When I finally come to, the whole world feels sideways. The room I'm in is pitch black. I can hardly see anything, but I do see a glint of light reflecting off of a monster's glasses. I struggle to move, but my hands and feet are bound together. Somehow I manage to get on my knees yet my head still feels like it's planted to the hard concrete. I hear footsteps approach, and that can only be one man.

Jefferson flips a switch. Blinding light causes me to squint and groan. My head is pounding like a jackhammer.

"You're finally awake. Don't worry, after this you won't even remember that you were ever here, or that you saw my face."

He puts down a small jar with a needle and squats down in front of me. He grabs my chin and forces me to look at him. I contain myself from screaming in his now heavily damaged face. I have to admit that seeing the several cuts in his face Rachel caused somewhat satisfies me.

"You are definitely going first. Just look at those eyes, still so full of hope and light. It's time to break that and I'm going to enjoy every second of seeing you falling into darkness. Light, and dark. There's something beautiful about the contrast between them. People, though, they always just seem to be a boring shade of gray. Except for you Max, you have something special. A gift. Too bad you wasted it on her."

He releases my face and takes some kind of binder from a nearby table. The feeling of his fingers wrapped around my cheeks doesn't leave and I start feeling more and more disgusted the longer I think about his words. He sets down a folder full of pictures of various girls, two girls of which I recognize from my photography class. Their strange behavior suddenly starts making sense. The way they stared dead into space, as if they were still on drugs. They didn't seem to be living, more like just existing.

"But to a camera's lens, there's a certain type of person that emanates light. I want to capture that luminescence as it meets darkness. Is that too much to ask? I thought Rachel would be the perfect model, but when I saw you risking your life for something so useless, it wasn't the flashlights shining bright that night, it was you."

My eyes widen in shock. I try to crawl backwards but Jefferson takes my foot and drags me back to the position I had been lying unconscious for hours.

"All I wanted was to turn her into a work of art, to capture her innocence," he says, then pauses strangely, "the star she always wanted to be, until I realized she wasn't that innocent."

I finally get the chance to speak and I take it.
"You are sick. Don't think a bunch of drugs will make me forget your face."

He scoffs and stares at me.
"You have no idea how lucky you are, Max. Being chosen by me is an honor, you just don't see it yet."

You sick son of a bitch. Oh, if only I weren't tied up.

"And this is how you repay me," he nods to his bleeding shoulder.

"I should've let Chloe shoot you."

"Exactly! But you didn't. Why? Because you are a good person Max, but being good doesn't get you anywhere besides in the hands of bad people, like Chloe."

I have to make him pay for the things he's done, as soon as I figure out a way to get free. He's going to rot in jail or die, I'll make sure of it. If I get my hands on a gun, I won't hesitate to kill him.

"You're a joke, Maxine Caulfield. Your life never amounted to anything. And now... It never will." He sighs deeply and cleans his glasses between his shirt and fingers. " What a shame, you had talent but I have to admit that I'm going to enjoy breaking you."

"It's Max," I growl, struggling to break free from my binds, but to no avail. He tilts his head, a brow raised. As he leans in, I can feel his disgusting hot breath on my lips. If he was a little closer, I could bite him, or try head-butting. But the bastard is just out of reach.

"Do you really think I give a shit about your name? You're just a subject, I'll call you whatever I want."

I spit in his face. He wipes away the spit and lets out an annoyed sigh. He slaps me with the back of his hand. I tumble down as my cheek starts burning from the collision.

"Fuck you!"
I spit out between my teeth as I grit them to ease the stinging feeling.

His ugly, scarred face is glaring down at me. Rachel left deep cuts across his skin, like a knife. Now, he simply keeps his gaze on me, as he sits down in a chair. There's a medical tray to his side, and a pair of tweezers. He takes his shirt off and reveals the deep bullet wound in his shoulder. He folds his shirt to a ball and bites into it. He carefully takes the tweezers and reaches into his wound, and I can only smile at the painful sounds he makes as he desperately tries to remove the bullet. I can tell, it's everything he can do to keep from screaming. He does get the bullet, and he drops it on the tray.

"I'm going to clean this and return shortly. Don't be afraid, Chloe and Rachel will be jealous of you. "

"Go to hell!" I yell.
He just smirks and shakes his head.

"If I were you I'd shut that big mouth, or else I won't be so kind."

Jefferson looks at me one last time, I stare back showing him I'm not scared of what will happen. Silence surrounds me, as I'm left alone with my thoughts, burning feelings around my ankles and wrists, and a throbbing headache. What seems like hours go by, as I sit there trying to think of a way out. Nothing comes out of it. There's no obvious plan, and I can't think of anything that could help me. Something moves closer to me as I turn, ready to kick whatever's behind me in the face. I quickly realize it's Rachel.

The last person on the planet I wanted to be stuck in a room with. I guess I've kinda gotten over that with what happened tonight, though. She tried to save my life. Or was it Chloe she wanted to save? I don't know. I don't care.
She tries to say something but there is tape strapped around her mouth.

I gesture for her to crawl towards my hand. She lays her face in my palms and I rip off the tape.

"Max... Why didn't you run? Why the hell didn't you run?"

"I... Froze. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't just leave Chloe and you, and I wasn't gonna risk shooting Jefferson. I could've killed you."

"Yeah? Well look what being noble got us into, I heard everything, he's a sick fuck," she says with a scoff. Even though I can't see her, I can picture her flipping her hair and shaking her head in disbelief.

"Don't you dare be like that. I did the only thing I knew to do in a situation I can barely comprehend... If you're here then where is Chloe?"

She motions her head to a corner in the left. There lays Chloe, still unconscious looking somewhat peaceful as Rachel and I still struggle with our restraints.

"We have to get out of here, you see that jar with the needle right?"
She nods towards the tray with multiple needles and medical equipment.

"It'll feel like you're trapped in your own body, no- as if you're caged in your brain and you can't do anything but watch what happens to your lifeless body. You do not want to feel that," Rachel warns as she brings her back to my back and starts fumbling on my restraints.

"Did he do this to you before?" I ask quietly.

"I have reasons for what I did. Frank knew, he kept me safe, told me he would figure out who it was. Seems like that won't be needed anymore."

"But if you loved him, why did you date Chloe?"
I almost want to take back my words, this is totally not the time yet I'm anxious to know the answer.

"I'm not going to tell you that I never felt anything for Chloe, I did... it just wasn't enough."
Rachel curses and lets go of my restraints, growling that they are too tight and I should try hers.

"So, you decide to sleep around and then get angry that she dates someone else," I state, while trying to loosen the knot around Rachel's wrists.

"I wasn't angry because she was dating someone else, she should, I was horrible to her. I care that she was dating you. All I heard about was Max this Max that, so I flipped. She always told me I didn't have to worry about you, that you were her best friend but I knew you two had more," she explains, wiggling with her arms.

"But why did you try to get her back then?"

"Believe it or not, she actually means something to me. But the way you've abandoned her lately... do you even still love her?"

Somehow that hurts inside, as if she stabbed me in the heart. I get angry and start raising my voice.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"
I release her arms and shimmy a bit out of her reach. She turns to me with furrowed brows.

"When you punched me you were protecting what was yours and a few days later you just toss her out of your life as if she was nothing. So my question is, what did she do to you that was so terrible that you shut her out? Do you hate me that much, that you had to punish her for a past relationship that was never even a real thing?"

I am enraged but I also have to admit that Rachel makes some fair points about the whole drama. Chloe really hurt me, that I can't deny. Her secret hurt me, but honestly I wouldn't know how I would've reacted if it wasn't Rachel. Yet my ignorant side doesn't want Rachel to talk down to me like that so I fire something back.

"You have no idea what it feels like to be betrayed like that, because you're the one that betrays everyone. Classic fucking Amber."
Rachel's eyes spit fire as she kicks her feet against my side.

I groan lightly and return the favor by launching my feet against her side where she got kicked by Jefferson.

"See, you're not as innocent as everyone thinks. I still don't get why Chloe likes you that much." She spits out between groans.

"Maybe because I'm not a whore!"
Total silence.
Rachel looks away and laughs in a mocking way.

"You know what hipster," she says, as if I should feel insulted but I'm not, "you don't deserve her, yeah she did some fucked up shit but you aren't a single hair better!"

Rachel and I both start yelling towards each other, throwing accusations and letting out what we truly think of one another.

"Can both of you shut the hell up?" someone yells above our voices.

Both Rachel and I stare at Chloe with shame in our eyes. It doesn't matter where we are, leave it to Rachel and me to start a fight about anything.

"I've been listening, and you're both being serious douchebags. Now, just hear me out. Did you ever think that maybe all three of us seriously fucked up, and that it doesn't matter?"

Where is she going with this?

"We're living in the present, not the past. So put aside your differences and grow the hell up. If we want to get out of here, we're gonna have to be a team. And that means no fighting."

Wow, that's really mature of Chloe. I'm trying to place the last time she said something so wise, and I can't seem to find much. It's in times that I start acting like a bitch that Chloe tries to calm everyone down, I guess that's why we sort of belong. I keep her from danger and she keeps me from saying things I'll regret later.

"You're right," I say yet Rachel nor I apologize, we just glare at eachother.

"But while we're on the topic of girlfriends and mistakes, I've been meaning to say this for a while..."
There was sadness in Chloe's voice, and you could tell she was fighting back tears.

"Rachel and I, we should've never been together. We were bad for each other from the start. Irresponsible, careless..."

"Chloe, now's not really the time," I say, not wanting to discuss this. I can't think about love right now. All I keep thinking is that if we don't figure something out, we're going to suffer.

"She's right, we don't need this right now," Rachel agrees in a serious tone.

"We're locked in a bunker with a psychopath just outside the door. It's now or never."

This isn't Chloe, normally she's the person asking to let the subject go but now she's pushing, I guess every one handles the situation of inevitable doom differently.

"I guess you're right..."
I admit.

"Rachel, we both know what we had was toxic. We felt like we belonged together, but all we ever brought each other was pain, and I'm sorry for that."

Rachel nervously twitches her legs and looks away from both Chloe and I.

"Really, I still want us to be friends if we make it out of here. I'll forgive you for Frank, if you forgive me for Max."

Rachel nods with a smile, letting a tear escape her hazel eyes.
"Friends till the end?"

"Friends till the end," Chloe answers with certainty.

"And Max... I'm sorry. I have said it a million times but it will never justify the pain I caused the both of you, I hope we can work on us, because I'm not ready to let you go."
I can feel my heart skip a beat. I open my mouth but words aren't forming and my lips aren't moving. I can only nod my head as an answer that I don't want to let go either.

"Anyway, these ropes aren't going to cut themselves. It's a good thing the creep didn't check my pants, I still have a pocket knife."
She flashes us her signature smug smile and shimmies closer to us.
Chloe to the rescue.

"So, what's the plan, Price?" Rachel asks, having the same determined look for revenge as Chloe.

"We are going to expose this son of a bitch."