OLIVIA

On Friday, as Olivia was shutting her locker, a familiar weight came down across her shoulders and she found herself involuntarily smiling at Milo.

"Ready to go?" he asked her.

For nearly the past ten days, Olivia had been holed up in front of Blake's computer, either doing homework or looking up police officers and court cases, unable to do anything else. Her search had been fruitless other than what she had found that first night, and it was beginning to cut into her sleep without yielding any more information. It was purely a gracious miracle that Milo and Emily had invited her to the mall to catch a movie today.

Another arm slung her neck from the other side. Olivia looked down to see black leggings tucked into Emily's signature four inch black heeled boots. "Milo, what did I tell you?" she demanded. "Olivia is my friend, not yours."

Milo's jaw dropped open at Emily's words. "How can - she's - how does that make any sense?"

Emily laughed and ruffled his hair with her hand. "Chill out, Milo. Come on, let's get out of here."

The action movie that the three of them decided to watch wouldn't start for another two hours, and they spent the time wandering through the mall. Emily insisted on getting frozen yogurt, and they spent some time at an arcade with old fashioned video games and pinball machines. When they got back to the theater about fifteen minutes before the movie started, they got in line for snacks while they waited.

"Popcorn or..." Milo looked at the options. "French fries?"

"Both," Emily said without hesitation. "Why would you make me choose? That's like asking me to decide between two flavors of ice cream. Why would you force yourself to go with one if you could do both?"

"You really have no sense of being health conscious, do you?" Milo grumbled.

"Nope!" Emily said happily. "Olivia, what do you think?"

Olivia looked at the two of them, Emily grinning and Milo with his arms crossed over his chest. "I don't know Emily..."

Emily gasped and Milo burst out laughing. "Now whose friend is she, Emily?" he teased.

She stuck her tongue out at them good naturedly. "Don't either of you be eating out of my food when you run out of this salty goodness."

"Us?" Milo exclaimed incredulously. "You're the one who's always eating out of my ice cream. And chips. And pretzels. And-"

"That was so long ago!"

"That was two days ago!"

"What can I say? I like to eat."

Milo rolled his eyes. "Too much."

"Aw, don't be so sad, Milo." Emily laughed and swatted his arm. "Anyways, stay here and don't leave if the food comes, I'm just going to go and wash my hands."

She left Olivia and Milo standing at the counter, waiting for their orders to come. Milo sighed and leaned down against the counter. "How are we going to carry all of her food to the theater?" He looked down at the receipt she handed him so he could take her order when it was called and his eyebrows shot up. "Oh no, she ordered a drink, too."

Olivia laughed at his despondent face. "She said she's coming back. We won't have to carry it all back ourselves."

"Can you imagine the mountain of food?" he demanded dramatically.

He was looking through their order numbers when Olivia noticed that his sleeve had slipped upwards with the way he was leaning down against the counter. A dark, blotchy patch of skin showed through just the edge of the sleeve.

She motioned to it with her hand. "Milo, is that-"

Milo yanked down his sleeve. "It's nothing," he said.

But it definitely wasn't nothing. Hesitantly, Olivia took his wrist in her hand and he grumbled but he didn't pull his arm away when she lifted his sleeve. It was an ugly, mottled bruise, like someone had grabbed him, hard, and yanked him.

"Who did that?"

He shrugged his hand out of her grasp. "It was no one, Olivia."

"Was it...was it your dad?"

Milo sighed and looked away. "He came around. We got angry at each other."

Olivia didn't comment on the fact that when normal people got angry, they talked through it. They walked away to cool off. Their first reaction wasn't to hurt others. "I thought you said he was in jail for possession?"

"It's been a few years since then. Someone decided that he was rehabilitated enough to rejoin society," Milo said bitterly, spitting out the word rehabilitated like it poisoned his mouth. "He came around as soon as he got back."

"Have you ever thought about telling someone?" Olivia asked him. "Just so someone knows. Just so...so you don't feel like there's no way he could ever stop."

Milo smiled at her ruefully. "Haven't you ever considered that for your situation, Olivia?" He took her hand in his and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. "It's not easy, you know?"

"I know," she told him, but she also remembered how much better she had felt after crying to Blake the day before. She hadn't even said much to him, hadn't told him who was after her, but just his kind words and his persistence in staying with her had taken a load off her chest that she hadn't known could be removed.

"I'm glad I told you," Milo said suddenly. He rubbed at the back of his neck and wouldn't look at her as he gave her a small, embarrassed smile. "I guess...it's enough for me that one person knows."

"You haven't told anybody else? Ever?"

Milo shook his head. "My family knows but anyone else...it's just too weird." He shrugged to himself. "I don't know, Olivia. You don't talk much but that just makes it easier to talk to you."

Olivia raised an eyebrow. She had always assumed her lack of words had always scared everyone away, and now here was this boy telling her it made it easier? She didn't know if she should laugh or cry. "Thanks...I guess?"

Milo let out a little laugh. "You're welcome." He turned and handed a tray of popcorn and fries to her. "Now help me with all of this stuff before I drop it and Emily comes and murders me."

*****

As the advertisements were still playing before the movie started, Olivia got up from her chair and told Milo and Emily that she was going to wash her hands too.

Emily was already half out of her seat as she asked, "You want me to come with you?"

"No, no," Olivia said quickly. "I'm fine, I'll be right back."

"You sure?" Milo asked. "I mean, I should probably wash my hands too-"

Olivia shook her head. "Really, it's okay," she said, giving them a little smile at how concerned they were. "I'll be fine."

Later, she would regret it, but at the time, she didn't give it a second thought.

The theater had two bathrooms, one towards each wing of the movie rooms. As Olivia turned the corner into the girls' bathroom closest to the theater where Emily and Milo were waiting, she almost ran directly into a cleaning cart.

A woman wearing the blue employees' uniform was mopping the floors. She looked up to see what caused the noise. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, straightening and wiping her forehead with her sleeve. "I'll be done in just a minute."

"No, no, it's fine," Olivia said. "I'm sorry about that, I'll just go to the one down the hall."

She left the bathroom and crossed the lobby to the bathrooms in the other wing of the theater. After washing her hands, she was just leaving the long hallway to go back through the lobby when she saw them.

Two men in black coats.

They looked exactly the same as they had before, except now the dark sunglasses were hung casually around their necks. Olivia had expected to see tiny, angry eyes, but they were misleadingly normal.

What had she expected to see? Fake eyeballs or chameleon-like swivelling irises?

Get a grip.

Olivia pressed herself flat against the wall and inched away from the edge of the wall so she wasn't in full view of them. She put her hands into her pockets, only to find them empty. She had forgotten her pepper spray. Again.

She wiped her sweaty hands on her pants and looked around the corner again. The men were gesturing in the direction of the left wing, where she had just been. Where she would have been right that moment if she had stayed to wash her hands in the closer bathroom.

The men were moving into the left wing now. She couldn't go back there. She was going to have to make something up for Milo and Emily later. Right now, all she had to do was go out through the lobby and either get to the bus stop or walk home. Her house was only a twenty minute walk from the theater, and she would much rather walk then wait at the bus stop and risk being seen.

Olivia leaned around the corner and checked again to make sure that the men were still in the left wing. Then, as fast as she could without running, she began walking to the entrance.

Her heart was beating so hard in her chest that she was sure everyone within a three foot radius could hear it pounding, loud and fast. She took in shallow breaths and forced herself to walk, to not break out into a run and draw unwanted attention to herself.

She was halfway across the room when in the corner of the lobby, near the door, she saw rapid movement.

The two men hadn't been alone.

They had a spotter.

And he was coming right at her.

Needles of panic stabbed her deep in the lungs and for one horrible moment, she felt stuck to the floor. She stood there, unable to have another thought or to move even an inch out of the man's line of sight.

She wondered if her mom had been frozen like this, in her last moments, and that one thought brought back the awful image of her mother lying dead on the cold steel table, hair splayed, nose red, blue lips slightly parted.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Mom, I'm sorry.

Someone bumped into her shoulder, and that little movement wrenched her sneakers from the tiles, and she barely heard their apology as she finally gained life in her limbs and tore from the spot.

She spun away in the opposite direction of the man and dodged through elbows and shoulders and bags. She heard someone shout behind her, and she couldn't tell if it was the man or not, but it only made her heart try even harder to beat right out of her chest.

She burst out through the crowd of people in front of a door labelled employees only. Without a second thought, she pulled it open and slipped inside.

A strong whiff of butter and fried oil met her nose as she pulled the heavy door shut behind her. In front of her, the hallway turned right after a few dozen feet. Through a slightly open door to her right, she could see the inside of the theater kitchen. People milled around inside, cooking and chopping and plating things.

Olivia hoped the bend of the hallway wasn't just an end. If this was the kitchen, maybe it was a service entrance. There had to be a back door somewhere.

"Hey!" Someone shouted for her as she ran past the kitchen door, but she ignored the voice. "Hey, you can't be in here!"

As she turned right at the end of the hall, she heard the door behind her open and risked a glance back to see the spotter, a phone to his ear, talking as he ran. She forced herself to face forward and run faster. By a small miracle, the turn of the hallway did indeed lead her to a door and she slammed her palms against the heavy metal, shoving it open.

Outside, the clouds were heavy with rain, about to spill any minute. Olivia hadn't noticed how late it had gotten, but the sky was fading to black and the streetlamps were alight at the end of the back alley she found herself in. She shivered at the thought of what crept around at night in back alleys, but she had bigger things to be scared of.

There was a garbage bin to her left, and the parking lot to her right. The parking lot was where the front entrance was. If the other two men that had been looking for her in the theater were coming through the lobby, they would be able to cut her off there.

In the garbage dumpster? Down the alley? Risk the parking lot?

Stop overthinking. No time.

Olivia hurried down the alley, passing the dumpster as she didn't want to be trapped anywhere she couldn't try and run. If she could get to the end of the alley, there might be people there. She hoped the men would be hesitant to hurting her if there were witnesses present.

Gravel sprayed beneath her sneakers as she ran, the cool evening air chilling her ears and stinging her lungs. She had left her windbreaker in the theater when she went to the bathroom and the night was too cold to be out without a jacket. She ignored the chill and glanced down where the alley branched off into another one to the left. She stopped, hesitating.

The sound of the heavy metal door opening behind her made her decision for her. She ducked into the side alley.

She had turned into some kind of shipment area about fifteen feet wide and just long enough to accomodate the length of a semi truck. At the very end, there was a large truck loading site, with a huge garage door where shipments could be brought directly into the building. Aside from another right turn halfway down the road that she assumed was another shipment path to a different store, and a heavy metal door that lead into the building, the place was a dead end.

She could hear gruff, male voices echoing down behind her. Olivia's heart beat wildly in her throat, threatening to choke her. She pressed her fingers to her temples to ease the pressure building behind her eyes and forced herself to look around.

There were no trucks in the alley at the time, but there was a small forklift to the right. To the left were piles of empty boxes and tarps covering wooden crates. The men would definitely be checking all of the equipment and the boxes. There was no way she could hide there.

There was a large ledge above the huge garage door, as a sort of awning for whoever was underneath. The ledge was about fifteen feet up, but the brick that covered the rest of the wall looked worn down.

Olivia put one foot against a small indent where the mortar in between some bricks had worn away, and pushed up with her leg, grasping at a brick misaligned with the rest and jutting out slightly more than the others.

Her left leg dangled, her foot scrabbling for purchase against the wall.

I got you, baby. Hold on.

Desperate tears leaked out from her eyes as she remembered the night she had climbed the fence just about a year ago, leaving her mother and everything she loved behind. Her face crumpled and she pressed her forehead to the brick wall, shoulders shaking with sudden, silent sobs.

She wanted it all to stop.

She wanted to give up.

Just give up, an ugly voice inside of her heart whispered. You can't keep going like this forever.

Olivia scrubbed the tears from her face with her sleeve. Stop it, she thought fiercely. 

She raised her leg to an angle that no rock climber would ever advise and set her foot against the giant flood light attached to the side of the garage door. There were no more handholds above her, but she pressed all her weight down on the neck of the light, throwing her completely off balance. She heard something crack in the plastic and flung both hands at the ledge. Her left arm slipped but she held tighter with her right hand, her heartbeat threatening to blacken her vision. She heaved in panting breaths and reached out with her left hand, grasping the brick ledge tighter this time. Her body screamed as she struggled in that awkward, hunched over position, fingernails protesting and her right leg burning.

As she was hauling herself up, her foot slipped from the lamp and she skinned her hand against the wall, grasping for a hand hold, finding one in a mislaid brick.

She pulled herself up the rest of the way and collapsed against the rough stone, sweaty and panting. She could just barely make out voices coming from below.

"You two look down that way. She can't have gone anywhere else."

"It's a dead end."

"Then she must be there. I'll check down this other one."

Olivia lay flat on the ledge, the rough stone digging into her shoulders and her hips, her hand on her mouth as she struggled to quiet her heaving gasps. She could hear someone moving boxes and tarps beneath her, their boots crunching against the gravel.

Any moment now, one of them was going to look up. The top of the ledge was high enough that it was out of sight from those below, but there was no guarantee what if she didn't lay flat enough, they wouldn't see a stray piece of hair or clothing. She needed a distraction.

She took out her phone and tried to unlock it, once, twice.

Dammit, she couldn't get her trembling fingers to touch the right keys. They twitched and trembled away from the right ones, her own body betraying her.

She wanted her mother. She wanted her brothers. Hell, she even wanted the police officer father she could barely remember.

Another sob came up her throat but she clamped down on it and wiped the tears on her cheeks. She clenched her hands together so her fingers would stop visibly shaking. She took a few deep breaths and forced her fingers to open her phone.

She had three messages from Emily, all in rapid succession asking her if she was okay. Olivia ignored them for the time being in favor of her bigger problem. She scrolled through her phone. What did she want? Gunshots? No, they wouldn't be loud enough to sound real. Police sirens? She had had enough of them, she didn't want that either.

What she needed was people.

By the time she found what she needed and turned her phone up to its highest volume, there was no longer any shuffling going on below her. The place was silent. Carefully, Olivia peered over the edge of the ledge. She didn't see anyone in the alleyway.

Had she lost them?

As an extra precaution, Olivia lay there for another three minutes, counting each silent second, until she couldn't stand it anymore. She sent Emily a quick reply, then looked over the ledge again to make sure there was no one there. Quietly, she lifted herself off the brick and, using the floodlight as a handhold, slowly slid down the wall. She looked both ways and saw nothing.

Her luck couldn't be that great, could it?

Her mom had saved her last time. Maybe her mom was smiling down at her right now, too, had somehow from wherever she was brought Olivia a little bit of peace that night. The heavens opened and a gentle spatter of rain started coming down, washing away the salt from her tear stained cheeks. Olivia let out a long breath and tilted her face up to the sky.

Maybe her mom wasn't angry with her after all.

Her shaky legs stopped trembling as she began walking down the alley, keeping behind the boxes and equipment in case anyone surprised her, but there was nothing. As she reached the end of the alley, she was soaked to the skin but feeling much better.

And that was why she neglected to look around the corner before she walked straight out.

"Well, well, well," a voice drawled slowly as she walked out into the street. "Who do we have here?"

I couldn't update last Friday as I had three exams and two papers to write last week and a final exam yesterday, in which I screwed up the blood typing question AGAIN. Said question was worth 17