I'm so so sorry for such a long wait, I had meant to write this a long time ago, but you know how life can get. Anyway here's chapter 2 ...

Enjoy!

oh and I don't own blah blah blah

...

No. No. No. No. No. No. No! It can't be, it just can't. Not tonight, please whatever power is willing to listen, don't let this happen to me tonight.

"Hanna! Beat up 'gain I see. I missed ya!" Laughed a raspy voice on the other side of the thick metal door. I wanted to die. I wanted to curl up in a ball here on the filthy ground and just die.

"Errr, I missed you too. Big favor to ask though, my friend needs to eat and-"

"What?" The sickeningly familiar voice cut him off.

I still had time to run if only Hanna would fucking LET ME GO! But no, he clung to my wrist in that impossible death grip of his as the voice rasped on. "Eat? I'm not a fucking Micky Dees, Hanna, I'm a busy man and dah-" Then Hanna did the last thing in the world I wanted him to do. He swung the door open.

All in all there wasn't much to take in. The room was small and dirty and filled with a sickening cloud of smoke that now seeped out into the damp night, a few file cabinets stood against the far wall behind a rusty metal desk that looked as if it was held together with more duct tape then screws. Next to the desk sat what I can only assume was at one time a large potted plant. Unfortunately, all that remained of the thing was a sad stick poking up at out the dry earth with a handful of browning leaves still clinging desperately to the dying branches.

I had wanted to believe that this was all just some strange coincidence; I mean the chances of me seeing him here of all places were slim to none. Besides, I thought that after everything that had happened to me tonight the universe would give me at least one free pass. But fate was a cruel bitch laughing at me laying flat on my back while she pressed her 6 inch stiletto down on my chest and told me to take it.

There, behind the desk, reclining in his chair sat the last man on earth I wanted to see tonight. The last man I wanted to see ever. Luce Worth.

He was obviously older now and time had not been kind. His skin had taken on an almost leathered appearance due to what I can only assume was thanks to a combination of age, alcohol and cigarette smoke. I had always hated his smoking, no that's a lie, I had always wanted to hate his smoking.

"SHIT!" he cried out leaning forward, lit cigarette dangling limp but not forgotten from his lips. As a small cloud left his lips and curled up into the air I remembered how I used to love to just watch him smoke.

I remember sitting in his tiny dingy apartment, we were both supposed to be studying. He was hunched over a text on the vascular system while I had a math book lying open across my lap. Not that it mattered, I wasn't even trying to study. No, I was far too wrapped up in watching as a line of silvery smoke seeped past thin lips to curl and rise into the air.

My mother had a nose like a drug dog and I couldn't risk her getting too curious about where I had been spending all my free time. All the same, any attempts to ask Luce to stop were half heated at best.

"Wuz the matter kid, is me smoking upsetting your delicate sensibilities?" his voice rang out in the tiny apartment. I lifted my gaze reluctantly from his lips to his eyes, now ablaze with mockery.

"If I go home smelling like smoke my mother is going to start wondering where I've been spending my time. She'll start asking questions and actually paying attention to me which means we won't be able to do what ever this is anymore." My painfully adolescent voice rang. I didn't want to say it, to draw attention to the fact that we shouldn't be doing this. But, if it were to continue, and Lord knows I wanted it to, then certain steps needed to be made.

Luce looked me in the eye, his face infuriatingly blank of emotion. As he lifted the cigarette to his lips and drew in another breathe of toxic air deep into his lungs I had to wonder momentarily if that's what he wanted. Maybe he doesn't like having me around as much as I thought he did. And just as that idea started to sink deep into my stomach like a lead weight Luce reached past me and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table behind me.

"Can't have that now can we?"

He never did truly stop. But, he did smoke less, when he was around me. It was both endearing and disappointing.

Maybe he recognized me. Maybe it was my appearance, bone white and covered in still bleeding cuts with my designer polo now a mess of tattered rags clinging to me by sheer force of will. But, more likely it was the green guy behind me holding his own arm that caused the man previously lounging behind the desk to say what he did next. "They're dead, Christ Hanna. You killed them."

"I-I did not." Was Hanna's meek reply as he ushered us into the dingy pseudo office and let the heavy metal door swing closed behind us further baring my exit from this nightmare.

I should have expected what happened next. The Luce of my memories had never been a kind or caring man, why should I think he'd changed? No, true to form Luce threw his head back and laughed.

"OOH OH! You gone rouge on me now? A necromancer! Hanna. How unlike you."

Hanna's shoulders visibly slumped at that and something inside of me bristled. I didn't have much time to think through this next decision, but it's not like I could just leave the poor kid to flounder. I mean, I'm sure he meant well despite failing miserably. So I did just like my mama taught me and got abrasive.

Back straight and fists clenched I marched right up to the dirty old fool and jabbed him right in the chest with my finger

"Let's get this straight who ever you are. I am not dead."

...

Well what do you think? Thank you for R&R! 33