Sorry this took so long, but with ff.net's problems, it was ages before I was able to upload this.
Enjoy!!
**
Nick leant over the desk, his tender green eyes full of sarcasm and bitterness.
"So they just flew away, did they?"
"I told you all I can, Mister. I done no wrong, in giving them the tea, Mister? Pretty little thing, she was, and I aint never going to turn down no gel, when all she asked for was a half cup decaf?"
The petite, waif-like young girl stared at the agent from behind the desk of the small coastal café, with enormous dark eyes. She wasn't altogether pretty; she was too thin for that, but he knew that she spoke the truth. Nick sighed and pushed a strand of sandy hair out of his eyes. He knew that girl was …well, she wasn't all she seemed. It was something more deep, more complex. That man, in her dormitory…her friends didn't know him, they said Quistis didn't know him. But then, why did she run?
He thanked the girl for her time and left the café. Quistis was no more than a kid. A kid with half the country's police looking for her, her face worth a thousand words…yet when a gun spoke, her life would end. Licensed to kill…he shuddered. He dropped his head in his hands, and an image flashed in his mind…a sweet, beautiful face…
She whipped around, her lovely features contorted with fear. Her blue-green eyes opened wide and her hair blew desperately in the wind. Tears streamed down her porcelain skin.
"No! Wait! Maybe you don't know everything! It's something, so much deeper, more complex than you realise…I'm innocent…"
"You killed a man." Said the bullets. "You killed him…"
"NO! I didn't kill anybody! Seifer!"
Seifer?
No man came to her rescue.
The bullets spoke, and the slender girl crumpled, a crimson stain spreading across her fitted tunic. Her hair became black, her skin paler…
"NO!"
Jeff realised he had spoken out loud. The vision had taken him back to the morgue, where he'd identified Melody's bullet-riddled body.
Quistis was innocent. He realised that. But if he couldn't find her, how could he prove it? And what if the police, the bullets found her first?
A fly buzzed drunkenly past, a stupid, inconsequent thing.
**
Quistis moaned and turned over in the narrow hotel bed. What a horrible dream…
Dream? Maybe it was all a dream!
No. She opened her eyes and found herself in the dingy motel room. Seifer lay in the next bed – they hadn't been able to afford two rooms. A flake of plaster dislodged from the ceiling and fluttered down to rest on his nose. Quistis rose and sat next to him on the bed.
Last night, she had been so close. Why had she panicked? Why hadn't she let him kiss her? She didn't know whether she was falling for him, exactly…he'd never been her type. But what she felt when she looked close at his expression, at the vulnerability he always tried to mask…he'd gotten under her skin in a way nobody else ever had. She looked across the room. Plaster peeling forlornly, the moulting brown bedspreads, threadbare already where her huddled body had rested during the cold night. The she looked down at Seifer's face.
His skin was pale and creamy. The scar that had once marred the smooth expanse of forehead stood, pale and proud, a testament to his nature. His hair shone slightly in the dingy light, the gold etchings between the short bangs winking up at her. His eyes were closed, the dark eyelashes just touching his skin. She could imagine the striking, green, glass-rippled eyes beneath. She reached out a hand tentatively and touched his cheek. It was warm, alive. Reassuring.
Oh, if she could just have another chance like last night.
**
"Are we near a town? Anywhere?"
"I think there's a town somewhere near here, on the map. It's called Canon, or Canwan, or something…"
"After what happened last night at the hotel…oh, Quisty, do you realise that we can't stay overnight anywhere anymore? I'm an accomplice, Damnit, and you're a criminal. Everyone on the continent knows our faces now. We were seen at the café. We were spotted at the hotel. We only just got out of there in time!"
"Lucky you were able to flirt with the girl on the desk to borrow her car." Commented Quistis drily. They hadn't been able to take any chances, that was for sure.
"What else was I supposed to do? The entire world knows our old license plate number…"
Quistis gripped the steering wheel tightly and manoeuvred the car down the narrow, winding road. The sky was cloudless, azure. It should have been raining, she thought angrily, squinting through the windshield.
"Is that a signpost up ahead?"
For the first time in days, Quistis felt a spark of hope. Perhaps from here, she could telephone Squall and let him know what had happened. The crummy phone in the hotel hadn't even had a receiver.
"Pull over, Seifer!" She exclaimed. "I think we've found Canwan!"
**
"Wear a scarf over your hair. People will notice a blonde."
Well, more like brown from the dust, thought Quistis. She hadn't washed in days now. She knotted the scarf around her chin.
"There's a telephone! Look, Seifer, buy a map. There isn't time for thinking ahead. Let nobody get a good look at your face."
Quistis hurried over to the telephone and gripped the receiver. In a flash, she dialled Squall's number and waited, hoping, praying…she cradled the slim plastic body of the telephone as it rang, rang…
"Quistis?"
Squall's voice sounded tired and thick, but he exclaimed her name hopefully, eagerly. Quistis felt a pang at the old, familiar, trustworthy tone. She was in danger, terrible danger. If police found her, they would shoot. She was, apparently, armed and dangerous. How was she supposed to tell Squall all this when all he knew was what had been announced on the news? At any moment, someone in this town could spot them and ring the police. In the distance, she saw Seifer enter a small alley shop.
"Squall – I – we…"
Suddenly, too suddenly, Quistis heard shots in the background. In a blur, she saw Seifer running towards her. He pulled her away from the telephone roughly, and dragged her towards the car. Quistis was about to ask what was happening, when she noticed the uniformed men with guns running behind them. Her mouth went dry.
"Quistis!" Seifer's voice was panicked, unlike him. "What are we going to do?"
"Turn ourselves in, I guess…" Quistis couldn't face the thought of running from the police.
"You think they'll believe us?" Seifer pushed her into the car and started it with trembling fingers. The men were shooting, the bullets bouncing off the sides of the car. "We'll be dead before we get a word in edgeways, don't you understand? DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?? Damnit Quistis, we're armed and dangerous to them!"
It was happening so fast, so fast. How were they spotted? Where did the police come from?
"Oh god, Seifer!" moaned Quistis as the car jolted along an unpaved road, away from the men, away from the guns. "I can't believe we're running from the police…"
**
"Quistis!" cried Squall hoarsely down the telephone.
Two shots, and silence. Was she….
It was too terrible to think about. Quistis, alone, on the run…
Oh, he knew she hadn't done it. But the stupid, silly woman, running, running, and incriminating herself. Who would listen to him now? He had to find her, prove her innocence.
The first, the only thing he could do, was trace her call.
**
Miles and miles away, a man dressed in black fired one fatal shot.
**
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