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I was all alone.

Birds were chirping in the trees, butterflies were wisping by my face, and I could feel the wind off their thin, brittle wings. The sun was coming up over the horizon, so I stopped to watch it.

It was beautiful. The giant orange globe appeared to sizzle as long tendrils of fire whirled and swooped like thin arms.

In my dream I was calm, everything was perfect, it was exactly the way life was supposed to be. There was no weight on my shoulders, no pains in my body, no water in my lungs.

I was free.

But that freedom didn't last as the sky turned dark and ash began to rain down. The heat off each dust drop burned my skin, and all I felt was the intense need to get away.

I started running, trying to escape the searing pain the sky was delivering. Only there was nowhere for me to go. It didn't matter which way I turned, it didn't matter how fast I ran, I couldn't find shelter to protect me from above.

I was never getting out.

I was never getting away.

I was slowly dying.

Chapter Six

Porter

Fuck. . .

Her body was limp in my arms, legs dangling and bouncing off my thigh with each step I took. Looking down at her, she appeared to be sleeping peacefully, but I knew that couldn't be true.

Every so often she would mumble inaudible words, her face scrunching up in terror as dreams turned to nightmares she couldn't escape. Nightmares that I was probably the center of.

I took her. I can't believe I fucking took her.

I didn't have a choice.

That was my argument with myself, my rationale for abducting this woman off the street. I wasn't sure exactly what to do with her, I didn't know if anyone else had seen us together, all I knew was I couldn't take the chance that someone else was there with Frankie.

What I did know was that I had taken part in the ultimate sin, I had stolen the air from someone else's lungs, I had stolen any future he might have had. I knew I should feel some sort of remorse for what I had done, that's what any normal person would experience.