He's going to kill me. He's actually going to kill me.

Stupidly, it was the only thing I could think. I didn't mean Jeroniri the teenage-drug-lord, or any of his henchmen - I meant Joe. Because after all the conversations we'd had about Axel and how he deserved better and needed to be free of the world of drugs, I'd just paired him up for good with the biggest, baddest fish in that reeking pond.

I think even some of the stooges could see it. They didn't need my sense of my ability, or to know about it. They could tell from the way Axel stopped short, and Jeroniri rose from his chair.

The one behind Axel wasn't lucky enough to have worked it out. He gave the boy a shove, and Jeroniri's voice was suddenly like a whip-crack.

"Get your hands off him!"

There was a pulsing, tense silence. And then Jeroniri said, "I'm sorry that my associates aren't treating you with respect. It won't happen again."

He sat slowly and gestured to a chair by the wall. The bald guy close to me hurried to fetch it. It was the first real display of Jeroniri's power, and of his potential to be angry, and it gave me a sense of grim satisfaction to see that it was now all in Axel's favour.

Axel moved in that dreamlike state that hits them all. He sat in front of Jeroniri, and he smiled at him. If the guy hadn't been a drug baron, it might have been heartwarming.

"Axel. I'm glad that I found you."

"Me too," Axel said, and Lucas looked sharply over at the bald guy, who seemed like he was determined not to react at this bizarre turn of events. Lucas didn't just look confused; he looked angry. Of course he did. Here was Axel, his fall-guy, suddenly being treated like royalty.

Stick that in your cocktail-maker and shake it, Lucas, I thought. 

"I had lots of questions to ask you," Jeroniri said, leaning forward over his desk with a half-smile. "Lucas had me convinced that you were a thief."

Axel shook his head. "I was stolen from. And I don't think it was a coincidence. He used me because I was young and stupid, and it took a long time for me to see that."

I almost protested that he hadn't seen it: that I had pointed it out, but I didn't seem to be particularly important right now.

I saw Jeroniri's eyes go to Lucas, and then to narrow. I could swear I heard the prickle of his skin as Lucas the lizard started to sweat.

"That's ridiculous-"

"So why did you let an inexperienced youngster take your drugs, Lucas? It's a question I should have asked more insistently."

"I didn't think he'd get attacked," Lucas said, his voice tight. "Come on, it was just bad luck."

"All a coincidence?" Jeroniri asked, and his voice sounded quiet, and friendly, and dangerous.

"Yeah."

"I don't believe you, Lucas."

There was another silence, a longer one this time. Lucas seemed to have run out of things to say. He was blank and terrified.

Jeroniri, on the other hand, looked like he was only beginning; like he was poised to do something terrible. I felt a little ill. Was he going to have Lucas killed?

And then Axel moved slightly, and the drug-lord looked back at him, and something softened. He gave a sigh.

"I don't want anything more to do with you, or any harm or death. You wanted to persuade me to harm the one person who really mattered, and I nearly did it." He shook his head, and waved a hand towards Lucas. "Just go. I don't want to see you again. Find another city and another living, Lucas."

Lucas stared at him, blankly, until my favourite bald friend decided he'd been there long enough. He walked over and took Lucas's arm. He marched him to the door.

Jeroniri leaned back in his chair. "I want to know everything about you," he said to Axel, and at that point I felt a rush of fear. What was I doing, standing there? They needed to save Joe-Moe!

"Axel," I said, urgently. "Some of his men went to kill Joe. Your brother's in danger."

Axel looked at me, a flicker of worry crossing his face. "Why would they want to hurt Joe?"

"Revenge, nothing more," Jeroniri said, and shook his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't... I should never have agreed."

He moved towards his screen, and typed for a few moments.

"There," he said, with a smile. "I've given the order to leave off. I've summoned them home."

I had to step forward to see Axel, who was now smiling brilliantly and looking like some kind of an angel.

"I knew you weren't the person they all said," he whispered.

The magnetic draw between them had a strong hint of lust in it now. I suddenly felt like I was intruding.

"Let me show you around my empire," Jeroniri said, suddenly, standing up. He glanced at me in confusion for a second. "Miss... Morgan. You're free to go. I have no argument with you. I'm sorry for making you miss your flight."

I couldn't move for a few seconds. "That's it?" I asked, not quite believing it.

"I don't want to do business this way any more," he said, with a strange, tired smile. "I've opened my eyes at last."

But his eyes didn't look open; they looked drugged. He looked back at Axel and didn't seem able to focus on anything else.

"Are you sure they got your message?" I asked, as the big stooge moved towards me. "Are you sure Joe's safe?"

"Of course they did," Jeroniri said, with a laugh. "They're under orders to read everything that comes from me, immediately."

Yes, I thought, with a creeping fear. But will they obey you when they're out for revenge?

"Could you make sure?" I asked, as the big guy tried, gently to manoeuvre me towards the door. I craned to see around him. "It's not worth risking. Axel, he needs to make sure. It's your brother."

"Don't worry," Jeroniri said, confidently. "They'll do as they're told. They all do."

Axel gave me a brief, beaming smile.

"It's all right. He wouldn't let anyone do anything to harm me."

And in that moment, I saw what was awful in what I did. I saw the all-consuming nature of that connection, and that love. I saw the way I had been abandoned and left behind time after time. It didn't just touch them: it took them over. And nothing else had a chance of filtering through in that first rush of passion, and not a great deal later. They were gloriously happy, but Axel had lost a part of himself in that magnetic union.

My thoughts went to Joe, who might be out there already, driving into danger without knowing. And I could suddenly feel him, driving northwards at speed, a pulsing, urgent danger pushing at me from the place where he was.

Oh god. Oh, god, please let me be able to help him.

"Axel!" I called. "Axel! He's still in danger."

The big guy was pushing me towards the door as Axel said faintly, "It's all right, honestly."

I have to tell him. I have to phone him and warn him...

And then I remembered with a feeling like ice in my gut that the bald guy still had my cell-phone.

"Call him!" I shouted, as I was forced outside, not gently any more. "Call him, Axel!"

The door slammed, and with an electronic sound it locked.

I hate writing about this part. I don't want to, but I know that I need to. I need to tell it to some blank pages if nothing else. I need to finish it.

I tried to stop the big guy from forcing me out of the house, but there was nothing I could do against his size. He didn't even argue with me; just picked me up across his shoulder so I couldn't draw breath to shout, and carried me down to the courtyard.

"You need to talk to your boss," I pleaded, wheezing for air, after he put me down. "You need to tell him that Joe is in danger! It'll kill Axel if anything happens to him."

"Mr. Jeroniri doesn't want to be disturbed," he said, and he pressed a button inside the door. I glanced around, and saw the gates swinging open. "You can find your own way out."

And then he closed the door in my face.

I stood there for maybe a year. Or maybe it was only a second or two. A second or two in which Joe moved closer to danger and the urgent pulsing grew stronger.

What am I going to do? Fuck. What can I do?"

It was when I turned that my eyes fell on the car we'd arrived in. It was low-slung, dark grey, and looked like an animal waiting to run. The door was standing open, the keys inserted neatly into the ignition, like it was meant for me.

This had better be fate talking, I thought as I ran towards it, and clambered in.

It had been months since I'd driven, and then only patchily. I'd never seen the point in running a car in Boston, and Fernando might have been happy to buy one, but it would have been a waste of his fortune when I cycled or walked or took the sub.

Starting up the engine and letting out the clutch felt like one of those dreams where you have to drive and you don't know how. The fear running through me only made it worse, until I almost felt like I was having an out-of-body-experience as I careened out of the gate and into the alley.

I've never driven so fast in my life. I hit ninety driving up the alley to cut back onto Comm Ave, and then I took on the stream of traffic like a madwoman.

It's not my car. It doesn't matter if I dent it or get a ticket, I said to myself, on repeat. I tried not to think about having a major crash as I undertook and overtook, and ignored every turning life at each intersection.

I could feel Joe, terrifyingly far away and moving almost as quickly. But he was alive still. I just had to drive. Somehow I would have to get there or... or I couldn't think about anything else. I had to get there.

I didn't hit any real traffic until I was north of the Charles, into Cambridge and closing the gap. There was a line of cars waiting to turn west onto Route 28. There must have been some kind of an event going on out that way, because I was stuck behind two lanes of traffic vying to push in on each other when all I wanted to do was get past them and go straight on.

I was crawling, and Joe was drawing away again, the feeling of threat stronger and stronger like a siren.

"Please," I whispered, to nothing, or to something unknown. Maybe to whatever power had given me this devastating touch of mine. "Please let him be ok. I don't even care if I lose him, as long as he lives. Please just let him live."

I could see clear road ahead of the lines of cars, but they weren't moving. Too many of them were trying to force their way onto Route 28, and we had all but stopped. I realised that the inside lane was actually moving more quickly, because it was easier to make the turn, and I shifted over.

"Fuck," I said, as I was forced to stamp on the brakes by a car cutting in two ahead. And then the last feeling of care about anything else left me. I spun the wheel and pulled the car up onto the concrete sidewalk that ran down the centre of the road. The bottom of the gleaming machine's chassis scraped over the concrete, but I put my foot down and ignored it, praying there were no cops about to stop me.

I was past the remaining cars in seconds. I didn't care that there were fifty enraged motorists blasting their horns behind me: there was open road.

I floored the accelerator. I don't think I've ever done that before, and just then it felt like flying. I hit the slip-road for the interstate at eighty and I'd passed the hundred mark by the time I joined the outside lane. I don't think if I'd been driving any less of a car that I'd have stayed on the road, but it was a beautiful machine and it did the work for me as I hit one-twenty; one-thirty; one-fifty.

It was like an arcade-game at that speed. I was seeing obstacles come up and swerving around them in seconds. In memory, it's terrifying, but all I could feel was the terror of losing Joe.

Come on. Come on.

I became aware, suddenly, that the point I was following had slowed. Joe must have turned off the interstate and into where the warehouses were.

No, I thought, willing the car to go more quickly. I was so close. If they were waiting for him...

Please. Please. Just let him live. Just let him live. Please.

I was half a mile away when I felt the danger rise to a critical point, and I cried out in pain, my foot coming off the accelerator at last.

And then another feeling replaced it, a magnetic feeling that only fear had masked from me. In my mind there was a point of light that had reached Joe-Moe.

I was hauling the protesting car off the interstate and into a slip-road when I felt the danger suddenly evaporate, and in its place the unmistakeable feeling of two points coming together.

I almost drove into them both, but I managed to brake in time. Joe was tearing at the door of a car, one that looked like it must have smashed into his beat-up old machine and pushed it into the side of the warehouse. I felt something in me snap as he leaned in, and the two points of the magnet touched.

I tried to look away, to think about something else. Anything else. I tried to work out what had happened, and realised that drawing her to him had meant her car veering off the road out of control. There was a foot protruding from under the edge of the mangled remains of Joe's car, one attached only vaguely to a leg that wore black denim, and I didn't need to have seen what happened: how Joe had climbed out of his car to meet Jeroniri's men, and how the woman driver had smashed into his car a moment later and forced it into his two waiting attackers.

I was there watching as, gently, Joe lifted the red-haired young woman out of the driver's seat and sat her on the ground a little way from the car. She was staring at him in mute adoration, and he was looking back at her in just the same way.

They didn't even see me as I turned the car around and headed back out onto the Interstate and away.

***THERE IS ONLY ONE MORE CHAPTER TO GO!!! WANT TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS...? DO LOTS MORE LOVELY VOTING AND COMMENTING AND I'LL UPDATE, LIKE, NOW  ^_^ BIG LOVE TO YOU ALL***

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