Later I'd tell myself that there was nothing I could've done. If I'd gone by any earlier I'd be dead too, and even death is worse than this. This...life I live. I am no longer who I was, and I don't know if I ever will be again. I still have nightmares every night. Cold, steely gray eyes haunt me in my sleep. Flickers in them that practically shouted at me that I would be the next to die.
Later I'd try to find comfort in that, the fact that there was nothing I could've done. There was no way for me to know that by walking home early, I would see something unthinkable, that I would have changed my life forever.
I had Nicky with me that night, a newer guard but a good one just the same. I don't think either of us will be able to forget that night. He's not dead, thank God, and I'm forever in his debt for what he did for me that night.
We were just walking. I wanted to be alone. So I walked by myself up ahead and Nicky followed behind. We were almost back when I heard the noises up ahead.
Someone was shouting, someone was whimpering and groaning.
"Nicky!" I whispered, and he'd come running up. "You hear that?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said, looking around.
We walked along, Nicky closer to me this time, before we heard a yell of "shut the fuck up."
I turned my head and heard a cry and saw a man standing with a gun and there was a bullet and then there was silence. Then there was someone running out of the alleyway, straight towards us.
Nicky stepped in front of me, pushing me down to the ground as the guy -- the murderer -- came to a halt in front of us, his eyes angry and glinting in the dark. Another shot rang out and Nicky fell to the ground seconds later, next to the branch that had hit him over the head.
After that, it's all just a blur. A blur that I can't completely remember, but will never forget.
All I can remember are scattered snapshots. Looking up. Calling the police. Hearing the sirens and shaking so badly I couldn't think of anything else.
And his face.
The thing that got me into this whole mess in the first place.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
A walk past a nameless alley.
A full moon. Bad omen.
Shouts.
Shots.
More shouts and more shots.
A yelp of pain.
Cowering in the bushes.
Shouts.
"There were two! Where is he? Where did the smaller one go? There were two of them, dammit!"
A frantic phone call.
Steely gray eyes and a crooked nose illuminated by moon and lamplight.
A gun raised.
The sirens screaming and snarled threats before a fist hitting my chin...the gun forgotten, lying on the pavement.
Footsteps running away.
The coaxing words of a policeman.
Darkness.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I don't even know if I know who I am anymore. I live each day in fear that someone will find me, no matter where I am or what I look like now. I don't know if things will ever be the same again.
Nightmares haunt me in my sleep. I wake up screaming every night, alone. No boyfriend is here to make me feel better, no strong arms to hold me and tell me it will all be all right. Not here, not in this new life. When I cry and think of what happened leading up to this I wonder if I'll see him again. When.
When.
