Chapter 13 Song:

Columbia by Local Natives

Victoria tried not to stare at the girl walking beside her. Kate Marsh looked ragged and hurt. Her clothes were torn in places, stained black with the inky substance they had only just survived. The rain had washed most it from their skin, but Victoria could still see bits under the nails of her classmate. She must have clawed the arms as they grabbed her, Victoria realized with a shudder.

She stared down at her own fingernails to see that they too were crusted beneath the nail in dark crescents. Normally, this would drive her crazy—Victoria took an almost obsessive care of her appearance—but she was just about crazyied out for the week.

Kate glanced over at her as the shale-like substance beneath their feet cracked and scrapped. Bruised half-circles shaded the undersides of her eyes, almost matching the ones beneath her fingernails. Victoria tried to push away the thought of those inky hands reaching out of the ground, reaching up and tearing and clawing at those two watery blue—

Stop it.

Kate looked horrible, but she was alive.

Alive.

"We're here," Kate said.

The noise made Victoria jump a little and her throat tighten. They had gone almost an hour already without speaking. Kate, with her gaze locked forward, marched on with a grim determination which Victoria found unsettling.

But what could Victoria have possibly said?

Hey Kate, sorry I was such a massive biatch that you tried to kill yourself! Grow up, Victoria.

She winced, and Kate made a face that suggested a cautious sort of concern.

"Oh! Yeah. I guess we have to, uh…" Victoria said.

"Start climbing?" Kate offered.

"Yeah." Victoria said, her shoulders sinking as she looked up at the scale of the endeavor they were about to undertake.

It had been in that moment just after Kate had pulled her from the depths, coughing and spitting up the ash-taste of the liquid. They collapsed onto their backs in the rain and watched the storm behind the mountain grow, blotting out the burning sky like a blanket of thick smoke. Kate had reached her hand over to Victoria's, locking it with hers. The touch had shocked Victoria, and she had almost pulled her hand away before she realized that maybe Kate was desperate to hold onto any hand that wasn't pulling her down into the abyss.

Victoria had tried to fight the awkward fussiness that brewed in her chest. She knew should apologize then, to beg for forgiveness. But just as it had been in the bunker, Victoria couldn't find the words to express the guilt that was consuming her from the inside like acid. There was something inside of her that held back the flood of words and feelings. It spoke in a tiny voice that told her to shut up and keep her distance. It was a voice Victoria new well.

But then that voice had been drowned out by another one. Something called out to her. It was like half-hearing her name shouted in a crowd without being able to see a familiar face. She felt drawn to the mountain, to the storm raging above and beyond it. She'd glanced over to Kate who lay beside her, and saw that she felt it too. She just knew that she did.

But the instant they had locked eyes with each other, their hands pulled apart and they looked away.

And now they stood here, at the foot of the mountain, as the wind rose and the rain intensified.

"This isn't going to be easy," Victoria said.

But Kate had already started working her way up the path, her little black—were they white before? — shoes, avoiding the uneven parts of the trail.

Kate was ignoring her! Victoria fought the indignation, bludgeoning it with shame as they made their way up the mountain. The silence, having already been broken seemed like less of a barrier to her now.

"So, do you think it's a way out?" Victoria asked, trying to keep her tone level.

Kate flinched at the sound of Victoria's voice. It took her a moment to answer, and when she did it her words were soft.

"I hope so."

"Well, it has to mean something, right?" Victoria said.

Kate started to respond, when her foot slipped on a rain-slicked rock and she began to lose her footing. Victoria caught her arm preventing the fall but Kate pulled away from her with a violent jerk.

"Don't!" Kate gasped, before whispering, "Don't."

Victoria's cheeks flushed as Kate continued up the path.

"Well…fine! Be like that, I was just trying to help."

Kate's shoulders went rigid but she kept walking without saying a word.

Victoria fumed, flustered with Kate's response and frustrated with her own. What was she supposed to do, just let her fall? She felt like she was walking through a social minefield, with one wrong step being all it took to blow her away.

What did you expect idiot! She hates you, remember?

Victoria sighed. She knew she wasn't being fair. She couldn't begin to imagine what Kate must be feeling. After everything she went through—after everything Victoria had put her through—Kate had been forced to confront that monster Jefferson, and then to be sent here…

To be stuck with me.

Victoria would have to swallow her pride if she was going to have any hope of getting Kate out of this place.

"Hey! Kate! Look, we don't have to be friends, ok?" Victoria said, trying not to snap. "We just have to help each other get through this."

Kate gave a noncommittal shrug and continued up the mountain. Victoria took a deep breath. It looked like it was going to be a tough pill to swallow.

They were not prepared for the storm. As they climbed higher and higher, the winds grew stronger, and the rain heavier. Victoria's heart began to thump in her chest, and not because of the climb.

She had been terrified of lightning ever since she was ten years old and a bolt had struck a tree in her back yard. The tree had split right in half, littering the lawn with chunks of wood as well as obliterating her bedroom window with the shockwave. She could still remember the sound, the loudest she'd ever heard; A titanic shriek followed by a boom that echoed through her chest, vibrating through her teeth. She thought the sound would make her heart burst.

Now lightening seemed to slither and coil in the clouds as if they were a nest of apocalyptic vipers. Victoria knew that this climb wasn't safe, especially now that the path was steep and narrow to the point of extreme discomfort.

But Kate pushed on. Victoria could have kept pace with without trouble, but she felt giving her space was for the best. Kate was in a fragile state, so Victoria didn't even dare to breathe too strongly in her direction. It was fortunate that she did, otherwise the rocks could have killed them both.

A bolt of lightning whipped across the side of the mountain above them in an explosion of electricity and granite. Victoria felt her jaw clench and her hairs stand on end. The charge in the air made her skin tingle with the whisper of power. Several large chunks of rock tumbled downwards towards Kate. For the briefest of instances, Victoria was rooted on the spot. Her eyes widened as Kate began to lift her arms above her head. It wouldn't be enough.

But before Victoria could reach that conclusion, her legs had already started to move. The same legs that had stood stock still as Kate stepped onto the roof of the dormitory. The legs that had turned to jelly against the cold concrete of the Prescott bunker. The legs that she had spent every morning running across campus with when the sky was pink and cold and wet with dew.

The first impact was soft and unexpected. Kate was light, and tumbled without issue. The second impact was excruciating. Pain like white hot steel plunged into the meat of her calf. She screamed as she shielded Kate's head with her back and shoulders, but no other pain came. Kate's gaze, before foggy and unfocused, snapped into an excited clarity.

Victoria rolled off the shorter girl, her eyes spilling over with tears.

"Oh my God, Victoria." Kate said, her voice rising and falling with confusion, shock, and panic.

Kate reached under her arms and attempted to drag her back, but stopped after a few feet when Victoria begged her to stop.

"I-I think it's broken," Victoria said, delirious.

Kate, her hair soaked with rain, ran her hands across Victoria's leg, searching for any obvious breaks. There was a small gash across her calf that was weeping a soft stream of blood. But Kate had no way of knowing for sure how bad the injury was.

"I-It's not safe out here. We have to find shelter," Kate said.

"I can't. I can't it hurts!" Victoria said.

Kate stood up, her head turning as if towards some sound Victoria could not hear.

"Wait here," Kate said.

"W-What?"

But Kate was already gone, leaving Victoria alone in the storm.

She left me! She left me!

A deep irrational fear sank into Victoria's chest. What if Kate never came back? What if she finally realized that she was better off on her own? She did not want to be alone up here on the side of the mountain, wet and in pain. Victoria didn't think she would be ok with being alone for a great long while, she realized.

Without thinking, she tried to claw her way after Kate but stopped after the pain in her leg gave a convincing argument for staying put. Another crack of lighting brought a fresh batch of tears.

When she felt Kate's hands slip underneath her arms again, she almost cried out in relief.

"Victoria, you need to help me. You need to stand," Kate said.

Victoria's protests were drowned out by another wicked bolt of lightning. She nodded in desperate acceptance.

"This will probably hurt," Kate whispered as she slipped Victoria's arm over her shoulder.

It did. Very much so.

Kate lifted with a strength that belied her small stature, as Victoria did her best to push up with her good leg. For one brief, terrible moment, Victoria felt her strength threaten to give out. She stumbled, almost taking them both over the edge. But she was stronger than that, and the two of them stood and made their way down another path Victoria hadn't remembered seeing before. She didn't dwell on it long, instead she found herself more fascinated with Kate's warmth against her skin, and the feeling of the girl's wet hair on her neck and the quiet power she felt in her grip. For a second she even forgot about the pain in her leg.

When they stepped into the cave, Kate set her down against the wall with as much care as she could muster. Victoria tried her best to cover up the pain she felt for her sake. They both leaned back against the dry, bizarrely warm wall of the cave and took a moment to rest. In here the storm sounded far away, like a distant memory.

"You saved me," Kate whispered. "Again."

"I…I just did what you would have done. What you've…already done," Victoria said, her mind foggy with pain and exhaustion.

Kate stared at her, with sad, gentle, blue eyes. And then Victoria felt her consciousness slip away from her.

When Victoria awoke, she found that the pain in her leg had gone from white hot agony to a dull, throbbing ache. She glanced at the wound and saw that Kate had tied a makeshift bandage around the gash to stop the bleeding.

Her breath caught in her throat when she realized Kate was no longer beside her. She stiffened, causing a brief flare of agony as her eyes tried to adjust to the gloom. The awful weight of solitude began to press down upon her.

"Kate?" she muttered in a voice that was so soft it was almost unrecognizable to her.

She heard something move on the other side of the cave, and almost lost herself to panic before she could see it was Kate.

She had put her hair back up into a wild, but contained bun. The sleeve of her white shirt was missing, the edges jagged where it once connected to the shoulder. Victoria gulped, now she knew were the bandage had come from.

"You're awake!" Kate said, relieved.

"How long was I out?"

"Not too long," Kate said, kneeling beside her. "I don't really have a watch."

Kate looked like she wanted to say more, but then thought better of it.

"Where are we?" Victoria asked.

"Some kind of cave? It's weird though."

Victoria raised a brow.

"It's warm in here, and dry," Kate said, trying to find the words. "And it's not very deep."

It really was odd, now that Victoria thought about it. She was almost dry, despite being soaked through when they entered the cave, and the temperature was pleasant, almost cozy.

"It's almost as if…" Kate began, but stopped.

"What?" Victoria asked, leaning over to make eye contact.

Kate fidgeted with her hands before pushing a stray strand of hair back behind her ear.

"I wonder if this cave was here because we needed it to be."

Victoria didn't know how to respond, and it must have shown on her face.

"N-Never mind, it was stupid—," Kate began.

"No," Victoria said, her voice more forceful than she'd intended. "I-I mean you shouldn't uh…you know…"

Kate looked up at her, searching in Victoria's eyes for something.

"I felt it too," Victoria said, feeling stupid.

"A calling," Kate said, as she pulled at the hem of her skirt.

"Kinda like in the bible…?" Victoria said, but then blushed when she saw the expression on Kate's face. "I-I didn't mean it like that!"

What the fuck is wrong with you?

"Like what?" Kate asked.

"Like…you're the weird church girl type of thing?"

VICTORIA!

But to Victoria's surprise, Kate laughed. It was a frantic sort of laugh that forced Kate to cover her mouth. She looked up towards the sky before looking away with twinge of embarrassment. Victoria shifted in her seat, wincing at what it did to her leg.

"It's…nothing. Really," Kate said.

A silence fell between them, Victoria unable to push the topic further and Kate unwilling to elaborate. The silence was overbearing and it grew to such an excruciating length that Victoria wondered if it might be worth the pain to run out of there.

The two of them jumped at an unmistakable creaking sound from behind them. In the back of the cave, a door had opened.

"T-That wasn't there before," Kate said, stepping towards the opening.

Victoria felt an odd constriction in her chest. She wanted to reach out and grab Kate to keep her from moving. If anything were to happen, there would be nothing that she could do. The feeling of powerlessness was suffocating. But there was something else too, a fierce, invasive feeling that told Victoria she would take another broken leg for Kate. She would do anything to get her out of here safe.

She deserves as much.

When Kate returned, her steps were slow. She looked back once before moving to help Victoria to her feet.

"What is it?" Victoria asked, a slight tremble in her voice.

"You're going to have to see it," Kate said.

Victoria felt herself growing more comfortable leaning on Kate's shoulders. She almost felt safe. But that feeling didn't last long.

What did she hope to accomplish by being dead weight? Just like in the bunker with Max. Poor little Victoria needed someone else to save her, even if it could get them killed. After all she'd done to Kate, the girl was supposed to just carry her around like some kind of servant? Victoria couldn't even find the decency to thank her.

Victoria, you fucking parasite.

Her train of self-loathing was derailed by the sight of the doorway hidden away at the back of the cave. It was her doorway.

Victoria sat on the foot of her bed, still smothered in silent disbelief. It was like someone had placed her inside of a photograph of her childhood. The soft pastel pink walls, covered in anime posters and pictures her parents had taken, looked just as they did when she lived in Seattle. A bed, much too large for a small child, wreathed in lacy curtains, dominated the center. The comforter was overstuffed and decorated with an intricate stitch pattern that suggested a hefty price tag. It was crowded with a mountain of plush toys that stared back at her with friendly, but empty, eyes.

Against the other wall was her desk and vanity mirror, covered in hair brushes and plastic horses. A plate with a single slice of chocolate cake sat uneaten on the polished wooden surface. A single candle burned, with a dim orange light that could never illuminate the emptiness that Victoria felt inside in that moment.

When she had looked into the mirror, she half expected to see herself as a child, her hair long and her face round with baby fat. But it was still her, or at least, something like her. She looked like a mess, but more than that, she looked tired.

"This was your room?" Kate asked, there was surprise in her voice, but no judgment.

Victoria, having forgotten Kate for a moment, was now blushing despite herself. She recoiled away from her, fiddling with the curtain beside the bed.

"Well, when I was a kid! It's not like I like any of this stuff anymore," Victoria said, trying to hide the crimson that had spread across her cheeks.

"You don't have to get defensive, Victoria," Kate whispered. "The room is cute."

Victoria's mouth turned to cotton, her embarrassment magnified tenfold.

"I just…I'm not used to having people in this room."

Kate sat on the bed beside her, her bare arm touching Victoria's for a second before she pulled away.

"What do you mean?" Kate asked.

Victoria felt like she had a million eyes watching her, on a stage with a hundred bright spotlights. She could feel her hands getting sweaty, something she absolutely loathed about herself. But Kate kept staring at her, not with amusement, but with a concerned sort of curiosity.

"I was alone a lot," Victoria said, gaze fixed on her lap. "As a kid."

Ugh.

"What?" Kate said.

"My parents spent most of their time working, and so when I wasn't at school, I was here," she said, staring at the uneaten cake.

"You didn't have any friends?" Kate asked.

Victoria winced.

Ugh!

"You're looking at most of them," Victoria said, gesturing to the army of stuffed animals behind her.

"But you're…you're so popular," Kate said, a light blush of shame dusting her cheeks.

"Well, this may come as a surprise to you, but I'm not very good at getting people to like me," Victoria said, feeling ugly emotions bubbling at the base of her throat. "I…wasn't very good at sharing, and I said a lot of things that made other kids cry."

"You were mean," Kate said. It was stated as a simple fact, like she was tall or shy.

UGH!

"Yeah ok! I was mean! I was spoiled rotten by my clueless parents," Victoria said despite herself. Somewhere deep inside her, a little voice was screaming at her to stop talking.

Kate leaned away for a movement, but made no sign of interrupting.

"But they worked so much that I hardly ever saw them. They left me here all alone, with a fucking nanny and toys and clothes and a big fat empty house," Victoria said, fighting a desperate battle with the tears building in her eyes.

Victoria looked at the cake on the dresser and laughed as some of the tears slipped through her defenses.

"They even missed my ninth birthday! Too busy. The Chase Space was always their real baby," she said with a bitterness that she could taste. "I'm sure they couldn't wait to send me away to Blackwell."

The words kept tumbling from Victoria's mouth faster than she could process them.

"I know that probably just sounds like a lot of bullshit coming from me, but I thought that…I thought that…"

Kate, remained motionless, her gaze shifting between Victoria to her own folded hands.

"I thought that maybe there was a reason that they didn't see me. Maybe I wasn't good enough for them to see me," she said, her voice growing smaller and smaller.

Victoria pressed her face into her hands, feeling the spotlights growing brighter, the voice in her head screaming louder.

Why am I telling her all this? Just looking for some sympathy, huh, Victoria? Sure, let's make this all about me!

She looked at Kate, but when their eyes met, Victoria clenched her fists and contemplated punching her bedpost.

"I'm terrified that the only reason people see me is because they're afraid of me. And now…now with Nathan…," Victoria said, her voice choking with emotion.

Both of them went pale at the mention of his name. Victoria could speak no more; the hurt was just too great. Nathan was one of her best friends. When she came to Blackwell Academy her freshmen year, Nathan he had been so much different than he was now. They were both in the introductory photography class together. Victoria, terrified of getting left behind, noted everything the teacher said at a feverish pace.

"You don't have to write all that down," a soft voice had said from beside her.

Blushing, Victoria had slammed her hands down onto her paper to hide her shame. She turned to see Nathan Prescott, facing towards her but with his eyes on her hands.

"A lot of this is in the reading. I can show you my notes after class if you want."

He had been so much softer back then. Quiet and talented, but with a sensitive and emotional disposition that made him too vulnerable to the outside world. Had things been different, maybe Nathan could have grown up to be a respectful, decent, perhaps even wonderful person. But he learned early that his vulnerability could be weakness. It was a lesson taught to him by his tyrant of a father. Victoria's parents weren't there enough for her, but Nathan's problem was the exact opposite. No matter how many walls he put up to protect himself, he could never escape the ever-present shadow of his father. Victoria always knew that Sean could be abusive, but she had no idea just how deep and dark the abyss in that man's heart ran.

Could she have stopped all of this? She knew Nathan. They spent their years at Blackwell together, clawing their way up the social ladder, becoming the king and queen of the vortex club's domain. Victoria and Nathan could always on each other, when they were uncertain or afraid. There were things that she had told him that no other living soul had heard her say.

But maybe she was being dishonest with herself. The truth was that she had started to fear Nathan. His temper had gotten worse, almost as bad as his father's. He lashed out moment and then retreated within himself the next, his eyes glazing over as he became lost in whatever abyss he had been pushed into. Victoria suspected now that there were parts of Nathan that she didn't know at all, parts of him that were dark and twisted and all consuming. How much had he been complicit in? How many other people had he hurt? She knew with dreadful certainty that wasn't just Kate or Max or her. Her mind drifted back to the missing person's posters all over campus and felt another piece of her heart break.

Victoria had seen enough now to know that true evil existed in the world. It didn't look like something with sharp teeth and too many eyes. It wasn't some intangible force that hid under the bed. It was handsome and it wore suits and told you everything you wanted to hear until it could get you alone and devour everything you ever loved about yourself until you were nothing but a shell of what you were. Or dead.

And now a thought creeped into Victoria's head. It was a thought so terrifying, so gruesome and offensive that if she dwelled on it too long it would destroy her.

Am I like him?

"I'm sorry, Victoria," Kate said, breaking her out of her thoughts.

At first, she thought maybe she had misheard, but she could tell from the look on Kate's face that was not the case. Victoria could never have prepared herself to hear those words.

"Y-You what?"

"I'm sorry about earlier, when I laughed at you," Kate said, her gaze still on her lap.

A series of babbling sounds spilled from Victoria's lips as she struggled with a response.

"I was laughing at the absurdity of it all. You. After everything that's happened, you're just so different than I thought you'd be," She said with a tired giggle. "And I was laughing at myself, for losing faith."

Victoria swallowed the lump in her throat, and waited for Kate to continue.

"I think that cave was there for a reason. I think this room is here for a reason too. You said something that you needed to say, and I heard something that I needed to hear. I don't know how any of this is possible or why it's happening, but I think whatever it is, it has a greater purpose." Kate said. She paused for a moment, her expression like that of a person who had just come to understand a clever joke. Then she whispered to herself, "Mathew 11:28."

"What's that?" Victoria asked.

"'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,'" Kate said.

And for the first time since they got here, Kate smiled.

Have I ever seen her with a smile on her face?

"I think I understand," Victoria said, her voice sounding grave and serious.

Kate's smile grew and she snorted. She brought up a hand to her mouth to stifle a series of giggles before giving up and falling into a laughing fit. She gripped the sides of her belly, trying to look at Victoria, but every time she did she her laughter increased twofold.

Victoria, mouth agape, watched as Kate's eyes began to water. And then, with a slow, almost inevitable build of chuckles, Victoria began to laugh too.

So, they sat together on the foot of Victoria's ridiculous bed, surrounded by the lacy pastel memories of her childhood and laughed as the sky burned and somewhere a storm raged. For the first time in what felt like eternity, Victoria felt hopeful for what came next as another door opened.

A/N:

Sorry for the delay. I hope you enjoy this chapter. More to come soon hopefully!