Chapter 14: Not breaking but entering

1st Alternative Universe - Wednesday 10/09. Early Morning.

Inside, the main hall was dark and creepy. Only the distant light of the vending machines partially lighting their surroundings. Max pulled out her phone and the light made the atmosphere even creepier, like ripped off from an horror movie.

"Chloe the keymaster…" the brunette whispered.

"You know it."

"Dude, I don't know about this. We're both already into so much trouble…"

"Not to mention the weed you brought into my room… joking!" said Chloe, walking along the hallway and looking around, memories overflowing her about going to school herel during the day, walking side by side with Rachel and the skater boys... Fuck.

"I'm serious. We're not kids anymore. We are breaking and entering…" said Max, looking around in anxiousness.

"If i have a key how can it be breaking?" said Chloe, looking at Max like her statement was obvious. "They can't charge us for just… entering!"

"And people say jokes are not life support…"

"I'm serious. We could go to jail…"

"Not if I'm related to the head of Blackwell Security." Chloe said confidently, playing with the keys between her fingers, making a metallic sound. "Step-shit will not want me in the hands of the local police. So, we better find what's in the principal's office first. You can rewind if we get caught, right?" she added, walking towards the door that lead to the office. "You have mad powers, Max…"

"But my powers didn't save Kate. Maybe I did on my own…."

Chloe used one of the keys from the massive keychain and walked into the secretary's office.

"Come on. One more door and our work here is done."

Chloe walked in, her eyes focused on the door that maybe was hiding the answers to her questions. Or at least some of them. She had no doubts about Nathan being involved by now. After what happened to Kate and him being expelled thanks to Max, there had to be something they could use. Wells was clearly bought by the Prescotts to hide shit… so this was a good place as any to start their search.

For a few moments she tried key after key, her heart beating fast in anticipation as she was running out of chances. And finally, she tried with the last one… but the door stayed closed.

"That's it… What the fuck?" she said in confusion, staring at the door. "The security officer should have the keys of the principal's office…"

"Well, fuck..."

"He's hiding shit. Like everyone here." said Max with a hint of annoyance to her voice.

"Well, now we definitely have to get this door open." Chloe said, leaning near and examining the lock. Old and used, she could see the scratches on the metal, like someone had trouble getting the key in several times.

"Drinking problems, I bet my ass. Maybe Frank would be of use with this one, fucker always knew how to open doors without busting the lock."

"Believe it or not I know a little about lock picking… thanks to… Frank. I might as well test my thief skill."

She knelt before the door and picked up her tools from the inside pocket of her jacket. Good call she decided to bring them too, just in case. Otherwise, they would have totally been screwed.

"Go for it. We are already in this deep."

But… yeah, let's say the chances of succeeding like Frank were… minimum.

"Well, you could look for the key… Just in case."

"Why yes, I could."

As she worked her way with the lock, Max looked around for the key in the secretary's office. Of course, Chloe didn't expect the key to turn up. If the principal was actually hiding shit, there was no way the guy left the key lying around for anyone to find. The other option was to actually break into his residence, near the Prescott dorm… and that was even more risky than this. Of course, Max would totally refuse and she wouldn't be able to blame her.

"No key for thee… we will have to find another way in." Max said.

"I guess I didn't spend enough time with Frank…" Chloe shook her head. "But I'll use my DIY lock-pick tools while you come up with a better plan."

"My plan has a name…" Max replied confidently and took turned off the light on her phone.

Chloe saw her search for a number on it from the corner of her eye and put the phone to her ear. Only two seconds later, her call was answered.

"Hey Warren, you busy?" Max asked, her voice a bit tense. "Just bubble-hearth. You'll be okay!"

"Oh, nerd alert! Okay…"

"Listen, I need your physics expertise - stat. Without naming names, if someone had access to the art and science labs and wanted to construct a device that would, say, open a locked door, would you maybe kinda know how?"

A moment of silence. The fucking metal wire she was using to pick the lock was being a total bitch. Meanwhile, her ears were totally focused on Max's conversation.

"Huh? No! I'm just asking for , science-guy. Uh, n-no, no. Stay. We need you as back up. Just send the text instructions now."

A moment of tense silence. The tool got stuck in the fucking lock. Great.

"I'm sorry, I'm just not sure about a movie night right now. Don't hate me…And thanks for the help"

Chloe just stopped trying to bust the lock and glared at Max with a sharp edge. Her skin crawled and a loud whistle rang in her ears for a moment. Oh, wow, why so furious?

"Get a hint, pal. No movie night for ya. Fuck. Focus, Chloe. What the hell was that?"

And with that last line of thought, she tried once again to open the door. To no avail.

"This sucks ass!" she said, furious, and punched the wooden door with a clenched fist."Goddamn door!"

"Yeah, fucking door. I hate you door. Yes, this door, in particular. Ugh!"

"Try to not wake up everyone at Blackwell!"

Max's phone emitted a peep at that moment and she held it up again, the screen lighting up her face.

"Sorry Max, I got nothing. What about your plan?" Chloe said, looking at her, her voice a bit low with frustration.

"I'm going to go put it together. Can you stay here and not get caught?"

"I may get on the other side of this door before you, Lupin." She forced a smile at the girl, and in exchange, she got a confident smirk.

"The race is on. See you soon."

For the next ten minutes or so, Chloe kept trying to bust the lock open. As time passed, she felt less and less confident with her attempt to find out stuff about Rachel here. Just like any other futile attempt in the past, she always hit a dead end. Even now, knowing that at least some of the answers to her questions could be behind the door that refused to be open. On top of that, she really wanted to actually get there before Max could put up whatever she was up to. No nerd could beat her to the punch, no way.

"If I can get this bastard open, she can't cheat with her rewind… " She mumbled in frustration. And with a forced movement, the wire she was using broke in half. She looked at it for a moment in anger and punched the door. "Ugh, this is bullshit! Fuck you, door!"

And almost like the door heard her, it opened. Her heart almost jumped from her chest as she looked in horror at the person behind it… until her eyes stumbled upon Max's face.

"Welcome to my domain…" she said with a bright smile.

"What the actual fuck!?"

"You are magic." Chloe stated, getting up and grabbing Max's shoulders firmly, visibly hyped up. "I have no clue how the hell you got in there but you did it, sista!"

"The company I keep… Now let's find what we want and beat it. My powers only go so far."

Chloe walked in as Max closed the door and left a bunch of items in the trash can nearby. The punk looked around the office, which was not exactly how she remembered it. The walls were covered with new paintings, expensive and ugly, and the decoration was not the way it had been a few years back. Or maybe she didn't pay enough attention to it at the time, being told about a bunch of stupid crap she didn't want to hear.

"Man, I can see why the principal locks this room up. Fancy faux art crap. He must want everyone to know he has money. But no taste."

She walked to the desk, which was kind of a mess. Some papers were lying around on the desktop, lit by the lamp located at the edge of the table. The computer was still on, sentinelled by a bronze hawke posed nearby.

"How can you trust somebody who has a fucking bronze bird in his office? I'm glad I was expelled…"

"Yes, if only the principal had a Monet or a Picasso you'd still be at blackwell." Max teased, looking around.

Chloe repressed a snort and walked around the desk to check the papers out.

"Eat me." she said. "I'm going to pilfer the papers on his ugly ass desk."

"That sounded bad… ugh, whatever."

She moved some of the papers away, looking for something useful. She desisted after reading nonsensical and useless forms and stuff about camera security on campus, probably an initiative from step-paranoid, and a petition to stop it.

Opting for checking out the computer, she approached the ugly chair behind the desk and sat down… oh.

"Okay, sure, it's ugly but damn is it a cozy chair!" Chloe said, swinging on it from side to side, resting her boots on the desk. "This is your chance to get all deductive n' shit, Sherlock. Find us some clues about Rachel or Kate… or Nathan… anybody!"

"I'm on the case…" Max replied, but she was looking at her with that bright in her eyes… and even before she slid her hands into her bag to retrieve the camera, Chloe knew she was about to take a picture.

"It's gonna be a keeper…"

"Chloe… say hello to my little friend…" Max said, raising the camera and angling the shot, so the bronze hawke was present too.

Chloe grinned at the reference.

"Say goodnight to the bad guy!"

And with a loud sound, the camera snapped picture. Max took it and shook it a bit before storing it in her bag again and started to look around, searching for the info they came for in the first place. Chloe watched her for a few seconds before turning her attention to the Principal's computer.

There was a folder on the desktop named "Documents" that looked promising, so she went full cyber-stalker and dug deep into the files. As expected, there was a lot of useless crap, like the permits for improvements in some of the buildings, files on each teacher of the institution, financial records of the school expenses and earnings, schedules, meetings, blah, blah…

"Oh, what have we here?"

Chloe found a folder among the students files with a pretty vague name, different from the organized archive Wells seemed to keep.

Inside the folder, there was only one more with the name "Prescott, Nathan Joshua".

But whatever she expected to find in there… it wasn't exactly what she did find.

"What… step-fucker was following Rachel?!" Her eyes flicked fast along the files in the folder.

"Rachel being a… a drug mule? What the fuck?! This is… sick!"

"Max… you better come check out these files…" Chloe said, her eyes still glued to the screen in disbelief.

Max approached her, concern in her eyes.

"Nathan accuses Rachel of bringing drugs on campus? And my step-troll went along because he thinks Rachel was a bad influence on me. Assholes…"

"I'm so fucking pissed right now. Fucking hell…"

"If David is teaming up with Nathan Prescott, that's a bad sign.." Max said, leaning over the desk to read the files too. She looked so tired and worried…

Chloe kept reading, her frown so notorious it seemed like it would take years to erase that expression from her face.

"Nathan Prescott the Third, uh he's so money." she mocked sharply. "And you know the Prescotts dropped major bank to bury Nathan's real file… Look - it reads like a rap sheet! Bad grades, teacher complaints, secret probation… but I was expelled?"

"So fucking unfair. I had eighty absences, so fucking what? I've never threatened anyone's life or made people miserable like this elitist prick. How on earth this is okay? Arguing with teachers, drugging people, throwing a fucking desk in class? Holy shit…"

"At least Nathan was finally suspended. Check out that note… open it."

Chloe complied and opened the file Max pointed out.

"This is kinda fucked up."

"That's just a crazy drawing." she said.

It was an image, a scanned drawing made with black ink on a white sheet. Or at least what it looked like a drawing.

"It's not a drawing. Look…" Max pointed at the edges of what seemed to be a clusterfuck of nonsense… and Chloe realized they were words. "'Rachel in the dark room, Rachel in the dark room…' Over and over… that's it."

"That's… fucked up. What does this even mean?" Chloe leaned over, and focused on the drawing, like she could see through it and understand. She could feel her blood boil through her veins every time she read the name of her friend in Nathan's shaky and broken calligraphy. "Nathan is truly psychotic. I know he has something to do with Rachel missing."

"If that bastard put a single finger on her… I'm going to kill him."

"Whoa, listen to this: "'David M. always asks what's going on in my head. David M. always helps me follow those he follows'… Pretty cryptic." Max pointed out.

"No, it sounds like they've formed some kind of weird team, the super he-bros."

"Fucking assholes got to stick together. Like they weren't bad enough on their own. Fuck."

"Jesus… David was stalking Kate, hassling me, and now we know he was all over Rachel too…"

"This is getting weirder and weirder by the second. I so want to get the fuck out of this office..."

"Oh, we are so going into his garage files… Plus I'm getting a little paranoid in here."

Choe leaned back for a moment, enjoying the soft leather of the seat and how comfortable it was…

"We got our info, let's bail. But maybe we shouldn't leave without a gift…"

Max straightened up and looked at her with a knowing gaze filled with seriousness.

"No, you are not taking the cozy chair."

"What the…"

"Max, do your powers include mind reading?" Chloe asked surprised before realization hit her. "Or… did you just rewind because I tried to steal the chair? Shit, I'm confused."

"Hella confused…"

"It's the power of best friendship." Max simply replied, dismissing her claim. "I know how you roll. We should definitely get out of here. We pressed our luck enough."

Chloe looked around on the desk, just in case she missed anything that could be of use. On a rushed last attempt, she opened the only drawer of the desk and found quite a heavy envelope inside. The words "Handicapped fund" were written on it.

"Hullo, what have we here?" She opened the envelope and her jaw dropped in awe. "Holy shit! Jackpot! Cha-ching..."

There was money inside. A lot of money.

"Holy fuck this… oh my god there is like five grand here! I… I could take Frank off my back right now!"

"Wowser… that is a lot for the handicapped fund." Commented Max.

"Dude, there is five thousands dollars here. I could pay Frank back tonight!" Chloe said, counting the bills again, her fingers shaky with anxiousness. "This will chill him out after you almost… you know… shot him."

She raised her bright eyes filled with enthusiasm… and found a really unsure Max in front of her, her eyes fixed on the money.

"I know that look… Max 'Jiminy Cricket' Caulfield…"

"Are you going to make a big issue out of this?" Chloe asked, a bit of disappointment in her voice. "Or just rewind to get the greens all for yourself? I hope you do that instead of lecturing me…"

There was a moment of silence and hesitation on Max part, before she replied.

"Frank knows things about Rachel and he might talk if he's been paid… right?"

A big smile, a genuine smile, appeared on Chloe's face. A smile that also reached her eyes, for once, along with a warm feeling in her chest.

"You… you're so fucking incredible."

"You are super, Max." Chloe said with soft voice. She got up and hugged her friend again, resting her chin on her shoulder. She was so warm and small and… She was Max.

"Max is here…"

"And with the leftover dough, I'll take you on a road trip to Portland for the day." She said, pulling back, incapable of looking away. "We'll stock up on tats, beer, weed, and donuts…"

"And books from Powell's!" Max added, raising an unsure fist.

"We could do it. I… I really want to do it."

"And strip clubs!" she joked, bouncing with excitement as she walked towards the door, turning the desk lamp off. "Kidding… but… you never know!"

She left the office and waited for Max outside, in the dark secretary's office. Barely lit by the moon, there was a flyer on the desk, abut the next swimming competition the Blackwell Otters had in a few weeks.

"Mmh… that gives me a really cool idea, actually…"

When Max finally came out of the office and closed the door behind her, her eyes stumbled upon Chloe, waiting for her with a grin on her face and a plea in her eyes, rocking her body a bit with anticipation from side to side.

"That impish look scares me…" The brunette said, knowingly.

"Care for a midnight swim?" Chloe asked, showing her the key to the gym she had on the keychain. "The Blackwell pool is ours…"

"Swimming? You want to take that risk now?!" Max asked, incredulous.

"It's been a cray week, we deserve a little mindless fun in the water…" she said, a hint of a flirtatious tone hidden among her words. "We are done for the night anyway. We are rich and nobody busted us! So…"

She walked towards Max and grabbed her hands with a mischief grin.

"Splish splash?" Chloe asked softly.

And Max returned the smile and nodded.

"You're right. We hella deserve it!" she said, and followed Chloe, who turned around and walked towards the exit. "Splish splash!"

A shiver ran through Chloe's spine the moment Max pushed her to the door softly, leaning on her to go faster. And then, she realized something, as her grin went even wider.

"Did you actually say "hella"? I think i'm a good bad influence on you."