Prologue
Something moved near the garbage bins by the opening of the alley. He turned around and stared.
It wasn't her. Just a stupid mouse he thought to himself as he straightened his Denim jacket for the fifth time that evening.
He shoved his right hand into his pocket and brought it out holding his phone, a Samsung A-series model. He didn't care about its name. Pressing the home button he turned around again. The coast was still clear.
The cold wind nipped at him and he started feeling uneasy.
"She would come"he re-assured himself. She had promised.
He stared back at his phone. Still no text from her. The anger started boiling up in him again.
(She wouldn't dare stand him up.)
Another movement in the mouth of the alley and he held his breath and melted into the shadows. He glared at the one opening left. He had closed the other end with a bunch of garbage bins and old beds. The person passed and he raised his massive shoulders in anger. That wasn't her, he told himself. She had stood him up. How dare she?
"Hello!" A small still voice said from the opening.
The person moved deeper into the shadows. Her faint perfume seemed to cloud the atmosphere and Riley breathed it in." Perfect," he whispered.
He unclogged himself from the shadows and stood facing her. She opened her mouth to scream. He was fast, too fast for his size she noted. He clamped his large hand over her mouth and shushed her.
"It's me. Don't scream." He whispered hoarsely. His voice had changed. She could smell his cologne and she recognised it.
She nodded her head and he removed his hand.
"You are late." He muttered, his voice attaining that musical note she was into.
"Traffic." She countered, her perfect teeth gleaming in the semi darkness.
"Okay, were u followed.?"
"No," she replied screwing her head around to look behind her.
No one was there. He knew no one followed her. He had made sure of that. He had followed her up till she had entered the mall four blocks away from the alley they were presently in.
He motioned for her to follow and helped her into his black van. He convinced her it was so that they couldn't be bothered. No one would know she was with him and so no one would follow them to their paradise. Her face brightened. She was eloping. Okay not necessarily eloping since you only did that with your real parents, she was running away from her foster parents. She was sure they wouldn't miss her. They never did.
One time she had been out for a week and they had never asked her where she had gone to. To some teens it was freedom, to her it were parents not caring enough. Anyways her real parents had dumped her at some stupid orphanage. Now she was running away with the one person who loved her. It would be so awesome she imagined. Such innocents too blind to see the bigger picture. She rarely even knows her rescuer and yet she still chose to trust a stranger and leave with him. The black van drove out of the shadows into the highway as the city lights sped by the windows biding farewell to her it was the last she ever saw those beautiful lights because as the car went the opposite direction of where they had promised one another she tried to protest but was covered on the nose with a cloth which made her slip away slowly and as things slowly darkened it is then that Marry Hale realised she had willingly walked into her own grave.
