Chapter 5
The morning seemed to come at a crawl after the ambulance had left with Ana in the back of it. Melody had wanted to go too, but Ana insisted she stay. Chloe was glad for that. She was the only one among them who had even the vaguest clue what she was doing. If someone else got hurt now, they were all boned without her. There was no doubt that her staying was for the best, as much as she'd clearly hated it.
Everyone had retreated to their beds, but Chloe was pretty sure no one had slept. She'd sat on the edge of the bed in the room she'd woken up in until the break of day, not daring to close her eyes. She didn't know when, but it occurred to her at some point that this was actually Ana's bed. This was Ana's room. She'd let Chloe invade it voluntarily, realising she had nowhere else to go. Now here Chloe was sitting on the edge of that same bed she'd been allowed to sleep in and Ana wasn't even there. That just made her feel like shit on a whole different level. She couldn't speak for anyone else, but there was no way in hell she was getting any sleep after that. Daybreak couldn't come quick enough for her liking and she'd positively cheered when she saw daylight peeking through the edge of the window.
Her bag had been placed in the corner of the room for her, so she'd changed quickly and headed outside. The morning air was chilly on her skin and caused the hairs on her arms to stand erect, but she didn't mind. To her it felt fresh and brisk on her skin. It cleared her head. That was what she needed. And with her new-found burst of energy, she decided to get a jump start and head for her truck. She could do what she could in terms of damage assessment and place the orders for the parts with Inchy and House. After putting that much money in their safe on her first night, she was in seriously good standing with The Hive now. Something told her she could ask them to try and find Max for her and they would.
Max... That one rogue thought stopped her cold. Why had she crept into all this? She'd wanted to come to Seattle to find a new life for herself, not to get in on Max's. But would trying to re-establish contact be such a bad thing? She couldn't keep going with Rachel forever if she was just going to get in Chloe's face over the slightest little thing at every turn. It drained what little mental energy she was able to safeguard from David. And that wasn't much. Again, the more she thought about it the more it sounded like a decent idea. Why not try? The worst she could do was tell her to get lost.
Pulling her phone out, Chloe saw that there were two new messages. For a brief second, her heart missed a beat. Was one of them from Max? She dismissed the thought as quickly as it had arrived. She'd only thought that because Max was on her mind at that moment. Stupid! Refocusing, she looked and found that the messages were both from Joyce. She loaded them up and braced for impact.
'Oh, thank god!'
'Where are you? Are you coming home tonight? Please?'
The words hit Chloe like a knife in the heart. She wanted to. Partially. If only to let her mother know she was okay. But without her truck, she was walking it. And that would take days. Instead, she settled for coming out of her messages and going to her contacts. She selected Joyce's number and hit the call button. It rang for all of two seconds before someone picked up.
"Chloe? Is that you?" The pain in Joyce's voice wasn't lost on Chloe. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do about it now.
"Yeah, Mom. It's me."
"Chloe, please tell me you're coming home!" Joyce had given up all hope of composure and was flat-out begging now. "I promise you're not in trouble. I just need to know you're here and you're safe, okay?"
"I can't come home right now." There was no sense in hiding it. Chloe might as well tell her. "I was so exhausted when I was coming into Seattle that I crashed the truck. I'm not hurt but it'll be off the road for two more days at least. Don't worry about me. I've found a safe place to stay and they're letting me work there in return for food on the table. I'm warm and well-fed and I've already got several people to like me here."
"Have you made contact with Max yet?" Joyce asked. Chloe felt like ice water had been poured down her back. Why had Joyce mentioned her?
"Max? No." Chloe tried to keep her voice strong even though the mention of her so soon after thinking of getting in contact again had her heart skipping a beat. Was this a sign she should try it? "When I left, I planned to start a new life here. Max may not have chosen to leave Arcadia Bay, but no one forced her to drop contact with me. Since I'm here, I'll try it once and once only. If it doesn't work, that's it."
"Just stay safe, Chloe." Joyce sounded like she was barely holding onto her composure. Chloe wouldn't admit it, but the rivers running down her face weren't just from the early morning air. "David has admitted to me what happened. And he accepts his part in it. Now I want to talk about what'll happen going forward, but right now all I care about is you getting home safe."
"I'll think about it." Chloe deliberately let her words hang heavy. She knew she went too far and her last sentence to him had been far beyond anything she'd said before. That was darkness on a level she hadn't been ready for. But that still didn't mean she was ecstatic about living with him. She'd made it perfectly clear on many occasions that the house she'd lived in for many years could never be a home if he was there. She had to applaud Joyce's commitment to keep trying, but at what point did that become desperation. And the latest incident had only cemented in her own mind that the two of them were like oil and water. With that, she hung up. She couldn't face thinking about David right now. Instead, she turned her head towards more pleasant thoughts like Max.
Scrolling through her contacts again, she found Max. She wasn't going to text and give Max a chance to ignore her again, so she decided the upfront approach was best. If Max had deleted her number, so much the better. It meant she wouldn't know who was calling her. That at least made it fifty-fifty odds that she'd pick up and that was the furthest anything had been in Chloe's favour for just over three years. To her joy, someone picked up on the sixth ring.
"Hello?" Chloe's heart instantly fell. It was a guy on the other end. And one she didn't recognise.
"Hi. Is Max there at all, please?"
"Uh, yeah. He's on the crapper right now. Can I get him to call you back?" He? Him? This wasn't right at all. But there was no way Chloe couldn't have dialled the wrong number. She'd had it saved to her contacts since elementary school.
"Um, the Max I'm looking for is a girl."
"Ah, dammit! Wait, are you the one that kept texting? I had to change my number about two and a half years ago and I kept getting these texts..."
"Yeah, looks like it." Chloe told him, her heart sinking. "Sorry about that. She must have changed her phone and then not had my number to give me her new contact details. Sorry to have bothered you."
"No worries, honey. Hope you find your friend." With that, the phone went dead. Whoever had been on the other end hadn't wasted time with any ceremony. Then again, why would he? He didn't know her. With a heavy heart, she pulled up her contacts screen again. There was Max's name with a picture of her she'd taken on her crappy old phone camera next to it. She'd looked beautiful that day and Chloe could only wish that her camera did it justice. As it stood, it made a good contact icon. It pixelated to crap when you tried to enlarge it to any size beyond that, but it was there, at least. And she still had the original image on her new phone. That knowledge brought her comfort as, with a heavy heart, she called up the options menu and scrolled down to 'Delete'. No sense keeping the number around if she wasn't on the end of it. And with that burst of resolve, she hit the button.
The instant Max's contact name vanished from her list, a wave of mixed feelings washed over her. In one sense, she felt relieved. As it stood, she'd been texting a number that Max wasn't on the other end of for literally years. Erasing the number meant erasing the risk of that happening again. But it also meant that she was actually erasing all she really had left of Max from her life. She'd felt like she was trying to live life with one arm and one leg missing since Max left and her dad died. Now life was feeling so surreal that she might as well be seeing the world while carrying her head under one arm. This was it. Max truly was gone. This was the first time she'd ever been able to truly accept that Max was out of her life. And it was the worst pain she ever felt.
It felt like forever before Chloe was ready to face the world again. But eventually, she was able to wipe the tears from her eyes and decided to head over to the repair bay. What better way to distract herself than to take a look at the truck? With a bit off luck, the damage would be extensive on the inside. Fixing it would give her a reason to stay longer and not think about what she'd just done. As far as she was concerned, the world could do its worst. Because she'd sure as hell just done hers.
As she neared the truck, she saw Inchy and House up on the ramp going over it. The Buick was already gone. Something told her that now they had the money for it, they wanted to get a new car as soon as possible. Something that might have to wait until Ana got back. Inchy noticed her approaching as he finished rattling off parts to House and they both jumped down together.
"Get that list sent off to Steve and tell him we'll have to pay extra for delivery to the usual point." House nodded and set off, nodding to acknowledge Chloe as he went past. He'd been the same the previous night. Totally stone-faced and silent as he'd opened the safe and Chloe had thrown the envelope in there. Chloe returned the nod as she walked up to Inchy.
"He doesn't talk much, does he?"
"He doesn't talk at all." Inchy shrugged. "Have you noticed how he always wears stuff with a high neckline or a scarf?" Chloe had to admit she hadn't, but then she also hadn't really had chance to look anyone over properly since she arrived. Not that she wanted to. It wasn't her business to do that.
"Well not really since I've hardly been here any length of time."
"Fair." Inchy admitted. "Yeah, he was in an accident where a piece of metal went through his throat. I don't know too many ins or outs but he panicked and ran. Melody found him purely by chance while she was out and kept him alive long enough that an ambulance could get to him. She stuck with him until they let him out and brought him straight here. If his family ever did wonder where he went, we never heard anything of it. Don't treat him any differently, just try and stick to asking him questions with a yes or no answer."
"Sure." Chloe nodded. "Gotta be honest, I kind of feel like a piece of shit now. My situation was nowhere near as bad as all that."
"We all have our own magnitude of severity." Inchy said as he stretched out to work the kinks from his back where he'd been under her truck for a while. "In the end, we all have to find our own way. Sometimes that means carving a new path. At the end of the day, that's the reason all of us are here in this place. If you want to talk, we'll listen. It's usually Ana, but she's indisposed right now." Chloe thought about it. She'd already earned a lot of trust with them by securing that extra money. But she wanted to prove to them that she could be trusted beyond the point of just being useful.
"Uh, things were great until my dad died and my best friend moved out here to Seattle." She saw no harm in giving him the bare bones of it. "My mom got a new boyfriend and he's a total douche. We hated each other on sight. I figured he'd be there for a few weeks and then fuck off back on deployment. Then months passed. Then about a year. Then he proposed. And the day before their wedding, the tension between us boiled over. He threw me on the table and started trying to choke me out. Then I bashed him over the head with a vase. I couldn't stay there anymore and then I realised that Seattle was a two or three hour drive away. But I'd also been up for longer than I should have by that point. I was so exhausted I blinked for just a little too long. That's how my truck's where it is and that's how I met Ana."
"That's rough." Inchy let out a sigh as he wiped his hands on his jeans. Chloe noted that they were impressively clean. Clearly they had a place for doing the laundry and made a note to ask Melody where it was. "Well, you'll be happy to know that we've got your truck well in hand. You've done so much for us in the space of twenty-four hours that it didn't seem fair to let you tackle it alone. We've been up most of the night going over her and we've made a list of the damaged parts. We'll have replacements by the end of the day, all being well." Chloe didn't know what to say. She'd never encountered anyone willing to lend her help to this extent. Not since Max had moved away. Max... There she was creeping into Chloe's head again. God damn her!
"Thank you so much." Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. "Most of them just come off with a few bolts and then bolt straight back on again. I can make a start as soon as I get them and-"
"No. You save your energy." Inchy told her. "With Ana unfit to lead, I'm second in command here. House and I can put the truck back together. But there's a catch to this favour. You've already gotten on Vic's good side by busting a cheater in his club. We need you to go explain to him why Ana won't be able to work for a while. He knows your face. He doesn't know us. We can handle her other clients. And once we've fixed the truck, you have to drive us up there to see her and pick her up when she gets out since we can't get a new car without her."
"That's fair." Chloe nodded. And it was. She was perfectly happy with that. Whatever kept her from having to think about going home. "Any luck on the 3D printing situation?" When Chloe had told Inchy what she'd found last night, he'd swallowed his own breath. He wasn't willing to share how they'd come by their own 3D printers, rare as they were, but he didn't have to for Chloe to know how troubling it was that someone else had access to it. Especially someone like that.
"The news has been blowing up about your attacker." Inchy told her. "Darnell Simmons. He was suspected of minor gang affiliation but nothing concrete. Something to do with a snake tattoo he had. Apparently he was trying for a basketball scholarship." That didn't help. If anything, it did the opposite. It added more pieces to the puzzle that just seemed to have no definite place to fit yet.
"How does someone like that gain access to high-end 3D printed material?" Chloe asked. "The guy couldn't even cheat at dice properly. No way in hell was he smart enough to work a 3D printer. Let alone a metal filament one which has about eight extra safety precautions."
"Let me guess..." Inchy said, looking her up and down appraisingly. It reminded her of when she'd first arrived, only less pervy this time. "You're a fan of chemistry and mechanical engineering?"
"That obvious, huh?" Despite herself, Chloe couldn't stop the grin from creeping across her lips. "Though I guess that last one was. I did rebuild my truck from off the junk piles of Arcadia after all." With that, she turned and headed for the main gate. Facing Vic again, let alone with bad news, was an unenviable position. And since taking backup was out of the question, she was even more vulnerable than she had been last night. No doubt about it: she was best off getting it out of the way and doing it now. It was by no means perfect, but she knew there was much less risk of someone causing trouble in a populated area in broad daylight. It was still the furthest thing from safe, but it was all she had.
Author's Note: Okay, so this one is slightly shorter than average. I have to be honest, it was a tricky one to write. When I first finished it up, it was barely any length at all. But I didn't want to lump the next bit in with it since I knew that would make it way too long. I extended it as much as I could and this was the final painstaking result after nearly a week of backbreaking dissection. Hope you all enjoyed it. The next couple of chapters are definitely going to be worth reading so be sure to stay tuned over the coming week.