Chapter 7
Max takes out two pieces of a broken metal fork from her pocket. She places the head in the lock, closes the back door and criss-crosses it with the body of the fork. She tries to open the stuck door, feels satisfied that the low-tech security hack works, and finally locks the door knob.
They were sloppy once, and that is a mistake they cannot afford to make again.
Max turns and quickly walks out of the kitchen, eager to avoid the bloody scene of what happened four nights ago from replaying in her mind. It is bad enough she has to go through it every time she tries to sleep.
But it is too late. Her mind starts relaying images of herself, Victoria and Warren storming back into the house after hearing gunshots ringing a mile out in the silence of the night. She first saw the slumped bodies of Samuel Taylor and Michelle Grant against the kitchen cabinets, their throats were slit and exposed, their lifeless eyes opened wide. Daniel DaCosta lay still a couple of feet away clutching his still bleeding stomach, while Evan Harris had a knife stuck in his eye socket. One unknown man lay sprawled motionless on his pool of blood halfway out of the kitchen while another with laboured breathing was crawling towards Kate, aiming his gun at her with a shaky hand. There were a couple of bullet holes at his back, stained red with blood.
Kate was clutching her bleeding shoulder as she walked towards the man, her face was cold and expressionless. Without hesitation, she put two quick shots into the back of his head. She looked at us briefly and stared at her bloody hand before falling to her knees. Victoria rushed past Max, screaming Kate's name…
Max shuts the sliding doors behind her and tries to suppress the memories. She is breathing heavily by this time, her palms are sweaty and her heart beating alarmingly fast. This should have been the end, but her mind now wanders to the six freshly dug graves in her backyard, once a childhood haven for her and Chloe swimming in an inflatable pool during the summer, and flying kites in spring.
"Max?"
Victoria's call snaps her back to the present. She quickly heads upstairs towards Victoria, intent on staying as far away from the cursed kitchen as possible.
Victoria is crouching behind the potted plants in the balcony, and raises her eyebrow curiously at Max. There is a silent question of Are you okay? in her unspoken gesture. Like Max, the traumatic scene she witnessed in the kitchen has scarred her, perhaps for life. What they went through was not something they would wish on their worst enemies.
Max returns her look with a nod and joins her in the balcony. "How's it looking?"
"Your girl did well," replies Victoria while tossing the binoculars at Max for a look.
My girl.
Zooming in, Max sees Chloe speaking and walking side-to-side with a tall man decked in full military combat uniform and an AK-47. If he is tasked to bring Chloe back, she must be an important person to the military. With the rest of the team bringing up the rear, Max sees them walking towards a different street, away from their current location.
I'll see you soon, Chloe. I promise.
Victoria stands up and walks out of the balcony. "Well, that's that. I'll take the first watch. You go ahead and take a break."
"No, I can't sleep now. Not yet anyway. You go on and keep Kate company," Max says as she follows Victoria out and closes the balcony's sliding doors behind her.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," says Max, while putting on a reassuring smile. It feels weird to smile after the mini breakdown she had, but sleep is the last thing she wants right now.
Victoria gives a hesitant nod before heading towards Kate's room. Max is grateful that Victoria didn't push it. Their relationship is barely cordial at best, but strangely, they genuinely care and trust each other with their lives.
Max does a quick check of all the windows in the house, making sure that each of them is either locked tight or fully boarded up. The front door also has to be properly bolted and locked. She thought about propping a chair against the door just to be doubly safe but decides that is probably an overkill.
She then brings her backpack to the living room and takes out her journal. She hasn't touched it in weeks, but now is probably a good time as any to return to writing. But she is at a loss as to where to start. She needed to write about the massacre of her team members; she needed to address the pain and horror, but it feels too soon to revisit the awful memory.
Her mind then wonders to Chloe. She recalls the hug, smelling Chloe's scent of earth, cheap perfume and cigarette smoke. Her scent was different from when they were kids, but it was still very Chloe. Max notes her dyed blue hair, pale skin, and lanky stature. Everything about her is beautiful and perfect, and Max is once again beating herself up emotionally for leaving her best friend behind.
Max suddenly stops writing. Wait, did I just say my best friend is beautiful AND perfect?
She re-reads her writing and wonders seriously for the first time if she is in love with Chloe Price. She has fleetingly questioned herself before; it's hard not to when she is so consumed by anything related to Chloe. But Max is very confident of her sexuality. She is interested in cute, geeky guys. A good case in point is Warren Graham.
Warren and his father showed up at her camp three years after the war hit the country. They were fleeing Arcadia Bay after Warren's mother was raped and murdered by looters who broke into their house and stole all their food. Warren was hiding in the cellar and spared the trauma. His father, however, shot himself in the head a week after moving into the rebels' camp. It is as if his sole living purpose after his wife's death was to place his son somewhere safe before joining her.
It took Warren a year to get over his parents' death. He claimed that the looters were army soldiers and vowed vengeance. He works out, trains hard, and quickly joins the elders for reconnaissance and mini assignments once he was deemed ready. He matured from a skinny gawky boy at sixteen, to a well-built, confident young man at twenty-one. Despite his physical appearance however, Warren is still the same guy who talks to Max about his favourite Dr Who episodes and how much he misses playing video games.
Max is pretty sure THAT is her type. She was certainly pleased when he told her he likes her. When he first held her close to kiss her, Max was sure it would be magical and special. It didn't disappoint her too much when it…wasn't. She understood that it was not fair to compare the kiss with Chloe's. Chloe was an expert and Warren wasn't – it's that simple.
But Max couldn't find the reason for the lack of sparks even after the first kiss progressed to some intense make-out sessions. On paper, Warren is perfect for her. They share the same interests and sense of humour. He has even professed his love for her (which Max could only replied noncommittally with "Me too") and they are already finishing off each other's sentences. But when Warren wants to take the next step with her, alarm bells went off in Max's mind and she abruptly broke up with him. No one, least of all Max herself, understands why. Warren blames himself for pushing her, and agrees to give Max some space, even though that wasn't exactly what Max was asking for.
Being gay would explain Max's lukewarm interests in Warren sexually. But considering she has been in the female changing room numerous times and never once had the inclination to peek at others or feel hot and bothered when in close proximity with other half-naked women, she brushes off the thought.
It is not her sexuality that is in question but her feelings for Chloe. She has always looked up to her best friend, even beyond reasons sometimes, but to be in love with her is a whole different kettle of fish.
Could it be possible though?
She closes her eyes and focuses on Chloe – the sparkle in her eyes when she is up to mischief, the special look she gives that is reserved for Max, how Chloe feels in her arms, how she breathes close to Max's ear earlier in the embrace…
Max's eyes pop open. She feels warm and flushed and her face is blushing profusely.
Oh my god, I definitely have a thing for Chloe Price…
"Hey, has everything been quiet here?"
Max jumps. "Jesus! Vic, stop creeping up on me."
"For godssakes, you are jittery today. Go eat something if you haven't already yet then get some sleep. I'll be with Kate during her watch and we'll wake you up when it's time to move," says Victoria as she plops herself on a nearby chair.
Max didn't realise that she has been writing and daydreaming about Chloe for the past five hours. She packs up her things and heads upstairs to her old bedroom. Half of her items have been looted and the other half have been thrashed but the bed was left relatively untouched. She settles down and absent-mindedly opens her can of tuna salad and eats it mechanically. She hardly tastes anything, and is mildly surprised to find out that she finished her meal. After cleaning up and brushing her teeth over the sink with a bottled water, she crawls into bed and continues thinking of Chloe. Max flips onto her back and slips out the photo of her and Chloe from her pocket. She stares longingly at the photo until her eyes grew heavy.
I'll return this to her tomorrow.
With that final promise, she hugs the photo to her chest and sinks into the first dreamless sleep she had in a long time.