nothing lasts forever.

[steph3]

He was pissed.

This chick was becoming more of a hassle than anything. Normally, he wouldn't find anyone to be such a burden but she was slowly becoming such a liability that he was stuck with her whether he wanted to be or not and quite honestly, just for the record, he wasn't sure which one of the two options he liked more. Did he have a puppy crush? No. She maced him and then proceeded to yelling at her over his driving habits which he found stupid. He found her to be irrational, impulsive, and rude but, despite all of that, he wouldn't want her to be dead...even if she was a bit of a freak. So he ran his fingers through his hair unsteadily as he paced back and forth in the shack of an apartment he was currently staying in. It was on the top floor of a five floor apartment complex that looked run down enough to be called "the projects" but held not-so-bad people so it was still considered decent. The place literally had a couch and that was just about it. He had paper plates and plastic utensils and it was obvious he hadn't been there long and that he wasn't planning on staying for that long either. Hell, he didn't even plan on being there for winter-much less next week. So when he tied her up so she wouldn't freak the fuck out and start yelling (he was starting to love the duc-tape he put over her mouth...it was like magic), the only thing he could tie her to...was the radiator on the other side of the room away from the windows and the door. The couch was up against the opposite wall that divided the kitchen and living/dining room/bedroom. Yeah, it was that small of a place. Hey, the rent was super cheap and cheap was exactly what he needed right now.

But he was stuck. He didn't entirely think this through which wasn't like him but as he'd been driving, on his way to another job, he had to pass by her job and as he did, he noticed the guys coming out of an alleyway to follow her where she was up the block. He hadn't been planning on giving her a ride. No, not after the chaos that came out of her mouth last time. Plus, he was sure she'd object immediately. But he knew the guys. They used to run with his older brother which meant they probably saw the two of them together at the last race last week and figured they could use her as leverage to get him to come out of hiding. They must have known women were his weakness...well, no actualy they weren't but if they were in danger and he knew them-even if it was on a name basis, which he didn't know this chick's, he automatically felt this strange need to protect them. It probably stemmed from all the crap his mother suffered and then the birth of his little sister. So the second his eyes caught the shine of the gun being drawn and pointed in her direction, he realized it wasn't leverage they wanted. They just wanted to hurt him and what better way to hurt a man than by killing of someone that means a lot to him...if only they knew she really didn't mean much to him. She was just some chick. He'd only been around her three times.

They obviously thought differently.

As the shot rang out in the air, he sped up to catch up to where she was. They had missed but he had cut her off from her walking and had managed to grab her and throw her into his back seat before speeding off. When she wouldn't shut up, he hit her sharply on a pressure point by her shoulder and neck and she seemed to be out like a light. He hadn't even hit her that hard. Holy crap. Hell, he'd never hit a woman in his entire life. He automatically got nervous. God he could get into even more trouble and if she yelled at him when she woke up, he would hit her again right in the same spot. But as he paced back and forth, waiting for her to wake up since only ten minutes had passed since he hit her, he was trying to figure out what he would do with her. They thought she was involved somehow and he really didn't want to drag her down any further. The logical thing to do would be to let her go free, let them kill her, and he could be on his merry way but he couldn't live with being responsible for something as morbid as that. Sure he didn't hold the gun to kill her, but he'd sent her off to die. That was enough to give him restless nights for a good couple of years.

"Fuck face," he mumbled as he went to the fridge and grabbed some water for when she woke up before coming back and standing in the middle of the room between her and the couch while still thinking over what he could do to get her out of this mess so he'd never have to see her again. F.M.L. All hell was going to break loose when she woke up and he took the duc-tape off her mouth...he already knew he didn't want to.

[lou]

she's wearing this.

All she remembered was the sharp connection of his hand and her neck and then, blackness. It was almost as though she were floating inside her own subconscious, lost to the whims of the world that surrounded her and manipulated her every movement. There was no doubt that in this black world, the environment controlled her, especially given her utter and complete inability to react to the things occurring around her, and her utter unawareness of the things people could be doing to her. There was a gun, and, there were men following her home from work, and she'd never seen them before in her life, which meant something if you'd lived in Sapphire Bay as long as she had, because everyone knew everyone and everyone was suspicious of outsiders. She'd never seen a gun before. Not in New York, not here, not ever. It was thin and shiny and they'd pulled the trigger and there had been a bullet but it hadn't hit her, or she didn't think it had, and then all of a sudden she was inside a car and she was screaming hysterically because they'd pointed a gun at her and they'd shot it and they were trying to kill her and she hadn't done anything wrong and then he hit her with something – his hand, a rock? - in the side of her neck and then nothingness. Sweet, peaceful, nothingness. If this was the oblivion of death then she much preferred it to her waking life and felt no shame in saying she'd rather stay forever drifting in and out of reality, a drug addict on her own protection mechanisms.

Unfortunately, her time consumed inside of herself was cut short by first the sounds of pacing, the mumbled cursing of an all-too-familiar voice and the shuffling sound of pants on wood floors. Around the edges of her vision, she could dimly make out a sparsely decorated room that wasn't her apartment. For whatever reason, she was tied to what appeared to be a radiator and there was tape sealing her mouth shut with the metallic taste of glue stuck between her lips. She didn't bother moving, so exhausted that she almost wished he'd come over there and hit her again so she could go back to that place where everything was silent and she could rest, comatose, her eyelids closed and keeping out everything she never wanted to see. It wasn't like she could say anything anyway, let alone make any sounds of protest as her voice was equally as exhausted as her mind and her body and so she lay there, adjusting herself to a more comfortable position so that her hands were resting on the floor and her legs were stretched out in front of her. She noticed, vaguely, how weird it was for the apartment to be as empty as it was. There was literally nothing. Not a bed, not a table, not a chair. Just a couch and the radiator, which she was chained to. One window, two doors – one to the outside, and one to a bathroom, probably. It was a shithole. She wondered absently how long she'd been there and then decided it was ultimately irrelevant. It could be the same day or it could be the next day.

Ever since he'd first tried to hand her that knife in the park that night, her life had been nothing but a living hell. Every time she assumed she was done with him for the rest of her life and would probably never see her again, she got hit in the face with a door, and it was him, or she got sucked into the middle of an illegal street race with him as the driver, or her cousin disappeared without telling her where he went or answering her phone calls, or she got lost in the middle of fucking nowhere. She'd never been lost in her life. As a native New Yorker, she was born with a sense of directional prowess that rivaled that of even the best trailblazers. She wasn't usually the nagging type, but he brought it out in her so badly that she annoyed even herself. She'd been shot at. With a gun. By two people she didn't know. It occurred to her briefly that maybe if she stopped talking, he'd probably assume she'd gone catatonic and let her go without much protest. It occurred to her that if this was anything like the airport, all complaints will only result in a longer process. It was with this in mind that she trained her cool blue gaze on him, and made absolutely no attempt to speak or destroy the barrier between her mouth and the silence that currently surrounded her.

[/color]

[steph3]

Truly, he felt very guilty about having her dragged into this when she didn't need to be. She was a stranger to him and all he knew about her were the tid bits he'd managed to pick up on their few chance meetings, including all the things she ranted about the last time he'd been in her company. As she woke up, he finally stopped pacing and looked down at her, confusion written on his face as he continued trying to think something up. But she wasn't even protesting so he walked over and carefully so he wouldn't end up hurting her more than he already had, he took the tape off and easily took off the chain, which was the only thing he had to tie her up with or he would have been more reasonable and used something else. Normally, that chain was used more in self defense than to tie someone up and if she'd actually just stood, it would have come undone easily.

"Sorry about all this...and I understand fully if you want to kill me," he mumbled as he wrapped the chain up using his arm into a neat coil and then slid it under the couch before throwing the tape into a small trash bin next to the wall, "but if you didn't shut up, you'd end up getting both of us killed," he wasn't speaking harshly and he was actually wincing a bit at the thought of her yelling at him.When she remained quiet, her frowned a bit but continued so she'd be caught up with it all and then maybe she'd be able to help him figure something out in order to get her back to her normal life. This wasn't for his benefit...totally. It was mostly for her's. She wanted to go back to normal, right? Like he never existed, right? Then she'd have to cooperate and he was hoping she would get that by the time he finished explaining the issue at hand.

"As you may have already gathered," he leaned against the wall opposite to her. If she wanted to make a run for it, she could, but it would take her a while to get through the door. There were at least five locks he had installed just out of his own paranoia, "The only reason they were after you was because they just so happened to see you with me the other night," he didn't need to say which night. He was sure she already knew, "Their from Spain. I didn't expect them to find me here...or for you to get dragged into any of this, but if you go out there, they will stalk you and they will probably kill you by the looks of it," he wouldn't say why they were after him. He couldn't and he shouldn't. The less she knew about him, the better for her own sake because even if she turned his name over to the police, he could disappear. He was pretty damn good at becoming no one and not leaving a trail. Someone must have tipped them off that they saw him.

"You've only been out for ten or so minutes," he frowned a bit, "and I've been trying to figure out how to get you back to whatever life you had-so you can forget I ever existed," he motioned for her to take a seat on the couch if she wanted to. It was somewhat new-but it was clean, obviously. He was pretty broke but even he had some standards, "Any ideas...? Without yelling...please," he was almost ready to cross his fingers. Please for once, she shouldn't yell. If she did, they'd be in even deeper shit because one of the other tenants would come snooping around and he didn't need them knowing anything about him. He was just the guy in 5A.

But in all honesty, he did want to help her. This would be so much easier if he actually knew who she was, as a person and completely, but he didn't know shit about her and it made it that much more difficult. Maybe she was normally this quiet or maybe she normally yelled all the time. Maybe she had a family or a boyfriend or was in school. He didn't know anything about her other than she worked at that Burger place and she walked home late at night through the park and she yelled a lot and complained a lot especially about this guy named Zach who , if he remembered correctly, was her cousin or something? That really didn't let him in on anything about her. Hell, what if she was working for them? Then what? He didn't want to kill her. He hated killing people. The few times in his life, less than a handful, that he had to, he regretted them completely. He might as well be the people who killed his brother.

[lou]

she's wearing this.

Surprising, she didn't move at all when he untied her and took the tape off of her mouth, staring at him, probably still a little dazed because of the gun incident but relatively unsure herself of her peculiar behavior. It was weird to be here. It was weird to be involved with someone to the point of life or death and realize that he didn't know her name. He knew where she lived and he knew where she worked and he had her involved in a situation that could get her killed, but he didn't know her name. He'd knocked her out and he'd hit her in the face with the door and he'd gotten her lost in the middle of nowhere, but he didn't know her name. She'd been chained to his radiator for the last ten minutes, apparently, and he had no clue who she was. The only part she couldn't bring herself to understand was why she had to be involved with it to begin with. It wasn't like she had anything to do with whatever it was that got him in trouble with people with guns, and yet here she was, suffering the consequences nonetheless like she'd been the one to kill someone. He probably had killed someone. When he motioned for her to move to the couch, she pulled her knees up to her chin, disobedient even at a time when her life was in danger. She didn't want to move past the window for fear that someone might see her and shoot at her and not miss this time. It was the worst possible threat at this point, given the fact that she'd been subjected to almost everything else. Death was all that was left. As they say, the only two unavoidable things are death and taxes.

She almost laughed at him as he asked whether or not she had any ideas, briefly considering flinging herself out of the window to get it over with. That way she'd die on impact or she'd die from the gunshot wounds in air or she'd be halfway killed by those and die finally when she snapped her neck against the pavement below. Her life as she knew it was over. If it wasn't completely, it would definitely be a while before she could go back to it. She was okay with both of those things for the most part, considering she wasn't particularly fond of her job and didn't really like her apartment that much either, though it was comfortable because it was hers. Whoever these people were weren't going away any time soon, and even if they ended up dying from some outside force, she was sure there were more where they came from. They were, after all, from Spain. She'd never even heard of mobsters from Spain before but she wasn't exactly surprise about the existence of an organized crime syndicate in any country, especially those developed enough to almost need them. Resting her forehead on her crossed arms on her knees, she stared at the space between her thighs, the floorboards blurring in her distracted vision, only the crown of her head visible, entirely ignoring anything he might have to say because this was it. This was the end of her life.

She was going to need some food to cope with that.

But first. “No, I don't have any ideas.” she sounded defeated, almost, tired still and a little achy in the neck area where he'd probably left a bruise. Her voice was muffled, projected downwards and emitting only in the escaped crevices where her body parts didn't quite line up. She was folded line an origami swan. Lifting her head to rest her chin rather than her forehead on her forearms, she pulled her knees in closer to her chest and sighed. The whir of the radiator next to her was a familiar, comforting sound from the winter months back in New York before her father had destroyed himself on stocks and she'd used to sleep on the floor next to it because the rest of her room was surrounded by windows and drafty as all hell. Turning her gaze away from the couch, where she had been idly deconstructing the pattern, she glanced back up at him, “My name's Lo, by the way. I know I didn't tell you before.” there was no choice but to trust him. “So just tell me what I need to do.”

It was the first time she'd said anything to him in a normal tone of voice.

[/color]

[steph3]

"Nice to finally meet you, Lo," it felt weird saying her name, like any minute everything would suddenly disappear and he'd be at the park in Barcelona by his tiny apartment with his family, his mother sitting on the porch above the deli and his brother yelling for his attention to pass the soccer ball over to him during a game. His dad will be in America, where he belonged, and mom wouldn't be dead or pregnant, though he couldn't imagine any of that without his little sister. She'd be the only reason he'd let dad come back-because she needed him more than she needed Dominic. Looking at Lo, he wondered if she had any siblings, if she had a mother or father, if she was even a natural blonde. But he had to stop thinking about all that stupid crap and focus on the situation at hand. But the only solution he could think of was running...he didn't have backup here. He had them spread out across the country but there were none in California other than the one he'd been with when he hit Lo with the door almost two weeks ago, maybe longer? Holy crap...he really didn't know her...and he was pretty sure she didn't know him...or she would have never gotten into the car for a drive home.

"Try to relax?" it came out more as a question, "They don't know I live here. I went under a false name on the lease...and eat or drink something...You just sitting there not yelling is making me fucking nervous as hell," he mumbled the last comment as he went over by the window to grab his cell phone that was on the charger, "The fridge is full," he was a guy...of course he had food. Hope she liked Spanish, "I'll let you know when I think of something." Something other than running away because he was pretty sure the only reason she would want to would be to avoid dying-unless she wanted to. If she did, the door was there. He wasn't blocking it. God, he was a horrible kidnapper. He fed his supposed prisoner and didn't guard the door.

Looking through his texts, he tried to pin point who it was that gave him away. Regardless, he didn't want to take a chance. He'd make one more call on the phone before destroying it in case they had a signal on him. He'd make it quick enough. Pushing the numbers, he put the phone to his ear and waited for the familiar voice to pop up. The sweet innocent voice came on all excited. It was way too early in the morning over there for her to be this excited, "Hey beautiful," he smiled as he peeked out through the curtain to the streets below, "Yeah, of course I miss you too," he locked his jaw a bit, "A bad dream? Why don't you tell me about it. I'll see what I can do," he chuckled. He had no idea when he'd be able to talk to Mel again so he'd let her do all the talking. He needed to cement her voice into his brain until further notice, "A monster under the bed? Remember what I used to tell you to do? ...Yep, when you fall asleep, I'll kick all their butts but you can't watch or you're beautiful face will distract me," he smiled as she said a couple other things before she yawned, "I promise I'll try to get home as soon as I can, okay? Sweet dreams, mi locita. Con amor y con Dios," he hesitated a bit as he hung up before grabbing the cheap flip phone and snapping it in half with ease. Then he opened the window and tossed it out practically like it was paper. Closing it up, he went over to the kitchen to get some food himself since he was starving.

"The only thing I can think of is meeting up with a couple of people I know who can get you out of this," but not him. He'd have to get out of it himself, "but if you don't want to leave here, I'll think of something else." He obviously couldn't call them. Truthfully, Dom just wanted to straight up, no beating around the bush, go home. He wanted to raise Mel the way she should be raised: with her family there to support her every step of the way. He wanted to be able to pay for her to go to college and to do everything their mother wanted her to do but he couldn't because he and Carlos fucked up along the way and now he dragged Lo here into it. Now looking at the food, he didn't really want any of it. He was thinking way too much and what he really needed to do was relax and really think this through for other options-even though the only logical one was their best bet.

[lou]

she's wearing this.

Despite him telling her to go get food and the urgings of her stomach to follow his orders, Lo didn't move when the option of raiding his fridge became available, instead preferring to stay where she was, comfortable and concealed in the corner of the room where just minutes ago she'd been chained. There was too much of a risk for her to move around, and even if there wasn't, she was by far too paranoid to bother subjecting herself to any kind of danger in favor of eating. It wasn't that important that she stuffed her face given that she'd had dinner the night before and it was still relatively early in the morning. She hadn't had to work for very long before she decided to take the rest of the day off and maybe buy something for her Aunt Greta for Christmas as a repetitive but still deserved thank you for saving her from living on the streets with her father. If anything, she wanted to say goodbye to her. This was doubtlessly her last day in Sapphire Bay. She may have been naïve on the subject of a few things, but she wasn't stupid enough to believe they could stay here, either of them, for very much longer. Their time was almost up and it hadn't even been an hour yet.

As he communicated with whoever it was on the opposite end of the line, she came to the realization that this stranger was okay to trust. Anyone who could speak so sweetly to a child, or who she was presuming was a child based on the subject matter of the conversation, was someone she felt had her best interests at heart. After all, there wasn't much they could get from killing her, assuming they probably weren't after either her father or her uncle, and she wasn't well known enough around Sapphire Bay to cause a huge stir if she turned up dead. She wasn't, after all, one of the monied fools who showed up at all the best places and made a scene of nothing, though she did tend to over exaggerate. Still, something about the end of her life as she knew it approaching rapidly made her not necessarily interested in thinking about it and, as if to distract herself, playing with the loose threads on her shorts, she asked him: “Do you have a daughter?” she didn't know anything about him, really, including his age or what he did for a living, though judging by the peculiar times of day he was lurking around it probably wasn't anything exceedingly stable.

Still, she was unsure what her options are. “I can't go back,” glancing away from the window, where she'd been watching figures dart around behind the lace curtains in the apartment across from them, she settled her blue gaze on him as she spoke. “Right? I'll never be able to go back. You don't think they'll go after my cousin, do you?” it was sad and uncomfortable but it was true and she knew it, and there was absolutely nothing she could do to change it into something that it just wasn't. This was it. These were the pivotal moments in her career. “I don't even know what' they want from me” still in the corner, she let her fist hit the floorboards near her hip dejectedly, irritated with her lack of understanding. It might be easier if he planned on telling her at least what they were after her for, but maybe he didn't know and, for that matter, she couldn't exactly say she was surprised by that. Still, she clung vehemently to the idea that if she spoke as little as possible, things would fix themselves. Maybe if she didn't get herself into more problems, the ones she had would go away. Maybe.

And yet, she found herself finally getting up, moving into the kitchen by where he was standing, avoiding the windows with a practiced grace that accompanied the waitstaff career track. Locating a clean glass, she filled it first to the brim with ice and then with water, taking the individual ice cubes into her mouth to give herself something to do that wasn't planning her new life and methodically picking her way through the cupful of ice as though it held the answer to everything. It was weird being held hostage by someone who threatened to beat up someone under the bed for a little girl somewhere and offered her access to literally everything in the house. Maybe he'd realized that she was by far too petrified to even try to step outside the door.

[/color]

[steph3]

He shook his head a bit as she asked if he had a daughter, "Little sister. She's four," he threw that in for safe measure. He loved bragging about Mel. She was the apple of his eye just as his mother had been and she was the spitting image of her, which he liked tremendously because he'd be upset if she looked like their father. The only one who really looked like their dad was Carlos. Dom also looked like his mother with the slender nose and full lips, light colored eyes and dark hair. Their father was as blonde as blonde could be.

"No, they won't go after Zach," he remember now who the Zach guy was she'd been rambling about before, "If you need to contact him, you can use a pay phone so they can't track it," he took a gulp from the water bottle, "They don't want anything from you," he looked her right in the eyes, "They want me. I messed up their drug smuggling operation back in Barcelona," he might as well explain it to her, "My older brother had gotten involved with them when we got tight on money and after he got killed in a drive by, I, well, get my revenge," he said revenge sarcastically, obviously not liking the choice of wording but it was what he thought best described it, "I got involved in some heavy shit over there and I've had them and the government of Spain on my ass since then," he shrugged like it was no big deal but it was obvious such a lifestyle had taken it's toll on him. He was missing out on watching his little sister grow up, was missing out on getting his life together, college (though he very well couldn't afford it), meeting someone he could settle down with, all the things he could be doing instead of running all the time.

"They want you because they saw us together and after they saw the way I reacted to my brother's death, they think by killing you, I'd come out of hiding, guns blazing,"he shook his head a bit, "I really didn't expect to ever see you again," he ran his fingers over his face, exhausted, "Sorry for knocking you out and tying you up. I don't know you so I had no idea how you'd react," which was true. And by the looks of it, he wasn't a mass murderer or even a drug addict or anything. He'd been a fairly average poor guy living in Barcelona's version of urban sprawl and hadn't really gotten into any serious trouble until his family was put on the line. He was ready ti give up but he wouldn't. He didn't want Mel to grow up without two brothers or a mother. She needed people there to protect her.

After a few moments of silence, he took in a deep breathe, "I have a friend in Santa Monica that can get us over the border," yep. Time to go to Mexico, "And we can head south from there. Once they are off our trail, I'll get you to wherever you need or want to go." He was serious as he looked at her, making sure she understood that he was planning on keeping this promise and not breaking it on any account. She'd make sure she stayed safe. He wouldn't have any more blood shed on his watch.