ZARIAH'S POV
I've never been more aware of my surroundings than now that I'm crouched behind a filthy dumpster next to a flickering neon sign that reads "Open 24/7."
The rain's stopped since last night, but I still feel the cold from it beneath the hem of this stupid dress which is the same ripped wedding gown that's now clinging to my body due to its dampness.
My legs are cramping, and my heels are long gone--- I don't even remember where I threw them---- plus the gravel just keeps scraping my knees; I've never in my life felt more exposed than this.
But I can't stop walking on.
I press the burner phone I had stolen from a street dealer who was too high to notice to my ear and listen to static crackling for a while before Jayla's voice finally comes through on the other end.
"Z? Are you okay? Where the hell are you?"
"I'm alive," I whisper. "Barely that is, just talk fast."
"Look you're not safe anymore. Your father's men think you're dead, but Luc… letting it go. He's posted a bounty this morning on your: Five mil, dead or alive. You need to find somewhere safe to hide Z."
I swallow the bile that's rising in my throat and murmur,
"Dahlia…"
"I know. I'm sorry."
I stay quiet and breathe through my nose to calm myself; right now I can't afford to break down in tears.
"What else?"
"There's chatter on the dark market that Luc's sent someone not one of ours. They say he's a bounty hunter from Ecuador with tattooed face and a scar on his left cheek."
"Do they know where I am?"
"Not yet, but..." She pauses, "I think someone will, soon."
I hang up immediately at that before she can say goodbye.
I don't need goodbyes now, what I need is a miracle.
While my legs keep shaking, I push up from the ground with my now scraped hands, causing crusts the go under my nails.
Then I duck into a subway entrance and still a MetroCard.
It's 5:14 a.m., and the train station is mostly empty when I slip into the last train and then ride it six stops.
When I get off, I walk three more blocks and stop at a tattoo shop owned by a man named Ricco.
It's the smartest place for me to go now because he owes me for helping him smuggle three of his cousins into the States two years ago.
I knock twice on the door, and he opens with a cigarette dangling from his lips and a lazy look in his beady little eyes but that changes into a wide look the moment he sees me.
"Holy shit, you look like hell."
"Then stop staring and let me in."
Ricco lets me crash in the back room behind the ink station where smells like bleach and sweat and old weed, but it's warm and safe.
I strip out of the wedding dress I'm wearing, totally naked underneath with no bra and panties, and pull on a long flannel shirt he just throws at me.
When I'm done, I collapse onto the makeshift cot and try to breathe, try that is.
But it doesn't work, because images won't stop flooding my mind and senses, causing my to remember Luc's eyes when he pulled the trigger on Dahlia.
... Her mouth dropping open when she falls to the floor with wide eyes; the red blood that covered my hands when I reached for her,
... And then I remember Alaric's voice whispering filth in my ear just hours and the way he had made me forget my own name and troubles even if it was just for some hours.
Finally I remember the lipstick note a left to him and calling myself Eden.
It was a gamble for me to do that, but it worked.
Didn't it?
Suddenly a knock on the front door jerks me upright.
Ricco doesn't answer and I end up hearing another knock on the door and then a third harder one.
Curious to know what was going on, I slide out of the cot and tiptoe barefoot to the door between the backroom and the shop floor and then peek through the crack.
Through the narrow opening, I seeRicco is standing stiffly with his arms raised up and in front of him is a man.
He's tall, tattooed head to toe with a long knife strapped to his thigh and a jagged scar that runs down his left cheek as if he was struck by lightning.
That must be the bounty hunter.
Shit.
I walk backwards quietly and grab the only weapon that I see which is a tattoo needle still in its power dock.
Useless, utterly useless.
"Where is she?" I hear the bounty hunter growl in a thick Ecuadorian accent like Jayla said.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Ricco replies but then grunts when the man's fist connects with his ribs.
"I will ask one more time; Where is the girl in the wedding dress?"
I don't wait to see what happens next and quickly shove the back door open and run.
I sprint through the alley, feeling the air burn at my lungs and my heart jackhammering while I run through puddles and filthy nylon tied garbages.
However I'm too slow because right then I begin to hear heavy footsteps thud behind me.
I turn down another alley and then run right into a dead end.
"No," I hiss and hear a laugh from behind me.
"You're fast for a bride," the bounty hunter drawls.
I turn to face him and raise up that tattoo needle as if it were a dagger but seeing it in my hands doesn't scare him, instead he grins and steps closer to me, raising up his own long and sharp blade.
"I'll try not to ruin your face, just being dead's fine."
I suck in a breath and flinch when he swipes his blade downward but then a gunshot runs straight into the bounty hunter's head.
... And he drops down lifeless instantly with his blood splashing the alley wall.
I blink in shock at his dead body, my breath totally frozen in my throat and hear boots crunch the gravel in my direction, causing me to look up.
Then I see him from last night; Alaric wearing a black turtleneck and slacks.
One of his gloved hand lowers the gun it's holding and the other pushes his coat back casually while he looks at me, not looking shocked or surprised.
"You lied," he says but I don't speak so he walks toward me.
"You're not a whore, you're trouble."
He stops just inches from me and grabs my face in one firm hand, tilting it up like I'm something fragile thing he might crush and burns his eyes into mine.
Finally my voice stumbles out. "You followed me?"
"No," he growls. "I hunted you."
His grip tightens just slightly over my chin and his thumb brushes my bottom lip then he leans in.
"And now that I've found you... you don't get to run again."