Chapter 14

Chloe lost count of the number of times they were made to watch that video. Not that she cared. The fact they were seeing it at all should never have happened. Ana was doing a valiant job of keeping it in, but she wasn't set to last too much longer. Everyone else was drowning out the audio by screaming protests the entire time, all of them hurling obscenities Vic's way. But he just stayed calm as ever.

"You know, you should all be thanking me here. You're all getting a bullet in the head. That's gentle treatment compared to the way Ana here is set to go out. I wonder how many shocks her heart can take..."

"Fuck you!" Chloe yelled, fighting against her restraints again. Her troubles just earned her another pistol butt across the head. This time to the back of her skull that left her seeing dark blotches across her vision.

"Leave my daughter alone!" Joyce screamed.

"Shut up!" one of the security goons snapped, cracking her across the back of the head as well. Once again, they were forced to see the boys go down in a hail of gunfire. Once again, Chloe saw Ana inching closer and closer to the edge of her sanity and one foot must have been on a banana peel at this point. But there was no way out. No matter how much she worked the problem in her head, there was no way to escape her bindings. Even if she could, she'd be shot from five different directions before she could do anything. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as she realised how hopeless it was.

Just then, there was a sharp crack from off to her left. She looked over to see Ana screwing her eyes shut and turn her head away from the screen as Jimmy dropped to the ground, clutching at a hole in his gut that went straight through his back. Everyone else instantly turned to him and went straight onto high alert. One of them was stupid enough to move to the window, only to recoil as his cranial vault shattered. A glorious mess redecorated the carpet as he joined Jimmy on the floor. At that moment, the back of Chloe's chair splintered. The handcuffs securing her left arm exploded and painfully showered her in shrapnel. She ignored the stinging pain of the metal pieces. She reached over while they were distracted and tore the tape from Ana's mouth before getting to work on the collar. It was hard with one hand, but she managed it and pulled it off before tossing it away.

"Stop her!" Vic bellowed from where he'd taken cover behind his desk. Unfortunately, it was too little too late.

"Joyce! Now!" The unknown girl's voice rang out and Chloe suddenly found herself tackled from the side as Joyce threw her full weight into her. It was enough to knock them both over heavily as a gunshot rang out over the top of them, just barely missing them and impacting the carpet. Somehow the girl had known what was coming and helped Joyce save her. But that was something to worry about later. Now free from the gag and collar, Ana was now free to let out all the rage and grief she'd been forced to bottle up for over ten minutes while watching her friends die over and over on repeat. She angled her head to the ceiling and unleashed a scream of rage and sorrow like Chloe had never heard before. The soundwaves were so strong they were actually visible. It was more than enough to blow the ceiling apart and send everything above crashing down onto Vic's desk and trapping him. Another scream obliterated the desk and the debris before sending him flying back in a hail of bloodied shrapnel.

The noise turned every gun in the room towards her. As soon as security's attention was away from the window and every gun turned towards Ana, another one fell. Whoever the sniper was, they weren't out of ammo and weren't letting up. The security team moved to the sides of the windows, trying to get behind cover. Unfortunately for them, they had underestimated the shooter's skill and another one went down easily. That left two standing and both were sweating bullets.

"Ah, this is fucked!" one of them yelled, running from the room.

"Get back here!" the other called after him, moving to try and stop him. But he'd forgotten that the whole purpose of a sniper was literally to lie in wait for someone to make a mistake. The instant his head moved level with the window, he was taken care of.

Now it was only Vic and his captives left alive in the room. Ana managed to manoeuvre herself around and tip her chair so that she landed right behind Chloe and Joyce. Chloe instantly knew what she was planning and sure enough, her other set of handcuffs exploded seconds later. Moving on autopilot, she grabbed a gun from a fallen guard and went over to Joyce, using the butt of the pistol to try and break the handcuffs. It didn't work. No matter how hard she battered the handcuffs, they just weren't breaking. It was like the fight with David all over again- that vase that just refused to break no matter how hard she hit.

"Fuck! This makeshift lockpick isn't very good." She gave a sigh of borderline defeat and tried to work something else out. The problem was that she still couldn't see too clearly after the blow to the head she took. Blood had poured down her front from her nose and stained her shirt considerably. She probably looked like she'd gone twelve rounds with a boxer. Or one of those skeevy guys from the old mill.

"For god's sake, Chloe! Ana called over. "Just shoot the cuffs off!"

"I was hoping for something a bit less dangerous." Chloe admitted.

"So aim for the end connected to the chair!" Ana snapped. Berating herself for not thinking of that and subconsciously blaming the panic and the head injury, she put the muzzle to the cuffs holding Joyce down and pulled the trigger. The gunshot was louder than she anticipated and the recoil was something else. Her arm was involuntarily flung back, her wrist almost breaking from it. She let out a cry of pain and rubbed it furiously as a wave of numbness swept through her hand. But now Joyce's right hand was free. She reached down and ripped the tape off her ankles, standing up from the chair and turning to Chloe.

"It's okay, honey. You were holding it too loosely. Give it here." Chloe handed it over and Joyce easily shot the other cuff off her other wrist. "Get their ankles. I'll do the rest." Chloe did. She moved from one person to the next, unbinding them and then waiting for Joyce to shoot the cuffs off their wrists.

Once everyone was up, Ana looked around the room and grabbed a gun for herself from the floor. She'd dropped her own one when they'd been caught in Vic's trap. The video was still playing on the screen and she raised the muzzle to it, firing twice. The horrid images instantly dissolved into intelligible rainbows. It didn't stop her. The grief and fury were radiating from her so strongly that they surrounded her like a dark light. She stood over Vic as he lay on the floor in a bloody mess, throwing the gun down.

"You're not worth the bullet." Her voice cracked with emotion as she glared down at him, drawing in a breath. The note she'd used at the hospital poured from her mouth as everyone watched on in shock and horror. The force of her voice hammered Vic into the floor hard enough to make the wood beneath him splinter. Chloe didn't know if he screamed or not. Ana's voice would have drowned him out anyway. Blood poured from his hears and eyes as he convulsed helplessly and still she kept on going. As soon as her voice was spent, she hit the ground and curled in on herself. Joyce was about to go over to her, but Chloe put a hand on her arm to stop her.

"No. She needs time. We all do." With that, she turned to the other two women in the room. "Vanessa. Good to see you again after all these years. Sorry it's not under better conditions. This wasn't what I was expecting when I came here."

"Well what were you expecting, Chloe?" Joyce snapped, turning Chloe's attention back to her. "You get in an altercation with David, drive off without another word and then I don't hear from you for nearly two days! Did you think you were just going to walk in and set up shop here with no money?"

"Well I'd lost you to the walking moustache and Rachel didn't want to speak to me!" Chloe protested, rounding on her. "I just- I had to do something! And it was quite clear Arcadia Bay was a dead end. That's all that place is: a dead end for people unfortunate enough to live there."

"That 'walking moustache' and one of his old service friends just saved our lives, Chloe!" Joyce countered aggressively. "The least you could do is show them some respect!" Of fucking course David had a hand in this! Chloe cursed herself for not seeing it sooner.

"Wait..." Vanessa was pale as a ghost and shaking after everything that had happened, but she was quickly regaining her faculties. "So you ran away? Why?"

"Why else?" Chloe shrugged. Vanessa had always been the stricter parent between her and Joyce and Chloe knew she had to tread cautiously. "Mom ends up latching onto some veteran with more moustache than brains, I end up feeling unwelcome the house I grew up in and my girlfriend and I have such a row that I have no idea if she wants to break up or not. So I made the decision. As far as I was concerned, 'don't call any time soon' was an end to things. And that left me with nothing. So I upped sticks and came here. I was hoping to start again."

"And how well has that worked out?" Joyce asked. Chloe was aware of this technique. The parental pincer movement. Back when both of hers were alive, they used to do this to her whenever she was in trouble. One parent stood on one side and one stood on the other with both of them rapid-firing questions. It was basically one massive guilt trip, although making her trip over herself was always an added bonus if they could do it. And since Vanessa had been around so much, she fell effortlessly into the pattern as though three years hadn't passed at all.

"Well, considering that of the friends I made the only survivor is in this room, I'd say it's gone pretty sour." Chloe replied. To break the deadlock, she turned to the other girl. She still didn't know her name. This girl was slightly shorter than her and incredibly cute. Even though her expression was currently all the levels of traumatised. Yet there was something familiar about her and Chloe decided the gentle approach was best to find out what it was. "And who are you? I never got chance to thank you for saving me. Or for the flyer. How did you-" She was cut off as the girl seemed to snap out of whatever trance she was in and charged forward. She slammed into Chloe was much more force than Chloe thought her capable of and tackled her to the ground just as the gunshot rang out. It whizzed just past the other girl's back as they hit the floor and Chloe once again had the breath knocked out of her.

Looking over, she saw that Vic was actually still alive and had grabbed the gun that Ana had dropped. Ana herself had emerged from her self-withdrawal and now stood over him, gripping him by the top of his head and around his jaw and twisting harshly. His neck snapped with a brittle crack and he flopped to the floor. He was visibly lifeless now, his head in a position that no one could physically achieve.

"How did you do that?" Chloe asked, not bothering to get up as she looked at the other girl who was still lying on top of her. "How did you know he was about to do that? You didn't even look!"

"I- I don't know!" she replied, flustered. "I just- I saw you get shot. I saw you die. And then everything seemed to reverse and we were back to where we started. It happened when I warned you about that man as well." Her muscles protesting, Chloe sat up and pulled the girl into her arms as she dissolved into a sobbing fit. "I just- I thought it was you and I couldn't be sure! You don't know how torturous it's been not knowing! Feeling like you were so close but just out of reach after all this time!" Her words made Chloe do a double-take. This girl definitely knew who she was. And something about her looked so familiar. But only as she looked at her properly for the first time did she really place it.

"Max?"

"Chloe..." Max pulled herself closer, holding on for dear life. "I just- was that footage real? Did those people actually die?" The question hurt deep down. Max hadn't made it out unscathed. Watching that had really shaken her. Chloe supposed she herself had taken some mental damage as well, but she'd just been too focused on everyone else to pay attention to it. But she'd never lied to Max. And as much as it might hurt her, she wasn't going to start their time together after just getting her back by starting now. That in itself would be infinitely more damaging.

"Yeah, Max." The softness of her voice shocked even her as she pulled Max closer and held her. "Yeah, it was real. They were friends of mine." Max's grip remained impossibly tight. She'd never been very physically strong, so it was a real shock that she was able to hold her as powerfully as she was.

While that was happening, Vanessa and Joyce wisely decided to let them have their space. They were catching up and swapping experiences. Chloe lent an ear as they talked while still dutifully holding Max close. Apparently Vanessa had been Vic's lawyer for court cases and business legalities after representing him at his seventh divorce. She'd been on her way to work when she was grabbed and Max had been heading out to take photographs. Chloe couldn't help but feel for her. It must have all started as a perfectly normal day for her and then in an instant turned into an experience so devastating it probably rivalled the day of William's death.

"God, Max..." Chloe muttered gently, running her fingers gently through Max's hair just like she used to do when they were kids. "Hell of a day for you, huh. Don't worry. I've got you back now. We're not going to lose each other again. We'll help each other through it. Just like old times."

"No." They both looked up to see that Ana had risen to her feet and was standing over them. Her eyes seemed utterly devoid of emotion. Actually, they seemed devoid of life itself. "You won't." With that, she opened her mouth. A note Chloe hadn't heard yet poured from it. The world around her quickly became a scrambled mess as she felt Max fall sideways next to her. She herself hit the ground right next to her, desperately trying to reach out for the younger girl's hand. She couldn't find it. She was too disoriented. Above her, she could see Ana pull out her phone and call a number. "It's done. You can get your project voted on now." With that, she hung up. Chloe was too dazed to quite remember what she meant. Her bigger concern was Joyce and Vanessa yelling.

"What do you think you're doing?" Vanessa screamed.

"Why would you do that?" Joyce demanded.

"She wants to stay here." Ana replied calmly. "And she'll never leave her childhood friend. Not when she's the one she came here to find in the first place. But I can't have her here. She knows me. My family are hunting me and I can't have a loose end like her around. Too much risk. Plus, The Hive is no more. Better that any memory of it gets buried in this room. Does that have to include the two of you as well?"

"So you expect me to take her back to Arcadia Bay, put her on her bed and have her wake up and carry on with her nose-diving life like nothing's happened while I keep your secret?" Joyce summarised. "What makes you think I'd agree to that?"

"Can you keep a secret, Joyce?" Ana asked, her voice gentle yet carrying a threatening note as she rounded on her. "I hope so. It would be very unfortunate- not to mention risky for all involved- if I had to come to Arcadia and erase more memories." Chloe tried to get to her feet, but her legs refused to obey. She felt the lethargy setting over her as she crashed back to the floor. The darkness enveloped her and she knew no more.