Chapter 1: Taken

"Keep running, Eli!"

"I'm not as fast as you, you know!"

"Unless you want to be caught, you gotta move!"

Flashing red and blue lights never faded as they ran as fast as they could. Even cutting through alleys wasn't enough to free them from their pursuers. Every corner was another cop car and a gunshot nearly clipping her shoulder. Getting shot wouldn't be a big deal for her, but for Elijah, it could be life or death. There was no way that the only person that mattered to her was going to die. Not today. Not ever. Too much had already happened to her. She couldn't let that happen too.

"Evelyn! Ev, this way!"

Her attention diverted to him within a split second and she switched directions, ducking as they slipped through a slit in the chain-link fence blocking off the alley. A bullet ricocheted off the dumpster as she passed it, nearly embedding itself in her best friend's back. Her heart lurched in her throat and for a moment, she couldn't breathe, the shock and reality of the situation finally crashing down on her. Never had they been this close to being caught. They always got away before the cops showed up.

Guess their luck had to run out some day.

Elijah leaped over the fence on the other side of the alley just as another cop car skidded to a stop in front of them. She landed roughly on the ground after jumping over the fence and rammed into the car, leaving a considerable dent in the vehicle as she rapidly changed directions.

"I cant k-keep running f-forever!" her friend wheezed, nearly tripping over the curb as he tried to avoid a civilian.

Okay. Okay. Figure out a place to hide. There were plenty of nooks and crannies around the city, but she had to consider Elijah wasn't like her. If she was on her own, she could easily escape, get up to a roof maybe and disappear from sight. But she had to consider his limitations and go from there. Pipes and vents were out of the question. Alleyways were too obvious. And abandoned apartment maybe? Not back home because then they'd know where they were staying.

"Get downtown, by the shore! Abandoned dock!" she shouted, spitting out some of her black hair that slipped between her lips.

She briefly saw the thumbs up he gave her as he ran and changed directions once more. It was easy to see that he was quite exhausted from running, whereas she wasn't even winded. Perks of her stupid curse, she guessed.

Finally, it seemed like they were getting somewhere. As they sprinted down to the dock, the sirens began to grow distant. Elijah dove through the broken window of the old fishing shack where they commonly hid, and she slipped inside after him, dropping to the floor and pressing her back against the wall.

He practically collapsed in a heap, chest heaving with exhaustion. Still, a stupid smile stretched across his lips and he fished through his jean pocket, pulling out a wad of cash and waggling it in the air. She rolled her eyes, but had to smile. Even if it was a tough get away, they still got what they needed. She wished that they could get cash the normal way - by working - but with their wanted status, stealing it was the only option. Of course, they could leave the city, but her heart was too tied to Seattle to let it go so easily.

"Here." He tossed her the cash, taking a shaky breath and sitting up. "It's not much, but better than our last raid."

"I don't care. As long as we have something," she breathed, stuffing the money in her pocket and pausing for a moment to listen as the sirens got closer again.

Both of them grew silent and he rolled up his sleeves, revealing the many tattoos engraved in his skin. She'd been there when he'd gotten a few of them and she couldn't help but smirk to herself as she remembered him shifting in discomfort as the needles pierced his skin.

A shout brought her back to her senses and she remained completely silent, taking a moment to peer through one of the boarded up windows. They were close, searching the area they were in right now. Not good. They would eventually look where they were and find them. If they were going to get away, they had to sneak out and find somewhere else to hide.

Elijah seemed to pick up on this and shifted quietly across the little shack, silently moving some fishing rods aside and peering carefully through the window she was. He seemed to catch sight of something because his eyebrows shot up and he nudged her. Swiveling her eyes to him, she watched as he pointed to something across the street and her stomach plummeted. A D.U.P. station under construction.

"No way, it's too dangerous," she whispered, shrinking slightly as a cop walked by their window.

"They won't expect us there. And no one's inside right now, it's still being built...," he breathed.

The door rattled suddenly and she jumped, nearly knocking over the fishing equipment. Her green eyes connected with his brown ones and she let out a shaky breath before nodding. It looked to be their only option at this point.

With quiet steps, she sneaked back over to the window they came through, poking her head out to make sure it was clear before slipping through. Her heart pounded rapidly in her chest like a boom speaker and she waited for a brief moment before slipping down the dock as the cops broke through the door of the shack. They booked it across the street to the D.U.P. station and she felt a pang of fear as they slipped in through a small crack in the fence. Like Elijah predicted, no one was here, but being in such a dangerous place made her uneasy.

As she ducked underneath a tarp to a more sheltered area, she spotted several wanted posters on the wall. Three of them - two men and one woman - had a large, red X across the faces, with a small note in sloppy handwriting written beneath. 'Transporting to facility 6/21.' That was three days ago. They'd been caught.

Next to those three were two more. One with her own picture smeared across the paper and the other with Elijah's. He wasn't even like she was, but the fact that he stuck by her side no matter what made him dangerous to them.

The picture of him used was before he got a haircut and a few piercings. His jet black hair was shoulder-length, almost completely in his face. Now, one side of his head was shaved down with the other reaching just below his chin. A couple of snake bites resided in his lips now as well, despite her pressuring him to not get them.

Just seeing his face on a poster made her wish she never got him involved in this. All of it was on her, not him. He deserved to live a normal life. Have an actual apartment, a girlfriend, maybe. A job. Not be on the run with her. But ever since they met and became best friends at age sixteen, he'd always stuck by her, no matter what. They'd been through everything together and as soon as he turned eighteen, he moved out of his parent's house and stuck with her. She could never thank him enough, she just wished he didn't have to go through what she was.

Her eyes shifted over to the other poster, the poster of herself. All of this was because of who she was. Because of something she couldn't change. How was she supposed to change something that was a part of her? Now they called her a freak of nature - a bio-terrorist. She didn't want any of this. If she could, she would go back to her normal life before her parents were killed for their association with her. She'd do anything to get that back.

For a brief moment, she skimmed her fingers over the poster, sighing softly to herself. She wasn't going to become like one of the others. The facility, she'd heard of. Bad things about it. Experiments and torture. It was the last place on earth she wanted to be. That was why she had to constantly keep running.

Something else she noticed on the wall among the posters. A picture. Or several of them. All were blurry and poorly taken, but it was still easy to see that they were of another bio-terrorist. Shots of him running and shooting what appeared to be smoke out of his hands. None got a clear shot of his face, but it was easy to see that he had a red beanie on with a denim jacket. Another rising risk for them, she guessed. The more of them that cropped up, the more they cracked down on the rules. But sooner or later, they'd have to put everyone in prison. More and more of them were coming out from hiding. It gave her a bit of hope that maybe one day they'd be able to take control and bring peace back to the city, but with the woman in charge now and how strictly she dealt with bio-terrorists, she didn't think it would be any time within her lifespan.

The click of a gun startled her out of her thoughts and she spun. Her heart sank when she saw the police, one with a gun to Elijah's head and the others point their weapons at her.

"Put your hands up!" the man holding Elijah shouted.

Shakily, she did as she was told, knowing if she tried to do anything, they'd blast her best friend's brains out all over the ground.

"Thought you could try and get away with a little cash, huh? Nice try. But you can't fool us that easily," he hissed. "Bring her over here and call for back-up."

One of them moved toward her, grabbing her arms and putting them behind her back.

"Detective! Wait, she's one of them! Him too!"

Her whole body tensed and she looked over to the man holding her wrists as he pointed to the wanted poster behind her. A thousand curses ran through her mind and she locked eyes with Elijah. No, she couldn't let him be captured for her. He didn't do anything but befriend her and be there for her when she had no one else. She couldn't let him suffer for her. She was going to get him out of this if it was the last thing she did. Even if it meant that she was going to be captured and hauled off to be experimented on.

"He's not one of them," she breathed, eyes slowly raising.

"Nice try, missy. Howard, call up the D.U.P.s! We need them here stat!" he shouted, adjusting his grip on the gun that aimed right at Elijah's temple. "Either of you try anything and I blow his brains out."

Her body started to shake anxiously and she looked around for something - anything - that she could use to try and help them get out of this situation.

"Ev, you can't get caught okay? Don't worry about me. I'm gonna be fine. You worry about you, okay?" Elijah assured, his eyes glistening with concern. "Do you hear me?"

"I'm not leaving you-"

"You have to."

"Both of you, shut it!" the cop interrupted.

Elijah's eyes hardened in determination and in the blink of an eye, he used all of his strength to duck back out of the gun's range and shove the cop hard. Instinctively, she mustered up the sound from the incident to direct it at the gun and shove it out of the cop's hand just as it fired. The bullet bounced right off the metal fence and out of range, but at the same time all of the weapons aimed at her were fired.

Her eyes widened and she focused on the sound created by the gunshots, directing the waves at the bullets to block them from pelting her. One of them got through and pierced her arm, leaving a small gash in its wake.

She ducked to the floor, wincing slightly and crawling over to Elijah to protect him from the oncoming bullets. Each time a bullet hit her soundwave barrier, she winced. Of course she had been shot at before, but not like this. She was scared - terrified actually - and she had no idea what to do. The D.U.P.s would be here any moment and they couldn't be here. They had to run again.

"We have to go!" she screamed, causing the barrier around them to thicken momentarily.

He shook his head, grabbing onto her arm. "No, you have to go. I'm not going to be able to keep up, Ev. The only way you're going to get out of this is if you fly. Your parents died so that you could be free. You're not going to get captured for me."

She shook her head viciously, nearly choking on her own emotions as they bubbled up in her chest. "I c-can't. I n-need you."

"No you don't! You're more powerful than anyone I've ever met. You can do this. I know you can."

The all-too-familiar sirens of the D.U.P. vehicles reached her ears and she tensed up, overwhelming fear rushing into her bloodstream. It was then that she did the most cowardly thing she'd ever done in her life. She ran.

Not once did she look back, even though her heart was exploding as she left her best friend behind. The overwhelming fear drove her forward and she dodged the bullets that came flying her way. How could she do this? How could she leave him behind?

A tear trickled down her cheek as she leaped toward the nearest building, mustering up the soundwaves from all of the noise down below to propel herself up to the roof. She never got winded, but she was feeling the strain of her lungs as she jumped down to the next building. It was all of her emotions and her need to cry that was sapping all of the oxygen from her lungs.

But she kept going. She kept flying and running and jumping until the sirens were gone and she was alone on a rooftop across the city with the Space Needle sitting in front of her. She stayed huddled on the roof for several agonizing moments until she felt she was safe and not going to be dragged away. In that moment when she realized that no one was going to get her, all of her emotions crashed around her.

Tears flew down her cheeks in waves and her shoulders shook with silent sobs that couldn't seem to escape her lips. She was the most cowardly person she knew. The one person she cared about - her best friend in the whole world - was now gone because of her. He was going to be taken where she should have been taken if she hadn't ran. Maybe he was even dead. She wouldn't be surprised if he was. He was much braver and more rebellious than her.

Everything she had was gone and it was all her fault. If she had just been brave enough to fight back, to wait for him and escape with him at her side... All it took was the sirens to bring her back to that night... The sirens that always struck fear in her heart. They caused her to run the first time and every time since then.

With shaky hands, she wiped the tears from her eyes and ducked her head, looking down at the street below. She had to get Elijah back. What if he was still alive? But how was she even going to do it? If she couldn't save him then, what made her think that she could save him now? Especially if he was stuck in the facility that she didn't know the location of, with hundreds of D.U.P.s guarding the entrance.

Her watery gaze shifted up to the Space Needle for a brief moment and she caught sight of a large flag hanging from the top of the needle that she hadn't noticed before. Two eagles, intertwined and connected with a star, one side blue and the other side red. Something about the flag connected with her. She needed to fly. Be an eagle that fought for freedom, not just for her and others like her, but for Elijah. She didn't know how she was going to do it, but she needed to. Even if she was afraid.

Slowly, she got to her feet, eyes locked on the flag. With a shaky breath, she lifted her hand up to her forehead, using two fingers to salute. She had to do this. There was no other way.

A/N: Hello everyone! Long time no see! This is a story I've had cooped up in my files since Nanowrimo like 3 years ago and Delsin is one of my video game babes. I've only got about 7 chapters but I'm going to update every week or two to try and give me some time to get back in the groove of writing. I already have the entire outline of the story I just have to write it, so it might be a bit easier for me to actually complete this since I know exactly how it's ending. It's a bit of a jarring change compared to the rest of the stuff I've been updating but maybe it'll be a bit fresh instead of something to do with zombies lol

I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and I can't wait to update again! Thanks for reading!