"I still can't believe your alive!" Ezra's mother exclaimed at the breakfast table the next morning.

Grey nodded, smiling.

"We get it, he's alive!" Ezra said at last, standing up. "Tell me, mother. Are you happy he's alive because of his life or because your plan will now work?"

Her mother opened her mouth but Ezra abruptly cut her off. "Oh I see, it's both, is that it?"

"Sweetie, we--"

Ezra cut her off again. "You practically arranged our marriage mother! What would you have done if we met someone else? Because I sure as hell wouldn't date G-- Jake in a million years!"

"The rings you wear..."

"The rings we wear are a sign of friendship and a promise!" she snapped, pounding her fist on the table "Nothing else, nothing more than friendship and a promise. In fact, I could throw away the ring and not give a damn!"

Smashing her fork down onto the table Ezra stormed out of the house, only to have Grey follow me.

"You didn't really mean what you said back there, did you?" he asked, "What happened to the Ezra that I met a few days ago? The one that was happy I had come?"

"She's gone." Ezra snapped. "Disappeared, non-existant. You understand now, dumbo?"

He killed. Grey killed without mercy. Ezra had realized that last night. She was friends with a murderer, a murderer who had so many kills the devil would be impressed. He wasn't Jake, he was Grey, the wanted killer. Who's to say he wasn't tricking them? What if he was only using her to kill her parents, then he'd kill Ezra after.

Grey grabbed Ezra's arm. "She's not gone, she's standing right in front of me."

"No, she's not." Ezra snarled, "Now let go of me." she yanked her arm out of his grasp, storming off.

She could hear him calling her name, but she couldn't go back. He was the monster, he was the monster that had killed his parents, who had murdered her friends. She couldn't look at him the same ever again, she couldn't be happy that he was back. Not when their blood was on his hands, not when she kept on seeing the splattered blood across his face.

Yes, he had saved her when she was a child. She was forever grateful for that... But that's about the only time that she will be willing to lend Mercy to the Merciless.

She was Ezra Flare, the girl who had to get locked up in her own house because she took the blame for crimes she had not committed. The girl who everyone knows will end up dead or in prison, or both. No one said it, but she knew they thought it.

Grey the Merciless was no match for her, and she would not melt at his feet.

The next thing Ezra knew was a car, a car coming at her, fast. Headlights, screeching, blood, screaming.

She couldn't move, her entire body refused to work. It all hurt so much... she just wanted to close her eyes...

Just for a little while...

When Ezra finally opened her eyes her face was sore, and something wet was trickling down her cheek. Didn't take long for her to realize that it was blood. Her body was sore, and she just wanted to go home.

"Ezra Flare." someone said, "A beautiful prize, if only we could keep her for ourselves..."

"Let me go you numbskulls!" Ezra suddenly shouted, not really thinking. They could've had a gun to her head for all she knew.

"Shut it, girly." snapped another voice, different from the first. "You're rightfully ours now. You know what they say, finders keepers.

"That only works with stupid things, like crayons." Ezra said flatly. "What are you, eight?"

"No, 20, in fact." the first voice said.

"Well." she said. "Okay then. I'm 18."

"We know."

"Well fine, at least tell me your names."

"It wouldn't hurt." the first voice said. "I'm Demane, like demon, only with an 'a' and an 'e.'"

"I kinda got that." Ezra grumbled.

"And I'm Chase."

Ezra's face paled. Though she could not see the bodies the voices belonged to, she could already picture the second man. Well, boy.

"C-Chase?" Ezra stammered. "It can't be." her voice got quiet.

"Oh but it is my darling Ezra." finally Chase stepped out of the shadows. He had messy blonde hair that refused to stay down, and eyes blue as the sea. A scar ran down his right eye, but Ezra thought that just made him look cuter. That is, afterall, why she had chosen him to be her boyfriend long ago.

"But you're gone." is the first thing that escaped Ezra's lips. "You moved away."

"But I moved back." Chase said.

"Did you really just kidnap me just so you could say hi?"

"Maybe."

"You could've just sent a stupid card or something!"

"But that requires work." whined Chase.

"So does kidnapping a person and running them over with a car!"

"Oh, I assure you. We weren't the ones to run you over, we were the ones to save you." Chase said, a broad grin on his face.

"I don't believe you."

"Well fine." Chase said.

"Fine."

"Fine!"

"FINE!" Ezra tried to see if she could throw something at Chase, but her hands were tied behind her back, so she wasn't much of a threat. "Just send me back home."

"Oh we will, don't worry."

Darkness.