/I don't want to play this game anymore/
He's coming down the hall, towards the corner I'm hiding behind. Cold concrete shocks my fingertips and numbs my bare feet. I can hear his footsteps, playful and deliberate as my pulse screams my location. I have an urge, a dangerous craving, like when you're at the edge of a cliff and for a few seconds you want nothing more than to jump, I want to peer around the corner. To see if he has that knife, or a gun.
No, you want him to see you. My head whispers, laughing at me again. Lately I can't get rid of it. Malnutrition and the drugs, as soon as you get out of here it'll go away. It'll go away.
"C'mere you stupid whore! I know you're there." This comes viciously, he's angry at having to chase me. Then his voice lowers, talking to himself in his British cockney accent. "Can't run far without shoes, dumb bitch."
I shake my head unconsciously in my flimsy hiding place, feeling the sting of tears to come. My nose runs and my throat closes. Stop crying.
The footsteps get louder, and I hear a distinctive metallic click. The knife. He wouldn't he wouldn't he wouldn't, I know he wouldn't.
"I've never been accused of bein' a patient guy. Get your ass back 'ere. I tol' you, you ever take anyfin' from me and I fuckin' kill you. There ain't nowhere to go, I'll find you wherever, I got people in this city."
He would.
The thought cuts across my mind, bouncing sharply off the edges. He would.
It spurs me to run. I no longer care if he hears. I race down the hall, pipes drip and I splash through something, keep going, my feet slapping painfully against artificial stone. I find a door, and race through it, almost falling. My feet are numb, but I scramble to stand, to gain momentum. Like a dream, I can't gain purchase. Even as I tear up the steps, grasping the railing to keep myself upright, I feel like I'm trying to run through water. I throw open the door at the top, I've run straight into the empty parking garage. There's nowhere to hide, empty space after empty space blurs as my eyes fill again. I don't want to die.
There has to be a way out, so I just keep running. Tears and snot paste my hair to my face as it escapes my blonde pigtails. I shove it away mid-step, attempting to forget the cold and the ache in my side. Empty empty empty. I'm incredibly dizzy, and I ignore that too. I'm suddenly thrown outside of my body, viewing myself.
[Everything slows down; the lights of the parking garage blur around the clear figure of a girl, barefoot, mottled purple and white with cold. She's blonde; her hair is in childish pigtails, despite her obvious age of about 17. Her blue eyes are reddish and ringed with bruise-like patches. She's wearing cut off shorts and a white t-shirt. All that can be heard is her pulse, pounding in the air, and her short gasps of breath. Silence explodes as she runs straight into the figure of a man.]
I hit him before I even know he's there, and my mind is rudely smashed back in sync with my body. I'm enveloped in purple suede and the scent of gasoline, smoke, and something metallic I can't quite identify. The force of my movement doesn't even faze him, he doesn't move an inch. I back away quickly and stare up at him in shock. He's dressed in a dark purple greatcoat, matching slacks, a green silk vest, tie, and a blue shirt patterned with hexagons. But what takes my attention is his face; he's wearing Halloween greasepaint, smeared in places, blending together. Thick white covers the flesh tone, black is applied haphazardly around his dark eyes, and red is sketched across his mouth and onto two thick scars that stretch from the corners of his mouth to his cheekbones. A perpetual grin, accented by the paint. His hair is dyed a fading green that doesn't prove much coverage for its original blonde-brown. It hangs in lank, wavy strands to his broad shoulders. He's much taller than me, and his thinness exaggerates it, though he slumps strangely. I don't move, though I think that I really need to. Oh, he's dangerous. More dangerous than what you came from. He looks down at me languidly, sucks in his scarred cheeks and lets them back out with a smacking sound.
"Well, uh, hi there lil girl." His voice is oddly pitched, both high and gravelly at the same time. A contradiction that suits him somehow. He twitches an eyebrow at me, cocking his head to the left and licking at the corners of his mouth. I think he's being a lech until I notice that he looks utterly bored.
"Hi." The word comes out in a rush with my breath, though I don't mean it to. He isn't looking at me anymore, though, but behind me and towards the sound of running steps. You idiot, you should've run while you had the chance, you deserve whatever he does. I clutch at my new acquaintance's arm in fear, though somehow I know he's worse than the pimp I stole from.
"Hey bitch, whatchu fink you're doin'? Fink the freak in a clown costume'll save you? Get the fuck over here, or I swear I'll cut off all your skin fore I cut your pretty neck." He's winded, chasing me took its toll on him, but he has the knife in his hand and it immobilizes me once again. I hear an exaggerated sigh, and look up sharply at the "freak" it was emitted from.
"Ya know," He pauses and sucks sharply on his teeth. His voice is deeper this time, closer to how it would be if he wasn't deliberately messing with its tone, but there's still a high edge to it. "Mickey, isn't it? Ya look like a Mickey. You're not all that smart, are ya?"
"Who the fuck are you? Gimme back my whore, or I'll carve somefin else to match your screwy face."
My companion busts out laughing, high pitched giggles echoing across the empty space. He's bouncing on the balls of his feet in mirth, and suddenly he darts forward towards Jared, whom he just rechristened Mickey. There's a blade in his hand, with a thin gap in the center. It reminds me of a potato peeler. Within seconds, it's in Jared's mouth, pressed against the corner, hard. My acting savior has a hand around his exposed throat as my pimp is shoved into a concrete wall.
"Now, ah, where were we Mickey? Right, you're not all that smart, are ya?" Errant chuckles are still escaping the purple figure that towers over five foot six Jared. Jared, the man I had been afraid of for the last twelve years, was whimpering in terror.
"I'll kill you I swear, I got people!" The accent is thickening, whimpers turning to sobs, and I'm just left to stare. I don't think about what this strange man will do to me once he's done with "Mickey", I don't even think to run. I can barely keep myself from laughing and sobbing hysterically, joyfully. Jared Quinn is afraid. He's afraid and I'm… not.
"Sh,sh,sh." The knife is now stroking shakily down the side of his face, the purple gloved hand keeps him from jerking away with a firm grip around his neck. "Ohhh, youuuu people," The knife is shaken in his face like the reprimanding finger of a father. "you're the type a guy who thinks he's gotta control everything, aren'tcha? Power complex, hm? You people are just sooo…boring. Ah, and since you brought it up. Ya wanna know how I got these scars?"
AN: umm...hi there... first chapter, tell me if I should write more, what I can do better on, etc. :) Thanks for reading!