Chloe's truck jumbled us as we drove along the road. All I'd really paid attention long enough to learn was that we were going to an old junkyard to find the spot where Nathan had posed with Rachel in the photo- not that either of them was vocally admitting that Rachel had probably been killed by the same man that had killed me in another reality. I stopped trying to argue with them about it not being Nathan. Chloe was too stubborn and close minded to consider that anyone else could possibly be responsible. So, after learning of our destination, I turned my thoughts elsewhere.
Elsewhere, unfortunately, was the red binder in my hands. A dozen questions buzzed around in my brain and they all revolved around these photos. There were the very rare and disturbingly interested ones like 'I wonder how he managed to capture this angle without casting a shadow across the image'. Then there were the cliche ones such as 'why me?' and 'what kind of person does this kind of thing?'.
I'd only ever modeled for my own photos- Lex's if she really wanted me to. Modeling in front of a lens was personal. I'd always been uncomfortable with the idea of posing for another photographer. There was an intimacy to it that I wasn't prepared to take part of with another person, besides my sister. Modeling for my photographs was the one time I allowed my walls to come down and I let myself appear vulnerable for the sake of the art. Even then, all of my self portraits had a message. That brought me to my biggest question.
"What is the message here? What's the meaning?" I wondered, running my fingers along the face of the binder. It was red- like the cartoony red color of blood in cheap anime. It felt like any other binder in the world- smooth and plastic. There was nothing fascinating about it- nothing terribly unique. I'd seen dozens more like it in that cabinet back in the Dark Room, and yet, this one binder had me both simultaneously disgusted and enraptured.
My fingers tucked under the edge and I opened it up to a ninety degree angle. Both of my eyes scrutinized each photo individually. The first one was the one that had somehow changed after I had relived the...incident. The pair of glazed over, silver eyes stared up at me like twin moons being torn apart at the center by a black vortex. The next photo was me on my back still with my arms crossed above my head loosely. My wrists weren't bound in this photo and it was one of the few full body shots in the binder. In the image, my legs were together and turned to the side with a bend to my knees. I must have been completely out of it because my eyes were closed and my lips were just barely parted to allow air to pass.
Just like in the other full body images, in this one my feet and legs were bare. I was still wearing my rumpled tank top in the photo and it fell down long enough to barely cover my underwear. I thought about whoever this man was pulling off my shoes and pants, lining me up for this shot. The idea of his hands all over my legs made my stomach heave. My eyes moved on to another photo.
The third and fourth photos were focused portraits. My face, my mouth, my eyelashes against my cheekbones, and my hair spun wildly around me like a dense oil spill. Each image was just as dramatic and posed as the first one. It made me sick to my stomach to admit that whoever took these photographs was talented. These weren't amateur shots in the slightest. In fact, the obvious skill behind each shot was one of the things that left me feeling strangely hollow inside and searching for any sign of what the photographer was thinking.
My eyes finally stopped on the last photo. In this one, I was laid out across the white couch and posed like that woman from Titanic.
"Photograph me like one of your french victims," I thought bitterly as I finally closed the binder. Looking at the photos, I could almost forget that they were of me. For a moment, I could almost will myself to forget the context surrounding their creation. I looked around and found that we were pulling into some sort of junkyard. Personally, I'd never found myself trekking through the Arcadia Bay junkyard. Max and Chloe were talking next to me- more 'Nathan's balls' this and 'Rachel would' that. If I never heard Rachel Amber or Nathan Prescott's names again after this, it would be too soon.
"Come on," Chloe ushered us out of the car as she yanked her seat belt off and began rushing through a path that was lined with piles of discarded junk. Max rushed out of Chloe's door and after the blue haired girl. She was yelling for Chloe to slow down but Chloe seemed to have finally given over to the panic that had been in her eyes ever since we left the Dark Room.
I climbed out of the truck and followed after them even though my legs felt numb with pins and needles. When I caught up to them, Chloe was on the ground with her fingers clawing into the dirt. The location did resemble the photo to a T. Max had knelt beside her, digging away with her own small hands.
"Rio! Help us!" Max called out to me. Hearing her say my name seemed to activate something deep within me. I could feel a slight buzz of adrenaline running through my veins as my legs kicked into action and I rushed across the dirty, littered ground. If Max needed me, I could shove down the dark thoughts that had been building up like a storm cloud on the horizon of my mind. They'd already gotten a shallow hole dug. I contributed my own hands to the effort, hooking my fingers into the dirt and dragging it out of the way. Clumps of dirt were flung in every direction. What was probably only a few minutes of getting dirt and dead roots in my fingernails felt more like an hour of trying to find anything here while listening to Chloe hyperventilate.
Then the moment came when my finger hooked into a piece of cloth and that part of the ground seemed to depress a bit. I couldn't resist the urge to vomit when I realized I had stuck my finger into the decayed corpse of Rachel Amber.
Turning my head, I allowed my stomach to empty itself upon the ground. The acidic taste in my mouth was almost worst the the awful burn it left in the back of my throat.
"Please, no," Chloe whimpered as the stench hit the air. I turned back and saw Max clearing out some more of the dirt. Max ended up following my example and heaving into a pile of junk.
"That smell," Max remarked in disgust.
"Rachel, no, no, not her. Please, not her," Chloe begged. I could hear her fighting back the urge to vomit as well. My eyes went back to the corpse in the ground. Rachel Amber had been wearing a lovely royal blue shirt when she had been buried in this shallow grave. It was covered in grime and dirt- much like the rest of her. She smelled like- well honestly I didn't have a comparison for the smell of a corpse. Imagine that smell when the power has been out for a couple days and all of the food and milk has spoiled and then some asshole opens the door.
Rachel Amber smelled like the spoiled contents of a powerless refrigerator.
As I made that discovery, Chloe finally gave in to the urge to spill the contents of her stomach like the rest of us. She crawled away from the body and started dry heaving. Max scrambled to her side, apologizing to her profusely as she held Chloe tightly- as if just squeezing Chloe as tight as she could would hold the pieces of her together.
My eyes went back to the shallow grave before me. In another reality, I was in a shallow grave just like this one. In this reality, I had been left alive.
"Why?" I wondered desperately. None of this made any sense. "Why would he kill me in that reality and not in this one? Why kill Rachel? Taking photos without permission is a lot lower on the crime bar than murder."
It occurred to me what he had said the last time I had had to relive that moment.
"What's my name?" he'd said.
"He wanted to know if I knew him- if I could identify him. Rachel must have known him. In the other timeline I must have seen him," I concluded, turning my gaze back to the weeping girls that were clinging to one another desperately. I fought to think of someone I had seen in that other reality. I'd encountered so many people- Nathan included. As I watched the two girls try to hold themselves together, I wished I could tell them who had done this.
"What kind of world does this?" Chloe gasped through her sobs. "Who does this?"
His name was as allusive as his face had been.
Chloe had eventually subsided to the next stage of grief. Denial had ended and was followed by a fiery anger that reminded me of the storm. Now, she was on a warpath. Chloe was her very own self destructive hurricane of rage and the permanent loss of Rachel Amber seemed to have finally set the storm loose. Who was her target? Nathan Prescott. I didn't bother to argue with her on the point. After all, Prescott had pulled a gun on the blue haired girl and was posed with Rachel in some of the photos. He was also the one who drugged Kate.
So, by that conclusion, he must at least be connected to the man with the voice that haunted my nightmares.
Our new destination? Blackwell Academy. Why? Apparently, the infamous Vortex Club was hosting the "End of the World" party. Honestly, it felt like it'd been years since Jefferson had told us about the party and I had immaturely flirted with him to get a rise out of Max. It hadn't, though, and that was the part that fucked with my head the most.
I looked back at the red binder that was back in my lap now that we were on the road again. The Red Binder. The only one that wasn't labelled. The only one with so many photos. It was an anomaly- as if he had gotten too distracted taking photos and had, consequently, less time to assemble the binder.
"But why bother taking me back to the school?" I mentally asked. Of course, no one answered.
Chloe pulled into the parking lot of Blackwell, narrowly missing a pedestrian or two on her way. Once she'd stopped, I could see the anger burning in her eyes.
"Enjoy your last party, Nathan Prescott," Chloe growled irritably.
"We don't have to go in there, Chloe. We have enough evidence, we can go to the cops," Max tried to convince her. "After what he did to Kate and Rachel. And now Rio-"
"I keep telling you Nathan wasn't the one who was taking those photos of me. I remember the voice," I argued, getting agitated.
"You were drugged. Nothing you remember can be counted on as being 100% accurate. Come on, Max. We know what Nathan has done and what he's capable of. He killed Rachel," Chloe rebutted my argument. I narrowed my eyes at her. Max went to my defense but I couldn't stand listening to it anymore. I just needed to get my mind on something else. Running my brain around in circles wasn't doing me any good.
"I need some air," I muttered, clambering out of the truck. Neither of them moved to stop me as I fled the scene, leaving the binder behind in the cab of Chloe's truck as I approached the Academy. The 'End of the World' party was already in full swing. I could hear the distorted thrumming of the music from out here. Even with my sweater, the autumn chill sunk deep into my bones. Maybe it wasn't just the crisp night air.
I made my way towards the party, brushing past Warren on my way, when my eyes finally flicked up to the night sky. My heart stilled in my chest as I took in the sight above me that had to be a hallucination. There were two moons in the sky.
Staring up at them, it reminded me of that first photo in the red binder- of my twin grey eyes staring up at me through the black, shadowy frame of my eyelashes. Up in the night sky above me, the two moons seemed to be mockingly mimicking the photo back at me. It felt like staring at my own, pupil-free, irises. I could feel my heart start back up in my chest at a fast, hammering tempo.
The entrance to the party had a large banner hanging over a red lit entrance. A few stragglers mingled in the doorway and on the steps leading up to the double doors. I didn't particularly know anyone so I pushed on past them and through the double doors. I passed Stella- I think Max mentioned that was the girl's name- and made my way through a dense curtain and into the party.
The crisp, October air was swiftly replaced with the barely bearable heat of tons of bodies packed up against one another. Some DJ was blasting music so loud that it seemed to give the room its own heartbeat. Everything was bathed in red and there were pulsing lights and vortex-shaped spotlights all over the room. Almost everyone had a glow stick around their wrist. I made my way through the crowd, spotting a curtained off area in the corner. My curiosity got the better of me and I slipped through the throng of people. When I got back there, there was a little Victoria-in-the-making sitting at the table.
"Hey," I waved, getting her attention. She had layered, reddish blonde hair and a very bored expression on her face.
"Name?" she asked, looking me up and down skeptically.
"Why do you need my name?" I inquired.
"You see that sectioned off spot to my left?" she jabbed a thumb towards the curtained off area that was guarded by some jock. "That's the VIP section. Thanks to Courtney being a lazy ass I'm stuck being the gatekeeper. So..name?"
"Rio Verde?" I doubted I was on the list. There was no reason for me to have been granted a golden ticket from the Vortex Club.
"Rio!" Mr. Jefferson came up from behind me. He was smiling but his eyes seemed much, much darker than I remembered. I convinced myself it was the lighting. "I'm glad you came."
His hand came down on my arm like a heavy weight. Mr. Jefferson waved to the girl behind the desk and led me through the curtain. At first, I was concerned about getting strange looks from people being accompanied by Mark Jefferson into the VIP lounge. To my surprise, no one really looked twice at us. Back here, the atmosphere reeked of alcohol and marijuana. Mr. Jefferson walked over to the end farthest from the entrance with his hand still on my arm in a vice-like grip.
We found a dark corner where the smell of chlorine and marijuana wasn't so overwhelming. By 'we' I mean 'he' and by 'found' I mean 'settled for'.
"How are you feeling?" Mr. Jefferson asked. It was hard to hear him over the thumping of the music in my ears. He finally released my arm but not his hand was on my shoulder. Something about the feeling of his hand on me made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I tried to calm myself. Jefferson was the one person who always seemed to be focused on me when we were talking. With Max, it was always 'Chloe' this and 'Kate' that. Lex had recently been too focused on diagnosing me to actually see me. Chloe didn't particularly like me and was obsessed with Rachel Amber and Nathan Prescott to the extent that she was mentally poisoning herself by running on the eternal hamster wheel of denial and blame. Daniel had seen me, sure, but there was something about the way Jefferson looked at me.
The way Jefferson was looking at me right that moment.
It was as if the entire party was in the back of his mind and his dark, black eyes were dark enough I couldn't distinguish between the iris and the pupil. His eyes were twin black holes, sucking in all of the light in the room. He was probably what cheesy romance authors were thinking of whenever they tried to imagine 'talk, dark, and hipster'.
"I feel fine," I finally answered him. He arched a disbelieving eyebrow at me.
"You look like you've got something on your mind," he commented. I thought back to being back in the Dark Room with that man's camera flashing in my eyes.
"It's just the strobe lights," I gestured vaguely around me. "Not good for seizures, you know?"
"Do you need to leave?" The way he asked the question made it sound like he really didn't want my answer to be yes.
"I can handle it. Big girl, right?" I gave him a thumbs up. Mr. Jefferson's smile returned to his face.
"You know, you don't have to tough it out just for my sake," he chuckled but I could sense the underlying current of seriousness in his voice.
"Au contraire, Monsieur. It would just so happen that you and I have a wager and I happen to like my chances of winning. If I leave, how am I going to claim my prize?" I countered, trying to keep up appearances. I did still have my reputation for a flair for the dramatics to uphold.
"Rio?" I turned and saw Lex walking up to us. Jefferson's hand left my shoulder and I was replaced by my sister's arms wounding around me tightly. Too tightly. Lex almost broke a few ribs before I got her to let up on me. She pulled away slightly and her eyes scanned my face. "Are you okay? You look like you have literally taken the scenic route through hell today. What's going on?"
"I'm okay, I swear," I lied. Normally such a blatant lie to my sister would make me feel like the epitome of shit but for some reason just looking at my sister was making me sick to my stomach. I could see her being the one on that floor, instead of me, with the harsh flash in her eyes and drugs in her veins. "I didn't know you were coming to the party?"
"Well, I made some friends with a few kids this week while you were busy being a total flake," Lex playfully punched my shoulder. "Speaking of new friends, I saw Max talking to Victoria over by the snackage. You may wanna check in on her. She had this weird look on her face."
"I'm sorry about being a spaz this week," I assured Lex, still aware of Jefferson standing nearby. "I'm glad you're making friends."
"I love it here, Rio. Thank you for coming here with me," Lex pulled me into another hug. This one was warm and heartrendingly tragic. "I'll see you later. We'll compare notes all about this crazy week, okay? Bye, Mr. J."
"Will do, Lex," I bid my sister farewell as she left. I lost sight of her shadowy waterfall of black hair as she wove her way through the teenagers dancing. Once she was gone, I returned my attention to Jefferson.
"Your sister is-"
"A bit much?"
"Unlike you."
"Oh, really? People say we look just alike," I countered. Mr. Jefferson moved forward and leaned down, his mouth coming up next to my ear so that I could hear him clearer.
"There's no one like you, Rio," he assured me, the scent of his cologne filling my nostrils. My heart skittered in my chest.
"I-We should go find Max," I changed the subject and backed away from him. I spun on my heel and walked off in the direction we'd originally come from. I spotted Max with Chloe, about to leave. They spotted me first and then Mr. Jefferson. I was the reason they paused their movements but Mr. Jefferson was the one who stepped forward first.
"Max! So you came after all," Mr. Jefferson greeted her. I took up a place next to Jefferson. Chloe still looked like a ball of rage was burning away everything rational inside of her and Max...Max was the vengeful angel I had imagined her to be on that first day.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Max responded weakly.
"Well, it's been nice speaking with you, Rio, but duty calls. I have to announce the winner of the contest," Mr. Jefferson informed me. He turned towards Max. "I really wish you'd entered something, Max. You need to build up your resume and portfolio- like Rio. Anyway, it's show time!"
"Come on, let's go," Chloe ordered once Jefferson was out of earshot. "Nathan's not here."
We walked out of the curtain but ended up stopping about five or so feet away from the lounge. Jefferson was up next to the DJ stand with a microphone in his hand and spotlights focused on him. The lighting was awful but he was soaking it up like a he was a star. To be honest, he actually did look like a star up there. With everyone cheering for him and his skin bathed in light, he might as well have been a star.
"Thank you. Thank you very much," Mr. Jefferson quieted the roar of the crowd. "I don't want to get in the way of the party, but it's time to announce the winner of the "Everyday Heroes" contest."
"Before I announce this, I want to thank everyone who entered a photograph and everyone who thought about entering," Jefferson continued. "Now, this is the most important step in being an artist. Sharing your work with the world. All of you represent Blackwell Academy, and everything our school stands for. As far as I'm concerned, you're all "Everyday Heroes"."
"The envelope, please...," he continued, holding out his hand for the melodramatic envelope. As far as I knew, he chose the winner. I guess he had a flair for the dramatics, too. "And the winner is..."
"We need to go!" Chloe snapped.
"Rio Verde!" Mr. Jefferson announced. My eyes widened into saucers.
"You won?!" Max looked at me with her eyes just as wide as I imagined my own were.
"Where's our lucky winner?" Mr. Jefferson asked, drawing my attention back to him. I turned to ask Max what I should do but Chloe was dragging her away and I felt a familiar hand wrap around my wrist.
"Right here!" Lex yelled, excitedly throwing up my hand as she forcibly yanked me through the innocent bystanders that were basically bowling pins in her back. Before I could object, Lex had me back in the lounge and heading up onto the stage. With all of the lights on me, it was hard to breathe- hard to think. I felt hot and nervous. Mr. Jefferson beckoned me further downstage and handed me the microphone. He stayed right next to me as I faced the audience. Lex, who had been right at my elbow, had apparently decided to take her leave of the stage.
She could have just pretended to be me.
But no.
Fucking selfless bitch.
"Um... Hi," I waved meekly at the large crowd. "I don't know 99% of you, so...yea."
"Thanks, Mr. Jefferson, for this honor," I gestured towards the photography teacher next to me. "If I'd known, I might have dressed nicer."
There were some chuckles from the crowd.
"As it is, I had no idea," I continued. "I'm not an "Everday Hero". I'm a loser, emo, freak to most of you. That's okay, I don't really care. Three days ago, you all thought Kate Marsh was an attention whore with a penchant for slutting herself out to random guys. Now, you all pretend you never said those things. You'll pretend you care because you don't want to face the corruption of your own humanity. Kate Marsh was a light. You all tried your hardest to extinguish that light."
"I rambled. My bad. Anyway, I'd like to thank the Academy blah, blah, blah," I finished with a flourish of my hand as I bowed dramatically. Turning around, I waltzed off off stage. Victoria Chase was glaring daggers at me but I had my eyes on the exit. I wove my way out of the room and checked my phone once I had gotten out of the VIP lounge.
Text from Nathan -Max
Going to JY -Max
"Fuck," I muttered.
"Something wrong?" I nearly jumped out of my skin. Wheeling around, I saw Mr. Jefferson standing behind me with two drinks in his hands.
"Besides you scaring the fucking shit out of me?" I responded accusingly. I feel my pulse racing erratically as I tried to regulate my heartbeat and breathing. "No. Nothing's wrong."
"I'm sorry I scared you. You had me worried. You did win our bet, after all. Your photo was...inspired," he informed me as Jefferson moved closer and closer to me. I barely hear him over the music. He offered me one of the cups and I hesitated to take it. "You look like you could use a drink."
It hadn't occurred to me that he would choose mine because of something like that. The idea of not winning based on my photo made my stomach squirm.
"Did you just pick me because you wanted to dance with me, after all?" I asked, taking the cup from him and drinking from it tentatively. It tasted like wood and fire in the roof of my mouth. Scotch? I'd only really tried scotch once, with Lex, and it didn't go exactly well. This stuff tasted different, but I couldn't place it. Besides, the nice warm feeling I got from taking another long drink from the cup made it hard to think about all of the things that bothered me.
"The dance is just a perk," Mr. Jefferson admitted. He pulled me back into the VIP section and to our dark little patch of peace from earlier and I went willingly. The airy feeling in my limbs just made moving easier and thinking harder. I focused on the feeling of his hand around mine. His hand was warm with some callouses but not many. He pulled me close to him as the music vibrated in my very bones. I drained off the rest of my cup and he took it from me, handing me another.
If I'd thought about it, I would have noticed that he just given me the second cup that I had original thought was his; but at the time I just knew that there was a cup in my hand and I was thirsty. That cup was less full than the other and I drained it as well.
"Come here," Mr. Jefferson led me out a back entrance without attracting attention. I felt the crisp night air on my skin- a stark contrast to the warmth I was feeling in my body. Once outside, Mr. Jefferon's hands pulled my arms up around his neck before coming down to land on my waist. He was staring at me with a keen, dissecting look in his eyes. We started dancing- a simple side to side sway. He brought me closer and I could smell his cologne. Mr. Jefferson leaned down and I felt his lips ghost over the shell of my ear. Even with the warm feeling flowing through my body, I felt a shiver run down my spine. "I knew the moment I looked at your photo that you were special, Rio"
At that moment, I felt my body turn to lead in his arms.
