Howdy! It's been a while now, so sorry for the wait. Here's a longer one as an apology.

Annabeth slipped her miniskirt back on, abandoning the leather outfit for her usual getup. She never knew why leather was considered sexy to some. It smelled when wet, was abrasive in all the wrong ways, and made movement stiff if the quality was poor, which it often was. Then again, leather was a rather mundane fetish compared to the requests she received from the more eccentric of her customer base. A rash seemed a small price to pay.

One such individual slept loudly out on the gallery. He was a regular for Annabeth, a rich business type among a million rich business types. There was nothing particularly interesting about him save his wealth. He was flabby, wrinkled even for his age, and smelled like vapor rub. The words that droned out of his mouth could put to sleep Cerberus himself, and for that he was alone. There was likely more to that story, but Annabeth wisely never broached the subject. A submissive he called himself, but the cruelty behind his eyes once playtime was over revealed a perversion deeper than Annabeth hoped to delve. She didn't expect much from Wall Street execs, but this one's depravity went deeper. So far, he had kept his meaner traits on lock.

She stepped over to the usual dresser, expecting to find a wad of hundreds stuffed neatly under his cufflink box. None this time. She would have to prod it out of him, not unlike their earlier business.

"Forget again?" she called from the bedroom.

His snoring continued from the balcony, asleep already despite having just finished.

"I need my tip before I can go, is it somewhere else this time?" she said. "Hello?"

"Mmm," he grumbled.

She carefully stood out on the balcony, the view of the city breathtaking as always. Lights, sounds, smells, all of it presented before her like a show designed specifically for her tastes. Her favorite, the Chrysler, gleamed golden in the night sky. Whatever her memories of the city, whatever evil people inhabited its golden towers and filthy alleys, nothing could change its beauty. Her client seemed to disagree.

"What?" he said, shortly.

"I need to go. Do you have the tip?" she repeated for the third time.

"I don't have cash darling, I'll pay you double next time, yeah?"

He rubbed his eyes and sank further into the lounger. A bottle of open scotch rested precariously between his thigh and the open air. A single nudge would spill thousands onto thirstless pavement. How easily they wasted.

Annabeth sighed, hoping to avoid confrontation like this by crutching on annoyance. Most people could be guilted into payment one way or another, and it had happened with him before.

"You know I can't do that. Luke will have my head you know." She invoked his name for the fear it often commanded.

He shrugged. "Tell him I'm sorry but I don't have cash. I've got meetings in the morning, why don't you just come back tomorrow. Actually, scratch that. Come back on Wednesday. I'm busy tomorrow."

"Please, you should know by now what Luke is like. You've got to have something lying around. I don't have the money to cover until then," she begged. Pleading to someone like him robbed her of dignity, but it was preferable to being robbed of a head. Luke took inspiration from drug lords all over the world.

"I don't want to hear that from you," he said a bit louder. "I shouldn't have to explain why I don't have cash to a whore. The rest of us use credit cards. Ever heard of one?"

Tears welled up at the corner of her eyes. Just another Monday night for Annabeth. "Can you at least give me 25%? That's all I need for now."

The bottle crashed against the floor. "You think I can just conjure up some cash because you put your boo boo eyes on?" He jerked his head towards the door. "Out."

She mustered up what courage she dared. "I'm not leaving until I get enough money for Luke." The name appeared to have no impact on him.

"Oh?" he said, softer this time. "Is that so?"

The man slowly pushed himself out of the recliner, swaying slightly under the influence of his drinks. Broken glass littered the floor, the sharp acidity of alcohol stabbing at her eyes in the warm night air. The sounds of the city played on below, ignorant to her plight.

"You won't, is that right?" He propped himself up against the balcony rail. "And what if I say you will?"

Annabeth took a step back, eyeing her exits. One way or another, this was one less customer for an easy night.

"I just need Luke's share. I'm begging you, please. There's got to be a couple thousand lying around here." Her hands shook behind her back.

"What the fuck would you know about my money, hmm?" He stumbled forward, catching himself on the doorway. "Stupid cunts like you always run their mouths to men like me. How about we call it even considering that scotch was worth what you make in a year, yeah?"

She backed away again, edging towards the door. "If Luke doesn't get his money, he'll hurt you." She would have to resort to threats. It was a risk, but there were fewer and fewer options.

He laughed under his breath, stopping to lean against the wall. "I doubt our mutual friend Luke will have much of an issue with giving me a freebie."

There it was again. She was something to give. Her body, her pride, her sense of self-worth was currency for these people. In their eyes she was a toy, an object for pleasure and nothing more. She knew why it was so easy for them to laugh at her. She would do the same if her hairbrush suddenly cried woes about its role in her world. But she was not a hairbrush, nor a toy, nor an object to pleasure cruel men. She was a person.

"I don't care what you think Luke will or won't do. Pay me," she demanded. She hoped she sounded braver than she was.

"Fuck off."

She stood her ground. "Pay me."

"I'm telling you to fuck off," he said, anger in his voice.

"No. You bought a service and now you pay for it." Her voice quivered under stress, but if she gave now, she was screwed either way. She wasn't so scared of him. It was Luke that would haunt her future should things not work out.

He slammed his fist into the side of the wall. Luxurious paintings shook dangerously above the marble floor.

"I'm not kidding. Get the fuck out of my house before I call someone," he threatened. The cruelty was back in his eyes.

"Give me my fucking money and then I'll leave," she screamed back at him.

He snapped. With two short steps he launched his fist at her rib cage. She felt something snap under the pressure and gasped in surprise. But he wasn't finished. His body was old and wrinkled, but delusions of grandeur and sheer adrenaline made his fists like iron against foam. Annabeth crumpled to the floor, her side badly bruised from his sudden tantrum. She curled into a ball, heaving to catch her breath from the assault.

He panted above her, swaying forwards and back from exertion and alcohol. "You're lucky I don't bash your head in, bitch. I don't take backtalk from upstart Wall Street babies and I certainly won't take it from some back-alley dog." He spit on her, then landed another kick to her side.

She screamed at the pain and instinctively kicked out, connecting her booted heel against the side of his knee. He stumbled and fell back against the doorframe. The back of his head slapped loudly against the wood.

"Stop," she whimpered. "I'll—"

"Too fucking late," he growled. "I'm going to bash in that empty head of yours."

He launched himself at her again, grabbing Annabeth by the throat and lifting her up against the wall. His breath reeked of stale liquor. She gagged from the pressure around her throat, clawing at his hands. His sweaty gut pressed against her body. She needed a way to incapacitate him long enough to flee, long enough that she could get out before he chased her. She brought her knee up swiftly, catching his stomach and sending them both crashing out onto the balcony. They landed in broken glass, the spilled alcohol burning the tiny open cuts along her arms.

He screamed and tore himself from her, kicking back like a toddler and crawling feverishly up against the railing. She crawled away as fast as she could, keeping her back to the door. They waited a moment to recover. Hate filled his eyes. A few minutes earlier and he was begging to be whipped. Now he intended to kill her. How quickly her clients changed.

His cracked lips spread into a thin smile. "So, what now? You gonna flee? Go hide behind your pimp?" He coughed phlegm onto the patio. "You're in for a rough surprise girl."

Annabeth's jaw was locked tight. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, the pain from glass cuts masked behind its powerful effects. She needed to get away. She needed to hide from this monster's sick gaze, but more than that, she needed to prepare for the inevitable. One phone call from him would have Luke on her tail within the minute. He would not believe her. She pretended to limp backwards to the door. Her ribs were badly injured, but her legs worked fine. If she could surprise him, she hoped that would allow for a sure exit.

He wasn't buying it.

"Got somewhere to go?" he mocked. "Surely you're not going to your next client with tidying up." He held up his blood-soaked arm. "By my understanding you've got a debt to pay."

Annabeth leaped backwards through the doorway, slamming her shoulder on the frame as she passed. The pain hardly registered. She was fast, but he was under his own adrenaline rush. Much faster than any decrepit old man should be, he grabbed her by the hem of her skirt, yanking her back towards the gallery entrance.

This time she fought back.

Without looking, Annabeth spun and slammed his wrist into the wall with her hand, clumsily kicking back against his chest as hard as she could. Her legs were strong. Maybe it was because she was always running somewhere. Her legs were too strong. A single kick to an old man like him would have bad enough. A single kick that launched him towards a marble patio with blood, alcohol, and glass coating the surface would have been worse.

In slow motion, Annabeth watched the cruelty in the man's eyes shift quickly to panic. He was moving too fast, there was nothing to grab. His feet were slipping, and he was weak from blood loss. The rail should have been there to serve his benefit, but instead it betrayed him, offering momentum the opportunity to trip and vault him into the colorful abyss below. He screamed and tumbled off the 65th floor of the upper west side high rise, and Annabeth could only watch in horror.

Seconds ticked by like molasses. His screams were washed away by whipping wind and the vibrant sounds of New York.

Annabeth stood and stared through the doorframe at the empty balcony. Her hands shook where they hung suspended, ready to fight nobody. Cold sweat beaded across her forehead in the warm night. She sank down against the wall, unable to cope. She had just killed a man. Within in an hour she'd be as dead as him.

As dead as him.

She vomited on the beautiful, marbled floor.

Annabeth had killed someone. Intentionally or not. Deserving or not. She had killed someone, and it was her fault. She dry heaved with nothing left to throw up.

The adrenaline was wearing off quickly. She needed to get out of there, and fast. She needed a plan, one that would give her time. She estimated it had been about a minute since he'd fallen. It could have been ten for all she knew, but there was no use in wondering. Whether one, ten, or thirty minutes had passed, the police would be there soon enough.

She made her way to the bathroom, fumbling through her bag with shaky fingers. Couldn't leave the building looking like she did. A quick re-apply to her makeup and some eye drops had her at least presentable, as long as people didn't look too closely. She'd have to take a jacket of his to hide the vicious cuts along her arms. One with a collar so people didn't stare at the choke marks around her neck. She wished she were invisible. The mirror showed her a horror-stricken young woman. Her mascara was gone, her eyes were puffy, and red bruises were already forming around her collarbone. She thanked every god imaginable that this happened in New York where no one would care enough to ask.

Then she turned around and cursed them. Annabeth's DNA was everywhere. The blood on the floor, her spit, tears, hair, whatever was left over from the in-call. Even if she ran, they would find her. The alternative was to go back to Luke, to try to explain herself. She remembered a previous time she'd been denied payment. It was her 3rd time walking and the man turned out to be a swindler. Luke beat them both. Him for stealing, her for being weak enough to steal from, or in his words, "too stupid." Luke was not an option.

She could only run. She needed money, enough to get out of the city and as far away as possible that night.

Tearing through his belongings, Annabeth searched frantically for any spare cash. Dressers, drawers, anything that wasn't bolted to the ground. At this point it would look like she robbed him at gunpoint, but it mattered little. After murder, what they charged her with was pointless. No judge would pardon a whore.

Annabeth breathed heavily in the center of a destroyed office. The only room left was the bedroom. She'd never been in there after all his calls. He'd asked to do it practically everywhere but there. The parlor, the bathroom, the kitchen, the balcony, anywhere but his bedroom. She thought it was his kink until now.

Her powerful legs came in handy once again. The door swung open, the bolt ripping part of the wood off the wall. The room was immaculately clean, just like the rest of his house. Silver drapes outlined large, tinted windows and thick dark grey rugs framed an enormous king-sized bed. His dressers featured expensive handles and shelved priceless artifacts. It was perfect to a fault, for it could have been a museum display and none would have been the wiser. It seemed a fittingly cold place for a similarly cold man.

Three large safes lined the far wall, just under the windows. The first two were shut tight, but the third was slightly ajar. Her prayers had been answered. In it was a stack of hundreds tied neatly together resting on top of a small briefcase. Annabeth grabbed the cash and stuffed it into her bag, ready to bolt. She glanced at her phone. It had been three minutes since she'd run to the bathroom. Time was running out, but an urging, prodding force ate at her. The briefcase seemed to draw her in, enticing Annabeth with its unknown contents.

Listening for any sound of others, she unbolted the briefcase to find a small stack of documents bound with a paperclip. The cover read KRONOS in stylized gold filigree calligraphy. Underneath, a single name in small black print. Luke Castellan.

As if her hands had a mind of their own, Annabeth jammed the paperwork into her bag, slamming the case shut and bolting towards the door. The police and ambulances were likely on their way, if not already there. Sickly, the sheer height of the fall might have served to benefit her. It would take at least a few minutes to identify the body or even come up with a guess. Ample time for her to escape into the night and taxi-hop upstate.

She carefully stepped out of the apartment into the private elevator corridor. Thankfully, this client had been wealthy enough to never share. All she needed was an uninterrupted elevator ride down. If others got on, especially at higher floors, she risked being identified or caught before she could leave the scene. She prayed no one saw the elevator go up to the penthouse floor.

The first eleven floors went by smoothly. Nothing but silence in the lavish carriage. The mirrored walls taunted Annabeth. She couldn't manage to look at herself, to face the person forever changed behind those steely grey eyes of hers. If she thought life was tough before, the coming days, weeks, months, and years would be her worst, one way or another. Assuming she lived that long.

The elevator slowed to a halt. The deceleration was near imperceptible. Panic welled up in her throat. She felt like she was going to vomit. Annabeth's jaw clenched and she forced herself to look occupied in her phone, scrolling aimlessly, too fast to read.

A man with long dirty-blonde hair entered. He was wearing a floral Hawaiian shirt. His shorts were tight against his toned skin and he looked as though he'd just come back from a day of surfing. It was the middle of the night. With him he brought the light smell of pomegranates and ocean breeze, not what Annabeth expected from a tenant in a building for the one percent of the one percent. He didn't appear interested in Annabeth, though the jacket did well to cover most of her body. She hoped the old man smell would make most people uninterested.

They rode down in silence through the lower floors, slowly reaching ground level. She would either be caught here or make it out. This was the tipping point. There was likely no New York traffic right now. All that mattered was whether a police car had been in the vicinity at the time of death and how long it took for someone to call the police. Her chances were not great. It had already been at least ten minutes since he fell.

The elevator doors parted and revealed a chaotic scene. The lobby to the building was wide, but she could see people crowded feverishly around the far end. Police lights lit up the walls and sirens blared. Her only chance was to quickly exit on this side and move diagonally through the blocks until she could find a cab away from listening distance.

As Annabeth was about to step out of the elevator, she caught the man staring intently at her with large bright blue eyes. They were like the color of the summer sky. She faltered for a moment, unable to wrest control her gaze. There was no cruelty in them, only an intense interest. He seemed to look through her, past her even, directly into her being for what seemed like an eternity.

And then he blinked, the moment gone.

She quickly composed herself and briskly exited the building, glancing back to see if the man was following her. He simply stood outside the elevator, watching her retreat.

That was not good.

Police circled what was probably the body of her client. He had fallen onto solid concrete with not a thing to break his fall. It was as she had hoped. No way to identify the body, but that mattered little now. They had likely only just arrived, or they would have swarmed the elevators. She was baffled at their incompetence, or possibly their laziness. It wasn't what she would have done.

Free from the stress of escaping the building, Annabeth walked quickly, avoiding main streets and zigzagging through city blocks to avoid being in proximity. She couldn't tell how far she had walked, but she guessed it had been at least ten blocks. Enough to hail a cab and start her life on the run.

She waved down a van and quickly hopped in the back, eager to avoid showing the driver her face.

"Amsterdam and 186th," she said, automatically. It was far enough from midtown but not too far to arouse suspicion. From there she could take another up to Dobbs Ferry then catch a train further beyond, maybe even to Albany. She would have to head west from there, outside the jurisdiction of state troopers. Only a warrant would bring her back, one she intended to avoid entirely.

Then it hit her. There would be no going back to her apartment. Not that she had any attachment to the hovel, but her Yankees cap was there. Her books, her drawings, her studies, everything that had meant anything to her was there. She would never see Ms. Barn again. Never spend a Tuesday afternoon ogling the giants of prehistoric America. Never walk down 5th Avenue and marvel at the architectural wonders of art deco New York. It was over for her.

Tears welled up in her eyes, streaming down her face as she sobbed uncontrollably in the back of the taxi van. She could feel her heart breaking for herself, a moment of profoundly deep self-pity that she had always tried to avoid. It never did any good. But now, alone, tired, scared, and on the run, Annabeth felt that last shred of dignity and pride shrivel. She was a friendless, rootless, ruined soul destined to wander her self-made hellscape for the rest of her life.

Some twenty minutes later, Annabeth managed to dry her eyes and look out the window. The run-down buildings of uptown New York flew by. They were close to her destination, but then she would have to find another. She was thankful this particular cabbie wasn't the talkative kind. She didn't think she could bear to have a conversation with anyone yet.

Sniffling loudly, Annabeth attempted to unclog her nose. She had been crying for so long her face was completely red and her nose dripped everywhere. More DNA evidence, she guessed. She blew her nose into a tissue from her bag, careful not to expose the bright lettering of the stolen document. Now that it was in her possession, she couldn't explain why she had wasted the time to steal it. It was as if the document had a mind of its own and willed it into her hands. There was nothing to be gained from having it, and if anything, it only served to risk her identity in the future.

She wiped her nose once more, glad to finally be able to breathe. Just as she was feeling the tiniest bit calmer, she smelled it. Pomegranates and ocean breeze. Her head snapped over to the driver's seat where the same blonde man from the elevator drove quietly. He had not made a sound the entire drive. He sat motionless, only slightly moving his hands to turn the wheel. But when she looked at rear view mirror, a scream caught in her throat. He was staring right at her with the same piercing blue eyes.

She jammed her thumb into the side door lock and kicked open the door, trusting her fate with tumbling through traffic more than her second encounter with whatever that man was. Annabeth tumbled out onto a curb, rolling onto her bad side and denting her already cracked ribs on the edge of the curb. She screamed in pain, but newfound panic forced her up as she stumbled away into a nearby alley.

The other side of the alley was some twenty feet away. It was at least a five-minute drive from the other side, but Annabeth guessed that the man would follow her on foot. He would follow her anywhere, it seemed. She limped towards the end, panting and coughing her way there. Her mind was completely blank. Sirens rang in the distance. All plans were out the window. There was simply no way she could out-maneuver the police and whatever it was that was following her. How he had managed to track her and position himself to be her cab driver creeped Annabeth out.

Finally, she reached the end of the alley. She could go north and hope to catch the subway out of the city or she could go east and hide in the riverside parks until she lost his trail. The train was the best bet. She needed to get out of the city.

Just as Annabeth was turning, she saw a hand reach out from around the corner. She was too slow, too hurt to avoid it. The man grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back into the alley. For a moment she feared it was the blonde man again.

When she looked up, a pair of vibrant sea green eyes met hers.

He was back.