Drake waits with me for a half an hour, one eye peeping warily through a pin-prick hole in the vent's cool metal floor. Between my panting breaths and nervous whimpers, I keep insisting that he should leave me. Run, I insist. To find and capture one of us would be an unspeakable tragedy; to find both is... inconcievable. My mind reels, remembering the steady and assured manner with which they lifted their guns and took aim.

"If we're found here, it's the end," I tell him. There won't be anywhere else to run; nowhere left to hide.

Drake quiets me with gently whispered, soft explanations. "The wires are still going off after the show you put on," he tells me. "We'll be safe here. Stay still. Stay quiet. Trust me."

"Go!"

"Can't leave you here."

I am still and as close to silent as I can be for every millisecond of that half hour. Every movement reinforces the pain I feel in my ankle, causing it to begin anew. The pain: crystal clear, high definition; the edges of my vision are tainted red. Blood? I wonder. It is like a blow to the head that leaves you reeling, unsure of where you are, or who you are; clueless as to anything but the shockwaves overriding your every other thought.

Drake's hands are cold and calloused, his clothing worn and torn in strange patches.

Runner, chronicles the tiny voice in my head. I run my observations against the mental checklist I've retained from years of riding City elevators, eyes glued to the slowly scrolling essays slashed in vivid white against brightly colored backdrops.

Runners are the enemies of the City. They ferry classified information to individuals with records of violence, recklessness, and political unrest; they'll endanger the lives of anyone and everyone for the right fee. The girl I was tells me that this man - Drake - cannot be trusted. The girl I know I'll become, however, would know that anyone who'd risk life and limb for another in this City or any other is worthy of trust.

"Keep me safe, Drake," I whisper, reaching out. I pull his hand closer to me, rest it in my lap, and clutch it tightly. "Please, keep me safe."

The faintest hint of a smile tugs at the corners of Drake's lips. "Haven't you heard? No one's safe - no one's safe anymore."

"Welcome to the Intensive Care Unit. It also moonlights as the Maternity Ward, but - " the strange middle-aged man hovering over me with a miniscule flashlight that could pass as medical equipment looks me over, assessing and categorising me with a single glance. His sentence trails off. "Well, I can tell a girl like you won't be coming here under those circumstances."

"Merc, this is Cera." Drake lifts a crisp apple to his lips and takes a ferocious bite. "Cera, et cetera."

"Pleased to meet you," Merc tells me gaily. The lightness of his tone isn't evident in his eyes. He is not pleased that I'm here; not in the least. "How old are you, Cera?"

"Seventeen."

"Young. You'll heal quick. Your bones are strong. If only Faith had been so lucky."

"She back in training?"

Merc nods, throwing his flashlight onto a metal guerney. The clanging noises it makes echo loudly throughout the empty water tank. "Tommorrow morning."

I slither from the table and take ginger steps across the mustard colored rug that covers the floor. Merc's lair is as far removed from the glaringly bright, sterile visage of the city. It is dark and dank, and smells of damp. Expensive computer equipment hums at a nearby table, providing the only light in the room. Drake is backlit with a bluish tinge; it reminds me of something my father would say.

You look angelic, he'd tell me. Sometimes, he would show me contraband images of angels that he'd stolen from the Banned Literature archives hidden deep within the labryinth of the News building. Angels were beautiful, and kind, and good, and spared the lives of people who needed saving.

I spoke without thought. Perhaps it was related to the tiny blue pills Merc had foisted on me, with promises that they would make the pain go away. "You're angels," I say meekly. "Both of you."

Merc's thin lips spread in a tight smile. He runs his hands along the bald, shimmering sphere of his head. "That's a word I haven't heard in a while," he says as an aside, lifting a finger to point at a nearby couch. It iss stained brown and oddly misshappen, but in my diminished state it seems like the most perfect of locales. "You're welcome to stay," Merc tells me, with a meaningful glance at Drake.

I limp to the East corner of the room, where the chair - it reminds me of a slug, I think, though I've never really seen one in real life - was. As I slump into it, Angel Drake turns to Angel Merc and tells him:

"You won't regret this decision, Merc. Out ran them all, and she's never be trained. She'll be fast as lightning."

"She's just a kid," Merc murmurs softly.

I close my eyes.