Had another person follow my story, better have a story for them to follow! Here's the next chapter with a lot of dialogue. Would love to get some reviews good or bad. Don't worry, I have tough skin. Any way, enjoy because I've enjoyed writing it and with every chapter we are nearing the climax of the story... dun, dun, duuun.

Present Day: The Apartment

The words hit me like a ton of bricks and the water that I could not even feel before suddenly felt like icicles raining down as Chloe pulled away. The warmth of her cheek left my hand as she leaned back against the shower wall, putting the maximum amount of distance the setting allowed.

"Chloe," I pleaded and reached for her hand, anything to fill the emptiness it now felt.

"I'm sorry Alek," she pulled away further, pushing against the wall to stand up.

"You're sorry? We almost kiss and you're sorry?" Now I was starting to get angry. Just a couple hours ago I had uttered that same sentence and with one grab of the wrist I was putty in Chloe's hands. Only now, she is the one to say, "I can't" and there's no way for me to stop her.

I didn't leave because I love her, but now…

I watched her step out of the shower and grab a towel. The water dripped down her legs and left a trail as she exited the bathroom.

She can't?

Can't what?

Love me?

Our moment and how it didn't happen kept playing over and over in my head until it settled in my stomach like a rock. A rock that was angry.

I pushed myself up off the tile, and stormed after her.

"Well, I can't accept that!"

My voiced startled her as she turned from the bag she was packing to face me.

"Excuse me?"

There, quivering in the doorway of the bathroom, the sound of the shower still running creating a dull white noise, I made my last attempt to make sense of this whole Chloe-Uniter-Here-But-Not-Really Situation.

"I said I can't accept your pathetic excuses and running away again. I did that five years ago and it nearly killed me. You have to give me something, anything of an explanation or else…"

I didn't know what I could really threaten, but my demeanor worked to get the point across. Chloe stood in shock for a moment before she too started to shake.

"What can I say? I'm sorry? I'm sorry I must leave again and that my excuses are PATHETIC? Don't you know that I know that? That I want to tell you things but I can't since I don't even understand them! That every waking moment in this city hurts and then I can't even get a relief when I sleep, if I can sleep!"

"That's exactly my point!"

"What is?" she screamed back at me.

"You won't even tell me what that was all about," I gestured wildly to the bathroom behind me where minutes ago she was wailing in pain and I held her.

"You really want to know?"

"Yes!" I shouted.

"I was on FIRE! I felt like my limbs were engulfed in flames and that I was being burned alive."

"Why?"

"Because I was!"

"On fire?" I asked to try and make sense of the situation.

"Yes! I was literally burned at the stake and now the nightmare of it haunts me. Sometimes the dream feels so real, like it is happening all over again. That's why I was screaming."

I quieted as the reality of the situation dawned on me, "You're telling me that you were burned alive? You died by being burned alive?"

My sudden calmness caused Chloe to quiet down as well. She looked down at her feet and took a couple of deep breaths before she answered. "Yes, I was."

"When?" I enquired as an involuntary response.

Chloe sank to the bed next to her almost packed bag. "About eight months ago when I was in the Amazon."

The drastic turn of the conversation had us both dazed and still for a moment. I continued to look at her in puzzlement, "Why were you in the Amazon, I mean…" I trailed off still trying to piece all the new information together.

"Basset lead me to the Amazon to talk with the prides in the region. And you know how hostile the Rio pride members were when they tried to poach me?" I nodded numbly as she continued, "well, the people in the deep rainforest of that area are worse. They didn't believe that I was the Uniter, or accept, or I don't know. As proof, they tied me to a stake and…"

Her voice cut out, I could only imagine what she had gone through. The guilt and terror started to bubble up inside me again. Why wasn't I with her? If I had only tried harder to find her, maybe I could have prevented this.

"The horrible heat was the last thing I remembered," Chloe was speaking again, "I came to a week later, on an island in the Caribbean somewhere…in pain. Lots of pain. Everything hurt as my skin for my new life formed. Weeks and weeks… all of it still haunts me."

Words could not form in my mouth and I just stood in silence until it clicked in my head, and I questioned, "how, how did you get to the island if the last thing you remember was the fire?"

Chloe looked up from her feet at me. I could see something glint across her face, a struggle perhaps? She gazed at me intently and I questioned if I even wanted to hear her next words.

"Um, I was traveling with someone and they got me out of there." Each word was said with a slight hesitation, like she was weighing how I would respond to the ideas.

"THEY?" The term came out at a higher volume than I had intended, but it reflected how I felt about the whole thing. "Who the fuck is 'THEY'?"

Chloe was back to looking at her feet and I heard her mumble something about it not being important. "IT IS IMPORTANT," I shouted, "if someone was there to get you out, why didn't they stop it in the first place? Why is that?"

"Because I told them not to." Chloe stated in a clear voice, like she had anticipated that question.

"And why the hell did you tell them that?"

"Because I had to die, that's what the Uniter does."

"Um, no she does not, at least when I'm there." I retorted.

"That's exactly the point!"

"What is?" Both our voices at reached an incredibly loud volume.

"The point of why you couldn't be there, I am the Uniter and sometimes I must make sacrifices, and SOMETIMES THAT MEANS DYING."

"But not when it can be STOPED" I argued.

"EVEN THEN," Chloe yelled back, "sometimes even then, and you were… ARE not equipped to handle those moments"

I paused in shock but then continued, "what are you saying?"

That's when I noticed that Chloe had resumed packing her bag and was nearly finished, "I'm saying, there was a reason you could not be with me on my journey these past five years…you can't do what needs to be done."

"I can." I stated as she walked over to the door. I wanted to stop her once again, but it felt like I was glued to where I stood, forced to watch her get farther and farther away.

"Oh yeah?" Chloe snapped, "then why haven't you opened the package? That's something that needs to get done."

With a slam, she closed the door to the guest room. I wanted to go after her but instead found my steps leading me to the closet. As I heard the front door smash shut over the sound of the shower still running, my eyes fell to the cardboard box with no return address sitting at the bottom of the closet.

The package from Chloe that had brought me back to with Basset-forsaken city in the first place.

Bet you forgot about that package, it was like 17 chapters ago! Well, you are always welcome to reread. :)