Aria clutched at the blade buried within her abdomen. She gave a gasping breath as her legs began to weaken, and she collapsed. A pair of arms wrapped around her, and she could hear voices shouting as police sirens wailed in the distance.
How had it come to this? Had the years of pain, betrayal, loss, all been leading her to this moment?
The sirens grew louder, and Aria weakly gripped the arm of the person who was holding her.
"You have to go," she said softly.
"No, I ain't leaving you. You're all I got-" His voice trailed off as she began to cough, blood trickling out of her mouth.
"Riff, you have to go now. They can't catch you here, you'll be sent upstate!" Tears glistened in his eyes and she gave him a faint smile. She looked beyond him and saw her brother standing there, his mouth pulled into a grimace. "Take care of each other for me, will ya?"
Tony nodded, and her gaze shifted back to Riff. He laid her down on the ground, and gave her one last look before grabbing Tony and running off into the night.
As the sirens drew near, and her consciousness waned, she was taken back in her mind to that summer night a year before, on a back alley street in the West Side. The night when her life had changed, forever.
YOU ARE READING
The Space Between- Riff (West Side Story)
FanficAria's life changed the night Tony was arrested. Without her brother, she struggles to find a reason to survive. Until a certain boy walks back into her life...
