gravity (SUMMERS)

CHAPTER ONE

Trigger warning: mention of blood/cuts in the last two paragraphs of the chapter

In an alley in a city whose name she had long forgotten, Solstice was being backed into the wall.

She knew Gasoline wouldn't be happy with her. She knew his face would crumple up and his mouth would fall open and he would start to curse at her, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't locate the bottle of expensive vodka he had requested.

"Here, girlie," Gasoline's crooked finger traced up her neck and along the edge of her jaw. "You think you can mess with me? You said you could get anything."

Solstice tried to hide how hard she was shaking. His breath stunk in the early morning air and all she could hear was her own jagged breathing.

"I have g-gotten you everything you asked for," she stuttered. "I've never let you down before."

Solstice began to think about the way her hand was balled behind her back, and how much she wished she had the knife from her satchel with her. Her bag had been discarded several feet away; she would never get to it before he caught her again.

"You let me down, now," Gasoline smirked crookedly. "I'm all out of patience."

Solstice began to wish harder for that knife.

Gasoline was leaning in closer, and Solstice felt it getting harder and harder to breathe. "You're a pretty young thing. Do you think there's anything else you can do for me?"

Solstice felt the handle of her knife slide in between her fingertips and her chest immediately decompressed. "Get away from me," she gritted through her teeth.

He let out the kind of chuckle that made revulsion army crawl through her stomach. "And what's a tiny thing like you going to do to me?"

She knew it was a bad idea; Gasoline was easily a foot taller, with tattoo lined muscles that bulged from the edges of his denim vest. He could take her out as easily as if she were a speck of dust on his shoulder.

But she took out the knife anyway. "I mean it," she said. "Get off of me."

Gasoline immediately backed off, holding his hands up as if he were innocent. The knife was shaking in her hands, but Solstice didn't think that he doubted she could use it.

His dark eyes glittered malevolently. "Alright then, I see. I'll leave you to your business then." He backed off into the shadows, just like that. She knew Gasoline wasn't one to fight if his opponent had an advantage.

Solstice waited until she could no longer hear the crunch of his walk before she ran.

Her feet crunched through pieces of cardboard and even kicked aside a lost teddy bear, but she didn't stop running through alley after alley. Solstice wasn't sure if she'd even seen some of these streets before- her hand gripped the knife to her chest like it was a life raft.

She'd started crying at some point. Fat tears carved down her cheeks and made a ring of wet splotches all around her collar. She'd just pulled a knife on the biggest threat in this part of town; who knows what could happen to her now?

Her vision was getting blurrier as she ran, and everything was beginning to have softer edges as her vision was reduced to less and less. She knew she should've stopped running a while ago, but she still didn't slow.

Until she collided with something.

Or, rather, someone.

Someone's hands seemed to instinctively grab her around the shoulders, pulling her back so they could see who she was.

Her knife was still gripped at her side, her tears rippling down her cheeks. She began to realize that she had bumped into a boy, around her age at least.

He was taller than her, though it wasn't hard to be, and his zip up red hoodie clung tightly to a broad chest. Most of his face was marred by a large pair of red sunglasses, obscuring the majority of his features.

Solstice wrenched out of his grip, knife raised at someone for the second time in the last hours. She realized she was sobbing, now- wet tears were more like rivers and her shoulders were trembling.

"Leave me alone," she pleads. "Please just let me go, and this'll have never happened."

"Whoah, whoah," the boy said. "Listen, you're Solstice, right?"

"How do you know my name?" It was accusatory, and might've even been threatening if she wasn't shivering and crying.

"I'm here to help you," his voice was soft, as if he were trying to avoid scaring off a deer. "Listen, you're bleeding, alright? Let me get you out of here and we'll get you cleaned off."

Solstice was shaking her head. "If you think I'm going anywhere with you, you're wrong."

The boy pleaded again. "My name is Scott, okay? Scott Summers. At least let me check out that nasty cut."

Solstice glanced at the hand that was holding the knife, realizing that a cut several inches long had sliced across her palm. It looked shallow, but could easily get infected in a place like this. It must've happened when she was running with her knife.

The handle of the knife was smeared in crimson. Drops of blood were running down her fingers. Solstice felt a rush of queasiness even looking at it; she had never been good with blood.

"Please," Scott said, one hand offered to her. "Let me help."

[unedited woOPS]