Love Finds You - Even If You're On the Run

Chapter 6

No single person should have been able to do this kind of damage. No single person… especially not a teenage girl. Sirens blared but they fell on deaf ears… more accurately ears of the dead. Corpses littered the floor, riddled with holes. Bullet holes. Drawers were open, papers scattered all around the floor - blood smeared the once pure white of the pages. Computers sparked and fizzed where bullets had been wedged. The office, so peaceful this morning was quite literally dead.

A teenager shouldn’t have been able to do this. Yet there she was, dressed in typical teenage attire. Nails painted, ripped jeans, hair straightened, bag with a school crest. Typical teenager one who didn’t deserve a second glance if casually passed. She was completely normal. Except for the military issue guns she held, blood splattering her cloths and the pleased cat-like smirk she wore. Except for the horrible ability she had just demonstrated. An inhuman ability to annihilate an entire room of people in five minutes.

“Hell’s ashes have finally ignited.”

Chapter 5;;

“Stop kidding me, where’s Vienna?” I meant for my words to sound fierce and unforgiving. Instead my voice wavered and squeaked, giving the question a rather pathetic feel.

Jake said nothing. His shoulders slumped slightly and his eyes had dropped to the floorboards. He seemed to be studying the smooth wood closely. His mouth opened. No words came. His mouth closed.  He shifted uncomfortably.

This isn’t right. He’s lying. I know he’s tricking me or something. It’s a joke. Like this whole thing has been. A joke or a dream or some crazy thing. Jake is lying. He has to be. I was struck suddenly by how little I knew of this strange boy. He had materialized out of nowhere and landed in the center of my suddenly upisdown life. He was some shadowy “government worker” protecting me against an “unknown menace” who was apparently using my identity. It sounded like a really bad action flick. I was the stand that didn’t belong in this web of events.  Jake was the center of the web – the only thing currently holding my fragile world together.  Why? Why is he the one holding me together? This boy I don’t know… what makes me trust him? Jake was my rock in the crazy storm that my life had rapidly become. The one solid thing I could depend on. As that realization hit another question was aroused in my mind.

 Can I really depend on him or is he an enemy?

As if sensing my thoughts, Jake looked up from the floor. He met my eyes and I could see the sincerity in his eyes.

“Vienna is dead, Ash.”

I flinched away as if his words had slapped me. In a way, they had. No… not slapped… his words had torn my heart out and ripped it in two.

“Vi’s dead?” I whispered, softly repeating Jake’s words. There was an air of heaviness upon those words, a sort of finality. Vienna. We’d been friends since middle school. We had shared countless lunches together. We had gotten up to typical teenage antics together – googling hot boys, watching movies, shamelessly flirting with guys way out of our league, buying cloths, gossiping…. That was gone? Forever? My best friend was dead?

“Oh my God.” My legs gave out and I hit the floor. The room spun around me as I balanced on my hands and knees.  Nothing seemed real. Nothing at all. What was happening to me?

I felt my shoulder being grasped. Suddenly I was pulled to my feet and face-to-face with Jake. My mind froze. I could feel his breath against my cheek. Too close. My breath caught, and this time it wasn’t my damaged lungs that were the source. Then he did something unexpected.

He slapped me.

I recoiled instinctively eyes wide, hand snapping up to my stinging cheek.

“Keep it together. Vienna is dead. You can’t change that. It’s not your fault, its mine.” Jakes eyes blazed and his voice had a sharp edge as he addressed me. “Working yourself into a fit is not going to bring her back. Look, you’re shaking. If another breathing fit comes on, you might die too. Do you want to die?”

I stared at him unable to think.

“Do you want to die?!” He snapped. His tone had a cold edge to it and his eyes glittered dangerously. His whole attitude had changed. His care-free and tender manner had chipped letting her see a sea of rage underneath.

“N-no.”  I forced the word out, taking another step back from Jake.

Jake watched me. His head tilted slightly in a puzzled way. The dangerous gleam drained from his eyes to be replaced with a thoughtful look.

“Keep it together. You don’t have a choice. Keep calm or you are going to die.” He tossed a glance at the guitar that sat in the corner. “I’m going out for some air.” He told me. His gaze remained on the guitar as he spoke. “Stay in the apartment. Do not leave under any circumstances. Don’t open the door. Don’t make phone calls. Don’t open the windows. Don’t cook anything, there’s food in the fridge.”

I jerked my head up, my eyes narrowing. “Don’t treat me like a child.” The statement came out soft and broken.  I hated it.

“Don’t act like one.” A slight smile played at his lips. With a shrug he turned and strode out of the room. I listened to his footsteps as he stalked down the hall. The footsteps halted.

“Seriously, don’t do anything stupid.” A slight joking tone laced his words. I was silent. The footsteps resumed. Then a door clicked open and snapped shut.

I crept to the doorway of the room and peaked into the hallway.

He was gone.

Like hell I’d stay in the apartment.

I padded out of the room and down the bland hallway.

I quickly noticed that Jake had decorated the tiny apartment sparsely. The walls were all white.  Once and a while a black-and-white photograph in a black frame would break up the seemingly endless white of the apartment. The photographs depicted a nature scene. A waterfall, leaves, a tree, rocks. 

The hallway ended in the living room. Or…what I guessed might be the living room. It was completely empty except for one object. A stainless steel toaster sat in the center of the room.

“That’s just weird.” I muttered. I shook my head. Everything about what had happened to me lately was weird. A toaster in an empty room shouldn’t surprise me.

I crossed the room to the door and pulled it open.  Rows of identical doors lined a walkway. An apartment complex. I could see a set of stairs leading down to the exit of the apartment building. I let the door click shut and stepped down the walkway. The sounds of the apartment’s occupants reached my ears in snippets as I walked past other doors.

“She wears short skirts I wear T-shirts! She’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers, dreamin’ bout the day…” An off key woman sung behind a closed door.

There was a bang on the wall of the neighboring apartment.

“Shut the hell up!”

The woman’s singing stopped to be replaced by a stream of curses as she yelled at her neighbor through the wall.

“So everyone’s rather neighborly then,” I remarked to myself. The woman’s cursing faded as I descended the stairs.

The stairs led outside, where I could see the apartment building Jake had brought me to while I had been unconscious. It was a run-down dirty excuse for an apartment. Graffiti marred the dirty, chipped brick walls and several apartment windows were shattered. Upturned shopping carts littered the city sidewalk. Burger wrappers and other bits of trash were scattered about. Other buildings, equally as dirty and old, crowded the space around the apartment building. I could hear car horns and sirens and the smell of decay and smog was thick in the air. 

I covered my nose in disgust. Where was this? Was this even Florida? Had Jake brought me to New York? Chicago?

I shrugged to myself. I was going to explore and take my time in returning to the apartment. A walk was the perfect idea for me to wrap my mind around the recent events. And Vienna... a hard lump formed in my throat at the thought of my best friend... I didn't believe she was dead. Not for a minute. She was MIA or something... maybe if I wandered around she would come bouncing up to me with sheepish smile and a excuse of how time had gotten away from her. How she hadn't meant to worry me. How she was perfectly fine.

I shuffled down the cracked sidewalk. As a second thought, I bent down and picked up a broken off segment of heavy pipe from the littered pathway. Just in case. Squaring my shoulders I wandered deeper into the city, clenching my broken pipe.