Alec POV

"He's stable for now, Magnus. I redressed his wound which is looking okay for now, and I set up an IV. Magnus, he lost a lot of blood."

Hushed voices break through the barrier of my subconsciousness. A woman is talking to Magnus about me. No! I want to shout. Just let me die! But no words can be summoned to my lips when I attempt to move them, nor will the fifty pound weights that are attached to my eyelids cease their monstrous burden. I am buried under a foggy haze.

"What happens now?" Magnus murmurs, his voice barely above a whisper. He sounds...concerned. But why? I want to try to ask him this myself but my thought is cut off by the sound of the woman speaking again.

"Now we wait for an infection to settle in the wound or he'll heal on his own." The woman says cooly. I can tell she's trying to be nonchalant about this whole situation but at the same time, she's probably not okay with trying to heal a criminal. She should have just let me die... And with that thought, Magnus's voice is the last thing I hear as I slip away again.

Along with the other occupational hazards of being a drug dealer, come the nightmares. Nightmares that are so bad, you wake up in a cold sweat screaming your ass off. You take deep breaths, like your teachers used to tell you to do when you got mad, and try to understand that all that shit was over now. That it didn't matter. That it was in the past. And then the next night the torture would repeat.

It's no different tonight.

I'm standing at the end of the Hudson River pier watching the ocean. It's five minutes before two am so it's almost time. My stomach is twisting itself in knots with anxiety. It's my first time selling. I try to focus on the black darkness of the water, lapping against the green moldy poles of the pier. I hear soft steps, so I look up. I was concentrating so hard on the water, I didn't even see him. A younger looking man in a dark suit is about fifty feet away from me. It's time.

As he comes closer, I see that he's not as young as I thought. He looks about thirty, and I can already tell he's filthy rich. He's wearing a two thousand dollar Armani black suit with a shiny charcoal tie. He has a strong jawline with minimal stubble, perfect cheekbones, with milk chocolate eyes. He's gorgeous. The corner of his mouth twitches up in amusement.

"Well, well, I didn't certainly didn't expect Camile to send a little twinkie. She must have high hopes for you if she's sending you to me." His every syllable is drawn out and cocky. I have an overwhelming urgency to punch him in the face. But for some reason, he still seems dangerous.

"Do you have the money or not? Because I have better uses for my time than standing out here at two am shooting the shit with you." I try to put as much edge in my voice as possible, but the guy merely smirks at me.

"Ah, we have a brawler don't we? Fair enough, you show me yours and I'll show you mine." Even in the dark, his twisted smile could light up a thousand baseballs fields.

I put my suitcase on the ground and show him the packets of cocaine that are inside. I hear him chuckle.

"How much is in there?" He asks, his head cocking to one side.

"Thirty, just like we said." I stutter.

"No, I said forty five. Where the hell is the rest of it?" He growls with annoyance. His face that looked calm and beautiful a second ago, now twists into something ugly and unnerving. My stomach that has been twisting itself smaller and smaller, suddenly drops so fast I can practically hear its impact at the base of my gut.

"I, I, I..." I stutter. I have no idea what to do. Then, he smiles like a predator who just captured its prey.

"Well, you'll just have to pay me in a different way." Before I can even run, I'm slammed hard into the ground. My head bangs hard against the wood and I can taste blood in my mouth. I can feel his full body weight pressing on top of me, pining me down. I try to scream, but he covers my mouth with his hand.

"No one can hear you." He whispers, his voice dripping with menace. He releases his hand on my mouth and sticks his tongue down my throat. His tongue probes around in my mouth, and I feel him roughly slide his hand under my shirt. He grinds his hardness into me, and I try to use my hips to buck him off. Suddenly, the tongue is gone, and his hand slaps my face hard.

"Naughty boy. You will hold still." He tells me with gritted teeth.

My cheek burns while he holds my chin tight and doesn't let go. Sticking his tongue back in my mouth, he's gone back to what he's doing in an instant. I bite hard on his tongue. He screams and pulls back in anguish so I take the opportunity to grab his suitcase and run as hard as I can down the pier.

Suddenly, Magnus Bane is there. He has never been in any of my dreams before. But there he is, in his uniform looking as perfect as ever. I see him take out his gun, and start shooting. He tells me to run, and I soar past him. I glance back just in time to see a bullet hit him square in the chest. I scream.

My eyes snap open and I'm still screaming. Tears are pouring down my face and I can't stop. My body curls, and as it does I feel a set of arms that are wrapped around me. As I sob, I hear Magnus's voice saying, "Shhh. It's okay." I weep even harder, because the idea of being comforted hasn't even crossed my mind in so long. I just hold onto those arms for dear life.

Magnus POV

His anguished scream is the first thing I hear when my eyes snap open. He's screaming? I jump off the couch and run down my hall to the my bedroom. He's twisting around in the bed, just screaming. He's having a nightmare. Slowly, I walk towards the bed. Realizing that he has an IV in, I hop on the bed and wrap my arms around him. He'll pull the IV out, and I really don't want to have to call Cat again. She was already a little ticked about treating a known drug dealer, but she knows I would do the same for her.

He's still flaying his arms around wildly, so I tighten my hold around his torso. "Shhhhh, it's okay. Everything is going to be fine." He's crying hard now, curling up into a ball. I know he's awake, but he doesn't push me away. Instead, he holds onto me tighter.

From my angle, all I can see is his back and his wounded bicep. He's got some muscle, but he's still a little too skinny. But from what I see, which are the smooth lines of his back, he's gorgeous. I forget sometimes how young he is. He's still a teenager and already he's seen most of the hurt the world has to offer.

How did you get like this?