Twenty: Gun

Max and Chloe arrived on Second Street early enough to watch the sky dust the clouds with peach and pink, like a woman dabbing her cheeks with blush. It was beautiful even to Max's puffy, zombified eyeballs. She'd slept fitfully all night. She kept dreaming that they'd overslept and missed the prisoner transfer. Or worse they'd arrived just in time for her to watch the bullet punch through Jefferson's skull. Except sometimes in her dream it was Chloe's.

The police station was still standing, but many of the other buildings on the street hadn't fared so well. City Hall had lost its roof, and the post office was gone. Across the street, the bank had only three standing walls. The remaining structure had been propped up by temporary beams while the city decided whether they could salvage the historic stone facade of the building. Sipping her coffee, and glad to have something warm in her belly to ward off the frigid morning air, Max let her eyes linger on the broken building. She'd walked up those steps so many times, under the shade of a huge oak tree. In the fall, acorns would crunch under her feet when she went to deposit a cheque she'd gotten for dog walking or babysitting. But the oak had been snapped like a twig and the broken trunk jutted out of the earth like a spearhead, wrapped in pieces of metal siding by the fierce winds.

Max blinked rapidly, eyes stinging. "My dad brought me here when I was eight to open my first bank account."

"So did mine," Chloe said, eyes fixed on the police station across the street.

Max reached up to rest her hand on Chloe's shoulder. And then, their breath hovering in white puffs, they waited.

In Max's vision, the shooter had come out from behind the oak tree. That wouldn't be an option now, but the half demolished bank would certainly work. Max only hoped she was right and that the blond woman would do the same in this reality as she would have in the one without the storm.

Of course, this was all assuming that she hadn't jumped to conclusions. But there was the missing gun. That worried Max more than anything else.

Chloe's eyes scanned the streets, as a pair of officers headed into the station. Still no state car though. "Maybe we should split up, keep an eye on things from different angles."

Max stiffened. "No. Absolutely not." She looked up at Chloe, dead serious. "I'm not letting you out of my sight."

"Okay, okay. Don't freak. It was just–" Her response was cut short by the arrival of a royal blue Oregon State Police cruiser. "This is it!"

A jolt of terror shot down Max's spine. She couldn't breathe and felt as cold as if she'd been dunked in ice water.

A pair of officers got out of the car and disappeared inside the police station. There would be red tape, paperwork. It would take them some time to get everything finalized and to get the prisoner out of his cell and cuffed. And then they would bring him out and...

A hint of movement in the corner of Max's eye. She swivelled and saw her, a hooded figure in a puffy jacket appearing from the ruins of the DMV and cutting across the street towards the police station. Snagging Chloe's arm, Max raced to cut off the figure. It had to be her. If they were wrong and they got distracted as Jefferson was brought out...

The figured ducked its head, hands stuffed into the jacket's pockets. Walked faster. They intercepted the figure just as it came to the curb. A wisp of blond hair had escaped from the hood.

Squeezing Chloe's arm, Max planted her feet. "Don't do it!"

The figure looked up, startled. It was her. The woman from Max's vision, the one from the bus stop. The one who had shot/would have shot Jefferson. "Excuse me," she grumbled. She tried to circle around them even as she kept checking the entrance to the police station. Waiting for Jefferson.

Chloe moved to block her. "Don't think so."

Her head snapped up. "Get out of my way!"

Heart hammering, Max pressed herself close against Chloe's side, determined to keep her out of harm's way while still doing what she had to. She would save Arcadia Bay and Chloe both this time. Even if it meant saving Mark Jefferson too. No more ghosts. Just us monsters.

"We know you stole that gun and we know what you're planning to do with it."

The woman's face contorted with rage. "Get out of my fucking way!"

"Please," Max said, "please don't do this."

Her hand jerked out of the jacket pocket gripping a revolver. "I'm not fucking around!"

Chloe darted in front of Max, standing between her and the woman. "Chloe!" Max grabbed at her, trying to pull her back, but Chloe reached back, snagging her, keeping her back and all Max could do was wrap and arm around Chloe's middle and hold on to her, rigid with fear.

The woman stood there, staring at them, the shiny black barrel of the gun still pointed their way. They were still a few feet away, too far to try to grab for it. If she pulled the trigger... Max shuddered. She knew what it was like to get shot. And she knew what it was like to watch someone she loved get shot. She didn't want to relive either experience.

Like a camera lens, her eyes seemed to zoom in on the gun so that it was all she could see, the sole focus of her vision. But then a hint of colour distracted her. Something registered in her panicked brain. A smear of blue on the inside of the wrist. The jacket–a donation surely–was too short at the sleeves and, as she held out the gun, the woman's wrists were poking through, and Max could see it now, a blue line on the inside of her wrist, like a ragged vein. No. A vine. A thorny, twining vine.

"Susan," Max gasped. "Susan Baker?"

Startled, the woman fell back a step, the gun wavering.

"Chloe," Max said, squeezing her, "look at her wrist, it's her!"

Her left hand shot out, covering her wrist, even as her wide-eyed stare searched Max's face. Still gripping the revolver, her hand shook. Max's arm tightened around Chloe's waist. Please not Chloe. Please not again.

The clang of a metal door opening and voices from across the street, made her heart leap into her throat. She didn't dare turn to look towards the police station. Susan Baker's eyes shifted, narrowed. Jefferson–they must be moving him to the police car. Oh shit.

"We know about Michelle," Max said. She sounded desperate. But she hadn't expected this. And she couldn't rewind to try to figure out what the right thing to say would be. If there even was a right thing at all.

Stunned, Susan froze, "How–"

"We found your box," Chloe said, her fingers still locked around the folds of Max's jacket, keeping her back. "The one with all your photos and stuff."

Susan–this forty-something-year-old version of her with tightly-bound dyed blond hair and nothing of the 90s punk about her–this Susan stared at them in utter astonishment, looking so pale, they might as well have been a pair of ghosts come to haunt her.

She was shaking. The gun in her hand was shaking. But then her eyes darted to the police station and she took a step to pass them. "No, I need to stop him. I need to–"

But Chloe lunged forward, trying to snag her arm. Susan fell back, still gripping the revolver. The weapon swung wildly. Max's stomach lurched.

"We will, we'll stop him," Max said. "He's going to go to jail."

"No he won't," Susan snarled. "He never does. Get out of my way!"

Chloe didn't flinch. "Look, you're going to have to fucking shoot us. You ready to do that?"

The expression on her face shifted from anger to something more desperate.

Doors opened and closed behind them. A motor revved. Max dared to glance over her shoulder in time to see the Oregon State Police cruiser pull away from the curb. Jefferson was in the back seat.

Max turned back to see Susan sag with defeat, her hand, still gripping the gun, hanging loose at her side. She covered her eyes and tears leaked from under her palm. "He always gets away with it. Even the papers are saying he's innocent. But he isn't. He's–He's–"

"We know," Max said, her eyes flitting between Susan and the gun. "He's a monster. We know what we did and as soon as we can prove that he killed Nathan Prescott everyone will know it." Susan shook her head, her shoulders shaking. "You could talk to the police, tell them about Michelle, then maybe they'll be willing to check her grave."

"What?"

"Michelle's mother died last month. I think Jefferson dumped Nathan's body in the grave."

Susan held very still. Her hand fell away from her eyes. And though they were swollen with tears, they were the same mossy green Max remembered from the photographs. "I think you should... start from the beginning."