Shards of Us

not fast enough.

'Shoot him!' Sebastian screams as he struggles to get free. At first I'm too stunned to do anything but watch Sebastian fight, watch the man suck the air out of him. 'SHOOT HIM!' he screams even louder, and then, just like that, I snap back to my sense. I feel myself shaking, my hands a mess of trembles, but I pull the trigger without hesitation. The man cries out and falls back right before he has the chance to end Sebastian forever.

And then there is nothing but silence.

I force back a sob, trying to stay strong, trying not to think about how I just killed someone in cold blood. Slowly and numbly, I rise out of my hiding spot, every part of my body hurting.

Sebastian's eyes are filled with rage, but he doesn't look at me as I come up behind him. He just stares at the smoldering remains of the safe house, the dead bodies strewn across the floor, and the truck in the middle of the room. Everything is silent, so silent, and it hits me then how close I was to dying. These people came for us. These people found us, somehow. They want to kill us. To end us. To end me.

'Sebastian,' I say, my voice shaking as I walk over to him, but he just keeps glaring at the man I shot, his face tight and full of fury. It's only then that I notice the man is still breathing, even though he's unconscious. Sebastian clenches the gun in his hand. His arm shakes a little, but he continues to look down at the man, the hate in his eyes as evident as ever.

'Stay back, angel,' he says to me, hard and firm.

I shake my head. 'Sebastian, what--'

He whips his head around to me, his eyes wild. 'I said, stay back!'

My stomach hurts at the harshness of his words, but I obey, putting down my gun and feeling so, so out of place. This can't be real. None of this can be real. I don't even know what's going on, but I just shot a bunch of people and now I'm on the run for my life with the man who imprisoned me, and I have no idea how any of it happened. Smoke billows throughout the safe house, and it's clear we have to leave it, but for where, I don't know. I don't know how we're going to safe. We got lucky this time, but if they can find us once, they can find us again, and Sebastian may not be there to protect me that time.

'Sebastian, just leave him. He's unconscious. He isn't going to hurt us,' I call, but Sebastian doesn't listen.

I watch as he leans over to the man, whose shirt is covered in crimson. Sebastian's face is as hard as a rock as he whispers something into the man's ear. And then, just like that, he presses his gun to the man's forehead, narrows his eyes, and fires.

That's when I notice the look in Sebastian's eyes again as he pulls the trigger, that sadistic little glint, like his whole face is lighting up, like murdering makes him happy. And as soon as I place it, I know I've made a serious, serious mistake.

It's the look of a killer. 

Chapter Ten

Sebastian isn't telling me where we're going. He just drives me away as soon as we get out of the safe house, keeping his down, checking his rearview mirrors every few seconds. He doesn't speak a single word the whole time. I try to talk to him, to ask what happened in there, to ask where we're going, but he just ignores me, eyes trained on the road.

The warm morning sun quickly melts away as we drive, turning into dark skies and pouring rain. I watch the window, the rainwater slipping down the glass, and I feel myself wondering about my life--before all of this. I wonder whether meeting Sebastian has really been worth it. I mean, he makes feel like I matter, but look where that has gotten me now. I'm trapped with him. I'm his captive and I've fallen for him. I'm supposed to be his angel, the girl whose soul is pure and who has no flaws, but I don't feel very angelic. I feel much more like an idiot, really. I don't even know what I'm doing here. I just wanted something in my life, something good that couldn't be ripped away as quickly and as painfully as my parents and love of dance was, and I couldn't even get that without ending up hurt.

I look over at Sebastian, at his steely blue eyes trained on the road in front of him, at the tension in his hands as he clutches the wheel. His jaw is tight, and he looks like he's expecting someone to leap out and attack us at any moment.

'Where are we going, Sebastian?' I ask after a minute. I miss the feel of his touch already, the roughness of his skin on mine, his lips on mine.

He doesn't look at me. 'We're going nowhere,' he says. Then, under his breath, he repeats it: 'nowhere.'

I open my mouth to argue, but I no longer even have the energy to. So I just stare at him as the gray sky melts into nighttime, minutes into hours. Eventually, a shadow crosses his face, covering up the hard determination in his eyes. I listen to the sound of the road below us and the hum of the tires moving as we drive for hours and hours on end. As we move further away from the safe house, the streets start getting narrower and less like streets, mostly with cracked pavement and no cars driving in them. The only people using them wear dark baseball caps and smoke cigarettes. The houses in the neighborhood get older and more beat-up, and we start getting looks from idle neighbors as we drive deeper. I want to ask Sebastian where this place is, but I know he won't tell me. I sit there waiting, not knowing else to do, until we finally pull to a stop in front of an aging, peeling-blue-painted house at the end of the neighborhood.

Sebastian gets out immediately and slams the door behind him. I follow his lead. The air is cold out here, sending shivers up my spine, and the musty scent of smoke and rotted wood fills the air.

He doesn't look back at me as he walks right up into the house, kicks open the door, and steps inside. I quickly follow him, glancing one last time at the smoking men who are drifting closer and closer to me, and I slam the door behind me--just to be safe.

The house is cold and rickety and dark, with old pictures covering the walls and a wood floor torn up from age. Dust hangs in the air, making me cough as soon as I'm inside, and I follow Sebastian over to an old living room with a fading couch and broken rocking chair. He reaches into a box beside the chair and pulls something out--a key of some sort, it looks like. I watch him carefully as he turns back to me. His face is hard and emotionless, and something about him is serious, almost too serious.

'Sebastian,' I ask. 'What are you doing?'

He doesn't answer right away. Just closes the box, holds tight to the key, and then walks over to me. Finally, two words slip out of his mouth. 'Saving you,' Sebastian mutters under his breath. 'I'm saving you, angel.'

He brushes past me and makes his way to the kitchen, opening a rusted fridge and searching for something. His movements are urgent, determined. 'What do you mean?' I ask, following him. I'm not going to back down. Not again.

Sebastian reaches for something in the refrigerator. 'You know what I mean,' he says, pulling out a plate of what looks like a sandwich. Then he washes his hands, slips the sandwich onto a fresh plate, adds some tomatoes to the side, and turns back around. For one long second, his eyes lock with mine. His are piercing and intense, hurt and angry and protective all at once, needing to keep me safe. I raise my chin, standing defiantly. 'Tell me.'

'You really want to know?' He takes a step toward me. His suit is tattered from the shooting, and it smells strongly of gunpowder.

'Yes.'

'Well, here you have it: I'm done. Fucking done,' he says under his breath, grabbing the food and key. 'I'm not taking any risks on you. You're mine. You're mine and you aren't ever leaving my sight until I know for sure that you are safe.'

He moves past me to the basement door, unlocks it with his key, then swings it open and motions for me to follow him. I hesitate, but obey.

Sebastian leads me down the creaking stairs to an old, cob-web-ridden basement. He turns on a dim light above me, illuminating the tiny space. There is nothing but a broken washing machine and a bed in the corner of the basement, and it looks like it's been abandoned for years. Sebastian reaches toward a box beside the washer, pulls out a blue blanket, and spreads it across the bed. Then he adds a pillow to the top and points at the