Chapter 9
Author's Note: I'm so sorry I haven't updated in so long. I've been quite ill recently and I haven't had the strength to do anything. As always, please remember to review. If this does well, I'll try and have the next chapter up before the weekend.
Rachel and Chloe made it to Max's room just as she started to wake up. Vanessa and Ryan were also about to leave.
"How is she?" Rachel asked. That one innocent question caused Vanessa's calm exterior to collapse in on itself as she burst into floods of tears.
"God, Vanessa; I'm so sorry." Chloe said, pulling her into a hug.
"If Max wants to, she'll fill you in." Ryan said, barely holding himself together as he ushered Vanessa out the room.
"Hey guys." Max said groggily as she came to. "Where are my parents going?"
"I think your mum's finding this a bit hard to deal with." Rachel said gently as she sat on the edge of the bed.
"God, I hate being such a burden." Max muttered as she laid back into a better position.
"How could you say that?" Chloe asked sternly as she sat next to Rachel. "You could never be a burden."
"Max, when we first met, you asked about someone called Mark Jefferson, right?" Rachel asked.
"Yeah, I did." Max replied, sitting up at the mention of Jefferson's name.
"Why did you lie about which picture was the right one?"
"I didn't lie." Max lied.
"Hold my hand and press your panic button." Rachel suddenly instructed.
"That button is for emergencies only. I can't just press it on a whim." Max replied.
"I promise it'll clear everything up." Rachel said.
"And if it doesn't, you'll take responsibility?" Max asked.
"Yes, I'll take responsibility." Rachel replied. Max and Chloe each gripped one of Rachel's hands and Max grabbed her panic button. On Rachel's signal, she pressed it. "Keep an eye on the door." Rachel instructed. Five seconds later, Ian burst through the doorway. As Rachel focused, he suddenly started running backwards out the room.
"There's just no way!" Max was at a loss for words. She'd put the button on the bed next to her, so when Rachel rewound it had flown back onto the table. "How the hell do you have my power?"
"Wait, since when could you rewind time?" Chloe asked.
"Okay, I have one hell of a story to tell you guys, and it's going to blow your mind." Max said to them. Just then, Ian burst back in.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"Sorry. Chloe was getting me water and knocked the button off." Max explained. Ian couldn't hide a slightly annoyed expression.
"Well, it's good to know it has batteries this time, I suppose. But can we try and avoid that happening again?" he asked.
"We will." Rachel said as Ian left the room. "Go on, Max. What were you saying?"
"It all started just after the spring term at Blackwell started." Max explained. "Mr Jefferson the photography teacher was talking about Louis Daguerre and how he inspired various elements of photography. When it was finally over, I went to the girl's bathroom. Nathan Prescott came in and started giving himself a psychotic pep-talk before you came in, Chloe; and he pulled a gun on you."
"That was when you hit him with the hammer and saved me." Chloe summarised.
"No, that was this time. When he shot you before, I extended my hand as I went to run over and help. Suddenly, everything around me seemed to rewind. Next thing I know, I'm back in Jefferson's lecture. I got to the bathroom again, and when the trouble started I hit the fire alarm. We met up again in the car park where you saved me from Nathan, and then I realised it was you, Chloe."
"Where am I in all this?" Rachel asked.
"That's the thing." Max said, going pale at the question. "You'd been missing for ages. Everyone in Oregon was wondering where you were. We found evidence in Nathan's room connecting him to your disappearance. We then found a bunker under the Prescotts' old barn and Chloe and I found all kinds of sick photos of girls. There were even some of you. Chloe recognised a spot in one of them from the junkyard. We went there and we found your body."
"I don't believe this." Chloe seethed. "You're just making all this up as you go, aren't you? Please tell me this is all a sick joke."
"I believe it." Rachel said. "This explains everything."
"Anyway Chloe, you and I went to a Vortex club party to look for Nathan. As we were leaving, he texted you saying there wouldn't be any evidence when he was done. We went to check on Rachel's body, and we got ambushed. I got drugged from behind and I couldn't use my power. You tried to shoot whoever it was but got shot instead. Then I looked up to see Jefferson standing over me holding the gun. I got taken to his darkroom and he took photos of me too. He was just about to kill me when David burst in. I tore myself free as Jefferson killed David and I just ran for it. I took your truck and went to the cliff where the lighthouse is. Jefferson chased me all the way up there. I fought him and got the upper hand thanks to my rewind power. Eventually, I got him in the right position and kicked him off the cliff."
"I had a vision of the two of you in a tornado." Rachel added.
"The tornado was something I'd been having visions about the whole time." Max continued. "It passed right by the cliff and pulled us into it when I kicked Jefferson off. It turns out it was made of all those other doomed realities that simply couldn't work. When I grabbed hold of Jefferson, I used my rewind. The presence of all those alternate realities tried to pull him apart, but since I had hold of him he couldn't be rewound. That conflict caused him to fragment into all those other realities. Straight after that, I ran out of air and suffocated. I woke up in the girls' bathroom, and that was when I hit Nathan with the hammer. Since Jefferson never existed, Nathan never kidnapped you, Rachel. I asked you that question to confirm my theory about him being obliterated from history."
"So do you know what caused the brain malfunctions?" Chloe asked.
"Jefferson somehow gained a collective consciousness inside me." Max told them. "Whenever I use my power, he causes it to backfire. He's getting more powerful too. When I had the attack that stopped my heart, I wasn't even rewinding. I think he's just trying to drag this out as long and painfully as possible."
"Max, I'm so sorry." Rachel said. "Somehow I feel like this is all our fault."
"This is no one's fault." Max told her firmly. "The only one to blame here is Jefferson. He started this when he used Nathan like he did."
"So, how did I die in the end?" Rachel asked. "You said you'd found my body and that Nathan kidnapped me. Do you know what happened?"
"It turns out Nathan tried to mimic what Jefferson was doing to impress him." Max said. "You started fighting the drugs and he ended up overdosing you." Chloe automatically looped a protective arm around Rachel.
"So how the hell do we kill this asshole?" Chloe asked.
"You two don't kill him. I'm the one who'll have to do it." Max said. "The trouble is: I feel sick at the prospect of taking a life. Not that he has much of a life left anyway. I think I know how to do it, but I'm scared. I keep worrying what if it fails? Am I strong enough?"
"Max, you're only going to get weaker as time goes on." Rachel reminded her. "Plus, I know what you're planning. It won't fail. He'll be erased, since you're taking the one thing he clings to for survival."
"You're right. It makes all the logical sense in the world." Max said. "By the way, how did you find out about my power?"
"Hayden tried to attack me at the school." Rachel replied. "I think Jefferson somehow gained a conscious presence inside him when he was asleep last night. I saw it in a vision when I slapped him."
"How would that be possible?" Max muttered to herself. Then she realised. Jefferson had been split between thousands of alternate realities. There must have been some where other people got the rewind power. That would mean at least one would have been where Hayden was in Max's situation. Jefferson had harnessed that reality and used it to possess him. But did that mean all her friends were at risk too?
"Max, are you okay?" Chloe asked. "You've gone pale."
"Come on, you said we would go outside." Max said trying to steer away from Chloe's question.
"I'll get you a wheelchair." Rachel said, going out into the hallway to look for one.
"You didn't answer me." Chloe pressed once she'd gone.
"Chloe, ever since I found out what was going on; I knew what needed to be done. I've been afraid for so long, but I'm not scared anymore." Max said; a determined expression fixed to her face.
"Please Max, don't do this." Chloe begged, realising what Max was about to do.
"Chloe, I have to." Max explained. "If I don't do this, you won't get a tomorrow. I love you too much to let that happen."
"Max, if you have to do this, then there must surely be something I can do." Chloe reasoned.
"Just stay by me." Max told her. At that moment, Rachel came back with a wheelchair. Chloe went to help her, but she shrugged her off. "No, I've got this." Max said. "When we get outside, I want to walk as well."
"By the way, I grabbed these for you." Chloe said opening her bag to reveal some of Max's clothes.
"Okay, just give me a minute to change then." Max waited for the other two to get out before changing into her own clothes. Feeling human again, she lowered herself into the wheelchair before calling out that she was ready.
Rachel pushed her into the garden at the back of the hospital. For Max, it was like waking up from a nightmare. She was determined to enjoy this moment, however brief it was. Chloe pulled Max's instant camera from her bag and handed it to her. Max held it out before turning it round to face herself. Chloe and Rachel each rested their heads on one of her shoulders and smiled as she took the picture. The girls had quite a laugh and a joke, catching up on everything that had been going on. Chloe raised a few chuckles telling the girls how she'd fixed her door by giving David a second sunroof. Max also got up from the chair and stretched her legs properly for the first time in four days. As much as she wanted to stave it off, she knew it was already time.
"You're going to do it, aren't you?" Rachel asked.
"If I don't do it now, I'll never be able to bring myself to do it." Max told her. "Just stay by me and make sure no one goes asking questions. If they ask, just tell them I'm having a lie down in the sun because I've been in bed for four days straight." Chloe and Rachel nodded.
"Good luck, Max." Chloe said, hugging her.
"I'll see both of you later." Max promised, hugging them as one. Before she could stop herself, she laid down on the grass just outside the shadow of the big tree in the garden. Giving in to the darkness, he felt herself get pulled under.