He gestured his hand around her face. “That. All of that.”
"This?" She touched her still swollen face unconsciously and then flinched. "Well, I don't know exactly. I think it was empousai. It was...too dark."

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@maxharveyy
He gestured his hand around her face. “That. All of that.”
"This?" She touched her still swollen face unconsciously and then flinched. "Well, I don't know exactly. I think it was empousai. It was...too dark."
"Shh…" She whispered soothingly, her saccharine voice filling the space around the both of them. "It’s okay now, love, you’re alive and safe that’s all I’ve asked for." she wiped her own tears away from her face.
Maxine started to relax. Cecily's soft and almost singsong voice always had that effect on her. "I can't believe I'm alive." She said with a hint of laughter on her voice.
"I’m just— I’m glad you’re back."
That earned a smile from her. Smiling was something she had not done in a while so it felt kind of awkward. Still, she felt a tiny bit hapy inside. She pulled away and looked at him, not completely letting him go. "I thought you would be angry with me. I really shouldn't have left." She started crying again but she wiped the tears off as soon as it fell from her eyes all while forcing another smile on her face.
"Well, it doesn’t matter now. You’re already here."
"I won't leave again. I promise."
"You’re here!" There’s a smile in his voice but then his expressions dropped once he took in her new look. "But who the fuck did this to you?"
Max forced a smile on her lips. "Did what? You got to be specific."
"You’ve scared me, a lot. And-and I was going crazy finding you. Please. Don’t. Do. That.”
"I texted you and said not to worry." She explained as she tried to wipe her tears off. "I thought you will---okay. There's no excuse for whta I did. I'm so stupid. I'm so sorry."
When she finally managed to move, she stood up and walked closer to Max. She was basically trying not to cry. “You’re crazy, you know that, I’ve hated what you’ve done.” She blinked and then finally a tear escaped and then she grabbed Max into a tight hug.
<pMax continued sobbing on her shoulder. "I'm sorry.I hate me too." She let it all pour, letting all the tears she held back for a couple of months. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have left." She kept muttering in her hoarse voice.
Louise’s hair got longer and he’s grown a scruff over the months of stress. When he turns and sees Max he didn’t have any second thoughts and just tackle hugs her. “I miss you. Don’t leave like that.” he croaks.
Max wrapped her arms around him and held him as tight asshe could. "I'm sorry...I'm sorry." She repeated, her voice slightly hoarse as she finally spoke for the first time in weeks.
She’s heard Max came back and with her friends she rushed to the Guidance Counselor’s Office, the wait was getting too long so they excused themselves to get coffee or something so she’s left behind there. Her lips were pressed into a thin line and when she heard the door open, she looked up. She took in Max’s current image, she’s too shocked to actually react, her blank expression stays but her eyes got teary. Nowadays she’s been feeling deep strong emotions and she’s still not used to it, so she just stared at Max, her heart swelling for care and love for her friend.
Max noticed how Cecily got thinner and she was just hoping that she had nothing to do with. She was hoping that her friend didn't care if she had been gone. Looking at her expression had her hopes sent crushed on the ground. Sure, a lot of things might had been going on with Cecily that could have caused her so much stressed but she couldn't help but feel guilty because she was not there to support her. So, she ended up staring at the ground and bawled her eyes out.
Maxine spent two hours in the headmaster's office and an hour in Smithson's office, making sure that she wouldn't do the stunt she had pulled again and of course, to make sure her wellness of her being. After spending time in Underworld really did wonders to her mood. All she wanted to do was to curl in her bed. As she made her exit out of the Main Building, she stopped on her tracks as she found on her friends standing on her way. Max didn't know what to say but she could feel the tears coming. They probably did not recognize her; her hair was cut short just right under her chin, still have fading blackeye and her bones were more prominent. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.
the runaway [4/4]
Max couldn’t believe her luck. They believed all the lies she told them. It was only rare for Max to commit lies that actually made sense. She had told them that she got robbed and got dumped in the barn which would explain why she didn’t have her passport and any form of identification with her. The Harveys welcomed her at their home although technically it was part of her home. Her grandma treated her differently maybe because she did not recognize her. It felt good though. She had only heard stories from her mom about family traditions like the weekly bonfire in which they wrote down every bad deed they made in a week in a paper and then they will throw it in the fire. Max wrote how she just ran off and how she stole and so many other things she just gave up on writing them all. The following day, Violet Harvey asked her to milk the cows. Max had been doing things for them in return to letting her stay. She had wait tables and mopped the floors. Max was doing a terrible job but they didn’t seem to mind. During those times when her sister was helping her, it crossed her mind to tell her who she really was but was she ready for the change?
As she walked on her way to the barn, she thought about her friends. Sure, Max had more living relatives than she thought but people she left behind in Cromwell were her family now. It wouldn’t hurt to spend time with them. Max found herself almost skipping and for a moment, she forgot that she used to be terrified of her grandmother.
Max wore a knitted bonnet and a winter hoodie. She refused to wear boots and though it was probably a bad idea to walk on a snow on her red worn out Chuck Taylor, she still did. It was more comfortable that way. She opened the door and found her grandmother inside. She was solemn yet she seemed dangerous. She stepped into the light and Max almost dropped the bucket she was holding as their gazes locked. Just like that her grandmother changed. No she did not change, Max thought. She pretended.
“Do you really think I would not recognize you…Maxine.” She spoke, her words full of venom. She never changed a bit. Her eyes full of hatred. She had never looked at her the way she looked at Alexa. “You were supposed to be older but I’m not surprised. You had always been a freak.”
Max was now terrified. “Are you going to lock me down here just like what you did when I was six?”
At her question, her grandmother laughed so evilly. “No but I want to get rid of you. You see, Alexa is doing fine and I don’t want you to destroy whatever life she is having right now?”
“You think I want to ruin her life?” She asked incredulously as she finally found courage to fight back. When she was little, she didn’t know where to get one.
“I don’t think so, Maxine. You don’t need to want it for it to happen. You just do. You are a walking hurricane. Look what happened to Peggy’s life. Even if you were gone you had still managed to ruin it. Good thing Alexa came along.”
“Stop!” She almost screamed. “That is not true.” The truth was, Max thought she was somehow right. She had ruined Jack’s life and sometimes, her friends get in trouble because of her
She was answered by another set of laugh she hated so much. “Who are you even trying to convince? Me or yourself? Go back to the hell where you belong.”
She was about to speak when she felt hands, slimy yet strong, grabbed her arms. She was about to yelp for help but she felt something hard hit the back of her head. Max fell on the ground with a loud thud. She reached out for the shadows, ready to jump but he was consumed by the darkness instead.
the runaway [3/4]
Max was not sure if she was already dead or not but one thing for sure, her body hurt like hell. The events of the previous days rolled in her head as if the physical torture was not enough to remind her how she was only barely surviving. It was all reminisced bitterly from the morning she spent her last dime to the moment she was force to absentmindedly shadowtravel again. Day by day, she was getting low of hope. Every lead she had gathered just brought her to a dead end.
In fact, Maxine gave up already. With all of the loose ends she could no longer tie up, she had already accepted that she failed again. It was not a new thing for her, anyway. It was not that hard to accept. When she made her last jump, all that she could think of was going home. She thought ‘home’ was Cromwell Academy. Maxine had expected to roll over the back of the Combatant house or in front on the downhill slope right beside the Luminary building where she had usually skated and basically annoyed anyone from that house who wanted peace. ‘Home’ was apparently a barn full of white feathered chicken, egg-laying ones if she guessed right. The smell of feather and hay was too sharp for her to breathe so she scrunched her nose to get rid of the stinging sensation under her skin.”
“Oh, she’s alive!” A feminine voice, melancholy yet sharp, interrupted her peace.
Another voice came in, this time, a male voice. “I told you that after I checked her pulse.” Max wondered how long she was out after she landed.
As she fluttered her eyes opened, Max saw a girl, probably just a few years older than her, blonde, staring down at her. Her eyes were so blue that she thought she was seeing the sky herself. It was oddly familiar. She was oddly familiar. Just a little was a male. He looked like her, only his eyes were soft brown.
“Who are you?” Max asked.
The blonde girl’s eyes widened in amusement. “Oh, she’s American!” She exclaimed in her own accent. It was similar to Cecily, just a little thicker. She had to pursed her lips to stop herself from bawling her eyes o0ut again because she remembered one of her friends.
“And you’re British.”
She was answered by a heartfelt laugh. “We’re Irish actually. I’m Alexa.” She held out her hand as she spoke. Max took it for her to shake only to find out that the other girl made the gesture so she could pull her up.
“I am…”
“Wait, you look alike.” The boy interrupted. “I’m Hayden. And welcome to the Harvey’s Ranch!” The boy said enthusiastically but Max felt like she was punched in the gut.
“H-harvey?”
“Yes, it’s my grandma’s.” Alexa said. “Her name is Violeta.”
Violeta Harvey; a name she had tried to buried in the past but she couldn’t forget. Suddenly, all the memories she had when she was six during the very first time she went to Ireland. It was also the last time. Max looked around and it finally sunk in. She landed on her mom’s home. Max had nothing but bitter memory of the place like that one time her mother had to go somewhere for an overnight and then her grandmother decided it would be the best time for her to sleep with the horses. Needless to say, she hadn’t slept that night and it caused her a fear for horses. Most of her fears were probably developed in that ranch.
“Are you okay?” Hayden asked while his eyes on Max are shaking hands.
“I’m…”
Alexa intertwined her arm on hers. “Come here, let’s get you warmed up. You don’t dress for the weather. My grandmum made a sick soup.”
“Uhm…” Alexa could see the hesitation on her face so she beamed at her. “No worries, my grandmum is so nice!”
Max was having a hard time believing that but she could tell that Alexa was telling the truth. She might have been nice to her. Another realization swept in, if Violeta Harvey was Alexa and Hayden’s grandmother, then she must be related to them. “Where your mom?” Maxine had to ask.
“Oh, Aunt Peggy’s dead. Mine’s scrubbing wool off a sheep.” Hayden answered.
Peggy. She knew it was her mother’s nickname she had never used often since she moved to America. Before she knew it, her knees buckled and she would have sprawled to the ground of Alexa was not holding her. Alexa…her sister… And Peggy…Margaret Harvey…dead… She needed time for all the information to buffer. “Woah, you really need to rest. What’s your name again?”
“Lois.” She lied, telling them a random name, then she realized it wasn’t that random. “Yeah, Lois like Lois Lane.”
“You love comics too! See, I told you Hayden,” she then turned to Hayden. “Liking comics is not limited to girls, you sexist bastard.” He made a face to Alexa before hooking an arm around her to help her get up.
“So…” Hayden started. “How did you get here in the barn?”
Max took a deep breath, bracing herself for more lies, all while trying to stop herself from crying.
the runaway [2/4]
As weird as it may, Max started to find comfort in sitting on a closed toilet bowl as she squeezed herself inside the stall of a public comfort room. She just stared at the apple on her hands. Stolen apple, she thought bitterly. Max was not a saint. In fact, she had her own share of menace but she had never thought she would reach to the point where she had to steal just so there was something she could eat. Ever since she left, she never thought it would be that hard. She thought she could do it on her own. Finding forgotten treasures down the Earth was easier when she was with her brother, Jack. Tricking people and running away from them was easier with Louise. Fixing herself to look more presentable was easier with Cecily. Every day of her life was easier with her friends. Now, she was all alone she might as well die.
As she was about to take a first bite of apple, tears started flowing in her eyes as she thought about how unfruitful her journey had been. First, she went back to Tennessee and found out that their house was not there anymore and then lately, she was randomly passing out because she had been abusing her abilities. Every jump she took, Max felt like going through an agony. She also started to feel her dad spoke to her when she traveled through shadows. A little part of her was angry because her father decided to go easy on her when she needed him the most. But all that she could do was to finish the apple because it was what she needed to go on.
Her dinner was not the ideal meal she had been craving for the last few days but it would do. She had other things to worry like her next jump and well, the way she smelt. Unlike the other homeless people she had encountered in the streets, Max had not reached their stink level…yet. However, her last shower was a week ago on a motel she sneaked into and this time, Max couldn’t push her luck any further. She was still hungry and she couldn’t shadowtravel her way out of trouble anymore. Looking at her reflection in the mirror, Max didn’t know whether to feel sorry for herself or laugh at herself. Her eyes was sunken, skin as pale as paper. It also felt like a rough paper. Her blonde hair looked as dull as ever with its tips curling while it craved for nourishment.
She grabbed the knife she was hiding on the belt of her shorts and unsheathed it. Her hair was too long for it to be washed and too hard for her to keep. She grabbed a handful of it, pushing the blade of her knife through it until it broke, choppy ends touching her jaw. Tears flowed from her eyes again. The hair Jane turned back to her original golden color, the one that Jason would tell to fix yet it would be Cecily or Fee would end up fixing, the hair that Oliver would love to ruffle when she would say something silly yet adorable, the hair that Louise would pull so she could pull her from her reverie and most especially, it was the hair that reminded her so much of her mother. Max couldn’t simply go on if she would always be reminded of the people she had left behind even if she didn’t want to. She blinked back the tears and continued to cut her hair, letting it all fell on the floor until she was left with little, just enough to remind her that she as a different person now, she would succeed this time and all on her own.
She washed her hair and dried it under a hand dryer. Using a pack of wet tissues, she cleaned herself and afterwards she changed into a few clean clothes that she had stolen along with the pack of wet tissues. Deep inside she felt bad for doing bad things to survive but she had no time to dwell on it. After disposing her soiled clothes, she fastened her backpack on her shoulders and readied herself to hop on a train going to one of the stops to get her to Ireland.
She took the joint from Max and took a hit, “It feels nice.”
"It does." She grinned at her.
"Thing is, when you feel death is coming, when you actually have a grasp of it in yours hand, the moment you’ve accepted the fact you’re going to die, it somehow slips away." he rested his head on Max’s shoulder and closed his eyes. "It leaves you to suffer again, but it’s bearable when you suffer with the people you care about." he sighed and realized that he felt relaxed. "So, you take care…" his voice was sounding droopy.
She was actually tuning out what he was saying. Her mind floated somewhere thinking how death can be so tricky. The truth was, she really missed her mum yet, she could really do anything about it. And then she realized, there was actually something she could do. She reached out for the shade of a tree and used her power.Diving into the shadow, she pictured Oliver's room in her mind and the next thing they know, they were already spraswled on his bed.
Sighing, Fee shook her head and tried to brush off some of the leaves on her clothes but gave up after awhile. “No, I just had to work off some steam after what happened,” she replied, quirking her lips upward for a brief moment. “Are you feeling better?”
She reached out out and helped her picked the leaves off her clothes. "Yeah? Well, you look like you did some rollin'. I'm getting better. My shoulder feel a little weird but yeah. How are you?"
Fee came out of the woods covered in leaves since she had decided to work off some of the steam that came with her friends getting injured, partly due to her plans not being so well thought out and partly because they hadn’t been able to expect everything that was coming to them. She spotted the brunette and quickly headed to where she was, frowning a bit when she noticed the joint. “Hey Maxie.”
Starled by Felicia's unexpected presence, Max coughed out the smoke from the lighted joint and waved at her friend. "Fee! Hello!." She raised her brows when she saw leaves sticking out on her hair and clothes. "Did you roll in the woods or something?"