Disclaimer: I have no rights to the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris, the TV show True Blood by Alan Ball, or to any of the characters contained within (except any OCs). I am simply playing with them in my sandbox and no copyright/trademark infringement is intended and no money is being made.

"You've got to run faster!"

"I'm trying! I'm trying!" She screamed frustrated, with barely enough oxygen in her lungs to release the words from her throat. Her shouts came out in rasps. Tears streamed down her face from the pain of being cut by the underbrush and trees in their path.

His legs were much longer than hers; the wide berth between them growing with each of his strides. Every so often he looked back and slowed his pace, tugging at her arm once she was within reach. His irritation grew with each step, as if she had chosen to be slower than him. Each felt like they had been running for hours. She was so grateful she had been an athlete in high school, if not she would have been a goner a long time ago.

Reaching an open field, he motioned his arm out to indicate she should slow. He began to stalk the tree line, staying close to the ground – almost belly-crawling. He glanced backwards to see she was hunched over with her hands on her knees, head down and catching her breath.

He let loose a growl from his chest. He couldn't help but think that if this was her survival instinct that she stood no chance of making it out of this alive. He huffed back over to her and gripped her wrist to pull her along, encourage a faster pace. She tried to hide the pain it caused; she knew he was trying to save her life, and also his, even though she had no idea why.

She didn't even know his name.

They made it past the clearing without incident. He threw his back against a tree and drew his finger to his lips to ask for her silence. Her chest heaved with short breaths as she tried to catch it. He could not help but notice the curve of her breasts peeking through her sheer blouse. He shook loose from his distraction quickly, resuming his canvas of the area. He could hear the rustling and crunching of dry leaves off in the distance, and wolves howling deeply at the moon, whose light peppered through the tree line, barely illuminating the landscape surrounding them.

She heard the wolves, but not much else in the distance; her own heartbeat was pounding loudly in her ears. It was erratic and unyielding. She wasn't sure how much further pure adrenaline could take her, but she was going to do her best to push pass "the wall." She'd never hit it before; the metaphorical wall runners said they hit at some point, where they were sure if they took another step that their body would break into pieces. Every muscle inside her was burning. She looked over at her running partner; he hadn't even broken a sweat. His shirt clung to his chest, wet from the last remnants of the day's rain, and she could see how toned he was – he obviously worked out. He grabbed her wrist again, to pull her out of her trance, sprinting back into the woods.

She chastised herself for losing focus. He had been pulling her along, trying to save her, but she was certain he would leave her if the option became her life or his. She had to keep that from being a choice he would have to make.

"We can't keep losing speed," He hissed at her, trying to keep his voice low.

This caused her terror to compound ten-fold – why would he be so quiet when he had been outright yelling at her for the past hour, unless the people tracking them were close? She nodded violently to be sure he saw that she understood. She continued to try to push herself harder as she ran and jumped, trying to avoid fallen tree limbs and other foliage scattering their unbeaten path. He traversed the trail so easily, while she struggled. She didn't understand how he could see so well where they were going, but she was grateful for it, no matter what the reason. She couldn't see the path, but she could see his pale smooth skin moving agilely by the bit of moonlight. He was like her flashlight right now.

But then the worst thing that could happen, happened.

She tripped on a rotting branch, twisting her ankle on the way down. She yelped loudly in pain. She knew in an instant that it was broken. That she was going to die out there. Alone, and for reasons she still did not wholly understand. He was almost a hundred yards ahead and had not broken his pace when she fell. She watched him continue to move away, until he was out of sight. She sank fully to the ground and curled into the fetal position, not bothering to scan her surroundings. She was not a quitter, but she was not going to call for him, risk the both of their lives. If anything she was accepting that she was the weaker of the two, allowing her capture to ensure his escape.

She cried softly, wrapping her arms around her knees, drawing them into her chest. She wanted to be small; she wasn't going to make this any easier for the people in pursuit of them.

Suddenly her running mate was beside her; she had not heard his approach. She realized she may have been crying more loudly than she had thought. "Get. Up." He snarled at her through gritted teeth.

She let out a large sigh and rolled onto her butt, using the last bit of strength in her arms to find some sort of seating position. "It's broken." She said motioning towards her ankle, noticing for the first time that the bone was protruding through the skin. She flinched at the sight of it.

"Go. Save yourself. Don't let me slow you down anymore."

He looked from her eyes to her ankle as she continued, "No reason for us both to die today," She said with a half-smile, trying to make light of their situation a bit. But saying it out loud forced her to acknowledge her despair. Because she was going to die today. His eyes continued to snap from her ankle to her face, his lips pursed tightly.

"Go," she implored in a soft voice.

He regarded her face with an expression she could not place. This was the longest they had looked at each other since their escape had begun. Then his head moved, at an almost inhuman speed, in the direction of crunches that sounded much too close for comfort.

"Go," She cried through silent sobs.

"I don't like having feelings," He muttered so quietly to himself that she wasn't quite sure she had heard him right.

Before she could ask him, once more, to go, to save his own life, to understand that she was resigned to her fate, he snatched her up into his arms bridal style and shot both of them upwards and into the sky. She didn't even have the strength to scream, so instead she passed out wondering at what point she had slipped from reality into a dream.