Brand New Day

by Demon King Piccolo

Max Caulfield's life had been as normal as she could have hoped for. When she suddenly finds herself with a new power and forcibly shoved into the path of Nathan Prescott, she'll have to use everything she has at her disposal to solve a new mystery. Luckily, she has friends to help her along the way.

10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

When Max blearily opens her eyes, she felt a little smothered.

She looks around as the sleep wears off and recognition sets in. She's in…Chloe's room at the Price household. This means that the method they used worked, thank goodness.

Some strands of blue hair pecks at her cheek and that's when she noticed why she felt smothered. There are arms around her waist and a body is pressed against her back. She also feels breathing on her hair. Turning her head, she looks into the sleeping face of Chloe.

A moment of confusion goes through her. Chloe had been sleeping on the bed and she used the sleeping bag, yet they are now together on the floor.

That confusion gives way to realization, though. She had learned in the 'switch' about how Chloe felt. Looking more closely at her face, she sees lines of troubles around her eyes and that her face is not quite as peaceful as a sleeping face should be.

In a fit of compassion, Max loosens herself from her friend's hold and turns to embrace her. "Oh Chloe, you must have felt so bad."

Chloe stirs then the embrace is returned. "Max?"

"Don't worry. I'm here."

"Where else would you be, bonehead?" Chloe says chuckling. As they away, she bites her lips. "Hey, about last night…"

"I know. No need to say anything."

"I want to. I acted like such a bitch even though I asked you to stay." Chloe's voice breaks a bit. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I was just so angry at you- no, not at you, but at my life. Victoria told me all of that bullshit and it's like I saw the same thing again. Rachel, she…she kept things from me for the same reason too. Neither of you trusts me."

"That's not true at all, Chloe." Max insists a bit more harshly than intended.

"Isn't it? Why…why did Rachel made love to Victoria and not me? She told me she wanted to wait, but she was fucking lying. Why?" Tears leak out of her eyes. "Victoria said they were having sex all the time. She didn't even realize Rachel and me didn't do it yet."

Max feels a great deal of annoyance with Victoria here. "Stop, Chloe. She wasn't telling the truth."

Chloe sucks in a breath. "Enough of it was true, though. I knew it even back then. Rachel wasn't as attached to me as I was to her. It's because I'm a fuck-up. There's so much wrong with me. Why would she love me? I don't have anything to give to anyone."

"Stop it, Chloe. Stop it now. You have a lot to offer."

"What? What do I have?"

"You. I'm not here for fame and fortune. I'm here because of a wonderful woman named Chloe Price. You're such a great person, Chloe, and it confuses me that you can't see this. I don't want someone who isn't a 'fuck-up'. I want you as you are."

"Rachel said that too and she-"

"Forget Rachel!"

That came out forcefully and without thought. It actually stops both Chloe and Max as the latter realized just what she said. Max looks at her friend hesitant unsure if she can adequately explain why something doesn't have to be a lie simply because another person lied about it.

In the end, she chooses a simple explanation.

"I'm not Rachel." Max whispers. "I'm not lying when I say it."

Chloe looks at her sullenly. "I…I'm sorry. I know you're not a liar. I just…I don't know. I'm so confused right now. Maybe this is why I did nothing but looked for Rachel all these months. Everything else confuses me. I just wish I wasn't too stupid to even find her."

"Enough, Chloe." Max says harshly. "I don't want to hear you saying that kind of stuff about yourself anymore. We will eventually find Rachel and then your long search will be finished."

"And then what?" Chloe asks miserably. "What do I do then?"

Max bites her lips unable to respond. As she struggles, though, an idea occurs to her. An audacious, unbelievable idea that has everything inside her telling her to be cautious. She wouldn't be Max, though, if she didn't ignore those warnings and speak from the heart, though.

"Yesterday, Chloe, you asked to stay by my side and that you won't anywhere unless it's with me. Is that still true?"

Chloe stares into her eyes nodding slowly.

"Good. When your search is finished…come to San Francisco with me."

Chloe's eyes widen dramatically and her mouth drops in surprise. Her eyes seem to search Max's own and the latter tries to smile reassuringly. Speechless, Chloe leans into Max nuzzling against her.

"Yeah, Max. I want to come with you. So badly." Chloe whispers.

"That's fine. Come with me. Then stay."

She feels Chloe smiling and the depressive atmosphere that had overtaken the room seem to lift. Once again, the feelings of uncertainty rises through her trying to make her think of what she's saying and the risks that it entails.

Prior to this moment, she hadn't even thought of San Francisco outside of The Everyday Heroes contest. She hadn't even thought of college outside of perhaps going there after Blackwell and, even then, she had figured it would be a college in Seattle. Now she's telling Chloe to move to a completely strange city with her?

The doubts rise dramatically, but Max dismisses all of them. She's taken so many risks already and for so much less. For Chloe's happiness, she's willing to take many more.

Max lifts her friend up and smiles. "Chloe, we have to shower now and also bring the rest of the group back together. You're not going to believe the shit I've just been through."

"What? Another retry?" Chloe looks at her curious. "Damn, sounds serious."

"It is. Look, you shower first, alright? I have to do something so I'll shower second."

Her friend nods. Getting up, she grabs some new clothes, and heads to the shower. As soon as she leaves, Max gets up, takes her school bag, and heads downstairs. Not seeing anyone in the kitchen or living room, she heads into the garage. Thankfully, the person she is looking for is there.

"David?"

He had already turned when she opened the door. He nods at her pleasantly. "Your camera is right there and the files as we agreed."

She eagerly walks over to the tail of the workshop table to retrieve her camera. She takes a selfie as a test and smiles when a photo pops out a moment later. Thank goodness. Max stores the camera into her bag and picks up a folder that the camera was lying on. Inside were several pieces of papers with some being stapled together.

The first one with three pages stapled together is marked 'Nathan Prescott' at the top. She quickly leafs through the rest. As expected, there were files on Frank, but she is also surprised to find entries on Hayden, Taylor, Justin and Zach. Perhaps she shouldn't be surprised at them, but she didn't expect that David was keeping this close of an eye on so many.

Something is terribly off, though. To begin, there is no file on Kate though Max knows for a fact he suspected her. Furthermore, there is no file on Victoria. Considering she's a prominent member of the Vortex Club, is friend with Nathan, and the sheer fact that Max knows she into drugs, it seems completely implausible David has nothing on her while knowing things about all these other people.

In short, he is hiding things from her.

Max didn't feel too frustrated by it. It would have been a bit much to expect him to fully trust her already and, beside, she has the most important files. However, there is one particular file she wants.

"David, this is not all of them." The man looks at her warily. "I know there's a lot more and I'm fine with you keeping them. However, there is one I really want. Give me the file on Rachel Amber."

His mouth drops in surprise. "Rachel Amber? What could she possibly have to do with any of this?"

"You said so yourself. She's a manipulative 'druggie' who spends time with Frank Bowers, right? Whatever file you have on her must be valuable."

"She's also been missing for half a year now." David persists. "There is no way she could possibly be related to whatever it is you suspect Nathan of."

"We don't know that. Besides, I know for a fact that Nathan had a very personal relationship with Rachel Amber, so there might be a small clue that's important." David still hesitates looking suspicious. "Please, David. This is for the safety of the students and there is no possible harm I could do with a missing girl's folder anyway."

He remains hesitant for a moment longer before sighing, "Alright…alright, you win. Just one thing. Please do not let Chloe know about this."

Max blinks. Is that the real reason he was so resistant to giving her the file? It's because he's actually more cowed by Chloe than he lets on? It makes sense, actually. David is ridiculously persistent, but so is Chloe. Furthermore, she has a far more explosive temper which results in…well, plates of food on the wall. It's really no wonder that David is nervous about antagonizing her, especially in regards to Rachel.

Unfortunately, she has no intention of hiding whatever she finds from Chloe. To begin, she's going to be letting Chloe know of far worse things than whatever David could possibly have in his files. Aside from that, she hid too many things from her already and that has already blown up in her face.

"Alright, promise."

He nods. "If you could turn around to give me some privacy?"

She turns and listens attentively. From behind, she hears him walking then stop, then the sound of him picking up the lock. Some clicking from the lock sounds out, then the sound of the cabinet opening.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him walk into the car area of the garage. To her surprise, he walks towards the locker with the four number lock. She focuses with all her might on listening to what comes next. Three clicks, one click, three clicks, one click, then she hears metal as David opens the locker.

There is more shuffling, then the sound of a printer copying. David keeps a printer in a locker in the car area of the garage instead of near his laptop?

A moment later, he comes back with a few sheets. He goes back behind her, more shuffling, then she hears the cabinet close.

"Alright, you can turn now." He holds out the sheets to her. "Here is everything I have on Rachel Amber."

"Thank you, David." She places the sheets into the folder he gave her. "I promise to get back to you with information as soon as I get it. May I have your number?"

He nods and takes out his phone. They exchange numbers and Max leave heading back upstairs returning to Chloe's room. She sits on the bed making herself comfortable.

First on the agenda is the cabinet. Three, one, three, one clicks. He sets his lock to zero, so that means the first number is either a 3 or 7, the second is either 1 or 9, and the last two numbers are the same possibilities.

There, guessing the combination should be far easier now. Somehow, she doesn't believe the only thing hiding in that locker is a printer and David is almost certainly still hiding plenty of things from her.

She writes down the numbers in her smartphone, then picks up the information folder. She quickly glances through the files for some of the others who didn't have a direct concern in this whole. As she thought, most of the files weren't meaningful, though David apparently caught Zach messing around on Juliet with another girl.

Once finished with them, Max turns to the juicier files. First, mostly out of curiosity, she decides on reading Rachel's files first.

The first 'Rachel' sheet is a short typewritten note about suspicious Vortex Club activity and, of course, Rachel is the most prominent suspect. If she really is as vibrant as Victoria and Chloe makes her out to be, it's no wonder she may have ultimately drew David's attention too. The note ends saying how he should tail her. Creepy.

Turning to the next sheet, it is a police report filed by David. It details how he apparently reported her for possession and the police confirmed it. Max grimaces. If this is the type of thing David does, it is perhaps no wonder Nathan was ranting about him.

She turns to the next sheet and doubletakes. It is a photo and a real bombshell. It explains much on why David was hesitant on giving it to her.

The photo is of Frank Bowers and Rachel kissing in front of his trailer. David has some notes written beneath the photo saying Rachel met up with Frank 'again' suggesting it happened more than once. The bottom contains little notes questioning whether relationship is real or whether Rachel is using Frank for drugs.

The next sheet is the last and it appears to be another note from David mentioning that Rachel hasn't been seen for a week and he reminds himself to tail Frank. Lower, he updates the note to mention that Rachel hasn't been back at Blackwell for a month and the local PD has gotten involved to investigate her disappearance.

That appeared to be the last of it. Most of the information seems to be common knowledge. She does drugs, is a member of the Vortex Club, and she goes missing. That photo with Frank, though…she only ever heard one other person mention that. Victoria had mentioned it, but it had seemed more like a personal vendetta against her. This photo, though, proves that both were right. Rachel was seeing Frank.

Biting her lips, Max moves to the Nathan file next.

The first sheet is another note from David. He writes about Principal Wells telling him that Nathan is an exemplary student but he is suspicious as he seen Nathan doing 'strange things' at some Vortex Club events.

The next sheet is one wherein David writes a note talking of how Nathan approached him reporting that Rachel Amber is a 'drug mule'. David says he thinks Nathan is pulling a fast one somehow, but he goes along with it believing that this helps him nail Rachel either way.

Max smiles at the next sheet seeing where David's harassment of Nathan began. It is a series of photos on Nathan and some of them are clearly showing him holding less than legal substances. A note near the bottom is a reminder to confront Nathan. The sheet after is literally a series of a police report reference numbers with a one word description ranging from 'drugs', 'harassment', and 'assault'.

There is yet another sheet after which is nothing more than the times and dates of a series of confrontations David has with Nathan. It is a long list comprising of most of the page and several columns in a table David drew by hand. If the list is accurate, it seems David confronted Nathan on a daily basis for two whole weeks. At the bottom, David includes a short note saying Principal Wells ordered him to stop confronting Nathan. He notes his attempt to goad Nathan was only 'partially successful'.

The final sheet is a relatively recent one and it mentions a party on October 4th and a time of 9:45PM. There is a picture of Nathan helping Kate walk out of Blackwell. Max sits up straight as she realizes what this is. A note at the bottom states a belief that Kate took too much drugs and her 'friend' Nathan is assisting her home so that she doesn't get caught. It suggests he wanted to confront them, but couldn't.

That was the last sheet and it seems to only offer one real piece of truly useful information. Nathan's reporting of Rachel might prove useful later, but as of now, Max can't see why he would do it.

She turns to the last information sheets – the 'Frank Bowers' sheet. Frank only has three sheets attached to his name making him the shortest of the three major information files.

The first sheet is merely a series of notes David has listing a series of questions and potential leads on Frank. The second sheet tries to answer all the questions on the first sheet, but many of the answers had question marks besides them. Of what must have been a dozen answers, only three were clear.

One answer writes that Frank definitely sells weed, cocaine, and pills with '(more?)' written beside it. The second is that he clearly logs his sales in some kind of notebook though David writes in angry bold print beside that he witnessed Frank burning the book sometime later. The last answer says Frank is definitely dealing to Blackwell students.

The last sheet was nothing more than two photos. One of Frank relaxing in a chair in the beachfront where he parks his RV and one of him eating at the Two Whales.

In short, very little information. Despite Frank being at the center of drugs in Arcadia Bay, David seems to have surprisingly little on him.

Taking the folder, she places all the sheets back inside with the exception of Rachel then she sits silently waiting looking up only when the door opens and Chloe walks in.

"Alright, your turn. Hope you didn't wait long."

"Chloe, come sit by me?" Max asks patting the spot beside her on the bed.

She receives a curious look as Chloe comes over plopping herself down. "What's up? I thought we were in a hurry?"

"We are, but…this is important. You need to see this." Max hesitates. "Before I show you, though, you have to promise me that you won't freak out. I know it'll hurt but I'm here for you and I need to know you won't lose it."

Chloe groans. "If you're saying this, then whatever it is is going to be torture." She sighs. "Alright, Max, I promise. Now bring the pain."

Max hesitates again but hands over the sheet. Chloe takes it slowly and her eyes run over the first sheet. She snorts and rolls her eyes no doubt knowing of Rachel's 'suspicious' activities already. The next sheet, the police report, makes Chloe scowl hard.

"That asshole. I didn't know he called the cops on Rachel." She sighs. "Figures."

Chloe moves to go to the next sheet and Max braces herself. When Chloe freezes and tense up on seeing the photo of Rachel and Frank, Max prepares to jump in and do whatever is necessary.

Except it turns out nothing happened.

She stared at the photo for a moment, sighs sadly, then flips to the next sheet. Max blinks in disbelief wondering that Chloe took it so well, though she is glad she did. On the last sheet, Chloe stares for a moment then hands the sheets back to Max. She takes it and places it back in the folder with the others.

Chloe sighs again. "That was harsh, but not surprising. I already knew David was a creepy asshole who spies and rats on everybody."

Max swallows. "And…the photo?"

There is a long moment of silence. "I already suspected."

"What? You…did? But that night we all had dinner…"

"I was in denial." Chloe falls back onto the bed looking up at the ceiling. "That's why I got so pissed off. I suspected for a long time but I was in denial. When David shoved it in my face, I lost it because I didn't want to know."

She continues, "When Victoria revealed everything last night, though, my suspicions came back and…well, how the hell could I keep going on denying?"

Max bites her lips. "Are you angry? At Rachel?"

"Hell yes. When I find her- if I find her, the first thing I'm going to do is punch her in the teeth so hard she'll be drinking blood. The second thing I'm going to do is hug her. The third thing? Well, I'll either punch her again or introduce her to you."

"But enough of this." Chloe says sitting back up. "It's time for your shower, hippie. You're not going to skip the bath and use patchouli oil. I just hope whatever you're planning to tell us isn't much worse than this."

Max smiles. "It…might be a little worse."

Blackwell is much like the rest of Arcadia Bay. It does not do early mornings and when sleeping is no longer an option, it rises up lethargically and slowly. The effect of the town on Blackwell then transfer to its student body.

For this reason, Victoria was very upset when some cretin decides to knock on her door and she wakes up nearly an hour before her alarm. She throws off her blanket and stomps to the door opening it ready to chew out whoever's there.

She stops upon seeing them, though. "Max? Kate? Price?"

After the events of yesterday which still has her seething, she did not expect to see Max until maybe their first class together or even later. Kate seems as groggy and confused as her so they must have just woken her too.

"What the hell is going on?"

"We need you to come with us, Victoria." Max says. "There's something very important you have to see."

Victoria stares at her, then at Chloe. There is something vaguely different about the two of them, though she can't put a finger on it. There's a kind of energy they're giving off. Furthermore, she had expected Chloe to be much more upset in her presence but instead she seems to be holding it together rather well.

It pisses her off.

"No, I don't think so. I told you yesterday that this partnership is over, so you-"

"Victoria, please. This is extremely important – life changing. This is going to change everything and I need you and Kate to be there with Chloe and me."

"What could possibly be so important? You discovered some new bit of information about Nathan? Sean Prescott? Whatever it is, I don't care. You don't need me so you can look into this yourself. I've had it with this whole business."

Max swallows. "What if I tell you that I know what happened to Rachel Amber?"

Victoria reels in shock. She quickly looks at both Kate and Chloe for confirmation of what she is saying but both seem equally surprised. This means Max must have not told them either.

"…did you retry?"

"Yes. Sort of. It's complicated, but I'll explain it once we get to where we're going."

"I…" Victoria bites her lips still unsure. "I admit I am curious, but this is more important to Price, isn't it? I still don't see why I should come."

"Rachel is only a small part of what this whole deal about. This whole thing is so much bigger. It literally involves all of us plus the Prescott family, Mark Jefferson, and so many more."

"What…what the hell did you find?"

"Come with me. Trust me on this, Victoria."

It still takes a moment, but she acquiesces and goes to get ready. Ten or fifteen minutes later, she is in her car with Kate following behind Chloe's truck with Max pointing out the directions.

The road becomes smaller, turns to dirt, and, even before they get there, Victoria had an inkling of where they were going. The barn Max had talked about before. The description of the path she's seeing matches up too well.

Sure enough, they eventually come to a barn.

She leads them inside through an opening in the side then stops in the middle of the barn and turns to them looking very serious.

"We made good time coming here. We have a few hours before someone else come, but I want us to be finished as quickly as possible anyway because…well, I'll explain more in a bit. Still, what I'm going to show you is big, so I want to give you all some time to get ready."

She points at various spots. "You can see the Prescott clippings and letters over there. Look through them if you want but also start bracing yourself. I'll wait over there."

Max goes to stand leaning against the wall near one corner of the barn. They look at each other hesitantly, but do as asked. Kate goes to look at the chest where the clippings are held and Victoria and Chloe goes to see the letters.

Victoria glances at Chloe, "Price, was she like this the entire morning?"

"Not the entire thing, but she became like that once she said we should all get together again." Chloe mutters. "It's like she's a whole new person. Fuck, whatever this is must be real serious."

Reading an old Prescott financial letter, Victoria scowls, "If that's true, it certainly isn't because of this shit." She clears her throat glancing at Chloe again. "You two also seem a little different today. Something good happened?"

"What do you think happened?" Chloe grumbles. "Max and I banged all night?"

"I thought possibly. She seem so much more serious and decisive – so sexy. You also seem more docile." Victoria says slyly. "I thought maybe you turned her into a woman and she relieved you of your raging libido."

"Nothing like that happened. We…just came to understand each other a little more."

"Understand each other a little more? What do you mean?"

"Nothing. It's none of your damn business anyway."

"Nothing?" She raises an eyebrow before smirking. "So if I tell a friend of mine that Max might be available and-"

"Leave Max out of whatever bullshit you have planned, Victoria." Chloe growls. "And tell your friend to fuck off. She's not on the market anymore."

"Anymore? So something did happened. What?"

"I said none of your damn business."

Victoria smirks at Chloe's irritation slowly getting the idea of what may have happened, though she is curious on the details. She suspects neither Chloe nor Max would be willing to share details, though.

"Well, anyway, I'm finished here." Victoria says.

Her comment seems to be the catalyst to get things going. Seeing her leave, Chloe drops the letters she was looking through and follows along. Kate sees them and also runs over. The three approaches Max who looks at them.

"You are all ready?" They nod. "Alright, just…look, I am here for all of you, alright? If you feel overwhelmed at any point, tell me right away. I'm serious. This goes very hard for you, Kate. If you feel even the slightest bit uncomfortable, promise you'll tell me. Promise me."

Kate looks at her in surprise. "I promise, Max."

"Good. Once you say so, I'll come with you and we'll go outside for air."

"We're not about to see a bunch of corpses, are we?" Chloe jokes nervously.

Max smiles grimly. "Not that badly, but not much better either. Lets go."

Before anyone could edge another word out, Max walks to a spot and begins kicking hay. To their immense surprise, some kind of metal door is revealed. Max stares at it a bit then turns to Victoria.

"Victoria, please give me the handgun." She asks putting out a hand.

The blonde looks at her in surprise. She hesitates a moment, but takes the gun out of her purse and hands it to Max. She takes it and, without missing a beat, turns and fires causing the other girls to recoil in surprise. Max picks up the now broken padlock, throws it on top of the platform, and holsters the gun in her jeans.

She bends down and tries to lift the door, but struggles. Seeing this, the other girls jump in to assist. Upon it opening, Max leads the way down. The rest follow though their incredulity at seeing what they do slows them a bit.

They come to the vault door where Max mutters something to herself in thought then she presses '5 4 2' on the door keypad. It opens.

Chloe's mouth drops open as she walks in wondering what the hell she was seeing. It looks a bit like the inside of David's garage, though much more expensive and sophisticated. There were curtains to the left and she takes a few steps towards it when Max stops her.

"Wait, everyone. I think it's time I explain myself." With everyone's attention on her, she takes a deep breath and begins, "As you can guess, I've been through all of this already…but it wasn't exactly a retry. See, yesterday, after I had gone to sleep, I had woken up as Nathan Prescott."

It took a moment for it to sink in, but when it did, Max saw them all lose color in their face.

Victoria is the first to respond. "You mean you were in his body? You could do that?"

"I didn't know I could. I still don't know exactly how I did, though I have some ideas and I think I can recreate it."

The blonde shivers. "God, what fucking powers." She suddenly looks up in apprehension. "Wait, that's how you found this place? Because you were Nathan?"

"Yes. A little after noon, I got a call from 'MJ' asking me to come to this place. When I got there, Mark Jefferson was waiting for me." Victoria and Kate tenses. "He led me down to this place in order to tell me a few things. It seems this bunker was being used by him and Nathan as a meeting spot to do some very unsavory things."

Kate covers her mouth. "I can't believe it. So it's true. Mr. Jefferson really is in all this?"

Max closes her eyes in pain. "Yes, Kate, and so much more."

Victoria bites her lips. "When you say 'unsavory things', what do you mean?"

Swallow, Max takes another deep breath, "I'll show you. Once again, brace yourself."

She leads them to the computer desk and opens the cabinet behind it. She follows the process she did before and takes out a random girl's binder. She places it down in front of them.

Victoria steps forward. She glances at Max, then opens the binder and freezes. "What the hell is this?"

"This is what Mark Jefferson does with the help of Nathan Prescott." Max says bitterly. "Nathan drugs girls, bring them here for Jefferson to photograph them, then they are returned to wherever without any memory of what happened to them."

Victoria immediately glances at Kate. The latter's face had drained of all color as the implication set in. A slight, but unceasing tremble appears in her shoulders. She thought to perhaps say a word of comfort to her when Max's voice interrupts her.

"Chloe, Kate, remember, just say a word and I'll leave with you."

Surprised at mention of her name, Victoria turns to stare at Chloe who actually seem as frightened as Kate is.

"I'm alright." Chloe insists. "It's just…you said drugged girls were brought here and photographed?"

"Yes."

"Girls from Blackwell?"

"Yes."

"And you also said you knew what happened to Rachel…are you saying…?"

Max merely nods her eyes showing sadness. Chloe seem to deflate a little and Max walks over clutching her hand. They look into each others' eyes and seem to communicate silently.

Victoria turns away returning to the binder. She turns to the last page, looks at it critically, and closes it.

"This is some sick fucking shit." She mutters. "Mark Jefferson did all this?"

"Yes, he outright admitted it in front of me. Alright, I think you guys are a little more prepared for what's next. Victoria, I want to show you this."

She takes out the empty 'Victoria' binder and puts it on the desk. Victoria looks at it, grimaces in disgust, and turns away.

"Fan-fucking-tastic. I was target."

"Not was. Is. I think Jefferson originally wanted me, but he told me that he decided to target you instead. He said-" Max pause hesitating a bit. She softens her tone. "He said that he wanted Nathan to drug you and take you to him."

The silence is deafening. Max is hoping to see Victoria's famous fury come through but her face seem to age and express resignation. It's such a different reaction from the switch one in which Victoria showed a great deal of anger that Max is taken back.

"Do you think Nathan would have done it?"

It is the same question she asked in the switch.

"Jefferson seemed confident he would, but I don't know how Nathan would have reacted." Max answers honestly. "If it helps, Victoria, I think that, if anyone, it would have been you that he would have refused to take."

"Thanks. After everything that I've seen, though, I'm not so sure myself." Victoria says lifelessly. "Is there much more to know? I think I need air."

"Go." Max insists. "If it's too much, go now. I'll fill you in later."

"No, I'm staying. You've been going slowly and incrementally, so I'm guessing this is just the tip of the iceberg. If I can't handle this now, I can't handle the rest."

"Victoria…" Max presses.

"Go on. I can take it."

Max licks her lips. She quietly turns and takes another binder lying in on the table. It is the 'Kate' binder. There is a moment where no one moves. Kate looks between everyone with fearful eyes and, gulping, she steps forward to open the binder.

There isn't much reaction initially as she slowly turns the pages. When she reached a page which shows her bounded with duct tape, though, she bursts into tears and steps back. Max moves to comfort her but Kate waves her away. She walks off to the wall, slumps down, and sobs into her hands.

Confused and worried, Max tries to figure where she went wrong. Both Victoria's and Kate's reaction seem much worse. Did she go too fast? Did she explain too poorly? Should she have requested Victoria see everything first again then bring in Kate and Chloe?

"Chloe, maybe it's better if I don't show you the next one."

Her friend looks at her, then glance at the lifeless Victoria and sobbing Kate. She swallows audibly but steels herself.

"I want to see, Max. I want to."

Max nods though she remains uncertain. She takes out the 'Rachel' binder and places it on the table, but she also goes to stand beside Chloe and hold her hand. Mostly to comfort her but also to keep her from destroying the place like before.

It takes a moment before Chloe gets the courage to open it, but she does so. Max watches tensely as Chloe go through the binder. She stops on some, especially the ones showing Rachel fully awake and the ones showing Nathan posed beside her, but eventually continues on. When she reaches the end, she lets out a long sigh as if released from pain.

"Oh God, that was horrible." Chloe mutter. "This Jefferson asshole is a sick fucker. I can't wait until him get thrown in prison."

Max blinks a bit in surprise. She waits a bit longer to see if there's any outburst, but Chloe merely tightens the grip on her hand.

Chloe's reaction…is much better than previously. There is much less anger and more determination to see things through properly. She is reminded of how things went this morning after she showed her the Rachel information sheets.

Once again, Max is annoyed at the variables that cause these changes in the retries. Why can't it be simpler?

"There's something I don't understand." Chloe says. "This means that Rachel's disappearance has something to do with Jefferson and Nathan, right? What did they do to her?"

"We did talked about this in the, er, switch I had with Nathan. We don't know if this place really is the cause of her disappearance, but we discussed that only three people would know for sure: Sean Prescott, Nathan Prescott, and Mark Jefferson."

"Did we decide on anyone?"

Max nods. "Nathan's father and Jefferson were decided to be too hard, but Nathan was a good target. That's when we decided to find a way to switch me back. So that Nathan comes back and we can grill him."

Chloe's mouth tightens. "Good. Then I guess we know what to do now."

"Wait, Chloe, it's not that simple. See, during my switch, while Jefferson was scheming, he said something pretty serious. He called Nathan a murderer."

That finally pulled Victoria out of her sullen quietness. "What? As in he actually killed someone? Who?"

"I couldn't get Jefferson to reveal who. All he said was that he doesn't believe I would forget."

"That could mean anything." Victoria says.

"Right, but the one thing it definitely means is that someone died and Nathan is likely at fault."

The blonde sighs deeply looking more pained than before. "Nathan…there's no way to help him, is there?"

"Are you surprised?" Chloe asks sarcastically.

Max elbows her friend then looks at Victoria sympathetically. "Victoria, I'll say the same thing to you that I said to the other you. I made you a promise and I intend to stick to it. Whatever you want done with Nathan, I'll support you 100%."

"Wha-?" Chloe nearly shouts. "Max, you can't be serious!"

"Chloe, please." The other looks huffs angrily, but quiets down. "Victoria?"

"I…I'm done with him, Max. I don't think helping him is within my power anymore. If you go to the police, just be honest and whatever happens will happen."

Victoria goes quiet again. Max stares at her wishing the blonde would get angry and regain some of her liveliness back.

The response given was so different than the one she received in the switch. It was a response borne of resignation as if she just didn't care anymore and that may just be the case. Max can't have that, though. She needs Victoria to care.

"Are you sure, Victoria? I know you're going through a lot right now and I want to help. If you feel off or need time, then-"

"He's a murderer, Max, and he's involved in some sick kidnapping scheme." Victoria states. "I don't need time to think about this."

Max wanted to argue, but Victoria seem to withdraw into herself more. Biting her lips in frustration, Max decides to deal with this another time. Right now, there's other things they need to get done.

"Alright, I think that's everything. Everyone, lets take some time to just chill. Then we talk about what to do next."

As soon as the words left her mouth, Victoria turns and walks out the bunker not saying a word. Chloe watches her go with a blank look before glancing at Max. She gestures with her eyes towards the still sobbing Kate and Max gets the hint nodding.

"Kate? Sweetheart, don't cry. Here, let me-"

"I'm okay!"

Kate jumps up as soon as Max nears her. The move surprised her so much that Max stops in her tracks. Kate's eyes were still leaking tears and she tries desperately to wipe at her eyes.

"I'm o-okay." She insists even as her voice hitches. "I just n-need some air."

"Kate, please, I-"

"I'll go outside now."

The girl turns and leaves the bunker much like Victoria did. Max watches her go feeling more and more upset.

"Chloe, did I do everything wrong?"

"Hm? What do you mean?"

"They're hit really hard by this. You've seen Victoria and Kate. They look like the walking dead." Max says trying to contain her feelings. "This is way worse than how they reacted in my Nathan switch."

"I don't know, Max." Chloe says signing. "It seems like every time you do one of these retries, you end up telling me about things I did or said…and it sounds like something I would say but I haven't actually done it. I also get the feeling that many more things happened that ended up not…happening."

She runs a hand through her hair. "This whole retry business is tough. Sometimes it helps, especially if you get into a gunfight in the middle of a barn, but, sometimes, it hurts when you're trying to reveal sensitive info like this."

"What do I do?" Max asks her.

"Keep moving forward, I guess. We can't always get the best outcome. Not unless you want to retry several times every day. Instead, lets just try to deal with this the best we can." Chloe takes out her phone and glances at it. "It's still pretty early. I don't think your first class even started yet. Do we chill some more or should we get moving?"

Max thinks for a moment. "Lets go talk to Victoria and Kate first. Then we'll try to get going."

"Alright, do you want me to deal with Kate…or Victoria?"

"Let me handle Victoria." Max gives a small smile. "You take care of Kate?"

"You got it."

They leave the bunker together searching for their two comrades. Above, they spotted Kate sitting against the barn doors outside. Chloe breaks away to saunter cautiously over to her. Max glances around and spots Victoria leaning against her car smoking a cigarette.

Walking over, Max tries carefully, "Hey."

"Hey." The blonde replies blandly.

"Are…you alright?"

"Yes."

Max swallows. "Victoria, I…I won't say I know exactly how you feel, but I think I'm right in saying we've both been through a lot this past few days. I want to think I'm your friend and, if you consider me one, let me lend you a shoulder."

Victoria sighs. "It's…I'm fine, really. This is just so much to take in and even as fucking awesome as I am, even I can't handle this. Before, I was just worried my friend lost his damn mind and may have assaulted one of my classmates."

"Now…" She sighs again. "now I know he assaulted one my classmates plus several others girls and is about to include me on the list. Worse, he's doing this alongside my teacher who I admired and want to be like. As if all this is not enough, I now hear there's a possibility he murdered somebody too. For fuck's sake, what if that somebody is Rachel?"

"It is a lot." Max bites her lips avoiding the mention of Rachel. "But I would not have shown it to you if I had not thought you could handle it. In my switch, you were the first person I showed it to."

The blonde smiles grimly. "Did my alternative self handle it much better?"

"There was a lot of cussing." Max says trying to be lighthearted. "And some throwing of the binders, but yes, you had handled it very well. You even took the effort to ensure Kate handled it well when she arrived too. You held her hand and everything."

"God. From bully to another one of her big sisters. That girl doesn't need anymore."

"But you make such a good big sister. For one thing, unlike me, you're actually bigger than her."

That earned a laugh. "You're right, shortstuff." Victoria throws away the cigarette. "I feel better now. Thanks. Price might need a little more time to work her target, though."

Max looks near the barn where Chloe is trying to cheer up Kate and only earning forced smiles in return…which only serve to make Chloe try even harder. She smiles warmly at the earnest attempt, though, and is happy to see Chloe trying all the same.

"What do you see in her? I just don't get it."

The smiles falls off her face as Max turns to Victoria. The blonde is staring at Chloe her face twisted as if unable to comprehend a puzzle.

"I grudgingly admit that, yes, she is kind of cute in her own…unique way and that, in the darkest part of my soul, I would willingly bang her under the condition that she bathes thoroughly first." Max blushes at this comment. "But otherwise, I can't see her appeal, yet there must be something considering she managed to attract Rachel and you."

"Why are you surprised? You noticed it before even me! You were the one who made me realize this possibility."

"Yes, I saw it and I mentioned it…but I don't understand it. I mean, you're no Dorothea Lange or anything like that, but you can certainly do better than Chloe Price. For the second time, it would make so much more sense to me if you had been with Kate Marsh."

"I don't think Kate is into women, Victoria."

"Then anyone else. You could have gotten together with fucking Hayden and it would at least make sense to me because he's damn charming."

Victoria sighs. "So what is it? The girl has no money to do anything, no talent to take her anywhere, and no prospects in general."

Max bites back any snap replies. The blonde still looks somewhat lifeless, but the way she speaks is pretty much the 'Victoria Chase' trademark and it riles Max to hear it aimed by Chloe, but she keeps her silence hoping Victoria is returning to normal.

"Well?"

Snapping back to attention, Max looks at her. "It's her, of course."

"Her? Her what?"

"Her 'her'. Who she is. Her person." Max licks her lips. "I love Chloe because she is Chloe. Not because of how much money she has or what kind of talents she has. She's…special to me."

Victoria doesn't reply for a minute, then mutters. "I just don't get it."

"Maybe you weren't meant to. Maybe…maybe only I'm supposed to. Maybe I was the one who is meant to understand Chloe."

"Romantic. Fate, destiny, and love. The two of you will be grow old and happy spending your days in Arcadia Bay while whatever innate talent you were lucky enough to be blessed with withers away to nothing."

Max smiles. "Not quite. Chloe is coming with me to San Francisco."

A pause, then a grim smile. "So that's what Price was hiding. She somehow convinced you to drag her ass with you to San Francisco."

"I asked her. She didn't even know I was going." For that matter, Max didn't know she was going either. The things she does on a spur of the moment. "I wanted her to come with me."

"Hm." Victoria responds blandly. "So another thing to this shitshow of a week, I guess. Well, enough moping. I think your girl has finally done something, so I shouldn't hold back our reunited group now."

Max looks back at the other two to see Kate smiling a little more sincerely as Chloe touches her arm. The latter is slowly cheering up the little blonde and she's glancing towards them every now.

Saying something Max couldn't hear, a small laugh finally escapes Kate which elicits a victorious look from Chloe. That is also when Chloe looks over and begin walking towards them after ensuring Kate is following behind her.

"Hey guys. Um, is everything alright?" Chloe asks glancing at Victoria. "Victoria, are you-?"

"Yes, I'm fine." Victoria says exasperatedly. "Christ, you two are like my fucking parents, except my actual parents would have laid off by now. Seriously, though, lets get this thing moving. The sooner we get all of this done, the sooner things can go back to normal."

She glances at Max uncertainly reminded that one person in their group isn't so normal anymore. "Well, as normal as can be."

Chloe nods slowly and her attention turns to Max. Likewise, Victoria and Kate turn to her too. She swallows knowing everyone is expecting her to provide the way forward.

"Alright, I know what you're all probably thinking of. That we're to grill Nathan for info next, but that's not exactly it. See, I had something else in mind."

It is a plan that had slowly been forming since the Nathan switch and had been solidifying since. They are now split by two major problems and one of them is extremely time limited.

Due to this issue, Max came to the conclusion that they can't continue going the way they've been going. Thus something drastic needs to be done.

"This is where we should break up."

Seeing as Max had been their strongest advocate for staying together, the announcement comes as a surprise to all as is clearly visible on their face. They remain silent waiting for her to continue, though.

"See, during the Nathan switch, another major problem came up. We had discussed this in my switch too. See, I've been having these dreams. So far, there's only been three but a pattern has came up."

"Each dream is slowly becoming more detailed and more intense. The third one I had? I could swear to all of you it felt like the real thing." Max swallows. "I know by itself that doesn't mean much. However, after every dream, something major happens."

"After the first dream, I think that's when I got my power to retry. I know I can't prove it but I think it's right. Directly after the second dream, we saw snow in Arcadia under impossible conditions. The third dream? I switched with Nathan."

Chloe blinks in confusion. "Max, I'm getting more and more confused, but even if I just take it that your dreams are causing some supernatural events or something, what are you getting at?"

"Every single one of my dreams involves the exact same situation: a massive storm hits Arcadia Bay. A tornado, I think. Nearly everything gets destroyed. Blackwell is torn apart, the town is in rubbles, and...in my third dream, I found your corpses at the lighthouse as that is getting destroyed too."

Max takes a deep breath. "We discussed this in my switch and…and we agreed that the town should be evacuated."

Dead silence. Thoughts can be seen flitting through their eyes and, even if their expression wasn't giving it all away, it is obvious that they're at a loss.

"When is this tornado?" Kate asks.

"My first dream had a message on our photography class' blackboard. A message which could have only been written tomorrow."

"Tomorrow…" Kate repeats losing a bit of breath.

"Evacuate all of Arcadia Bay in a single day." Victoria says. "Please tell me we also had a good idea on how to do that."

Max smiles lightly. "Actually, we were at a loss in the switch too." Her smile drops. "But I do have an idea and, to do it, we need to break up and do different things."

Chloe bites her lips nervously. "What are you thinking?"

"Here's my idea." They give her full attention. "The three of you are to head back into town and do basically everything within your power to get people to either leave town or go into a bomb shelter. As for me, I will finish the last step of our investigation and find out where Rachel Amber is."

Looking anxious and uncertain, Chloe twiddles her hands. Victoria and Kate were less nervous but they also seem very unsure. Seeing this, Max moves to reassure them that this is the best way.

"The plan has to go this way." Max says. "Victoria, you and Kate are the best chance to evacuate Blackwell. Victoria, your connection to the Vortex Club and your overall popularity makes you a noticeable voice. Kate, you can help with the people who wouldn't trust Victoria. If the two of you do it, a significant number of Blackwell kids will probably listen."

"And why do I have to go along with them?" Chloe asks.

"That's for the after part. When you guys are finished with Blackwell, you have to convince the rest of town too. With three people, you guys can cover that much more people. More importantly, two of you have family right here in Arcadia Bay. Kate, Chloe, you both have to convince your family to get out."

"Victoria and me both have our families in Seattle, so we're the only ones who can do the other part, but Victoria is also needed to do the evacuating. That means that I'm the only person we can spare to do it."

Chloe still looks unsure, but didn't know how to argue back. "Victoria, say something."

Victoria looks at her annoyed. "Even if I was against this, which I'm not because it does seem like the best plan, there is still another problem. How exactly are we supposed to convince them?"

"You make it sound easy, Max. I'm influential with some people and Kate with others, so the two of us can convince them together…but how? I can get the attention of a lot of people, but what in the hell can I say that would get them to leave Arcadia?"

She continues in frustration. "The truth about a tornado sounds crazy. Any lie intended to get someone to leave town will probably sound equally crazy. Even under the best of conditions, complete evacuation is damn near impossible. Do you remember Hurricane Katrina and how that evacuation went? In New Orleans, they had far more time and far more resources. We're supposed to do all of this with a tiny fraction of the resources and in a single day?"

Chloe clenches her teeth. "She's right, Max. I don't see how we're going to do this. I'll be surprised if I can even convince Joyce to leave."

Panic begins to overtake Victoria. "This is crazy. This is fucking crazy. We're not going to save everyone. It's going to be a disaster. Everyone is going to die." She pauses and, surprisingly, seem to completely calm down. "We have to leave."

"Didn't you just say how impossible that was?" Chloe asks in confusion.

"You don't understand. We – meaning the four of us here – have to leave. We'll have to convince our families to leave, but between the four of us, we can probably find a way to do it."

"Wait, what about everyone else?"

"We'll send out a message warning everyone, but that's it. We put the rest of our focus on getting out of here. If anyone heeds our message and get out, that'll be awesome. If not, though, we'll have to forget about them."

The words seem to bring Kate back to life. "Victoria…what about our friends? Our teachers?"

"The same applies to them. If we can convince our families quickly, then we can spare the time to try to get them, but if not, what the hell can we do? All of you must realize how ridiculously hard this is going to be, don't you? Kate, imagine, I don't know, a month ago. If me…well, if Max had came up to you trying to convince you to leave town because of giant tornado no one else heard of is coming tomorrow, how would you react? Would you have listened? Exactly."

She continues. "We have to think of ourselves here. This tornado may actually come sooner than we think. We have to get as much of our families as possible and get out. If we have to leave everyone else- would you stop giving me those eyes, Max? I'm only saying the sensible thing. We're not going to convince everybody, so we have to focus only on ourselves."

There is a long pause wherein no one speaks. Victoria had turned away refusing to meet anyone's eyes. Though no one may have said it, they knew she had a strong point. The task seems virtually impossible.

"I believe…" They all turn to Kate who is talking quietly. "I believe that I was given an opportunity to live and I'm obligated to live righteously. When in such a situation where I have to choose between my life and others, I have to do everything within my power to ensure all lives are protected."

She pales a little. "The truth is a lot harder. I'm scared to bits. My mind is jumbled and I can't focus. I don't want to die." Swallowing, she continues. "But my heart is still going strong. Even though I'm scared, I can't leave without giving it my all to save everyone."

Victoria stares at her, then turns to Max. "And you?"

"I'm staying. I want to finally solve this once and for all. To finish it, I need to find Rachel. I also intend to warn everyone I come across to get out."

Clenching her teeth, Victoria looks at Chloe, "Are you insane too?"

Chloe's face has lost its color. "I don't warn to die either, but if Max is staying, then I'm staying too."

"This is fucking crazy. For God and for a dead girl. This is crazy."

Max shakes her head. "God and Rachel is only part of the equation. There are also our friends, our teachers, our neighbors, the people we pass everyday, and Arcadia Bay. This place is as much my home as Seattle is, Victoria, and it's your home too. Are you going to just leave?"

"So what? I should die along with everyone?"

"I'm not asking you to die. I'm asking you to stay and help as much as possible." Max pleads. "I promise I'll try my best to get us all out alive, but I need you to try to get everyone out too."

"I already said I'll stay long enough to convince a few people. Isn't that enough?"

"It's a lot." Max nods sadly. "I've…already come to terms with the real possibility that we won't be able to get everyone, but I don't think we – any of us – can live comfortably with ourselves if we don't give rescue our total shot. I'm fairly confident that the storm won't hit until, at the earliest, late tonight. Try to save everyone until then."

"This is crazy, you know." Victoria repeats but there is also a tone of resignation in her. "This is too damn crazy."

"But you'll stay?" Max clutches Victoria's hand. "You'll stay and help us?"

"…yes."

That last whisper causes relief to surge through the group. Though their chances aren't any better, they feel better knowing they have one more person trying to do as much as possible.

Stepping back, Max looks at the group. "We now know what to do, I think. I'll leave the details to you guys on how you want to go about convincing Arcadia. Meanwhile, I intend to stick to my plan of finding Rachel."

"If for some reason, communications go down and we can't reach each other, continue whatever you're doing, then find shelter when you can't go any further. Once the storm passes, I'll be waiting at wherever rescue crews designate as the main shelter for everyone to go to."

They all nod and break up. Victoria heads to her car and Kate slowly follows along after throwing Max a glance. Chloe looks around hesitantly then turns to head towards her own truck when Max stops her.

"Chloe, hold on." She walks up to her. "Could you go with Victoria and let me use your truck?"

"Max?"

"I need to travel a bit and it'll take too long to use the bus. Please?"

"Of course." She says taking out her keys and handing it to Max. "I just…I wish I could come with you." Chloe pleads. "Could I? Please?"

"No, Chloe. I need you to help Victoria and Kate get people out. This is important to me and I know it's important to you too."

"It is. I…I just want to know I'm still going to see you after this. You're going to be doing something dangerous, aren't you? Not just with the storm, but with how you're going to get all this information."

"I am." Max admits slowly. "But remember, I do have a bit of protection with me."

"We don't know enough about it, though. How do we know your powers are going to continue? This storm…this tornado…it's the culmination of everything you've been dreaming about, isn't it?"

She pauses. "Yeah, it is. You're right. This might change everything. All the same, we have to take the risk. We can't back down now, Chloe."

"Let me come with you. Please, Max."

"Chloe…trust me. I won't leave you."

Max leans in and softly kisses Chloe. When she leans away, Chloe touches her lips blushing.

"Now go. I will see you again, Chloe."

Still unhappy, Chloe nonetheless nods and turns walking towards Victoria's car looking back at Max repeatedly. She speaks a few words to Victoria through the window then gets into the car. As they drove off, Max and Chloe meet eyes one last time.

Max jumps into Chloe's truck and starts it up. Checking the time and seeing that it's still a little before ten, she smiles to herself gratefully that not too much time was lost to this excursion. Inhaling deeply, she now prepares to put the rest of her plan into action.

Some time later, she parks in the driveway of the Price household. This is the beginning. The beginning – and central point – of all her plans so far: Information gathering. She is here to find out what information David may have hidden from her.

Just based on what he did this morning and personal knowledge of how the man is, she knew he must be hiding something very important that she could use when she confronts Nathan.

Using Chloe's keys, she goes through the front door and immediately tries to go in through the garage door to the right. It's locked. She pales knowing Chloe doesn't have the key to this door. Sending a little prayer above, Max walks to the door from the living room and tries the knob. She sighs in relief when it opens. Thank goodness David's security isn't perfect.

She walks through his workshop heading towards the garage. There, she stands in front of lockers blocked by the metal bar with the four digit padlock. She recalls the sounds she heard as David opened the locker: Three, one, three, one clicks. So again, it has to be a 7/3 then a 9/1 and repeat.

Max tries to do the math in her head to see how many possible combination that is and flounders miserably, so decides to just give it a try.

7-7-9-9 fails. So does 7-7-9-1. Then 7-7-1-9. 7-3-9-9.

This continues for a time as Max slowly goes through the motions. Eventually, the padlocks clicks open when she inputted 7-1-7-1. She lets out a relieved sigh that her method worked and opens the locker.

Inside…Max's eyes widen. The first thing she saw inside the locker isn't exactly what she wanted but she can see why David keeps it locked. It's a frightening looking rifle and several boxes of ammo. She throws a glance at the gun cabinet in the workshop but already knows the one in the locker is very different. It's larger and looks more…military-ish.

Well, David is certainly ready for the zombie apocalypse.

Besides the rifle is some expensive looking printer which must be the one that David used to print out the sheets for her before. The top of the printer has numerous stickers advertising the printer's capabilities, including three-in-one, high quality ink, fast PPM, and wireless capability.

On top of the printer is a folder and that last item comprises the entirety of the lockers. Max feels a bit upset. The entirety of the contents in the locker is a rifle, a printer, and a folder? The rifle alone is certainly important enough to keep well locked, but she had really hoped for and expected a lot more.

She picks up the folder. Even without doing so, she easily saw how thin it is meaning it probably doesn't have much. When she opens it, her view is confirmed. There was letters in there, copies of checks, and other near useless things he probably prefers to keep private. In the back of the folder, she encounters a note where David writes 'laptop 11-27-08'.

She was about to ignore it too then something occurs to her. Initially, she thought he had kept a note of when he purchased his laptop for some reason, but who keeps a several years old note for that? Even if David is crazy enough to, wouldn't he rather keep a receipt?

Glancing over her shoulders towards his workshop where she could see parts of the laptop David keeps in his workshop. A hunch occurs to her and, historically speaking, she knows she should listen to her hunches.

Looking at the note again, she memorizes the date and closes the locker. Going into the workshop and turning on the laptop, she enters the date into the password field and…it lets her in.

She has another thing to be thankful for: there is a single folder on the main screen titled 'Reports'. When she opens it, several more folders pop up all with the names of innumerable people. She ignores most of them and heads straight for the folder marked 'Nathan Prescott'.

A wealth of files comes up. Excitedly, she opens the first file which is an image. It pops up and it shows Nathan holding a bag of what appears to be weed.

Max blinks. This photo was actually included in one of the sheets David gives her. She closes it and tries the next few image files. Most were in the sheet, but the ones that weren't were bland, useless photos anyway. The next few files were documents but they were also included and, again, the ones that weren't were dry reiterations of information included in other sheets already.

She sits back in surprise. David may have actually given her as much as he had.

Not willing to give up, Max puts away the Nathan folder and tries the Rachel folder next. Her frustration grows a bit as she encounters the same result.

Sighing, Max wonders what she will do now. She has a few ideas on how to approach Nathan and get him to spill the beans as these last few days has taught her a neat trick – if she knows just enough, people will often fill in other information for her.

That is the basis of her entire plan with Nathan. She will likely never get him to confess about what happened to Rachel Amber under any condition than one where he genuinely believes she is already fully aware of what happened. To make him believe that, she will need to have enough info on hand.

Right now, she knows a large amount about their entire operation already, but a crucial aspect is missing: more knowledge of what exactly occurred during the night Rachel disappeared.

Trying to gather some hope, Max tries the Frank folder. It is mostly the same as before in which David really did seem to have given her everything important. As with the others, there were some extra files, but mostly redundant. Max is about to turn off the laptop in disgust but another image stops her.

It is a photo David took of a burned piece of paper that still has some small bits of info, including what appears to be part of a date and…the name of a dog breed? The title of the image file is 'account book', so this must be some kind of code that Frank uses for his sales. This must be the burned notebook David mentioned in one of the sheets.

An idea occurs to Max. She couldn't find the information she needed here, but this is important. Nathan and Jefferson would need a steady supply of drugs to dose girls, wouldn't they? If Frank keeps track of his sales, is it then possible that she can use those sales dates in order to begin constructing what may have happened with Rachel?

It is a long shot. A very long shot.

She turns off the laptop and leaves. In the truck, she pulls out the Rachel and Nathan folder David gave her. In order to start forming the picture of what had happened, she needs to be sure of when exactly Rachel disappeared. It was on April 22nd, she knows that from all the missing posters, but is that her official date of disappearance or when Chloe last saw her? She needs to be sure.

The Rachel folder seems like the obvious place to start. Rechecking the last sheet, she notes that David mentions no one seeing Rachel for a week. That comment doesn't include a date but the update where he mentions the local PD getting involved after a month has a date of 2013-05-20. How exact is that? Does he really mean she hasn't been seen since April 20th or did he just round up to a month?

She checks the Nathan sheet too but the last mention of Rachel there is dated almost a month before she disappears. It appears she'll have to settle with the area around April 20th to the 22nd.

With this in mind, she starts up the truck and heads in the direction of the beachfront where Frank stays figuring it's time to get the account book…though it'll take a bit of work to think of how she can do it.

To her surprise, she didn't have to go that far. As she was driving through town and passes the Two Whales on the way, she happens to glance over and startle upon seeing Frank's RV. She u-turn back and parks in the Two Whale parking lot. Looking discretely around from inside the truck, she spots Frank eating inside the diner.

She looks at the RV, then at Frank, then back at the RV again. She had originally intended to try to talk Frank is giving her access, but the idea to sneak into the RV while he is busy inside the diner seems obvious, but is it too obvious? Does Frank have the RV locked tight? As a drug dealer who must worry about security, he must, right?

Well, she's not going to know just sitting inside the truck.

Max opens the door quietly, crouches a bit, then quickly scuttles around the RV until her form is hidden from the diner. On the other side, a dog lies quietly besides a beach chair. The door is tantalizingly close but the big dog gives her pause.

Swallowing, she gets on all fours and slowly crawls up to the door keeping an eye on the dog all the while. Her eyes flit to the dog's food bowl taking note of the name 'Pompidou' – a rather feminine sounding name that nearly makes her giggle though she stops herself.

Any thought of giggling stops after she notice the various scars on the dog. Is it some kind of fighting dog?

Shaking off the thoughts, she reaches up and tries the handle. Pulling on it, her mouth drops when it opens. It isn't locked. The local drug dealer doesn't bother to lock his door. Glancing at the dog again, she wonders if maybe he was depending on something else to defend his privacy.

Pulling the door just wide enough for her to fit through, Max crawls inside using her foot afterwards to ensure the door doesn't close too loudly.

The smell is the first thing she notices. Frank's RV smells overwhelmingly of alcohol, cigarettes, and some sort of musky scent she can't put her finger on it. She gags a little, though is able to fight it down.

Getting up to her feet, she looks around and the sight nearly repulses her as much as the smell.

The sink beside the door held disgusting dishes which had old food caked on it. Some flies were hovering near it which may be an unsavory indicator of just how long the dishes have been there. Near the driver seat were various empty beer bottles which weren't that bad really, especially compared to the state of what appears to be his dog's personal space. There were messes of dog food and a noticeably wet blanket there which may possibly be dog urine.

Max isn't exactly the picture of cleanliness herself and her room could certainly use some fixing up itself but this is far too much.

Against the assault on her nose, the naked lesbians poster on his wall and the visible stack of porn mags on the sink countertop didn't even merit attention.

Taking a deep breath (and nearly choking herself from it), she reminds herself of why she is here and moves into action. As she shifts her focus, the computer near the entrance is the first thing that comes to mind and she groans. She only had to do it two times so far and she is already sick of having to search people's computers for the information she wants.

Knowing how long that would take, she decides to search the back of the trailer first. As soon as she walks into what appears to be Frank's bedroom, though, she knew just how hopeless it would really be.

Like the front of the RV, the bedroom is equally messy and cluttered. Cluttered to the extreme. Frank could probably double his living space just by organizing his RV. She makes note of a series of names and marks on the wall which seems to indicate who he sold to and who owes him.

Nervously, she discards that list as an impulse on Frank's part and not his actual method of accounting. Aside from the fact that it didn't include any names she knew bought from him, she wanted to discard it because it would mean how utterly useless it was for her to come here and might mean a dead end to her search.

Without even bothering to try to search the room, Max decides to go back to the computer instead hoping he didn't password lock it.

To her relief, it isn't password locked. Dread did rise in her for a moment when she saw the utter chaos that was his computer with an enormous mass of folders with various titles. Thankfully, however, most of the folders were easily dismissed as they were titled such things as 'dogs', 'website', and other random things. Only two folders caught her attention: 'photos' and 'records'.

'Photos' were mostly dog photos, though there were some photos of more mundane things such as the beach where Frank normally resides, sunsets, Pompidou playing with a seashell. There were also older photos of Rachel and Max couldn't help looking into the face of the girl she is now searching for.

By this point, Max is no longer surprised to see photos of her, but perhaps this is the first time she really looked.

The blonde is looking directly into the camera giving a light smile and Max wonders what, if anything, is underneath that smile. The girl that captured Victoria at one time, Chloe at another, and then got Frank too. What kind of person is she like? Could they have become friends? Would Max and Chloe have reconnected – and reach the point they now have – had Rachel been aliv- here?

She closes the photo, though sits thinking about it a moment longer. Shaking off the feeling remembering she is pressed for time, she goes into the 'records' folder. There were a series of text documents in there titled by the year. Knowing Rachel disappeared this year, Max opens the 2013 document and scrolls down until the document shows the transactions occurred during March, April, and May.

Her mouth tightens when she notices all transactions seem to have coded names, coded drugs, and even the prices seem to be coded. The only thing that wasn't coded were the dates. Worse, the codes were all related to dogs. The names of the people were breeds of dogs, the drugs seem to be some type of dog treats or medicine, and the prices were number of dogs.

Taking out her camera, she takes a shot of the three months of transactions. Then she scrolls back up to the top and looks for something in particularly. Smiling, she finds it. There were some sales two days ago on Wednesday, but one in particular stood out. Frank lists there being'16g of Canine Sedative' for '5 Purebreds'.

Max distinctly remembers them getting about 16g of the GHB for about $500. The numbers match up too well to be a coincidence. She takes a photo of the transactions for August, September, and October and places it inside her bag alongside the last photo.

Picking up her bag, Max gets on all four near the door and slowly opens it. Peeking outside to see that Pompidou is still sleeping, she crawls out. Once around the RV, she gets up and jogs back to the truck, and takes off.

She didn't drive that far before parking again. She just wanted to put some distance between the RV and herself just in case Frank comes back and sees something is off in his trailer.

Taking out the folders and the two photos, she begins the process of trying to create a mental picture of what happened.

From Chloe's missing poster and David's notes, she knows Rachel disappeared around April 20th-22nd so she should start there.

Though she has tried to avoid thinking of it at times, it seems almost certain that Rachel is dead. Aside from what Victoria said that she had essentially become a danger by waking up during the drugging in the bunker, the fact alone that she has not contacted anyone, be seen anywhere, or even used any of her financial accounts suggests death.

How can she start establishing something more concrete, though?

She bites her lips feeling more confused. Deciding it's best to start small, Max decides to start by establishing that Rachel was, in fact, drugged and taken. This means that Nathan must have purchased GHB around the time of the disappearance, right?

A thought passes her mind that perhaps he already had a supply he took from or that he may not have used GHB, but she dismisses both. Victoria already stated that Nathan prefers to use drugs as soon as he gets them rather than sensibly keeping a supply around. Furthermore, Frank appears to be Nathan's main supplier and Frank doesn't seem to keep a large variety meaning GHB was most likely the one used.

Nodding at the sensibility of it, Max begins searching through the April transactions. There was at least some kind of sale every other day – sometimes as often as 4-5 times a day and for a very high amount as some transactions is as high as '12 Purebreds'.

She passes over these until one particular sale catches her eye. On April 21st at 9:22PM, Frank sold someone he named 'Rott' four grams of 'Canine Sedative'. To be more certain, Max takes out the photo showing October's transactions.

Her mouth tightens when she finds what she wanted. On October 4th at 11PM, 'Rott' purchased five grams of GHB and it is the only sale of the stuff for the past two days. That is almost certainly the dosing of Kate. To be more positive, she looked for sales on October 8th.

There. During the evening, 'Rott' appears again and approximately around the time Nathan went in her retry. More importantly, there were two listed transactions for 'Rott' around the same time affirming the fact that Nathan left once then drove back for something else.

This confirms it. 'Rott' is, in fact, Nathan and that means the sale in April is definitely Nathan and it is likely the dosing of Rachel.

So now she has a day for when it happened. April 21st is when Nathan dosed Rachel and must have taken her to the bunker. If he bought the drug at 9:22PM, then perhaps the actual dosing and kidnapping didn't occur until maybe 10-11PM?

Curiously enough, there is a noticeable difference between the Kate and Rachel dosing. It's been almost a week since the Kate dosing and Nathan hasn't purchased anything, except for some weed. However, after the Rachel dosing, the account list shows he had purchased another five grams of GHB on April 22nd then yet another fifteen grams on April 23rd. At that point, the purchasing had abruptly ended and Nathan's codename doesn't show up again until nearly three weeks later.

It takes a moment but the possibility occurs to Max that if he bought more GHB, perhaps he needed to use more? To keep Rachel sedated? But why?

She had already woken up and likely got a good idea of what was going on. No amount of drugging was going to erase that, so why bother to continue sedating her? If the purchase stopped on the 23rd, does that mean that's when she was killed? But again, why? Why then? Why not immediately after she discovered everything?

Kate's dosing only lasted for a few hours, so Rachel probably woke up sooner if she caught them by surprise. If she discovered what was going on and they decided to silence her, why did they wait as long as they did?

Max shakes off the questions. She can't let herself be distracted like this. The important thing is that now she has a general idea of how the dosing happen and how it ultimately led to Rachel's murder. There's only one thing left, though. Where was the body buried?

That seems almost impossible to find out or even speculate about. It could be literally anywhere. If Nathan or Jefferson were cautious, it could be hundreds of miles away. If they were extremely cautious, it could be across the United States. How could she even begin to think where it could be?

She breathes. She has to calm down and think carefully.

To begin, Nathan would probably be the one to bury the body, wouldn't he? Of the two of them, Jefferson doesn't seem like the type to want to get his hands dirty. Now then, in order to hide the body, Nathan would need time, wouldn't he?

She checks Frank's records again. The last purchase of GHB on the 23rd happened at 4:22PM. Checking online, she sees April 23rd was a Tuesday. So he made the last purchase shortly after school? Assuming Rachel died on the 23rd, that means it would have likely happened sometime during the night.

So if Nathan decides to bury her the same day, he would have likely needed at least the next day off.

The doubts came back into her head. What if he decided to keep a corpse around until he was ready to bury? Furthermore, this is Nathan. What if unexplained and random absences are par for him?

Shaking the doubts off again, she picks up David's file on Nathan and looks for anything dated around April.

It seems the time when David and Nathan teamed up to accuse Rachel of being a drug mule happened in late March. Then David's confrontations with Nathan start in mid-April. It lasted two weeks so it falls within the timeframe of Rachel's death. Perfect.

David had a confrontation with Nathan nearly every day the entire week of the drugging. There was one exception – there is no listed confrontation for April 24th. The exception blares itself loudly. After that, the confrontation continues until Nathan contacts Principal Wells.

So assuming the absence was needed for Rachel's burial, then that seems awfully quick. It's unlikely he transported a body very far, buried it, and then came back all within the span of a single day. No, instead, it's more likely that he buried the body nearby, isn't it?

But then…where? Even though she narrowed it down a lot, Arcadia Bay is still a large place with plenty of places to bury a body. There's also no information at all she has that would help point it out. She'll have to go to Nathan for that. Damn.

Max puts away the folders and photos into her bag. This may be as much as she can get information-wise. Perhaps it's time to finally confront Nathan.

She takes out her phone and dials a number.

"Hey."

"Victoria? How are things going?"

"Like bullshit. What else? I posted on every one of my social media pages about getting out of Arcadia and the three of us have been stopping everyone at Blackwell to talk about it. My friends all think I'm nuts and that I've become a doomsday preacher. Basically, nobody is fucking listening."

"Keep trying. We can't give up."

"At this point, I rather bully people into leaving as that might actually work, but I'll see what I can do." Victoria is silent a moment. "How are you doing? What are you up to?"

"I think I have an idea for how Rachel got dosed, killed, and where she might even be buried. I need to grill Nathan now. That's actually why I called you. Did you see him anywhere?"

"Taylor told me she saw him earlier, but he told her he was going to the Two Whales diner and bailed."

Two Whales? Was he there when Max snuck into the Frank's RV?

"Alright, that's where I'm going then."

"…listen, I know you're all gungho about this and think highly of your plans, but be careful, okay? At the very least, having to do this whole morning again might not be so nice."

"I will. Thanks, Victoria."

She hangs up. Starting the truck, she makes the short drive back to the Two Whales. Checking the time on her cell phone, she grimaces seeing that it is already past noon. There's not much more time to go. Taking a deep breath, she gets out of the truck and heads for the diner.

There were a number of people in the diner, though it isn't crowded. The first to catch her attention is Frank sitting in the back near the window facing the parking lot. She gets a chill knowing how easily Frank could have spotted her.

She turns to the other side and freezes seeing a familiar red jacket and brunette hair. Taking a moment to run through the notes in her head of what she knows and what she plans to say, she steadies herself for the task.

Taking out her phone, she opens an audio recording app and begins recording. Then she calmly walks over and sits across from him.

Nathan looks up in surprise then his expression melts away to annoyance.

"Who are you? What the fuck do you want?"

"I'm Max Caulfield. I'm one of your classmates at Blackwell. I just want to talk."

"About what?"

"About…" She thinks about it. "…some things you've been doing in your spare time."

His look of annoyance turns to a glare. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Here comes the hardest part and one that requires a lot of tact. Max swallows. "I'm talking about the bunker."

There it is. Nathan freezes and clear shock passes his face. Then he schools his face into blankness. Well, perhaps more accurate to say a face that is only somewhat blanker as his eyes clearly shows a lot of panic. Aside from that, his body is very tense.

"I'm not sure I know what you're talking about. I do not know of any bunker."

If the face and body language alone didn't give it off, the language would have. The way he spoke was quite a difference from before…as if he was acting and saying a practiced line.

"Yes, you do. The bunker in the barn, Nathan."

His eyes become more alarmed. "I still don't know-"

"Enough of that. You shouldn't play games when we're talking about something so serious. We're talking drugging and kidnapping, Nathan. Those are pretty serious crimes, don't you think?"

Nathan looks as if he is trying to decide between continuing the charade or becoming open about it. Max realizes which he decided as soon as he looked around then leaned in.

"How the fuck did you find out?" He whispers harshly. "What do you want? Money?"

Max leans in too. "How I found out doesn't matter. What I want is…yes, money, but also answers."

The blackmailing was decided on a spur of the moment. She figures that if he thinks she's blackmailing him, then perhaps she knows a lot more than she really does.

"Answers? I thought you fucking knew everything. Answers to what?"

She licks her lips. "Rachel Amber was a close friend of mine."

He freezes again. Surprisingly, a look of guilt seems to pass his face. He averts his eyes and his voice becomes smaller.

"What does she have to do with this?"

Seeing vulnerability, Max attacks, "Are we doing this again? I don't have much time, so I'll give you the summary of what happened."

"On April 21st, you and Rachel Amber went to a party. There, you dosed her using GHB you bought from Frank Bowers, and then you took her to the bunker where you, alongside Mark Jefferson, did a lot of fun stuff. Like photos, for instance."

She didn't know if taking photos was the only thing they did or if they were more, so she err on the cautious side to make it seem as if she is only saying one thing she knows.

The next part is dangerous. A lot of speculation on her part, though she is sure she's correct.

"However, a problem came up. She sobered up before she should have, didn't she? As a result, you had to get even more GHB." Here, Max's knowledge dries up considerably so she wraps up the summary. "But then…Rachel died. Did I get everything right so far, Nathan?"

Even as she summarizes the events, she carefully paid attention to his face. The conflict that showed was as clear as day. As she spoke more and more, his eyes become more troubled and he even flinches when she mentioned Rachel died.

"So Nathan, that's what I want answers for. Why did you murder Rachel Amber?"

He starts and hisses harshly, "It wasn't murder, goddamn it. It was an accident."

Now Max has to fight to stop surprise from showing on her face. "An accident? How so?"

"I…I…" Nathan struggles to get the words out. "I didn't mean to kill her. She was supposed to be like all the others. I would drug her, we'd get photos and then…and then everything goes back to normal. Of all the girls, Rachel would have been the one I wanted to kill the least. Anyone but her."

'Anyone but her'? What does that mean? And his tone of voice…

With a start, Max realizes with horror that Nathan might have been in love with her. Why the hell did he dosed her then? Was he forced to by Jefferson?

"But then…" Max prods.

"B-but then she woke up. I didn't know she would, but damn it, maybe I should have. Rachel practically eats drugs and her tolerance for it is ridiculous. Every time she parties with us, she needs more than almost everyone else."

"But…but that was other stuff. I didn't think her tolerance even went to that sedative shit Frank gave me. Fuck."

His eyes closed as if remembering a very painful memory. His features relax into a resigned look when he opens his eyes again.

"It was fucked. We were fucked. She woke up and saw everything. That meant we couldn't let her go. She began to fight back and we had trouble controlling her. I gave her the rest of the sedative I hadn't used, but she bounced back from that quickly too. So I went to Frank to get more of the shit."

The suspicion Max been harboring since he told her it was an accident slowly turns into acknowledgement of what had happened.

What killed Rachel…it's the same thing that Victoria and Chloe had been so nervous about when she suggested the drug plan. It's the same thing she used in the Nathan switch to kill herself.

"That time, I gave her every ounce of it and it calmed her for maybe half a day, then she woke the fuck back up again. That time, we came back and saw she managed to get her hands in front of her and had bitten through some of the rope we had been using to tie her."

"I had to fight her down again and, fuck, she nearly took several pieces of my head with her teeth, but I eventually got her again. Mark chewed me out and told me to deal with it better. I…I went back to Frank and then I bought more. A shit ton more."

"You…did you use all of it?"

She immediately regretted asking. She is supposed to give off the sense that she is all knowing, but she can't be that if she's asking such things. Nathan merely shook his head 'no', though. Perhaps he's too wrapped up in the story to notice.

"I gave her five grams and it knocked her out for a half a day. I had figured that if I doubled that, she would be knocked out for a whole day, so I gave her only ten instead of the fifteen I bought."

"Two hours later, though, I checked on her and…she wasn't breathing. I panicked and called Mark and he came, but he only said what I already knew. I fucked up." His features twist a bit in anger. "I fucked up bad…and it was actually a good thing."

Max tightens her lips about to shout at him for saying that, but holds it in figuring he'll explain.

"It was a good thing. Mark actually intended to kill her anyway. I had thought we were going to call my dad or something and pay her off to keep quiet. Maybe a million or so, you know? Rachel wanted to go to Cali to be a model or some shit like that. She would have jumped at the money, I just know it."

"But he actually wanted to kill her. Me accidentally overdosing her just saved time. He strolls in, checks her pulse and heart, then just smiles saying she's dead and it's time to get rid of the body. He didn't give a shit at all."

"He…he told me to get rid of the body…and I…" Suddenly, Nathan seems to remember himself and stops. He glances rapidly around the diner as if to check if anyone heard and relaxes when no one is looking at him. He turns back to her. "But yeah, it was a fucking accident, not murder, okay?"

She curses internally. He almost revealed the one thing she genuinely wanted to know but stops himself short. She has to get him to reveal it somehow.

"You may not think so, but would Rachel?" He flinches at the name. "Just think of her dreams. Would she wanted it cut short like that? Being a model in California, being a top student at Blackwell, finding love. She'll never do anything of that now."

"What the fuck do you care? You just want money, don't you?"

He kept quiet, but an idea gradually arises in Max. When she mentioned Rachel's name, he flinched and his face twists a bit. He also flinched randomly when she brought up some of Rachel's desires. She can't seem to get him to talk anymore, but…

…but could she randomly drop names and hopes he flinches at the right time?

"I'm her friend, remember? That's why I wanted answers too. I can't help but think of her and what she would have wanted."

She stalls for time as to think of possible places where a body might be buried. She knows it's close, but where. Maybe somewhere in the forest? It wouldn't be hard to hide a body there, right?

"Every now and then, I reminisce, you know? I would imagine her walking happily in a forest, taking photos. Maybe lying on the ground relaxing."

Her hint actually annoyed Nathan. "That doesn't sound like Rachel to me. The girl was an attention whore. She is always where there's action, where there's a party. She's not a nature loving, hippie freak."

The first thought that comes to mind is that Nathan has a warped idea of how to think about girls he apparently likes. Or maybe he only likes girls he looks down on.

The next thought is to try the ocean. That's a classic place to hide bodies, right?

"Maybe I just know her a little better than you do. She can be a really sensitive person. Did you know she likes swimming in the ocean? Sometimes, she would scare me by diving down and not showing up for a while. I would think she drowned."

He flinches and Max elates a bit. "Yeah, you're right. She did mention swimming in the ocean a few times. I…I thought it was cute too."

Her elation drops as uncertainty takes in. Is that a flinch just from remembering her or a flinch indicating the location of the body? Not knowing but worried that it might be a dead lead, she continues dropping hints.

But her ideas begin to dry. Where else in Arcadia Bay can you hide a body? A…a field?"

"That's not all, though. I sometimes imagine her running through a field full of life and enjoying every moment of it. I bet she could have stayed there forever." No reaction. Maybe the barn? Maybe he buried her right next to the bunker to save time? "As much as she loves nature, I know she would have hated the area around the bunker. Too many bad memories of being drugged. She would have definitely hated staying there."

Nathan flinches and mutters angrily, "Did you have to bring that up again? Fucking bitch."

She ignored the insult and was desperate enough to suggest the Prescott estate next when a horrible idea comes to her. She had thought briefly of her friends depending on her, especially Chloe, when she remembers Chloe's second home – that junkyard she calls American Rust.

A junkyard is a good place to hide bodies, isn't it?

"I…I can't help reminiscing, Nathan." Max says. "When I think of what had happened to Rachel, it's like somebody had thrown her body into a junkyard and now she's trapped there."

A flinch…and then Nathan's face pales considerably. He even closes his eyes in pain. Max stares engrossed in the appearance but recollect herself when he looks at her again.

"Enough, goddamn it. I don't want you talking about this fucking shit anymore." He nearly shouts but stops himself in time. He tries to calm down. "Now how much fucking money do you want to shut up about this?"

There's no doubt about it now. His reaction, his anger afterwards…there is something at the junkyard and Max is willing to bet it's exactly what she wants. She's ready to go now.

Before she does, she will give him what he wants to hear: that she's just blackmailing him. However, she will also add one more thing to the list. One thing that's been running through her mind since the switch.

"I want to two things, actually."

"What? You fucking bitch! You're backstabbing me already?"

"Hey, you should feel lucky I'm not going straight to the police with this, so deal with it!"

He clenches his teeth. "Fine. What do you want?"

"First, I want five million." When he nods in understanding, she continues. "Secondly, I want you and Jefferson to stay the fuck away from Victoria Chase. If I see her go missing and I can't reach her, I will go straight to the police, the FBI, and your entire operation will be in the papers in no time flat."

There's a pregnant pause. Nathan's eyes furrow in clear confusion and his eyes flit back and forth as if he's trying to work out what she's saying.

"What…are you talking about? What's this about Victoria?"

Max is taken back. The idea that he doesn't know what she's talking about hadn't occurred to her. Nathan should have been contacted by Mark already. Yet he's clearly confused about what's she saying.

"You don't know? You really don't know about Victoria?"

"No, damn it. Just say it already."

"Mark Jefferson wants Victoria next. He's planning to have you take her after the announcement of the contest winner tonight."

Nathan pales. "No way…you…how do you know this?"

"I know it." She dismisses his question. "If you go to the bunker now, I bet you will find an empty binder with Victoria's name on it." She doesn't have to bet because she knows it is there. "Again, I want you to stay away from Victoria."

"You don't have to tell me. Victoria is damn near my fucking sister. There's no fucking way I'll let Mark touch her. If that's all you want, you didn't even have to ask. I'll kill him before I let him do anything to her."

Max stares at him in wonder. He really does care for Victoria. As much as she cares for him. She had misjudged him completely there and, really, she's happy she did.

"Good. Then I'll be leaving. I'll keep in contact about my money."

She jogs out of the diner heading straight for the truck. Jumping in, she checks her phone to listen to the recording she made of the entire conversation with Nathan. It had everything.

Nodding in satisfaction, she turns the truck on and rushes out heading as quick as she can towards the junkyard. Upon reaching there, she jumps out and examines the landscape.

That was when it dawned on her that the junkyard is huge and there seems like a lot of potential places to bury a body. She should have grilled Nathan harder about when the body may have been, but it's far too late now. Sighing, Max goes to grab a pair of dirty gloves and a rusted shovel lying about, and gets to work.

Many hours later when the sun is close to setting, she has cursed herself repeatedly. Digging up holes is hard. Digging up holes looking for something you don't know is where is even harder. At one point, she overexerted herself and accidentally passed out. She only realized what happened when she found her mouth full of dirt.

Eventually, she wised up and decided to dig only a foot down instead of two to three feet, and she paces herself so as to not overdo it. All the same, by nearly the end of the day, the junkyard is filled with holes and she doesn't seem to be any closer to finding the body.

"What the hell am I doing?"

Feeling demoralized but knowing she must continue on, she goes to another clear spot and begins digging. About half way down, there is an audible click behind her.

"That's enough, Max."

She freezes. She recognizes the voice. Her body trembles and she has a hard time holding on to the shovel as she turns and looks into the face of Mark Jefferson aiming a pistol at her.

He is smiling casually as if he isn't really concerned about holding a gun towards one of his young student. His eyes flit around the junkyard in amusement at the various holes she has dug and he clicks his tongue disappointedly.

"Oh Max, so impulsive. If only your school enthusiasm could be switched with your detective enthusiasm, you would be an unparallel success." He smiles down at her. "The body is over there." He points towards an area near a sign with a photo of a crab. "You probably could have dug it up just using your bare hands. The fool didn't dig very deep."

"I'll scream."

He smiles condescendingly at her. "Be my guest."

She didn't. She knew as well as he did that there is no one around who would hear.

"No? Too bad. Right then. Be a good girl, Max, and get in the trunk of my car."

Lifting the shovel up defensively, she says, "I'm not going anywhere with you. I know what you do with people who know too much."

"You mean the same thing I could very easily do now?" He laughs lifting the gun a little higher. "And what do you plan to do with that shovel? I have about 50lbs on you, Max. I could probably stop that swing and overpower you pretty easily."

"Stay away from me. I'm warning you. You killed Rachel and you're aiming for Victoria too. I saw everything, Jefferson. I saw the bunker, the binders, and I know everything. I won't let you target me."

His eyes narrow. "So it was you. I thought so. See, I was at the bunker trying to find out who removed the padlock when Nathan suddenly shows up. He becomes unhinged threatening to kill me if I touch Victoria. Another mystery: How did he know about that when I haven't told him yet?"

"Then your name comes up, Max. He says you're blackmailing him, that you know everything, and that you're the one that told him about my intentions with Victoria. That you're pissed about Rachel's death and wants five million, was it?"

He smiles. "You're a better liar than I thought you were, Max, but still not good enough. To begin, I know for a fact you're not friends with Rachel Amber and I have doubts you've even met her. I still have her phone. Your name does not appear anywhere."

"Secondly, you're not the type to blackmail – instead, you're the type to go to the police. So the purpose of what happened with Nathan wasn't blackmail, but to get a recorded confession, isn't it, Max?"

She feels a chill and afterwards gets the feeling she gave herself away to him as he smiles knowingly.

"That idiot boy. I never could teach him much, though I tried my damndest. Ah well, he's dead now, so it doesn't matter."

She starts. "He's dead? You…you killed him?"

"Of course. The jig is up, Max." He loses the smile. "You're also not the type to keep quiet. If you know, chances are there are photographs of the bunker, aren't there? Maybe selfies of you standing in front of the barn? I also bet you told a good number of people."

Swallowing, Max says, "So if you know all of this, you know it's already too late. Doing all of this only makes it worse."

"Risks, Max. That thing I tried to teach you so often without success. To get success, you must take risks. Everything in the bunker will be destroyed and sealed by the end of tomorrow. Nathan has become dangerous, so he must be silenced. You…have also become dangerous and must be silenced."

His smile returns. "No evidence, no recorded confession, no major charges that will stick."

Sweat begins to pour down her face. "If Nathan's father finds out you killed him, he will-"

"He's the one that told me to." At her horrified look, he laughs. "Not all parents are equal, Max. If you went through the bunker, then you should have had an idea of what Nathan's family is like. He didn't stand a chance."

Jefferson continues. "Max, it's getting a bit late. We can talk more in the dark room. I'm actually also really curious as to how you found all this out and in the short time you've been at Blackwell. So again, be a good girl and come with me."

She tightens her grip on the shovel. "I told you that I'm not going anywhere with you. Get-"

He rushes in. Startled, Max swings the shovel haphazardly and only manages to hit his shoulder doing little damage. He tackles her down and she screams as loud as she can even knowing how useless it is.

Despite struggling as hard as possible using her entire body, Jefferson manages to get her under control by flipping her onto her stomach and holding her legs down with his own while shoving her face into the ground. She fights futilely to try to get away or flip him or anything, but he is just so much stronger.

She could feel him against her body and his familiar cologne wafts into her nose. Panic starts to overcome her and she has trouble controlling her emotions.

"Let me go! I can't breathe! Stop! I can't breathe!"

He ignores her cries and straddles her using his entire body to hold her down. Max bursts into tears feeling an intense helplessness come over her.

Jefferson lifts one arm to reach into his pocket. Max quickly pulls her arms loose and grabs a sharp piece of metal nearby. She tries to slash at him but couldn't get the leverage to reach.

"Oh Max, so feisty. We're going to have so much fun in the bunker." He says running a finger along her cheek. "I'll turn you into a star. You'll be the subject of my masterpiece."

Her tears worsen. She says chokingly, "Stop it! Stop touching me!"

She tries to slash at him some more, but still couldn't reach him. From his pocket, he pulls out a syringe and Max's eyes widen upon seeing it.

"What's that? What is it?"

"You should be familiar with it, I think. Gamma hydroxybutyric acid aka GHB – the drug of choice for those who wish to take nubile young girls to a dark bunker in the middle of nowhere."

He inserts the syringe into her neck.

"No! Stop!"

"Oh Max, relax. You won't even know what's happening."

Desperation overcomes her. She thought she feels herself getting more exhausted but is unsure whether it's just the panic and struggle or the drug. Still, she knows how quick this drug can take affect and Jefferson injected it directly into her bloodstream. It will act even quicker. She has to be fast.

Swallowing to gather her courage, Max stabs the sharp metal right into her neck. Before she could register a thought, she runs the metal jaggedly across and then rips it out as hard as she could. The feeling of being held down is suddenly gone.

In her last moments, she looks up at Jefferson who is staring down at her in plain shock. She smiles.

When she opens her eyes again, she gets up in a bit of a panic before recognizing the junkyard. She had expected to wake up in Chloe's room again, but had actually forgotten she had passed out while digging holes here. Good. That saves time.

She gets up and dizziness overtakes her a moment causing her to keel over drying heaving. The memory of Jefferson forcefully holding her down comes back. His body so close to hers and his scent choking her nostrils. She dry heaves again feeling a trembling come over her.

Fighting the sensation down, she breathes to steady herself. Her first thought is to run away, but stops herself. Checking the position of the sun, she knows factually that it will be at least an hour before Jefferson shows up. She still has time.

She pulls out her phone and makes a call.

"Max?"

"Victoria, I need Nathan's phone number."

"What?"

"Please, Victoria, there's no time. I'm on the verge of finishing all this, but something complicated came up. Please text me Nathan's phone number ASAP, alright?"

"What…I…yeah, sure, but…"

"Thanks, Victoria."

She hangs up. She knows it was rude but she simply couldn't spare the time to explain. She doesn't know how much time she has to warn Nathan of what's about to happen to him…assuming it hasn't happened already. She doesn't even know why she wants to help as it seems Jefferson would be doing her a favor, but inside, she just knows it isn't right to let it happen. Not like this.

A text arrives with a phone number. Max dials immediately. Within three rings, it picks up.

"Yeah, who's this?"

"It's me, Max Caulfield."

"What the fuck? It hasn't even been a day yet, give me some fucking time to get the money!"

"That's not what I'm calling about. Where are you right now?"

There is a pause. "Nowhere important."

"Don't give me that. Are you on your way to the barn? How close are you?"

"What the fuck? Are you psychic?"

"Answer me. How close are you?"

"I…I'm about to reach it. I'm driving up the stupid dirt road now."

"Stop. Turn around immediately and leave. Jefferson is going to kill you."

There is another pause. "Bullshit. This has to be bullshit. There's no way he would. He can't."

"He can. He'll do it with your dad's permission too. Turn around and leave. If you can't for some reason, then just don't say anything about what we talked about. Keep quiet."

"What the fuck is going on here? What the hell is happening?"

She ignores his question. "Jefferson is going to kill me too. I'm going to finish digging up Rachel's body then I'm going to leave too."

"You're digging up Rachel's body? Why the fuc- you know what? Nevermind. You don't explain shit. Where the hell are you going then? Where the hell am I supposed to go?"

"It doesn't matter so long as it's either out of town or in a place that can protect you against a storm. Arcadia Bay is going to be hit by a tornado and it's going to tear everything apart."

"What the fuck…"

"Do it now, Nathan. Don't waste time." She was about to hang up when she gets an idea. "By the way, I just save your ass twice there. From Jefferson and from the storm. You want to pay off that debt? Warn as many people as you can to get out of town."

"…that thing Victoria was doing. That was you. My friends texted me this morning saying Victoria lost her mind and I saw on social media that she was saying some crazy shit about evacuation. Holy shit, that was you."

"Now, Nathan. No more time wasting."

She hangs up then and feels far less badly than she did hanging up on Victoria. She checks the position of the sun again, then runs out to the spot near the crab sign and begins digging.

Jefferson was right about how deep the hole is. Hardly five minutes passes before an overwhelmingly horrific smell hits her like a truck making her gag. Heaving a bit off to the side, she gathers herself and continues. Shredded cloth begins to appear. Rotting skin. Bones.

When she succeeded in revealing the entirety of the corpse, she stood there not quite knowing what to do. She wanted to find Rachel's body and she did. Now what?

Basically on impulse, she runs to the truck, takes out her camera and returns. She takes a photo of the corpse making sure to include the area in the photo then buries the body again. Afterwards, she pats the dirt to try to cover up that she dug there, though she hardly knows how successful that will be. She runs to the truck and speeds off.

She didn't really know what to do or where to go now. She doesn't even need to be nervous about being attacked either as Jefferson won't know about her now that she warned Nathan.

The entirety of much of her week has been so full of plans and determined by a course of action that needs to be done. However, everything is finished now, isn't it? She found out what had happened to Kate, she found where Rachel is, and she knows how to get justice for both.

The only thing left is to try to get everyone out of town, but now she encounters the same problem Victoria mentioned earlier. How to do it?

Without even really thinking, Max drives to the lighthouse. There, she walks to the top and sits on the bench resting her head in her hands. There is still something to be done but she is utterly at a loss on how to do it or even where to start.

She thinks about the possibility of contacting the media but who is going to listen to a random teenager about evacuating a town? She wouldn't have in their position.

Sighing, Max clutches her head tighter feeling drained of energy and exhausted. She knows she can't rest yet, but God, she is just so tired.

Taking a deep breath and hardly feeling up to it, she using the web on her phone to look up the contact information of her local news stations. Arcadia Bay has no local TV stations, which isn't surprising. The TV stations are focused in Portland with a smaller focus in the outlying cities of notable populations.

Arcadia Bay isn't in the top ten of most populated Oregon cities. It isn't even in the top twenty. Or the top 50. If she wants a station that cares about Arcadia Bay and a station where she is more likely to get her voice out, she'll have to turn to radio stations.

A quick search later increases her headache. Arcadia has five local FM stations and two other non-local that still gets a strong signal here. There's also two AM stations that gets decent signal here.

She starts with the first station that popped up – a Christian contemporary music station. A few rings in, the call picks up.

"And with us now is a caller. May I ask who I have the pleasure of speaking with?"

"H-hello, my name is Max Caulfield. I'm a student at Blackwell."

She almost immediately regrets that. If all of this turns out for nothing, there's a good chance Principal Wells won't be happy with her.

"At Blackwell? Magnificent school. We're happy to have you with us. So Max, did you call to request a song? Or to wish a family or friend happy birthday?"

"No, see, I…I want to say something. That is I wanted to give a warning to all the people of Arcadia Bay."

"A…warning? What kind of warning, Max?"

"A storm warning. Sometime between now and tomorrow, there is going to be a massive storm. A tornado. It's going to absolutely tear everything apart. I want to warn everyone to get out of Arcadia Bay until the danger passes. At a minimum, stay away until the day after tomorrow."

"Max, I don't underst-"

She hangs up. Gulping down the feeling of embarrassment at what she just did, she slumps into the bench. She got the warning out, but who knows how much attention they'll pay to it? Especially when she didn't bother to explain herself?

But how could she? If she told them she had a dream about it, they would laugh at her. It seems better to just give the warning and bail hoping as many as possible would listen.

Taking another deep breath, she continues onto the next radio station. A public radio station. She calls, say her warning, then hangs up. She continues on with the next one, then the next.

Some stations took more than one try to get through, some stations got rough with her thinking she's a lunatic trying to scare people for no reason (she can't blame them), but most went similarly to the first call.

After she called the last stations – an AM station that play oldies – she feels a bit lighter and is able to breathe easier. The exhaustion she's been feeling the entire time seems to hit harder than ever and she decides to lie down closing her eyes to rest.

She didn't know how much time passed when she woke up. It was dark, but it was about twilight when she reached the lighthouse anyway. It wouldn't have been long before it became dark, so she doesn't know if she's been asleep for an hour or three. All she knows is that she's cold.

…and that there's some kind of howling noise.

That thought hits her with surprise. Getting up, Max walks to the aside across from where the bench is set to face towards Arcadia Bay. Her mouth drops seeing the awful clouds and flashes of lightning. There are also bits of vegetation swishing through the air being carried away by the wind.

Max shakes her head in horror. It looks like a storm, but it can't be the storm she thinks, can it?

Taking out her phone and checks the time. It's only about 9PM. Not even near midnight yet. How could the storm be coming already? Was there some clue she missed that indicated this?

She blinks noticing an indicator indicating missed calls and texts. Opening her notification menu, she is stunned to see over 20 missed calls and some three dozen missed texts. How did she sleep through them all?

Checking the texts first, there were the expected messages from Victoria, Chloe, and Kate in increasing levels of panic. There were also messages from Warren and…Courtney? Courtney Wagner? Ignoring that, Max also sees messages from her parents. Has news of the storm even reached Seattle?

Swallowing, Max immediately calls Chloe. The call drops immediately.

Confused, she checks her signal only to see that it is utterly blank. A stark contrast to the full set of bars she had earlier when using the Internet and calling radio stations. Were the communication lines down?

Feeling panic rising, Max quickly runs down the hill and jumps into Chloe's truck. Trying to calm herself, she starts the truck and quickly turns on the radio to the first station she could get a voice from.

"-that speeds have increased to a dangerous 92MPH now. That is classified as an F1 tornado meaning it will cause a lot of damage. Remember that only 30 minutes ago, it was at a much lower 67MPH – an F0 tornado – and, an hour ago when we first heard of it, it was just 28MPH."

"So an hour ago, it was weak enough that it wouldn't even fit into the tornado classification scale. Now, an hour, later, it has reached F1 out of a total of six possible classifications with F1 being the second lowest. This is crazy, folks. Do whatever it takes to keep safe."

"We've had no news from local authorities as of now and no reports of what may be going on in terms of emergency services. Other radio stations and TV stations are just getting wind of this and are now broadcasting it themselves. We've might have been late too if it weren't for an earlier caller named Max Caulfield who called to warn us ahead of this, this, this crazy phenomenon that even meteorologists are baffled by."

"We'll try to keep you as updated as possible. For now, just continue keeping safe. If you can, get out of Arcadia Bay. If you are unable-"

She turns off the radio and bites her lips nervously. She needs silence to think. She has no idea just how powerful a 92MPH tornado is. An F1 out of a total of six classes means it's not too bad yet, right?

Even if it does mean that, though, they also said the speed rose massively within just an hour. What if it continues? She doesn't know much about tornadoes, but she doubts a tornado at 150MPH will be pretty. She has to get out of Arcadia Bay now.

Putting the truck in gear, she backs out and immediately flies down the road.

Every now and then, she glances at her phone to see the same lack of signal. As she gets further from the lighthouse, the wind seems to be getting stronger. Even inside the car, the howling is beginning to become loud.

She tries turning on the radio again.

"-but we can't be sure how quick it will be so you can't depend on them, folks. If you're safe wherever you are, stay there! If you're not, find a place to be safe. Even here in the studio, we see objects being tossed around like dolls and the building is actually shuddering underneath my feet."

"This building is very well made and was actually designed against storms, folks, but that means nothing – NOTHING – in the face of this. I reported to you all a little ago that the tornado has increased to about 107MPH putting it within range of the F2 tornado class. Right now, it has reached 126MPH. It is well into the F2 range now."

"For those who don't know, an F2 tornado causes high damage and even smaller homes can be torn to pieces. Trees will be lifted right out of the ground. Smaller animals can go flying. If you have cats or dogs, hold on to them tight."

"So far, I've rece- reports that -lice has managed to evacuate a good part of town. Blackwell Academy has also been said to have been - by authorities, but is currently unknown -tus. For - of you with children -, I know you are worried but - where you are and let the -rities handle it. It will - profit your -ren if you die - - them. Let the police - them to -ty."

"Meanwhile, - -yor just -leased - -ment-"

She turns off the radio. The wind has become extremely loud and she has trouble hearing the radio even inside the truck. Even if she could, her focus is slowly waning as her greater worries begin to take over.

For a few minutes now, she has been feeling the truck sway on its wheels and she's been having trouble driving straight. The trees are now blowing tremendously and some are bent to the point that it looks like they're about to snap. Debris has been flying across the road and some even hit the windows giving her a shock.

Max has no idea which direction the tornado is in and which direction it's heading towards. Either she's heading directly into it or it's getting bigger. Either scenario scares the wits out of her.

In the back of her mind, there is also a nagging reminder that her retry powers might not be so useful this time. She foolishly fell asleep and woke up just as the storm is raging. Even if she retries, she'll wake up at a bad time all the same.

The truck lifts up into the air a bit and drops. The shock that goes through her is so intense that she slams on the brakes and swerve stopping in the middle of the road. She tries to catch her breath only to get another shock with a large rock of some sort slams into the back window of the truck and cracks it. Had it broken through, Max's head would have been ripped off.

Her heart pounding, she tries desperately to think of where to go. Her eyes flit from place to place trying to get some kind of any idea, any idea, on what to do. Suddenly, familiarity lights up inside her. She knows this area. This area is about three miles away from the path leading to the bunker.

The idea of going there repulses her and makes her heart jump a bit, but…it's the only safe place she knows of. There's no way the tornado could reach her there. Swallowing down a nervous alarm signal in her, Max begins driving towards the bunker.

It was only a three mile drive, but it was nerve wracking. As the minutes pass, the truck jumps more and more. Controlling it becomes more difficult. At several points, she nearly veers into a tree because the wind forcefully pushes her off the road. Once, a small tree literally flies right past the front of the truck. Had she been just a little bit further ahead…

At last, she reaches the dirt path leading to the bunker and start driving up it. At the end, she comes to an area that took a beating. The junk car that's been there has been turned over onto its side. The abandoned house a little bit away lost its roof and has a tree planted right in its side.

The barn doesn't look much better. It's missing part of its side and the locked door has broken off of one hinge. She can actually see inside at the debris all around and the bales of hay that's been torn apart. The trap door leading into the bunker is missing. She spots it at the other side of the barn.

Gulping down the wave of fear, Max grabs her school bag and gets out of the car.

Almost immediately, she is hit by a huge blast of wind. For a minute, she literally got lifted off her feet and scrambles to try to get back on the ground. When it lets up the tiniest and she lands back down, she crouches on all four and begins crawling towards the bunker.

She yelps at several instances when she gets hit by small debris. Small as they were, they hurt. One tree branch actually flies past and cuts right through her jacket, though it luckily misses her arm.

Managing to reach the stairwell leading to the bunker relatively unharmed, Max throws herself down the stairs landing on her shoulder. Quickly getting up, she runs to the bunker, enters '5 4 2', and lets herself in. She closes the door afterwards.

Breathing heavily, she takes in the silence of the bunker and lets out a relieved sigh. She's safe now. All she had to do is wait the storm out.

Walking inside, she looks around. Everything seems to be the same as when she was last here. Throwing her school bag onto the ground, she sits at the computer and tries to access the Internet. She isn't too surprised to find the connection has been cut off.

So she can't access her phone or the computer. She's basically cut off from all contact and has to wait this thing out alone.

Shivering a bit, Max goes to sit on the couch hugging her knees against herself. She feels exhaustion again and wants to fall asleep but feels that it's a bad idea. If she creates a savepoint here, it may end up being even more disastrous. So she forces herself to remain awake and wait.

She didn't know how much time passed. For all she knew, she may have only been there for a half hour before she started getting restless. The boredom and exhaustion combined made the experience maddening and it feels overly long.

Max wanted to play with her smartphone but she didn't have her phone charger with her. Chances are the bunker is on some sort of emergency power and she can't waste electricity anyway. After all, the power lines were knocked down when she was driving here. She'll need to use her phone as little as possible to ensure it doesn't die on her.

Some unaccountable time later, Max is alerted to the sound of the bunker door handle turning. She scrambles onto the floor next to the couch intending to hide from the view from whoever is coming.

The opening of the bunker door can be heard and, afterwards, its closing. Slow, dragging footsteps comes to the main room.

"Oh, motherfuck, my fucking goddamn fucking-" There's a sound of a body falling on the floor. "Oh fuck! Goddamn it! Motherfucking-"

The cursing continues on but Max tunes it out as she recognizes the voice. Slowly peeking around the couch, she confirms her thoughts when she sees Nathan Prescott. He is lying on the floor clutching onto a bloody leg. The rest of him is in much better shape, though he also grabs now and then at his ribs.

She hesitates at revealing herself, but seeing how injured he is, a decision is easier to come to. Max slowly gets up from behind the couch.

"Why are you here?"

Nathan starts. "What the fuck?" His surprise turns to an angry scowl. "Oh goddamn it, not you. Why the fuck do you think I'm here? Because there's a fucking tornado out there."

"Which I warned you about."

"Yeah, well, how the fuck was I supposed to take that? I kept watching the skies waiting to see if you were right again or just fucking crazy. By the time I realized shit was really happening, I rushed back to grab some stuff then tried to get the fuck out, but I couldn't get away. This was the first place I thought to go."

This idiot. She made herself seem damn near omniscient to him and he still didn't listen to her.

A shiver goes through her as it occurs to her what a hell of a job her friends must have had. Were they able to convince any at Blackwell? What of their families? Were any of them able to convince utterly anyone?

"What about others? Our classmates at Blackwell? The townspeople?"

"Nobody was fucking leaving, alright? When I got to Blackwell, most people weren't even paying attention to weather. When I was driving through town, people were just going on like normal."

"Oh God…" Max walks over and leans against a wall. "How many people must have died already? This is awful. God, this is terrible."

"Hey, how about fucking helping me here?"

She scowls heavily at him. "I should just leave you there. I already did more than you deserved considering all the things you did."

"I'm paying you the fucking money, ain't I?" He growls. "Besides, I already fucking told you what happened to Rachel was an accident. I didn't want to hurt her. In the least."

"You jackass! You didn't want to kill her, but you kidnapped her for some sort of twisted sexual fantasy photoshoot! You think she was happy with that?"

"I know she wasn't, goddamn it, but I also had no choice there! Mark wanted her. I had to do it."

She glares darkly. "Because of your father?"

He stares emotionlessly at her. "You know that too? Jesus fucking Christ." He clears his throat. "Anyway, don't fucking blame me for Rachel. I didn't mind the other girls, but her? No."

"Some of those other girls were my friends too!" Max yells. "You drugged Kate!"

Nathan pauses and his face scrunch up. "Oh fuck, that's right. I've seen you hanging around with her sometimes. I forgot that."

She ignores him. "Even if I weren't friends with them, you think I wanted them to suffer like that? It could have happened to me too." She recalls too clearly the struggle with Jefferson and his intention to take her here. "Not could – it almost did. Mark actually wanted me before Victoria. He pressed hard to get me to enter that stupid contest of his and this is why."

There's a look on Nathan's face. "You knew this, didn't you? You fucking knew."

He swallows nodding. "Yeah, Mark mentioned you a lot of times. Always talking about your face and body proportions and shit. Kept going on about your innocence and purity. He had a full hard-on for you. That's why I didn't believe you when you said he's targeting Victoria. Because I thought he was targeting you."

Her shoulders trembling a bit with anger, Max walks over to the binder cabinet, takes out the empty 'Victoria' binder, and throws it at Nathan's feet.

"See that? When I just wouldn't enter the contest, Jefferson gave up and decided to go with Victoria. I don't know why but winning the contest is crucial to him getting either me or Victoria."

"Drinks." Nathan mutters. "He puts that sedative shit in the drinks. He got some of the girls I couldn't get to the same way." He continues emotionlessly. "You think he sends me after every girl? Some I just can't get to, especially if they're not the partying type. Those he gets himself."

"How does he do it without exposing himself? Were they killed too?"

"No. You think we killed everyone? He would dose them just as they're leaving. They would get knocked out some time later, I pick them up, and then…well, you know. None of them ever found out anything." He stares at her. "Huh, so you don't know everything."

She was already aware that she was asking too many questions, but didn't care. She already found out everything she needed to know. No point in keeping it hidden now.

"Only the things that are most important to me. You are a horrible person, Nathan."

"Why the fuck do you care so much? You're just doing this for the money, aren't you?" He glares at her, but slowly, a light seem to dawn in his face. "Wait, something is off about this."

"Mark always talked about your innocence and that kind of shit. I've also seen the way you act sometimes. He had me watched you." Nathan said it so casually but it caused a shiver down Max's spine to think she had been watched that way. "Blackmail doesn't seem right. You…"

Realization comes to him. "You didn't really want the money. You're going to report everything."

She goes on guard. "Yes, I am. I can't let you or Jefferson get away with this."

Nathan groans slumping onto the floor. "Fuck me. This day just can't get any fucking worse." He sighs and then growls to her, "Well, you can't report me now, at least. So how about fucking helping me onto the couch now?"

She scowls again, but acquiesces walking over to him, flinging his arm over her shoulders, and lifting him up. She helps him limp over to the couch and lands him there none too gently causing him to cuss at her.

"Goddamn it. I can't fucking believe I made it all the way here only to get hit by a fucking flying tree right before coming in here."

"That's what happened to you?"

"Yeah. The tree knocked me off my fucking feet and one of its branches stabbed me in my fucking thigh."

She pauses and the same worries that's been plaguing her comes back. "Hey, do you know what happened to my friends? Victoria, Kate, and Chloe."

He pauses. "Victoria is your friend? This is the first I've heard of this shit. I knew about Kate, but Chloe…holy shit, are you talking about Chloe Price? The Chloe that I, uh…"

"That you took photos of and attempted to rape?" Every reminder she openly voices of Nathan's horrid deeds makes her hate him more. "Yes, that Chloe."

"Oh fucking Christ." He mutters. "No, I have no idea what happened to them. When I got to Blackwell, I didn't see any of them."

She bites her lips. That gives her some hope that they bailed before too late and managed to get out, but the uncertainty gnaws at her. She glances towards the bunker door thinking of going out but immediately dismisses the thought knowing it would be suicide.

A glance at Nathan's leg gives her a clue on what may happen if she tries to go out. She slumps down sitting against the wall.

"How long is this fucking storm going to keep going?" Nathan murmurs to himself.

Max shakes her head in answer though she knows he probably didn't see. She assumes it's only going to last one day, though she doesn't know for sure. She doesn't even know if it's officially Friday yet or if it's still Thursday night. The boredom and lack of electronics has basically blinded her to the passage of time.

The two of them fall into silence. Max's vision blurs a bit and she almost nods off before catching herself and standing back up to ensure movement keeps her awake. A feeling of dread passes through her wondering how long she can keep this up.

The sound of snoring alerts her to the other occupant of the room having no such problems going to sleep and she almost envies him that he doesn't need to take any 'retry' powers into consideration. Then she feels lucky that someone like Nathan doesn't have access to such powers.

She goes to the cabinet near the printer, leafs through the books in there, and takes out a reference book on photography. Keeping on her feet, she begins to read through the book.

Some time later when Max feels nearly dead on her feet and the book hangs limply from her hands, she suddenly hears beeping noise coming from the direction of the bunker door. Surprised, Max drops the book she's been reading and scrambles once more to find a hiding place.

With the couch taken by the still sleeping Nathan, she desperately tries to find another hiding place quickly falling into panic when she realizes there isn't any. Most of the room is bare and plainly visible. The bunker door handle slowly turns.

She almost thought that she may have no choice but to face whoever's coming until the memory of the first time she came to the barn came back to her. Back then, she was able to hide simply by blocking her body with a series of hay bales underneath the platform. Can she do that here?

Her eyes fly around the room finally landing on a large trunk near the cabinet containing food. She runs over and pulls it outwards a bit to allow space for her to hide behind. Then she quickly grabs one of the smaller trunks from elsewhere and carries it over. She places herself behind the trunk, then pulls the smaller trunk against the side. Now her body is almost fully covered.

The major difference being that the barn then was dark and hard to see. The bunker, however, is very well lit. All she can do is hope.

The bunker door opens and there is a masculine groaning and the sound of someone stumbling. Footsteps come into the main room.

"Nathan." A voice says coldly. Max freezes recognizing it as that of Mark Jefferson. "Nathan! Wake up."

Sleepily grumbling, Nathan's still tired voice calls out, "Wha- what the…who the fuck called me?" A pause, then he sounded incredulous, "You're still alive?"

"Watch it, boy." Jefferson laughs mockingly. "I see you didn't escape unscathed either. You're even worse off than me."

"A flying tree hit me and stabbed me too. What the hell happened to you? Why is there so much blood all over you? Is all that just from the gash in your head?"

"Be quiet." A sighing and shuffling noise. "I need a moment to think. What a hell of day this is. I didn't expect to come in here and find you. Joy of joy."

"Same to you, fucker. Anyone else from Blackwell?"

"Of course not, you fool. We're the only ones who know of this bunker. Everyone else is trapped in that hell of a storm."

"We're…the only ones here?"

"Do you see anyone else?"

There is a silence and a tremendous feeling of dread passes through Max. She prays Nathan thinks she decided to brave the storm.

"You're right. There is no one else here."

"Why do you sound surprised?"

"Well, because I was only the second person here. Max was here before me."

She curses him repeatedly inside her head for even saying her name to Jefferson, but all the moreso considering the circumstances.

"…did you say Max? As in Max Caulfield? Maxine Caulfield was here?"

"Damn right. I was surprised too, but I came here and she popped out of nowhere."

"Be clearer. It sounds to me as if she actually knew about this bunker, the code to get in, and you just arrived to find her here. Is that right?"

"Yeah, she definitely did. Like I said, she was already in here when I got here."

"Why are you not upset at all? It's like you knew this already."

"Well, I…see, I did know. Since this afternoon." Max curses him again. Is he actually going to reveal everything? "She came into the Two Whales diner, came up to me, and told me everything. She knows every fucking thing, Mark. Not just about the bunker, but about the girls, the photos, and everything. She even knows about what happened to Rachel."

There is a hissed breath. "How? How does she know?"

"I have no fucking clue. I just know that she knows everything…and she also outright told me she plans to report to the police."

Jefferson's voice came back with terrible anger. "You goddamn idiot! How could you have let her out of your sight? Since this afternoon? What could she have possibly done in that time? The police probably already know!"

"No, no wait, I don't think so." Jefferson continues. "If she did, we would have already been arrested by now. All the same, you should have taken her here the moment she told you that."

"How the fuck was I supposed to do that shit? We were in the middle of a diner in the middle of the day. Did you expect me to just drag her out of there kicking and screaming?"

"Follow her, get her when she alone. Or better yet, call me as soon as you had learned. Instead, you let her go without following and you left me ignorant the entire fucking day. You even let her go again when you saw her earlier. Where the hell is she now? You useless idiot!"

Nathan returns the anger with his own. "Hey, first off, I had a lot on my fucking plate, okay? I was distracted at the time and didn't even think about that! The second time? I have a fucking bad leg and injured ribs, Professor Jackass. I wouldn't have been able to hold her down anyway."

There is a pause. "Distracted at the time? You said she told you everything? Did she…also tell you about this binder?"

There is sound. Jefferson must have picked up the 'Victoria' binder Max threw on the floor earlier.

Nathan's voice came back. "Yeah, she did. I knew it was true before I even came here, but coming here confirms it. You were fucking targeting my goddamn best friend. My goddamn sister."

"You can't get attached to your subject, Nathan. I warned you about this a hundred times. It's the same reason things went south with Rachel."

"Me getting attached had fucking nothing to do with her waking up in the middle of a photoshoot. There are a hundred other girls at Blackwell, Mark. Why did you have to choose Victoria? For fuck's sake, she doesn't even fit your usual theme of innocence and purity."

"There are different levels of innocence, Nathan. Different states of purity. Victoria…is not like Max, but she has her own type of innocence and beauty. This is what you're angry about?"

"Hell fucking yeah I'm angry about that!" There is a sound of glass cracking. "You stay the hell away from her. She's not allowed down here. Find some other girl to fulfill your sick fetish."

"My sick fetish? I recall both of us participating in this wonderful project, Nathan. Don't forget that." A mocking laugh. "Besides, I don't think you have to worry about that anymore. Chances are Victoria is dead. Blackwell was falling apart when I left. There were a lot of pained screams."

Max pales when he said that about Victoria, but comforts herself believe there's no way he could know.

"That's better? I don't want her dead!"

"We don't always get what we want, Nathan. For example, I really wanted Max. To think that she was actually down here and I completely missed her." He sighs wistfully. "Oh, to think of the things we could have done together."

There is a pause. "Or maybe…maybe I'm assuming too much. You came here and saw here when the storm was already going on. That's how you got that leg."

"Yeah, so fucking what?"

"Think, boy. Unless she wanted to end up dead, she wouldn't go back out there." A shuffling sound. "That means…Max, you're still in here, aren't you?"

Her heartbeat quickens. She tries to control her breathing.

"What, seriously? Where the hell could she hide then? There's nowhere in here."

"Max is fairly small. I bet she could squeeze in some place we wouldn't think of, so we'll start searching."

"Fuck you. I got a bad leg and you think I want to help you right now anyway?"

"Still pissed off about Victoria, are we? Well, you'll help – bad leg or not – unless you want to end up in prison. You may be rich and extremely well connected, but all of that will mean shit if she has as much evidence as I think she does."

"Fucking hell."

Footsteps ring out. One is dragging – obviously Nathan's – while the other stumbles now and then but is sturdier. Knowing it won't be long before she is found, Max desperately tries to think of a way out.

A crashing sound. "Goddamn it, how the fuck are we supposed to get her even if we find her? My ribs hurt like hell and you're stumbling."

"She is maybe 130lbs, Nathan. We both outweigh her and, bloody pounding head or not, I can still fight." Another shuffling sound. "Max! Come on out! You probably know what we plan to do already, but if you come on, I promise I won't harm you!"

Can she run past them? Maybe, but then where would she go? If she goes outside, she'll die for sure. Even if she retries, she'll just be right back in the middle of the storm.

She curses herself for dozing at the lighthouse.

"Come the hell out, you stupid bitch! Christ, if only you had been after the money, this would have been so much easier."

"The money? You mean she tried to blackmail you first? And you believed it? Idiot."

"A lot of people try to blackmail me. Why the fuck wouldn't I believe it?"

"Because Max is not like them. She-"

"The representation of good and purity. Yeah, yeah, I fucking get it. Your pure white angel doesn't blackmail, never does anything bad. I bet she doesn't even fucking piss or shit."

"You're all class, Nathan." A crashing sound. "Damn it."

"Not feeling so good, Mark?"

That crashing sound came from very nearby. They're slowly getting closer. Max tries harder to think of a way out, but she can't think of anything. She's trapped in this bunker with them and nobody knows.

Even if they did, by the time the storm is over, they'll need to find her corpse, not her. There's just no way out of this.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Max focuses on listening trying to discern what is happening. From Nathan's question, Mark is doing something strange but what? She can't hear him.

A hand grabs her neck and she screams.

"Here you are, Max!" She struggles viciously but his hand only tightens causing her to gag. "Max Caulfield, if you're going to create a space to hide behind, try to do it without moving equipment I place in an area for a reason."

"You got her?" Nathan asks. "Holy shit, I didn't really believe you when you said she was still here."

"Of course she was here." Mark pushes away the smaller trunk she was using to block her body from view and tries to hold her with both arms. "Now come over and help me."

She bites his hand and, simultaneously, uses the wall as leverage kicking backwards. She manages to trip him using her shoulders and get him to let go.

He tries to grab at her again, but she scrambles away. Nathan hobbles over as quickly as he can and jumps right on top of her trying to use his body to hold her down. She twists and turns inching her way out.

He clutches at her arm to stop her and she responds by pounding on his bad leg causing him to cuss in pain and let go of her. She rolls out from underneath him and is able to get on her feet.

Running across the room, Max ends up tripping over some equipment they had knocked down earlier and slams up against the printer machine. At the other side, Jefferson pushes Nathan away and gets up glaring at her. Frightened, Max looks around and sees the book she dropped earlier and her camera bag.

She grabs the book, gets up and throws it at him. He easily swats it away. His angry expression now turns leisurely as he sees that she isn't going anywhere.

"Max, this isn't like you. Have a seat and we'll talk, alright? Maybe you'd like a drink?" He chuckles at that last part.

"Shut up!"

She picks up her camera bag and wanted to throw it but the memory of her camera stops her. Searching inside her bag, all she came out with were notebooks and instant film for her camera.

It was useless. She knew it was useless. Nonetheless, she took the notebooks out and throws them at Jefferson anyway. He smiles patronizingly and lets the notebook hits his chest meaninglessly.

He remains in spot staring at her as Nathan slowly gets up and goes to stand beside him.

"Why aren't you going after her?" Nathan asks.

"I'm waiting for her to throw everything she can. I don't want to think I didn't give her a chance to give it her all."

"Christ."

"Leave me alone." She says shakily. "I'll tell the police."

"Now Max, we both know that isn't going to happen."

She swallows. "I'll disappear. I'll leave Arcadia Bay and never come back. I swear it. Just give me money to shut me up."

"We both also know you're not going to do that." Jefferson humors her. "Beside, it's cheaper, easier, and safer to just do away with you."

Max's hand reaches into her bag again searching desperately. She feels her camera and passes over it not wanting to destroy it needlessly. In-between some instant film, though, she suddenly feels a foreign object. It has some kind of hole and long tube…

She starts realizing it's a handgun. It's the handgun she got from Victoria earlier and later put it in her camera bag forgetting it entirely. Now it's an ace against her current situation.

"Ran out of things to throw, Max?" Jefferson asks in amusement. "If so, then can we please get started?"

"No, I have one more thing."

She grips the gun and drops her camera bag. When it is revealed, Jefferson's expression drops and Nathan stiffens.

Jefferson looks at her emotionlessly. "I didn't realize you were the conceal carry type, Max."

"I'm not. Don't you recognize this handgun, Nathan?"

Jefferson looks at him sharply. "That is yours? What is she doing with it? What were you doing with it?"

Nathan remains stonefaced, but she speaks up for him. "He was planning to do something stupid. Something that would have brought your whole operation to a close as well as I can. He was going to shoot a girl in Blackwell's bathroom."

"Christ." Jefferson mutters. "If it's not one thing, it's another. You're an idiot, Nathan."

"So you keep reminding me."

"If I don't, who will?"

"Every-fucking-body."

Jefferson sighs. "Alright, Max. You win. What now?"

She swallows. "Both of you stay here. If you move, I'll shoot."

Walking backwards, she inches her way towards the supply area and grabs a roll of duct tape near the sink. Keeping her eyes on them to make sure they don't move, she inches back and throws the tape at Jefferson's feet.

"Tape Nathan up."

"Are you shitting me?" Nathan yells. "I got a hole in my leg and I'm smaller to begin with, but you rather tape me up than him?"

"Be quiet, boy. You heard the lady with the large gun. Now put your hands out."

Nathan grumbles and puts his hands in front. Jefferson is about to tape them together when Max stops him.

"No. Put your hands behind your back, Nathan. I want them taped behind your back."

A hesitation but then they do as she demands. Afterwards, she had Jefferson tape Nathan's legs too. At the end, he stands up looking steadily at Max.

"Now?"

She bites her lips. She didn't really think this through. She is still panicking slightly and her thoughts are disorganized. Nonetheless, now that she is in control and with a gun, the ideas are plentiful and all useful.

"There's booze in that cabinet over there, isn't there?" She points towards the end cabinet. "Get a bottle of booze out and drink it."

He raises an eyebrow. "Are you trying to get me drunk so you could photograph me while I'm unconscious?"

"Shut up! Just do it!"

Jefferson does as ordered and takes a bottle out plus a shot glass. He pours a drink and drinks it down. Seeing her wait, he pours another glass and drinks that too, then he hesitates.

"Keep going." Max demands. "Don't stop."

"Max, this is a very expensive bottle of very strong whiskey. Two glasses will make anyone start feeling out of it. Plus I have very bad blood loss from this-" He points to the long gash on his head. "-so I can't drink much more even if you want me to."

"I don't care. Keep drinking until I say stop."

He scowls, but does as demanded. After a fourth glass, he is swaying badly and has trouble staying up. Max demands that he drinks again. He badly pours a fifth glass spilling whiskey all over the floor. As he downs the glass, he suddenly drops it half way and falls to the floor groaning.

"Fucking bullshit." Nathan mutters. "I get taped up but he gets to party."

"Be quiet, Nathan." Max says.

She waits a minute or so staring at Jefferson. When she is sure he is too far out to really be of threat to her, she walks over. Placing the gun on the glass table near the couch, she picks up the duct tape and moves over to Jefferson's body prepared to tape him too.

Grabbing one of his hands to move behind his back, she yelps when it suddenly grabs her back. In a flash, Jefferson jumps at her. She turns and tries to crawl away, but he puts an arm around her neck stopping her.

"Stop it! You're choking me!"

"That's the point, Max." He says slurring his words slightly. "Those glasses really did a number on me, but I'm a big whiskey lover. I can handle my whiskey. Now be a good girl and put your hands behind your back."

"No! Let me go!"

She tries to struggle even harder, but it is futile. Jefferson is injured and he clearly isn't as adept due to being somewhat drunk, but even in this state, his strength is able to overwhelm her.

Twisting and turning, she is able to flip around and pushes her hands against Jefferson's face. Angered, he grabs one arm and forces it down. He tries to grab the other, but Max quickly pulls away. She bites the hand holding her arm down drawing blood, but he doesn't let go.

She yelps when he grabs her hair harshly. "That's not nice, Max, and biting isn't going to work a second time. Now do as I tell you!"

He slaps her hard making Max taste blood in her mouth. She tries to draw her body in and slip through his side, but he quickly grabs her midsection and pulls her back. He then punches her stomach knocking the wind out of her. Tears come to her eyes as her own breathing agitates her midsection with more pain.

"Stop! Stop!"

"Be still and I won't hit you anymore! Do as I say!"

As strong as he is, the whiskey and injury is obviously having some effect too and he is unable to hold her down without her eventually twisting away.

Once again, Max tries to crawl a bit away but he pulls her back using her legs. Feeling her arm brush against the whiskey bottle, Max snatches it and tries to hit Jefferson with it. He blocks her and knocks the bottle out of her hands, but whiskey pours out into his eyes. He shouts out and is forced into letting go.

Scrambling now, Max leaps towards the table and is able to grab the gun. She quickly flips around to try to aim it, but Jefferson leaps blindly towards her and manages to land right on top and the struggle seems as if it was about to start again.

Until a loud shot momentarily deafens the entire room.

Max pauses and looks down. Blood is pouring from a wound in Jefferson's stomach onto her body. He coughs and wheezes pushing himself off her clutching at his stomach. For the first time, fear comes into his eyes.

With him off her, she drags herself away and sits up aiming the gun at him. Without thinking, she fires another shot. Jefferson's neck explodes outwards and a gaping hole is the end result. Blood spurts from his neck and mouth, then he collapses onto the ground not moving.

She stares blankly at his body breathing heavily.

"Holy fucking shit." Nathan mutters staring at Jefferson's body.

His voice startles her and she swings the gun towards his direction causing him to yelp. She quickly gains control of herself and lets the gun drop from her hands realizing the gravity of what she did. She stares at her hands now darken with blood and she looks at Jefferson's body. Her breath hitches. The exhaustion that's been haunting her the entire day comes to a head and overwhelms her.

Afterwards, Max's vision darkens and she collapses.