Author's Preface
Max Caulfield, once a bright young innocent soul, was reduced to a ragged old shell as she cowered under the piercing gaze of the devil himself, more fragile than ceramic.
"N—No! Not you!" She squealed, bringing her nails close to her lips as they twitched.
"Oh yes, Maxine!" Jefferson widened his grin, the corners resembling a sharpened scythe. "We'd have so much more to cover. Would have , to be precise."
Chloe, lingering next to Max, thrust herself in between them and opened her luckily undamaged wings to shield her friend from this monster.
Jefferson continued regardless. "It breaks my heart to look at you right now. All that innocence, that naiveté, all burned up. Such a waste."
Those words, mixed with that voice, made Chloe's blood boil as they oozed into her ears like an infectious worm. "Yeah? Well fuck you! You're not having her!" She blared out.
The man, unfazed, nudged his attention to the blue-haired fairy and ticked his tongue as he examined her. "I must say, Miss Price , that you look much better this way as opposed to your 'Punk-Ho' appearance the day before."
" You don't get to decide, you pedophile!"
"Oh! I'm a pedophile?" He stiffens to that comment, half-offended.
"Max told me everything ! How you drugged those girls! Took away their power as you pleasured yourself with their suffering. Both Kate and Rachel."
"Speak of the devil."
How right he was, she admitted silently, as she spun to see the other girl she was reminded of floating in her own space, motionless.
"Rachel!" She called to her, but she didn't move; she was still unconscious.
"It looks like she can't help you anymore, I'm afraid." The art teacher taunted. "But looking at her like this... she can sure help me ." To him, this image of Arcadia's Queen, stilled and vulnerable with no gravity to hold her, sent thrills down his spine like sparks of electricity. "Such beauty..." He murmured.
Trying to ignore him, Chloe fluttered over to Rachel to try and shake her awake. "Come on, Rach! Wake up!" She thrashed harder, growing more panicked by the second, but still, she didn't respond. Chloe knew deep down from the gold aura that canvassed her body, now dampened and extinguished, that she wasn't coming to any time soon. "Fucking hell!"
Giving up eventually, Chloe let the body drift freely as the realization sunk into her that she was on her own now; it was like uncovering her corpse in the junkyard again.
You can't be dead... please, no! Not again!
A blinding white flash, washing over the entire set, jerked her out of that trance; it was like lightning, but instead of hearing a clap of thunder, the click of a shutter accompanied it.
Max shrilled and pressed her palms over her ears to block out the sounds of Jefferson's camera at work; to her, they were like shots of gunfire ringing in her head and leaving behind scatters of shrapnel.
Chloe rushed back over to get ahold of her. "Max? Max! Come on! Stay with me, okay?"
Jefferson shook his head at them in false pity as he suddenly let the globe slope from his fingers to free-fall downwards and smash on the ambiguous hard surface he was standing on.
As their world broke apart, Max tried in vain to reach out for her best friend as the resulting impact flung them away from each other.
"Chloe!" She cried out, but she was gone.
Immediately, Max was flung across the slippery floor, all the released fluid pushing over her like a rogue wave, sending her body tumbling away against its will. By the time it receded, Max was left out cold in the dark once more.
When Chloe came to, she lifted her face from the wet surface and coughed hard until her lungs were drench-free. She rose onto her knees and looked around to find no sign of Max or Rachel whatsoever; all that was around here were bergs of broken wet glass resembling the Arctic under meltdown.
To make matters worse, she spotted some torn edges in the corner of her eye and looked over her back to find that her wings had been bent off proportionately and ripped to shreds; she wouldn't be able to fly with them anymore.
Standing up with the careful support of her hands, she checked all over her body to discover that her own white essence, much like Rachel's, had diminished, leaving a soaked mess. In an instant, all that power she possessed was stripped from her.
"Now what...?" She huffed despairingly.
On queue, a harsh red light from behind switched on with a booming thump, outlining her edges, freezing her solid.
As if a spider had jumped onto the back of her neck, Chloe turned around slowly, like a crank, and craned up to see that undertaker of a photographer looming over her, inspecting her like an insect; his grin had softened, making him seem calmer, but the rifts on his forehead told otherwise.
"I suppose I can settle for you since you lost me my Holy Grail."
The courage that had previously encompassed the punk was now lost somewhere as she was darkened under his shadow, left completely vulnerable to him.
" No... get the fuck away from me you animal! Max! Rachel! HELP ME!"
With the screaming voice of Chloe scratching her insides, Max snapped awake with the speed of a bear trap and tried to respond.
"CHLOE!"
With no memory of where she had lost herself now, Max thrashed in what felt like a soft seat, restrained by a belt, as she attempted in desperation to free herself until she felt a pair of hands seize her.
"Whoa, Max! What's wrong!?"
"NO! LET ME GO! DON'T HURT CHLOE!" Max was literally blinded in her panic, her eyes shut tight until she soon enough recognized this new voice that just spoke to her softly.
Settling down and allowing her eyes to open freely, she found herself sitting next to Warren inside his car.
"W—Warren...?"
"Yes, the one and only." He shrugged in that usual comical fashion that one would do on television. "Who else could I be?"
Remembering their last encounter, she backed against her side door and looked outside the vehicle to find that they were parked at a movie drive-in under the late evening sky, and there were no other cars around either; it was just them.
Allowing her breaths to ease, she took her weight off her door and faced this boy who was believed to be dead.
Was I just dreaming?
"No, Max." Warren answered for her, strangely .
She confirmed this when she raised her hands to get a good look and the wrinkled spots on both sides and then traced more on her face; she needed no mirror, despite how many surrounded her at the moment.
Returning her gaze to Warren, she looked into his eyes and broke down before him.
"I—I'm so sorry, Warren!" She croaked. "I'm sorry... for everything ."
Warren leaned in to put a hand on her shoulder to rub it warmly.
"I should h—have gone to the movies with you!"
"No, Max." He began to reassure her. "Don't blame yourself for that. That wasn't your fault. I should have known that you didn't have the hots for me and left it alone."
"You're right." She sniffled and straightened herself. "I should be blaming myself for the fucking storm that killed you all!"
"No, don't say that!"
"It's true! That's why all this is happening, isn't it? Isn't that why I'm constantly being tormented?"
"I don't think it's that, Max."
" Really ? Then tell me what it is!"
"I have a theory." Warren held her hands protectively and thumbed her coarse palms to relax her some more. "This is all in your head, right? I think it's your guilt that's partly causing all this."
"So what can I do?"
"Let it all go, like Rachel said. Granted, I'm no expert, but I believe that holds the key to getting rid of your powers."
Max shook her head and looked down for a bit. "How can I? You're dead because of me."
"You can't let the past weigh you down anymore."
"But I don't it will ever leave me either." She looked back to Warren. "It's gonna follow me to my grave."
"You can't save everyone, Max. You had no control over it anyway." Warren cupped her jaw to get her to face him again. "But think of the people who are still alive. Think of Kate, Victoria, my friend, Brooke."
Max snickered at the thought of Brooke. "I think she had a thing for you."
Warren smiled in acknowledgement but quickly turned sad when realizing that they'd never get the chance to explore that. "I should have given her a chance. I was so fucking blind." He shook off that regret to avoid planting more guilt on the girl in front of him. "But like I said, those people, families and all, are still alive! Even if you love someone else, you'll always be one of my favourite people on Earth."
"Oh, Dog ." Max rolled her glazed eyes and wiped her snotty nose. "I was expecting a movie reference about now."
"This is me being real , Max." Courageously, Warren brought one of her hands to his mouth to kiss it. "You're the bravest person I ever met. I'm real glad to have met you."
Hearing those encouraging words, Max felt something return to her, something she hadn't felt in a long time; it was hope. A new sensation rippled through her being as the outside washed over in a white hue, heaven descending to them. She felt her skin retract and smoothen, the colours of youth returning to her.
"Now go back out there and kick some more ass!" Warren pumped his fist up as the brightness leaked into the car and swallowed them both.
With a bellowing gasp, Max heaved enough air into her lungs to make a Titanic float again as she levitated onto her feet.
There, she stood tall and confidently, chest out, legs straight and evenly apart, as she tightened her fists to savor this newfound vigor. In response, the strewn pieces of glass around her flew up and spiralled around her, but not chaotically as they would from a natural tornado; there was a rhythm of serenity, a decisive pattern this time.
" You found your ikigai!" Rachel's voice hailed for her from a distance far enough to just hear.
"I'm coming, Chloe!" She declared. "I'm going to save you and Rachel both!"
Chloe's hands were tied to her back as she was laid down on a miniature white backdrop on a round table while Jefferson circled her to get his shots of her; he had used a pair of cutters to clip off her damaged wings entirely to avoid compromising his shots.
"Not bad, not bad... could still use a little more... something ."
This psychopath kept debating to himself with every angle he took; he was locked in deep concentration and frustration as he struggled to work with what he got.
His subject, despite being defenceless, refused to give him complete satisfaction of control; she locked her jaw tight in anger to make his life a little more difficult.
Is this what Kate and Rachel felt?
She had endured what felt like hours in this studio, posing as his lab rat.
"Ah!" Jefferson suddenly clicked his fingers, startling her. "I know what's missing!"
Placing his camera aside, he groped the end of her two legs and, like a doll, arranged them so that her knees were spread wide apart to compliment the smooth valley of her groin, home to her most precious area.
"W—What the fuck are you doing, asshole!?" Chloe gritted and attempted to struggle out of his big fingers.
"Only what Max's mind allows me to do." He replied and then backed away to frame her with his fingers. "Perfect! Stay just like that!"
"WHY DON'T YOU JUST FORCE YOURSELF INTO ME WHILE YOU'RE AT IT!?" She screamed; no matter what was going to happen to her, Chloe wasn't going to succumb to fear.
Ignoring her rants with a shake of his head, Jefferson readied his camera. He adjusted the focus, lined up the frame, held his breath and hovered his finger over the capture button until it was just the right moment and—
CRACK!
"What the fuck?"
Jefferson flipped his camera one-eighty and found to his dismay that a long straight fissure just appeared, cutting through the center of his lens and screwing up his image.
Sensing trouble, Chloe snickered at him. "Having trouble?"
"Shut up, bitch!"
As his head spun over what went wrong, the device flashed in his face without warning, causing him to let it slip out of his hold. But instead of shattering on the floor by his feet, it stopped mid-fall and lingered there as it began to quiver.
"W—What is this!?"
Right then, the red light he was using exploded behind him and flew a spark onto his back. As he hunched over, the camera flew over him, and he whipped around, only to harden at the sight that was waiting for him.
Chloe flung her head up, and when she saw who was standing at the end of the room, her mouth widened in joy, eyes sparkling.
There was Max Caulfield in her prime, enveloped in the same golden essence that was worn around Rachel, her sheen spreading through the whole interior.
With his camera in her hand, Max eyed her former role model as she raised the expensive equipment in front of him crushed between her fingers like butter, and let him watch with renewed fury as its remains clatter between them.
"YOU CUNT!" He growled.
Unfazed by that derogatory term, she unassumingly replied, "It's over, Jefferson."