1st Chapter

Prologue

            Somehow I knew the smiling, bright, green eyes that haunted my memory and the laughing, beautiful face of a guy who once thought a shot gun was an automatic weapon were the same belonging to the dark man who stood in front of me, holding the smoking gun that had just killed two of my friends.

The air reeked more than usual with the rusty scent of their blood.

Fate had taken him away from me so long before, only to bring back a monster.

Yet I knew in his eyes, it was not he, but I, that was the monster pleading for extinction.

XXXXX

That morning had started out like any other. I woke up to a headache that brought suicide to the top of my very short to-do list, shot up a good fix, and got my next hit ready, all before I woke everyone else up. The icily damp and crowded room was the farthest thing from the Four Seasons as one could possibly imagine, but for me it was home, that week at least. Some landlords kicked us out sooner than others.

“Damn Miki...why you up?” A lazy, half conscious voice complained. The lethargic lump that had said it we called Cookie, cause that was the only thing he could still eat, big, steamy, fresh out the oven cookies. Lucky guy.

“Yeah girl...just chill.” Another voice rasped.

She was Jackie. Had you seen her on the street you would have forgotten the neon pink pixie haired girl by your lunch hour, had there not been an enormous rainbow dragon tattoo encompassing most of her thin body that laid half hidden under a rough sheet.

I made it through a decently lukewarm shower and a single bite of plain oatmeal, one of the only things that didn’t send me straight to the head, by the time the rest were moving. Cookie managed to get zonked more than the rest of us. I guess the longer you’d been sick and the more drugs you’d taken since, the less they affect you.

The rest of my ‘family’ was in the other room. All seven of us...There had been ten once upon a time, until the Prowlers tracked them down. I could say a few things to them, but by the time I got close enough they would have found me too and I’d be the one with a bullet in my head.

“Hey, c’mon Miki, what’s eaten you?” Cookie asked when I forgot to laugh at one of his attempts to make us giggle.

“Nothing”

“It’s always nothing with Miki.” Jackie teased.

“Shut up.” I muttered, crawling back under the blankets, pointlessly trying to get warm.

I jumped at the loud bang, startled from my dreams. At least my dreams haven’t been affected yet like Kell’s. He screams bloody murder every time he shut his eyes. Poor guy is losing it more than any of us.

“Miki-Miki get up! Get up!” Jackie hissed.

Another pop sounded off from the back room.

When the biting sound registered, a creeping cold, colder than the one already there, traveled down my spine.

Another pop rang, scraping against my brain with iron finger nails.

“Miki come-” Her voice was choked out, by what I knew was a hand around her throat. Everything in the part of my mind that was still sane screamed at me to stay still, that maybe I was unnoticed. But, it was only a very small part.

I sat up as soon as two more gunshots were fired, one right after the other. I screamed, throwing my hands to my face, when Cookie landed not inches in front of me, his sunken, grey face terrified.

He blinked once.

And then he just laid there, still, cold, dead.

I was too scared to look for Jackie.

I heard the gun click, ready for its next shot. My feet were made of the same lead my stomach and the bullets are.

I looked up; just wanting to see who it was that finally ended this nightmare...

He couldn’t have recognized me; in fact I was sure he hadn’t. I was almost glad he didn’t. And I wouldn’t make him. I wanted to die and I still cared about him that much, to not let the two huge guys, at least I think they were both guys, know that he was once my...well, mine.

But I could not help but meet his eyes one last time.

A brief moment of confusion passed on his half lit, granite face.

He lowered the gun and whispered a name I hadn’t heard in a long, long time, even if it was my own, the once velvet voice that said it made it more.

“Miki?”

My blurry eyes narrowed.

I’m either hopped up to the point of absolute insanity or he has a hell of a lot of explaining to do.

He frowned.

His goons looked at him, silently questioning if they should be the ones to kill me since he hadn’t yet. Or so they thought at least. My heart had stopped beating a long time ago because of him. And from his expression, or lack thereof, he knew that.

He blinked twice, and without a word raised the sleek, shiny gun once more, held sideways, pointed directly at me.  

His face, the same face that haunted me, a face I had loved, was cold.

I took an unsteady breath when all the dark little details fell into place.

I felt my eyes fill with inevitable tears and shut them so I wouldn’t have to see it coming. He’s already killed me once...it can’t possibly hurt as much the second time around.

Two sharp, cracking pops went off.  

I wonder if I’m dead.

I’m cold.  I feel sick. I feel dead.

But those didn’t tell me much. I was too afraid to find out if my recent life was just like death, and vice versa. I didn’t move. I didn’t feel myself breathing, or my weak heartbeat. If death consists of only blackness then Cookie’s in for a shock.

Like a cry from reality, a car alarm went off somewhere.

My eyes shot open.

I gagged at what I saw first, Cookie, staring at me still. Jackie was in the corner, slumped to the ground, her blood in a big, growing, sickening pool around her. Her hot pink hair was red in places, dripping. The air reeked with the smell of blood and bullets and death. Two more, giant bodies were lying on the stained carpet… The guys that had been with him, shot dead through the head.

I guessed I was in shock, because I couldn’t feel much, but again, it isn’t like that is an abnormality for me.

A stark white piece of neatly folded paper sat on top of the rabbit eared TV set. I knew he must have left it.

Typical, leave me a note right before you leave me.

I opened it, wondering exactly what he was doing with the Prowlers, the least offensive of the names we gave them.

I would recognize his handwriting anywhere...He has said a lot of things through letters a lifetime before.

 I’m so sorry Miki. Run

-D

I snorted and tossed it away to be literally stained by the blood of my friends.

Bastard, whatever his reasons for leaving me alive I want to hate him more than anything.

 Zzzz

Today I begin to understand what love must be, if it exists. When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence.

-Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

Zzzz-end

Life after Death

“I get it by Monday or you’re outta here sweetheart!”

I slammed the door, shaking, numb fingers hurriedly locking it behind me. A stream of curses I was too weak to shout back at him ran in my throbbing head.

“I mean it! Don’t screw with me!” He yelled again.

I threw my fist against the door, moaning when it struck harder than I’d thought it would.

I started crying, feeling my legs give way beneath me as I slid to the floor.

I’m going to be back out on the streets in less than two nights. I can’t take it anymore! Everything hurts! There isn’t a cell in me that doesn’t demand constant coasting just to keep up, and with no cash or script writer as a friend I will be out of goods by Monday too.

I decided to make the best use of the next two days that I could.

I turned the shower water as hot as it would go, letting the steam fill the small, moldy bathroom, and stepped in. That was the only time when I felt good; when the heat covered me in a drowning guzzle that seemed to wash away everything, if only for a minute or two. So I stayed in there until I had to sit down from being too weak to stand and the water ran cold. I would have dried off if I had a towel, but things like that lose their value with people like me.

The grimy mirror half hid my naked reflection. My nearly matted hair concealed the worst of it, reaching all the way down past my waist.

I wonder how much smaller I can get before I can’t even find the strength to get out of bed anymore.

I stumbled back into the closet sized room, fingers fumbling in the pockets of my still bloody, soiled, torn jeans, restlessly looking for escape.

I lay down on the small, thin, yellowed mattress after taking a few downers, thinking about something I know I shouldn’t.

I felt dirty, like I was betraying my friends, but hell, they were dead and this was the one thing that didn’t make me want to join them. I could trick myself into thinking it hadn’t been him that day, that my high and longing to see him again had altered reality for the ten thousandth time. Hell, I sometimes genuinely believed that too. Unfortunately, tonight wasn’t one of those nights. I’d just have to bear the fact my flimsy fantasy was with a murderer.

I picked the last day I had seen him, before he’d disappeared, before he had left me, before he’d showed up out of nowhere and killed them.

The coarse, saturated sheets beneath me were suddenly soft city-park grass, and the stained yellow light bulb was the sun. The single, bony pillow my head rested on was his arm, wrapped tightly around me. The urine-tinted air was replaced by the crisp, addicting, scent of his after-shave and my strawberry shampoo. My silky hair was hot and damp against the sensitive skin of my neck.

My thin hands didn’t shake when they were in his. And my lips weren’t nearly as cold when he was kissing them.

I let myself go in the memory, surprised at the little things I could still remember, like the way his breathing had sounded, so calm, so peaceful, as if he had been at as much peace as I was. The ambulance that had rushed by, making me jump and accidently bite his lip, the warmth of his breath against my neck when he’d laughed at my hurried, embarrassed apology. The way his fingers had wrapped around mine, his voice a low, perfect purr in my ear.

“Miki”

I smiled. I could hear him too, better than ever actually. It was like he was really right there.

I must be flying already.

“Uh, Miki?”

Then I frowned.

He hadn’t been confused that day.

My eyes shot open with comprehension.

I flew to my feet – somehow managing to grab the small handgun by my bed. I had boosted it off some big man who had a fetish for little Japanese girls that he had made the mistake of thinking he could outsmart.

Drake seems to be surprised that he is the one at my gunpoint. Karma might be on my side now.

It’s about time.

He stepped back, his hands in the air.

“Whoa now…easy Miki…” He cautioned.

“Get the hell out of here!” I yelled.

He dropped his hands but didn’t make it for the door.

I cocked the gun.

“Now.”

“I’m not here to kill y-”

“To hell you aren’t!” I raised the gun a little higher.

“Please, just let me explain.” He pleaded.

“Explain what?! That you’re alive?! That you killed my friends!” My voice was as perilously shaky as my aim.

I noticed he kept his eyes down and about blushed when I realized why.

Oops.

This isn’t helping him take me seriously.

“Look...If I was going to kill you I would have done it then, alright? At least listen to reason. You used to like-”

“Don’t you freaking dare tell me what I used to think Drake! You’re dead!”

The pale yellow walls grew hazed and my head felt like I had just been hit by a train.

I’ve OD’d on the Valium again.

“Miki, honey, please, just put down the gun.” He raised his hands, a pair of handcuffs in one of them. I snorted in distaste and shock when he childishly handcuffed himself.

Idiot.

He trusts me more than he should.

“Look-I can’t do much now-Just put down the gun and get on some clothes and I’ll tell you everything, alright?”

I lowered my aim enough for him to know exactly what I’d shoot off first if he was lying to me again.

He rolled his eyes.

“Miki-”

“You move an inch and I swear you’ll eat lead.”

He shut his mouth and nodded once.

I kept my eyes on him when I grabbed a large, holey t-shirt from the makeshift shelf on the side of my bed. Too tired to stand, I sat on the bed. The gun was still pointed at him, but it rested on my knee now. I’m too tired to hold it up for much longer, and he has plenty of things to answer for, so this could take a while.

“Start talking.” I hurriedly ordered.

He looked at me again, something in his eyes said he was in pain too.

Well, he knows if he tries anything, he will be. I’ll make sure of it.

“Miki I’m so sorry.” He whispered, looking over at me. Under his gaze my pathetic, deteriorating excuse for a body did it’s best to not melt. Even with the gun in my hand, his obviously depressed scrutiny made me feel helpless. I hated that.

He hung his head when I rolled my eyes.

“You’re going to have to do a hell of a lot better than that Drake.” I tipped the gun further in his direction.

“But it’s true. I really am sorry!” He looked back up at me, raising his hands in a helpless, begging gesture.

That’s too far.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?! ‘I don’t give a damn? Just came to let you know I’m alive and didn’t evaporate in thin air! No hard feelings about leaving out of nowhere right?! It’s just water under the bridge now ain’t it honey?! No worries though! Cause I’m sorry about it!’ What about x-ing out my friends?!’ You freaking back stabbing bastard! You shot them! You left me!”

I could feel the room start to spin before I passed out.

XXXXX

The tall glass of clear water, sitting on the broken, moldy two-by-four that I call my table, was sort of pretty in the pale morning light. It disappeared for a second when I blinked. It took a long minute for my eyes to focus. When they did I saw four, large white pills were next to it, and a note.

Vicodin- It won’t kill you Miki.

With my headache I could care less if they do kill me.

I took all four and chugged the water down in less than a minute, a recent record for me. I’m never this thirsty. Course I have been yelling more than usual.

I noticed the pale blue, paisley fleece my arm had been covered in about then. A large PJ set, something straight out of a Land’s End catalogue, was casing every part of me but my face. It was too heavy, but it was surely warm, so that was nice at least.

I didn’t even begin to think about how it had gotten on me.

I sat up, surveying the tiny apartment, both secretly sad and noticeably happy to find it empty. I wasn’t done yelling at him just yet. But I wanted to have time to think about how to use every demeaning word I knew in one sentence. If he ever comes back, he better know that I’m nowhere near easily appeasable right now. He’ll need to give me some pretty clear answers if he doesn’t want to get that gun stuck in his face again.

In a fear filled thought, I wondered if he’d taken my gun. I grappled the sheets, pulling them away, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw its smooth black handle sticking out from under my t-shirt, crumpled in the corner.

There was a tray at the end of my bed; a tiny bowl of plain oatmeal, still steaming, and another glass of water were on it, along with something else that reeked of food. Four more pills were next to it, these all different sizes and colors.

I checked the note while I held my hand over my face.

 It’s like astronaut food, full of vitamins, no real taste. I don’t think it’ll make you sick. At least try to eat it. Don’t hope to get loaded off the pills. They’re the good kind of medical supplements.

I found it easy to trust him when I wasn’t looking at him.

My Drake wasn’t the one in that gloomy, icy room, standing over the dead bodies of my friends. He wasn’t the ominous man holding a gun pointed directly at me, letting me think he was about to kill me too, or one of the Prowlers. He wasn’t the guy that had broken into my apartment to play peeping Tom while I debated shooting him.

My Drake was the one who used to leave me little notes like this all the time, in every place, so he could “always be here.” Things that made me stop and smile no matter what was going on.

My Drake who loved reading old books, new books, fiction, history, political, just about any books he could get his hands on. Who grew up in the middle of nowhere, on a beautiful ranch with his horses and his brother. My Drake was the guy whose heart was more angel than man, he who once spent an entire summer nursing a three legged horse back to health. He was the kid everyone knew and trusted, raised by his amazing mother after his dad died. My Drake was the one who oddly liked any kind of new age rock music and hated main stream pop, who wanted to be a doctor one day and live in a giant old brick house, on a big yard with a lot of dogs, somewhere in the south, where his beloved heat lasted almost all year round...

My Drake must have stopped existing the second I couldn’t call him ‘mine’ anymore.

XXXXX

He was right, the astronaut food was kind of tasteless, but it still made me want to hurl. I somehow managed to keep it down, burying my face in my arms so I wouldn’t see the room spin. The pills were different. It took me an hour to take them.

Another note was tacked up by the window.

There’s 4,000$ under the nightstand, if you want to run, and another 10,000$ in an account at your old bank. The password is your favorite song.

Miki, please, I don’t want you to go, you are sick, and I can help you. I’m not going to force you. If you’re still in the apartment at four o’clock this afternoon I’ll be here and you can have every and any answer you deserve.

I’m sorry.

I slid to the ground, unsure of what I should do.

The Vicodin had numbed out some of my migraine, and my body didn’t ache so much, so that made it easier to think. But it didn’t clear the haze I can never seem to escape. I caught myself thinking about where I’d hidden my stash, until I remembered I had run out of that yesterday.

Answers sound nice. No one has been able to give me many. And it looks like Drake has drug access, which meant it wouldn’t hurt to keep him around for that reason alone. He owes me that much.

I wasn’t sure if seeing him again would help me or hurt me. An ex rising from the dead takes a lot out of a person.

 I slid my hand under the nightstand and just as he had said, a paper bag full of hundreds with the ‘new money’ smell came out.

My mouth watered at the thoughts of all the scat this could get me.

Another note was in there.

Don’t forget to pay your landlord.

So he’s checked in on me...

Wonderful.

I noticed the small, leather bag by the closet a few minutes later. I crawled over to it, carefully undoing to the zipper.

With a week like mine had been anything could have popped out.

There was a pair of broken in jeans, kid sized, folded on the top. I rolled my eyes at the baby pink stitching. I’m not that small. …Am I?

 My hand brushed against a violet cashmere sweater that felt like heaven itself. I immediately tore off the Land’s End stuff and put it on, savoring the forgotten feeling of soft. I rolled my shoulders, ignoring the creaking of my bones.

There was also a hair brush, tennis shoes, and big, thick, rabbit fur lined suede gloves that seemed to conform to my thin, always frozen fingers, just like someone was holding my hand.

There were also pills. The ‘supplements’ I was evidently supposed to take, some pain killers, and downers to help me sleep.

I tucked all of the blues in my pocket, along with the rest of my collection and a few of his.

Underneath all that there was an envelope.

I opened it.

It was a picture, of us, his arm around me, kissing me while his free hand flew up to push away the person taking the shot. My face was hidden behind his. I recognized it as the first time he had let me meet his older brother. Awkward is an understatement. I felt myself smirk at the memories.

Written across the bottom was another note.

This may be the last thing I’ll ever get to say to you. I want you to know I am so sorry, beyond any words I can say, for everything I ever did to hurt you. I didn’t know. I love you Mimi.

–Your Drake

I couldn’t stop crying, no matter how furious I am that he’d do something like this to me. Give me the not-so-easy option to run. Then put off his innocent little guilt trip, make it look like he was somehow really trying to help me, that he hadn’t been the one to leave!

Oh, crap, he is good!

I had known better than to teach him how to act.

I had known better about a lot of things, but that didn’t mean any of them changed.

XXXXX

The knock on the door was unsure, careful.

“Miki?” His low voice seeped through the walls, and then into me.

My heart throbbed, desperately moaning at the thought of being so close to him again, no matter how much I wish she wouldn’t, she just couldn’t help herself.

He opened it within two seconds. His patience hadn’t improved.

I didn’t lift my head from my hands.

“...Oh Miki-”

“Stay away from me.” I hissed, staring at an oddly shaped stain in the carpet. I lifted my wrist, pointing the small gun in his general direction.

I heard his hurried footsteps as he retreated.

“Why’d you kill ‘em Drake?” I demanded. He had said I got to ask questions. I wasn’t wasting any time.

I heard him sigh.

“We can’t afford to let this spread.”

“So we were actually sick?” I asked and peeked between my arms to see his nod.

We had suspected it; our symptoms were all the same, even though none of us had been using the same goods. Jackie liked her vodka, as had her boyfriend, Cookie his weed and pills, Kell’s weakness was opium, and black balloon mixed with coke was a favorite of the rest’s. None of it had made sense, until now.

Screw it. None of it makes sense now either.

“It’s a disease, a virus sort of, attacking the brain and nervous system...That’s why you’re always in pain.”

Go ahead; remind me that I feel worse than crap.

He sat down a few feet in front of me, crossing his legs. I would have preferred more space, but the room is only so big.

I bit my lip, watching the way he moved, so powerful and confident, hating that my lack of self-control outweighed my would-be disgust for him.

“It’s sort of like Lupus, except it’s your brain eating away at itself. It could be a very devastating outbreak, given the right circumstances; it would explode within only a couple years. These are instances we are trying to stop from happening.”

That makes a teeny bit of sense I guess. My memory span is getting worse by the week.

“I didn’t want to kill them. There just isn’t another way to control the circulation right now.”

“Screw you. You were the one holding the freaking gun! It go off by itself?! You were going to murder me too!”

He looked to the side while I continued to curse him out. He talked when I paused for a breath.

“Tell me about your friends.”

“You want to know who you killed in cold blood.” I exhaled through my teeth.

He slowly nodded- his face dark.

“The girl with pink hair was Jackie...She was a tattoo artist, a good one, from California. She and her boyfriend moved here a couple years ago. She had her own shop before they got sick. You probably killed him too. Had a matching tat?”

He nodded again, gulping.

Figures.

“And Cookie...”

My throat hurt too much to talk at first.

My fingers grew colder as they tightened around the gun.

“Damn you Drake! He was too good a guy to die at end of your gun! He was just some country Catholic kid! He never hurt anyone in his whole life! Never even touched junk until he got sick! He had no street skills, nothing to help him survive that world! And you freaking shot him!”

I started hysterically laughing, tears pouring down my face.

I was flipping out. I have a right to.

“He said because he sinned God was going to make him go through hell on earth, then he might get a shot at heaven or something, cause he kept saying he was really sorry. He always said he was so sorry. …And you killed him...”

Drake was next to me next time I paid attention, his face anxious.

I leaned away from him and gave him a look that would scare off a bouncer.

“Maybe he was right. Maybe he’s happy now.”

“Or maybe he’s in some morgue inside a metal box waiting to get burned to ashes.” I hissed.

“Fair enough...”

I took a deep breath so I could call him every name I knew.

Drake deserved that much and more, but I didn’t have the strength to slug him.

I coughed on the stale air. I never feel like I could get enough oxygen. I yawned, and then coughed again.

“We’re going to get you out of this apartment for a while, some fresh air ok?”

I feebly nodded. That actually sounds nice. I can always yell at him later.

I felt him gently pry the revolver out of my shaky fingers. I didn’t have a choice but to let him take it, I’m so weak nowadays. I know I stand no chance without it but I doubt that I stand one with it either.

He grabbed me by my torso.

Go figure, his hands reach all the way around. Each of his fingers pressed right into my bones, leaving more imprints on me than he already had. He easily lifted me to my feet. I shoved him off.

“Don’t freaking touch me, Drake.” I warned again.

That gun would be handy. Nothing like having one of them in your face to get you to pay attention.

“Sorry...”

He opened the door for me, letting me go first. I want more than anything to be able to outpace him, or at least walk with confidence.

He seemed to know he was ticking me off by just being alive and stayed a foot back, eyes down. He put up a first-class guilty act.

When we got to the rusty, half-decayed stairs I had a brief moment of panic. No way will I be able to make it down them today.

He stopped, looking where I looked.

“I can carry you.”

“Hell no!” I shouted.

Did he already forget the fact that I didn’t want him breathing the same air that I did?

That he’d let me think he was dead for all those years!?

That he’d killed the only people I considered friends in right front of me!?

Apparently, cause next thing I know I’m curled against him, being carried like a little kid.

I struggled, cursed him out, insulted his mother, and even went as far as to call out for help.

“Oh hush Miki,” He chided.

I crossed my arms, seething with anger that I’m so much weaker than him. He thinks he can do whatever the heck he wants, now that he’s practically doubled in size. For all I know, he actually can.

He set me down at the end of the last flight.

I muttered something starting with an f and ending in a u before attempting to stalk off down the street.

He caught my arm.

“Wrong way, honey.”

 I tore my arm away from his hand, glaring with as much hate as I could muster into the emerald eyes that maddeningly remained soft.

“I ain’t your honey anymore.”

Then I told him he could go do something to himself.

“Stay here okay? I’m going to get the ride.”

 I huffed.

Does he hear nothing I say?

He attempted to smile before jogging off down the street.

I glanced to my left, down the half empty, once paved road, wondering how far I could get should I decide to run, just for the sake of saying I had tried.

I have three bucks in my pocket; a cab, even if one would dare enter this neighborhood, would be of little use.

I cursed myself out for leaving the cash he had given me.

But I wasn’t in the mood for taking his handouts.

A loud, thundery motor snapped me out of my planning.

He conceitedly smirked on top of the shiny monster he proudly sat on.

“Damn...” I have to hand it to him; it is one of the best-looking Harley’s I’ve ever seen.

I frowned when I remembered something he’d once said.

“You can never go wrong with safety; my first car was a big old Jeep- a tank practically. Best thing in the world.”

Well unless he is invincible now, that doesn’t look safe.

He gracefully swung his leg off it, a move that I could tell demanded practice, and strength, and waited for me to walk up. I did, everything in me saying there must be something wrong with him too.

I stared at him with another condemning glare when he handed me a helmet, easily dangled on his pointer finger.

“Please?”

Those big green eyes were like little mind controllers.

He lifted the gigantic, glossy thing a bit higher.

I took it in both hands, instantly dropping it.

The helmet made a loud smack as it hit the concrete, bouncing a few times.

My wrists already ache.

“It’s too heavy...” I murmured.

He had it up off the ground before I had even started to move.

He gulped, nodding slowly.

I wouldn’t meet his eyes because he wouldn’t meet mine.

“Alright...we’ll just have to risk it.”

He tried to make it funny, the fact my brain was somehow slowly eating away at itself and I was losing most physical and mental capabilities in the process.

Freaking hilarious…

He got back on the bike, holding out one hand to help me. I must have looked completely ridiculous. I almost fell twice before he wrapped his arm around my waist and gently pulled me behind him.

“You okay?”

I nodded, unsure of exactly how I felt.

I still want to cuss him out or hold the gun to him again, that had felt good both times it had happened.

He might have explained some stuff, but he had still ditched me after three whole years of being together without so much as a goodbye.

The bond didn’t feel like it was going to mend anytime soon.

He revved the engine, it growled in response.

My stomach lurched when we started moving, zipping down the street.

Everything changed when I, out of a need to hold onto something, wrapped my arms around his firm waist. Something in me broke while another thing healed. I couldn’t help myself as I buried my face in his neck, inhaling that same, familiar, very ‘guy-clean’ like scent that brought back a lifetime’s worth of memories from a past existence that seemed no more true than the dreams I relived it in.

When he hit a speed bump, I held on tighter, my fingers knotting in the thin t-shirt he wore.

I could feel the bike weave in and out of traffic, the wind in my hair, the giant, vibrating machine underneath me, jogging loose every bone in my body, and him, so big and warm...

I clenched my eyes shut so I wouldn’t cry again.

I felt his head turn to check on me as we stopped at a red light.

“Miki?” He asked over the engine’s drowning roar. “You ok?”

I nodded, my cheek brushing against his shirt.

I didn’t look up. Let him think the sun will hurt my eyes; I don’t care, as long as he doesn’t see me right now.

The light must have turned green, we were moving again. He stopped what could have been hours later. I didn’t want to let him go, but unfortunately, I had to. My fingers were cramping, along with every other part of me.

He was standing next to me, holding his hand out to help me off, or actually pick me up off the bike I found out a second later. I stood, surprised to find grass under my feet. He wrapped his arm around my waist, helping me keep my footing.

I didn’t know if he had seen my tears or had felt them while we were riding, but he had upped his act.

He looks about as fully miserable as I feel.

“Can you sit?” He whispered.

I nodded and released the tension in my legs. I would have fallen to the ground had he not caught me again.

“Easy...”

“Where are we?” I asked once my back was steadily against the earth.

He passed me a pair of dark sunglasses.

“Thanks” Nicest thing I had said to him all day, aloud at least.

“Out of the city- no cameras, or witnesses.” He explained.

I frowned.

“Why would we need no witnesses?”

“Time to start talking huh Miki?”

I jerked my head in a nod.

“What would you call me- or what would your friends have called me?”

“Prowler” I answered immediately, somehow knowing that is what he meant.

“We control the spread of the disease. Mediator is the term we prefer.” He clarified.

Hell, why go the doctor route? He would have made a great teacher- So detached from what he is saying.

“I really am sick huh?” I whispered.

He grimly nodded.

“Does this thing have a name? A cure?”

“Not really...We know ways to alleviate some of the symptoms, but nothing reaches below the surface. We’ve got a name for it but you won’t understand it.”

He must just want me to slap him.

“There’s two different ways it affects people, mind or body...” He slowed down, dropping his shadowy green eyes. His hands kneaded the green grass beneath him. “You...got the mental strain. It’s technically an STD-”

“But you aren’t...”

I trailed off at the horror in his glossy stare.

I shook my head.

My breathing caught as I started to hyperventilate.

“But-But you’re okay-”

“I am sick too...just the other kind. Anyone whose body is changed is sort of all right. I got the other strand.”

I shook my head until it hurt.

He just kept staring at me, his face as if he was the one in pain.

“I swear Miki I thought you’d be okay too- I never thought-I never knew...” He stopped talking and looked away from me, towards the ground.

“Did I get you sick Drake?” My voice shook and I could feel the water fill my eyes, threatening to spill over.

I knew I had been the more ‘experienced’ one before we’d met. It killed me to think I had hurt him, and then I yelled at myself for feeling sorry for the jerk.

“No, Miki, you didn’t. It’s genetic, kind of. Some people carry a part of the virus in them, it’s in our genes, our very make-up, and as soon as the second half is... introduced, then it is active. It’s not a one night stand type of thing- you have to feed both sides for as little as two years before it’ll start affecting the carriers.”

“Us…” I whispered, noting how he didn’t acknowledge me, just kept talking.

“...There’s no known deciding factor on how it chooses to affect them. Once it’s activated, then it is considered contagious. Either of the people infected can get other people sick same way other STD’s work. Body fluids, blood, those kinds of contact. Mine, the physical strand, makes me stronger, faster, and a little smarter. We guess that it’s trying to keep me or anyone else with it alive, to spread it more.”

His blank staring eyes darkened even more.

“But yours...”

“Is killing me.” I whispered.

I should be happy, to know that the addictions, the pain, the hallucinations that were not cause by the drugs, the no eating, the need to sleep almost all the time even when I hadn’t been on heroin...They were all caused by something I had no control over.

But how can I be happy when the reason why is Drake?

My beautiful, smart, once so pleasantly reserved Drake?

That can’t be right, not “us.”

That couldn’t have been what made me sick.

“It’s making it easier for you to kill yourself...while it kills you.” He whispered.

I turned away from him. He shouldn’t have to see me. I know I look like hell. He shouldn’t have to watch me die.

He should be living in his big house by now, with those gigantic dogs he had kept going to see at the pound and a yard that stretched on for acres, somewhere out in the country where he could fish and ride his horses. With a nice girl, maybe a blonde this time, with big, wide, baby blue eyes that could stare at him and actually make him happy and feel superior to every other man alive...

He should have a girl that wouldn’t bring out a killer disease that could drive you nuts or turn you into Superman. With a degree, and a practice in some nice office building in a city that didn’t smell like a cesspool in most parts, and maybe a little kid, something he had never had the guts to bring up with me, something I had never even in passing thought about, something the blonde had always wanted.

He should be happy.

Not this.

“Why did you leave? Did you know you were sick, that I was?” I managed to whisper.

“No... They found me. The disease leaves telltale signs that any doctor would notice, nothing huge, but is it also something most would dismiss. You have to know what you’re looking for to piece them together. there is an entire segment of our operation made to monitor checkup clinics in most of the world’s major cities...normally the ones by the dregs and poorer areas because of the lack of sanitary conditions. They knew about us, and asked me if we had been... sleeping together. I said no. I had to. I couldn’t have you become one of them. ...They actually think I’m gay and you were my roommate.”

I could tell that had at least got a smirk out him by his tone.

It also figures.

Everyone had always wondered how a little foreign Army brat with no ambitions and daddy’s giant life insurance check to live off for the rest of her life had landed a Harvard medical student.

“I never thought it would have given you the opposite strand Miki, that is never happened before.” He grew more sober, his breathing heavier.

I don’t want to think about that. I can’t.

“Why aren’t you one of the doctors then?”

It doesn’t make any freaking sense! Drake shouldn’t be killing people! Not my Drake!

“I am...but they only keep around so many people. They know I understand the risks involved with containing something like this, what with my medical background. And I am so highly infected; all the benefits of this strand are more influential and dynamic. I get double duty.”

Maybe he is talking that way so I would stay calm, or maybe he really doesn’t care.

“Let me think...”

I picked a day I hadn’t relived in a long time.

The morning he was gone.

The crisp, white cotton sheet was the first thing I had seen, stained with a strip of my once shiny blue-black hair. I had looked for my usual note, always set on his pillow. Normally it was something like, ‘I’ll be back to you before noon,’ ‘On campus for tests, back in your arms by dusk,’ or it would be a reminder of something I needed to do that day.

That morning was only different because that time it was recycled notes, two of them, one on the pillow, and one beneath it...

There is a pathologically shy guy two seats behind you who thinks you are the most striking girl he has ever seen and would love to talk to you, but he was born without a courageous bone in his body. Cut him a break, please, beautiful? He just moved here and isn’t the most outgoing kid in the world.

- Drake

Subways...

You never know who you’ll meet.

I could still see his surprised, boyishly thrilled face when I had moved next to him, handing back the note with a comment similar to ‘Best pick up... eh, note...I’ve ever gotten.’

To which he had laughed at.

I couldn’t believe someone so attractive would be as shy as he had been at first. I figured it was all a game. He was seemingly charming enough that I’d played along for a few dates. After that ‘playing along’ became ‘looking forward’ to, as much as I fought it, fearing getting too attached, too dependent again.

And then, one day, a couple weeks into it, it became where I would literally count off the hours since he’d last called me, hoping the next never ending conversation would leave us meeting somewhere, anywhere. Even if it was at a library where he would do his studying as I read off the incomprehensible vocabulary list. As long as I got to be with him.

...Though, looking back, there was no way he could have known that. And it is far too late and much too painful to reveal anything, even if I did want to.

The other note was underneath that one.

I love you Mimi

I had smiled, recognizing the faint lip-gloss stain in the corner I had sent back as a reply before actually saying it to him and then kissing him since he had been next to me anyway.

The dates they had been written were only three weeks apart.

But I wouldn’t have consciously known that then.

Drake had entered my life so extraordinarily, uncharacteristically easily that time with him blended into one past erasing, present consuming dream.

I had thought, in reading both of those, that maybe that day was some sort of anniversary for us, things he liked to make a big deal out of, so I had forced myself out of bed and into one of my only dresses, then went on to paint my face.

Then he didn’t call.

Not that afternoon, not that night when he didn’t come home from work, not the next day.

I called the cops to file a missing persons report. I had hunted down his classmates, teachers, co-workers, everyone. His mom had been so scared when I told her, so terrified. I found no comfort in the theory that he might have just left, because he would have told her, and she wouldn’t have let me cry into a phone for five hours if she had known anything. And she certainly wouldn’t have offered for me to come stay with her for a while.

When it finally struck, after twelve sleepless nights, and endless searching later, that he wasn’t coming home, I felt as if someone had slammed a cold slab of ice into my heart, ripping it free from my chest, only to thrash the last breath of hope I still held out of me. Leaving just a hole where my heart should have been, I’ve never been able to breathe since...

And then there was that growing pain, the thing doctors insisted could be cured with mountains of meds and a change of scenery. I knew I wasn’t hungry because I was worried sick that he had been murdered and was lying in some ditch in the dregs, and that I hurt all the time for the same reason. So when those magic pills didn’t work, I never thought twice, just got better pills, ones that could really numb me, make me forget.

It had taken me a long while to figure out I might actually be ill.

XXXXX

 “So they just took you?” I sniffed, wiping my eyes.

“Pretty much...a year of training later I was, a prowler, I guess. For the full term we were on lockdown, treated as what we are, carriers, making us understand the gravity of the situation. No outside contact whatsoever was allowed. Most people are in that phase much longer, but I already knew the medical side.”

He was pausing between every other word, trying to figure out how to say it where I’d understand.

It didn’t help.

“Does Karen know?” I couldn’t decide what I’d think if he’d said yes, that his mother, a woman who I had nearly fallen in love with as much as I had her son, would have kept this from me. If she did, she deserves an Oscar for her performance. I’d only stopped talking to her two years ago. She could have known for a whole year…

“No…” His dropped his voice.

“What? They didn’t let you call at all? Or write a note for crying out loud?”

“No...Anyone I communicated with would have been in question. They could have found you through her. I didn’t want you to become one of us- but I didn’t know that you could get the other strand. They never told me-It’s never happened.”

He cursed himself out underneath his breath.

He has to keep bringing it up.

 I’m dying. I’ve sort of known that for a couple years now. Rubbing it in my face isn’t getting him anywhere.

“It killed me to have to leave Miki. I wanted to tell you everything, but-”

He began where he had left off at his speech to himself, his once so calm and smooth voice rough with disgust.

I reached under my sweater, pulling out the long chain. A small, metal cylinder was at the end. I handed it to him, still facing the other way so he wouldn’t have to see me.

“Your scat stash?” He asked, confused.

“It’s not heroin.” I muttered, though I wouldn’t mind if it was.

I could almost feel his frown.

I heard the clasp open. I was afraid it’d be stuck. My hands shake too much for me to be able to unlock it much anymore.

The sound of unraveling paper followed.

“Miki...” He murmured.

I had kept the notes.

“I thought you were dead Drake.” My voice choked, my shoulders breaking into sobs. “I didn’t know I was sick... I was hurting because I had lost you.” I whispered unsteadily through a closing throat. I felt his meant to be comforting hand against the back of my neck, brushing aside my hair. “I started th-throwing up a lot, nothing tasted right, I couldn’t sleep... I-I thought I was pregnant.”

His hand froze. I could hear him suck in a breath.

The tears came heavier.

“I wanted to be...I wanted it so much. I needed it. I went to a dozen doctors before I gave up, but no one knew what was really wrong. Everyone- for a whole year Drake, no one helped me...They just kept saying I had fibromyalgia and was depressed and kept giving me pills…and they didn’t work…and more pills came that I started to like too much and it just kept hurting more and more...I couldn’t escape it no matter what I did. I tried. I really tried.”

I must be flying, for talking to him like this, for confessing on how much his leaving had done to me. He deserves to know I still want to hate him, that I have every reason in the world to, and that I don’t.

I want him to know I tried to not become a druggie, and that I tried to look for better answers. But the money I didn’t spend on doctors I ended up using on pills when the pain became too bad and heroin when the pills stopped working round clock. And it hadn’t been long until my suddenly barren apartment turned into a dingy room right in the middle of the ghetto.

“I’m so sorry Mimi...” His words were gravel.

I was proud of myself when I habitually shrugged, hiding my pain and irritation at his apology and my watery eyes at my pet name.

“It’s not your fault.”

He continued to run his hand through my hair. I knew he was thinking. He always fiddled with something when he thought. About what I could never be sure.

I pulled a few pills from my pocket.

His hand snatched mine in midair.

“Don’t” He ordered.

“I don’t feel good.” I complained in a whine. I rarely did, and the conversation wasn’t helping.

“Don’t take those. They aren’t the ones I gave you.” He released my hand.

I looked in the other pocket; sure enough his were whiter, smaller.

“Only three” he instructed. A bottle of water was held in front of my face.

I took it, downing all the pills at once. I barely noticed the nausea that followed.

They took affect soon enough since there was nothing else in my stomach and I am so skinny.

I was almost asleep when he pulled my shoulder back until he was staring straight at me. From his expression I look worse than I feel. He looks tortured.

His hand gently stroked the side of my face. His forest eyes stared back into mine.

He had claimed to be able to see my soul once upon a time, claimed that he had seen it the first time he saw me in that subway.

...I desperately want to know if he still does, if there is anything left to see.

“I’m never going to ask you to forgive me, but can you trust me? ...Please Miki? I swear I didn’t know it all would end up like this, and I know I promised to always be there for you and I’m so sorry honey...I can try to make you feel better, but I can’t fix this yet. I swear I’m going to alright? I’ve been trying. Please let me help you sweetheart.”

The thought of ever yelling at him or holding a gun to this perfect face is appalling.

That is my Drake. The one who I’d never stopped loving. Four years was a long time, long enough for me to forget a lot of the initial hurt, long enough to make me need him back.

I was lying down in a park, with his face only inches above mine... What better place to pick up than where we had left off?

He instantly was a foot away, his hand against my torso.

He could likely feel my racing heart.

“No.”

He was different. His eyes were guarded.

Not Drake.

He was whoever they had trained him to be.

 It hit me.

“I can get you sick like me can’t I?” I whispered fearfully.

I’d half hoped I’d at least get to be with him before my brain ate enough of itself to make me lose it, hoped that maybe, somewhere in his eyes I could be the same for one little night, be beautiful.

“Yes.”

“Oh.” I looked away from him, the hardest thing I had done that day, before my eyes glazed over.

He seemed to forget what had just happened, because his fingers were brushing against my forearm. He slowly, carefully, pushed the sleeve up. I could see the purplish veins through my transparent skin and the scars from the spikes I had used to shoot myself up countless times. I knew he could see them too, better than I could.

I’d been smart enough to not inject in my feet. I’d seen the horrifying effects of that at a young age and the impression it’d left on me was greater than the sometimes unrelenting need to get high as fast as possible.

He wrapped his entire hand around the crease of my elbow. His warmth felt nicer than the cashmere I was wearing when it was eighty degrees out.

“...I trust you Drake.” I whispered.

I could feel him relax. The very air changed.

He scooped me up against him as easily as you’d expect Superman to pick up ninety pounds.

Funny, three hours ago I was cussing him out for this, threatening to chop off pieces of him, now I couldn’t bear the thought of being put down. This is one change I sort of like. He’s never carried me before.

“I wish more than everything that it was different Miki.” He said into my hair as he carried me to the Harley. “You know I’d give anything to change this for you...I am going to fix this.”

I nuzzled against him, letting everything I should hate him for- the black, aching hole in me, and my hazy memories of Cookie and Jackie- fade away...long enough for me to remind myself why I had once loved him.

“I know...” I said lazily.

He put me on first, and then somehow managed to get on while holding me still.

I was falling hard enough to crash while we were still driving.