Archive of Our Own ^beta

She was unstoppable.

She’d always been a force of nature. She could manipulate anything; the wind, fire, people... She made the people around her feel in awe. They wanted to know her. They wanted to have her. They wanted to love her.

She was both beautiful and destructive. 

She was angry.

Angry that her life had been taken away so suddenly, angry that it had been taken away by two men she’d trusted, angry that she’d been forced to abandon the one person who had been her guiding light.

Angry that she’d fallen in love with the man responsible for the destruction of so many of his students’ lives, including her own.

And now, she was angry that Chloe had somebody else. That Max had just walked back into her life and picked up where she had left off.

Chloe had been a mess. Everyone had abandoned her. William, then Max, even Joyce had given up on her in favour of step-prick. Even Frank had turned on her because she owed him money.

But then, Rachel knew that was coming. She knew everything now. 

And apparently, so did Max. Max knew she was coming. But Max was blinded by human ignorance, and Rachel was so much more than human now. She was a goddess, an angel, a spirit. 

Max didn’t know what her visions truly meant. Max wanted to prevent the storm, prevent the destruction that Rachel was owed. 

Max was getting in her way. Max kept saving Chloe’s life, preventing her from joining Rachel. 

They were polar opposites, but Chloe had said they were alike. This had irked her. Rachel was beautiful, Max was plain. Rachel was charismatic and charming, Max was awkward and nosy. 

Annoyingly, Max was helping Chloe to uncover the truth. And when they found it, the storm was going to rage. 

She tried to guide her towards the spot where her body was buried, but all Max wanted to do was take a photo of the doe that wasn’t really there. She’d ignored the scrap of clothing that had been torn from Rachel’s shirt as she had been hurriedly shoved in the ground, stuck to something nearby. 

It wasn’t fair of her to get mad at Max for that. Even the police had turned a blind eye to it once they had found out about her relationship with Frank. Or maybe they were as dumb as Max was. 

Rachel’s spirit animal wasn’t even a doe. She’d thought it would be a lion because she was a proud Leo, but it wasn’t. It was a blue jay, a tiny little bird. Small and insignificant, but adaptable. Mischievous. Clever.

Max had found and then discarded the letter that Rachel had left for Chloe, a half-assed cowardly way of telling her that they were over. Maybe Max didn’t want to hurt Chloe by telling her the truth. Some things were better left unsaid, ignorance was bliss, blah blah blah. 

She’d dumped Frank by letter too. Rachel had never been very good at being monogamous, a trait she shared with her father. But Chloe had been different. Chloe was her best friend, her lifeline in this hell town, and she had never wanted to lose that. They were going to get out and take the world by storm. And now, Rachel was the storm, and she was coming for Arcadia Bay. 

She was coming for Chloe.