This is a compacted version of the last three chapters (16, 17 and 18), with each chapter being divided by the horizontal dividers as seen below. This compilation was meant to safeguard against Fanfiction's insistence of removing the chapters in their original, smaller forms. Hopefully, this version will stand permanently, and I will not have to resort to other methods to get these chapters out. Such it shall be, that despite the schedule I had with this trilogy, considering that Chapter 18 was supposed to be uploaded on the 7th, I have decided to post the whole trilogy, including Chapter 18, as of now on the 5th.
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear. And the oldest and strongest fear, is fear of the unknown." - H.P. Lovecraft (Ch.16, Three)
"One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too." - Friedrich Nietzsche (Ch.17, Borne of Blood)
"Take whatever feelings you have left, and turn them into hatred." - Unknown (Ch.18, Hate)
She stirred, rolling her head from its slouch and lifting it off the front of her collarbone and up on her own strength.
And the first thing she felt was being clammy, and cold. Her unprotected arms were freezing cold, so much that if she felt the skin, she would be met with that disturbing lack of warmth. Except, when she tried to move her arms, some resistance impeded her at the wrists. Blinking the exhaustion from weary eyes, Max looked down at her hands, finding them tied to the arms of the chair she sat in.
Oh.
Testing her legs and receiving the same results, she vented her rising nervousness by rolling her ankles as much as she could, tightening her hands to fists and pulling at the straps that bound her wrists. Not even a budge.
Oh no—
Dreadful confusion set in as she recognized her surroundings: she was in the bunker—the darkroom. The chair she was in was facing the couch and its table, and what would be the shelves and the computer in the back left corner and what would be the exit on the back right.
There was someone laid upon the couch, they had a ragged white tank top, and short blue hair—
"Chloe!" Max loudly whispered, but Chloe didn't stir. The bluenette was unconscious, with her hands tied behind her back and slumped across the length of the leather furniture.
The only illumination came from one of the studio lights facing Max, shining off to her left; otherwise, there was the encapsulating darkness that settled beyond where Chloe lay. Peering into the darkness, trying to see anything in this black miasma only served to fuel her fears.
It made Max's stomach swirl, here in this chilling cold. She felt the sudden urge to call for help, somewhere beyond what she could barely see.
Would anyone even hear, or worse, would the wrong person hear?
"Chloe, wake up! Chloe!"
Clunk
A sound! Beyond the tarp, someone had just opened the heavy steel entrance!
Max seized up. Perhaps she'd have the chance to trick them into thinking she'd still be asleep, but it this didn't cross her mind. She was curious, dreadful yet curious. She remembers shining spectacles reflecting the sunlight, and nothing else. Oh, how she wished she'd gotten a look at their face, maybe then—
Controlled, concise footsteps echoed in the silent space, and Max could just make out a shift of the tarp in the shadows. A shadowy figure slipped into the room, moving towards the computer in the corner. They fiddled for a moment, the overhead lights brightened the slightest, but still, she couldn't recognize the figure. They fiddled some more, the lights now became a solid crimson hue that bathed the room, brighter with the light still shining upon Max. She still could not discern them from that red dim. The damn light placed next to her was far too bright.
The footsteps picked up again, towards her now, slow and steady. They hesitated the slightest—they must've noticed her awake—but continued that steady pace, stopping just before the studio light shining in her eyes.
"A little too bright, hm?" came a voice, silky smooth and baritone. Max's eyes widened.
Some toggling of the studio light brought its brightness down considerably, and through the red shadows Max could make him out. Whether it mattered to him what he was before this very moment, he had not the slightest care. In fact, he was smiling, wolfish and so full of himself.
"Mister J-Jefferson?!"
"It's nice to see you too, Max," he complimented, now taking the time to ready one of the many tripods surrounding the space, "though, I really wish it were of your own volition," he sighed, "Oh well, who am I to complain about such things?"
He was so relaxed as he mounted his camera of choice on the tripod, and so oblivious to Max's utter disbelief. By God, her own teacher, her own goddamn idol, the one person outside her friend group that she respected, he was the one doing all this—
"It was you, all along? You were the one behind all this?" she rasped.
"Oh, pardon me, I forgot to give you a proper introduction," and he inched over, crouching to her level and sporting the widest grin he could manage, "Welcome to the Dark Room, Max. This," he gestured to the surrounding space, "is my home away from home, where all the wonders of my talent manifest into creation."
Max wasn't even slightly impressed, rather, she was still reeling.
"I have to say, I was disappointed to find out you and your—friends—snuck in and discovered this place without me giving you a rightful welcoming tour, but rest assured, I'm intending to fix that welcome soon. After all, you wouldn't want to miss all the wonderous things I've planned for this occasion."
"You say that like I have a choice," she glared.
"But you do, Max. Maybe not for yourself, but for the others," and he stood, walking over to the couch. Jefferson picked Chloe up, bridal style, and made his way back over to the chair. And with a courteous smile, he then dumped Price to the floor, evoking a sudden thud as flesh contacted laminate flooring.
"Chloe—!" she gasped.
"I wouldn't worry about your friend here, she's still out cold. The least she'll feel is a slight headache when she wakes up."
"You were the one who did this to her, to us, you bastard!" disbelief turned to anger, "you were the one who kidnapped Rachel, weren't you?"
"Well, isn't that a mighty can of worms. Contrary to what you're telling yourself, no, I did not. That was all Nathan's doing," and he spoke of it like it was a nuisance, something to brush aside.
"Both of you did it, both of you took her here, both of you abused her—!" and a calloused, gloved hand then wrapped around her jaw, and crushed whatever Max had left to shout.
"I prefer the term manipulated, Max," he remarked coldly, "like with a photo, one of my design, of my intention. Rachel was just the perfect subject to turn into what I want," and he smiled then, hawkish eyes enjoying every detail of terror morphing Max's pale face, "I hope you aren't too different."
He released her, gently, and she shook in her restraints, teeming with a tirade of unspoken emotion. A fury to rival the sun shone through the fright, "As if I'd let you hurt me, or hurt any of them. You're not getting away with this."
"Oh, how so?"
Max stubbornly bit, "In case you haven't noticed, you fucked up. You don't have all of us. And the police will be down here in no time—!"
Jefferson chuckled, lightly at first, but it grew with every sputtered word from Max until his laughs reigned over her spiel, loud and boisterous. For her part, Max felt a sort of dread creep in, because he shouldn't be laughing at such genuine threats.
Why the hell is he laughing!?
"Oh, Max, come on. Do you really think a professional artist like me would leave a project as grand as this with any loose ends? Though, that does remind me," he then pulled his cell phone from his pant pocket, initiating a call after a bit of fiddling, "Yeah, it's me. Are you done?"
A pause, and the dread within Max was becoming worse, "Well hurry up then, she's awake now."
Jefferson ended the call, that smile now present, "I want you to understand something, Max," and he looked at her—no—looked into her, "You never stood a chance. I have twenty-four-seven surveillance in this place, and even then, it was only a matter of time before you'd fall right into my hands. Perhaps if you'd focused on your classwork instead of going around being private detectives with your little faux-punk slut here, then maybe it wouldn't have come to this."
The heavy vault door could be heard behind Jefferson, such was that resounding clunk as the locks clicked to place. Some shuffling followed, and Max looked on as the tarp was parted, and Nathan came trudging into the room, carrying something, someone—
Oh no, Oh God please, no—!
Prescott roughly brought that person into the dimness of the red light, taking the time to set them on their knees in front of Max and Jefferson. And he crouched, taking a free hand and raising the slumped head of the figure for them to see, a pale face framed with frayed blonde hair, and a bleeding nose.
"Kate—" Max gasped, eyes wide. Instinctually she reached for her friend, and was reminded of the painful leather straps holding her down.
Mark seemed a bit affronted by the state of the blonde as well, "I was under the impression you'd be clean about it," he chided.
"Look, the bitch didn't make it far—she knew she couldn't run, Mark. I said you'd get her in one piece, and here she is," Nathan bit back, letting Marsh drop to the floor face first.
Max flinched, and begged for all it was worth, "Kate, no—"
"I would appreciate it if you'd tell me about these kinds of things. I'd help you if you would only ask," Mark's frown was cold, but Nathan couldn't care much for the man's tone.
"I don't need your help, I can do this shit on my own," Prescott defended, "you got what you wanted, now keep your end of the deal and you won't have to worry 'bout me again."
At this, Jefferson sighed, "Of course. Thank you, Nathan. You've been a great help, bringing me what I need. I hope everything goes well for you—"
"Yeah, yeah," and Nathan was already walking for the tarp, calling from the back, "have fun in paradise, or whatever."
Then the vault door was closed again, and it was just them now, all of them. At the artist's mercy.
Jefferson turned back, and that horrid smile struck his lips again, infectious, "Well, I suppose it would be rude to delay this any longer—"
"Why?"
Jefferson paused, "Pardon?"
"Why do this?" Max growled, glaring, "why us? Why me?"
He bid his time in answering, walking back over to the mounted camera on the tripod, "Well, I'm glad you asked, Max," he adjusted the settings a bit, and then calmly walked over to where Kate laid on the floor, "You see, my hobby, my passion, is to witness one of the most beautiful things that humanity could ever behold: the metamorphosis of the individual, the metamorphosis of the mind."
He scooped up the blonde in his arms, "there lies, in the very beginning of our lives, that innate premise that we all had when we were growing up. How one would dream of luxuries beyond the scope of creation, that feeling of perseverance—" seeing Max's scrunched brow, he summed up, "in short, the purity of the youth, the hope that lies within their hearts. Their innocence."
Fearing she would break into pieces, Jefferson handled Kate with care, placing her on the ground before Max's feet and next to Chloe.
"I have the distinct pleasure to witness the transformation of the naïve and hopeful soul, into the everyday melancholic drone. Once a beautiful light, now forever tainted by life and its cruelty."
"You are the one who ruins them, not life," Max bit, "You're the one who drags them down here just to have your way with them. It was never their choice—!"
"How far you could be from the truth, Max," he interrupted, "Need I remind you that an artist's purpose is to break the boundaries of the unknown, to express the quantifiable connections between what we know is real and what we think is real. We see this with the realists, the surrealists, the abstract artists and many others in their own specified genres. Yet, society as a whole has lost its way. It ascribes artificial walls to talentless amateurs too holed up in their virtue to go beyond the boundaries of what we know and interpret, but not me," he inches closer, at eye level to Max, "I made a promise to myself many years ago, that as a true artist, I would break the boundaries that have yet to be broken, I would extend my hand to those from thousands of years ago who did not fear the moral code imposed upon them, but rather feared the thought of not being true to their interpretations," and she witnessed the far-out look in his eyes, as he lamented on with passionate fervor; "The world has changed much from what it once was, but there still lives something, something within us all. An echo of the life unburdened by intangible means. A light, a humanity, wild and free from the shackles of the modern world that I must uncover, that I must capture."
"And it starts, here," Jefferson brought himself back to the present, "it starts with every soul that still shines in this hellish world. It starts with the likes of you, Max," and he smiled from ear to ear, so wolfish and happy and crooked.
Max looked back at him, wide-eyed and trembling.
"So beautiful," he sadly cooed, then with exertion he stood up once again, "Time waits for no one, not even the most esteemed."
As he walked over to the camera, Max clenched her hands to fists, shaking so terribly.
From the black realm of the dreams was Chloe roused from by a sudden cry. Immediately were her ice blue eyes snapped open, and for a second she'd thought it true: that she had fallen into the crimson depths of Hell, scorned by the Almighty for her misdeeds. Yet, as pupils dilated to the dimness, she realized that maybe Hell would be preferable to where she was now.
Chloe blinked the grime that clung to her eyelids and rolled onto her side. Trying to sit up, she became aware of her arms, cold and sore, and tightly bound behind her back. The zip-tie was digging into her wrists as she attempted to pull herself up. The dull throb of a headache grew prominent and stunted her efforts to stand.
Another cry sounded as she tilted her head off the cold laminate floor and took in the sight.
There was Max, strapped to a chair, begging, pleading with hoarse cries. Tears shined in that dreadful red glow beside the brunette, likewise coloring Caulfield's skin a dull red hue. Caulfield's voice was high in pitch, garbled and slurred from a choked throat, and what modicum of fear that hung in the air was inhaled by Price with full-bearing realization.
"Please, don't, I can—no, NO!" Max pleaded, straining her arms against the straps, "Jefferson please don't—!"
"There is a moment, Max, where we must all show our subjective truth. That which is true only to us, and no one else, for it is indeed a part of what makes us all shine so brightly," and Chloe shuddered at the smoothness of that baritone voice. The punk jerked her head upwards, and beheld a figure dressed in a black suit with a goatee and glasses, holding up something green, someone with blonde hair—
"Just like dear, sweet Kate had shown hers," and a glimmer shone from the blade of a knife, held in Jefferson's right hand, being slowly raised into view. Chloe needed not to look, already Max revived her efforts to wrench herself from the chair, "a pure-hearted beauty, destined to shine like the brightest star, only to fall to the lowest of the low, to the dull nothing we all become."
"Please—!" Max's tear-stricken eyes were wrenched shut, and her bob-cut swayed ever the slightest as she shook her head, begging, "Please don't!"
Jefferson's grin grew, already wolfish but now at its full width, and that row of shining white teeth glowed pristinely at the squirming brunette, "Oh, she was delicious, I'll admit it, but there are many naïve children just like faithful little Kate in this world," and his left hand curled under the drugged blonde's chin, turning it to observe those mesmerizing, bruising, bloodied features, "nothing but a dime a dozen. There's only so much to savor before it loses its specialty, its purity," and the knife gleamed from the red rays and hovered so close to Marsh's unconscious, bruised face.
Whimpers caught Chloe's attention again, and she looked to her best friend, head hung down so the shadows obscured her face and those burning rivulets on freckled cheeks. Max was looking away, too afraid to see him do it. A sweltering feeling tore the bluenette's heartstrings, as her own eyes watered at the pitiful sight. Chloe didn't envy her best friend one bit.
"Max, look at me."
Jefferson's voice was smooth and comforting, and Max sobbed instinctually.
"Look at me, Max," and Chloe saw him lay Kate down on the tarp, uncarved, before Max's feet, as if assuring her. He awaited her to look him in his eyes, his black, beady eyes hidden behind those sharp spectacles of his.
Max slowly raised her head.
"Do you know what your truth is?" he asked.
"What?"
"Your truth," he emphasized, eyes cold, "the epitome of your being, Max. That what shows you who you are—"
"I don't know what you're talking about, and even if I did, why should I tell you?" she tartly rasped, her hands clenched to fists, "What does it matter for? For my sake?"
"Well, it wouldn't be for your sake," he calmly smiled, and with that he reached for Kate's head, taking a great handful of blonde hair, and then yanking back, "it'd be for hers."
"Wait—!"
"Tell me; you love your friends, do you not, Max?"
"Yes!" she cried, eyes wide, "I do, yes, just—"
"Are you showing me that out of appeasement, or of truth?" he narrowed his eyes.
She didn't have the time to answer. The knife cut through the taut blonde locks like a burning blade through butter.
"STOP—!" Max wailed, thrashing against the restraints, "Don't hurt her! I love my friends, Jefferson, I truly do, I swear I do, please don't—!"
He took another handful of those blonde locks, and Chloe could see his beady eyes dilate, his smile was twitching with excitement, "show me then, Max. Would you let them see their families again, even if it meant you couldn't see your own?"
Stunned, Caulfield blubbered, "y-yes—?"
The knife tore through hair again, and again Max begged, "YES, yes! I would, I would do it, please stop—!"
Chloe watched helplessly as the man's demeanor abruptly shifted, his smile now forgotten, "Why must you show me these lies, Max? Have I not impressed upon you the importance of what I'm asking of you!?" and he tore at the blonde's locks for a third time, like an accusation, like he'd been personally insulted. Jefferson's eyes refocused on the still unconscious form before him, and roughly took hold of the nape, holding the girl up and bringing her close to Max.
Kate's beautiful flowing locks, having once reached down to her waist, were now no longer than the lobes of her ears, cut so sharply and drastically that it seemed unnatural to the conception of the soft and forgiving girl from before. It was as if this girl had been stripped from them, torn from their reach by a monster. What laid there now in Jefferson's grip was a husk, bruised and battered and beaten.
Max wept bitter tears, wanting to eviscerate the black-hearted being that held her friend. Her wrists stung like fire; her skin colored evermore red from the friction against ragged leather. Chloe looked on from where she was, unable to stand, unable to move, unable to help.
"Do you see this, Max?" Jefferson asked, eyes locked onto the tethered brunette, "do you see what I see? Do you not see the beauty of it all?"
Max glared at him, eyes bloodshot and brimming salty sorrow. She said nothing.
He sighed, disappointed, "I had hoped you'd show the truth yourself, but you've let me down, again."
"Fuck you, you murderer," Max growled, hysterical.
His eye twitched incessantly, "Oh, and what brought you to such a mighty assumption—"
"You killed her! You killed Rachel, I know you did. It could not be any other!" shrieked the brunette, and Chloe's eyes widened at her words, "Nathan would not have the balls to do it, but you—you would. You heartless monster," Caulfield spat, eyes wide, frothing with a feverish fury and thrashing again, unburdened by the sting of the leather.
He drinks all of her rage in, lapping it up with every joyous blink of his beautiful, bolded beady eyes. An unconscious smile slithers across his tethered features like a satisfied snake, yet his fortitude persists, and he turns stone cold in an instant.
"It's nice to see some thought behind your biting words, Max, but please don't toss the fault upon me like that. You and I are both aware of Nathan's erratic behavior, especially when angered," the man grew forlorn then, remembering, "it was a shame the fool thought he really could try his hand at pure art, something a barbarian of his type would not know. He is not a boy of intimacy, after all; he is a man of war."
His lost gaze refocuses, shining with a slick oily sheen from the overhead lights, "An overdose, a slip of the thumb. Something a ruffian would stumble with ease, but not the professional, no—for me, there are no mistakes," and whilst seizing the husk lying on the canvas, did he pull the knife out again, and Max evoked a heart-tearing gasp, for her woes would begin again at his behest, he would not stop at the blonde's locks of hair and she was sure of it.
So was Chloe, who still laid aside them unnoticed until now.
"Don't you fucking touch her, you freak!" Price roared, and even though restrained she still beckoned his surprise at her sudden volume. She pushed herself up with all her strength and rammed her shoulder into his side, knocking the knife out of his hands and sending him off balance. Yet Jefferson still recovered, and for the briefest of moments when it seemed the punk would level herself to stand, did he swiftly swing a foot under one of hers, tripping her—
And her balance gave way, slipping. Falling.
"Oh shi—!" thnmp
Chloe landed on her left side exceptionally hard, moaning in pain as the aching of her bones bloomed with intensity. She rolled on her stomach, her rebellion against the monster was crushed as quickly as it was sprung. Jefferson eyed the scene before him with guarded anticipation, but with a glance to the now trembling Caulfield and back again, he determined his next play. Like a child outgrown of their toy, he disregarded the lifeless husk still in his clutch, and set his beady orbs upon his next plaything.
Price shivered as cold, callous digits wrapped themselves around the nape of her neck and her not-aching right arm. She growled like a bulldog as she was man-handled onto her knees and made to face her distraught best friend in the chair. Chloe had the sudden urge to try and bite his freezing digits off, but Max's wide-eyed look begged her not to. Instead, she furrowed her brow and looked the devil in the face, daring to spite him.
"I'll fucking kill you for what you did to Rachel, you fuckin'—!" and a stern pinch to her neck silenced the bluenette, and she squirmed in his iron grip and whimpered, pained.
"I've dealt with enough faux-punk sluts like you in Seattle to earn me a harem. You will be no exception," he coldly panned, and turned his head to the still shivering girl in the chair, "now, Max, back to showing us the truth."
"Your truth means nothing to me," Max croaked with heavy eyelids, "and even if I had it, I wouldn't give it to you. You want it so badly, why don't you just take it," she rasped, "Just leave them out of this."
He sighs, disappointed, "I can't, Max. They mean too much to you for me to toss aside. Is that not a part of your truth, that you love your friends?"
Max hesitated.
"My point, exactly," he concurred, and with precision he swung a mighty fist into the punk's soft stomach.
"Chloe—!" Max cried as Chloe writhed onto her back from doubling over, mouth wide like a fish gasping and gulping for air, her face red with pain. Tears sprung from ice blue eyes as Price floundered on the floor, with the perpetrator looking down with his slated stare, almost disgusted at the sight. Reverting back to his sputtering muse, he spoke softly, deathly.
"Now, let us make art."
The headache was all she knew; it was all she had been reduced to. The searing flow of blood that began in her weary heart and which circulated her aching body, meant to be a revitalizing factor, but instead a pumping ichor of molten pain, throbbing to the rhythm of the life drum. The entirety of her left face was stubbornly pained, the kind that burned and flared when touched or exerted. It set her trembling brows into a deep-seated frown, burrowing ever further as the sounds filtering through the black void of consciousness came bellowing, loud and terrifying. Her bloodshot hazel eyes slowly pulled themselves open, and she looked to the stuff of her nightmares.
"Please don't, please don't—!" and Kate looked on to the brunette strapped in a chair, horrified and tiredly trying to free herself from where she sat.
"I'll fucking kill you, you sonuvabitch! I'll fucking—!" those shrieks were suddenly choked to silence, and replaced with another voice, a low and velvety baritone, "So loud and aggravating, aren't you?"
And there they were, her friends Max and Chloe, the former writhing in the chair and the latter rooted on her knees, crying out at the looming, shadowy figure standing over them.
"You've not the slightest clue what you're witnessing, do you?" the man coldly asked the bluenette in his grasp, and beckoned her to observe the weeping Max, "Do you not see the beauty of transformation?"
As Kate rose out of her feverish stupor, she rolled onto her back, transfixed on the sight before her. It dawned on her then, as the red hue of light no longer disguised the man's features, nor the dark suit and the sleek dress pants, and the subtle glint of his glasses as they swayed with his head. Because now, Kate was struck with disbelief. Slowly, yet with increasing speed she shuffled away from them, from him, the monster himself. Fear drove her to run, to hide, to seek shelter, just to get away—
"Behold, the metamorphosis of the mind, to the cruel reality of life that awaits us all."
Her trembling, hoodie-clad form bumped into the table just in front of the couch and she held still, afraid the sound would carry to his ears. Yet he was too focused on his foul antics, too busy tormenting Kate's friends to notice her.
So she turned, and her eyes settled on the glint of a knife, along with its polymer handle, sleek and black as Death's cloak, barely distinguished from the dimness of the surroundings. It lay beside her on the tiled floor, having been discarded. She watched as her own shaking right hand proceeded to wrap it's fingers round the blade's hilt, and with trepidation did she look back to her fears.
"It's so beautiful," Jefferson breathed out, enraptured, "oh, Max, you are so, so beautiful," he smiled warmly.
Max had grown tired, and her hands lay still on the arms of the chair, hunched over, head lolling to and fro to keep from slipping away. When the weeping girl did raise her head into the light again, one could see the rivulets of tears, glistening against the paleness of her face, sick and weathered. Dry lips trembled ever the slightest.
Finally, she rasped, "Let her go. Let them go."
Jefferson smiled wider, "I'm sorry, Max, but you know I can't do that."
Chloe had stopped fighting against his grip. Whether it was because she was tired herself or the sight of Max so disheveled, it mattered not.
"Yes, you can," Max still pleaded, "I'll stop fighting. I'll do whatever you want, I'll do whatever you wish, just please—" tired, bloodshot blue eyes looked to Chloe, "let them go."
Kate slowly, silently stood up, just as Jefferson snickered, amused by Max's plea.
If not me, then who, and if not now, then when?
"And what? Let them go off and tattle to the first police officer they find?" he sighed, "You forget that I cannot have loose ends, Max," then he smiled, curled and sinister, "And even then, I doubt they would be able to save you if they wanted to."
"What do you mean?" Max slurred, blinking nervously.
"You think Nathan would not appeal to his greater calling like I have? What else would he be doing other than preparing for his rite of passage," the artist monologued, "I told you he is a man of war, and men of war follow the tune of the drums, the unshakable call for violence that lies in their hearts."
Kate took a hesitant step forward, hunching her back.
Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and the spirit of Blighty closest to your heart.
"Blackwell is but the catalyst for the beginning of a new age in this pitiful town, a beginning that is mutually beneficial to both Nathan and I," and calloused hands dug their digits into Chloe's cheeks, earning a pained growl at the coarseness of his handling, "An artificial selection of the strongest and the weakest, the pure and the tainted," his smile became a smirk, "and all the possibilities that I could ever desire."
The knife shook slightly in Kate's grip, but never faltered.
Be the victor, not the victim.
Max looked at the raving psychopath in front of her, wide-eyed and trembling, "I—what?"
"Perhaps, if you would just listen to me—" and he suddenly shove the punk in his grip to the cold, merciless floor, her head impacting with a sickly thnnk and bouncing once off the tile, "I wouldn't have to resort to this! Is this what I need to do, is this what will get your attention, Maxine?"
Price's attempt to speak came out garbled and was swiftly replaced with painful moans. Jefferson took a moment to enjoy the sight, before he looked again to his prize. He had only to reach out and take it.
Max had shot her vocal chords trying to scream for Chloe, and watched in muted horror as a hand wrapped itself into dyed blue hair, yanking horribly, and giving her a perfect view of her best friend, now with a lifeless glint in her eyes.
"I can see it now," he gleefully whispered, like a child finally getting his just reward, "your final truth, Max!"
The studio light off to the side, with its reddish hue, gleamed off of steady hazel eyes, and the polished silver blade.
The Triumph of the Will.
"You can feel it, don't you? The hopelessness of it all, the terror of what's soon to come," and Jefferson wouldn't take his ecstatic, beady black eyes off his prize, for he wanted to see every twitch, every spasm from the object of his obsession. Indeed, he had found what he was looking for. He now wanted her to revel in the realization of her future, "No one is coming for you, Max. Your parents, of which I know are so, so far away—they will be eviscerated by the fires of revolution. Your friends will be tossed as fodder for the fish off the lighthouse cliff. Your classmates will forget you ever existed, once Nathan takes up his role as the black knight, and sets Arkadia ablaze," his rant had rose to a maddening bellow, so assured of itself, so content, "and I will have all the time in the world, to guide you and other pure ones like you, into the beautiful, black oblivion."
Max's eyes shifted to something over his shoulder, giving him pause. Jefferson began to turn—
With her left hand clamping down onto his adjacent shoulder, Kate drove the entirety of the knife's sharp blade into his lower back, eliciting a gut-wrenching wet schunk as the metal tore through flesh. Immediately did the monster recoil as nerves sung a chorus of unbelievable pain throughout his entire body, and a blood-curdling cry came from his mouth as he unintentionally allowed Kate to pull the knife out from its place, only to enthusiastically reinsert it into his right side.
Both screaming bloody murder, Jefferson spun around wildly, swinging a clumsy right hook towards his attacker and striking his mark at center mass, fumbling backwards to deal with the knife in his side. Kate felt all the air in her gut be forcefully expelled by the punch, as she was knocked the few feet of distance between herself and one of the cabinets lining the wall. She crashed back-first into it, and its unsupported structure wobbled from the force, sending its contents off the shelves and onto the ground, showering the gasping blonde. In the moment it took for her vision to stop flowing with the onset of more tears, Kate beheld the sight of miracles, laid next to her right hand: a handgun, black and sleek and promising of death. So, without thinking she took hold of it and lined up its barrel at Jefferson, who had pulled the knife from his side and in that second, swung his head to face her.
He looked surprised then, so genuinely surprised. He truly believed he would not fail.
BANG
The nine-millimeter bullet of hot, burning lead snapped across the room and impacted the flesh along the curve of his neck, tearing, searing the muscles and the arteries and then burying itself into the wall behind him. The force made Jefferson violently twirl, and his final performance as an artist was the blood and gore that sprayed itself onto the surrounding surfaces before he collapsed, a bleeding, gurgling dead weight. His crimson ichor coated his hands and shined in the light on his black suit, spreading to the floor as he slowly grew still.
A/N - [Completed 7th November 2020; Revised 9th March 2022] - I ask of you now, as the reader who's ventured this far in my story: if you do have any criticisms of what I write, how I write, the way I brought this alternate timeline into existence, then please leave a review for this work. I can only better myself so much without outside interpretation, and it would be appreciated if I had the perspective of someone outside looking in, instead of inside looking out. Thank you all for reading, I hope it was worthwhile. - MB