Jessica Allen was not having a good day. Part of it might have been the dream she'd had the night before; it seemed that every time she was actually having a good night's sleep, the creepy eye-patch lady showed up, foretelling doom.
She didn't even want to think about what had happened the last time she'd dreamed of the black-clothed woman. That was still a sensitive subject.
At the moment, she and Mel were rocketing down the most rickety set of stairs she'd ever seen. They shook ominously under her boots, and the thought occurred to her that it would be a miracle if they got off them alive. She rounded the last landing, and the two of them clattered down the last ten steps, landing in an empty hallway.
It was dusty, and cluttered with abandoned junk. Jessica felt Mel, clinging to her hand, give an involuntary shudder. From what she remembered of the stories Mel had told her in the tumbledown sheds, sewers, and other crannies they'd lived in, she understood why. This place probably reminded her of the place she'd been forced to call home.
"C'mon." Jess said, tugging the little girl to the right. Mel followed unresistingly, though she didn't seem that happy about it.
"What if they've figured out where we went?"
"Then we're probably surrounded." Jess answered casually.
"And what'll we do?"
"Don't over think it, Glowie." Jess said, smirking down at the little girl.
Mel rolled her eyes. "Why do you still call me that?"
"Hey, I'm not the one who explodes into sparks, okay?" Jess shot back. A door loomed ahead of them, nearly falling off its hinges. Jess mentally cursed her bad luck – of course she'd pick a place that had long been abandoned, where there was no chance she'd find some convenient stray resident to create a diversion with.
The two of them burst out on the street. It was almost as abandoned as the building that called it home. A newspaper blew past in the dismal wind, and Jess could hear practically everything.
Nevertheless, it wasn't her ears that told her what would happen next. It was definite foreknowledge. She pushed Mel into the street, hissing, "Run."
The two of them ran across the empty asphalt, Mel's coat she'd gotten from who-knew-where billowing out behind her. They slid into an empty space between two of the buildings across the way, and burst out into the alley behind the brick blocks just as the sounds of shouting broke out behind them, hurried inquiries about where their target had gone.
There were no police in the alley, thankfully. They'd apparently not managed to cordon off the area in time. Jess slipped an arm around Mel's thin shoulders as they casually headed towards the place they were currently calling home. A successful escape had been made once again.