He looked down at the phone vibrating on his desk, breath hitching in his throat when he saw the identification of the caller. It was as if someone had sucked the oxygen right out of him, a sucker punch to his lungs as they struggled to keep the blood pumping to his heart. Just the thought of her was enough to make his heart skip a few beats, the circulation in his body stopping for a moment as he took a moment to really think with every fibre of his being. About her. About what was going to happen to her. It had taken every inch of his will power to act normal around her, to feign his usual personality as if she wasn't going to leave him. As if he wasn't terrified out of his mind wondering what he would do without her. She had kept him sane throughout one of the hardest times of his life. Whether she knew it or not. 

He shouldn't have called her. He knew that much. It had been a stupid, impulsive decision made at the hour of midnight. A time when even he hadn't fully come to terms with it yet. A time when he was grieving the loss of someone who wasn't even dead yet, feeling the veins surrounding his heart slowly pull apart, stretching his vital organ until it burst, pain spreading to each and every part of him as he was left with a gaping hole in his heart. He hadn't been thinking straight. His mind had been all over the place, sprinting back and forth in a desperate attempt to make sense of something. Anything. And he knew. He just needed to hear her voice.

It was ironic that she would be the only one capable of calming him down in a situation like this. Painfully ironic.

And then she had called him back. For some reason. He wasn't too hopeful as to think why. And she had called back again and then he...he had actually held a decent conversation with her. She...she had opened up to him, she had told him things she hadn't told anyone and it...it brought with it as much happiness as it did pain. Because he was finally getting to know her in the way that he really wanted to and...it was just when he was about to lose her.  

Not really having to think about much else other than the sudden desire to hear her voice again, he snatched up his phone with a shaking hand and pressed the receive button that was emitting a taunting green light. 

"Hello?"

He suddenly felt the need to bang his head against the table, to cause himself as much pain as he had caused her. She shouldn't be calling him back; she should be calling him insane and blocking his number for life. Hell, he had really messed up, hadn't he? God, he had. He shouldn't have called her. He shouldn't have called her. It was selfish, so bloody selfish. How could he do that to her? How could he do that? He had seen her around school, especially after hours when she was wandering around the corridors at night. He didn't miss the way she turned to look behind her every five seconds, the way she had jumped about two feet in the air when he had shut his locker after she had walked past. He had taken away her piece of mind. Unsettled the peace. He had terrified her. 

"Look, Eleanor, I know we...we spoke about some stuff last time and it...it was nice for you, I guess but I...I meant what I said before. I didn't mean to get so carried away in our conversation  last time...I...I should have just hung up. I'm sorry but...we really shouldn't call each other anymore, it's wrong, I never should have called in the first place and I...why did I even pick up the phone? I should have just blocked your number. Damn it. I'm such an idiot. Look, I'm going to hang up now, please don't call me back aga-"

She cut him off.

"No, wait, don't go."

There was something in her voice that had him clutching the phone tighter, knuckles paling at what he heard in her urgent speech. It was a sort of whispered, pressing articulation with an exigency behind the words. He felt his heartbeat accelerate, the organ pulsing painfully as his breathing became a little more ragged, every fibre in his body screaming at him to run to her aid. To save her from whatever the hell was harming her. To just drop everything and run out of the door to prevent her from harm. To wrap her up in his arms and kiss her hair. Hold her. Tell her it would be okay. But he couldn't do that. He wouldn't allow himself to do that. It would only cause her more pain in the long run. And...besides, she...she was going to die anyway. 

Closing his eyes as a sign of resignation, he let out a deep breath, letting all the strained emotions he felt leave in that one exhale. Calming himself down. Preparing himself for the worst. 

"Are you...are you whispering?"

It was a stupid question. But it was ten times better than 'hey, do you think you might die today?'

"I...I think someone's following me."

His chest seized, a vice, breath catching in his throat as he suddenly forgot to exhale, using his unoccupied hand to grip the desk, feeling the hard material beneath his strength remain as firm as ever. He took glory in the pain that the action caused him, muscles needing something solid to grip onto before he sent his fist flying into a wall. The pent up emotion caused by the person he loved in danger dispatched a mirage of adrenaline in his veins, every part of his body screaming for a release. To do something. Because this wasn't how she was going to die. It couldn't be. His...his vision had never been wrong before. She...she wasn't murdered by human hands, no...he...he couldn't lose her yet. He wasn't ready.

For the first time, his willed his vision to be true, if only so he could spend a little more time with her before...before her inevitable death. 

He gritted his teeth together in a grinding motion, finally breathing out through his nose as some of the tension in his body eased. He was still on edge.

"Where are you?"

"I...I'm not that far away from the school gates. I...I went down to watch a movie in town and I...I took a shortcut through an alleyway and...oh god, I can see them getting closer. I...is this how I die? I...I...in your vision do I...do I die in an alleyway at night? I...I...oh god. I'm not going to get out of this alive, am I?"

Her voice was shaking, stuttering and breaking. It was unlike anything he had ever heard and his heart followed the traits of her voice, quivering in its path of delivery as his grip on the desk tightened even further. A spark of fear had become lodged in his bones, a sense of panic as a sudden realisation dawned on him, one that had him leaping up from the chair he had previously been seated at and frantically running down the stairs, phone pressed to his ear as he desperately searched for his shoes by the bottom of the stairs. His heartbeat had increased tenfold, rabidly thrashing in his chest and accelerating with every second that he wasted, urging him to get there. To save her. Because if...if Eleanor was being followed by...by him then she may as well be dead. That man would give her a torture worse than death. 

His heart was hysterical now, swiftly picking up the pace with every image of that mad man that came to his mind. He didn't want to consider what would happen if he got his hands on her. But he couldn't help it. The images stampeded through his mind like a herd of cattle, trampling on all his other thoughts as he kept seeing that sadistic grin. His maniacal laughter as he held the knife in the air, ready to kill with all traces of his past self...eradicated. Insane. Hell-bent on revenge. 

If he had found her...

His heartbeat was so loud that it had become part of him, pulsing and reverberating through his entire being. He could hear it throbbing in his skull. 

"I...it's okay, Eleanor. You're not going to die tonight...I...I don't think so anyway but I...I need you to get out of there for me, okay? I...you could still be in danger."

"What do you mean?"

"Just...just trust me, okay? You need to get out of there. Run if you have to but just...just get back to the academy. You'll...you'll be safe there, okay?"

He could hear her laboured breaths from the other end of the line. He wondered if she was running. It sounded like she was running. He hoped she was running. Because if she was being followed by him then she would need to run as fast as she possibly could.

"Oh...oh god, they're getting closer...I...they're faster than I am." 

He was out the door, running himself now as he pushed himself to get to the car as fast as he possibly could. His limbs ached with the forecast of what was to come, a cloud as dark as the sky overhead hovering over his thoughts. He found himself cursing that he wasn't a boarder at the academy, he could have been there in a matter of a minute, not five.

He wasn't even sure that he could take him on. Their last interaction hadn't exactly promised a large upper hand for either of them but...but with his...with that man's pure insanity, he had to be ten times stronger than all those years ago, hadn't he? Of course he would be. His utter paranoia of constant attack and thirst for power would have had him growing stronger by the day, a persistent growth of dominance until he felt he had the power to stamp out every little thing below him. And that included Eleanor. Even if she didn't know him. He knew her. Or at least knew of her. Of course he did. That psychopath had been following his moves closely, always looking for a way to catch him out. To make him weak. And, to that maniac, that's exactly what Eleanor was. A weakness.

He wasn't exactly wrong. 

"Are you still there?"

Her voice was so fragile. So close to breaking once more that he slammed the car door shut with so much force that the car shook slightly, his foot impulsively slamming on the accelerator before he could even think through what he was doing. What he was about to do. If...if it was him then he honestly didn't know what he'd do. He wouldn't know how to react. He didn't even know if he could kill him. He didn't know if he had that kind of strength. 

"I'm here, don't worry. Keep running, Ellie."

The nickname slipped past his lips before he could stop it.

He was too panicked to care.

His frantic eyes met with themselves in the rear view mirror, staring at his own distressed expression for a moment, transfixed by the emotion gracing his features. Eyes wide. Eyebrows drawn together out of pure uneasiness. It had been a while since he had felt so strongly about anything. It terrified him as much as it exhilarated him. He had been beginning to think he had forgotten how to feel, shutting out every emotion he felt and pushing it to the back of his mind. Not wanting a repeat of the last time he had done something out of the goodness of his heart. Not wanting to ever feel that kind of pain again. Or any pain. And it was surprisingly easy to do this. Apart from where she was concerned. Just seeing her, hearing her voice,  it...it broke through more barriers than anyone else ever could and she had absolutely no idea. She had no idea what she was doing to him. What she had been doing to him for the past four years.

"I...I'm almost at the gate...I...I can see it."

He had to refrain from swearing into the phone when the burning red blaze of traffic lights met his gaze. His hands clenched tighter on the steering wheel, putting a foot down on the brakes, recreating the friction of the brake pads against the wheels with the grip on the ruptured leather between in his fists. The frustration he felt had his jaw fastened in such an unyielding manner that it made it hard to speak. But he knew he had to. To let her know that everything would be okay even though it most probably wouldn't be. 

"It's okay. Keep running, Ellie. Shut the gates as soon as you get inside them, you hear me?"

"Y...yeah."

The light went green. His breath of relief was short lived. The roar of the engine sounded like the one of a wild animal, almost as if trying to replicate the desperate bellowing of his heart. The hopeless howling of despair and helplessness. He wasn't going to get there fast enough.

"I...I'm in. I...I'm inside the gates."

"Have you shut them?"

"...y...yeah."

"Have you made sure the locking mechanism is working?"

"H...how would I know that?"

"The little blue light should be flashing next to the keypad."

"Y...yeah. It's flashing. I...I don't think they'll be able to get in, not unless...not unless they know the code. Oh god...what if they know the code?"

He felt all the pressure in his lungs release all at once, the breath he had been holding inside of him taking all the time it needed to exhale as he pulled the car up to the side of the road, entire body deflating in relief, leaning his head back against the seat and closing his eyes. He could feel nothing but pure relief, jaw unwinding as he found himself incapable of feeling any emotion other an immense sense of joy. Even if she was destined to die he...he still had her. For now at least.

"Don't worry. I doubt they'll know the code." His eyes were still closed, taking a few moments to listen to the calming of his previously erratic heartbeat, feeling a shaking he hadn't even been aware of ceasing.

"O...okay." His eyes were open now. He could see her trembling figure behind the gates, having stopped on the other side of the road to the academy. The old building loomed behind her quivering frame, an ancient mansion sitting on the horizon shrouded in the darkness of night, the only illumination being a few lights from the boarders as they stayed up past curfew. It was the safest place for her now. 

He narrowed his eyes at something in the distance, squinting into the shadows as his eyes caught sight of a lurking silhouette concealed by the cloak of night. He couldn't quite make out the face from being so far away, but he could see the outline, and as the figure turned to the light. For a second. He saw it. The glint of streetlights that got caught in the reflection of her glasses and the dark skin accompanied by a gigantic mass of dark hair. 

He recognised her in an instant, a shocked breath leaving his barely parted lips as he continued to stare, no longer focused on his halted phone conversation or the shaking figure behind the gates. He was transfixed by what he had just seen, someone that he had never expected to see again. How was this possible? She wasn't even supposed to be alive.

A chill went down his spine.

It was Thalia.

Thalia Blake.

Eleanor's ex-roommate who was supposed to be dead.

What the hell was she doing here?

"I...I'm sorry. I...I have to go."