"Episode 1 -  A life on the run."

The half-moon outside fought the dark clouds that tried to kept engulfing it relentlessly. But it fought and won every time tonight. Unlike other days. Some days it didn't win. Some days the darkness took over and rain poured out of it bringing lightning and thunder with it. Tonight had a different feeling though. Tonight, the usual chill in the air wasn't as bitter.

I didn't remember what winter was like growing up. Truth be told, I don't remember much about my childhood. I prefer to not think about them but every now and then, images would flash before my eyes, sucking me away from the present. They terrified me. My own memories frightened me.

Involuntarily, my hand jumped to my throat. The heat in the bedroom didn't subside the chill that broke across my skin. Blinking, I let out a ragged breath. My mind was chaotic. Over thinking most of the time about unnecessary things so I didn't have to think about the past. However, when those memories attacked from nowhere, I did everything I could to get them away.

My mind was always in a state of constant battle. Just like the moon and the clouds.

But tonight, the moon and my own thoughts won. Not the past.

Sighing in content, I let my hand drop and play with the laced edges of my short night dress. The silvery silk reflected back the soft white light of the moon. Suddenly, I heard a muffled rustling coming from behind me. A small smile crept up on my lips. The shuffling of slippers urged me to turn my head towards the source of all the noise.

My hand reached out, pushed the curtains away to illuminate the dark room. The shadows around the room threatened to swallow the small force of light but somehow, it managed perfectly create a spotlight on the man that just rolled out of bed.

A warrior.

A soldier.

A man who I couldn't breathe without. He stood there, inches away from the bed with his hands fisted by his side. Thick muscles stretched his shoulders and chest. Visible veins crept up his arms, then shoulders and spanned over his body. My mouth water at the thought of my tongue licking his packs, feeling the dips of his muscles. I swallowed.

There were marks over his pecks. My fingertips tingled at the memory of my nails leaving those marks there. He was my everything.

"FUCK! You look so sexy right now." My eyes went straight for his growing erection confined by the sorry excuse of a boxer. Amused, I looked up at him to find him stalk towards me. "I want to do so many illegal things to your right now under this light."

I laughed.

"Here I was thinking you looked so beautiful under this light." His calloused hands were on me, rubbing them up and down my arms before moving onto my body.

"I'm a man." Huffing, he feigned aghast.

"I was trying to be all romantic and crap." My palms travelled up his shoulders, feeling his tight body under my skin. His skin heated, the evident bump I felt against my thigh said he was ready to go for another round. Actually, for the fourth time. I chuckled, shaking my head.

"You don't like romance and crap." He frowned. "'Cause you know, you just said 'romantic and crap'." He slowly backed me up against the wall, glided one of his hands up my sides and squeezed one of my breasts before his long fingers wrapped around my throat. His thumb stroked my carotid artery. Feeling his skin one, his other hand shamelessly sliding up my inner thigh. "But if you want romance, I'll give you romance."

"No!" I laughed. "I just though we can try and act like normal people do." I shrugged, smirking up at him. "That's what we decided right. We'd try to act normal and not like killers." I shoved my breasts into his chest, aroused by his caveman demeanour.

"Yes but when a guy tries to touch what's mine, I can't help it." His breath mingled with mine, scarred face hovered over me while his hands slid up my torso until his fingertips finally rested on the scar on my stomach.

Sighing, I melted into him.

"Mmm. I might have done the same if one of those sluts tried to shoved their boobs at you." My hands wrapped around his shoulder, pulling him closer to me.

"Maybe going out to the club was a bad idea." Instead of kissing me, he rested his lips on mine. "Maybe we aren't meant to be normal." He kept stroking my scar with his thumb and the back of his fingers.

"So we live like hermits? Like we have been doing for the last 3 months." We spoke like this sometimes, with lips swiping against each other. Didn't know why but it felt comforting. My hands found it's way to his back, traced the multiple scars on his back.

"I don't mind." He lifted me up, breaking the connection before dropping me on the queen sized bed. "I nearly lost you once, there's no way I want to be in that position again." His gruff voice became heavy with emotion. My chest ached. He was a fighter and emotions like that never leaked out of him unless he was speaking to me or looking at me.

I've seen him kill with no remorse in his eyes but one look at me, his façade broke.

"Ahh! Gabriel." I withered under him, not being able to get enough of him. I opened up my legs, pulled his pelvis down against my core. "Ohh!" I whimpered when I felt his hot member against my core.

"I can't lose you again or come close to losing you. I can't." He looked tormented. The wrinkles on his forehead deepened, mouth turned downwards. He slumped down on me, face nuzzled my neck in desperation. Our little article of clothes somehow ended up mingling with the bed sheets and suddenly he was inside me once again that night.

My vision blurred when I came for the umpteenth time under the moonlight. I could feel the jealousy running through his body by the urgency and the roughness of our first intercourse of the night. We'd decided to go to a club that night. We'd been hiding out for nearly 3 months now and I was tired of hiding out.

He didn't want to go out but I'd never been to a club. I lived in a prison for so many years, I missed out on the normal life. That's when I decided to act normal instead of hermits. Again, he opposed the idea but didn't deny me my request.

He never did. Anything I wanted, I always got. Sometimes, I felt guilty to even ask because I knew he'd bend over backwards to make sure I received everything I desired. Specially, after I recovered from my gunshot wound.

When we went to the club, he didn't leave my side once until I dragged him to the dance floor. Even though I was clearly with someone, a dude decided to try and rub his hands down my arms first. Disgusted, I moved away quickly and the poor guy painted a bullseye on his back when Gabe caught a glimpse of him. The second time, the guy with went for my ass and that was it. Gabe's fist collided with the guy's face, he tried to go for him again but I didn't want going to jail for a stupid fight that occurred because I wanted to experience a normal fucking life.

It wasn't worth it.

Hence, I dragged his ass out of there before the bouncers could catch up with us. I could feel Gabe vibrate with anger on the way home. Our small little house by the edge of the lake in the woods. We weren't even in through the doors before he had me up against the wall from behind.

It took him a while to get this rough with me after I'd been shot and was recovering. It's only been recently that he's been getting the confidence to manhandle me like this. Like the way I wanted. He was a soft and sensual and so unlike him but he took care of me. An assassin, a trained killer took care of me that's why I was completely smitten by him.

"Elena?"

"Mmm." I mumbled sleepily against his chest.

"Did you have a nightmare?" Even though his voice was soft the question shoved a knife in my spine, chilling to the core.

My nightmares were different from his. I didn't call out or speak in my nightmare all the time like Gabe did. I usually got stuck in it and remained there until pulled myself out of it. That's why it irritated Gabe because he didn't know when to pull me out of my dream. When I did speak or groan out in pain, he was right there. Shaking me out of my past and bringing me into the present where I was in his safe arms.

"Yes." I whispered softly. His arms tightened around me. I managed to find his boxers in the sheet along with my night dress. He'd used a warm wash cloth to clean me up before re-joining me. My leg was propped up on his torso, knee nearly touching his crotch.

"You want to talk about it?" He squeezed my shoulder, rubbing his hand up and down my arms. Emotions clogged in my throat at the tenderness of his voice. With the amount strength and vigour he took me just moments ago, his voice held such softness, it clenched my heart.

"I sometimes have nightmare about... Jude." My voice weakened at the end of the sentence. I hated talking about it, I hated thinking about it but Gabe risked his whole life for me. He had dreams of becoming someone but he chose me over that without a second thought. I knew I could trust him.

After all that had happened, I trusted him more than myself.

"His eyes." I gulped. Gabe's hold tightened around my shoulder, almost dragging me up onto his body. "His disgusting light blue eyes. Like they are almost white but not there yet. The blue is still there. Ergh!" I shivered in disgust, remembering his hands over me when I was a kid. Only a 9 years old child who was snatched from her home where her whole family was slaughtered.

"I hate him. I hate him more than Mason." The things I knew about the Capone family was diabolical. I could ruin them but I didn't have one single shred of evidence. No authority would ever indict them.
That's why I kept my mouth shut. I'd told this to Gabriel a while back. On a similar night like this. Only it wasn't so clear, it was pouring down with rain.

"I know, princess. I hate them too." He sighed. "I just wished I couldn't have killed them all."

I scoffed, shuffling closer to him, even if that was possible considering I was practically laying on top of him. "Leo Martinez killed Laurence Capone for killing Xavier De la Cruz and his girlfriend."

"And I killed Mason Capone." He added, smugly.

"Actually, his own men blew him when they opened the trunk." I smiled, happy that my jailer was finally dead. "I just wish they suffered longer." Like I suffered.

"Me too." He kept stroking my arms and thighs until my eyes drooped close just as the dawn broke through.

November quickly gave away to December, snow began settle everywhere. The lush green pine trees were covered with a thick blanket of snow. Gabriel and I went shopping for boots, oversized coats and everything the store had in the winter isle. Gabe bought a shovel, coal for open fire we had in our bedroom and living room.

The town we settled in wasn't a small one, neither was it big enough for us to go unnoticed but large cities has government security cameras. Jude would have employed someone by now to hack into them easily like Jake could. Therefore, Nathan picked out a perfect town for us in Oregon, just outside of Portland called Mountisle, just big enough that we weren't talk of the town, drawing in attention and small enough to evade central system cameras.

The town was picturesque little nirvana. In autumn, the trees became yellow, red and brown when they fell from the trees. Gabe and I lived away out in the woods, right by the lake and mountains. The whole ground around us was filled with them and one afternoon, when the sun was at it's peak and the heat softly kissed the surroundings, I came out to play.

I'd never felt such freedom in my life before. It was the first time ever I'd physically felt the sun on my skin. Experienced the rays of the sun on my skin, that I never before even felt when I was sun bathing. The colours around me enchanted me. Everything was sparkling and I was mesmerised by the beauty of the world.

Previously, the world to me was hell. A girl trapped with no hope. But suddenly, after two months of being on the outside in a scenic town, everything just seemed so... beautiful. I could see the particles moving under the streaks of sun. Even though I could feel the chaste heat of the sun, the cool air still swirled around me.

I loved every second of it.

When Gabe drove up the gravel drive way with thanksgiving groceries, I ran to him. He usually never left me alone but when he had to go to Portland for furniture or any other reason, he usually left me alone. He said he'd rather get taken while he's alone and risk my life with him.

"Let's face it babe, if I do get captured, no amount of torture would ever get me to reveal your location." He smiled ruefully, stroking my hair back from my forehead.

When he told me that, I was still recovering from the gun shot wound. The first couple of weeks were the hardest. I couldn't do much and he didn't want to leave me all alone but he did everything. Everything, for the first month without a complain.

My chest ached thinking about it.

Sighing, I stepped onto our snow covered back deck wearing knee high boots, scarves, beanie hat, black puffer jacket, gloves and a steaming mug of hot mocha. The multi-coloured ground was now pure white. There were no footprints or divots on the ground. The lake behind the thin layer of trees was frozen. It was gorgeous, with the snow covered mountains behind it.

Shuffling behind me distracted me from my day dream. Turning, I found Gabe stumbling out in similar gear as mine. Instead of mocha, he had coffee.

"I want to go Christmas shopping. We didn't decorate for Thanksgiving but I want to decorate for Christmas." I held my arms up, brining the mug closer to my face. He came and stood next to me, shoulder to shoulder.

"Yes we can do that. There hasn't been any threats for a while and as long as we don't go to Portland, sure, why not?" He shrugged, sipping his coffee.

"I like it here." I confessed.

"I do too." There was a smile hidden in his admission. "I like seeing you happy. I remember when I came home with Thanksgiving shopping a week before the big day and you were so happy..." He looked down at me. "... I'd never seen you that way. There were no shadows in your eyes when you looked at me. There was a pure sparkle in your eyes that I'd never seen before."

My stomach flipped.

"It comes out more often now but I want you to have that glow forever. I don't want you to think about the crappy past and have that light disappear." Clearing a space on the railing, he placed his cup on it next a pile of snow. His hand reached out, the back of his gloved fingers swiped across my cheek.

"OW!" I scrunched up my nose, chuckling. "Cold!"

He smiled, pulling me into a hug.

"We'll do it right this time. No more awkward dinner with foster family or my adopted-ish family or crazy psycho mafia family." He stroked my shoulder. "We'll do it right this time."

"I know. I can't wait." I mumbled against his chest.

"Can I ask you for a favour?" He asked, rocking me from side to side.

"Yes." I sipped my mocha.

"Can we go to Christmas festival in town this week?" He asked, hesitantly.

"Yes, of course." I didn't know why he wanted to do that but there was no way I was going to say no. "Is there any particular reason or just for fun?"

"I saw people setting it up last week. It looks like those typical small down fun fair with stalls and food-"

"YES."

He laughed at my enthusiasm.

"I don't know." He shrugged. His crooked smile warmed my heart. His hazel eyes darkened like the clouds above is. "I want to do what normal couple does, like you said last night. And what's more normal than a married couple enjoying their Christmas together?"

I smiled, feeling the weight of a simple gold band that surrounded my finger.