Disclaimer: Anything familiar to you, I don't own. This is a work of fanfiction for personal amusement, fulfillment and a bit of self-therapy. I make nothing from any of it.

Chapter Forty-Four: Aletheia

Lost

And no one gave a toss

But now we've took our slot and so the story changed

January 17th 2012, 11:10 PM

The halls of Blackwell at night were always the same, Max thought as the door shut behind her. She flexed her fingers beneath her gloves and turned her eyes to the school. They were in one of the side halls; the one closest, as it turned out, to the dormitories. For that reason, if no other, Max wanted to keep moving. The only lights obvious in the hall were small, red ones that simply signified that smoke detectors and fire alarms were active and ready to do their duty. That's going to be annoying, Max told herself as she reached forward and caught Rachel's elbow in her hand. To her credit, even in the eerie quiet of the hall after hours Rachel did not jump.

The tiny bit of light which filtered in through the doors was not enough to really let Max make out Rachel's face but she knew that before they set off, feet shuffling along familiar, smooth tile floors, the blonde turned back to her. Probably, Max figured, she was trying to get a read on Max's emotional state. Max would have understood and appreciated that, frankly, as that morning she had been a total wreck. That was this morning, this is now. Let's get down to business. Quietly, in the back corner of her mind, the old refrain 'to defeat the Huns' had a bag tossed over its head and was stuffed into the back of a van to be disappeared somewhere.

The farther they went from the door, the closer they got to being safe if they were to turn on a light but also the darker it got until they were in near perfect darkness. The pale glow of vending machines were fixed up ahead, lighting the nexus in which all three hallways in the school intersected. Soon enough they passed through the darkest stretch of the hall past the photography classroom, among others, and into the center of the school where, now, Max could see Rachel's face when she turned back. The girl was concerned. She also looked distinctly uncomfortable dressed in the majority of her prowling outfit; the heavy black sweater, burnt gloves and, frankly, ruined sweatpants did the trick of helping to conceal one from view but it was not strictly necessary. Max hadn't had the heart to correct the girl when she stopped by Max's room in the middle of the night, ready to go, but figured Rachel had recognized her mistake when Max strolled out of the dormitories in her street clothes.

Again, Max moved her fingers to be sure these new gloves weren't going to be a pain in her ass. Then, resting one hand on Rachel's shoulder briefly, she drew narrowing eyes and a brief nod from the thespian. Alright, let's get this going. Max dug into her pocket. Her gloved hand brushed something small which was most likely the thumb drive and then found purchase on her phone. Its 'flashlight' emitted more than enough light for the pair them to get through the hall and come to a stop outside of the front office. Rachel did not slow, not knowing what Max knew. Once they passed through this open doorway, she was going to find a locked door. It was always locked.

Max glanced back up at Rachel and felt a momentary sense of vertigo. For just a moment, she was not looking at Rachel Amber, but at Chloe Price. It was not the Chloe Price she was used to: this one was slightly thinner and looked back at Max hungry for answers and a little angry, wearing an unfamiliar jacket with a familiar beanie. Max blinked hard and the thought went away, leaving only Rachel behind, watching her for answers. It wasn't that Max saw a memory, or even really saw Chloe in front of her, it was just a thought, an idea, a sensation. She wasn't like Chloe: she didn't 'read peoples' presence.'

This was, most likely, an artifact left behind by the angry, hurt woman based out of another Los Angeles entirely. Max was aware, the same way someone would be who read the sparknotes of a story instead of reading the book might be aware, of details. She thought that she and Chloe- that was to ,say a different Max and a different Chloe, had done this once before in the other world. Before's the wrong word. That would have been in 2013. So, 'after ' she corrected herself. Rachel must have sensed her hesitation.

"We're here," Rachel prompted her, as if she wasn't entirely sure that Max knew where they were. Sometimes, she found the tone with which Rachel spoke to her a little bit condescending. Those times, she had to remind herself that it was her own frustration speaking. The truth was that there were plenty of times she had found herself standing somewhere, so lost in the thoughts in her head or in panic that Rachel's guiding voice and tone had been all that stood between her and just breaking down somewhere she wouldn't want to.

Like this morning? If the girls had thought Max was bad at the breakfast table, there had been a second when Jefferson's eyes met hers where Max was close to simply losing her cool. If it hadn't been for Rachel practically holding her up she might have. The worst part of it all was that she did not have solid memories of the man to blame her mental state on. She had not been having any kind of flashback, it was simply the idea of being in a room with someone like Jefferson that had frozen her to the table. Like in the dream. Only this time, instead of Chloe arriving to pull her from the corner, she and Rachel had both escorted her out of the school and brought her somewhere where she could actually think again.

And it's time to focus. Max glanced away from Rachel to a small box set into the wall just about twenty feet down the hall. Contained inside of that was a decent sized fire extinguisher. That was her first option for getting through the locked door set into the back wall of the room ahead but she found it to be something of a gamble. Oh, it had worked last time, certainly, but she had to confess that since that last time she had gotten physically weaker. Max didn't want to admit this to Rachel and Chloe but her recovery as far as her ability to eat and keep food down was not quite as complete as they expected. I have been getting better. I have been trying. They don't get it. Given that the fire extinguisher was pretty light, Max wasn't so sure she could really drive it down with the force required for what she needed.

"This is gonna be a little scary for a second, but you won't even notice a second later." Not like I have a better plan A. Max watched concern cross Rachel's face by the light of her phone. It was healthy, reasonable concern. If Rachel had said it to her without any context, Max would have begun asking questions. Instead, the thespian nodded as if to say that she trusted Max implicitly. Max waited a moment longer before taking off to see if that made her feel guilty like it used to. Certainly it made her feel a little undeserving. She wasn't sure any of the three of them deserved that kind of questionless trust. That thought did leave her feeling guilty but she really had no time to unpack everything rattling around in her head.

It didn't take Max more than a few seconds to reach the extinguisher, with her path lit in fair detail. In case of fire, smash shit. F airly sturdy glass rested over the front of the box, made not to be shattered if bumped into too hard, as had happened last week to one of the doors of the trophy case when Daniel DaCosta 'tripped' into it between classes. What looked deceptively like a heavy extinguisher waited for her inside the box, the key to breaking into Principal Wells' office which was currently locked away behind thick, dark wood. She reached down to grab the small, metal glass breaker hanging from the box on a fairly short chain. As she lined up her quick swing, Max remembered the first time she had done this almost exactly a year ago. Time flies when feel like you ought to die. She hadn't been sure then if it was one of those things where it was going to be easy to do, if she was going to be able to put enough force into it on her first try.

Now, Max knew better. She did not have to swing particularly hard; it didn't even take much force for the glass to shatter. Excellent, Max told herself as the glass began to fall both inwardly and outwardly, not making a significant noise by itself. While the glass made neither ear-piercing crash nor pleasant tinkling, what did make a noise was the sharp, world ending alarm that began to blare inside the school. Max slipped her phone back into her pocket, reached into the box and after flipping a latch, seized the fire extinguisher and pulled it free. We have about four minutes if David's on duty, maybe eight or nine if not. If she were David-that was to say, freshly divorced and living alone-she might have been working night shift.

"What the hell?" Rachel called from down the hall as she hefted the fire extinguisher up and started toward the blonde. There was no reason to whisper anymore, and Rachel knew it. As she approached the doorway to the front office, Max remembered the first time she had had to do this. She had been immediately disappointed: the extinguisher couldn't weight more than nine pounds and she had been counting on it being heavier so she could use its weight to her advantage. Despite feeling slightly weaker than before, she still felt far more hindered by the thing's shape than its light weight. Max hauled the object, one hand on its handle and the other on the bottom, past Rachel who stepped aside when she realized that Max wasn't surprised by the alarm blasting across campus. Still, standing a little dumbfounded, her visage registered in Max's eyes in the darkness and pulled an unexpected chuckle from somewhere deep in her stomach. "Max, I don't mean to question your plan but-"

"In a few seconds this will never have happened," Max promised her as she approached the imposing door across from her. Ignoring the tacky nameplate set into the otherwise unmarred wood, Max raised the fire extinguisher and decided to set the girl at ease. "You ever shut yourself into a room and break a doorknob off?"

"Can't say I have," Rachel responded, dubiously, now practically yelling. It was easy to do with that damn alarm trying to bore through one's ears and liquidate their brain. Max grunted a chuckle as she stopped short of the door and eyed the knob. Line it up, get this done with. I don't know how many swings we have in us. The truth was that her arms were already getting tired. This was not a heavy weight, but it was bulky and the idea of having to take more than three or four shots with it was not good. The truth was, if it took that many it probably meant she was too weak to get done what needed to get done. Max was going to have to confront some hard truths about her behavior if that happened and she did not want to have to. It was better to just leave some things alone. Focus.

"You feel stupid and a little trapped at first, but it's easier than you think to get out without a doorknob, not to mention," Max heard her own tone rise to a yell as she slammed the extinguisher down as hard as she could against the knob, trying to turn one edge of the bottom of the cylinder so that it might focus the force of the blow. The alarm outside of the office continued to scream and the knob hung on, though she thought it was hanging lower than natural. Okay, but why am I so tired? "It does wonders for making locks kind of fucking pointless." Max took a deep breath, a little shamed by the fact that she was already beginning to feel out of breath. Holding tight to the round top and the handle of the bright red fire extinguisher, she slammed the end down again. No, God fucking damn it! When Max moved the extinguisher away and very nearly lost her grip on it, she took one more look at the handle. Again, it hung angled downward, but had not broken. Her swings were clearly doing something but she needed to break the damn thing off and like it or not, she had not been the best to her body over the last few months. Those particular chickens were coming home to roost. "We have a minute at most," she called over her shoulder, "I need you to help me out."

The thespian did step up beside her, winking one hazel eye and then, instead of helping her, slowly pushed her aside. Exasperated, Max reached out to hand the extinguisher over; Rachel was strong enough to get it done, surely. Rachel did not take the offered tool. Instead, Max watched in a mix of frustration and fascination as Rachel grabbed hold of the doorknob. At first, nothing happened: Max knew the knob was damaged but there is still one good solid metal piece at the center of the whole mess that needed to be broken or somehow dislodged.

As Max was about to tell Rachel that she was not superman and wouldn't be breaking that metal rod with her hand this evening, she got a whiff of something. It was not pleasant smelling: smoke and something metallic. Oh, Max told herself, shifting around Rachel to try to get a better view of what the girl was doing. From her angle, Max watched the knob deform slightly under her hand. Fucking cool. Bit by bit, the knob heated up. Max's head swung around, quickly. Even over the blaring alarm she could hear the front doors to the school-the closest set-opening. Things were going to get bad if they weren't through that door in a few seconds. Help her out, Max told herself.

"Rachel, David's going to be here any second. He's going to catch us and we're going to have to deal with him dragging us around, shit talking us. I don't know about you but that doesn't sound like any fun to me." Rachel did not turn her head, did not look at her. Max watched her in profile and saw the girl's brows point inward, saw her jaw work as she ground her teeth and less heard and more felt when Rachel cracked her neck. There was a moment almost immediately after when the smell of smoke increased and, burning faux gold paint and impurities in the thin metal, Rachel pushed her fire harder toward the knob. If past experience was anything to go by, Max knew to take a step back, so she did. Impressively, the doorknob didn't simply explode from the force of Rachel's ability.

Instead, it began to visibly look heated, glowing slightly. Max dropped the fire extinguisher and was forced to jump back another step so as not to crush one of her toes. Ignoring for the moment the fact that not only had her arms just given out under far too little pressure but she had also failed to open the door for the first time, Max glanced over her shoulder. No one had come into the room yet, but she could see the telltale signs of flashlights from down the hall. When Max looked back she did so in time not to hear the snap of the small metal rod attached to the handle so much as see it in the way Rachel's grasp changed on the handle. Max reached immediately into her left pocket and freed a thick, if short, screwdriver from it, pushing Rachel aside again with her right hand. A glowing mass of thin, cheap brass hit the carpet, which was something of a fire hazard.

The look Rachel gave Max when she briefly sideeyed the thespian was that same trust, whole and complete. Either she did not know that they were seconds away from being discovered or it did not bother her. It's okay, all you need is to step into that room and everything is over. Max rammed the screwdriver into the remnants of the handle. She could feel it in her arm as the rest of the knob was dislodged and, with very little effort, she managed to turn the mechanism inside of the door using the flathead. When she thought she felt the familiar click, Max pushed on the door, placing her spare finger to her lips.

Max stumbled into the dark room, took two steps and turned. Rachel was framed for a moment against the backdrop of a flashlight aimed right at her. Behind the light Max saw a pointed chin, a thick mustache, a man who had hurt Chloe. As David called out for them to freeze, Max raised her right hand and closed her eyes. She pushed herself from the world, away from Rachel and David, from the alarm and the anxiety and into the timescape. This time, instead of making for the nearest sensation with all of her focus, she split it. Half of herself remained frozen on the spot and half struck out into the hazy grey void that was the timescape in which she found herself.

It was different trying to root one's self to a point in space while pushing against time. It became more difficult to taste the emotions of a moment as one approached it, to see the sounds or feel the conversation. Max knew to look for the acidic taste of her guilt, her realization that she had neglected her own health to the point where she was unable to get through the door by herself and then to try to go past that to the sweet and sour 'aha' moment of seizing the glass breaker and lining up a swing. Things weren't exactly so linear in the timescape but as long as one looked for connections between times, it was usually fairly simple not to get lost wandering in it.

Max could hardly remember what traveling was like before she became aware of the smog-vapor of the timescape. She had the vague sense that it was more instinctual than anything and that was why she trusted the idea that she could find one point from another as long as they were connected. There was no guidebook to this kind of thing, no one to tell her that that idea was right. She had had one person in front of her once, who might have been able to give her advice but at the time Max had been so fucked up that she hadn't even thought to ask.

Max found a jagged tear in the timescape, from which an aroma that turned into taste was emitting. This aroma was the very same 'aha' she had been looking for. She could see herself in the tear, reaching for the small, steel hammer-like object hanging from the extinguisher. By the time she got it, the tear was already showing her Rachel who stood, gaping in surprise and confusion by the entrance to the front office. Excellent, Max thought while doing something that almost equated to shuffling feet in this non-world. That act, which sometimes Max even had difficulty defining and recognizing, reminded her where she was to stay as another part of her passed to when she was supposed to be.

The Earth returned around her, silent and dark. She still felt weaker, a little more tired and certainly shaky but when Max drew in a breath it was free of the smell of burning brass just as much as the night was unmolested by the fire alarm which would now not be set off. It only took her a second or two to unlock the door to the office and stride out. Rachel was still just out in the hallway and by the light of Max's phone flashlight, she was clearly visible in her rapid, confused search of her surroundings before she turned into the office and saw Max, waiting for her inside of Wells' office.

"Max?" she asked, blinking against the sudden glare in her eyes. "Oh w-wow." Max gestured for her, unable to stop the smile from splitting her face. Every first time Rachel had ever seen her powers, they had elicited a similar reaction. The genuine wonder in her voice always made up for the slight fear in her eyes. Opening the door slightly wider, Max beckoned her again and felt relieved as the taller girl's legs began to work. Let's go, let's go.

"What the hell was that?" Rachel hissed as she passed firmly into Max's personal space. Max found she did not mind. Even confused, Rachel was pretty fucking gorgeous and now that they were likely to go completely undiscovered, Max felt like she might deserve a second appreciating that. The second passed and Max stepped aside. "You were standing by the fire extinguisher down the hall and then-"

"Gone?" Max asked, humming slightly. Neither of them were keeping their voices down. Max did not mind. The hard part was over. Rachel nodded her response, though it took longer than necessary. "Time and space are my bitches , honey, now get in here." Max took the quirk of Rachel's lips at face value and shut the door behind her with little care. Moving across the rapidly becoming familiar floor of the Wells' office, Max found the lamp chain on his desk and pulled the chain, spreading a dim light across the room. "We're gonna wanna make it fast."

"They won't see the light?"

"No one has a reason to come to this building for like, forty-five minutes or so, and with the snow on the ground they'll be taking it slow," Max promised and then remembered that Rachel had no clue at all how extensively she used to follow the guard patterns on campus. Come to think of it, I couldn't fuckin' count the number of nights I followed one of the night guards. "Why don't you see if there's anything in meatspace that we might need?" Max practically strolled around the desk and dropped herself back into Wells' seat. "Damn, this is comfy." Feeling callous, she backed the chair up and spun once in it.

"Meatspace?" Rachel asked, brow furrowing as she waited just inside the door.

"Out here in the 'real world.' I'll be online." Max pressed the power button on the computer and then looked up at Rachel. The blonde girl was now watching Max with some sort of incredulity and did so for several seconds before shaking her head, hard and stepping over to the filing cabinets in the corner of the room. Max reached into her pocket and pulled loose the new, yellow flash drive with her gloved hand. She quite enjoyed watching Rachel start her search as the computer booted up; it was more fun when you had a partner in time. "You know, I know you can't remember, but we wouldn't have gotten in without you. Thanks."

"You're welcome, I guess?" Rachel answered, sounding confused about whether she should have said anything to that or not. Max laughed. It was so much easier when she could be honest, and frankly, hearing Rachel just slightly out of her element was kind of cute. "What's funny?"

"Your face, now keep looking." Max shot to her, turning back toward the computer, which had finally booted up.

"I thought you liked my face?" Rachel replied, sounding offended. If Max had turned around in that moment she thought she might have see the girl pouting.

"It's glorious, Rachel, now let's nail this shit to the board and get out of here." Whatever that means.

"Aye, captain. You interface with the main computer and I'll take an away team to this filing cabinet."

"Gods, I love it when you talk Trek to me," Max promised. She realized as she did so that she hadn't felt good all day. Not really good, at least. In the moment, though, whether it was the adrenaline or the back and forth, flirting and joking and just living, she wasn't sure but she was happy.Just living means breaking into locked rooms and looking for evidence that a sexual predator is working with the Prescotts, apparently. Max ran her eyes over the desk. I could get into this whole investigator shtick.

Step one, Max told herself as she stared at the screen, was to find out what brought Jefferson to teach at the school. He was an alum, so maybe it was that paired with his relative fame or maybe he was recommended to Wells by the Chases or perhaps the Prescotts had longer and deeper ties with him than expected. Sean Prescott is only about eight years older than him. The idea that they might have run into each other in Jefferson's early teenage years and formed some kind of mutual bond off of being absolute, heartless bastards was not out of the realm of possibility.

Frankly, the way Sean Prescott treated his son, at least, didn't make him being a psychopath seem all that unlikely. Max was about to get started when it struck her in that moment that she had never told Chloe and Rachel about why Samantha Myers left town before she even showed up. Research, especially the kind that was not fully legal, often yielded unfortunately detailed results. The Prescotts were, whatever else was going on, a skidmark on this town and sending Samantha running after the ' accident' that left her with three broken ribs was only one part of their crimes.

Get on with it, Max. She took a moment as the password prompt popped up on the screen to examine the desk. In the past, Wells would leave an object in a place of prominence and mark it somehow if it referenced or even directly was the password. The one exception was the time he had left a small post-it on the edge of his desk with an arrow pointing down. That particular day, she'd found the password written plainly on a second post-it attached to the underside of the desk.

Today, there was nothing that stuck out as being out of place. Nothing new seemed to be set on to the front of the desk and the only post-it she could find was blank and attached to the back of the, bronze bird that always sat on his desk. Strangely, though, the bird was turned so that its beak was facing the chairs opposite of the desk more directly than usual. You know , Max told herself as she heard Rachel grunt, it's never been the falcon before . She couldn't come up with the names of any falcons from fiction or history off the top of her head, though. The password prompt obscured the letters as she typed ' F-A-L-C-O-N '. Next she tried the same word in all lowercase letters and by the third attempt, the screen still had not gone blank and begun loading Wells' desktop but a hint had formed at the bottom of the screen.

' The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed . Also, a pain in my ass. ' Max blinked. On the whole it sounded like a pretty generic and irrelevant phrase, but Max was certain she'd heard it before. She turned on her chair to find Rachel watching her, a manilla file folder in her hand. I wonder if she's got something, but I need to get in here.

"Trying to get the password. The hint is: The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.' Is there a reason that sounds familiar?" When Rachel responded, her voice was slightly higher and a bit more drawn out, just the slightest bit pretentious sounding. It was, Max recognized immediately, a less-than-flattering though not inaccurate mimicry of Brooke Scott's voice. Rachel didn't have to finish speaking for the puzzle pieces to click.

" 'The Dark Tower is Stephen King's greatest achievement and anyone who reads it can't tell me he's just a horror author.'"

"Biiiiiiingo." It only took Max a second after that to free her phone from her pants pocket, gloves or not. She pulled up her inbox and looked not for the contents of the message preview but the small icon depicting Brooke's face. Fuckin' aye.

Me

are you awake?

"What did you find?" Max asked Rachel as she began to count to thirty in her head. If Brooke didn't get back to her, she would just have to google it and try to find out what to do. Okay, so that's the first line from the book. I read that much. What does that make the password? Max glanced back at the falcon. Is it possible 'The Gunslinger' has a pet bird or some shit? In answer to Max's question, Rachel shook her head. It was not the most encouraging response she could have gotten.

"It's just his resume and his record when he was here. Good student, nice grades- like five or six fights though and twice someone got sent to the hospital. Sounds like he had a temper." Max nodded but allowed herself a second of distraction to compare him to Nathan. She was about to speak when Brooke's response came in, the phone in Max's hand buzzing insistently. When Max answered it, Rachel was freeing hers, presumably to snap a photo of each page of the man's file. Rachel Amber, you're a genus.

Brooke

What's up

Me

Did The Gunslinger have a bird?

Brooke

What

Me

From that Stephen King series. I feel like I remember hearing someone saying he had a bird, what was it called?

Brooke

he used a bird as a weapon once. Clawed out his teacher's eye. Kinda gross.

Me

What was it called? Someone was asking me and I can't remember.

Brooke

Two seconds.

His name was David.

Me

Thanks. Are you looking forward to the session on Friday?

Max laughed audibly as she slid her phone back into her pocket. She would be sure to keep up with Brooke in a minute or two, but Max was busy trying not to grin too much at the last part of the hint. Also a pain in your ass indeed, Wells. She registered Rachel inquiring after her chuckle but was too busy moving fingers across the familiar keyboard layout. ' D-a-v-i-d.'

The screen went black a moment after she hit enter and then the principal's desktop roared to life. Max didn't waste any time. Though the computer protested and stalled as much as it could, she popped open a browser as Rachel approached her, making a sound of some appreciation and enjoyment. She felt the chair shift as Rachel put one hand on its back and knelt beside Max. In this state the girl was about half an inch shorter than Max, which gave her a rare opportunity while the browser remained blank and unresponsive. Max pecked the girl on her forehead, earning an earnest, sweet smile and then turned herself back toward the computer.

"We're in, fuckers," Max practically crooned in celebration. "Now if this piece of shit can run faster than the speed of death we might get done here before we're eighty."

"Chill," Rachel advised her. "We're fine here, right?"

"Right," Max promised the girl, their eyes matching again. "At least, I know I'm fine. I've looked into a mirror today." Rachel's smile turned to a smirk and though it meant having to take extra care to balance, the blonde socked her fairly roughly on the shoulder for the inappropriately timed humor. It didn't take Max any time to get into the man's e-mail system with the same password he had been using a year and some change ago. What did prove problematic was finding any sign of email correspondence about Mark Jefferson at all. Eventually, using the search function built into the mailbox, she dug up a series of six e-mails between Jefferson and Wells that seemed to be fairly normal between employee and employer. Wells, it seemed, was happy to have a man of Jefferson's clout coming to Blackwell and Jefferson was happy for the chance to 'return to my community' and 'share years of knowledge gained first and second hand.'

In short, as Max and Rachel read through the chain of messages back and forth, there was zero sign of the man being connected to either the Chases or the Prescotts. Sean Prescott certainly at one point congratulated Wells on a fine hiring decision but the same could be said for any number of people who Max suspected were part of the school board. This meant nothing. As much as she hadn't wanted to find any evidence to suggest Nathan and Jefferson were already brothers in arms, it was somewhat disappointing to have nothing new to go from, to consider that they might have to start from scratch in the fight against Mark Jefferson. Max cleared the browser history and pushed back from the desk a few minutes later before shutting the computer down.

"So we found nothing?" Rachel asked as she began to stand. The thespian's knees popped audibly in the quiet office.

"Maybe," Max grunted, feeling more than a little grumpy. "Or maybe the lack of evidence tells a story." With that, Max rose to her feet herself and took the time to position the chair roughly where it was. Watching as Rachel frustratedly put the file back, Max slipped her flash drive back into her pocket. "Maybe Wells really just put out there that the school was going to need a replacement next year and Jefferson really just applied. It would be really hard to turn him down for the spot."

"Why would he come back?" Rachel asked as she slid the cabinet shut and the two of them began to make toward the door. Max peeked out the moment she cracked it open. "If you're rich and famous, why come back?" This time, the girl spoke more quietly. They were about to return to their creep-and-whisper tactics.

"Well, he was starting to fall out of vogue a little but he was a native to Arcadia Bay, a graduate at Blackwell at one time. He must have decided that it was a good hunting ground. Hell, sick fucker's first victims were probably here," the next phrase made her shiver, but Max thought it bore saying. "Predators love to hunt on familiar ground."

"What do we now?" The freshly locked principal's office door shut behind the thespian and Max led her into the hall. The smartest move was to leave by the same door they entered, so Max led the way, muttering as she went.

"Now we watch him like a hawk. Now, we watch Nathan like a hawk. He could be up to his old tricks already and the thing is, if he is, Jefferson might catch on and that might be how they get connected." With a sigh, Max issued her last edict. "Now, we go into the belly of the beast."

"What do you mean by that?" Rachel pressed, sounding properly concerned again for the first time since they had broken into the school to begin with.

"Now, we join the Vortex Club."

End Part 3

Are You Ready For Me?