- Part 1 -

Arrhythmia

We live in the shadows;
We live where darkness hides.
We'll go where no one goes.
We won't give up this fight.
- Ruelle

"That song is getting really annoying, Aubrey!" Chloe shouted over both the song Aubrey had on repeat and her own music she was playing, "Turn it down."

So now you're thinking 'bout,
All you're missing,
How deep you're sinking,
Round and round and dragging down.
Why don't you cash in your chips?
Why don't you call it a loss?
Not such a big loss, chalk it up to better luck.

They had been at it long enough for Aubrey to realize the pettiness of her decisions, but she couldn't back down after she had already made them. That would be equivalent to waving the white flag. She unplugged the speaker and removed it from the shelf, and carried it still playing into the hallway – where she placed it on the floor directly in front of Chloe's door.

Could have been true love,
But it wasn't.
It should all add up,
But it doesn't.

Chloe flung her bedroom door open and looked down at the speaker and then up at Aubrey. She knelt down and pressed the power button this time. And she didn't stop at that. She picked up the entire speaker and carried it into her room then shut the door behind her. She turned off her own music, and their apartment fell into silence.

Aubrey huffed. "There's your trouble, there's your trouble; you keep seeing double with the wrong one," she sang herself and started walking toward the kitchen, "You can't see I love you. You can't see she doesn't, but you just keep holding on. There's your trouble."

"My only trouble is you and that song!"

xxxxx

"Hey, Buttercup, how about picking up the pace?" Aubrey calls back to Beca, "We don't have all day."

"Sorry, I don't live in Manhattan where people walk faster than they drive," Beca says and walks faster, "I live in LA where all the cars are stopped and so are the people."

"We don't live in Manhattan," Chloe says, "We live in Queens."

"Isn't that the same thing?" Beca asks.

"No," Chloe answers, "Manhattan and Queens are both separate boroughs of New York City. New York City has five boroughs."

"Okay." Aubrey stops and spins around before Chloe can go into teaching mode about New York City's five boroughs. "We have three hours, less than that now, to get to the sheriff's office and wherever else we may need to go after that and then back to the hotel. So focus and walk faster."

"I'm tired, Aubrey," Beca says, "I've been trailing this island with you since last night. Also, you elbowed me in the boob back at the inn; I kind of don't want to walk next to you right now."

Aubrey raises her hand in the air. "I'm going to even them out if you don't walk faster."

Beca covers her chest and picks up the pace.

"I'm exhausted, too," Chloe whispers, walking past Aubrey as well.

"What do you want me to do?" Aubrey asks them. It isn't like they can spend the next three hours just sitting around. They have so much ground to cover. "You don't think I'm tired, too?"

"Aubrey, I know you're tired," Beca says.

"You just need to remember that we are, too, okay?" Chloe reaches for her hand. "Come on."

Aubrey takes her hand because she can't not take it right now. She isn't going to let 'petty' or 'insensitive' be the last words to define her. "I'm just…trying to get us out of here," she says, mostly to Chloe.

"And you will, Aubrey" Chloe says and gives her hand a squeeze, "You will."

xxxxx

"Do we split up?" Beca asks as they approach the sheriff's office.

"It doesn't look that big from the outside," Chloe points out.

"We should stick together," Aubrey replies, "There's only three of us." Not that the buddy system worked for Cynthia-Rose. She releases Chloe's hand and draws her handgun as they approach the door. This time, she'll be more prepared.

"When are you gonna tell everyone else you have that thing?" Beca asks.

"I guess they'll find out if I need to use it," Aubrey answers. If she tells them she has it, she'll have to tell them how she got it. She momentarily thinks at least Nikki isn't around to find out she stole it, but then she remembers that Nikki isn't around because she's dead. She looks across the street at a house with a stone plaque that says MILLS on it and changes the subject by saying, "We're going there next." With that, she pushes open the station door and steps into the main lobby.

The place is deserted.

"Hello?" Aubrey calls, her voice echoing off the walls.

"Looks like no one's home," Beca comments.

"Good," Aubrey says, then immediately regrets that thought too, because, once again, everyone is dead. The word 'dead' feels unfamiliar, like she's said it in her mind too much, and now it holds no meaning.

"Time to storm the castle," Beca murmurs and makes her way inside. She walks to the reception desk and opens a flat box sitting on the ledge. "I found some donuts. Anyone want one?"

Aubrey just frowns.

"And everyone stared at me with a glazed expression," Beca murmurs and picks up one of the donuts.

Chloe walks around the desk and pulls out the rolling chair. She flops down on it then opens the top drawer of the desk and immediately begins sifting through the papers inside, piling them up on the desk.

"Looks like someone's been hard at work." Beca reaches over the desk, behind the computer, and lifts up some cut wires, "Think it was the secretary?"

Aubrey looks at the wires as she sits down on the ground next to Chloe's chair. She doesn't know what to think. She pulls open the bottom drawer and starts to look through it. There are some empty clipboards, pens, a phone book that most likely doesn't contain the number of whoever has been calling her…

Beca takes a bite out of the donut and walks around the desk to begin sorting through the drawers on the other side.

"Aubrey," Chloe says.

Aubrey looks up and Chloe drops a keyring with several keys on her lap.

"Think they're important?" Chloe asks.

"Only one way to find out." Aubrey pushes herself to her feet and walks across the room to a door. Upon trying to handle, she finds it locked. One by one, she tries the keys, jiggling each one a bit excessively just to make sure it doesn't work. The fifth key opens the door. "We're in."

Chloe stands up and pushes in her chair. "You'd think they'd be more secure," she says and offers her hand down to Beca.

Beca grabs her hand and lets herself be pulled to her feet. "Let's be glad they're not." She adjusts the gun under her arm then tries placing it against her shoulder like a soldier would.

Aubrey opens the door and points her gun down the dark hallway before she flips the light switch. There are only three doors and she walks toward the one that's already open first. It's the break room. She turns and tries the door across from it. It's already unlocked. She opens it and scans the two empty cells against the wall.

"This one's locked," Beca says, trying the only other door.

Aubrey looks at the closed door. What are the chances they open it and it leads to absolutely nothing like the others? She braces herself for disappointment as she walks over and begins twisting the keys around in the lock until one finally works.

"What do you think the other keys are for?" Chloe asks.

"Cell keys," Aubrey says and opens the door, "Maybe to lock the desk drawer."

There is a table and chair in the middle of the room and the walls are lined with shelves full of filing boxes. It's not exactly what Aubrey hoped it be, but then again, she isn't sure what she was hoping. "Start opening boxes," she says and tosses her bag by the table. She pulls a random box from its shelf and drops it on the floor.

Beca and Chloe both throw their bags by Aubrey's and grab a box. "I don't think we're going to find any maps in these," Beca says.

"No, but maybe there have been murders here before," Aubrey replies, "All we need is a lead." She looks up as Chloe drops her box on the floor and sits down across from her.

"Are we trying to find Sophia, get the hell out of here, or figure out who this guy is so we can bust a cap in his ass, Aubrey?" Beca asks and utilizes the table.

Chloe looks more tired than Aubrey has ever seen her, so much so, that under different circumstances, if Aubrey took one look at her, she'd assume Chloe was sick. Aubrey watches her for a moment as she pulls files out of boxes and skims through them so quickly that Aubrey wonders if she manages to catch any of the words on the pages. "Why not all three?" she asks Beca.

"Because that's a lot to do in three hours," Beca answers.

"Then I guess we better move fast," Aubrey tells her, "One hour for each task." She already knows that each of those things separately are proving to be impossible as it is. Accomplishing all three would take a genie. "Find anything, Chloe?"

"It's all just minor burglaries and domestic disputes," Chloe says.

Aubrey sighs and sifts through more files.

"Hey, who labels a box of police files miscellaneous?" Beca asks and gets up from her chair, pushing her current box aside, "Especially when all the rest are labeled by date?" She walks over to the shelf and pulls down the box in question.

"Someone lazy?" Aubrey suggests, "Probably the deputy." Chloe is right about all of the files being the same two things. The only variation are a few files that she isn't sure what possessed people to call the police about – a spider on a car window, someone who misplaced their mailbox key… She hates this place more and more by the second. "Is it anything interesting?" she asks Beca.

"Kind of," Beca answers, drawing out the words, "But it's not what we're looking for."

"Then put it back," Aubrey says.

Beca spreads the contents of the box out across the table. She snorts, but not at Aubrey's instruction. "Hey, look at this," she says and holds up a photo, "It's Police Camp."

"I don't care about Police Camp," Aubrey says and keeps looking through her own box.

"Yeah, but it's Jesse as a kid," Beca says and breathes a quiet laugh, "Hey, isn't this that girl?"

Aubrey looks up at the photo. Sure enough, there is a preteen Jesse standing next to Nikki. There are a few other older kids in the photo as well, but the one that really catches Aubrey's eye is the little boy in the front, significantly younger than the rest, holding up his shiny police badge with the widest grin on his face. Tyler. She looks away without saying anything and pulls another file out of her box.

"Hey, Beca?" Chloe asks, not looking up.

Beca pockets the photo and stuffs everything else back into the box. "Yep?"

"Why aren't Jesse's parents here?" Chloe closes up her box and gets up to replace it with another one.

Aubrey looks up. That's a good question.

Beca heaves a heavy sigh. "His mom has cancer," she says, "She just got rehospitalized two days before the trip. Jesse said she didn't want us to reschedule all of this last minute."

"That sucks," Chloe mumbles.

Beca nods. "Yeah." She fiddles with one of the box flaps. "She got diagnosed two weeks after my mom died."

Aubrey frowns. She didn't know Beca's mom had died.

"I'm sorry," Chloe says softly.

"Well, he said she's doing okay," Beca says, "Whatever treatment they're giving her is working."

"That's good." Chloe places the new box on the floor. "Do you talk to her?"

"To Jesse's mom?" Beca clarifies.

Chloe nods.

"Do you talk to Aubrey's parents?" Beca asks.

Aubrey is about to speak, but she isn't sure what she wants to say, and she's cut off by Chloe.

"I think that's a little different," Chloe says, "I don't think they'd want to talk to me even if I tried."

"Can we talk about something else?" Aubrey asks, "Or, better yet, we could stop talking and do what we came here to do."

"Apprehend this guy who called the cops because his girlfriend said she was going to cut her hair short?" Chloe asks, holding up one of the files.

Aubrey grabs the file from her and throws it on the floor with all the other useless information. "Focus, Chloe."

Chloe nods compliantly and continues looking through files.

"You know, all you've ever said is that your dad is in the army and he's, like, super strict," Beca says, "Dude, what's your mom like?"

Aubrey looks up, taken aback by the sudden question about her mother. She tries to think of something good to say about her. "She's…really clean." She forces a smile and nods. "Less talk, more work."

"Like, she showers a lot?" Beca asks curiously.

"Like one time, my brother spilled juice on the floor, and she made me scrub the entire kitchen floor with a toothbrush and bleach, one tile at a time." Aubrey's smile becomes tighter. She can see the look on Chloe's face – the same sad look Chloe gets whenever Aubrey says anything about her parents. She panics, feeling like her mother probably knows she's betrayed her. "But, she can be really nice," she rushes to say, even though it's not really the truth, "In public." That much is the truth. Sometimes. She jolts back as Chloe reaches to touch her arm. Right, she has told Chloe this story before.

Sometimes, Aubrey openly admits her parents have their fair share of flaws, because it shuts people up. It makes them feel awkward, because it's not what they want to hear, so they fall into silence or change the subject. She forgets that Chloe is a special case who wants to know more and wants to understand or something. Like Chloe, whose parents took care of her when she was sick and kissed her goodnight and call her just to chat and remind her they love her, could understand a mother who once grounded Aubrey for trying to kill her by accidentally stepping on a sidewalk crack.

"Bree, you okay?" Chloe whispers.

Aubrey nods, smile still plastered on. She half expects Chloe to climb over the boxes and try to hug her, so she stands up before it can happen. "I just need a new box."

There is a crash outside the room, so loud that Aubrey jumps and Chloe nearly trips over the boxes as she scrambles to her feet. The silence that follows it is so still that if Aubrey was alone, she might've thought she had just imagined the noise. Both she and Beca point their guns at the doorway, and she wishes Chloe would be willing to just carry a weapon for protection.

"We should hide," Chloe whispers.

"Where?" Beca asks.

Chloe looks around the room.

They have nowhere to hide. "Maybe it's one of us," Aubrey whispers, though none of them believe it, and takes a few steps toward the door.

"Aubrey, do not go out there," Chloe warns her.

It's either go out there and shoot or stay where they are and be shot. Aubrey's hands shake as she takes the safety off her gun. "If we just stand here, we might already be dead."

"Please, be safe," Chloe pleads.

Safe. Aubrey nods. They no longer have choices that can be considered safe. There's just 'risky' and 'stupid', and Aubrey isn't stupid. "Just stay here." She pauses and looks at Chloe, taking her in. If she gets shot, she wants Chloe to be the last thing she sees inside her head. "I love you, Chloe," she reminds her.

"What about me?" Beca asks.

Aubrey looks at her, stunned by the question.

"Should I stay here?" Beca clarifies.

Oh. Aubrey nods. "Have your gun ready." God knows, Beca doesn't know how to shoot that thing, but hopefully the person out there doesn't know she serves about as much protection as a can-opener. "And be ready to run." She takes one more look at Chloe. How did she end up so lucky? "I'll be right back."