Chapter XVIII – We were all sea-swallowed
"Awake, dear heart!"
The smell of eggs cooking in the kitchen woke her up first. A light breeze played with her hair while a soft light shone through her eyelids. Someone was playing a guitar softly nearby. There was no pain in her leg, no sting of cuts and bruises. She'd never felt a more comfortable bed.
Where am I?
She breathed out slowly, turning her face towards the sunlight. The guitar playing stopped and was replaced by footsteps on a wooden floor by her side. Now there were fingers running through her hair gently, and a kiss on her forehead.
She opened her eyes.
Max smiled, the morning light glowing around her. "Morning, sleepyhead. Good dreams?"
Max? She's…older.
Max kissed her deeply, cupping Chloe's face in her hands. When she finally pulled away, her heart hammering, Chloe let herself glance around the room. This wasn't her room, at least not the one in her house in Arcadia Bay. It was a big upstairs bedroom, with the tall sloped roof of a large cabin or chalet. The wooden walls were covered with framed pictures – tall pines, crystal blue waters, Chloe's silhouette beneath a beach sunset, a family of deer, Rachel in a red gown, Arcadia Bay in snow, a Max selfie. Two desks stood on opposite sides of the room – one with a pile of new clothes and make-up, the other with a glass bong, a stickered laptop, and a loose pile of comic books. The window to her left opened on a valley of verdant green trees and a bright blue sky.
Max had made her way back to a wooden chair by the bedside, and had picked up her guitar again. She closed her eyes, her lips moving as she quietly sung something Chloe couldn't quite place, her long fingers tracing the strings and picking a quiet melody. Chloe stared. She was older, definitely, and she seemed more at home with her body, more confident. Maybe she was in her late twenties?
Did I…fall into some other timeline?
She stumbled out of the bed, stepping over piles of hastily tossed clothes. The floor creaked beneath her. A large mirror hung by the desk with the clothes on it, and she paused as she walked past it. Another Chloe stared out at her, one with a nose piercing, and long dark hair with an undercut. Both arms were sleeves of tattoos, and the face that looked back at her was older, at peace.
"Whoa."
Thunder echoed, and for a moment she felt the ocean spray on her face, the smell of a bonfire permeating her clothing. She blinked, and she was back in the room.
"You okay, Chloe?"
"Um, yeah…just, what year is it?"
Max stopped playing. She set the guitar on a stand near the side of the bed. "2022. Is this a trick?"
2022?
"Breakfast!"
Her voice came from down the stairs. She knew it immediately, in the marrow of her bones. She'd said the same thing every morning when she spent the night at the Prices, when she'd wake up early to see what Joyce had made for them.
Chloe looked back at Max for any sign of confusion, but she only smiled and stood up.
"Finally, I'm starving!"
She followed Max out of the bedroom, into a lofted upstairs looking down over the tall, open space of a large cabin. Huge windows overlooked a valley of green trees, their tops flecked with snow. Birds flew in formation over them all, their distant noises almost entirely covered by the sounds of cooking. In the kitchen area, lit by the morning light from the windows, stood Rachel Amber. She was wearing an old Firewalk t-shirt and sweatpants, and was dishing out a large pan of scrambled eggs into three plates on the round wooden table.
Max took the plate of eggs from Rachel, kissing her on the cheek. "I think Chloe's a little out of it today."
"She had a long night," Rachel said, laughing. "Firewalk are still great, even if they're old now."
"Just like me," said Max, scooping out the eggs in even portions onto three plates. A huge bowl of hash browns was already in the middle of the team, still warm. Rachel set down a carton of orange juice, then walked past Chloe, wrapping her arms around her and kissing the back of her neck.
"Chloe's the oldest, though. You're what, 28?"
Chloe sat down, her head swimming. "No, I'm…I'm…"
"In her late twenties and getting old so fast," said Max, shaking her head in mock sadness. "Soon we'll have to put in her the old badass ladies' retirement home."
"She'll have to head-bang with Ethel and Gertrude."
"So sad."
She pressed her fingers to her temples, rubbing away the beginnings of a headache. "Sorry, I'm a little confused. How did we…get here? What about the tree?"
Rachel cocked her head. "The tree? The one outside?"
"No, back…back in time." She looked at both of them, then turned to Max. "You saw me kissing Rachel, and you ran away. I'm sorry…"
Max and Rachel looked at each other for a moment, and then leaned in close and kissed each other, long and deeply. When they pulled apart, they were both grinning.
"Chloe, it's okay. We're together. All three of us."
"What?"
Max reached out and grabbed her hand, a look of concern on her face. "Chloe, did you…did you use your powers again?"
"I don't think…"
Rachel took her other hand. "It's okay. We get confused sometimes too. We've got hella memories jumbled around in there. Just take some deep breaths. Remember where you are."
I'm just blanking…this is real? We did it? I'm with both of them?
"No. It's not…this is too perfect."
"That's what we say all the time," said Max. "But sometimes life works out. We went through a whole lot, Chloe. But it's over now. We're safe. And we've been safe for years."
"You went back to school and got your degree, Max's an indie photographer celeb, and I've got my Youtube channel. Sometimes life works out!"
A raven tapped on the window. Chloe looked away from the table to watch it. One small black smudge against the beautiful landscape. Max and Rachel's voices faded into the distance for a minute.
"Earth to Chloe?"
She blinked. Now they were both closer to her, holding her hands tightly.
"Maybe you should go lie down for a bit. It happens to all of us."
Chloe pulled away, surprised at the strength of her anger. "No! I'm not stupid! We tried to make a perfect world so many times, and it always fails. This is not how this ends. We don't get to fuck up all of time, go through all this shit, and then, and then…get this kind of a world. What do we do? Like, for money? Where the hell are we?"
"Leave that to us," Rachel said, her long hair falling in front of her face.
"What was the point of all…all the time travel stuff? After everything we did? We just live happily ever after?"
"Don't we deserve that much?" Max tried to take her hand, but she recoiled.
"Deserve?" She snorted. "I don't deserve fucking anything. It doesn't…it doesn't work like that."
The raven tapped again.
"We're in love, Chloe. That's enough."
"Is it?" She stepped backward. The room swayed. Like a ship on waves.
Shit.
"This isn't real. Someone's in my head. This is just…what I want."
"It's what you got, Chloe."
"We're not lying to you," said Rachel. She was standing before her now, beautiful and sad. She leaned in closer.
Chloe felt the long strands of her hair and brushed her cheek. She felt cold.
"No. Everybody lies…including me. This is a lie. This is all a lie."
Glass shattered, and the raven cawed. Cold wind and rain blew through the broken window. Thunder roared outside. Suddenly Max clawed at her throat as water began to pour from her nostrils, her mouth. Her hair floated up, like she was underwater. Beside her, Rachel began to collapse, her skin rotting, her mouth filling up with dirt.
Her stomach heaving, she turned and ran. The wooden floor heaved beneath her, arms outstretched to keep her balance as she went. Max's pictures hanging on the walls swayed, then fell, one by one, smashing to the floor with the loud crack of glass and broken wood.
This isn't real. Find something to focus on. Don't get swept away.
"Chloe! Come back! You can't keep running from yourself!"
She stumbled down the stairs, almost twisting her ankle on the final steps. A sudden lurch sent her slamming against the wall. A wooden statue of a deer at the side of the entrance leaned over and fell, its head snapping off.
"Stop, don't go!"
This is a lie. It's a trap. It's a dream.
The door handle was heavy and cold, and only turned slightly when she threw all her weight down on it. The floor shifted again, and she clung to it to stay upright. Footsteps clattered down the stairs.
Wake up, Chloe, you're dreaming!
Finally the door handle gave way, and she stepped out into a small grassy yard overlooking a long, winding road. They were at the top of a mountain, and down below she could see the faint glimmering lights of a town in the far distance, bordered by highways and forests. Two bright lights were approaching fast, climbing up the highway towards the house.
"Chloe! You've got to believe me, this is real!"
Max and Rachel were at the doorway behind her, shouting into the storm. Above them, the ravens flew in a spiral.
"No, Max, it's not. I wish it was. Fuck, I wish it was."
She could hear an engine getting closer.
The car's headlights were bright in the darkness outside, like two beams of fire. It swerved and pulled up beside them, the back door opening automatically. Country music came from the speakers. She knew this car. Knew it should be a crumpled mess in the junkyard. Knew who it belong to.
"…just called to tell you that I miss you, my old friend. Burning the midnight oil again…"
"Chloe, get in!"
With one last look at Max and Rachel at the foot of their home, she turned and got into her father's car. He slammed the gas pedal and the car sped away down the long driveway. Max and Rachel receded in the dim light, holding each other as the winds whipped around them. Soon she couldn't see them or the house, only an endless army of tall pines to her right, and a guardrail leading to the valley on her left.
Max. Rachel. Those weren't you, I know it. I'll find you both. This time I'll save you both.
"Chloe."
"Dad."
The road curved down in long, sloping circles. William took each one slowly, deliberately, though his face never betrayed any kind of unease. Rain splattered on the windshield while lightning cracked the sky in the distance. Thunder boomed.
Chloe cleared her throat. "So obviously this is a dream, right? I'm probably dying, alone, underneath some giant tree in the past."
William shrugged. Chloe could see his face in the rear-view mirror. "I don't know. This storm seems real to me."
"I've been in a lot of storms, Dad. A lot of them real, a lot of them not. Don't think that's evidence for or against."
"That's a fair point. So it's a dream then. What's it all mean?"
She pressed her hand to the window. It felt cool and wet. Real, not a dream. But she couldn't trust herself anymore, after all the unreality she'd seen.
"I saw something, by the tree. Maybe it was a hallucination or whatever, but…" She pressed her forehead against her open palm, just to feel the coolness. "I think this…time travel power…whatever gave it to us is pissed."
"Why's that?"
"I don't know! Because we were supposed to use it to do something. Something good, something better. And we tried! Dad, we really tried to make a better world…one where you lived."
"That certainly sounds better to me. I liked being alive." He made eye contact with her through the mirror and smiled for a moment. "But it sounds like it didn't work out."
Outside, the spiraling road kept going down. Trees on her right. The valley on her left. Some sprawling town twinkling with lights in the distance, somehow never closer.
"I don't know. Max said she made a world where you lived, but I got into a car accident instead. I was paralyzed, and then I was dying, and she…"
The faint glimmer of a memory, Max asleep at her side, watching her.
"That doesn't sound like a better world to me. Any world where you lived is a better one, even if I didn't. You should know that, Chloe."
"But we made another one, where you lived, and me and Max and even Rachel, we were all alive! Max and I were…together, and I got into college and Max moved back and…"
"And?"
"And I was happy. Really, actually, happy."
William smiled. "That's all I've ever wanted, Chloe. For you to be happy. I know that's what parents are supposed to say, but it's true. And it's not like I'm selfless. You can't know how happy it makes me to see you enjoying your life."
She swallowed back tears. "T-thanks, Dad."
"I'm just confused why you left your home back there. It looked like you were having the best life! A beautiful house, two amazing people who love you…"
Why couldn't you just have stayed? Everything would've seemed normal eventually, if you decided to believe in it.
"Because it wasn't real."
"Real. That matters to you, doesn't it? If something's real."
"Yeah, it does." She wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
"I can get that. That's why you told Rachel, all those years ago."
Rachel Amber in the hospital room, collapsing around her as she told her what her father had done. That look of pure hatred in her eyes when he entered. The crushing look as he realized she was gone for him forever.
"Right. It's what I would have wanted. To know the truth, even if it hurts. That's better than a lie."
"Everybody lies. Isn't that what you say?"
She nodded. "That's what I say. But I don't…did Rachel want to know? Would it have been better for her if she didn't? If all these alternate times are real, then maybe there's a world where she didn't know, and she was happier, and she never got involved with Frank or Jefferson, and she lived…"
"Maybe she would've found out eventually, and never forgiven you for lying. Maybe you would've never forgiven yourself. You can't keep agonizing over what-ifs, Chloe. You have to live the life you've been given."
"Dad, that's the whole point! That may be true for most people, but not for me, or Rachel or Max! I've already lived more lives than maybe anybody on Earth ever has – except for Max. I know that things could turn out differently! There's more than one story!"
"But knowing that doesn't help. Knowing that I'm alive in some other reality doesn't make it hurt less when I'm dead in yours."
"No. Maybe it makes it hurt more. Knowing that I could maybe try to reach you there, but then I'd just be…taking over some other Chloe's life."
"Some other Chloe? Which Chloe are you?"
A hundred Chloes on the beach, roasting marshmallows on a burning whale.
Chloe and Rachel in L.A.
Chloe and Max, together through most of their teens, in a world where everyone lived.
Chloe at the foot of the lighthouse, offering up herself to save everyone.
Chloe driving away in the rain, Max asleep at her side.
She didn't know what to answer. What Chloe was she? She was all of them, and none of them. She'd experienced everything they had, but she'd chosen what to focus on, which memories, however contradictory, to stitch together into her own version of herself. She never knew what she would look like when she looked into a mirror.
But all of the memories she chose to embrace had something in common.
"I'm the Chloe who…loves Max. We both saved each other. And I'm the Chloe who loves Rachel, too. I've never stopped. I don't know how to stop. Am I selfish? Is that fucked up?"
William looked off into the distance for a moment, then shrugged. "Of course you're selfish. We're all selfish. But there's a whole lot of different kinds of love in this world. Or in all the worlds." He laughed. "I'm just you, right? I think you know how you feel. I think you know which Chloe you are."
In the past she built for herself, Rachel had saved her. She'd come along, a star lost on earth, burning bright and fast, and helped her find her way out of the darkness. Even if just for a little while. It was enough. And when she began to burn out, Chloe did whatever she could to save her. It wasn't enough, but she'd tried.
And then Max came. She knew how she felt about her. She didn't know how to build a version of Chloe without Max, even if she was just in memories and dreams.
Whoever she was now, she knew one thing.
"I'm the Chloe who's going to save them. That's the fucking Chloe Price I am."
The spiral uncoiled, and in the distant gray horizon she could see that they'd finally left the mountain. The road ahead was a long, straight shot towards the town she saw earlier. The roiling ocean showed through the fog some miles to her right, breaking into view for just a moment before the clouds closed in again.
The radio station sputtered out in a burst of static, and the car shook in the sudden winds.
"You know we're getting closer, Chloe."
"I know."
"It's quite a storm, I've heard."
"I know."
"Apocalyptic, even." William frowned. "I'm worried about all those people. Do you think we could warn them?"
"We should have tried. But they wouldn't believe us. I'm just a dropout, and you're a ghost."
The welcome sign to Arcadia Bay flashed in the headlights. The storm raged harder outside, and in the distance above the bay she could see the enormous whirling shape of the tornado. Rachel's rage, or Max's mistake, or some fucking random fluke of time and space. Here it was, ready to swallow everything she loved. As it always did.
A truck blared its horn, low and impossibly close.
"Chloe, it's time."
"Dad, I…"
Something monstrous slammed into the side of the car, and then she was flying, surrounded on all sides by fire, swirling shards of glass, and melted metal. She landed on something hard, thought for a moment that she should be in a lot of pain now, but wasn't. Another roar blasted above, and the crumpled wreck flew away from her, like a meteor burning the opposite way, rejected by Earth and flaming towards the skies.
She was lying on the road in Arcadia Bay, surrounded by screams and whirling winds. A couple of people stepped over her like she was dead, clutching bags underneath their arms. Their faces were pale and wet.
You won't get out in time.
A shadow passed over her, and someone reached down a hand. She grabbed it, and was pulled upright, face to face with Rachel Amber in her Prospera costume.
The wizard grinned at her, blue flames reflected in her eyes.
"Rachel?"
Laughing, she spun away, fading into the rain like a projection. Chloe reached out a hand to pull her back, but it only passed through air and rain.
"Shit."
The tornado loomed ahead, shrieking like a demon. The wind lashed out, shoving her back against her hair, tossing her beanie into the skies. A loud screeching noise came from further down the road, and she turned towards it, already dreading.
A truck spun over like a toy, the screeching metal crunch of its collapse louder than the screams of those caught underneath it. A boat sailed through the sky, crashing into a building across the street. Flames erupted where it struck.
She raised a hand to shield her face from the heat. All around her, people were screaming and crying. Somewhere in the distance, she thought she could hear sirens, as if alerting people to the danger would have done anything at all to save them from it.
"It wouldn't," she said, almost to herself, stumbling ahead into the storm as the town scattered around her. "You're already gone. Max killed you. You died because of me."
A family huddled underneath an overturned truck, holding each other tight. "You all died," she said, walking past them.
Someone clawed at the window to a used bookstore, the shelves behind them alight with hungry fire. They beat at the window, trying to break it, but soon smoke obscured them and all sounds stopped.
"You died."
Two cars were fighting to slide through the wreckage, climbing slowly over piles of metal and snapped telephone poles. A couple people in each, hoping to escape.
"You died too." She kept going into the heart of the dying town.
She'd known all along where she was walking. The lights of the Two Whales flickered in and out. She'd heard from Max. She knew who was inside. She stepped over the oil slick outside, already beginning to spark.
Maybe I can save her, even if it's just a dream.
It was like it always was. The faded and torn booth seats. The posters speckling the walls. The long table in front of the kitchen. The smell of frying oil, bacon, and cheap coffee. And now, fire, sweat, and salt water. The lights above shuddered. A few more people were huddled in corners, some cradling wounds, others curled up and waiting for death. It would come for them, she knew. They would die afraid in a diner.
She heard the voice from behind, clear and resolute, giving orders, making plans, trying to keep the little ragtag collection of people safe, even though Chloe could sense the fear behind her words. She pushed her way past the counter.
"Chloe?"
Frank Bowers was on the floor, looking like shit.
"Fuck, man…I'm sorry," she said.
"Shoulda known I'd go out this way. You've always been a pain in my ass, Price."
She couldn't hold back a grin.
Good one, subconscious.
"Guilty as charged."
He really did look miserable. Max had told her about it, in halting words, during those early few days driving away from the ruin of the town, and then more, in another reality, growing up in a saved Arcadia Bay. Maybe her dreams were laying it on a little hard.
"I'm sorry, Frank. We…we had a lot in common, I think. Two Blackwell fuckups who couldn't get out of this town, and couldn't stop loving Rachel Amber."
"I'll drink to that," he said, raising a large water bottle. "To Rachel Amber. The only good thing this place ever had going for it."
It had two things, actually.
Frank offered her the bottle. She took it, drank, and passed it back. "Thanks for saving us."
He waved a hand at her. "You don't owe me shit. Your girl was cheating on you with me. I think that makes us even."
Cheating. Even now it still hurts.
"It was complicated. I'm glad…she made you happy, for a bit."
"All we can hope for."
"All we can hope for."
"Now go find your ma, I know you didn't come here to see me."
"Fuck no," she said, laughing. He grinned, and flipped her off.
She opened the doors to the kitchen and saw her mother. For just a moment, she forgot she was dreaming, or whatever she was doing, and ran into her arms. Joyce wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close. The fire licked the outside of the building, just out of sight.
"Honey, thank goodness you're safe…"
"Mom, I'm not safe, you're not safe, this place is going to explode! We gotta get out, c'mon, get the fuck out!"
"Chloe?"
"Mom, I'm sorry." She felt like she was going to be sick. She was shaking. "I was a shitty daughter! You needed me, and I…I shut you out."
"Chloe, it's…it's alright, you don't have to…"
"No, I do!" She felt the tears on her face now, warm against the cold. "I know what's going to happen to you. God, I wish I'd…"
"I'm right here, honey, it's okay. It's okay." Chloe let herself sink into her mother's arms, into the warmth of her. She smelled like coffee and syrup. Like home. "You couldn't have known."
"But I do now! I know, I swear, I know all of it."
"So you know that we had a lot of time together, right?"
The fire was already creeping along the oil slick, impossibly slowly.
She let out another sob. "Yeah. Were any of those times real? I mean, did you…did you really get to live those lives or…or…did they all fall apart? Is that what's going to happen? Am I trying to erase all those other timelines?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Chloe."
A bright, hot light flared up outside. There was nothing behind the windows except the fire. Nothing inside except her and her mother. The other people flickered in and out, like candles fighting against the wind.
"You're not real, I know. Just like Dad wasn't real. You're just…me. Talking to myself."
"Maybe. But there always was a lotta me in you. We Price women are fighters. Both William and David said so."
Chloe looked up at her, at this version of her mother she'd dreamt about so many times. Joyce Price, doomed to lose the ones she loved in so many ways. Doomed to die in a diner, her husband in a bunker with a psychopath, her daughter driving away with her soon-to-be-girlfriend. Or else, living on, losing her daughter as well her husband. And probably losing David too.
"You had a shit life, Mom. I know it. You…you didn't deserve any of this. You deserved more."
Joyce smiled. "You know that doesn't mean anything."
The fire spread past the windows now, nearly creeping its long, flickering fingers into the Two Whales. A slow motion death, almost upon them.
"You should go, Chloe. It's almost time."
She took a ragged breath. "Can't you come too?"
Joyce pulled her into another embrace. "Don't worry about me. I'll be alright. Go find Rachel and Max. They need you."
"Go where?"
"Where you don't want to go," she whispered.
Chloe didn't have time to respond before her mother pushed her into the back room, and everything exploded.
When her ears stopped ringing and the smoke cleared from her eyes, Chloe awoke into a world of white ash. The skeletal remains of buildings and trees stood stark against a pale sky. Crows clustered on the edges of dead doorframes and wheeled in the skies in strange patterns. Everything was still, and quiet, and dead.
Where you don't want to go.
She'd been trapped in nightmares before. She still remembered one night, only a few weeks after her father was killed, when she'd stolen some of what remained of his vodka and drank entirely too much alone in her room. Her dreams had been a cascading horror show of strange figures, enormous houses that led only to funeral homes, burning faces and bloody hands. Her teeth had fallen out, and something crouched low in the shadows behind her, following the trail of her bones. She'd tried to wake up, and she thought she had, only to be caught in another dream, and another after that. She'd finally woken up, drenched in sweat, her heart hammering, screaming. She'd half-hoped her mother would come into check on her, but she never did. She spent the rest of the night by the toilet, throwing up, jumping at every creak in the house, convinced she was still asleep.
She'd gotten out before. But this wasn't an ordinary nightmare. It was something else. She wasn't time-traveling, not in the literal sense, but she remembered touching the weird tree in the past, remembered Max and Rachel both disappearing, remembered the things she'd seen in a whirling rush of memory and story. Something about the source of the powers. Something deep in the bones of Arcadia Bay, reaching out to try to make things better in whatever way it could.
The power had sent Max into a horror show funhouse version of her own mind, and it had done the same to Chloe when she'd first experienced it out in the desert. Probably Rachel too. If the power chose them all, maybe it knew them, knew the things that kept them up at night.
"What do you want?" she asked. The crows looked down at her in silence.
She sank down into the ash. White flakes floated above her, settling on her arm like snow.
"No answer? Nothing? What a surprise. Just once I'd love if someone explained to me what the fuck was going on."
A piece of charred wood fell from a tree nearby, nearly dissolving into ash before it hit the ground. A few crows left their branch and darted in different directions. It was quiet.
"MAX! RACHEL!"
Her own voice echoed back at her, scared and desperate. She shook her head.
"Fine. I'll find them both. That's all I can do. Keep going."
Where you don't want to go.
Chloe looked up. She was in the charred husk of the old mill, and Sara was tied to a chair, her head lolling. Damon Merrick leaned over her.
"This shit is hard to kick."
She took a step closer. The knife was in her hands, like magic. "Hey Damon. Leave her the fuck alone."
He snarled, and leapt towards her.
He hurt Drew and Mikey, he almost killed Rachel, he ruined her mother, and he might have ruined everything.
And you couldn't stop him.
This time, she held her ground, and when his fist swung towards her, she ducked. The knife sped forward, all of her force behind it. She felt it slide into flesh, heard his breath cut out as he collapsed. She pulled the knife out. Better to let him bleed out.
She pushed him aside and stepped forward, only now it was Rachel tied to the chair. Jefferson was behind her, kissing her head, one hand sliding down the back of her shirt while the other injected a needle into her neck. He noticed her looking at him, and smiled.
"Chloe Price. Come to kill me again."
"Fucking yes, I'll kill you again. A hundred fucking times."
He laughed. "Go ahead. I'll still be alive in another reality. Every time you go back, every time you fix anything, I'll be waiting." He snapped his fingers. "Maybe in some reality I'll get the powers. Maybe then you'll be in my art."
The knife in her hand was a gun now. She curled her fingers around the grip and raised it to his face.
He laughed. "I'm just a dream. Killing me won't solve-"
The recoil kicked in her hands. A bright trail of blood spurted as he fell to the ground.
"Some things I don't regret."
When she looked away from his body, it was Sera again, sitting at the wooden table, smoking a cigarette. She gestured towards the wooden chair, the restraints now hanging listlessly at its side. Chloe sat down and put the gun on the table. Sera blew smoke in the air, and sighed.
"You don't regret killing him?"
Chloe looked back at his corpse, only now his face was James Amber's.
"I…I'm sorry it had to happen."
"But you don't regret your choice. I told you to keep the truth from her, and you didn't. You killed him for her. He died three years later in the storm, but you killed him."
"I couldn't lie to her."
"She could lie to you. And she did. I should know, I'm her mother."
Frank. Jefferson. Whoever it was in L.A.
"Yeah. Rachel is…complicated. It should've been up to her, but it wasn't." She stared at Sera, who looked even more like Rachel in her dreams. What if she had raised Rachel? Who would Rachel be then? Would she have even needed the powers in the first place?
"It was up to you."
"Yeah. I…I was sixteen. I was so fucking scared, and in love, and I'd almost died…how can you judge someone for their decision when they were like that?"
Sera shrugged, and offered the cigarette to Chloe, wordlessly. She took it. It didn't taste like anything.
"And anyway," she said, handing it back, "I don't regret it. I wonder what would've happened if I lied, sure. But knowing what I knew, I couldn't ever lie to her."
"That's fair. It's a lot to put on you. Still, I wish you would've chosen differently. Rachel deserved to have a father."
"I know."
They sat in silence, passing the cigarette back and forth across the heavy table. James' blood pooled around Chloe's ankles, but she didn't move them. It didn't really feel like anything.
"Did you…what happened to you?"
"Depends on the reality."
"In the one where…where the town was destroyed."
Sera took another long drag. "I left town right after we talked in 2010. Went as far east as I could go."
"You're just me. How could I know that?"
"You don't. But it makes sense. I told you I would leave."
"Right." She drummed her fingers on the table.
"You want to ask me something? Go ahead."
"Where is she? Where's Rachel? And Max…if you know where she is…"
"Don't know about Max. Rachel though…she's wrapped up in this in a way I don't understand." She put the cigarette out on the table. Smoke trailed up, curling like a tornado. "But I know Rachel. She'd want to take charge of whatever it is. If it didn't work out her way, she'd find a way to change it so it did."
Chloe nodded. "I saw something…I guess, at the beginning of this dream. Something about Arcadia Bay, and time, and Rachel. About our powers, about why all this happened."
Sera smiled. "Go on."
"Rachel…I think she's…part of this. Whatever part of her is still around, it's tied up with whatever gave us our powers."
"I think that's a reasonable assumption. Find the source of everything, and find her."
Chloe laughed. "Of course. That'll be easy. My mom said I had to go to where I didn't want to go, and then she sent me here. Is this where I don't want to go?"
Sera shook her head, her long hair falling in front of her face. Just like Rachel's. "You know this isn't it, Chloe. This is where I don't want to go. That bunker is where is Rachel doesn't want to go. Where do you not want to go?"
Oh.
"How do I get there?"
Sera gestured lazily towards the door back into what remained of the bar. "Just pick a door. It's your dream."
Chloe reached for the gun, then hesitated. She knew what she wanted it for. Who she wanted to use it on. Who she wanted lying dead on the bathroom floor. It would be so easy.
Where you don't want to go.
She left it on the table. The door to leave was half swung open, only a vague darkness visible behind it. Ash coated everything, even falling off her hair as she moved.
"Sera?"
"Yes, Chloe?"
"Do you like your life now?"
She smiled. "No, I don't think so. Rachel is gone. Even James is gone. Staying clean is…it's hard. Damon took that away from me. But I'm better than I was before."
"Yeah."
"Sometimes that's what life is. Going on."
Chloe nodded, and stepped into the darkness.
The hallway seemed to stretch on forever. The skeletons pasted to the school walls turned their heads, smoke curling from the cigarettes in their mouths. The security guards, all whose faces were either David's or Skip's, turned away, flicking their flashlights down other corridors. In the darkness, only the door to the girl's bathroom was illuminated.
Where you don't want to go.
"Let's get this fucking over with."
She opened the door.
The body lying on the floor, blood pooling across the dirty tiles, only looked like her in the most superficial sense. Sure, her face looked like Chloe Price, and she had the beanie, and the tattoos, and the blue hair. But it wasn't her. It…wasn't…it wasn't…
"You offered to do it," said her reflection in the warped mirror. "You told her to go back and let it happen."
"Your one act of heroism," said another reflection. "The best thing you could do for Arcadia Bay was to fucking die."
"Everything you've been doing, all your multiple lives and time traveling adventures, all your little moments of self-discovery in dreams, it's all because you let an entire town be destroyed. All so you could be someone's fucked up idea of a perfect love story."
"You drove away laughing, because if you couldn't bring yourself to get out of here, at least you could fucking burn it down. That's what you do, Chloe Price. You destroy things."
Chloe punched the mirror. It shattered into a thousand shards, raining down on the sink in a mixture of silver and blood. The other Chloes in the mirrors kept laughing.
"And now you find out that there are other timelines? Other realities where you weren't so much of a selfish fuck-up? Wow, perfect, now you can assuage your guilt. It's not that bad they all died, because they're alive somewhere else. How convenient."
"Frank Bowers. Kate Marsh and her entire family. Warren Graham. Taylor Christensen. Courtney Wagner. Dana Ward. Hayden Jones. Juliet Watson. Alyssa Anderson. Brooke Scott. Daniel DaCosta. Evan Harris. Justin Williams. Luke Parker. Stella Hill. Trevor Johnson. Ms. Grant. Raymond Wells. Samuel Taylor. Skip Matthews. James Amber. Rose Amber…"
Chloe looked away from the mirrors, her hands covering her ears. "Stop!"
"What are you even trying to do? Get out of this to your 'perfect world'? Change it so nothing bad happened?"
"You know what happens when you use the power. Do one thing, everything splits."
"One world where you change it."
"One world where it stays the same."
"All those leftover Max and Chloe's."
"Each one thinking they're about to change something."
"Each one knows they got unlucky. Waving their hands around doing nothing."
"So even if you fix everything, they all died."
"Shut up!" She shouted, turning her back to the mirrors. Her blood ran between her fingers, dripping to the floor, mingling with the blood of that dead Chloe. "I didn't…I didn't choose this!"
"Max only did it because she loved you. It only happened because she saved you. You only died because you and Rachel tried to get away from this town. She only wanted to get away because she hated her father. She only hated her father because you told her what he did. You only found out what she did because you fucking tanked your life because a pretty girl asked you to skip school."
She whirled around. "Alright, they're all dead because of me! Rachel and Max broke time because of me. We all fucked up! We made better worlds and then ruined like, like we ruin everything!"
The Chloes in the mirror smiled in unison, raising their arms. The blood trickled down, swirling around their arms and growing thick and dark. Her own arm felt heavy, covered in stone. It dropped down to her side. She could hear the blood pumping in her chest, feel it course through her veins, pound in her head.
"I deserve this," she muttered. The Chloes in the mirror nodded. "Rachel could have already left without me, or never needed to. Max would never have had to make that decision. She'd just be a photographer. Probably end up with Warren, have kids, live in a nice house."
The mirror warped, and she could see an older Max, wearing glasses and a sweater, holding a little girl, grinning and laughing. An older Warren came up beside her, wrapping his arms around her, kissing her head.
"I'm a mistake. I ruined all their lives. I ruined time."
She felt herself fall to her knees, splashing in the blood. This is where she always belonged. Where the writers of the universe had meant her to end up. Her own dead body lay beside her, a blue butterfly stepping lightly on her mouth.
A butterfly.
The picture of the butterfly that Max had torn apart and tossed over the edge. The picture that could've saved Arcadia Bay.
The picture that did save Arcadia Bay, in another reality.
Max took that picture. She saw something beautiful, and had to take the shot. And then she saved Chloe's life.
But not here. Chloe was dead here, so that meant Max…
Her arm was impossibly heavy. She crawled, her hands and knees warm with blood, across the bathroom floor. The voices from the mirrors were growing louder, all her innermost thoughts, all the things she feared and regretted and hated about herself echoing in that small room filled with death.
"You pretend to feel guilty, but you don't. You want to go on your endless field trip with Max. Or Rachel. Doesn't really matter."
"Max is obsessed with you, because she has to convince herself you're the greatest fucking thing ever, worth at least an entire town."
"You're supposed to die alone and forgotten. Time split apart because you didn't know your place."
She crawled forward, one hand ahead of the other. It was so heavy.
"Your mother's dead because of you. Her life was full of shit because of you."
"You could've made things better with David, at least just for your mom. But you had your pride."
"Elliott was right about Rachel. She's still pulling your strings now."
The last stall was ahead, the door hanging open. She was so close now. Her arm dragged behind her, impossible to move. Her breath came slow. Her head pounded.
"You and Max will fall apart eventually, just like you and Rachel did. That's how all relationships end."
"You'll never get out. There will never be a time when you're safe."
"What will you do? Go to college? Work at a gas station? You're a fucking dropout. You're poor."
"Max and Rachel left you. They're better off without you."
She rounded the end, her face nearly pushed into the floor. The voices were so loud. It was time to close her eyes. She'd done enough. The grief was too much. The world would be better off without Chloe Price.
Someone cried.
She opened her eyes.
Max Caulfield laid on the floor, her hands hugging her knees, sobbing. Her camera lay smashed beside her.
"Max?"
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry…" she muttered, rocking back and forth.
"Is it you? Are you real?"
Max screamed again, a loud, hoarse cry that shook her whole body. She leaned away from Chloe, her face towards the wall.
"She's not real," said a voice from the mirror.
"Saving her won't do anything."
"You're dying under a tree right now."
"She's even worse than you."
She didn't know if the voices were right. Maybe they were. Maybe none of this was real. But for once, it didn't matter. She dragged herself closer, and reached for Max's hand. She pushed herself up, leaned against the stall, and cradled Max in her arms.
The voices in the mirror keep shouting, but she let them speak until their voices grew tired, and they faded into the background. Only whispers. Not silent, not absent, but weak. Max's head rested against her chest, under her chin. She smelt like Max. She felt…real. It was impossible to think that she was real, that somehow there were separate thoughts and a separate life inside this one person. Her friend, throughout all her lives. She loved her. Even if she was a dream. Even if she was only a memory.
"Max?"
Max didn't respond, but her crying had stopped. She seemed like she was sleeping, breathing slowly.
"I'm here. It's Chloe. I'm okay. You're okay. I love you. Do you get that? Are you listening to me? I love you. No matter what you've done, I love you. We will get through this, okay?"
She looked up, back towards the mirrors. Only now it was Max's face that stared out at her.
Max has to be hearing those voices a million times louder than me.
Suddenly, she understood.
"Fuck. This is your place too, isn't it? The place you don't want to go. We're both here! This is you, the real you! We're all connected…we're…our dreams are all connected…and that means…"
Max shifted in her arms. Alive.
Awake, dear heart, awake!
"Chloe?"
"Max!"
They held each other there, in the darkest pits of their own minds, in the place poised on the edge of dreams and time. One solid thing living in the horrors. An anchor in a storm.
When they finally let go of each other, the voices were gone. The blood had drained away, and there were no other bodies lying on the bathroom floor. The mirrors showed only their own reflections, warped and bruised, but thankfully, silent.
"God, Chloe, this has so been fucked up."
"Shit Max, it was hard for me, I can't imagine what you went through…"
She held her hand. Squeezed it tight.
"I'm done with that. Whatever we did, it's in the past now." She looked up at her. "We have to make things better going forward. Or all of that would be for nothing."
"Right."
"Let's save Rachel."
"Shit Max, what if we really do this? I know there's that other reality where everything's great but…I tried so hard to save her and I was always too late…"
"She's still here. Only…I don't know where. I never got the chance to really know her."
"I know where she is."
"The bunker?"
Rachel in the dark room.
Awake, dear heart, awake!
"No. She's…tougher than us. She's tied up in all of this, part of whatever gave us our powers."
"I saw it too, the visions? It tried to save her first!"
Chloe nodded. "She's special to it. She's part of it, somehow."
"So where is she?"
"Where she felt the most powerful."
They walked the long hallway of Blackwell Academy in silence, holding hands. She knew they were both remembering their own long night in this school, sneaking into Principal Wells' office, going for their night swim and realizing that strange fluttering sensation in their stomachs when they looked at each other. Coming this close to being caught, but driving away at the last minute.
Outside, the Blackwell lawn was lit by streetlamps and fireflies, flickering like stars. Posters stood where the pathways intersected. Ferdinand. Miranda. Caliban. Ariel.
And Prospera, sitting on the stage, sand poured out on the floor to create a makeshift island. The sails of the crashed ship fluttered in the night breeze. She stood up, clapping, her face in a wide grin. When they approached, she raised a hand, ordering them to stop. For some reason, Chloe couldn't help but listen. They both sat down on the plastic chairs and looked up at Rachel Amber – no, Prospera – resplendent in tattoos and robes, glowing with blue light, fire dancing on her limbs. Chloe felt the ground underneath her tilt, only to see that the entire Blackwell mall was on an enormous ship, floating in the seas, lifting high on the waves in a dark and stormy night.
"Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow…"