Effie ran like she never did befor but after all what happened just now, she wanted to be gone. As fast as possible away from him.
Her sight became blurred but she knew her way around. After all, she went the same way every morning. Her trembling fingers went over her face and pursed her lips to a small line so no sob could leave her mouth.
She sprinted over the pathwalk with long steps, without even glancing at the passersby, who could jump out off her way the last moment. Slowly, she converged to the main drag, she could hear that, because the well-known drone of the cars grew louder and more intense by every step of hers. With every crossroad the trees got more less, another sign that she converged to the centre.
And with every street she passed, her body seemed to put on even more weight. Soon Effie started to gasp and squeezed her hand against her stomach when it began to hurt but her steps remained steady. She couldn't allow herself to get slower or to even pause just to grant her lungs a rest. In her chest, her heart went crazy, providing blood through her veins.
When she heard his voice behind her, she almost stumbled. It was loud, one single bellow but it trembled full of anger. „Effie! Just stay put!"
Effie jumped in alarm and turned her head in his direction while running. With narrowed eyes she recognized him at the end of the street. Still wearing the same clothes.
He must have been following me, it crossed her mind. The thought let her stomach recoil in pain but Effie didn't even think a minute about to stop. Now more than ever.
Panic rosed in her. The adrenaline, which shot through her veins, didn't let her body bear it much longer. Her legs started to tremble and she dropped herself around a street lamp in exhaustion, which stood at the roadside.
Without meaning to, her mouth fell open, to finally fill her lungs with oxygen. At this very moment a hasty sob leaved her mouth but it didn't matter to her anymore. The only thing that mattered was to not sink aground because Effie was sure she wouldn't have the strength to get up again.
Angry with herself she stucked a blonde curl behind her ear and lifted her head to avoid the dizziness which would definitely come sooner or later.
A suprised gasp escaped her lips as she realized that she was standing right in front of the main drag. Her eyes went wide and it seemed as if they were shining hopefully for a brief moment. Maybe she could manage it after all!
„Damn it, stay where you are!", he screamed at her in this moment and her body reacted like it always did when she heard him talking with this tone of voice.
Her body strained and she starled up, ready to meet his brown eyes filled with anger and shirk from his stroke. Although it wouldn't be much cop. He always hauled off again.
In panic, Effie tried to recognize him in the crowd, which came straight into her direction. She spoted his shock of hair terrified. He was too close and his steps revealed that he would reach her any minute. Then he would drag her back in his apartment where nobody could hear her. Just how he always did.
Effie pushed herself away from the lamp and lurched on the street. She would rather burst her head on the windscreen of a car, than be touched by him even once. With trembled legs, she steped backwards on the street to keep him in sight. Some pedestrians, who stood at the crosswalk, called for her in warning. Effie just shaked her head once and ignored them.
The first car came to a stand in front of her with a deafening squeak and the driver screamed at her in fury but she couldn't understand him. It was, as if someone switched off her hearing. The world was silent. The sun was just another little orange spot on the horizont. Effie could just spot the silhouettes of the cars, which scorched across the four-lane street with unbelieveable speed. A four-lane street for each direction. Just the dazzlingly white lights beamed at her.
He jerked to a halt on the roadside, screamed something at her and gestured furiously with his hand. Effie knew that he wold never come and get her. He would probably get himself killed at the attempt.
That was her chance. And now, that she was the superiority because he wouldn't come after her or because she might get herself killed, she looked him straight in the eyes for a brief moment. He responded her glimpse and became silent. Trembing, Effie raised her hand and made an inpolite hand gesture. Then she turned around and ran.
Effie wanted to turn around and run away but the moment she turned, a car flashed past her face by a hairbreadth. It probably had wanted to avoid her because she was standing amdist the lane. She hadn't even the opportunity to scream. Then it was over and her tears were back.
The background of the city had turned into a choir of squeaking wheels and loud noises. The air was filled with a scent of burnt plastics and weighed heavily on Effies stomach. It seemed like a miracle to her when she reached the shoulder which sundered both directions. She glanced to the other side in desperation. The pedestrian lights wouldn't remain red forever and she knew him good enough to see, that he just waited for it to turn.
Without contemplating about the though again, she took a step forward and waited for the cars to pass, just to advance to the next lane. What she did was dangerous and Effie knew it. It was merely a matter of time until she didn't pay attention for a brief second.
And it really just needed a split second to imagine this thought but it lasted to distract her for a moment.
It remembered her of a movie. When the scene is showed slower so the audience can enjoy the scope of the catastrophe to the fullest, before the actual mainpart is happening.
Effie didn't see the car coming. All the other bright lights had blocked her view and she hadn't expected the thought to distract her so much. Both lights blinded her and the shadows behind grew fast. Effie hadn't even time to react. Her body turned to the lights in shock and she opened her mouth, ready to scream, but she didn't.
From afar, she heard the familiar squeak of wheels. Plastic on asphalt. Effie could calculate that the distance would never be enough. Suprisingly she hardly felt the bumper of the car carrying her off her feet violently. Effie was quite good at maths and still she wasn't able to say, how far she had flown until her head hit the asphalt explosively and fetched her back into reality.
The pain, which flared in her head, was so strong she almost passed out. Not a single noise left her lips. The whole world around her became one loud drone. The colours were too intensive. Her head seemed to burst. Then, suddenly, everything went silent. Maybe someone just stopped the march of time for her.
Someone touched her cheek but Effie hadn't the power to turn her head. She hadn't the power to do anything. Her eyes stared into the sky. Emotionless. She prayed for someone stopping it.
„Fuck", she heard someone say from afar. Somehow the voice was kind of familar but she wasn't sure. Maybe she was just dreaming. Maybe it was an angel speaking to her. Suddenly the sky shone in a beaming white. And now, Effie was sure it must have been an angel.
„Am I dead?", she asked faint. The words barely left her mouth.
„Fuck, Effie is it you?", the angel asked and suddenly she was knocked out of the skies.
„Haymitch? Haymitch Abernathy?" The question couldn't keep up with all the other disturbing noises but he understood her anyway.
„That's him all over", he muttered and suddenly she could see him. He bent over her and his eyes glared in panic. „Fuck, fuck, fuck! How dare you, walking across the street like a crackpot? Are you suicidal or something?"
Her laughter was like a little wonder to each of them. „I had to", she finally admitted and when she painfully thought about the reason of her escape, she tainted. „I have to-"
Haymitch tried to hold her against the asphalt but Effie was faster. She sat up and pursed her lips to restrain the pain. In front of her, Haymitchs face blurred and a whimper left her throat. The next moment, she felt his hand on her shoulder. „You'll get yourself killed. Believe me, you will. You have no idea how you look."
From a long way away, she could hear the annoying siren of an ambulance. Too far away. Slightly she lifted her hand and guided it to her forehead. Her head seemed to explode. The everlasting pounding grew into never ending twitches, as if someone hit against at full power. Even though she hardly touched the wound. Then she felt something warm and when she lifted her fingers, they were dark red. She felt sick instantly.
„Don't get up", he orderd angrily. „Help is on it's way, surely one of the gazers has already called the ambulance."
„I have to go", she muttered and her eyelids fluttered.
„Are you in a hurry, sweetheart?" Haymitch didn't really sound interested, rather scared.
Effie didn't intend to answer him. Insteadly she tried to free herself from his grap to get up.
„Damned, Effie", he hissed under his breath and intensified his grap around her shoulder more gentle, than she would ever have expected it. „You have to receive medical attention, believe me, I know what-"
„Hands off my girlfriend, Abernathy", a man's voice boomed harshly in this moment.
Instantly she shrugged away and tried again to free herself from Haymitchs grap. Haymitch glaced at her in suprise and lifted his head into the direction of the young man, who faced him with a dark look. „Seneca", he noticed with a annoyed smirk.
Seneca looked, like he would punch Haymitch in any second. His eyes slid between him and Effie. „I told you to halt", he hissed when he kneeled beside Effie and glided his hand incautious over her forehead.
Effie gasped and jerked with a painful expression on her face. Only then, she perceived the people standing behind Haymitch and Seneca. Some of them exclaimed in wild disorder, others made a frantic call and still others just gwaked in silence. Haymitch had called them gazers.
She didn't give him an answer. She hadn't even known what to say. The truth? With Haymitch here in front her? No siree! Her body already lost strenght, the pain was too strong. A lost battle. She felt her senses slid.
A long sigh left Effies lips, before her eyelids closed and she slightly passed out in Haymitch arms. It was too late to escape the darkness. And while she was overwhelmed by the pain, her senses surrendered finally.
She no longer heard Seneca calling out for her in fury or felt when he snatched her from Haymitchs arms.