How does a phoenix die? It wasn't something I had ever wanted to find out. The whole reason I had escaped and pushed myself through torturous conditions was to keep Roran alive.  Unfortunately, in the end he took the choice out of my hands.

"Thea," I heard Roran whisper from somewhere far away. "Thea, look at me."

But I couldn't. My eyelids felt so heavy. With every second I slipped further and further into the dark, and every breath I took felt like the last.

His hands scorched my icy skin and his breaths felt like steam against my cheek.

"I lied to you, Thea. I need you to know that," he whispered, the words meaning nothing to me. I was dying. There was no reason to be angry. Soon it would no longer matter. Nothing mattered.

"I'm not a good man, I never was. If I were a good man I would have told you from the beginning."

Part of me wanted to ask what he was talking about, but the only thing that came from my mouth was a gurgle of blood.

"Shh, shh," he soothed me, cradling my head back against his shoulder. "I'm going to save you, Thea. I should have done this when you first started suffering, but I wanted to keep you with me as long as possible. God, I'm such a selfish bastard."

Should have done what? My brain sluggishly wondered.

I felt Roran press his forehead against mine and his breath whispered across my lips as he said, "I lied when I told you I didn't know of a way out. There was always a way out for you. I've known it for ages, but I was too much of a coward to go through with it. I couldn't have done this for anyone else, but you-"

His words cut off as I began choking and gasping: my body convulsing slightly from pain and lack of oxygen.

"It's going to hurt," he said, over my cries. "It's going to burn. It's going to burn you back alive."

I didn't know how anything could hurt worse than what I was already feeling, but when the burning started I wished he would have just let me die. My heart sputtered in and out of rhythm as fear and pain overwhelmed me.

 "Don't be afraid, Thea. Look, can you see the flames?" he rasped against my ear. "I'm burning up so I can light the way back for you."

I could. Somehow I could see them, blazing white all around me in the dark. It was beautiful.

"Do me a favor, okay? Once you get back try not to fall into any more vampire dens."

His words were teasing, but his voice was pained. He sounded like he was in more pain than I was.

I tried to reply, to tell him I promised, but I couldn't draw in a deep enough breath.

His voice sounded scared as he gasped against my ear, "Thea, I-"

And then suddenly he was gone. Everything was silent and completely still. The flames still surrounded me, but I was no longer in any pain. I felt weightless, incorporeal. Somehow I knew I was no longer in purgatory.

It only took seconds for my situation to change. My hearing was the first thing to return. The distant blare of a car horn, followed by the screeching of brakes welcomed me back into the world of the living. It didn't take long for my other senses to return. Soon I could feel rough concrete against my back and sunlight burning my pale skin. I could even smell the stench of hot asphalt.

Surprisingly my sight was the last thing to return. Sunlight blinded me as I opened my eyes and I slammed them shut almost immediately. Very, very slowly I cracked them open again, inch by inch, and allowed my eyes to readjust to the harsh Texas sun. Tears streamed down my face as I took in my surroundings.

I was home.  

I was home and I was still naked. And bloody. Lying on the sidewalk outside of my apartment building.

A large crowd of people had started to gather round me and for the first time in my life I wasn't afraid. I didn't care what they thought of me and despite the fact I knew I should, I felt no desire to run and hide from them.

"Are you okay, miss?" one of the older gentlemen standing near asked. "Should we call for an ambulance?"

"What?" I asked, my voice sounding scratchy and rough.

I looked down at myself again, this time taking in the amount of dried blood coating my body.

"No, no," I said, shaking my head. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" he asked, but I was no longer listening.

I walked toward my apartment building refusing to answer any more of their questions. I couldn't think right now. If I spent too much time thinking about why I was covered in blood it would lead to thoughts of Roran. And if I thought about Roran I would lose whatever shred of sanity I was still clinging to.

I took deep breaths through my nose and focused on simple tasks to keep my mind occupied. Walking up the stairs instead of taking the elevator allowed me to focus on counting my steps, clenching and unclenching my fists kept me from noticing how badly my hands were shaking, and if I kept my tongue pressed tightly enough to the roof of my mouth it was hard to taste the blood. For three floors I continued this repetition, ignoring the stares I got from strangers and my frantic landlady who kept shrieking about calling the police.

When I arrived at my apartment yellow caution tape was spread from one corner of my doorway to the other. I tore it down carelessly and jiggled the doorknob. It was locked. Shrugging, I walked to the end of the hallway where the fire extinguisher was located in case of emergencies. The stinging pain I felt when the glass shattered against my fist was minor and I only focused on it to create another distraction. It only took two hits from the extinguisher before the doorknob clattered to the ground and I was waltzing through my door and heading straight for the bathroom.

Twisting the hot water knob yielded no results. I frowned down at the infuriating plumbing, hoping my death glare would convince it to work. After I had stared at it for several minutes and no water poured out I snatched a towel off of the rack and marched back out into the hallway.

I didn't even knock as I made my way into Barbie's apartment. And her name was literally Barbie; I wasn't making some kind of discriminatory slur because of how she looked. I didn't need to. Her behavior was so atrocious that no amount of blonde hair or tanned legs could make up for it – not that she had either.

"What do you think you're doing?" Barbie shrieked as I pushed past her and made my way into her bathroom. "You can't just barge in here! I'm calling the cops!"

"You and everyone else in this building, apparently," I snapped, slamming the bathroom door in her face and locking it.

As I soaped up my hair for the first time in a week I could hear her shouting through the closed door about my invasion of her privacy. I snorted, then hissed as soap got into my eye. Barbie was the last person who should complain about invasion of privacy. She spent most of her days spying on her neighbors, me included, trying to gather up enough dirt on us that she could get us evicted so she could have the floor to herself. To date she had had three tenants evicted.

But I wasn't worried. As soon as humanly possible I planned to get as far away from this town as possible and move somewhere remote. I had promised-

No. I couldn't think about that right now.

Just get through your shower, Thea, I told myself. Then pack a bag and worry about everything else later.

I forced my thoughts to mimic my movements, which were disjointed and robotic but did the job well enough. When my thoughts started to drift back to what happened I would start counting freckles to distract myself.

I took longer than necessary in Barb's shower, but the hot water felt like heaven after not being able to bathe for a week. As I got out and wiped the condensation from her mirror I spent the next few minutes searching for injuries. There were none. Every single bruise, scrape, and cut had been healed. Refusing to think about that too much, I wrapped my towel around my chest and made my way back over to my apartment.

Barbie followed behind me, still shrieking and waving her arms in the air dramatically.  I ignored her, and eventually she figured out that I wasn't going to respond to her meaningless babble and stormed back into her apartment.

After I got dressed and was in the middle of packing a bag I heard sirens blaring from outside my window and I knew someone in the building, probably many someones, had actually meant what they said about calling the police. It didn't matter. The moment I had woken up I had begun preparing a lie for people who were curious about what had happened to me. Specifically, the police and my parents.

"Miss Roberts?" I heard one of the officers call from my open door. "Are you here?"

I stuck my head out from the bedroom and called, "Yeah, come in."

I walked out into the living room and sat my bag on the coffee table, meeting the eyes of the officer I assumed was in charge. He was old, probably older than my father, and he looked haggard. I hoped that it wasn't my case that caused him such stress and exhaustion, but from the worried look he was giving me I assumed it was. He and his partner, a younger man with sideburns that would make Elvis jealous, made their way through my apartment carefully, peering around as if they expected a violent crime to be taking place.

"Miss Roberts, my name is Agent Horace Polk and this is my partner Agent Aaron Walker," the older officer said, flashing me his badge.

"FBI?" I asked, wondering why the local PD wasn't here instead.

"Yes, ma'am," Agent Polk replied. "Your case is one of seven we've been investigating over the past month. Girls have been going missing left and right in the area."

"Seven? All from Houston?"

Agent Polk nodded. "I'm afraid so. And every single girl has gone missing from the same club. You are the first one to return after going missing."

I sat down on my lumpy couch and shook my head. Seven girls, probably all vampires now. How on earth could I explain that?

Stick with the plan, my inner voice whispered. You can't remember anything that happened. Say it.

"I can't help you," I forced out around the lump in my throat. "I can't remember anything that happened to me. I just woke up on the sidewalk an hour ago, covered in blood."

Agent Walker's eyes widened. "You were covered in blood? And you washed it off? What were you thinking? That was evidence!"

"Agent Walker, please do not antagonize the victim. None of this is her fault," Polk rebuked him with a stern look.

"Right," Walker replied. "I apologize, Miss Roberts."

"Listen, I'm really sorry, but I don't think I will be of any help to you," I explained, trying to convince them to leave me alone. "I'm kind of freaked out and I'd like to see my parents. If what everyone has been telling me is true they must have been worried about me."

I also couldn't keep thinking about this, about anything that happened.

"Of course," Agent Polk replied. "We understand. But please take our card in case you remember anything or need to talk to us about anything at all."

I nodded accepting the card and, surprisingly, a hug from the older gentleman.

"I'm glad you're unharmed, Miss Roberts" he said as he left. "I hope more of the girls return like you did."

I didn't have the heart to say anything in return, knowing that anything I said would either be a lie, or worse, the awful truth. The others weren't coming back.

And with that thought, I knew I had to get out of there. Fast. Before I fell into the trap of thinking about my time in purgatory.

Somehow, despite my shaking hands, I managed to call a cab. The whispers and conversations going on in the lobby of my apartment building helped pull me out of my head. My phone began to ring as soon as I got into the cab, and without looking at the caller ID I flipped it open and answered, "Hey, Mom."

Her frantic voice made me want to cry. "Thea? We were so worried! Are you alright?"

"I don't know, mom. I really don't," I whispered honestly, my voice breaking. I could never lie to her.

...

Sooooo...do you hate me yet? LOL. Please comment and vote if you get time! I appreciate the feedback!