TRIGGER WARNING: Drug use, rape threat, violence and death.

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When I came to, my head throbbed in pain. I weakly pulled myself up, feeling very dizzy and disconnected with reality. My head was absolutely pounding. It took me a while to realise that I had been left with my face in a white powder. I wiped my nose and saw the powder on my hand, suddenly remembering it was cocaine. Fuck, I had no idea how much I inhaled while unconscious, but I definitely had some in my system. I looked around, trying to work out what happened while I was unconscious. Things were all in a disarray around me. There was broken glass and blood on the table and floor beside me. Clearly there had been a fight. Then it hit me that the repetitively pounding sound wasn't just in my head, but also coming through the other side of the room. I peeked over the back of the sofa and saw Cyan's groupies were holding Jake up while Cyan beat into his abdomen. Cyan himself had a few cuts and bruises. Blood was running down the side of his face. It didn't take a master detective to know what happened while I was unconscious.

However, they were so occupied with Jake that they didn't realise I had woken up. Jake glanced up and saw me looking at him in horror, but he kept a straight face as he took the next hit. I contemplated causing a distraction, but if they had managed to restrain Jake while he raged at them, a distraction wouldn't be enough. Unless it was a big distraction. No, a huge fucking distraction with guns and explosions. It was crazy, but I pulled out my phone and did the one thing I could think of. I went to the police's website and filed a simple, anonymous report.

<<Nym-0s is at the rave in Colville. He's got a gun, send help quickly!>>

Adding the address for good measure, I hit submit and put my phone away. Glancing to the side I noticed a broken bottle. I grabbed it just in case and ducked behind the lounge. How long would it take before they were swarming the building? Normal police would easily take 20 to 30 minutes, but Jake's pursuers? They should be scrambling a helicopter right away, right? Just a bit longer, Jake. I was so consumed in anticipation that I hadn't noticed Cyan stopped hitting Jake and was hovering over me.

"Boo!" he smiled.

"Stay away from me!" I swung the bottle at him.

"So feisty!" he laughed.

He slapped my face hard with the back of his hand, then kicked the bottle out of my hand. In one fell swoop he grabbed my arm, pulled me to my feet and over to Jake, who looked on with panic on his face. Jake yelled out in German something fierce. I could only imagine the death threats he was shouting. Cyan grabbed my jaw and kissed my lips forcefully. I bit his lip hard, drawing blood. He punched my stomach, which caused me to vomit suddenly. I fell to the ground as my stomach emptied. Cyan yelled something in German to one of the others and they handed him a needle.

"No, no!" My eyes widened in fear it was a paralytic.

"You need breaking in, bitch," Cyan said as he readied the needle.

"You fucking asshole! I will gut you alive and let the rats feast on your intestines!" Jake yelled.

"Get the Devil's Breath for that one!" Cyan ordered his subordinate.

"You wouldn't," the colour drained from Jake's face.

"Why would I get my hands dirty when I can get you to do it for me?" Cyan shrugged.

"No amount of Devil's Breath would ever make me hurt her," Jake growled.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Cyan smirked to Jake. Then he turned back to his subordinates, "Come on!? What's taking so long? Ugh, we'll just have to start without it. Pick her up."

I needed to stall out the injection for as long as possible. No matter what was in the needle, I knew it would hinder my ability to escape the oncoming raid. My mind struggled to come up with ideas on how to stall out, but it was too hard to think straight. One of the subordinates came up behind me and lifted me to my feet forcefully. With one hand holding my arm painfully behind my back, he put his arm around my neck in a choke hold. I was running out of time, in a panic, I said the only thing I could think of.

"They're coming! His pursuers are coming!" I announced. "Either you get out now, or you'll get caught in the crossfire!"

"You're lying," Cyan frowned. "You wouldn't do something as stupid as revealing his location."

"Am I? It sounds like you don't know me like at all. I took on a legend and won!" I smiled.

"What the fuck does that mean?" Cyan laughed.

"It means she's capable of doing the most unexpected shit possible," Jake grinned. "Good job, MC."

"Clock's ticking. This place will be swarming with SWAT soon," I smiled.

"Then I'll just hand you two fucking idiots over!" Cyan shrugged. "And I'll take the reward money while I am at it!

"With all the drugs you have on display here? You'll be going down with us," I bluffed.

Cyan's eyes twitched as he glared at me. He was still unsure whether he should take my threat seriously or not. "Where's the fucking Devil's Breath!?"

"Tick, tick, tick," Jake mocked. "Boom!"

As if on cue, the music cut off and the house lights were turned on. There was a loud bang and screams from the floor below. Cyan looked over his shoulder and waved to his thugs to guard the stairs.

"You really are fucking psychotic!" Cyan yelled as he walked off. "Tie them up! Let the police find their prizes!"

While my captor was distracted by the noise downstairs, I bit his arm and squirmed out of his hold. There were more explosions from the bottom floor as it erupted in chaos during which Jake got of his captors' hold. Meanwhile I grabbed the broken bottle from the floor and turned just as my captor went to grab me again. I thrusted my arm out and plunged the broken glass into his stomach. He revealed back in surprise, but before he could retaliate, Jake came up behind him and snapped his neck.

"Come on! We have to go!" Jake grabbed my hand and pulled me up to my feet.

"Where are we going to go?" I panicked as Jake led us to the far end of the floor. There was brief gunfire on the stairs behind us between Cyan's men and the special ops team. "I didn't really think this part through!"

"The roof!" Jake yelled.

Sure enough at the far end of the floor there was a door marked "Roof Access". I had to wonder if he knew it was there or if he found it by sheer luck. We went through the door, ran up the stairs and exited onto the roof. Of course there were multiple helicopters circling the area, but as they were focused on the fleeing crowds, they hadn't noticed us running along the top. Jumping, climbing and leaping across from one roof to the next, we covered a great distance before we reached an alley between buildings. There was no way across, but no way down either.

"I'll jump first. Don't jump until I signal!" Jake ran back.

"Wait, what? We're not going to jump off the roof are we?" I questioned.

"Of course not! We're going to jump to the next building!" he laughed.

I surveyed the situation. The alley was narrow, but the next building was still a good distance away. The roof was lower than ours, but even so making that jump would be a miracle.

"There's no fucking away we can reach that!" I exclaimed.

Jake ran back a few paces, then ran full speed to the end of the building and flung himself across the gap. At first I was impressed, I thought he would clear it no problem, but he ended up hitting the end of the roof into his chest and had to make a mad scramble to get up.

"Oh fuck no! There's no way I can do that!" I cried out.

"You're lighter than me! You can do it!" Jake yelled from the other side of the alley.

Whether it was the fear of being caught or the drugs in my system lowering my inhibitions, I took a few steps back and ran to the edge. As soon as I reached the edge and leapt into the area, I prayed for any wind god to provide me just enough lift to get across the gap. Unsurprisingly, I didn't make it, but Jake grabbed my arms as I impacted on the side of the building. He grunted loudly and pulled me up just enough so I could pull myself the rest of the way.

"Can. We. Never. Do. That. Again!?" I stressed as I tried to regain my breath.

"We're not in the clear yet, we have to keep moving," Jake said as he stood up. He winced in pain as he leant over to give me a hand.

"Are you ok?" I panicked.

"Yeah, just a few bruised ribs now more bruised," he laughed it off. "Come on, let's go."

I followed Jake as he trailblazed across the next uneven roof. At the far end we found a set of exterior fire escape stairs. Carefully we lowered ourselves down to them, then ran down the metal steps back down to the street level.

"Ugh, solid ground, I'll never tire of you," I fought the urge to kiss the pavement.

A helicopter flew past overhead, reminding us that we still had a great distance to go before we could rest.

"We could try to get back to our hideout," I suggested.

"No, it's too far. We need to get under cover now and wait out the 'copters," Jake went up to the adjoining building and examined the electronic lock on it. "Come here."

"What?" I walked up beside him. He rubbed his finger over my cheek and smeared the lingering cocaine over the keypad. "Hey!"

"At least it was good for something," he laughed. After a few attempts at the passcode, he unlocked the door, "Easy peasy!"

"Were you really going to stand there and brute force it?" I remarked.

"Without my equipment, you think I had an easier way to do that?" he raised his eyebrow as he held the door open for me.

I went in and immediately pulled out my phone to illuminate the inside. Like many of the buildings around us, it was empty and dusty. Jake pushed past with his phone and explored further into the building.

"Over here, this room has no windows," he called out.

I followed him into the room. Judging by the old, weathered desk in the middle of the room, it must have been an office. On the side was a torn up leather couch.

"Hmm, I was going to suggest you take the couch, but you probably shouldn't sleep yet," Jake sighed and pointed his light in my direction. "Turn around, let me see your head."

I turned away and removed the wig that was barely holding on anymore, "Shouldn't we be more worried about you?"

"Me? I'm not the one who had a concussion," he argued as he ran his fingers over my head. "There's no blood. It looks like the wig dampened the blow. However, I still think you should try to stay awake for the next few hours."

"Oh good, that'll give us a chance to talk," I said sarcastically as I turned back to Jake.

"MC... I don't know what to say. I did not expect... that... from Cyan. Well, you can really only ever expect the unexpected from him, but that was..." Jake trailed off.

"Insane?" I finished his sentence for him. "You could have just told me that you didn't want to go to the rave because some neurotic asshole from your past ran it."

"First, I wasn't sure he was behind it until we arrived. And would you have honestly let it drop without it leading to more questions? It's not like I wanted to have that discussion with you in the middle of a store," He argued. He rubbed his face, before continuing. "I certainly didn't know he was going to be in a mood tonight and looking for someone to prey on. I would never have taken you if I had known."

"Shirt off," I ordered.

"Excuse me?" He looked at me confused.

"I need to check your bruises," I insisted.

He folded his arms protectively, "They're fine."

"Oh for fuck's sake, let me see them!" I yelled.

Jake reluctantly pulled his shirt off, revealing his badly bruised ribs and stomach to me. I ran my phone's light over them. There was no way he didn't have at least one cracked rib.

"Jake..." I sighed as my fingers gingerly ran across his skin.

He gritted his teeth, "I am fine. I have had worse."

"From him!?" I exclaimed.

"No. Cyan, he, uh, he has a tendency of starting fights with others, as I am sure you can understand. I don't think there was ever a time I didn't have one bruised rib or another," he recollected.

"How much of that shit he said was true?" I asked.

"Can we not do that right now?" Jake's shoulders dropped.

"Oh, we are doing this right now. In fact, before we get started, hand me whatever fucking drugs you have on you right now! You have lost all right to privacy!" I demanded and put out my hand.

"MC, let me explain!" He pleaded. "I only added a small amount to your drink to help you relax and enjoy the event!"

"Excuse me!? And you thought that was acceptable!?" Containing my fury was getting harder and harder.

"You asked for something hard! It's not like alcohol is any better! It's a drug too! And when we were dancing, it felt great, didn't it? That's all I ever wanted for you," he stressed.

"The fucking drugs, Jake! In my hand, now!" I snapped.

Jake reluctantly reached into his pants' pockets and pulled out four pill bottles, one with an unknown pill, one with crystals and another two full of powder. I recognised the crystals as ecstasy, but everything else were unknown to me.

"Oh, what the fuck is all this!? You had this much on you!?" I screamed.

"I had just bought more," he mumbled.

"You mean when you lost me in the crowd? That's because you had gone to stock up?" I glared.

"MC, please, I need MDMA and Ketamine. I use MDMA for the PTSD and I know I said I recovered, but the truth is I am still in pain. A lot of pain and some days the pain is too much for me to ignore. Regular pain killers aren't enough! I need Ketamine!" he stressed.

"That's such a fucking lie!" I stomped my foot.

"It's not. I wish it was, but it's not," he sighed. "I haven't had any today, ok? If I was an addict, I would be on it right now and getting fucked over by the amount of coke I just had."

"So you drugged me and not you?" I slapped him across the face.

"I was trying to stay sober for us," he rubbed his face. "You don't know how much I wanted to. Seeing you lose yourself, I wanted to be lost with you. I wanted to share that experience with you."

I shook my head and stuffed the drugs in my pockets. "Well if you really need them, you'll have to ask me first. Imagine that, you'll have to beg a stupid American for your drugs."

"MC!" He bit his tongue. "Fine, you want to do this now? We'll do it. We'll bring up all those dark emotions that I have spent a fucking long time trying to bury. Was I furious at you? Yes, I was! I spent months in that recovery ward being unable to check up on you, nevermind trying to contact you, and when I finally got out and got my hands on a fucking computer, I found that the girl I had confessed all of my feelings to had moved on like it all meant nothing!"

"I thought you were dead!" I yelled.

"I hacked your web camera! You were fucking some asshole in your room! There wasn't the slightest bit of mourning on your face!" He exclaimed. "The girl I nearly died for! The only reason I had been in those fucking mines! And you were screwing some dip shit instead of looking for me!"

"The reason you went into the mines? You went in for Hannah!" I clarified.

"No! Don't think I didn't know about your plane tickets! You were already on your way! I went in to keep you from doing something stupid! And I stayed after Alan found Hannah for you! To find your Richy! Because I knew how much finding him meant to you! Look what that fucking earned me! A lifetime of fucking agony! But the part that hurt the most was finding out you were fucking someone else while I was in the hospital!" his eyes were so full of fury now.

I shook my head, "I didn't know! In my mind you had to have been dead! It didn't make sense that you wouldn't have given me proof of life! To think you were anything but dead or captured meant you wanted nothing to do with me and thinking that cut so deep! So you had to have been dead. It was the only logical reason I thought. So yes, I sought comfort in other men. I had a huge fucking gaping hole in my heart! And don't act like I committed a sin when you did the same with Trix!"

"Only because of what you did to me!" he yelled, then took a deep breath. "It took me a long time to get past that anger, but it only takes a moment to bring it all back!"

"Like that hate for Americans. So stupid that you can convince me to suck your dick while you rob me blind? Oh wait, that's already happened," I said exasperated. "Wow, what a fucking idiot I am."

"MC, your money is safe," he stressed.

"Is it?" I frowned. "How do I know?"

"Oh come on! I've held the password to your account for years! I could've wiped you clean at any time!" he argued. "I held the keys to destroying your life, but I never used them! You have no idea how much I wanted to ruin you, but I didn't!"

"You want a fucking medal!?" I asked exasperated. "Anyway it was the dick sucking part that needed to be fulfilled first."

"It was a dark time in my life! I am not that person anymore! You can't hold me for any shit I said back then, especially when I was on CK!" he groaned. "Like you never said stupid shit before."

"You hated me that much?" I asked.

He sighed, "Only because I loved you that much."

"Did you sabotage my relationships?" I questioned.

"Yes, I planted false evidence on the first few," he admitted. "I was very spiteful! I wanted to see your relationships crumble!"

"You were a fucking child, upset he wasn't getting his way while doing nothing about it," I rolled my eyes.

"I have always said I am not proud of that version of me," he pointed out. "Now more than ever."

"Do you still hate me?" I questioned.

"I don't hate the you I see before me," he answered vaguely. "I hope you can find it in your heart to judge me as I am today, not who I was back then."

"Do you harbour any feelings of hate?" I reworded my question.

"Argh, fine, I hate what you did to me back then!" he flung his arms around wildly. "I hate what you made me become!"

I slapped him again and he grabbed my hand. "I didn't make you become anything! That's on you!" I yelled.

"I hate the fact that I could never get you out of my head, no matter how much I used. I hate the fact that you were always haunting my every waking moment and my every nightmare! I hate that I couldn't replace you with another. Everyone was inferior to you. I hate that when I thought I finally got rid of you, you showed up at my doorstep," he unloaded. "I hate that my worst addiction and the only one I'll never be able to break is you."

"Jake," I muttered.

Before I knew it, our lips met in a heated kiss. Jake poured so much emotion into me. I could feel his pain, his hurt, his regret. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him in closer while his hands ran over my body.

I parted, gasping for breath, "I am still angry with you."

"So am I," he admitted.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out the ecstasy and shook out a crystal into my hand. "Angry sex it is," I declared before swallowing it.

"MC..." he looked at me with surprise.

"Well there's no fucking alcohol here, is there!?" I exclaimed.

Jake took the container out of my hand, "Angry sex followed by immediate make up sex."

I smiled, "Let's not waste time then."