Andrianna was nearly breaking the curfew, but it wasn’t her fault. She tried to start her car over and over again, but the engine refused to turn over. Now she was stranded in the bitter cold. She refused to call her mother for help. But she had called her boyfriend Luke. He said he would come to help, but it might take him a while since he was already on parole. She rolled her eyes and hung up the phone.
Her patience whittled away with each passing minute, until finally it snapped. She jumped out of the car and began to walk down the sidewalk.
Andri could barely see through the sheets of white falling from the sky. Stumbling along with her hands stuffed deeply into her pockets, she hoped she was going in the right direction. Just when she was about to give up, the blizzard dissipated. She looked to the nearest street sign, squinting through the light of the streetlamps, and cursed, thick steam floating from her burst of hot air.
She grumbled angrily and began to turn around when she saw a police car about to turn down the street. She yelped and ran to the nearest alley. Watching silently as the police car drove slowly down the street, she pressed herself closer into the dark to avoid the beam of the officer’s flashlight.
As soon as it passed she let out a breath into the dark of the alley. Suddenly her phone buzzed in her pocket, she jumped, fishing it out and angrily holding it up to her ear.
“Hey, you scared the shit out of me.”
“Are you okay?” Luke asked, concerned, “Where are you?”
“I’m fine, I’m on Fifth and Main,” Andri said, walking out of the alley and back to the intersection.
“How the hell did you get to Main from your job?”
“Would you just come and get me?” she barked.
“Whatever.”
She shoved the phone back into her pocket just as she saw movement across the street.
“Hello?” she called.
She saw it again, a shock of blonde hair peeking out of an alley. She started towards the alley when she heard two men arguing in the quiet of the night. She squinted into the darkness and had just found the shapes of the two men when one of them turned around. It was the one with blonde hair; he walked out of the shadows and into the slanted light of a nearby streetlamp. His bright blue eyes contrasted with the anger distorting his rugged features. She backed away at his expression and laughed nervously.
“I…sorry, I just…” she paused, regaining her composure, “It’s almost curfew.”
Before the blonde man could respond, the other man still hidden in the shadows reached out and grabbed his elbow. He turned to him.
“What are you doing? Now she’s seen your face.”
The blonde man nodded and pulled something from the back waistband of his jeans. She saw moonlight shine off of something metal and then a loud clap.
Pain, flowering out from her chest, she looked down to find red leaking from a hole in her coat. She reached up to touch it, her hand moving in slow motion as her knees gave out beneath her.
The man still hidden in the alley gasped.
“What?” the blonde hissed, “Now she won’t blow our cover.”
“You idiot! It’s a full moon!”
Andri watched, her vision blurry, as the blonde looked into the sky with concern while the other quickly grabbed his arm and they ran off in a blur. It was then that she heard the curfew bell echo off the walls of the alley.
She twisted and fell onto her back as tears began to form in her eyes. Each breath was agony as she stared up into the falling snow. She laid there for what felt like an eternity, the feeling of blood soaking into her shirt and pooling beneath her. White hot pain. She heard the sound of a car, then footsteps, then someone yelling far away. Suddenly she felt someone lift her head into their lap. She just barely made out the shape of Luke’s face above her as a glaze slowly moved over her eyes. He sounded so far away as he spoke to her. So much pain she could barely stand it. He was holding something up to his ear, a phone. Every thought moved so slowly, too slowly to hold on to. She tried to say something but her mouth felt like a desert. She was so tired. She vaguely heard the bell stop ringing. Past curfew, she thought slowly, moving her lips in an attempt to speak the words. She winced, the pain pushing like red hot pokers against her skin. She felt a drop, a tear, hit her face, it was freezing as it mixed with the sheen of sweat. She tried to move, to speak, to think, but the pain was too much. Then, all at once, it was gone.
