Crash and Burn (1)

don't breathe

♚ ♛

ACT ONE

BREATHE.

Run. Run. Run.

"¿Dónde está?"

Nowhere.

Hide. Never stop spidering through shadows of empty lots and deserted parks and back alleys. Stay lost. Stay in motion. It was the only way to survive. Because if you couldn't be caught, you couldn't be killed.

"Ah, mierda," a low, thick rumble, too close, "it was her."

It wasn't difficult to get lost—or stay lost—in a city that never ran out of hiding spots, but New York City had become a psychological playground, and I'd fucked up.

"¡Búscala!"

I stumbled as I spared a single glance over my shoulder that I knew could get me killed.

My head tilted. Hazy, the sheen of a gleaming, pink-white sign above, blurred vision, heavy, wet lashes glittering in panicked blinks. Icy fingers clutched at my heart, and I recognized them as my own, fisting my damp sweater, desperate to hide skin. My gaze skittered. Light bouncing off the wet sidewalk, grit and gravel, skewed into fluorescent colors. Slick, like an unfinished oil painting. Nausea. Turpentine. My head spun.

Breathe.

Where was I?

Breathe.

I slowed to a tiptoe, calves burning, and... blinked numbly. My throat tightened, tongue darting out, sandpaper dry, heart skip... skipskipskipping... into hiccuping gasps. No.

It couldn't end in a narrow, dead-end alley on the edge of Ridgewood. Nowhere.

Breathe.

Footsteps. Echoing.

I whipped around too quickly. Fuck. My head jerked, and I stumbled, lightheaded from the whiplash, searching shadows for... something... to help. Always have an escape plan, he'd say.

"D, round the building," a tin command, muffled by rain, lost in a darkness. "Fuck." I lurched a dizzy right, shouldering against the building, flattening, and sinking deeper into the shadows I'd scoured. "Quick."

My palms, scraped and soaked, raking across damp brick.

"Cabrona."

Something. Anything.

My hands shook.

Breathe.

In. Out.

Breathe.

Up, up, up, I glanced up. I stuttered, slowed, stopped on a sideways slope, glimpsing the cheap, trashy halo of fluorescent light, hanging over a dark doorway that probably led to a dive bar I could get lost in. My pulse spiked. Sometimes, the safest place was a crowd. Simple.