Chapter Thirty-Three

Parker's P.O.V

"Hey! Blondie, go get your uncle would you?" I shouted to the boy behind the desk. He couldn't have been older than nineteen but he was acting like a six year old. Granted, a snarling man carrying a shot gun had indeed just stormed into the once peaceful police station of a small town where scarcely any crime was committed - well, none that they knew of - but he could have at least ran and got back up. Especially seeing as this was about the seventh time I'd called him.

"He's scared," Ian laughed. I could tell he had no interest of turning the gun away from its current target - but perhaps that wasn't apparent to the boy. His hair was still ginger, but his eyes were a vivid blue; two stone cold stormy seas. They suited him more than his previous black set had and somehow managed to look more threatening despite what was probably the friendlier colour. Perhaps it was because it was the real him. They weren't masked behind anything. "He won't call for help."

"Help is on its way already," I said. "The call was made for his superior. You're going down, Ian."

"And you're willing to let you and your friends fall alongside me?" He asked. I said nothing, just stared down the barrel of his pointed gun. "How heroic of you. Well, I guess in that case..." He cocked the gun, the loud click making both Skylar and Matthew gasp aloud.

"So hasty?" I hoped he couldn't see how nervous I was. He'd known me since I was eleven thanks to Jason's parents being a friend of his, not quite as smart as Flora's dad to see that the man had changed. He'd worked with me since I was fourteen. Chances were he knew me well enough to understand I was hopelessly prolonging this. I didn't care. It was worth a shot. "I thought you'd want to make me suffer. Especially after stealing Flora from you. Don't deny it, you're jealous."

His jaw ticked, hand shook a little. "Jealous? Of you? Please. I have everything I want. Do you know how much money I've got being in the business I am? Do you know how much brains it takes, how much concentration, to be able to do what I have done? Become other people? I have talent and I'm rich. Why would I want to be a teenage kid with no girlfriend and daddy issues?"

"Flora is my girlfriend," I lied knowing that it would piss him off. She was as good as so it wasn't much of one, but a label never had been confirmed. There had always been so much going on. It felt good to say it at least this once. "So yeah, Ian, I think you're jealous."

"When did this happen?" It was working. His gun had lowered ever so slightly, distracted by a fact he hadn't been aware of.

"Right about the time you guaranteed Flora would despise you for as long as she lived. When you told her you'd murdered her father. So I guess it's your fault we're together, actually. Thanks for that."

He was in front of me within the space of a second, gun pushing into my chest. I didn't dare take a breath incase the rising of my chest somehow pushed Ian's hand into pulling the trigger. The cool metal seemed to seep through my shirt, chilling me to the bone.

"Flora," Ian growled lowly, mouth virtually frothing. His nose twitched as if the scrunching of his features was an attempt to reign in his temper. "Does not despise me. She might not be so fond of me at this moment in time, I admit, but she will grow not to fear me. She will grow to accept me first. Then she'll see my point of view, and then, perhaps, she'll even come to care for me."

"As a father?" I said, unable to help riling him some more. Of course he didn't think of Flora as a daughter. The guy, for reasons unbeknown to everybody save himself, thought it possible he and Flora could have a relationship. Flora had forced me to watch enough crime shows with her when struggling to fall asleep - honestly, CSI was like a morbid bed time story to that girl - to know that angering the murderer when he held a weapon never ended well, but I just couldn't resist. Whether it was nerves or adrenaline or fear, I couldn't seem to keep the words to myself. "Of course, it all makes sense now. You wanted a daughter and that's why you killed off her dad. You wanted a family. Creepy way of starting one, though, I must say. Took you a while, too-"

"SHUT UP OR I PULL THE TRIGGER!" He boomed. Skylar was sobbing in the background and I could hear Axel murmuring for her to quieten down. Distractedly, I noted that it was the most gentle I'd ever heard him sound and wondered if Axel had ever heard my voice change when speaking to the person I'd recently realised I loved most in the world. At least if things went south for me, I knew that Axel had found his Flora. I hoped the rest of them would, too. Even Hayden. Well, Flora's male equivalent. "You know I'll do it."

"I don't doubt it. I'm just surprised that you're taking me down in such an easy way, you know? I thought a guy like you would have been creative. Spiced it up a little. I mean, Flora ended up with me rather than you. She wanted me. Still wants me. How does that make you feel? Like you want to just shoot me in the chest, or like you want to make it slow and pai-"

He jerked the gun downward and pulled the trigger. Matthew screamed. The blast was short and sharp, not particularly loud, but it had popped my ears. They rang as I tried to make sense of the white hot pain lancing from my foot and up my leg. There was a hole in one of my boots, leather torn to expose a circle of skin and sock beneath. Crimson.

"I'm guessing you were going to finish up that sentence on the word painful. If so, then yes, I'd say the latter. Can't say creativity was ever really a strong suit of mine, but killing on the other hand? Inflicting pain? I think you'll find that's my expertise."

"Really?" I grimaced. The bullet to my foot was making my eyes tear up. "Thinking on the spot is mine."

I gave Ian only enough time to frown in confusion before I lunged at him. The gun flew from his hand and skidded across the floor as we collided and fell upon the linoleum in a fit of curses and grunts. The gun had fired as it travelled and Matthew was screaming bloody murder. There wasn't a second to spare a glance at him to check whether he was just being Matthew or whether he'd actually been hurt for our lives depended on my current concentration and Ian's distraction. I put all of my strength into rearing back my fist and plunging it straight into his face - but it wasn't enough.

Ian was as quick as a flash of lightening and just as lethal. Though I'd surely broken his nose, it had been nothing more than an annoyance to him, and myself the pesky fly that kept hovering around and causing it. He swatted me away as if I were no different, and I flew across the room until the wall slammed into my back with a force brutal enough to knock the breath out of me. Relentless, Ian's boot clad feet were already obscuring my vision and giving me barely a second to raise my hands in front of my face to deflect the impact of another blow. Skylar's screams mixed with Matthew's to create an ear piercing soundtrack to the brawl.

"Stop hurting him!" Screeched Skylar as Ian dragged his leg backward for another kick, but Topher intervened, Hayden and Axel flanking his either side wearing masks of determination. I sagged with relief. With Ian's attention diverted I got the few moments I needed to compose myself. Staggering to my feet was more of an effort than I'd like to admit and certainly wasn't about to voice - though I doubt I concealed my wobbling when upright all too well. I'd whacked my head against the corner of the wall when Ian had shoved me and it was clearly taking its toll.

"Dude," Matthew said, looking skittish again with eyes flickering between myself, the ongoing struggle with Ian and the receptionist cowering behind his counter. "You don't look so good."

"Neither do you," I felt an unfamiliar rush of paternility come over me as I snatched up his arm, blood coating it from elbow to fingertip like an ugly scarlet glove. "That shot that went off-"

"I'm fine and dandy," He replied, but his face didn't look it. His dark eyes exaggerated how pale he'd become, seemingly sinking into his scared face. Matthew wasn't a fighter. He might have sometimes pretended to be, but we all knew he'd never been into the violence. Never even taken part in it. He stood at the sidelines, screamed a little and later pretended we'd misheard. "But you look like Gillian McKeith just before she executed that infamous faint on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of He-"

"It'll be fine, Matthew." I glanced at his arm, furious, then at Skylar who was hovering anxiously behind him and staring at Axel just as he got hit upside the head. "Skylar, you and Matthew run through the back and find someone. God knows how they haven't heard the commotion, it's a fucking police station for Christ- Whatever. We'll keep him distracted whilst you both get help. Afterwards stay in the back until it all blows over."

"Maybe you should come with us," She started. "You don't look so-"

"And take that dweeb hiding behind his receptionist desk whilst you're at it before the guy has a bloody heart attack." I pressed Flora's phone discreetly into her hand.

She stared at me for a moment as if attempting to gage how resolute in my decision I was on fighting. Eventually she gave a reluctant nod of her head, took Matthew by the uninjured arm and sped toward the receptionist desk whilst slipping the phone into her pocket. Ian turned, looked as if he were preparing to strike the two of them out of the way, and thought better of it once realising I was back up on my feet. Axel, who hadn't noticed his sudden change of mind, leapt upon his back and clawed at his face before yelling at Skylar to run. And run she did.

I was about to come to his side, had in fact already made it half way there, when I spotted the gun lying unattended by Hayden's feet. We'd seen it at the same time, both of us meeting the other's eye at the exact same moment. One of the perks that came with always having had the one friendship group since young was the understanding you could share without having to exchange any words at all. I nodded my head just as Hayden did his and so it came as no surprise when the weapon came hurtling through the air, my hand already outstretched to catch it.

The metal was even colder in my grasp than it had been through my shirt when pointed at me earlier. Though I had held a gun and been shown exactly how to work it by my dad when there used to be one hidden underneath the floorboards of our living room for safety (the hiding place of which immediately changed after my father left and my mum had become aware of the messy situations I was winding up in with Ian), this somehow felt very different. It was like learning self defence. You could practice it, enjoy learning, but did you ever want to end up in a situation where you needed to carry it out?

"Axel, Topher," I said it quietly yet it managed to break through to everybody despite their shouting. Perhaps it was the contrast between the volumes of sound. Axel dropped from Ian's back, eyes bulging from their sockets, and hurried to the side as Hayden had, well out of range of the gun. Topher followed suit, looking more composed but still visibly shocked. Like Matthew's arm had been gloved in blood, his shirt was sticking to his chest from an expanding pool of it. My friends, hurt because I'd asked them to confess, a request which would have eventually hurt them anyway. We'd all committed illegal acts thanks to the man standing in this room. Everything that was awful stemmed from him. "Make sure you stay back."

"Well, well, well." Ian laughed and blood dribbled down his ginger stubble. I idly wondered how he managed to dye his beard ginger without getting it on his skin and making it look as if he'd dipped his chin in a pot of melted cheese, but didn't bother inquiring. "The tables truly have turned."

"Yeah," Snapped Topher, peeling the red fabric of his shirt away from the mysterious wound underneath. "So don't even think about throwing that bloody pen knife you've got stashed up your sleeve at him or he'll blast your fucking head off."

"Is that so?"

I didn't answer. In all honesty it was because I didn't know. My sister's death had haunted me for years, and that had been unintentional. A stupid seatbelt buckle left unclipped. What would a purposeful death do to me? Would I have more nightmares? Would it be Ian's face plaguing my dreams rather than Olivia's? I didn't want to see his face in my mind's eye for the rest of my life, or live with the guilt, but I couldn't imagine living another day in a world I shared with this man who'd ruined my life. My friends' lives. Flora's. The horrible things he'd done to Flora...

My hand shook as I raised the weapon. There were a few metres between us but I didn't doubt I was capable of hitting his chest from where I stood. "What's your real name?"

He cocked his head to the side. "That's really the question you want to ask me? The last question before you, as Christopher put it so lightly, blast my fucking head off?"

"If he doesn't do it I sure as hell will." Topher growled lowly. I reckoned he was still more than slightly peeved that he now only had half of a left ear thanks to Ian.

I shrugged, ignoring him. "It's as good as any."

"You used to be such nice boys. You did as you were all told. How the opposite sex can cloud a man's better judgement..." He shook his head. Hayden made a disgusted sound that, by the look on his face, he'd intended to keep inside. I didn't blame him. Nobody in this room could say they weren't scared other than the devil himself - who just so happened to be facing the gun held in my grasp. "I take it my little Flora's spun some elaborate tale that I am in fact not Ian Greene? A wild imagination, that one has."

My little Flora. I shuddered. She was a girl, not a piece of property - but if she had to be anybody's then god forbid she was anybody else's but mine. "Recorded it, actually."

"Excuse me?"

"We're here to take you down, Ian, and if that means we're going with you then so be it. We've all agreed it's the right thing to do, especially now that we've got evidence. It's over."

"Flora didn't record our conversation, she was too distraught. All she did was vomit on the stair case, the sink and then proceeded to bawl her eyes out like a child. None of which would have happened had you not forced my hand, might I add." He glowered as he spoke the last sentence as if I was somehow to blame for every inconvinient event for him that had happened since the confession.

"Are you telling me that this is my fault?" My hand was slick with sweat. It slipped over the metal and I was forced to grip it with both hands in case disaster struck. "Wouldn't you say what you did to Flora might have caused that reaction? That finding out you were Alexander, some fictitious brother of a dead man named Ian who you murdered in cold blood, who she'd tried to forget for years, might have shaken her a little? That it had nothing to do with me, but rather you, I don't know, say, murdering her dad when she was under the impression she'd been judged and abandoned by him?"

"Look at you," He smiled. "All in the know."

"What's your real name?" I demanded.

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"Tell me," I said through gritted teeth. "Or I shoot."

"Feel free," He glanced toward the opening door behind the receptionist desk where a group of fierce looking men and women in uniform armed with a generous amount of weaponry spilled out shouting orders at the pair of us about obeying them in the name of the law or something or other. I wasn't concentrating on that, however, but the superior look Ian held when he was already ten moves ahead of you with checkmate in sight. How had he won? Surely it had been we who were victorious this time? "Feel free," He said again, this time with an almost manic laugh. "But you'll never find Flora if you do."

Somebody was ordering me to drop the gun. Another unfamiliar voice demanding that someone snatch it from my grasp. It was Topher who eventually prised it from my rigid fingers, handed it over to the police with a mumble of explanation I couldn't hear. They were cuffing both Ian and I, still unsure of the details of the matter. I barely felt the cold hoops encircling my wrists, barely heard my friends protesting about the cuffs, for I'd already been plunged into the Antarctic Ocean and held beneath the surface for an eternity.

"What have you done to Flora?" I shouted. "Where is she? What did you do!"

The fluorescent lighting made the red that stained his teeth seem even grislier than what it was. "I've always been the guy that gets what he wants. Bit like Jason in that sense. So I guess if I don't get the girl," A hand shoved at his back, guns jerking toward him in a threatening manner so that he move toward the corridor. Just beyond that corridor lay temporary holding cells and interrogation rooms. They'd keep us separated, I knew that from experience. I would have been thankful for the segregation had it not been for the mention of Flora. Every hair on my body stood on end as he looked at me again, this time dead in the eye, and proceeded to finish his sentence. "If I don't get the girl, then nobody can."

Flora's P.O.V

I'd never particularly been a fan of small dark spaces. One, because they were small, and two, because they were dark. I guess it was pretty self explanatory. I'd never really been afraid of the dark, not within my home at least, but when elsewhere it made everything seem extremely unfamiliar. At least in my house I knew what ominous shape I was tripping up over (usually a stray sneaker, or this one time it was my magic 8-Ball which happened to roll on a particularly unhappy answer and later caused me to throw it out of my window) and the way back to a light source if I so wished. But being in a place unknown? In a confined space? It wasn't particularly pleasant, and on top of that there was something a little suffocating about unwanted darkness. It clung to you in a way that turning the light out for bed time didn't. Made you panic.

I closed my eyes in the hopes to calm myself even though I knew it made no difference whatsoever. When my eyes were open, I was faced with the endless black that surrounded me. Not that it was endless. It might have felt that way, but I was unable to even stretch my arm half way in front of me without it hitting the inside of the trunk of Ian's car. That's where I guessed I was, anyway. It definitely felt like a car boot minus the grocery shopping that was probably the normal contents of the average automobile. It certainly had been for mine. Particularly Twinkies and Lucky Charms. Also, considering the last thing I could most vividly remember was Ian striking me in the face with the butt of a gun, I could take no better guess as to who the vehicle belonged to. I certainly knew of nobody crazier than Ian.

Ian had proved as such on his grand exit. I had no idea how long ago it was when I'd heard my mother screaming from down the hallway. It was almost immediately after my mother had eventually bid me good night, reluctant to leave after hearing me calling Parker from my window. She'd thought it a nightmare, and being the concerned and loving mother that she was, had wanted to stay and reassure both herself and me that I was alright. Of course it was impossible to let her in with the very reason I was not alright standing just over her shoulder. Once wishing the pair a hurried good night and shutting the door behind them, I'd lay in bed for roughly five minutes debating whether or not to chase Parker down the street.

That's when I heard the cries of my mother. I'd nearly broken my legs in my haste to get to the bedroom but the door had been locked, unrelenting to my kicks and pounds against its surface. After what felt like a century had passed by, it opened to Ian. Just behind him was my mother, hands tied tightly to the bed post with what looked like a bed sheet. She was struggling to pull free of it, the bed pulling toward her with each attempt but the knot never loosening. Tears stained her face and blood trickled from her head, but more importantly Ian stood before me with a gun in hand.

"I won't hurt her if you do as I say." He'd said.

I didn't even need to think about it. Didn't need to give my mum a second glance. I ignored her shrill, hysterical protests and simply nodded my head in agreement. Given the chance to save somebody else, even if I didn't know them and even if it meant sacrificing myself, I would always take it. Living with the alternative would be something I was unable to bare. Guilt. The infinite amount of what ifs. And it was for my mother of all people. One of the people I loved most in the world. I'd sever a limb for the woman that created me and stuck by my side through thick and thin, so of course I'd risk my life.

"If you don't touch a hair on her head," I said hurriedly as I had watched him get a firmer grip of the shotgun. "Only then will I come with you. Not a single hair, you understand? No psychological hurting, either. No games. You leave her completely alone-" And he'd brought the end of the gun down to my temple with a force hard enough to knock me out completely.

The next thing I know I'm being jostled about from side to side, hitting the walls of an unfamiliar and very dark space. I'd only experienced a few minutes of it, during which I'm almost positive I heard the sound of screeching tires and revving engines, before it had all come to an abrupt end. I'd flown to the back of the small trunk as the vehicle had come to a sudden halt. Initially I'd suspected he'd executed an abrupt and highly illegal park of his car, but the animalistic grunts and muffled curses didn't make it sound that way. Nor did the harsh slam of the door or the eye watering stench of smoke. Just as I had no idea how long ago it was that I had entrusted the dereanged Ian not to hurt my mother, I hadn't a clue as to how long I'd been lying in the trunk, hands bound together by what I presumed was sheet just as my mother's had been, and with no means of escape.

I recited what Parker would murmur in my ear to make me laugh when I was having trouble remaining calm and level headed. He'd taken a liking for the phrase "If in doubt, SOS" and it didn't have anything to do with signalling somebody for help, but rather Sighing Out Softly. He thought of himself as rather a genius for coming up with it but I was convinced he'd heard it somewhere before. Nobody managed to conjure up something so easily that was relevant to the situation, good enough to make me laugh every time I heard it as well as make everything better in one fell swoop. It just wasn't possible - except maybe for Parker.

"Sigh out softly," I said to myself, choking half way through. My lungs were filled with the thick stench of smoke. It was making the darkness seem all the more threatening knowing it was hiding the smoke from my vision. I couldn't even see the thing that might eventually take my life. I thought of Topher and his cigarettes, the fumes I'd once thought had looked pretty as they snaked around his tousled hair now making me shudder. It was going to kill me. I was trapped without a phone or any means of communication in a car that had clearly been crashed and left stranded on god knows what street. "Sigh out softly, sigh out softly."

I was doing anything but that. My breathing was erratic, gasping in huge mouthfuls of the toxic air and unable to stop myself as I wheezed it back out. I'd once read you were supposed to kick the brake lights of a car out from the inside if you were ever stuck in a trunk but I had no idea where I'd heard that or if it were a fact. Perhaps I might have even dreamed it. At this point, what was reality? I couldn't even differentiate my left from right, never mind locate the brake lights in the pitch black. Would they even be visible if there was light? Did I just kick in their general direction? Was I already dead?

"Breathe in for three, hold for three, and out for three." I commanded myself. Automatically my thoughts went to Parker. It wasn't unexpected anymore, it was something that I'd long accepted. The person I yearned to see would normally be him, the voice my subconscious took held a remarkable resemblance to his sarcastic tones, and the person I automatically wanted to save me was that very same boy. I was always in a situation these days were having a saviour was necessary and I despised it. I didn't want to always depend on others, because sometimes others weren't there and never would be. Sometimes you had to depend on yourself. I was an independent woman, wasn't I? I could do just that. "Sigh. Out. Softly."

I kicked about, trying to find weak spots. Of course there were none. It was like trying to chop a brick in half with your palm. Perhaps the edges might crumble slightly if given enough force, but ultimately you were guaranteed for failure. Unless of course you were a black belt karate master, or whatever practice it was that had people in white robes and belts cutting things in half like blocks of wood with magical palms and-

As per usual, my mind had wandered off onto a road of which only I could go down. Being so consumed in my own thoughts, it took a while to realise how the floor - if you could call the base of the trunk that - was moving beneath me. I stilled, and with my lack of movement so did the flooring. I rolled onto my front, groped about the felt-covered interior.

I was lying on a lid to a box.

It took a great deal of squirming and readjusting to open up the mysterious space. It didn't take over the entirety of the trunk's base, just a large rectangle from the centre. This space had been modified and that, I realised, was why the trunk was so unnaturally tight concerning space. The question was why.

Unable to see, I felt blindly around its contents hoping for nothing slimy or warm. That was a worst case scenario. A giant worm or something. Ian certainly seemed the type to breed insectile hybrids. Thankfully what my hand came into contact with wasn't alive (though it would've been handy if he had created an animal that could burrow its way out of here and take me with it), but hard and smooth and with a coldness that bit into my fingertips. It seemed to be wedged in a plastic casing. Some kind of box especially designed to hold the metallic object- and something else. There was a dip next to it as if another object normally resided there but had been taken away. I prised the one that was there out, moved it from hand to hand and traced its outline in an attempt to decipher what it was. Long, slender, tapered to a forked tip. Back when I worked at the grocery store, I often had to help those in the stock room on days with a severe shortage of customers. Sometimes the wooden crates foods came in were too large for the trash can around the back, and so the workers would use crowbars to prise the boards apart. In that very moment of dawning realisation I was made certain of three things: that what I held right now was indeed a crowbar, that Ian wouldn't have thought me smart enough to find his hidden compartment or know what to do with it if I had, and that hypothetical Ian had been very wrong.

Knowing I wasn't just by myself anymore, that I had a tool at my service rather than just my bare hands, did wonders with increasing my confidence of my eventual escape. I would do it, and I'd do it alone. I had watched a programme about bizarre entrapments and how to escape them or keep yourself safe during. Like getting under tables during earthquakes or making yourself an airpocket in the snow during an avalanche so you survived longer. I had seen something about escaping a car. I could get out of this situation if I stopped waiting around for others to do the work and started trusting in my own mind. Started acting upon it. I could do it. Would do it. Had to.

My fingers ran the short length of what I reckoned was the inside of the door to the trunk. I checked its corners, hands searching in vain for the brake lights. I had no idea what they might feel like but knew the continuous rough carpet wasn't it. Using the crowbar, I crawled as close as I could to one corner and began tearing up the carpet. By the time I'd torn a corner sufficiently enough to begin pulling, sweat was beading on my brow from nerves and exertion. My lungs were screaming in protest at the clouded air I inhaled but I did my utmost best to ignore it, focusing more on the pressing matters at hand. With the carpet pulled back from the corner, I was able to get a grip of the panels concealing the brake light. It was surprisingly easier to remove them than it had been the carpet, but I'd been expecting a light to smash through. I hadn't thought about wiring. I only took a second to deliberate whether or not it was a good idea before coming to the conclusion that I had nothing to lose, bringing down the crowbar and tearing up the wires. The tangled mess of thin tubing took roughly five minutes to destroy and I wasted no time in forcing the crowbar into the newly created gap. It took one, two, three, four hits to the inside of the brake light until it popped free and fell to the ground outside. Automatically I surged toward the small opening, but instead of breathing lungfuls of fresh air I was gagging on smoke.

Thick and black like a suffocating blanket it pushed through the gap, smothering me. I'd executed the plan for being trapped in a trunk when in actual fact my situation had been more like that of an avalanche, the trunk my temporary air pocket. Without its protection I was dead. Moving fast was my only alternative now.

I pulled the neck of my shirt up and over my nose and mouth in a pitiful attempt to breathe in less of the toxic fumes. My chest rattled as my body doubled over, racked with coughs. Through blurred vision I crawled as close to the opening as I could and swung out my arm that brandished the crowbar. The heat was immense. If my forearm had a voice, its cries would have been deafening. I ignored the pain, however, and attacked the front as best I could with no eyes to help. Surely a certain amount of force upon the lock would eventually have it give way? Not that I knew if the crowbar was making any contact with the lock, I was just hoping it was. The rough edges of the space to the outside world I'd created cut into my upper arm as I tried to push it farther out.

"HELP!" My voice was hoarse, far quieter than I had wanted it to be. "SOMEBODY BREAK OPEN THE CAR! HELP!" By the end of my pleas my voice was barely above a wheezing whisper.

I collapsed onto my back, mind whirring with the sudden realisation that this might be it. The big finale. My grand exit. After everything, death by car was the way it would all end. They say during your last moments, you're meant to think back to the first ones. The important ones. I thought back to the beginning. My beginning. The moment that had put the next string of events into play and made me feel alive in a way I never had since before my tenth birthday. Since I could touch. I thought of how my car, much like the very one I was in, had almost ended Parker's life had I not so hastily pushed on the breaks. I wondered what he'd been so preoccupied with in that peculiar head of his that had him so distracted from the vehicle hurtling down the road. Hoped it was good. Wished I'd asked about it before I'd ended up here, the place of no return...

And that's when I spotted it.

The faintest glint of metal in the far corner where I'd made a tear in the carpet. A sliver of silver protruding from underneath the fabric that Ian had put there to hide something else. Another mystery purposefully kept in concealment. The little light that filtered in from behind the veil of putrid smoke had just been enough to illuminate it and I desperately scrambled forwards. Words couldn't describe the relief that coursed through every fibre of my being. It was as if the feeling was alive itself, a living and breathing thing that obliterated all thoughts of raw throats and stinging eyes and burning arms from my mind. I broke the ends of my nails off in my hurry to reveal it entirely - and I wasn't disappointed. The moment I saw it, my driving instructor's voice came to mind and I cursed myself for it not being the first thing I searched for:

"... seeing as this model was made after the year 2002, you'll find the trunk release in the back thanks to national law. You pull upward in case of emergency. Not that I think it likely you'll find yourself to be trapped in the back of your car, but I digress..."

The crowbar was completely forgotten as I tugged on the trunk release so harshly I thought for the briefest of moments I'd dislocated my shoulder. The resonating click that sounded afterward was heavenly, but the scene on which I opened the door to was the exact picture of how I had envisaged Hell to look whenever mentioned in one of my large collection of dystopian novels.

Ian's car stood in the middle of a dark and deserted alleyway. Though stood didn't exactly feel like the correct term that should have been used, for there was scarcely any of it left to stand. The front was crushed. It had also seemingly divided itself into two to make way for the tilting lamppost that was slap bang in the middle of the two headlights. The door was open as if it had been left that way in a hurry, Ian long gone. I didn't blame him. Towers of flames licked up the sides of the vehicle, a circle of oranges and reds that had travelled to a nearby heap of black bagged trash which easily explained the horrendous smell laced within the heavy smoke. The warm colours of the slowly rising sun painted across the sky were almost the exact shade of the raging inferno that I had somehow wound up in the centre of. It was like the it was mirroring the wreckage beneath only in a much more beautiful way. I'd have picked the heavenly sky over this any day. Not only did this look like Hell, but if my arm was any proof then it certainly felt like it too.

I wiped the sweat from my brow. My shirt was sticking to my back, my hair to the nape of my neck; every inch of my body was slick with sweat both from perspiration and fear. Fear of the fact I had to face: that the only way out was through. So I did what I had to do.

I went through.

//vote and comment if u enjoyed !! on holiday rn and I've finally scouted out a bar with free wifi just for u guys (also to save my snap streaks sorry not sorry im overly invested in those). I'm sweating like a pig and it's so unattractive and I've already impulse bought awful unnecessary trinkets and been asked if I wanted a camel and burnt to a lovely lobster shade send help. fingers crossed this even uploads and I'll talk to u all again this coming Sunday (that is if I survive the plane journey back home which I live in fear of bc damn I hate planes and heights with a passion pray for me)//