"Now when you cry, I don't have to be around to wipe your lies".

Prologue

Brody brushed her long purple hair down over the right side of her face. With a sigh she lifted the suitcase and pushed her way out through the door, down the steps. There was a taxi waiting. Without a backward glance, she slid onto the backseat. The car drove her away. Not away from her home, she had left "home" four years in the past. Fleeing home wasn't half as painful as leaving that shit-hole; this time, she had no choice.

An hour later, as the darkness fell, a motorbike roared up outside a tall block of dilapidated flats. A tall figure in leathers dismounted and sauntered up to the door and pressed the buzzer for the desired room. No reply. Press again. Still no answer. Casual stance abandoned, more frantic button pressing ensued. Then all fell silent as the grave.

The door was rotten and the man was desperate. With a well-judged barge, the door swung. The stairwell reeked of all manner of undesirable stenches, and heavy footfalls rang out. When he reached his destination the key was in the lock, but on the wrong side of the door. He twisted and removed it, then pushed.

The room was empty of vitality: crypt-like. All that was left in the Spartan flat was the old furniture: a single bed stripped of linen, a fridge, cooker, sink, all rundown, and a battered sofa, with stuffing exposed. The walls were bare; the dreary patterned paper had tears - all in sets of four, where posters were hung only a short time ago.

However, across the other side of the room, through the open door of the bathroom something glistened in the half-light. Cautiously the biker made his way over. He lowered his gaze to the floor, then crouched and with both hands picked up the object for closer examination.

"Ouch!" he gasped, and drew away sharply. It was a single razor blade, and where his hand was a second previously was a line of deep crimson. It took a second to register that the blood was not his own - it was dry. Turning to the sink, he opened the medicine cabinet and replaced the razor to where it belonged. It came as no surprise that it the rest of the cabinet was empty.

But he was about to get a horrible shock. As he closed the mirrored door, something made him freeze. There was something on the wall behind him, something he had been far to wrapped up in his head to notice. Written on the wall above the bath was the sentence:

"Now when you cry, I don't have to be around to wipe your lies".

No question as to what was used as ink to write the hate filled words. Sinking down on the spot, Kurtis Trent buried his head in his hands and wept bitterly. As the pink tinged light of dawn slithered in through the small window, he stood and discarded the room key from his pocket. He fled from the building and he too, like the girl with the purple hair, never looked back.

Many miles across the Ocean, a very contented Lara Croft slipped under the thick blanket of bubbles of a pleasingly hot bath…