Rush

Prologue

Laying on the ground, it's all she can do to open her eyes. All she can hear are the horns from cars, people yelling and screaming. After hearing the sounds, she knew that she wasn't in her room, but was looking up into the dark sky full of bright stars. After a couple minutes she starts to feel a huge amount of pain. When she is able to move her arms, she brings her hands up to her throbbing head. Putting both hands at the sides, she starts to rub at her temples to try and relieve her headache. After failing to relieve her headache she pushes herself up off the ground, looking around, She notices a dumpster right infront of her. There was a brick wall that seemed to be from a building on one side of her. From everything around, her it was safe for her to assume that she was in an alleyway. Turning her head to look at the other side of herself makes her freeze in her spot, as she looks down, she notices a puddle and a body lying in it.

She slowly starts looking closer at the body who it is, taking in the body moving up to the face. She stops in her tracks, shaking her head. It can't be Taylor, it just can't. Her friend would have come down this alley alone, or even with someone. Backing up, she smacks into the brick wall. She starts looking around for her purse; she never leaves her house without it. She turns toward where she woke up, hoping to see her purse there. She notices that it is closer to the dumpster. Grabbing the purse, she walks to a spot with better light so she could look for her phone. After looking around for about five minutes she knew that she didn't have it with her. Out of frustration she throws her purse on the ground.

"What's going on down there? " a man yells from the shadows.

"Sir, can you help me?" she starts to say franticly. "I don't know what happened. I just woke up on the ground and found myself here." as she was explaining herself the man was using his light to shine around the alley. His light lands on the body and he stops. She notices that the man has found the body. Trying to think of something to say so that he wouldn't think it was her; "I don't know what happened. Can you please help me?" she say franticly as she slowly starts to stand.

The man notices that she was not standing and slowly walking forward. "No!" the man yells, "stay where you are. I'm going to get some help. Stay where you are. I'm n=sure the police are going to want to talk to you." he starts to walk backwards out of the alley. Once he knows that she's not going to follow, he turns around and starts to run.

After the man disappears from her sight, she slowly walks toward the brick wall, leans against, it and starts to slowly slide down it. She brings her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around her legs, laying her head on her knees, and looking back toward her friend's body, trying to think how this could have happened. While looking at her friends body tears start to form in her eyes. Suddenly she starts to hear sirens and see's red and blue light. The man from earlier that she was talking to is showing the police where she was.

"That's the girl sitting up against the wall. She's the one that was asking for help." the man says while pointing to the girl.

The cop squats down next to her, "Can you tell me you name?" the cop asked politely.

Lifting her face up with tears evident on her face, she looks at the officer. "Ashley Groves," she hiccups while wiping her face.

The officer pulls out a note pad, writing down her name before asking, "Can you tell me how you got here? Or what happened?"

Looking around the alleyway, Ashley tries to come up with something, facing the cop she shakes her head. "All I can remember is waking up. Everything else is blank." she looks back at her friend sadly.

The officer notices that Ashley keeps looking at the body. "Do you know this person?" he asks.

Ashley nods her head. "Yeah, she's one of my best friends. Her name is Taylor Kingston. We came from the same orphanage." looking toward the officer, she sees him writing everything down. 'Why are you writing that down?" Ashley asks curiously.

Looking back up toward her he responds. "We just have to cover all our bases to find out what happened to your friend. Now, I'm going to take you back to the station and let you calm down a little. It'll give you time to think about more about what happened here as well," he says helping her up and showing her to the car.