My intuition needs to be wrong. Needs to. Just this once, I want that feeling in the bottom of my stomach to be severely mistaken; I want to know that things are going to be okay, and that when I go to the hospital, he'll still be there.

He'll have worried about me, maybe he'll yell about the fact that I'd rushed out, the fact that I'd needed to take care of this myslef. The way -
I was throwing myself in danger's path once again, Reckless.

But the feeling needs to be vindicated. The quivering fear that I'll open my eye and my world will have shattered again.
It's not that I've had much to hold on to since I'd come here, and something in my mind keeps taunting me.

You won't have anything when this is over. You won't. You'll have nothing, Hai...

It's then that my psyche twists, the voice in my head slinding to a deep whisper, a sound that makes a shiver scream down my spine. The taunting get to be too much, really, and I can't help but close my eyes as I open the car door.

Flashes of moments piece themselves together in my mind.

The bus trip here, the mix of confusion and determination that had been set in the very marrow of my bones, the twisted lack of innocence that had damaged me from the start.

The plot itself, thickening as I wormed myself into what I had at once thought was the enemy camp, thinking it would be too easy. Thinking...

The first sin. The falling from grace, tangling myself in illicit relations, drowning in the possiblity of safety, even if I was only fooling myself.

The feeling of - the first gunshots. The look of terror.

I'm losing it.

My father's death. The fights. The phone call.
It all mixed with heated memories of passion, of nights where I had given myself completely to passion that could override any sense of logic, any fear I'd had...

The feeling of warm hands on my stomach, over my shoulders, a feeling like fire, as if his touch had branded me like iron.

Damned.

"...I love you..."
The words still stung, and tears wanted to leap out, but I kept them at bay, moving up the stairs, slowly...

"I thought you'd have come sooner." A voice interrupted my thoughts, and I winced slightly. I didn't have to turn around to know what it was - to know who it was.

My stomach turned then, and I let a breath out slowly, my hand steady on my gun.

I wanted to shoot him right away, but -

"Aren't you going to do something with that?" Hunter's voice oozed into my ears, and I winced as he came closer, trying to lift my arm -
In all desperation, I wanted to shoot him, but was too paralyzed in my thoughts to do anything.
To move. To breathe. To blink.

He moved close, fingers brushing a few stray bits of blonde out of my face, gaze glancing hard into mine. His head tilted to the side, then, thoughtful...

I felt my arm wrenched behind my back again, the gun barrel against my back.

"You weren't that great anyway." A mutter in my ear, and the barrel jams more against my spine. The faintest of squeaks escapes.

"...and you killed him. You killed Ric, and...well, we all knew what was going to happen when your little games were over, so I just did the favor for you."

I was going to be sick. Hunter knew - what I was afraid of.


"He's not dead." I manage weakly, eyes closing. I need to tell myself that - need to tell myself that there's hope, that there's a reason for me to go on with this, a reason...

A reason to fight.