A/N: Hello! Back to old habits, I'm going to try and update this every day. See ya down there!
Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine but the plot.
I can pinpoint the exact moment when they walk into the alley. My senses tingle, reaching and scrambling to gather clues, knowledge, anything that could save me. My body is frozen, locked in place, and the whisper in my head is full-out screaming.
There's three of them. Their advance is slow and feline, cats that know they already have the mouse. Now it's playtime.
Eyes gleaming, teeth glinting, they stop a few feet away and let me appraise them in the unsympathetic glare of the flickering streetlight.
The first one is a guy. He's short, all dirty blonde hair and muted cruelty in lazy green eyes, a slow smirk hanging lopsided on the side of his face.
Next to him, his counterpart, tall and sharp and dark. Of him I see nothing but a wide smile in a shadow's face. Long hair frames it like a curtain, and I can barely guess at the location of the eyes.
The third one is fire, dressed as a woman. Freckles splattered all over her face, hair like a flame that's never still, even in immobility she flickers and shifts. Her eyes are a deeply disturbing shade of burgundy, and they speak of cries and war and burns and death.
She speaks, and she sounds like a doll that's smoked too much: sweet and soft and hoarse and hacking.
"Well now that's a pretty sight. Whatcha doing out here, Lollipop?"
I bristle. It's what she wanted. She's good.
"Nothing. Going home. Why?"
Play friendly. Don't look scared. They feed off of it.
"Sweetheart, me and my friends here know every homeless bum in this city, especially the cute ones like you. Home ain't where you're heading. Now why don't you tell me what you were doing out here?"
She's demented. Skipped from open and almost friendly to practically screeching at me in the space of a sentence.
Knowing that she's insane makes my heart drop even lower. I don't do unpredictable.
Her blonde 'friend' lays a grounding hand on her shoulder, and she melts into him.
"Now, Tori, breathe. We don't want to scare young Edward away before he tells us what he was doing wandering around so far from his area. After sundown."
I know the last part was directed to me. And I know that if I don't have a very good answer right now, I'm toast.
Well, I'm kinda toast anyway, but I'm not gonna let that keep me from trying to stay alive.
"I, um…"
The dark one, who's yet to utter a word, pointedly digs his hand into his pocket. Out comes a black wooden handle that with a flick of his wrist sprouts a long, jagged blade. He nonchalantly picks at his nails with the cold, gleaming tip.
"We're getting kind of impatient over here, Ed. You gotta give us something."
He's still smirking, and the redhead is glaring at me from under his arm.
"Hi."
It's a new voice. Rings through the air like the sound of woman and danger and authority and salvation. The trio spin on their heels.
They know her.
"Jim, lay off the cute bums. I wanna keep this one."
"Med, I – "
She raises an eyebrow.
"Jim. Come on."
With that, Tori grabs the hand that had slipped around her waist and marches off, Jim and the mute guy trailing behind. Before they exit the alleyway, Shadow Guy turns and looks at me one last time, and salutes me with his blade.
Then they're gone, but I still can't breathe, because somehow I know that the wisp of a girl in front of me is deadlier than all three of them put together.
A/N: So? Please review!