Alone at Six

And guess what happened then? He slammed on the brake so hard I slammed my face against the back of the head rest, rebounding back into the seat.

I yelled out in pain but the man driving only looked back with a bored look on his face. "Sorry kid." he mumbled. "Scared me."

"Yeah yeah" I nodded like wild, ignoring the pain "Can you stay here for a second?"

He shook his head and blinked slowly "You have to pay me before you get out, but I'll wait. Too many hit and runs."

"Okay, yeah, cool." I fished my wallet out of my pocket and handed him the money, impatient at how slow he took it and at how far Cole had walked. How was she so damn fast? Ducking out of the car and running towards Cole, I still held the plastic bag that was in my lap. "Cole!" I yelled "Cole, wait!"

She stopped and looked around, eyes sliding right over me. Then she just stood there with her face turned towards the sky, like she was praying or trying to catch rain drops in her mouth. I walked a little closer to her but not close enough to touch. If she was praying then I didn't want to interrupt her or just scare her. This close I could see how her hair stuck to her neck and the water rolled down her baby-fat cheeks, past her almost full lips, and down onto her chest.

I looked away, realizing I was staring and saw the taxi still there, the windows too wet for me to see into. He probably thought i was a creeper. Or a rapist.

Looking back, Cole was still facing the sky and I still wasn't sure I should say something or not so I stood there creeping like Romeo. But I saw that Ashely was right. She was a perfect B-cup and her stomach was flat, she wasn't a stick, but it was flat under her white sleeveless undershirt. With the rain holding her down and sticking her cloths to her body you could see she has a nice ass, too.

The black bag hanging along her legs moved then and she started walking again.

"Cole!" She still didn't stop. I ran up to her and put a hand on her shoulder which I found out was a bad idea. She immediately spun around, grabbed my shoulders, pulled the top half of my body towards her, kneed me in the chest, then turned and ran.

It felt like my chest was caving in as I sank to the ground, gasping for air. She'd knocked the air out of my lungs, ran, and I think she may have broke a rib.

"Hey, kid." Bailie's taxi drove up next to me as I got to my feet. "Are you okay?"

I shook my head as and ran like hell. I thought, hey, I have long legs, maybe I'll catch her. I would have, but I would have run right past her if she wasn't singing.

"It's all in your head! It's all in your head! They said I needed to bleed!" I wasn't entirely sure it was her, but my chest hurt with every breath so I stopped and followed the voice. "Are they the shepherds or are they sheep? Are we the butchers or are we meat?" I followed for a while but is was hard to hear over the rain.

"Their gonna eat us alive!" I turned and saw her with her back against the brick and her head between her knees, shaking. From fear or cold I don't know. I stood there, not trying to be seen by her and not wanting to get keened again.

"I've lost my mind but I've found my way!" She stopped there so I assumed the song was over and that she could hear me when I called her name again.

I walked up to her, stepping in a puddle by accident and found I was wrong, she wouldn't be calm this time. She jumped, looked up, swung her foot out landing me flat on my back, and ran.

This time, though, I jumped up right away and tried to find her. As soon as I turned the corner I saw her and ran after her "Cole!" I shouted. "Cole! It's Andy! Cole!"

She only looked back and ran faster. At this point I realized how bad this must look, but kept on running after her like a mad man. I was glad that there weren't any people out, almost all of the stores and restaurants had closed. Only a few were torturing their employees by staying open on such a freezing rainy day and, except for a few people leaving, the streets were empty.

Cole ran all the way down to where the rides were and jumped a few fences, moving in and out of the seats and carts to throw me off. She eventually started to run back to where we had come from and turned to a dead end.

Cole ran faster than I had expected her to be able to. She wasn't exactly tall, she was actually a little on the short side, but her legs had moved like the fucking road runner. I even had a hard time catching up.

In the past twenty minutes of running and being beat up, I learned that Cole is not like other girls. When she felt threatened or in danger she didn't scream but stopped me from being able to do anything and ran. No, the singing was not the best idea if I did mean to hurt her, but I didn't. So it's okay. But even when I found her she'd dropped me and instead of running mindlessly is seemed like she was going to places she knew and remembered.

And now was no exception. She dropped her bag and turned towards me, fist raised.

"Cole." I panted, sweaty and drenched, still clenching the plastic.

"Who are you?" Her voice was low but sturdy, not out of breath at all.

"I'm Andy. Remember?" I took a few steps closer. Maybe she didn't see me clearly. We did just talk a few hours ago and there wasn't really that many people to see to forget one.

She then punched me twice in the chest and once in the stomach, quick, sending me staggering back "I don't know a Andy." She said.

"Yes you do." I gasped, walking closer with one hand out as crappy protection. "We met three times."

She punched me again, stomach, stomach, cheek. I could feel the blood fill my mouth already but just walked back up the steps I'd regressed.

"Stay away from me!" She yelled, her voice cracking on the last few words.

"Cole, it's Andy" We stood still for a few seconds, visions blurred by the down poor. I took a quick step foreword and grabbed one of her wrists then caught the other as she went for my face again.

"Let me go! Let me go!" She head butted me a few times and let me tell you, she has one hard fucking head.

"Come on Cole, you know me!" I'd run after her and been beaten up by her, if I'm not giving up because I'm a insane psychopath, than I'm not giving up because I've at least gotten this far.

"Andy Six. Andrew Biersack. Come one Cole, we met at the concert, after the concert, at the Dough Roller, you live off Jersey Road in Salisbury!" Okay, that last one may have just made me sound like a stalker, but she seemed to be struggling less.

"Andy." She stopped completely. Not just stopped struggling, but everything seemed to just halt.

I let go of her and she kept repeating "Andy Andy Andy." until she was crying it, screaming it "Why would you do that Andy!? Why the fuck would you chase me!? Whats wrong with you!?" She sunk to the ground, breathing unsteadily and loud. So loud I felt like the rain could have stopped and not made a difference.

"Cole, I didn't.....I didn't mean to scare you. I....." I just scared this girl so bad she's crying and all I can say is I didn't mean to. Like that's going to make it better.

Sitting next to her, I put a hand on her bare shoulder and she flinched away.

"Don't fucking touch me." She half growled half screamed.

"Cole-"

"Just stop talking Andy!"

I did. I moved down to her feet and sat there with my legs like pretzels and stared out at the rain, listening to her breath. Now that I think of it, I really should have stopped running after her. I mean, what did I expect? She didn't remember me the first two times, why would she now?

The rain let up quite a bit as Cole started breathing normally again.

"Oh, god Andy!" I looked over at her as she looked up with her hands pressed against her eyes and laid her back on the wet asphalt. "Never do that again." She laughed but not the kind that suggested anything was funny.

"Sorry." I said into my hands "I just wanted to walk with you."

"In the rain?" She laughed another unamused laugh.

I caught the awkwardly senseless moment and laughed at it too "Yeah, I guess so."

Once we stopped laughing Cole looked around her legs at me, a roll of quarters rolling off of her stomach and across the asphalt.

"Quarters" I said picking the well roll up "You were going to hit me with quarters."

She coughed and sat up "Actually, I did. My dad wouldn't let me have brass knuckles so I carry around quarters to make my fist heavy." She said switching another roll and something else a bit bigger from hand to hand "Just encase."

"Like today."

"Yeah. Like today," She finally looked at me then "Andy, your lip."

I touched my lip and pulled back crimson covered fingers then the pain set in. It hurt to bend forward because of my stomach, it hurt to talk because my teeth would rub against the huge cut in my mouth, and it hurt like shit to breath. "Oh god."

"I'm sorry. Did I really hurt you that bad?" Cole leaned foreword, a concerned look on her face, but also one of triumph.

"Na, I'm cool" I said, staggering to my feet. Whether I was ignoring the pain because it was true or because I didn't want to admit I just got beat up by a girl, I knew, but didn't want to admit. "So. uh, where were you headed?" I asked nonchalantly.

"The transit." Raindrops ran down her arms as it started up again.

"Right. Your house. Well, why don't I get a cab and we can talk?"

"Andy, I don't know....." She looked around for no particular reason then rested her eyes at my feet.

"Come on. I'm not a bad guy, I promise. I only chased you to talk to you.....wow, that sounds really bad too."

"Yeah, just a bit."

"So, whadaya say? Cad ride with a super freak?"

"Okay okay" She said picking up her bag "As long and he doesn't go super freaky on me."

"Aw, take all the fun out of it why don't ya."

Her mouth twitched up for a second in what almost looked like a smile.