Despite the light inside the bunker, it had still taken a few seconds for Warren's eyes to get used to the difference; that could've ended badly had there been someone less than friendly waiting for them in the bunker, but it looked like they lucked out.
"See? Nobody's here," Chloe bragged while putting her knife away, then looked around and whistled. "Wow, look at this place. Stocked and ready for apocalypse. Must've cost a fortune."
Warren, relieved that his worries were wrong, leaned his pitchfork against the wall and took the sight in for himself. Shelves stocked to the brim with water and long-lasting food, shelves stocked with bottles of…something. This place looked brand new, and, coupled with the faint lighting leaving the room in a state of penumbra...
It was unnerving, to say the least.
"Wow, what the hell is this?" Max whispered from behind Warren, the last to enter the bunker.
The more Warren considered it, the more this place looked like some sort of a storm shelter: the food supplies, the water access via a sink, the depth – not quite deep enough to be a fallout shelter, but deep enough to not be anything but, maybe, tornado bunker.
But why would Prescotts have one built here? This part of Oregon never had tornadoes to speak of!
"There's another room here. Cmon," Chloe's waved for them to follow her.
"Go on, Max," Warren said when he saw the girl slightly hesitating, "I'll check this place out first, then meet up with you guys."
When she left for the other part of the bunker, Warren was left to his own devices. He didn't even get to examine much of his own domain, before Chloe's and Max's continued remarks piqued his interest and he himself stepped in.
Honestly, it looked like a really expensive photography room? Warren wasn't sure, but the large white screen at its' rear end and the overabundance of tripods left little room for other suggestions. He had to sit in a similar, albeit much cheaper, setup himself while getting a proper photo for his driver's license.
But it wasn't just a photography room. Dozens of framed photos lined the walls, each in black-and-white, each depicting something tragic, something torturous, for lack of a better word. Not a speck of dirt, or dust on the walls, or the floor. It almost looked like a typical surgery room: clean, pristine, sterile.
Cold.
"This place's sketchy as fuck, but nothing on Rachel yet. Just loads of photography-related shit here," Chloe complained, rummaging through one of the cupboards.
"It's also expensive as fuck," Max shot back, looking through a stack of papers on the table by the white screen, "but all these papers are about Rachel being missing and Kate almost killing herself. This can't be a coincidence!"
"That's Prescuck's jacket on the fucking couch," Chloe seethed, not looking away from the drawer. "It isn't a goddamn coincidence, that's for sure."
Nathan's jacket? Here? Oh shit.
"Oh shit," Warren inadvertently spoke it. Both Chloe and Max jumped up a little.
"Warren?" Max asked him.
"His jacket's here. He was in it just today, I've seen him, before- before the dorms," Warren rapidly voiced his thoughts. "He might decide to come back for it; and-"
"And he's still got his gun," Chloe finished for him, both her and Max getting more pale by the second. "Fuck! What do we do?!"
"I-I can stay by the doors, try and ambush him if he comes-"
"No, Warren, that's a dumb idea!" Max forcefully stopped him. "We need to be out of here before he comes. Help us search this room."
"I mean, we can take him," Chloe waved the idea off. "If the push comes to shove-"
"No, Chloe!" Max, even more forcefully, interrupted the girl, scaring her a little, "What if the push comes to shove and I fail? What if it doesn't work? What if I can't rewind you, or Warren, back?"
"Max?" Warren called out in confusion, "What're you talking about?"
Max ignored him, still focused on Chloe. "What if I wouldn't be able to save you from Nathan in the bathroom? Or from that train? Or just now when that old motor fell straight on-" she choked up. "We can't keep taking these risks, Chloe! Because I'm scared that there will be a moment where we take one that doesn't pay off, and - Dog - and my powers aren't there to make it right!" She slumped down on the couch, Chloe staying silent and frozen at her spot.
Warren was shocked. What was Max talking about? Powers? Saving Chloe? Was that what she was talking about when he'd heard her talking about "rewinding"? Thoughts swirled in his head, rooting him to the spot, much like Chloe.
Chloe, however, recovered from her stupor first.
"Shit, Max, I'm sorry," she spoke, hesitantly reaching out for a hug which the brunette returned. Warren felt a spark of jealousy light up, but it might as well have been a needle in a haystack, he buried it so deep.
"I know you are Chloe," Max sighed after the hug, "but you- you should really be more careful. Feels like you have a deathwish, you know?"
"Well, I mean, losing the family and friends you love over and over kinda does that to you," Chloe tried to play it off jokingly, "but at least I got one of 'em back. Now we just need to find Rachel. That's it," she lifted her eyes off Max and spotted Warren standing by the couch. "Oh and speaking of friends. Do I even need to ask if you heard what we were talking about?"
Warren shrugged, unsure what do to with himself. "I mean, yeah? The acoustics in this place are pretty good." Max was facing him now, scrubbing gently at her eyes, and the sight made his heart clench a little bit. "What's going on, Max?" he asked simply.
"I've…" Max started, playing with her hair while Chloe squatted down by her side, "I thought of telling you, Warren. Ever since that parking lot B.S. on Monday. But um…"
"I butted in," Chloe appropriately butted in.
"That she did. And, um, she got to know what's going on first. You deserve to know too, Warren."
Warren wasn't aware of how tightly he was gripping the couch while listening to her. As if this day couldn't get any crazier, it looked like Max was going to drop another bomb on him.
"But…"
Well, crap.
"I really can't tell you. Not now. It's a long story, and- and more than likely by the end of it you'll think I'm crazy," Max started to ramble and more than anything in the world right there and then Warren wanted to tell her that she wasn't, couldn't be under any circumstance, but he didn't find it in him to interrupt her, "but I'm not. I'll prove it to you."
"She had to me," Chloe butted in, "so much that I've got zero doubt now."
"Yep. But- it's a handful to listen to and to understand. I'll tell you everything – and Chloe will back me up – but we need to get through this place first, grab all the evidence and then get out."
"What a way to build up the hype, sheesh," Warren said the very first thing that came to his mind. Max snorted while Chloe outright guffawed for a solid second. "I'll wait 'till you're ready to tell me, Max. But, um, we science guys are naturally curious, so, don't wait too long to tell me, I guess?"
Max got up off the couch; Chloe did the same. "Of course. But now we should really leave this place upside down."
Warren had a sudden realization. "Maybe we shouldn't. Uh."
Both girls frowned at him. "Okay, dude, totally lost me there," Chloe said.
"I don't mean like we shouldn't search this place," Warren tried explaining. "Just that we shouldn't, you know, take anything with us, or move things around too much, or else Prescott might get suspicious when he gets here and realize that someone broke in. I mean we did break the lock – that's uh, kind of a red flag already."
"Crap, that makes sense," Chloe nodded back. "What do we do instead?"
Fuck. "I uh…how about we just…"
"Waaait, I get what you're saying Warren," Max suddenly stepped in, voice lined with fake smugness. "You're both so lucky you have an up-and-coming professional photographer who just so happens," she pulled her camera out with a flair, "to possess the perfect tool to record evidence without tampering with it too much."
Wait, what? Warren was going to suggest anonymously guiding police to this place instead, but this was an even better idea! "Uh, um, yeah! Sounds perfect," he grinned awkwardly. "You can take pictures of this entire place, and we can go over them later, when we're not on a time limit."
"Mad Max with the mad ideas strikes again!" Chloe hugged the girl from behind. "But maybe you gotta forget about instant film this time, Maximus. Carrying a dozen or so physical pictures on you is hella lot more conspicuous than having 'em on your phone."
"Fine," Max shrugged, putting her camera away. "I guess that means you guys get to play photographers too. Three people make three times the shots."
"Aye, Aye, Cap'n," Chloe pulled out her own smartphone. Warren did the same and headed back to the first room. There, a simple question struck him: what the hell was he supposed to take pictures of, exactly? He was a chemist, not a (possible) crime scene investigator? Wait…
Warren turned to the shelf filled with chemicals. Squinting in the semi-darkness, he tried to read the labels.
Boy, there were quite a lot of labels.
Opaque bags and bottles labeled "methol", "hydroquinone", or "sod. carbonate"; a few, almost empty ones, went by "potassium bromide" and "sodium hydroxide". There were more bottles, filled and empty, label-less and labeled, but Warren paid them no mind, taking a few flash-assisted photos in quick succession, trying to capture as many of them as possible.
Some of these chemicals' names he hadn't even heard of before (and wasn't that a blow to his ego); the rest, he recognized quite easily, but couldn't fathom how they were to be used together.
Unless…
Warren made sure to stop and give himself and imaginary facepalm.
Unless they were somehow used in photography, since the three of them were apparently exploring some kind of creepy photography room. Very creepy and Prescotty photography room.
Wait, so that meant Nathan Prescott used these chemicals, including some even Warren never knew of? The same Nathan Prescott who could barely name the formula for a water molecule, when he bothered to show up for chemistry class once in a blue moon?
Warren narrowed his eyes, still staring at the shelf. Something about this discrepancy didn't sit right with him.
The rest of the room wasn't nearly as interesting, so Warren only made sure to picture the general layout of it, as well as capture the absolutely massive stockpile of food. He was about to go back, before a letter on the table by the sink caught his attention. Knowing he'd already lost God-knows how much time daydreaming about what "methol" was supposed to be, he didn't bother reading the letter, only taking one quick capture of it. He did notice the thing being addressed to Sean Prescott, so, hopefully, it was important.
Hopefully.
"Warren?" Max called him from the other room. "Warren, come over here for a minute!"
Well, that was his clue to leave.
"What's happenin', Max?" he jogged over to the girl and watched as she pointed to a trolley filled with syringes and some sort of medical bottles.
"Look. One of the bottles is labeled, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it says. Mind giving me a hand?"
"She means your eye, Graham!" Chloe called over from where she was still searching through the same cupboard, only this time occasionally taking photos of the inside.
"Well, I'm no calligraphy expert," Warren mumbled, "but I'll give it a shot, sure."
The letters were indeed unreadable (so typical of anything handwritten and related to medicine), but the more Warren focused on the bottle, the more he seemed to just…get what was inscribed. Maybe it was his chemical knowledge subconsciously pushing the idea to his mind.
The label read GHB. Warren made the connection instantly.
Gamma-Hydroxybuturic Acid. He'd read about it, of course. Done his research, both because it had been part of the curriculum, and because he was just a chemistry whiz hungry for knowledge.
Naturally occuring acid, quite important for central nervous system. Also a drug, sometimes used for obvious recreational reasons.
More importantly in their situation, though…
"This," Warren rasped, suddenly finding throat dry, "is GHB. A common," he felt nauseous saying the words, "date-rape drug."
Max stepped back, eyes wide in shock. Even Chloe stopped and turned around him.
"Say what now?" she asked in a low voice. "A date-ra-" she couldn't force the words out, face scrounging out in part anger, part shock as well. "That fucking weasel! He- we gotta find something on Rachel! Now!" Frantically, she approached a pile of stacked black boxes near the drawer and tried to open them, nearly tipping them all over.
Max rushed over to the punk, trying to calm her down. Warren stayed where he was, unmoving, still staring at the damned drug bottle, trying to connect the dots in his head.
Nathan Prescott, a guy who barely knew chemistry, yet had an entire chem lab's worth of various chemicals stocked down here. Was he pretending?
Nathan Prescott, guy who possessed drugs that basically shut a person's brains and nerves down, and he had syringes. Needles. Things that required precision.
How would Nathan Prescott have precision when Warren spied him trying to smoke a single cigarette on campus not a week ago and downright ruining three of them – all because his tremors were so bad he couldn't hold a lighter straight? How could he inject GHB? Plus, two whole bottles? That's too much for a single person – you only need a few drops at most; and he wouldn't be able to inject a syringe straight without having his (or someone else's, Warren's mind supplied darkly) arm roleplay as a pincushion.
Warren kept thinking, his eyes burning into the GHB bottle, as if begging it to speak of what could have been happening here. The more he thought about it, the more he frowned. An idea, a realization brewed in him; a simple one, one that explained a lot of these discrepancies, but would leave them with even more questions.
"Um, Max? Chloe?" he hesitantly started. "I think I realized something."
"That this entire thing sucks some major fuckin' balls?" Chloe mirthlessly chuckled from where she was slumped on the ground, Max by her side. "Yeah, bro, welcome to the club. Took you long enough."
"No, I, ah…I don't think Nathan's doing all this on his own."
That drew the girls' attention properly.
"What makes you think that, Warren?" Max inquired, and Warren started explaining what it was exactly. The more he spoke, the more he saw Max and Chloe's face switch from curiosity to thoughtfulness, the more confident he became.
"Finally, look at this place, guys" he started explaining another piece of this puzzle that'd occurred to him. "Especially you, Max. I am no photography expert, so I'll need you to, uh, to vouch here. Doesn't this look a little too…professional to you?"
Max took a second to take a good look around the room again. "Yeah, this is a proper studio setup, I'd say," she agreed, "but I don't understand what's strange about it."
"You're sayin' Prescott wouldn't use it?" Chloe asked back.
"I- uh, how do I say this- it just looks a little too professional for him, y'know? I mean, everybody at Blackwell's supposed to be either really good at what they're doing, or, y'know," Warren pointed to Nathan' discarded jacket, "just there on parents' money. But even those that got in legit, like you, Max… no matter how good we're doing, we're all still…amateurs at this point. We're still kinda bad at what we're doing – that's why we're there. To learn.
"Nathan Prescott's probably at the same level too, unless, I dunno, he's had some wicked private lessons before enrolling. So, ask yourselves guys: would an amateur really be able to make use of all this?"
Silence reigned in the room as Max and Chloe sat on the couch, digesting the information. Finally, Max got up, and, judging by her furrowed brows, Warren hadn't convinced her.
"I get where you're coming' from, Warren, but this sounds far fetched for me. Prescotts - they're kind of vain. Buying all the most expensive shit money can possibly buy is kind of their thing. I've been in Nathan's room, it's same overpriced showcase over there. This is exactly like Nathan's style."
"And, hell, I really don't wanna be fuckin' playin' devil's advocate right now," Chloe got up with a slight grunt as well, "but we can't really discard Prescott, being, ugh…more than he appears to be. I mean," she pointed at Warren, "neither of us – you included – probably expected you to push Nathan's shit in; but voila!" she clapped. "Maybe the bastard's actually wicked smart when he needs to be. I mean, did you know I used to fuckin' love chemistry? Was hella good at it. Wanted to go to MIT after Blackhell and shit."
Warren stared at Chloe in disbelief.
"Totally true," Max supported her with a soft laugh. "I vouch for her. Anything chemistry, she was A+. Totally didn't cheat all my homework off her or anything."
"Yep, and you still hella owe it for me, hippie," Chloe elbowed her lightly. "See, Warren? I'm an ex-scientist, you're kinda real life Hulk, and Max can- uh-"
"Like I said, Warren," Max gently interrupted her, "We'll tell you about it later. Right now we really should finish digging through this place."
"Over there," Chloe quickly tilted her head in the direction of a computer setup. "You two go check it out, while I check the boxes."
"Woow," Warren breathed out in awe as both of them approached the desktop, "this is a nice setup."
"Wowzer, no kidding. Prescott funding in all its glory. Hey, look, some kind of note?" Max pointed to a piece of paper duct-taped to the side of the monitor, then took a quick photo of it.
"What's it say?"
Max took a minute to read through the contents, her expression changing as she went along. "Wow. Sean's putting some real pressure on Nathan."
Curious, Warren took a moment to read through the piece himself. "Holy crap," he came to the same conclusion, "Worst Dad of 2013 material right there. I kinda get why he looks so on edge all the time now." Circling the table, he noticed flickering lights on the computer under the table. "Yo, Maximus!" he got the girl's attentiom. "The system's still on. See if you can can unlock it; I'll check the cupboard here."
When Max nodded and started fiddling with the computer, Warren opened the cupboard, and stared at the contents. Dozens of office binders stared back at him, each one with a different name scribbled on the cover. He skimmed through the names quickly, trying to find any he could recognized.
He hoped he couldn't. Then, at the bottom shelf, he saw something that made him suck his breath in. Three binders standing in a row, the rest covered by the closed cupboard door.
MEGAN. KELLY. VICTORIA. KATE.
Shit.
He took the binders out and was about to put them on the table when, with a brief and terrified "Oh my God!", what could only be Max pushed into him, knocking the boy off course and causing him to drop the binders to the ground. As Warren tried to get his bearings, he could hear Chloe say "Max? Are you o- oh shit.", before she promptly fell silent as well.
"Ugh," Warren groaned, choosing to forget about the binders on the ground, and instead see what it was that could spook the girls into silence so much. He took in the sight of Max covering her mouth with one hand, trembling slightly; he took in the sight of Chloe staring at the monitor, her face hidden by the bangs, but her hands – rolled into fists and shaking – conveying her emotions well enough.
Then Warren Graham took in the sight of a picture on the now-workjng monitor and understood exactly why everyone's been shocked into silence.
Kate Marsh, half undressed, tied up and gagged, with her makeup long ruined, looking drugged out of her mind. Posing for a picture.
Warren felt his heart drop through the floor.
"What a sick fuck," Chloe growled.
Warren's foot stumbled against something. Warren looked down – it was one of the dropped binders he'd completely forgotten in the span of a few seconds this fucked-up revelation had taken. "Girls…look," he picked up the binders hastily and dropped them all on the table, the girls surrounding him.
Warren picked the Kate's binder, opened it before the dread could make him freeze and instantly recoiled back, feeling sick to the core. If that singular photo on the screen was bad, then this was so much worse.
"Oh my god. Kate…no…" Max whispered weakly beside him.
There were dozens of these pictures – each depicting Kate in various states of awareness (but never sober), in various poses, each supplied with disgusting notes about how "exhilarating" her "innocence" was. Warren didn't last more than a single page, looking away from the table and gripping the opened cupboard door, trying his hardest not to vomit.
He'd never wanted to see Kate like that. Never meant to. Nobody was supposed to. Except, apparently, Nathan Prescott and some mysterious son of a bitch who was helping him.
"God, we should've killed the bastard back then," Chloe muttered, rapidly and angrily turning pages on the binder.
Taking deep breaths, Warren finally managed to get his sickness under control. "As much as it scares me to do so, I agree with Chloe here."
"I…Nathan's unwell, but-" Max tried to find her words, "this is way over the line. We aren't gonna let him get away next time. Chloe, can you take the pictures? I can't…" she trailed off, and Warren was happy to see the relief on her face when the other girl wordlessly took her phone out and started documenting the evidence. "Thank you." She then opened the binder named "KELLY" and Warren shut his eyes tight once he saw just a hint that this Kelly had been through a similar experience. "God, it's all the same here. Poor girl."
Warren pointed towards the half-opened cupboard. "There are dozens of binders here. That's- that's a lot of victims." He dragged out a random binder, handed it to Max and made sure to look away until she had confirmed it with a broken-sounding "Yeah."
He saw Chloe's eyes widen as she finished photographing Kate's binder and looked at the cupboard herself. "This is hella damning fucking evidence against Prescunt; and if he tries anything," she shook her phone demonstratively, "we got him beat. Let's just- wait," she paused and looked Warren in the eyes. "There….wasn't anything on Rachel. Right?"
"No, no, I went through the names but didn't see it," Warren quickly assured her, "but…Victoria's binder!" he quickly shoved past the girls and dragged said binder from the bottom of the pile.
"Oh crap," Max breathed out in fright, tentatively reaching to open it. Warren looked away, holding his breath. The few seconds it had taken may as well have been a lifetime.
"Empty. Thank fuck," Chloe spoke up and Warren sighed in relief.
"It is," Max agreed, "but…Victoria? She and Nathan are best friends! How? Why?"
"Bastard's real fucked up, that's what and how and why, Max. I think it's time we get the fuck outta dodge now. It sucks real bad that we found nothing on Rachel here, but if it means she'd been spared of this…" Chloe trailed off.
Warren held up his hand. "Wait. We still have to warn Victoria about this, right? She's the next target. The "End of the World" party's tonight. He might dose her like- like Kate! How do we warn her?"
"I know just the way," Max said, taking a photo of Kate's closed binder; she then opened it on a random page and positioned it next to Victoria's closed one. "She really doesn't like me, but this should be damning evidence to get her to listen to reason. Hopefully." Hesitating for a bit, Max took the picture.
"Don't worry about it, Max," Chloe waved her off, "Victoria's been a bitch long before you came back to Arcadia Bay. Wait," she stopped. "Wait, she's a jealous bitch too. She might believe she's in danger, but if she and Nathan are tight, Queen Beee-tch might still defend him, thinking you're just throwing slander around"
"Well, Nathan's jacket is here?" Warren pointed to couch. "Maybe we take it and Max can frame a photo where it's in background? Victoria will definitely recognize it. It'll, give, um, your argument some merit."
"Good thinking, brother," Chloe nodded, reaching for the jacket and throwing it to Max, who caught it with ease.
"Okay, if this doesn't convince her, it'll convince me that she in on this thing," the girl said bluntly after taking the final shot and putting the jacket back. "I really hope not. Feel like I've had enough revelations today to fill the quota for the next year."
"Same here, Max," Warren replied, gathering the closed binders together. "You guys should get out now. I'll put the binders back the way they were stacked originally." Getting a nod from Max and a thumbs up from Chloe, he moved to place the binders back into the cupboard.
"Enough revelations for the next year," Warren mirrored Max's words under his breath, opening the other cupboard door and starting to stack the damned binders back. "I wishjust the revelation that I can beat Nathan Prescott up was the only one today. God."
If only wishes were horses, then; because as soon as Warren was about to put Kate's binder into its' original place, he noticed another one that was right next to it this whole time, only originally obstructed by the door.
RACHEL
"Oh crap," Warren choked. His legs were suddenly unable to handle his weight and he stumbled clumsily back into the table, making a lot of noise.
"Warren?" came Max's worried voice from somewhere far away.
"Guys," Warren croaked out as loudly as he could, still staring at the name as if was the barrel of a gun pointed at him. "Rachel," he managed to vocalize. A second later, there were a lot of hurried footsteps before Chloe's face appeared before his own.
"Rachel?" she almost screamed, panting. "Warren what did you f-" She reacted instantaneously a, following along as Warren simply pointed at the cupboard. "Oh my god," she stumbled back into the table much like he had, hands covering her mouth.
"Guys?" Max caught up with them and saw what they were looking at. "Oh- no, no, no…"
Chloe reached for the binder with trembling hands and put it on the table.
She couldn't make herself open it. Warren couldn't either.
Max could.
She opened the binder; and then, the three of them were looking at Rachel Amber, in the same position as all the other girls before her; yet somehow, somehow these photos were the worst of them all. Warren could feel nausea boiling in his throat again. He shook his head trying to fight it, trying to fight the cognitive dissonance of remembering the girl, bright and sunny as she was, and then seeing her like this.
"No…no, no, no" Chloe was rambling, rapidly looking back between the photos, Max and him, "this can't be real. No, no, please, he can't have done this- these must be posed shots, right?"
"Chloe" Max tried to reason, "look at her. She's…dosed."
"NO!" Chloe kept stammering through the words, through denial. "No! No way! He must've- must've paid her a shitton to do this. We needed money- she would've agreed to it!"
"I don't think she would've agreed to- to be dosed," Warren said, swallowing heavily as Chloe turned to him with desperate eyes that just begged to take back what he'd just said.
"Guys, look," Max spoke up, her finger on something. Warren looked over Chloe's shoulder, holding his breath from Max's words. "Why is he putting her in the ground like that?"
It was one of the pictures - the very last in the binder. Nathan Prescott putting some sort of a sizeable bag into a hole dug in the ground, somewhere in what looked like a junkyard. All framed in trademark black-and-white filter.
This was part of Rachel's binder. The implications were damning.
Warren slumped down heavily onto the office chair.
"Holy shit," he exhaled unsteadily.
"The junkyard!" Chloe suddenly said in a panicked voice. "It's in the junkyard! I know where that spot is! We- we have to find it! We have to see! We have to see what he did!" She kept looking back and forth frantically between Warren and Max, holding onto the other girl's hands. "There's no way she's dead! There's no way! There can't be a way! He paid her, I just know it!"
Warren wished he could be in denial like Chloe Price now. He wished he could believe that that photo was just a set-up. It was absurd, but Warren felt bad for just assuming Rachel Amber was dead like that. He wanted to cling on to hope, like Chloe, false as it was. False as it probably had been with Max.
But he was a rational guy. He couldn't.
"Chlo," Max tried to hug the girl.
Chloe pushed her back. "Please, Max. I- we have to see. We have to go. Warren?" she turned to the boy with a pained and desperate expression on her face.
Warren got up off the chair, looking at the girls with much the same expression. "I'll…put all of this back. You should start the truck," he swallowed heavily, not knowing what else to say.
Chloe nodded gratefully and made a beeline for the exit. Max rushed after her. "We'll wait for you, Warren", were her final words before she disappeared behind the heavy-duty door.
Now that Warren was alone, the silence was deafening. The brightness of the room, blinding. Warren wanted to curl into a ball right here on the spot, fall asleep and wake the fuck back up this morning, forgetting that all of this had really happened.
He looked back at the binder, wincing as glanced at the photos. How could Nathan do this? Even if he had (he had), why leave the evidence?
Warren jerked straight. Evidence!
Fumbling, he dragged his phone out of the back pocket, turned on the camera app, turned the binder back to the first page and started taking pictures, making sure each was a clear as his camera resolution allowed. For every single picture of Rachel's, he took a picture of his own; even as his eyes watered looking at the dull-eyed face of the girl, even as he wanted to turn away and not burn more of these images into his memory, he burned them onto his phone's memory instead.
The final picture taken. The binder shut. Warren let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. There. No matter what happened to the originals now, he had the evidence. Not Nathan Prescott, not this mysterious asshole, who absolutely had to exist, could do anything about it now.
Unless he didn't get out of this tomb on time.
With shaking hands, Warren scooped up Rachel's binder, ignoring the rush in his mind telling him to grab it, take it with them straight to the police station, and gently put it back where it did not belong.
"I know it's stupid saying it to this thing," Warren muttered, again looking at the name written in piercing red, "but I'm- fuck. I'm sorry this had to happen to you, Rachel." His eyes went to the other binder. "And- and to you, Kate." He stood up and took in the sight as a whole, more than a few dozen, then took his phone out and made one final photo. "I'm sorry this had to happen to all of you." So many binders stared back at him impassively. So many it made his skin crawl. There was no way Nathan Prescott alone could have drugged and abducted so many girls on his own; just another piece of the puzzle falling into place.
He closed the cupboard quietly, wiped a stray tear and hurried to the still-open bunker door, closing it behind him.
