Sorry it's taken so long for me to post the first half of this, I've been a bit busy and I wanted this to be super good. All suggestions welcome, and remember to read the prologue to get some background on Paige :)
Chapter One; Part One
As the blood pounded in her ears, Paige tried to match the beat with her feet, outrunning the thoughts of her earlier awakening. Her breath billowed around her as she pushed herself harder, her running shoes thundering against the pavement.
An amber glow was slowly teasing the city, making her mood worsen as she tried to avoid the subtly violent colours that clashed with the sky and the ground.
One, two, one, two.
Her feet were the only sound that kept her crashing back to reality. She tried to forget; oh how she tried, but she could still see those big blue eyes, and the end of the silencer. She clenched her fist tightly, enough to draw blood from her palm, as she pushed herself as hard as she could; so she could feel the fire in her lungs.
Why now? She thought, feeling the fire and her temper rising to unbelievable heights, nearly sucking the life from her.
Now at twenty five, it had been a whole two years since it had happened and she thought that she could have forgotten; lead an easy life. No such thing. Nightmares came on and off for a year, but then they died down, just like she did. The violence stopped, and she ran away for the first time in her life, simple as that. But it wasn’t, it never was.
The Gang tracked her down and she had to move around more times than she had hot dinners. They were the focus of her nightmares nowadays. They weren’t the mafia, nothing as high class as that. They were organised thugs. They are organised thugs, she thought with a shudder as she slowed her thumping feet and doubled over, gasping and wheezing for breath. The fire was hungry for release and she was tempted to let loose.
“What am I thinking?” she groaned to herself, swiping the sweat that was now slipping into her eyes with a sting. She lowered herself onto the pavement curb and tried to stop her mind from whirling into oblivion once more.
From the age of sixteen, she had been homeless and alone. Her mother dead and her father an alcoholic, she found it hard to cope and so sought after a life on her own. She struggled on for ten months before bumping into the wrong crowd. Fists flew and a blade was introduced.
She was left in an alley, bruised and broken, with the gentle trickle of blood escaping from her temple. But someone found her; they found her and saved her life, she supposed. Gerald Heracia carried her back to his house, gave her food and a bed to sleep in. Then, he introduced her to his father.
Lucas Heracia was a half German bulk of a man, with greying brown hair and a tendency for always wearing an expensive suit. He was stern and cold, and she soon realised, controlling. She became the centre of the Heracia crime organisation, and the centre of many wandering eyes.
She shuddered with a wheeze and straightened her legs out in front of her, massaging her fingertips into the blazing calf muscles. The running just wasn’t enough anymore. With a stressful groan, she stood and jogged halfheartedly to her apartment.
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“You’re late,” Phillip remarked, peering round his office door to see Paige settling herself behind her desk. She’d tied her hair up with an elastic band, and tendrils were dancing about her face in a haphazard kind of way. She wore simple black trousers and a blouse, nothing else adorning her image to make her stand out.
“Only by ten minutes,” she replied lightly, switching her computer on and beginning to shift the objects about on her desk.
“Hm, well I don’t pay you to be ten minutes late y’know?” Phillip raised a brow at her and shook his head.
“Well I’ll stay behind for ten minutes then.”
“Whatever. Look, I need those files on Blunkett finished by today and there are some papers here for you to proofread.” His voice wandered off into his office and Paige sighed heavily; she hated proofreading.
She briskly typed in her password on the computer and glanced around the office. It was quiet today, she thought, frowning a little.
“Hey, I need someone to do the teas and coffees for the board meeting upstairs.” Phillip called around the half empty office, only to have people avoid his gaze and sink closer to their computer screens. “Paige, you can do it. Finish those files later.”
Before she had chance to argue, he was gone. She grumbled to herself and stood, walking out of the office and making her way to the elevator. Making teas and coffees was definitely not in the job description.
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