Nathan drops Chloe off at her house and heads back to campus. His leg tenses when he turns the truck off, the nervous energy back.

Is it me, Nathan? Is this all you want?

"Max, you dumbass," he mutters, pulling his phone out. He scrolls through his contact list over and over again before realizing he doesn't have her number.

"Fuck." He tosses his phone to the floor. He knows who does have it though. He slams the truck door behind him and saunters into the girls' dorms.

"You talked to Caulfield," he accuses, leaning inside Victoria's doorway.

"Well, look at you," she greets him, and it's only when he catches his reflection in her mirror that he realizes what she's talking about. There's a fire in his eyes, a kind that catches him completely off guard. He's so used to seeing anger that he doesn't know what to do with the wildness that glares brazenly back at him.

He looks pointedly away.

"Vic, please," he says instead. "Answer me." He has to lower his voice, turn the dial practically to zero, because everything is screaming in his brain. White noise spikes to a shout and he can even see it creeping into his vision in a surge of vines.

"You didn't ask me a question." She purses her lips, but there's a smile at the corners.

"Why did you talk to Caulfield?" His voice is barely a whisper now.

The smile falls quickly from Victoria's lips. "She talked to me. She said she had something important to talk to you about. I thought it was a stupid assignment or something, but you're really in a mood about it, aren't you?" She's frowning now, her guard completely up and setting camp around him. "Please tell me it's not what I'm thinking now."

This time the anger does flash in his eyes. He can feel it burn into his blood. "You don't know anything—" He stops himself before he can lash out any further. "I'm sorry, Vic. I don't mean it."

"Of course not," she says softly. She tosses down the book she'd been reading and stares up at him as if he's cracked himself open for her to examine. "Is there something I need to know?"

"No." He whirls around to leave, kicking the door on the way out.

"Nathan, what is going on?" she demands. "Besides you trying to massacre my door."

He considers marching away in silence but then he remembers the reason he'd stopped by in the first place. He turns back around. "I need her number."

"Oh, of course you do," she says, guard still up. She pulls her phone out anyway, scrolling through her contacts. She looks at him expectantly.

"I'm sorry," he repeats. "I've just been stressed lately." Hollow words, hollow tone. It's his blanket apology and he wonders how long she'll accept it from him. The guilt blooms heavily in his chest but he can't drag her into this as well. "I shouldn't take it out on you."

She hands him her phone, her grasp stiff enough that he has to tug it free. "You're not going to tell me what this is about, are you?"

"Another time," he promises too quickly.

She sighs, ruffling his hair this time. It startles him into a few steps backwards and she chuckles softly.

When he heads back to his dorm, he collapses onto his bed and kicks his shoes off, each one tumbling into a different direction. He twirls his phone in his hands, a blank message staring back at him.

caulfield, he types, but nothing else comes to mind. Nothing he should tell her, at least.

cum to my room

i need 2 c u

i cant stop fukin thinkn abt u

godamit caulfield

ur in my fukin head

No, nothing he should tell her.

He grunts and tosses the phone to the side. It bounces off the wall and onto the floor. He screams at himself instead. What the fuck is wrong with you?

He hears the other Caulfield laughing in the mirror again, but he doesn't smash it. He still sees her in the broken window and he'd rather see all her face than the five pieces that watch him pace his room at night.

He hears Mark's words follow him, warning him to keep her out of his head, away from him. This is the opposite of what he's supposed to be doing, but he's done taking orders. He's been against authority his whole life, so why, in the span of a semester should it be any different? In some ways, Mark is just like his father. He suspects somewhere in the back of his mind (or the front now, everything's up front), that Mark never really cared for him anyway. It hits him in a dull throb, the way a cut does when he's at the peak of an adrenaline rush, the blood long dry before he notices. He thinks it might have always been there, pulsing in the cloak of his thoughts, waiting for the moment he pulls the scab free and holds it bleeding in his hands.

But Caulfield, as many times as he's pushed her away, keeps coming back. He doesn't think she cares, not really, but she thinks enough of him to keep returning. To keep asking. To keep pushing. And she doesn't ask for anything to return. She's an open surrender.

He picks up his phone and tries again.

caulfield

dont go to the party

jeffersons got plans

This he does send. He taps his phone against his lips and his phone bleeps her response a moment later.

Nathan?

He smirks at her obliviousness, her obviousness, and sets back to the task of texting the impossible.

cum see me insted.

He rolls his thumb up to delete it and hits send instead.

"Fuck. No. Fuck. Goddamnit. WHAT IS THE MOTHERFUCKING POINT."

His phone bleeps again.

I don't think I should. Sorry.

It's the window that he throws his phone now. He's only vaguely concerned if it's broken because it'll mean he can't text her back.

He clasps his hands into fists in front of him, willing all the nervous energy to settle, willing the laughter to stop. He clasps his hands tight enough that his knuckles grow numb, his pulse throbbing in his fists. When he can stand it no longer, he retrieves his phone and examines the small crack that's now sliced through the screen. It could have been worse.

im sorry for the other day

im a jackass

There's a delay before her next text, long enough that he thinks she's done talking to him.

Wait, is the great Nathan Prescott actually apologizing to me?

He smirks as his fingers move over the screen.

cum over and ill make it up 2 u

no tricks

The delay before her answer is even longer but then the one word answer flashes like a symphony in his head.

Okay.

His slides down against the wall, his smile so tight across his face he can barely feel it.

When she knocks on his door, the sound so hesitant it's like a question, he opens the door to stare down at her.

"No tricks?" she repeats.

"No tricks," he answers and she nods as she brushes past him.

"I should have gone with you, asshole," she proclaims as she sits on his sofa. She glances around his room, seemingly discomforted by the dim atmosphere and wall art.

"Problem?" he asks. He closes the door and leans against it. When her eyes flick towards the closed door, he's reminded of the first time he approached her in the empty classroom. Her expression is remarkably similar.

"No," she says, purposely avoiding the bondage posters.

"I didn't want to risk it. If you got hurt or some dumb shit," he answers her earlier question.

"Oh, but you had no problem risking Chloe getting hurt," she counters and taps her foot against the floor.

He rolls his eyes. "That bitch needs to keep her mouth shut."

"That bitch is my best friend. Don't talk about her that way." She rises to her feet, glaring up at him as if he isn't blocking her only exit from the room.

This wasn't going as well as he'd planned.

He holds his hands up in surrender. "Look, Mark isn't interested in Price. He's interested in you, so you're more of a risk. Plus, no offense, but I think she can hold her own a lot better than you."

"What?" Suddenly, she's stomping across the room, her arms hovering in front of him as if she wants to shove him but is thinking better of it.

"Oh, you think you're full of fight?" He leans towards her just enough that she steps back. He steps forward, matching her step. "If I were Jefferson and you hesitated like that—bang, you're dead." He holds his index finger and thumb against her temple, pushing down his thumb in an imitation trigger.

She gulps, her eyes wide, and he withdraws his hand slowly.

"Gotta work on those reflexes," he murmurs.

"I can hold my own," she insists and his lips stretch into a shark's smile.

His hands hook around her waist, pulling her closer. He steps forward, causing her to stumble back until her heels hit his bed frame. She falls back onto the mattress and he leans over her, his lips inches from her own. "Can you?" he whispers. He grabs her wrist, holding it behind her before grabbing the other one as well. "Still dead."

"You said no tricks," she says, her voice wavering.

"This isn't a trick. You want to fight? I want you to see what you're up against."

"You're not Jefferson." The admission tumbles from her lips with such force that he drops her wrists in surprise.

"That's not the point," he tries to argue but she shakes her head.

Her eyes stare into him, pulling him apart, and whatever she finds, it's enough to have her place her palm against his chest. "You're not," she insists.

He scoffs and has the mad urge to grab her wrists again and scare the softness out of her.

"Why do you want to protect me so badly? Why aren't you off chasing down all the other potential victims?" Her palm presses gently against his chest and he finds his eyes closing in spite of himself.

"Because..." He can't grasp the words. He wants to throw some joke about who would take horrible selfies, who would give Victoria grief, who would follow him around, questioning all his motives, but all he can do is stare down at her eyes that are too open and asking below him. He has no answers for her.

"Nathan," she says and he doesn't know what she's about to say but suddenly she's pulling him down and pressing her lips against his. Her kiss is light, barely skimming past his own lips and he resists the urge to deepen it.

"Max, you don't..." He trails off, his voice much hoarser than he'd have liked. He's suddenly aware that he's pushing her down onto his mattress, her body soft beneath his. He can't find the right words.

"You said you'd make it up to me," she whispers against his mouth, her fingers pressed against his chest, and his eyes drift shut again. "Stop pretending. For five minutes. Just be real with me for five minutes."

He feels his resolve slipping and he sighs. "Real about what?"

"Anything," she breathes.

His eyes snap open to find hers piercing into him. She's challenging him, daring him to move past the barrier he's set so far back, he can't remember when. But when he gazes back at her, it isn't a dare that he sees. It's a plead.

"Your eyes," he whispers harshly and he presses his thumbs against the outer corners of her gaze, stroking lightly. "Don't close your eyes."

She jerks in his grasp, pausing at his words and his touch. "Why?"

Her confusion startles him and his thumbs dip down, resting on her cheekbones instead. Her eyes stare up at him with no caution. They are the finish line and he's so close, but he doesn't know how much further he'll have before he makes it. He doesn't know if he can make it.

"I need to see you. I need you to see me," he rushes on and bends down to kiss her again before she can laugh or scoff. Her eyes stay open, wide before his own as his lips move against hers. She watches him as his tongue slips through, urgent against hers. She watches him as his hands trail down her face and across her throat, one long finger at a time. She watches him as his head drops down to follow his fingers, glancing up to study her as he places kisses against her collarbone.

When his hands sweep across her chest and settle at her midriff, thumbs brushing against the peek of skin above her jeans, he pauses. White hot heat flashes through his chest, settling deep into his groin. It takes all of his strength not to grind up against her on the bed. Her breaths heave unsteadily above him and her hands are tangled in his hair.

"Want me to stop?" he mumbles against her stomach.

She pauses and he can feel her try to slow her breathing to a more tolerable pace. "I don't know," she admits and he knows she's thinking about the time in the truck, what's changed between then. It feels horrifically different this time, with her arms wrapped around his head as he's nestled against her stomach. He has put aside the barrier (for five minutes, just five minutes). He feels stripped and vulnerable, even as he's fully clothed.

All his life, he has tried to burrow closer to something—something warmer, something fuller, something to numb the chaos in his head. And he has burrowed himself in many a warm body, heartbeats thrumming, teeth fighting for purchase and dominance, doors closed after him long before the night is over.

But all their eyes had looked through him; he's another warm body to burrow into, another distraction.

Max looks into him, pulling out the parts that are wrong and displaying them for him to see. Then plowing through to find the other parts, the parts he'd long ago left for dead.

"I won't hurt you," he feels the need to tell her and she looks away.

She laughs, a nervous chuckle like glass breaking. She taps her fingers against his scalp, buying time. "Why?" she finally asks again. Why me? Why this?

"I don't know," he says simply. You make me feel alive. "Tell me no. Tell me to stop. Tell me whatever. But say something."

Her breath stills in her chest and his does, too. He hasn't even realized he's done it until the lack of oxygen burns in his lungs.

"Okay," she whispers and leans into his grasp. He feels her lips sift into his hair. Panic flows through his veins like ice water as he raises back to his feet and his lips meets hers again.

He doesn't know how to be soft. When he was younger, he crushed ladybugs in his hand and crashed vases when tracing his finger over the patterns. He has been wind and fire for as long as he's lived. Somehow, he has to find the will to not break the girl standing before him, her hands fluttering at his chest as if she's afraid he'll explode at her touch.

But then the panic is flushed out when she kisses him more insistently, when her heart stammers against his as she presses closer. He just wants to be closer. He flops down onto the bed, pulling her down next to him. Her legs slide between his and he feels his muscles tighten to keep from slamming his hips against hers. He traces lazy circles at the base of her back as he deepens the kiss. Her own hands sweep down his shoulders, brush tentatively back across his chest. As they dip towards his stomach and venture lower, his breath hitches and she yanks her hands away with a nervous laugh.

"Sorry," she whispers, even as he shakes his head at her apology, and her fingers trickle more determinedly up his arms. They explore the taut lines of his forearms, before sliding up to his shoulders, and he tenses against her touch.

He pulls one arm free, kissing the base of her wrist and tracing the veins that line south. They beat furiously against his lips, energy and warmth flooding into him.

He remembers holding Rachel as her life slipped from her, her veins hard and cold against his touch. He remembers Kate's runaway pulse leaping from him when nothing else could.

The panic flares again for one blazing second, before he finds Max's pulse. It beats steady and stubbornly, her arm relaxed before the kisses he dusts across her skin.

He lets her arm drop and searches for her mouth again, his arms diving under her shirt to find the warmth buried there. His hips meet hers, hesitant but strong as they seek to find something closer, warmer.

"It's okay," she murmurs when his hands still at the button to her pants and she's already trying to kick them free.

A loud chirp breaks through his thoughts like an axe and he jerks away from her. She looks startled, but fumbles for the phone in her pocket, scanning the message that's flashed on the screen. "Chloe's on her way," she mutters and looks towards him, tentative. She looks as she's broken free of some spell.

He knows she's waiting for some kind of answer, some kind of dismissal or argument, but he just stares at her, watching as her eyes sweep from one side of his face to the other. He can't tell if she wants to stay, if she'd rather go, if she'd rather never see his face again. "Okay," he finally says, clearing his throat. "Okay. Stay in your dorm when you get there." He rests his hand on the doorknob, but he can't open it.

"Nathan," she begins, but she doesn't argue. She doesn't agree. She just walks to the door, waiting.

"Stay safe, Caulfield," he repeats, yanking the door open.

She nods and then she's gone, the door clicking shut behind her.

He leans his head against the wall and sighs. He glances at his own phone, which lies neglected on his desk. He reaches for it, about to scroll through his messages, then stops. He won't do this to himself. If she stays or if she leaves, he can't control it, and dwelling on it won't make it any better for him. But he feels empty as he stands there, the screen of his phone white in his hand. He feels as if she has scooped something from his chest, leaving him hollow, and then leaving him all together. He lets his phone clatter to the floor as he curls onto his sofa, willing sleep to take over for at least a couple of hours. He's rewarded with no dreams, no voices, no eyes. It's the most he's slept in weeks, even in that small burst of time.

He jerks awake from the bleep of his phone and squints at its brightness as he tries to read the incoming text.

I'm sorry.

I'll come back later?

Have you gone to the station yet?

He glances at his backpack where the binder still rests. He checks the time, and while he's only been out an hour, it's still an hour wasted.

headin ther now

He feels the earlier emptiness close in on itself, callous over. If she comes back, he doesn't know if he could close the door against her face. He kicks at the door instead, kicking it until he can't feel anything but the throbbing of his foot against the wood and then he can't feel that either.

But it doesn't matter. The red binder screams his fate from his bag, some unknown song beating time with the thud of his heart. There won't be time for girls to press their doubts and second thoughts against his door.

He slips his bag over his shoulder and limps out the door, again finding himself split into two directions. In one, he strides casually towards his truck, and when he reaches the station, he hands over the binder with no regrets. He's handing over his problem, the hellish semester he's buried himself in, Mark's eyes scanning for fault points at every juncture of his body.

In the other, his skin is crawling with pinpricks and eyes burrowing into every pore. He scratches his arms as he bumps into the walls. There's a good chance he could be chucking himself away as well. A good chance that he will. A good chance that the last time he sees Max's face will be with her pretty little smile twisted in horror as she stares back at him in every reflective surface he passes. A good chance that wherever they lock him up there will be no reflective surface. Only white, strong and sturdy and silent against his screams.

He wants so badly for it to be the first one, that he ignores the crawling in his skin, straightens the wavering of his walk.

He's nearly made it to his truck in the parking lot before his phone bleeps again and he pauses to read it.

Okay, I lied.

Come see me instead?

He frowns, scrolls up through the conversation and reads it again. And again. Then his mouth twitches into a smile as he replies.

make up ur fukin mind caulfield

A second later, his phone bleeps.

Please?

He's already heading back. His legs move before he can realize what they're doing. He feels the seconds to his countdown stutter and freeze and he lunges forward blindly.

But when he reaches the girls' dorms, he notices two things. One is that the door isn't closed all the way; rather, one of the hinges is slightly bent as if something had hit it or tried to push it the wrong way.

The second is the needle that's tossed to the side of a nearby bush, almost out of sight, but still catching a glimpse of sunlight against its metal. He recognizes that needle immediately.

"Fuck. No." His voice doesn't even sound like his anymore.

His phone bleeps again.

Not there. Try again.

Better hurry or you'll have to bury me, too.

Focus, Nathan.

He's never focused on anything as much as he is at that moment, Max's face embedded into his head with Rachel's dead eyes and Kate's slack mouth and skeleton hands at her throat. He reaches into his glove compartment and fumbles for the gun inside. "I will end you, fucker," he whispers and hopes to fucking God that he's right.