TWISTED

ONE; BRUNO

ONE; BRUNO

As fast as my feet could take me, I sprinted through the shaded alleyways of the city, overwhelmed by the sudden rush and revival of moving again. It had been forever since my shoes had smacked the ground unforgivingly, making me victim to lost breath and blood-pumping palpitations. The run had always been something for me to hold to my chest, since everything else was either temporary or just as easily taken as it was given. I craved the sensations, the stimulation, the power in my body, but as I weaved in and out of milling, yelling people, trying desperately to keep hidden, I was forced to think twice about my plan of taking lead in another chase.

My lungs burned, like the chill of winter air I was inhaling had somehow transitioned into scorching flames in my ribs, causing the intakes of needed oxygen to sting my every nerve. The heels of my feet began to ache miles ago, but my brain continued to fuel my body's energy with the horrific images of the consequences if I let myself be caught. I could picture it, smell it, taste it; the basement, the sleepless, mindless torture, and the inhumane laugh of Dane Parker as his men scavenged my body for anything he might have left behind.

The remembered horrors, alone, terrified me, so the fact that I could be there, again, reliving pain as if it was created for me and only me is what kept my endless running...endless.

I shoved a man out of my path, to keep from colliding with him, which earned me a grumpy shout in return, but I was forced to ignore him in order to maintain my speed. My head was turning as I rounded the corner onto a new street—a part of town I didn't go down often or alone.

It wasn't easy to ignore their shouts, however, as I continued my quick-pace trek, my dark hair spilling over my flushed face every time I glanced over my shoulder. I maneuvered my frame between dumpsters and the small cracks between buildings, pushing the thudding of my heartbeat from my throat to my toes. I cursed my human body; it was so useless. I needed to be faster, a machine—cold and lifeless. That, or I needed to be able to bend time. If the sun's rays sunk quicker over the horizon, by my command, then I could hide, refuel, and regroup with darkness as my background, my ally.

"You can't run forever, sweetheart!" Dane's voice echoed between street corners and shop windows like a ghost's. "I won't give up, but your body will. Then, you'll be mine again, just like it's supposed to be."

I ducked under low hanging laundry that connected the buildings by strings, stumbling blindly a few times due to cracked pavement. Nonetheless, a smile grew on my face when I spotted the end of the alleyway and all the people moving past it, thoughts of freedom appearing in my brain.

A piece of broken curb is what kept me from this freedom, and soon I was falling forward, diving headfirst into concrete, until strong arms pulled me to the chest they were attached to.

"Slow down, po 'correre via," the stranger spoke, a laugh hidden underneath, "or you'll fall and ruin your pretty knees."

I whipped my head upward to face gorgeous, deep grey eyes. My brain fuzzed for a moment, the change of hard, grey concrete to soft, grey loveliness derailing any thoughts I might have had. It lasted only a second of real world time because, soon, I was thrashing in the stranger's arms. "Let go of me, asshole! I swear, if they catch me because you—"

Something slammed closed around me, and darkness blanketed my vision, until a small light streamed in from a crack between the edges of two wooden doors. Alarms went off in my brain, somehow more loudly than the heartbeat in my ears, and I opened my mouth to scream. I didn't exactly know what screaming would gain me, but flight was taken from me, meaning fight would have to give its all. The smallest noise escaped from me before my mouth was smothered by the same hands that saved me from ruining my pretty knees on the sidewalk.