You haven't been coming out with Haydee and me recently."
He sighed, shaking his head. He'd really prefer not to think about it right now, when he was having a good time. "I've just . . ." he started, trying to find the right way to be honest and utterly deceptive at the same time, "I've been messing up a lot. A lot, lately. And, no surprise, he doesn't think I'm going to turn out to be shit. And I've done everything he's ever asked but it isn't worth a flying fuck to him."
Nathan normally laughed that very thing off. But, while he hadn't stopped to check his e-mails or texts or anything yet since this morning, he knew he'd be chest-deep in shit as soon as his father got ahold of him. Nathan couldn't keep his foot from shaking, and his mouth pressed into a point.
Victoria reached across the table, taking Nathan's hand. "Look," she said, "your father is an asshole. But you've been a great son, and you've loved him even though he's been such an ass. He has no legitimate reason to complain. The only reason you've even been having trouble is because people are trying to turn you into a target. The principal, Max, whoever. That's all he can see, and it's his fault that he holds out on getting you help for it. None of that's on you."
Nathan leaned forward, resting his head in his free hand. Victoria . . . she understood the isolation, but there was more inside Nathan that she couldn't understand. She could not feel what was inside him. She could not feel his hunger, his gluttony. She wanted to control everything. She needed to. He needed to touch it. But every time he reached out his hand, he felt a slap, or a knife. Everything hurt to touch.
"No . . . he's an asshole, but he's right. I've been fucking up for weeks."
Victoria's mouth became a flat line.
Nathan continued, exasperated, "I'm just so sick of people trying to control me. I feel like I'm caged in my life - the principal, my dad, everyone, everyone who expects me to fail, and everyone who expects me to succeed. I can't manage the Foundation - I can't be part of his legacy. I like . . . photography, I like painting, I like speed, shit. But I'm not organized. I can't be like them."
Victoria caught the word, and her head tilted curiously. "Them? Who?"
Nathan felt a brief spike of panic, and he took a moment to focus, to think, think past all of the spite, past all of the deleted photos of the girls, past every e-mail and text message. He closed his eyes, rubbing his temples with his fingers. "Fuck, anyone. My dad, my grand-dad . . . anyone I'm supposed to be."
Victoria squeezed his hand. "You don't have to be. Not anything for them. You're Nathan Prescott, you're my . . . best friend. You're not their legacy."
She was wrong. Whatever Nathan was, whatever he became, he was their legacy.
And he was a waste.
He could hear that word like a hiss in his ear, like Dad was sitting in the next chair.
Waste.
Nathan looked over his shoulder, staring at the skeleton in the corner of the room. After a few seconds, he looked back at Victoria, and a smile sat on his face now. "Huh-holy shit, I have a great idea for a shot. Come over here."
He stood up from his stool, and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. He ejected one and fit it into the jawbone of the skeleton. Then, he took a second one and put it in his mouth, lighting his own a moment later. "It's fucking Augustus Waters." He reached into his pocket to retrieve his phone for a picture, while Victoria giggled.
"Well, while you get your ironic death fetish bullshit out, I'm going to go check on Mr. Jefferson's room - see if I can't get a sneak peek of my competition for Thursday."
He turned on the flash and started snapping shots. "All right, I'll be here."
While he was examining the shots he had taken, though, Nathan heard a distant sound from down the hallway. He looked out the door of the science room, but heard no motion from inside - it didn't look like Victoria heard it from where she was.
Nathan stuttered time back a few seconds, more to make sure that his power was working than anything. He heard the sound again, and concluded that it was the door to enter the building.
Nathan put his phone away, and just held his cigarette between his fingers as he crept down the hallway, fingers twitching as he prepared to rewind at the first sign of whoever entered. Probably just Samuel.
No, not Samuel. Samuel's footsteps were loud. Nathan couldn't even hear the steps of whoever was inside. He didn't hear them at all until they rounded the corner, and Nathan found himself standing ten feet down from Jefferson. Jefferson stopped immediately, not quite able to see the intruder, just able to see their form.
Nathan stood upright, and inhaled from his cigarette.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing in here, Nathan?"
Nathan exhaled slowly, letting smoke fill the space between them. "Relaxing after a long day of covering your ass, actually. What are you doing here?"
When Jefferson took a few more steps forward, Nathan noticed that he was holding a camera supplies box and a roll of duct tape in his hands. That was a weird sight for school. "Are you trying your absolute hardest to get expelled? Did you try fucking up a little and think, 'well, maybe this is my calling, why don't I just go all in, I'm young?' We do not need this right now."
Nathan took another drag and said nothing.
Jefferson took a deep, unsteady breath, clearly trying to keep his temper under control. "I'm here to make sure we have better access to supplies, Nathan, so we're less vulnerable to your sloppiness. I think we need to start you off on a lower level of responsibility if you're ever going to-"
Jefferson began to walk past Nathan, but Nathan lowered his cigarette, took a step back, and waved his hands, "No, man, I've got this. Everything that went down with Kate - that was a fluke. Frank sold us some bad shit but I'm doing him some favors, making sure we're getting the best of the best, all right? Nothing like this is ever going to happen again."
Jefferson raised his hand up, like he was going to jab a finger against Nathan's chest. But, as he did so, his fury seemed to slip away, and slowly, very carefully, he lowered a hand onto Nathan's shoulder. Nathan did not flinch.
"Good. I'm glad to hear it." Jefferson shook his head while keeping his eyes on Nathan, "No more mistakes, you understand? We need smooth sailing from he-"
They both heard it. A dragging sound - the sound of a drawer being pulled open.
Jefferson's voice became hushed. "Is there someone - with - you?"
Jefferson did not wait for an answer. Instead, he walked right past Nathan, and Nathan just stared for a second as he made his way to his classroom door.
Nathan followed his instincts.
He made his way for the door without looking back.
"Oh, hey there Mr. Jefferson!" Victoria sounded positively delighted at having been caught.
Nathan was perfectly content to walk down the steps, to put as much distance between him and Mr. Jefferson as possible. With a cursory glance, he did not spot anyone out in the quad, so he headed back towards the dorms, flicking what little remained of his cigarette into the fountain as he passed.
He had nearly made it to the ramp when he heard someone behind him, and began to turn around.
"Don't turn around, fuckhole."
Of course, Nathan ignored the vast majority of people who called him fuckhole, so he continued his turn - until he saw that it was the blue-haired chick, and that she had a gun held out in front of her.
"Holy - fuck - jeeze," Nathan said, turning around again to comply. His hand twitched as he prepared to rewind, but he wasn't sure that he could rewind a bullet. He thought it best not to test it.
Suddenly, he could feel the barrel of the gun pressing into his back through his jacket, and he raised his hands behind his head, like he was being arrested. "Don't move," she said, although Nathan was already pretty frozen.
"What the fuck do you want?" he all but spat, and was rewarded with a nudge of the barrel. She was not being gentle with her firearm. She shoved it against him like he should be thankful for it. He was frozen, except for the glance he tried to get of exactly where she was standing behind him.
"I hear you like kidnapping and raping girls, huh," she said, keeping her distance except for her gun. "Weird, right? Who would have thought?"
Nathan's reply came through gritted teeth, "Look, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, all right?"
"Really?" It was weird hearing her when she had the gun this time. She was so small and afraid when the gun was against her, and so sharp and cutting when she'd used it to rescue Max. But now, she just sounded sarcastic. Sarcastic and pissed. "Because, the way I heard it, you drugged a girl at a bar . . . wait, no, it was a party, that's right, and then she ended up dead a few days later. Tell me if I'm getting this right. Something about it seems to just click right for me, I don't know why."
God. Damnit. All he had to do was be able to move his hand casually without getting shot. That meant he had to let his stance get relaxed without provoking anything.
He could always take back what he said, so long as he didn't get shot.
"Look, look! Okay. I didn't do what you think I did."
"Oh, soooo," she started, dragging the barrel of the gun around his back lightly now, "That girl, Kate Marsh, right? You had nothing to do with that?"
Nathan took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. He prayed to god that this would work. "Look I did . . . I did dose her, all right? Just some GHB, she was going to be all right."
"I knew it." She actually sounded stunned, but he went on.
"I got the drugs from Mark Jefferson - he's a teacher here, he teaches photography. He told me to do it, all right? He offered to get me out of some nasty shit, no cops, nothing to my dad if I gave Kate the drugs and drove her to a gas station on the edge of town. He didn't do shit for me, and now I'm fucked beyond imagining, okay?"
She took an unsteady breath in. "You mean . . . a teacher? Got you to do this in exchange for something?" She seemed to mull it over for a second while Nathan stayed silent. "Bullshit. You're a creep - I saw you with your camera, you can't-"
Someone appeared at the top of the ramp, and as soon as they did, Chloe shut up. That didn't stop her from being noticed, though.
Max's eyes went wide as she realized what she was seeing, more tipped off by Nathan's hands than anything else. "Chloe? Chloe, what are you doing?"
She gave out a quiet 'fuck' and then a, "Max, hey, Max, maybe you should-"
Max was quick to interrupt her though, taking another step forward, "What the fuck are you doing with that gun? Chloe, stop, plea-"
Nathan thought he could hear Chloe's head shake before he felt the gun disappear from his back, and he saw her waving it. "No, Max, it's still empty, don't-"
Nathan's hand snatched outwards, and he felt Chloe's gun snap to his back as time rewound. She hovered there, saying nonsense as time was pulled backwards and Max disappeared back around the corner of the ramp. After a few more seconds, Chloe was pulled back away from Nathan entirely; he craned his head to see where she had come from, and discovered her smoking behind a tree, invisible from the steps he'd come from.
That was enough. Nathan released his grasp on time and immediately started his way towards the ramp.
"Holy fucksticks - how did you . . ."
Nathan didn't listen - he managed to make it to the ramp and snapped time backwards about twenty seconds, making sure he would never be seen.
He didn't even need to rewind his way past the principal, drunk off his ass and fumbling with his keys in front of the boys' dorm. Nathan just walked past him, knowing he'd leave in the opposite direction soon enough.
As Nathan hid behind the corner of the boys' dorm, though, he noticed something - the lone picture of Kate had grown into a small memorial of a half-dozen small items, some of hers snatched from her room in the night, some gifts people had left for her.
There was no girl sitting on the steps now - no angry girl, at least. Just Kate's gentle smile.
Nathan found himself pulled over to the girl's dorm, hoping the principal would clear out by the time that Max showed up. He crouched down in front of the little memorial, looking at all of the items in turn. He couldn't keep eye contact with her photo for long, and his eyes quickly dropped to the items that couldn't look back at him.
His hand dropped, trying to get a better look at the darkness. He grasped a rosary, running a hand over the beads, his thumb running over the cross.
"I don't believe in justice, Max."
He stood up like a snap, her voice behind him. He kept the rosary clutched in his hand like it might protect him.
She wasn't there.
His heart was in his throat, blood surging through him. It's not real, he told himself, she's not here.
Nathan turned back around to put the rosary back down, and found himself face to face with her. Kate stood on the first step, hands down by her side, her face and hair soaked in the rain.
"I don't believe in anything anymore."
He screamed. He heard a door open behind him as he ran back to his dorm, but he didn't look back. He didn't even care when he reached the principal - the man was easy enough to shove out of the way, for Nathan to force his way back into his dorm.
Nathan sat on his bed in the dark. He kept the rosary in his hand the whole time, rewinding time until he bled.
