It's Complicated

Prologue

My phone buzzed in my pocket for the tenth time. I pulled it out, clicked ignore and shoved it in my purse and kept running. I wiped the tears off my cheeks. Where I was going, I didn’t know. All I knew was I was lost in these dark allies. My foot hit something hard and I went flailing onto the ground.

             “Ow. Crap.” My hands were bleeding. I squeezed my eyes shut. Blood is one of a few of my phobias. My stomach flipped. The rusty, metallic smell filled my nose as I took my sweatshirt off and cleaned my hands and knees with it. When I looked up and saw a light. The way out of here. A car flew by the light and was then gone. It was no more than a hundred feet away.

            I stood up and started to sprint to get out of here when, a huge figured stepped into the opening. My blood ran cold. He was huge. From what I could see his arms were rather large. I couldn’t see any facial features but I could see he was wearing a fitted tee making him look larger than he probably was.

            “Don’t you lay a hand on her, Alex!” the man screamed. As he did two hands slammed down on my shoulders. I let out a blood-curdling scream. Someone was behind me and had a tight grip on my shoulders. I could feel extreme warmth flood from his hands into my shoulders. God, this man had to have a fever.

            “Let me go!” I struggled to get free but as I did so the grip only got tighter. The strange man in the exit started running towards us. I felt the cold barrel of a gun press against my shoulder blade, luckily on the right side away from my heart. The man who wasn’t holding me drew his gun.

            “Shoot her, and I’ll shoot you!” he threatened sharply, slowly moving closer and closer. With every step Alex’s, I assume his name must be, grip got on me. I squeezed my eyes shut, whimpering softly. The man took one more step; a gunshot rang out as he passed an invisible line. I screamed as a sharp pain shot through my entire right shoulder. Another shot rang out as the grip on me loosened and I fell in a heap in the ground.

            My vision went blurry as I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness. I struggled to hold on as I saw Alex running down the ally. I rolled onto my back whimpering in pain. I looked down at my hands and they were covered in red sticky liquid.

            “Marley, are you okay? Marley…Marley…” then man was knelt beside my holding my wounded shoulder. The last thing I remember is, him pulling out his cell phone and everything going black.