Eden | Raven Reyes (s.u)

Prologue

United States of America, Earth, 2043

The streets were deserted. A thick layer of dust blanketed everything, it was easier for most to just stay inside. A commotion interrupted the quiet tranquillity, car tires screeching against the pavement down towards the Bank, a cloud of dust following its every move. 

Blaire Stone couldn't deny the fleeting moment of freedom occurring after every successful bank robbery. The wind rushing through her hair, the identical grins on both hers and her twin's faces, the thrill of the red and blue lights that never seemed to catch them, however, it was always over too soon and she was forced back into her reality, in which she along with her brother were two of the most wanted criminals in America. 

This hadn't been the path that Blaire had initially chosen but after her parent's deaths and her brother's neverending path of vengeance and manipulation, Blaire was left with no other choice other than to join him. Somewhere along the way, the young, innocent girl who wouldn't hurt a fly had morphed into a hardened criminal, just because of her instinctive desire to look out for her twin brother, the last member of her family she had left. 

Even now as Blaine Stone whipped the steering wheel sending them skidding around another corner, the red and blue lights flashing in Blaire's peripheral, she could feel her brother's manipulative control on her, but as usual it was too late now.  Despite it all, she wouldn't still be alive if it wasn't for her brother, they had done what they had to in order to survive, even if it meant that others had suffered from their actions in the past. 

The pressure on the tires was incomprehensible as the twins whipped around a corner, the dust becoming unbearable as Blaire with a hand wrapped around her mouth, rushed to pull up the window to her right, her eyes streaming. 

The dust was everywhere. Covering their view of everything, including those red and blue lights, as much as Blaire whipped her head back and forth searching for any resemblance of a clue to their current whereabouts, there was nothing just a neverending dust storm surrounding them. 

A slight pop from beneath them shuddered the entire vehicle, the tires had finally given in. The getaway car that had never failed them had failed them. Within a second, the dust cleared, a tree looming at them out of the cloud of dust. Blaine tried swerving the wheel but it was too late, now down one wheel the other three refused to cooperate, Blaire hardly had time to flinch before the car smashed into the tree.

Groans filled the car, Blaire clutched at her head, her vision blurring. Within a second the passenger side door was ripped open, hands wrapping around her wrists, her shoulders tugging her roughly out, before shoving her down to the pavement, landing hard down on her right shoulder, cold metal clasped around her wrists. 

From her brother's angry shouts echoing through her head, Blaire knew that he was being given the same treatment. Those red and blue lights that had once been a sight of thrill now pulsed painfully against her mind, a dark red liquid dripping onto the pavement and it took Blaire longer than normal to realise that it was hers.  Out of the haze, a gruff voice declared their fate. 

"Blaine and Blaire Stone, you are now under arrest for several accounts of armed robbery across the United States of America. You are both hereby sentenced to the death penalty."

Blaire Stone exhaled, her head finally hitting the pavement, her eyes shutting tightly, hardly aware of her body being carried, her brother's angry shout of 'what were they were doing to his sister' and finally the feeling of a police car carrying both of them towards their eventual deaths, before everything faded away into the haze.