Chapter 14
"Do you have what you promised me?" Jefferson asked as Abby staggered over, the water cascading from her leather riding gear as she wrung her hair out while joining him under the shelter of the side building.
"It's in here!" she yelled, trying to he heard over the wind as she patted her riding gear above her right breast.
"Show me!" She complied, unzipping just enough that she could pull the bodysuit back and reveal the folded piece of paper nestled in there. He went to reach for it, but she slammed the bodysuit back into place and zipped up again, sealing it away from his grasp.
"Don't forget our deal! She goes free first!" Jefferson tucked his gun away, bending down and ripping the tape off Lynn's mouth before moving around to work on her hands. As soon as her mouth was free to move, she put it to good use.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Lynn screamed as Jefferson freed her hands before grabbing his gun again and motioning for her to get up. She did so, storming over to Abby with a face like thunder.
"Saving your life." Abby replied, reaching into her pocket for her bike key.
"What's that worth, Abby?" Lynn's glare didn't budge an inch. It was a look she'd grown used to receiving over the last couple of days. "I suppose you have a plan to get yourself out of this now that you've dug yourself so deep?"
"No." Abby shook her head, her hair tugging where it was glued to her riding gear and making her decide that was a bad idea. "I'm going to go through with the deal I made. I just want you to live. That's it. I want you to swear to me you'll take no revenge. Do not contact the police. This is personal. This is my problem. You're no longer a part of that. He used his friendship with my family to get to you. This bastard is going down sooner or later. I plan to give him so much rope that he hangs himself."
"So I get out of here but you just arbitrarily die?" Lynn spat the last word like it left a bad taste in her mouth. "And you sell out some innocent girl in the process! Can you really justify making that sacrifice?" Abby didn't have to think. Her response was immediate.
"For you, I'd do it a thousand times over." In that moment, she desperately wanted to kiss Lynn. But she knew if she tried that now, Lynn was likely to grab Jefferson's gun and be the one to shoot her. Instead, she held off. "Look, I know I haven't always done the right thing-"
"You're a piece of shit, Abby!" Lynn said, cutting her off. "And the way you're saying this tells me that you always have been. I wish I could have seen that sooner. I'm done with you!"
"Fine!" Abby pulled out her keys, pressing them into Lynn's chest as she took a step back from her. "You can be done with me all you want. I've known for a while that one of us isn't going to make it through this and I'm not having it be you. My bike is down there. I want you to take it and fuck off. Literally anywhere. Do what you want. I don't care! Don't come back for me."
"Don't worry." Lynn glowered as she stared at the keys with pure hatred. "I don't plan to." She snatched up the keys, taking off down the slope. Abby headed to the edge of the cliff, gripping the limb of a nearby tree as hard as she could. It was a perilous task with the wind and rain hammering down as a raging maelstrom, but she was just about able to hear the sound of her bike pulling away from the parking lot. Even from the noise below and next to no line of sight, the rider's inexperience was painfully obvious. Still, it wasn't too long before the engine noise faded. Abby turned back only to find that Jefferson was now out from cover, the lightning overhead illuminating his face just as she'd foreseen. She walked over to meet him, opening her bodysuit again and pulling out the paper before handing it over.
"I know you think you're so infallible, Mark, but that's because you can't see like I can!" She looked up at him, all traces of fear leaving her. "I see your defeat! I see you exposed for the monster you truly are and captured in a moment like one of your victims! But you don't need to see the future to know what happens next! We both do! Just get it over with!"
"If you insist!" Jefferson's voice was completely emotionless as he raised the gun. The discharge at close range was nothing short of spectacular. It easily lifted her off her feet and into the air with very little assistance from the wind. She landed with a sickening crunch as pain erupted in her lower back and the feeling in her legs vanished instantly. Above her, Jefferson opened out the paper for the first time to see what he'd been given. She couldn't see his face too well, but she could read him well enough to register his anger. "What? What's this? It's just a fucking photo!" He turned it and held it in her face, yelling angrily as she gasped for breath on the ground. "Who is this, you stupid dyke?" She felt a sting as he clubbed her across the face with the butt of his gun, but it barely even registered compared to the pain in her spine. "I asked you a question!" he bellowed. "Who the fuck is this?"
As he spoke, Abby felt herself relaxing. As she looked up into the early morning sky, she could still faintly see the stars overhead. But something was different this time. She could feel an energy coming from them she'd never felt before. It was probably the blood loss, but to her they weren't just stars. They were possibilities. They were doorways. She could see all the doors. She could see what was behind all the doors. And incredibly, in that moment, she could see the same thing behind each of them. The same person looking at her with the same smile and holding the same camera. In that moment, she had no doubt that she'd set in motion a chain of events that would see Mark Jefferson brought down for good. When she spoke again, every word was an effort and her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. But she wasn't going to let that stop her.
"It's... Max... Caulfield." Jefferson drew back and stood up to his full height again, inspecting the photo anew. This time, it was a smile that spread across his face as he reached for his gun again.
"Max Caulfield... Yes, I can see it now! Her optimism... Her innocence... It's beauty personified!" With that, he turned back to Abby. "You know, I think her session will be a career high for me." The last thing she saw was the barrel of his gun aimed at her head. The muzzle flashed with a deafening crack as agony erupted across her face. Darkness instantly engulfed her and she knew no more.
She didn't know how long she lay there. She couldn't feel her legs. She couldn't feel one side of her face. She couldn't even feel the cold wind or the rain battering her body as she remained there, utterly defenceless. When she opened her eyes again, it was to the flash of a camera. She didn't know what it was at first, her vision blurred in her right eye by the rain and a sea of nothingness on her left. She thought it was another muzzle flash and tried to raise her arms to defend, even though she knew that wouldn't save her.
"Oh my god, she's actually alive!" someone yelled out from above her. But that wasn't what grabbed her attention. She felt a set of hands gently caress her face as a teenage girl in a poncho very similar to the one in the first dream she'd had upon arriving at Blackwell crouched next to her. The other people around her seemed to pay her no heed. If this wasn't just a trauma-induced hallucination and this girl was actually there, the other people didn't see her. But Abby did. Even though the part of her vision that would normally be provided by her left eye was now totally black, what she had left was easily able to see her face. And it was unmistakable who she was.
"...Max?"
"Don't worry, Abby. It's okay." She could see tears running down Max's face as she moved away. The other people- who she could now see were wearing the clothes of police and paramedics- surrounded her and got to work. As her consciousness faded away, she could hear Max's last words to her still echoing in her mind. She didn't know if it was just wishful thinking on her part, but she didn't care. It was what she needed right then. "I forgive you."
