"Alright," Chloe began, "what do we know for sure?"

In her own room in Seattle, Max hunched over her laptop screen as she considered the question. After their close encounter with Jefferson that afternoon, Chloe had insisted Rachel stay with her for the night. Max had to agree—powers or no powers, there was no way they were going to leave Rachel in the dorms with that fucking psychotic murderer lurking around campus.

She just had to grin and bear with the sight of them on-screen, wedged together on a chair, Rachel absently caressing the arm Chloe had slung around her shoulders. Just the Caulfield luck reminding her that comfort and pain oft came hand in hand.

Max dug her fingernails into her palms until her mind refocused. "Based on what happened," she said, "we know that Jefferson's still after Rachel."

"Yeah, lucky me," groused Rachel. "And now we know he's somehow linked to Sean Prescott."

Chloe popped open a beer can and took a swig. "So that thing they're making out in the woods—that's Prescott's?"

"Juliet confirmed it earlier over the phone," Rachel replied. "It's very likely Pan Estates, Sean Prescott's luxury homes pet project. Did it exist during your timeline, Max?"

Max nodded. "Juliet even wrote about it in the paper. And it's also the epicenter of some kind of dispute between Prescott and some Native American tribes, I think."

"I can confirm that. According to Juliet, there's a court order out preventing him from building anything there. The tribes consider it sacred land."

"Hold on, he's there illegally?" Chloe asked, swiping the beer foam from her chin. "This just keeps getting better and better."

"But..." Max's brows furrowed. "In my timeline, he started building in November, and it's only April! So what's changed that he's doing this earlier?"

"It doesn't matter now," said Chloe. "So do we assume that Mr. Cliche Evil CEO has got Jefferson in his back pocket? We gotta watch out for Nathan's dad, too?"

Rachel scowled. "Prescott publicly hired Jefferson to join the faculty in the middle of the school year. Like he couldn't wait to have him on board. I think it's safe to assume they're hand in glove. Do you agree, Max?"

Max pressed her fingers against her forehead and thought hard. "It'd make sense they're working together. Prescott was the one who built that bunker underneath his barn. I read about that on Nathan's computer, and..." Her eyes widened. "Oh shit."

Chloe leaned in. "That's the sound of someone who just remembered something important."

"Before she sent me into the past, Tuhudda said it was the younger and the elder Prescotts who had the Incarnate's blood on their hands." She mentally slapped herself. "I'm so stupid. I can't believe I'm telling you this only now."

"It's fine, Max," Rachel replied. "No harm done. At least we know now. Can you remember anything else significant?"

Max squeezed her eyes shut. "Something about the land and how it's somehow tied to you, Rachel. Sorry, I really couldn't make much sense of it at the time."

"Hey, it is kinda hard to remember something when there's a tsunami right on top of you," remarked Chloe. She threw a needling glance at Rachel. "Maybe you're the secret heir to some rich landowner in Arcadia Bay, and Prescott needs to off you so he can get the land for himself?"

Rachel poked her in the rib. "You need to stop watching daytime soaps, Cap'n Crunch."

"Yeah, well, fuck. So we're dealing with Nathan and his dad now. We're up against the guy who has most of Arcadia Bay on his payroll. Kill me now."

Rachel threw Max a wry grin. "And I thought I was the dramatic one."

"Chloe's got a point," Max said. "With Prescott backing him up, Jefferson must be feeling confident. That means he'll try something. And soon."

The three sat silently for a moment, considering that idea.

"You're right," Rachel concluded. "And I think I know when he'll have the opportunity."

"Oh?" Chloe said. "Do tell."

"Later. I gotta confirm things with Dana first. We're just going to have to be ready for him when he makes his move." Rachel scowled. "In the meantime, let's go on as planned: we dig up dirt on Jefferson and—"

"We figure out what the hell Sean Prescott's up to," Chloe added, "then we deal with him, too. If Jefferson's the best he can throw at us, well, our guns are bigger, baby." She squeezed Rachel's shoulder and bared her teeth.

Max sighed. Easier said than done. Is this what Tuhudda really meant by helping Rachel? Fighting Jefferson and Prescott? It sounds too simple. Way too simple. But at least if we can get Rachel to control all her powers, there would be zero chance of a storm hitting Arcadia Bay all over again.

Rachel was leaning toward the screen. "So, Max. Juliet and I will try and get in touch with Megan Weaver and Kelly Davis this week. Hopefully, they'll be willing to talk to us. But we need your help with the big one."

Max nodded. Laura Nuñez; Jefferson's first victim. "I found out she runs a flower shop in Georgetown, here in Seattle. I'll pay her a visit on Wednesday after my last class."

"Okay. You know what you have to do, yeah?"

"I think so."

"Great." Rachel placed a hand on Chloe's shoulder. "Meanwhile, we'll take some time this week to stake out the construction site, see if we can pry some information out there."

Max felt her chest tighten at that. "Okay...will you two promise me you'll stay out of trouble? No unnecessary risks?"

Chloe finger-gunned her. "Chillax, Max. Double-O Chlo always gets her man."

Max and Rachel groaned in perfect unison.

"Yeah, baby. That's what I call surround sound."

The night lay quiet against the Price household, broken only by the muffled engine of a passing car. Chloe stared up at the ceiling of her room, fingers laced behind her head, slowly resigning herself to the fact that sleep was beyond her reach tonight. Thoughts kept unspooling in her mind, playing behind her eyelids like some picture in a fucked-up drive-in movie. When she had counted her thirty-sixth car, she sat up, knuckling at her eyes.

Her gaze fell on the girl asleep beside her, bare shoulder gleaming like marble under the moonlight. Chloe reached out a hand to touch her, to confirm she wasn't made of smoke and air, then decided not to risk waking her. Instead, she slipped her shirt on, padded over to her desk, and lit up a fresh joint from her stash. She took a seat and gazed out her open window to the empty street below.

If she could only relax, unplug, maybe she could get some rest. Yet faces kept whirling through her mind like leaves in the wind: Rachel. Jefferson. Nathan. Sean. Her dad. Max.

She let her eyes fall shut and waited for the weed to take her away. As her thoughts began to drift, the faces faded from her mind. Well, except for one.

Max. The best friend whom she'd thought she'd lost for good, who had fallen through time like a real-life Kitty Pryde, now bearing some kind of PTSD from a horrible future they're all trying their damnedest to prevent. As usual, Chloe's chest would tighten at the thought of Max. Half of it was sheer terror—her best friend was facing something that just might destroy her. Hell, it might destroy them all, come to that.

But the other half of it was a heady excitement, like Chloe herself had fallen back in time to when they were little pirates going on their storybook adventures. No, it was more than that. By returning, Max had shielded them from a bleak future and had thrown open the doors to one that ran riot with possibility.

And she did it for me . The mere thought of it sent ripples up her spine; she involuntarily squeezed her arms to suppress them.

Chloe hated every moment they were apart; the hardest thing she had to do each week was drive Max to the bus station where they would exchange goodbyes. Sundays nights were the worst—it would be five whole days before she could see Max again (thus she made it a point never to spend it alone). And each day after was a struggle to find an excuse to text her, call her, keep her close at hand until the weekend came again. And then it would be a different game of finding any excuse to hold her—

Whoa, WHOA. Slow your roll there, partner. The voice came from a corner of her brain she rarely listened to—it sounded suspiciously like her mother. You don't need this kind of trouble. You're trying to put a psycho teacher behind bars, you have to deal daily with David, you owe Frank three grand for fixing a truck that's still very much on life support, and your relationship with Rachel is starting to get back on track. Are you seriously telling me you're thirsting after your best friend, of all people?

"It's not like I can help it," Chloe said out loud. Max had changed them forever, and the proof of this was Rachel herself.

It was hard not to marvel at the change in Rachel, even discounting the tornadoes and lightning bolts and whatever else she could do. Only a month ago, Rachel was barely a presence in her life—an occasional late-night text message from some shit party she was at, admitting to Chloe how bored she was, how she missed them hanging out. They were adrift, their dreams slipping out of their grasp, and seemingly forgetting that they were supposed to have left this fucking shithole years ago.

The danger Jefferson posed had brought focus, pulling them closer together, reigniting something Chloe had long thought had gone to sleep—just like when they first met, when the world felt new and held nothing but promise.

But was it all enough? How long could they keep this up with their enemies seemingly springing out of nowhere? What could she contribute, having no powers whatsoever? Could they win, or would either Jefferson or Prescott bury them all?

A creak of the mattress, a whisper of cloth, and Rachel was standing beside her with only a blanket around her lithe body. "Chloe Price," she murmured, fixing her a haughty stare. "You don't give a girl a night like that only to leave her cold in bed afterward."

Chloe's mouth watered. She wasn't exactly immune to flattery, and there really was no resisting Rachel. "Hey," she chuckled, "it wasn't my idea to sleep au naturel ."

"No, but you sure as hell enjoyed it."

"I get to have a cheerleader in my bed—what's not to enjoy?"

"Classy." Leaning against Chloe's desk, Rachel held out her hand. "Can I get a hit?"

Chloe gave her the joint. The ember flared red in the gloom as Rachel took a drag. "Worried about Max?"

"Yeah," Chloe muttered. "Among other things."

"If it helps, Max is the safest of the three of us when she's up in Seattle."

"Thanks. It kinda doesn't."

Rachel's slender fingers found and caressed the back of Chloe's hand. "She'll be fine. She's a lot tougher than she lets on. She has to be to have survived a future like that."

"I think she only barely survived it." Chloe turned her hand up and captured Rachel's own. "Why didn't we leave, Rach?" she asked.

Caught off guard, Rachel's gaze went blank. The question lingered between them like a ghost.

"Why didn't we take off, like we always said we would?" Chloe went on. "We could have walked right out of here anytime we wanted. We'd talk and talk about going, then we wouldn't move, like those two hobos from that play you like."

Rachel said nothing for a long moment. Chloe was well aware of how they were avoiding each other's eyes. She had no idea why she opened this Pandora's box when they already had a longstanding silent agreement not to talk about it.

"I think we agreed one time," Rachel began, "that we shouldn't rush it. That it would be much easier if we had a ride and a pile of money to start us off."

"I recall saying that," Chloe replied, frowning. "Almost three years ago."

"Yeah." Rachel took another drag from the joint; Chloe recognized the pause she took when remembering her lines. "I wish I could say why it took so long," she finally said, her voice flattening. "There was too much tying us down, I guess. Too many things up in the air. We didn't want to make any big mistakes. And before we knew it, we were living a routine. It wasn't what we wanted, but we were comfortable with it. It was what it was."

Comfortable. Chloe tried to feel her way through that answer for something solid to grasp, but the weed had encased her mind in cotton. So she just said, "I still would've gone with you. Mistake or not."

Rachel reached out to tangle her fingers into the blue of Chloe's hair. "I know. But if we'd left, Max would've had to face Jefferson all alone. What chance would she and the other girls here have against that motherfucker?"

Chloe dropped her gaze. "That's...it's not like we knew that would happen!"

"No. But we do now."

Rachel was right, of course. There was no unknowing it and there was no running away. Jefferson needed to be dealt with. As did Nathan, and his father, and anyone else who made it their business to mess with them and theirs.

Still, she couldn't help but be wistful. "I just wish this didn't have to happen to us."

Sighing, Rachel pushed away from the desk and surprised Chloe by sliding onto her lap. "Some things happen for their own reasons," Rachel said, "and some things we don't get to choose. But here's what I know. As long as we do this together, we can get past anything. We can win."

Chloe took another drag before parking the joint on the ashtray. "Wish I knew how you could be so sure."

"We've got my powers. We've got Max. We've got our friends. And we've got your amazing set of skills." Rachel put her lips next to the shell of Chloe's ear and breathed, "Screw your courage to the sticking-place and we'll not fail."

Chloe couldn't suppress a chuckle even as every follicle on her neck stood up, as if she were about to get struck by lightning. "Screw my what into the what ?"

"You heard me, Clueless."

"Whatever you say, Lady Macbeth."

"Good girl. Now, take me to bed. We have maybe three hours left before David and Joyce wake up to find they have an unexpected guest. I have to be back at Blackwell before then."

Chloe tightened her grip around the blonde's waist. "I could convince you to stay."

"You could." Rachel nuzzled Chloe's neck, rolled those slim hips against her warming body. "I promise you, Chloe. Once we've settled the score with Jefferson, Prescott, and whoever else wants to fuck with us, I swear, we'll finally be done with this town."

"Then we're off to God knows where?"

"Like we always said we would." Rachel pulled back to look Chloe in the eye, her glowing smile like a sliver of moonlight. "Just picture it. We can drive south or east or sail across the Pacific. With my powers, we won't ever have to worry about money again. I could put on street magic shows if I wanted. Or always have the perfect wave for any surfing competition. Or put up the only farm that gets rain all year round. There's no end to how far we can go, Chloe!"

Chloe could see every word of it unfolding before her eyes, like watching home movies they'd already made from their adventures. Yet while the prospect of escaping Arcadia Bay made her heart skip a beat, there was a certain hollowness to that vision she couldn't capture in words.

Rachel must have seen it on her face. She watched Chloe for a long moment before speaking up.

"Max is too good for Arcadia Bay," she said, choosing her words carefully. "I don't like the idea of leaving her here for Victoria to screw over." She ran electric fingers down Chloe's arm. "What do you say we kidnap her and take her with us?"

Chloe's eyes widened as she bolted upright. "You mean it?"

Rachel laughed. "Your face just now! Yeah, of course I mean it. Pirates live by their own rules, don't they? If Max is game, then—"

Chloe whooped and wrapped her arms around the blonde. "She will be, I swear! After what happened in her future, what's she got to stay here for? Yeah, let's all leave—together!"

Chloe retrieved the joint and offered it to her but Rachel ignored it. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Chloe's neck, brushed their lips together. The kiss coalesced into a pool of heat deep in Chloe's belly; the rumble of desire in her chest turned into a roar.

"We'll leave only dust behind," Rachel murmured. "And hell to the liars."

Chloe's eyes let her eyes drift shut as she disappeared into the kiss. There was no resisting Rachel. She would crave her till the end of the world.

"Hell to the liars," Chloe repeated against soft, yielding lips.

That Wednesday afternoon saw Max sitting on a wooden bench on Bailey Street, Georgetown. The afternoon light was beginning to fade behind the warehouses and car factories, and as much as she wanted to be home before dusk found her in a seedier, lesser-known part of town, she had a job to do.

Across the sidewalk from her bench was Milagros Flowers, and through the glass window, past the plastic bouquet and wreath displays, the silhouette of a middle-aged woman stooped over the counter. For the last hour, Max had been steeling herself to enter the shop and meet her. But she was having as much luck as if her bench were a magnet and she had an ass made of metal.

For the hundredth time, she reviewed her discussion with Rachel.

"All I need is to get her to agree to an interview with Juliet. Not interview her myself."

"Exactly," Rachel said, giving that grin that could magically dissipate Max's anxiety. "If Nuñez agrees, Juliet will come to Seattle over the weekend to speak with her. Let Jules do the heavy lifting. Don't worry, Max—you got this."

"You sound way too sure. I don't have my time powers, I can't—"

"Max. You keep underestimating how likable you are, and how people will go out of their way to help you. You'll. Be. Fine. Trust me. Trust yourself."

Max sighed. It was a lot easier to believe when Rachel was there to say it.

She shook her head. Okay, enough. If Chloe were here she'd kick my ass for being such a downer. I can do this. I have to do this. Lives are at stake. And just because I don't have powers doesn't mean I'm useless.

To reassure herself, her mind ran through a tale she once read in a sci-fi novel. In it, the heroine met Death himself, who barred her path and posed riddles for her to answer—who is stronger than life, and love, and hope, and the universe itself? And the girl would reply each time, correctly, "You are." Then Death asked a final riddle: Who is stronger than me?

The high-pitched ringing of a bell woke Max from her reverie; she looked up to see the proprietor exiting the shop. The woman turned, shut the door, and fished out some keys from her pocket to lock up.

Max watched her for a long moment. Chocolate skin, dark curly hair that fell down to her shoulders, a mole under one eye. She was beautiful, but there were hard lines stretched across her face, shadows beneath her eyes, and streaks of iron-grey in her hair. So this was Laura Nuñez.

Max forced down the lump in her throat and pushed herself off of her bench. The woman turned at her approach, her smile uncertain.

"Hello. Did you want some flowers? We're already closed, but if you already have something in mind, I can open it back up for a little bit..."

"Thank you," Max said, barely hearing her own voice over the rush of blood in her ears, "but I'm not here for flowers. I came because...I wanted to speak with you, Miss Nuñez."

The uncertainty spread from the woman's mouth to her eyes at the mention of her name. Max hurried on, "My name is Max Caulfield. I'm a university student. We—that is, my friends and I—need your help. You see, we heard about your story, and we want to raise awareness in our school about Mark Jefferson. Miss Nuñez, could we trouble you for an interview—"

It surprised Max to see how quickly the woman's face closed up, like watching a castle preparing for a siege—drawbridge up, gates slamming shut, steel glinting among the battlements.

"I don't think so," Nuñez intoned.

"I-I'm sorry," Max automatically said. "I know this must be difficult for you—"

"Difficult? Niña , you have no goddamn idea." Nuñez dropped the keys into her pocket, turned on her heel, and stalked away.

Max stood stock still where the woman had left her, teeth digging into her lip, face burning like she'd bitten into a pepper. Tentatively, she reached out a hand to will the moment back to her. Of course, nothing happened. She was on her own.

Rachel's voice cut through the fog in her head. Trust yourself.

Max clenched her fists and forced her feet to move, even as the woman disappeared around the corner.

"Miss Nuñez," Max called. "Please wait!"

Max rounded the bend and caught sight of her some twenty feet away. Without so much as turning her head, the woman hurried on down the sidewalk. Max pursued until Nuñez stopped and entered what appeared to be an old and rundown apartment building.

Panting, Max came to a halt in front of the steps. Luckily, her quarry lived close by. She gathered her courage and pushed past the wooden double doors to find herself in a dim, dingy hallway. Three doors away, Nuñez was fitting her key into her apartment door.

"I just want to talk!" Max cried.

"I don't."

"You don't understand!"

Nuñez glanced up at Max. "I understand that to you, I'm a story . One of thousands that journalists tell for good copy. But I, I had to live that story. I have to live it every time I tell it." She succeeded in stabbing the key through the doorknob. "Don't ask me to dig up the past for your benefit. I did that again and again for the police and the press, for whatever good it did me."

She threw open her apartment door and stepped through. " Go home , Miss Caulfield. I can't help you."

In that instant, the image of Rachel's bloodless, rotting visage floated before Max's eyes. It was followed by Chloe, her face all crimson, the single bullet wound blooming on her forehead like a deadly rose. And right then, Max knew that everything hung on her doing what she must.

In four strides, Max was holding open Nuñez's door with a grip of iron. The woman glared at her through the opening with a mixture of outrage and alarm.

"You're about to make this very hard for yourself, niña ."

"Please, you have to listen—"

"Go away or I'll make the police make you. They're good for that much, at least."

" Listen to me! " Both of Max's hands now clutched at the door. "Jefferson's at my school. He's targeting the students there. We think he's already harmed two other girls!"

The woman shook her head, mouth pulling into a tiny, bitter curve. "Then it's too late for anything. No one's going to help them because no one's going to believe them. No one believed me."

" I believe you," Max said. "Please. He's after the people I care about. I can't let him hurt them. I can't let it happen again. I'll do anything. You don't know what I did, how much I had to give up—"

Max choked on her own voice and could go no further. How could she even begin to explain the insanity that was her life? It would only make her even less credible and more pitiful than she was now. Rachel was wrong; I am useless. The world was going blurry before her eyes; Nuñez's face had dissolved behind a misty white wall.

For a long moment, both of them stayed silent, gazing at each other through the doorway. Then Nuñez asked, in a softer, careful tone: "Did he hurt you, too?"

Max couldn't speak, couldn't even nod. All she could do was stare unblinking at that lined, barren face, her fingers going slack against the door as tears slid down her cheeks. In her head, the faint clicks and whirrs of a camera echoed, like they did in many a waking nightmare. She thought she might hear them forever.

Nuñez watched her, then finally she sighed, "You'd better come in, Miss Caulfield. I'll make us some coffee."

The noises in her head fell silent. Max took a deep breath, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes until she could see again. Then she stepped into the threshold of Nuñez's home, closing the door behind her.

It was an hour later when Max emerged from the apartment, blinking and half-stunned, the taste of black Arabica still branded on her tongue. Her phone carried a recorded conversation—about 90% of it was Nuñez relating her entire story. In a binder in her messenger bag were newspaper clippings Nuñez had collected, detailing what she had told the police and following Mark Jefferson's career over the years.

And on the last page of the binder was a black and white picture. It depicted a Laura in her early twenties, lying on a couch, half-awake, too far gone to know or care where she was.

"I can still remember his face," Nuñez had told her. "He was bent low and breathing harshly as he took pictures. I could tell from the bulge in his pants he was aroused, how he got off over how much power he had—" She had broken off, looking down at her coffee cup, and her words had resonated within Max in a feedback loop of pain. "I think you'll find all the details you'll need in the articles."

"How did you get this picture?"

"I needed evidence, so a few days later I broke into his lab to steal some. This picture was all I could find. But it was all for nothing. People thought I had staged it. It was still my word against his, and his carried more weight."

She had looked up to meet Max's eye. "If you tell my story, you will destroy him?"

"We're going to try."

"Good." Nuñez had reached out to take Max's hand. "Maybe afterward, you and I can sleep better. If not, at least he will sleep worse."

On the bus ride home, Max held her messenger bag close to her heart, like it were a pet that had fallen asleep in her arms.

And Death asked her, Who is stronger than me?

In a quiet voice, the girl answered, "I am."

And Death stood aside and let her pass.

Chapter Notes:

The lovely story Max quotes is from the sci-fi novel "The Snow Queen" by Joan Vinge.