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It was the middle of summer and the city was dripping with sticky, ugly sweat. A haze of exhaust fuel buffered the sky until the vivid hues of the night sky dissolved into a horrid blue found in abandoned trunks from centuries long past. No one was sleeping. No one was dreaming. No one was breathing.
Pounding footsteps on the asphalt echoed through empty streets, dirty streets, forgotten streets. We’re running out of time. If we don’t get out soon they’ll find us. Hollow beats of his heart found their way up to his eardrums, drowning his skull into obscurity. Cracked hands wove through dirty blond hair until they came away slick with perspiration. Drops of liquid glided along his lips. Fuck, Rogers, we have to get out now. Stopping on an abandoned corner, coughing, spitting onto split cement, fading taxis whirled by. Shit, what was that noise?
“Better slow down cowboy, the Calvary’s far off yet.” Dirty brown hair dancing around his sunken cheeks, glazed eyes, layers (too many, too many), a ragged baseball cap. Playful smirk and tattered notebooks. “No need to run away so fast.”
Oh god, they’re right behind us. A flinch, a twitch, a ripple. Keep running, Rogers. Don’t wait for us. He meets the stranger’s gaze for one, two, three seconds. Turns his gaze down, vaults his vessel across the narrow alley. There’s no time.
“Running away won’t save you, you know.”
Steve knew. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try.