• Glass showered down around him from the broken car window, the shards dancing around him in the wondrous sound that was shattering glass.

    This sound isn't nearly as pleasant when you've just shoved someone through said window.

    Already recovering from the blow, Jake stood, slicing various parts of his body in his attempt to stand. Already moving towards her, he snarled something incoherent at her.

    Before the thought had cemented in her mind, she was sprinting away from him.

    Suddenly parking on the top of an eight story parking building didn't seem so smart.

    Jake's voice rang though the lot, taunting her as she ran. "Run as fast as you can Rayne."

    Ducking behind a car, her gaze swept around the room in search of an elevator, or a stairwell. Instead, she was met with more vehicles. Jake's footsteps echoed around her, leaving her with no sense of direction. "No one will look for you. They'll find your body in a few days, and you'll just be another sad murder case. David will move on, get another girl, tell her he loves her…"

    She could've responded, but instead, she merely ran. Her legs burnt, but still she ran. If she stopped, she was dead.

    She slowed to a jog, the sudden silence more frightening that Jake's threats. Was he gone? Brushing hair out of her eyes, she stopped just short of a corner marked with the word elevator in thick yellow letters.

    For a moment, she waited, the only sound in the large room her breath whistling in and out of her lungs. Then, after mustering the courage to do so, she turned the corner.

    She was greeted with a thunderous blow to the face. Before she hit the ground, the blood was already seeping out of her torn lip. She recovered quickly, jumping back up, sprinting the second her feet made contact with the ground. Her heart was pounding, her lungs ablaze with the effort to keep breathing. Surely he would hear her heart. It was beating much to loudly.

    She felt so stupid for trusting the silence. Of course Jake wasn't gone. He was waiting.

    A glance behind her revealed nothing. Jake was out of sight. Slipping in between a silver volvo and a blue mustang, she ducked down. Her legs were screaming in protest, her muscles strung like wires. There were footsteps echoing dully, coming at her from all sides. If she could just get out of there, she would be okay. In here, with no one to see, her life hung in the balance.

    Drawing up slightly, she peered over the hood of the volvo, desperate for an exit.

    What came into her sight was a glorious stairwell. Her heaven came in the form of cement stairs. Without futher thought of Jake's pursuit, she went for the door as if the devil himself were on her heels.

    There were so many steps. Her breath rasped and echoed, the only sound in the stairwell beside her footsteps as she sped down the stairs. About a flight down, she heard Jake chuckle airily as his leisurely footsteps entered the stairwell. "Go away!" she screamed, fighting to make her steps go faster as she hopped down the stairs.

    That was her first mistake.

    Instead of focusing on her feet, she spoke. This caused her foot to miss a step. She slipped, crashing down onto the stairs. A crunch in her side brought a whimper of pain from her tortured throat.

    She must've taken too long to get up, because as she rounded another corner, and faced a long, narrow set of stairs, she jerked forward with the force of Jake's push.

    She started loosing consciousness the moment her body made contact with the stairs. She was out cold before her fall was over.


    ~~~



    Was she still alive?

    Well, she certainly wasn't in heaven. Her body hurt altogether too much for her to be there.

    She was in a different kind of heaven. She was in the paradise that was David's arms. He was rocking her, his voice cracking as he made small attempts to talk to her.

    Her face was wet with blood, her hand twitching with the effort to lift it and wipe her face.

    The first sight she remembered seeing was one she would carry with her until the moment of her death.

    David looked down at her, his face twisted in agony, terror, and so much more pain than her body felt. "H-hey beautiful." He murmured, tears glittering in his lashes.

    A soft laugh pushed past her throat, as she attempted speech. Even the small effort it took to talk brought her eyes closed against the spinning room.

    "Wait Rayne. Baby, open your eyes. Please, open your eyes." She simply couldn't oblige him. "The ambulance is coming. You're gonna be okay." He didn't sound nearly as hopeful as he tried to.

    Pushing through the waves of dizziness marring her thoughts, she managed to open her eyes for a few seconds before they drifted closed again. She felt so heavy, like the weight of the world pressed down upon her.

    His hand curled around hers. For a moment, the only part of her that felt real was the hand he clutched onto. She hung in the moment, feeling absurdely like the floor had dissolved beneath her, leaving her to hang in mid-air. Then, her breath eased out of her body and she felt no more.

    Curling himself around her body, he continued to hold her, his face buried in her neck. The only sound that filled the room now was his quiet sobbing, as he wept over a corpse that had once held a soul.

    Like a mournful tune, a far off siren began to wail.