She texts Justin while driving and gets a surprisingly quick reply, but his answer to her question about the basketball game trip is: "The wut?"
It's a game with balls and baskets, dumbass.
With only one opposable thumb to spare, she sends, "nvm." He "lols" back.
The fuel light is blinking now, so she detours to Arcadia Gas and feeds the tank ten bucks' worth to appease it. The light sighs contentedly and goes to sleep. Chloe circles back up the wooded slope. Blackwell parking lot is pretty full. There are a couple of legal spots left open on the woods' side, but they look narrow. Too iffy for the student driver here. The handicapped parking is wide open, though. And close to the stairway. She parks diagonally and with a certain satisfaction.
"There's a timeline in which I'm in a wheelchair," she says to the dashboard King. He nods.
She takes a deep breath and gets out of the truck.
On the left is the red wall of the swimming pool. On the right the woods stretch up the mountain side. Straight ahead, where the school driveway cuts a swath through the trees, she can see the lighthouse.
Blackwell is a weird place. She's been by plenty of times, of course, to pick up Rachel, or run an errand for Frank, but she rarely had to get out of the truck for those. It's been a couple of years since she's actually walked on campus. It's making her want to smoke. She doesn't, though. The faster she's in, the faster she's out of this hellhole. She takes the stairway steps three at a time.
There's a missing person poster on the wall of the pool, which feels like a flashback. She wants to just walk on, but can't, so she stops and reads it and stares at Rachel's face.
"You knew Rachel?" Max asks.
"She used to chill with us sometimes, but one day she just vanished…" Justin pauses, clearly high. "Hope she's living the dream somewhere. If anybody hurt her, we'll get a skater posse and take 'em out with our boards."
"Who was Rachel's punk friend?"
"Uh… I can't remember her name… But she was hot. Tats. Blue hair. Hardcore. She stopped hanging with us after Rachel disappeared… or ran away."
The flashback dissolves. It wasn't real, but totally sounded like Justin. "Can't remember her name." Paranoid pothead. Cagey as fuck.
It's almost six, so there's barely anyone around. One nerd is sitting under a tree with a book. A girl with Miss America hair is doing laps around the fountain while talking on her phone. There's a vaguely familiar green bike with orange handles by the entrance, but she can't place it. The girl with the phone sees Chloe and stops across the fountain from her. For a moment, Chloe reflexively thinks about fucking with her somehow, but then she remembers why she's there. It also occurs to her that Wells might be long gone by now, polishing off a bottle of expensive Scotch somewhere.
Wells, drunk, mumbling, looking for his keys in front of the boys dorms.
What the actual fuck would Wells be doing living in the dorms? Hello, real world. Or maybe… he was just going there for a visit? She rushes up the steps and through the doors, waving flashbacks and gross analysis away.
The admin is still in, which is a good sign. She's ready to call security, though.
"I need to talk to Wells," Chloe tells her.
"Principal Wells is not available," the admin says. She's such a blank slate, Chloe gets the urge to tag her. She can't even figure out if the admin's new, or someone who's been there during her time at Blackwell. If she came back the next day, she probably wouldn't be sure if she'd spoken to the same person.
"Tell him it's about Rachel Amber."
The admin struggles, but she's no match for the power of Rachel's name. She picks up the receiver and speaks in voice too soft for Chloe to hear, pointedly. Chloe doesn't care. The admin hangs up, gets really involved with something on her screen for a minute, looks for something on her desk, "remembers" Chloe and says, "You can go in now."
Chloe goes in without a word.
Wells's office hasn't changed much. Good expensive furniture. Bad expensive art. Book shelves. Filing cabinets. That damned bird. She remembers the hallucination version of her acting like she's never been in this room. Product of a glitching mind. Confused by the weird duality of the thing, being Max and Chloe at the same time. Max would probably be the one who's never had the pleasure.
"Ms. Price," Wells says.
"Principal Wells."
"If only you were so determined to get into the school while you still attended here."
"Yeah. Thank god I didn't have a good reason to back then."
"Witty as ever. Now what is this about Rachel Amber? If you know something, you should tell the police, not me."
Like I would come all the way here to share it with you if I knew something. Get your head out of your ass, Wells.
"Two months back you took the best and the richest to the college game in Eugene. I want to know if anything unusual happened there."
"Unusual? I'm sure I don't know what you mean. And what does this have to do with Rachel?"
"Rachel never told me about going to this game."
"I'm sure there are a lot of things Rachel never told you."
"I'm sure you're sure about a lot of things. But what makes you sure about this?"
"Well, to put it bluntly, the difference between you and her."
"To put it bluntly, you can... Uh... So you're saying you noticed nothing unusual?"
"Not a thing. Especially since Rachel never even went to the game."
"She… what?"
"As far as I remember, she wasn't feeling fell, so she canceled at the last moment. You could check with her parents. Though I'm sure they have their hands full as it is. As do I, incidentally…"
"Oh yeah. Don't let me keep you. It's just a missing girl case. Not a donor or anything important like that."
She doesn't stick around for his reply.
Blackwell is in the energy-saving mode, so the empty hallways are twilit.
Chloe stops outside the office to get her bearings, but her mind is swirling with thoughts and memories and memories of memories that aren't exactly hers. Welcome to the fucking Vortex Club. She spots the poster for the stupid thing, and her hand reaches for the marker absently. There's the big trophy case on the other side of the hallway, full of inane, shiny things. She can't remember if that was there in 2010, but she does remember it was there in October of 2013. It being May 2013 now, it's enough to make you want to puke, if the trophies themselves don't do it.
Maybe that glass could use some street art, too…
Suddenly, a door bangs shut somewhere. The echoes roll through the hallways, followed by a faint sound of footsteps, gradually getting closer. For some reason, she feels like she just got off the bus in downtown Spookville. She feels something else, also, and it's this other thing that makes her stay in place and wait. It makes her want to light up a smoke, as well, but she's pretty sure that's, like, illegal, and the Sharon Stone Basic Instinct bit is not going to work for her. So she balls her hands into fists inside her pockets and waits.
Blackwell is not Pentagon, so the wait is no longer than twenty seconds. Still seems like twenty minutes.
But then it's over, and the man who comes around the corner is exactly who that other thing told her it would be.
Glasses, goatie, sports coat, down to the rolled up fucking Lees. Where have I seen this guy to know exactly how he looked, to see him that way in my dream? She doesn't have a memory, but she has some ideas. On the street somewhere; on campus; in a photo in a paper. Somewhere she didn't pay attention but her subconscious did. A snapshot of the guy and some serious resentment to make him into a scumbag he was in the hallucination world. The name picked up in a Blackwell brochure or a flier. All that's missing is a gun shooting her in the face.
He stops, surprised, looks at her with her marker clenched in her fist, looks around.
"Everything OK?"
"W-what?"
It's all a bit too real. Her head spins; her stomach churns. The flashback of Max in the darkroom explodes in her brain, making her wince. Jefferson is shooting, ranting.
"Are you a student here?" The question reaches her, and she realizes the flashback is over. The anger and disgust are far from, though. She clenches the fists in her pockets until the nails bite deep into her palms. Kind of a good thing she didn't bring her gun.
"Former," she growls.
"I feel like I'm interrupting something. Are you here to blow the place up? Set it on fire?"
"No. Not today, anyway. Just had to see Wells about a friend. Zoned out a bit."
Zoned out into a really unfortunately timed flashback, in which you are a psychotic fuck.
"Ah, yes. The hallowed halls do have the… effect. Who's the friend?"
"Rachel Amber."
Jefferson inhales deeply and nods.
"Oh."
"You know her?"
"Of course I know Rachel Amber. I teach here. Wait a minute. You're Chloe Price, aren't you?"
"Now, how do you know that?" Fuck. Fuck. Did Rachel tell him? So maybe she did… So maybe he is…
"You're the mysterious friend of Rachel Amber. Kind of a hot topic, I guess."
Oh, really?
"That's funny. Nobody knew or gave a damn about me when I actually went here."
"Well, you know what they say. You don't know someone's true value until you lose them."
Her mind reels from how close to home that hits, and with the duality of Jefferson being the psycho creep in the drug dream versus the fact that nothing from that world has so far lined up with the real one, for a moment she just can't.
He waits for a polite moment, then proceeds to ask, politely, "So, any news of Rachel?"
"No. But I'm gonna find her. And if somebody hurt her…"
"I believe you will. Well, if there's anything I can do…"
"Have you… noticed anything unusual in the last couple of months? Anybody new she mentioned?"
"No. Have you?"
"She did mention she met someone. No details, though. Why I'm asking."
"I see. Yeah, no. I haven't heard anything about that. But if I do remember something, or hear, I can… drop you a line? By the way, my name is…"
"Jefferson. Yeah, I know. You're kind of a hot topic, too."
