Hey guys. I'm sorry that I kind of just stopped writing. I don't really have an explanation for it, but I've been getting a few reviews asking me to continue this, and I do still kinda want to finish it, but I can't promise that'll happen any time soon. Here's something kind of short, since I've got major writers block. I hope it's alright.

The blood on Pauls arm was dripping down, staining his shirt as it went, until it made it to his hands, and flowed across Izzy's neck. It was warm, and made her skin tingle.

She reached her hands up as far as she could, scratching at Paul's face weakly, before she used all of the strength she had left to punch him in the stomach. Thankfully, it winded and surprised him enough to make him loosen his grip. It wasn't much, but the air she was finally able to suck in gave her the energy to break free and knock him off. As he fell to the floor, she kicked between his legs—albeit fairly weakly—and made a slow, staggering dash for the door that Peter and Iris had left through, muttering quiet phrases to keep herself going.

She needed to get to Iris, but she also needed a weapon. Desperate for anything nearby and blunt whatsoever, she snatched up the fireplace dust pan, holding it tight in her aching hands.

She hurried towards the door just as it opened and Peter stuck his head out, no doubt checking to see what had caused so much noise. He saw Paul, struggling to stand, before he saw Izzy, readying to smack him in the head with her makeshift weapon. Paul shouted a strangled "look out!" before Izzy swung the dust pan, hitting Peter in the face and sending him to the ground.

Not willing to stop for a second, Izzy continued staggering through the door and into the dining room, where Iris sat, limp in a nearby chair.

Izzy panicked immediately. "Iris…Iris oh god wake up, don't be dead, we have to go, Iris!"

The other girl lifted her head, looking at Izzy with wet eyes. Iris reached out her hands and took hold of Izzy's arms, for both comfort and help standing. Izzy steadied her the best she could, constantly looking back towards the door to see if either of the men were coming after them. Unfortunately, she was correct in her concerns, and Paul stumbled into the doorway seconds after Izzy had Iris up and ready to move. She didn't think it was possible, but the rage on his face was even more potent than before, and he looked ready to rip them apart with his bare hands.

However, he had to lean against the doorframe, gripping the hem of his shirt, to deal with the still throbbing pain from Izzy's kick, and wasn't able to tackle them to the ground like he would have already done otherwise.

"Alright," He wheezed through clenched teeth. "No more games. I've let you two live far too fucking long already. It's over."

Izzy hurriedly pushed Iris towards the large window overlooking the bay, speaking in a panicked string of words "Go, Iris, go, hurry, I'll try to hold him back just go!" She threw open the panes of the window and nearly shoved the quietly protesting Iris out of it.

"Izzy…! Don't make me go alone…" She whimpered, but Izzy didn't let her say another word. How many times has she done this now? How many times has it failed? Izzy was forced to ignore those questions as she ushered her out. Paul took his first wobbly steps towards them.

"I won't, I'm going to follow you, I promise I'll catch up." She replied as she turned around. She didn't know if Iris heard her, but Paul certainly did.

"Don't bother, Isabelle," He hissed. "It won't take long to catch up to her, no matter how far she gets." His lips turned up in a terrifying mixture of a smirk and a sneer. "And I'm after you right now, as it is."

Izzy held the dust pan tightly, ready to swing. "I don't give a fuck who you're after…" Her voice trembled, but she held her ground. She didn't have a plan, but maybe she could fool him into thinking she did.

He approached her further. "You're so cute when you're pretending to be strong." He said, mocking her. "It's such a shame. I'm going to hate having to rip that mask off your pretty face."

Izzy waited. He was still a fair distance from her, though slowly getting closer. She knew she shouldn't attack too early. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for alternate escape routes or new weapons, anything that could work. She noticed the dining table and the glass vase that sat atop it.

Her eyes shot back to Paul, who was examining her stance for a way to overthrow her. He seemed to be expecting that she would make the first move, and he was ready to avoid it. It was either that, or he'd get close enough to restrain her. She had to choose.

She took a step back, focusing Paul's attention on her possible ways of escape, and then tossed the dust pan at him and rushed to the dining room table. The dust pan hit Paul in the shoulder, hurting him, although not enough to stop him. He turned towards her and tried to chase her as she ducked behind the table and flipped it towards him. The vase on top flew from it's resting place and smacked against Paul's shit before shattering to the floor. Izzy could hear him roaring her name and cursing as she jumped out the window to follow Iris.

That wouldn't stop him for very long. The small injuries he sustained were nowhere near enough to hinder him, and his anger would probably make him faster. So Izzy had to gain as much ground as she could.

It was dark (How late was it, now? Izzy wasn't sure), but the streetlamps illuminated much of their property, and Iris wasn't too far away. She was just on the other side of the property gate when Izzy called for her. Tears were already streaming down Iris' face, and they only intensified when she turned to see her friend.

"Izzy!" She cried, reaching her arm between the bars of the fence.

Izzy knew they didn't have time for a reunion, so she kept shouting. "Keep going! I'll catch up to you, just keep running!" Iris hesitated, but slowly nodded and moved away from the fence. Her pace was much slower, with her consistently looking over her shoulder to make sure that Izzy at least made it outside the property.

Izzy scaled the fence fairly quickly but got caught on the sharpened bars along the top. As she struggled to free her tearing clothing, she noticed two stumbling figures exiting the house and coming towards her. She could see Paul rushing ahead, with Peter lagging behind. They both showed slight limps, but Paul was moving fast enough that his didn't seem to affect him much. Returning to the brink of panic, Izzy let her clothes tear on the fence and leaped down. She stumbled as her feet hit the dirt, but she continued scrambling forward into the dense brush surrounding the property.

It was more like a forest than she had initially thought. She and Iris had ever really entered the wooded area that spanned between the sections of property; they never had reason too. If Izzy was right, there was nothing other than another house on the other side of the trees, but she couldn't remember the layout of the street now.

She could barely see Iris a few meters ahead, still running. Izzy picked up her pace as much as she could, and although she tripped over many thick roots and stumbled in the darkness, she managed to catch up to her friend quickly enough.

Iris sobbed when she saw Izzy, and grabbed onto her arm immediately. "I'm so tired." She whimpered. "I didn't know that it was so steep through here. I don't know if I can keep running, Izzy."

Izzy gripped her friends hand, pulling her along. "I know, Iris." She was struggling to speak clearly. "But we can't stop. We can not fucking stop, they're not far away, we have to keep going." Iris nodded weakly, sniffling.

They jogged up the surprisingly steep, uneven ground, huffing and holding onto each other for support. They weren't sure if they were going straight or not, they couldn't see very far in front of them to tell. Izzy could hear branches snapping somewhere fairly far behind them, so she assumed that the boys, or at least Paul, were still following them. But she expected to have run into a fence by now.

As she strained her eyes forward, trying to see anything other than trees ahead of them, she caught a glimpse of the sky. As they moved steadily forward, the trees became further apart and she could see the way out. She and Iris looked at each other and smiled breathlessly, praying that there was some sort of salvation out there. Izzy heard voices behind them, closer than the rustling had been before.

They nearly reached the exit when Izzy realized she didn't see a house in front of them. She could clearly see the sky and a bit of the lake behind their property, but no nearby house. The two of them stopped in front of a chain link fence that was crumpled and nearly ripped from the ground, and as they peered past it, Izzy realized why there wasn't another house here.

The house Izzy and Iris had been staying in was near the bottom of a hill. It wasn't a very large hill, but the back yard of the summer home was noticeably sloped into the lake. As the houses got higher on the hill, they didn't have access to the lake the same way that the lower houses did, by having a small shore and dock leading out to the water. The ground surrounding the lake eventually became more of a cliff than a beach, with the higher houses having stairs built into the side of it leading down to the docks. Where there weren't stairs, there was a chain link fence preventing wildlife or people from accidentally falling. It appeared that poor maintenance and occasional storms had collapsed the fence.

So, where Izzy and Iris were now, instead of the property of some other rich vacationer, there was a ledge, followed by a drop into the water. The drop wasn't incredibly far, around maybe four meters, but there didn't seem to be any way of climbing back up. If they fell, they might be able to swim to the nearest shore, but from where they were no shores were immediately visible. Izzy could hear their pursuers coming closer, preventing them from turning around and heading back.

Her shoulders started to shake as she sobbed, overcome with anger and disappointment and fear. Iris looked at her in sad confusion and watched as Izzy sank to her knees on the ground and cried into her hands.

"I'm sorry, Iris." She sobbed. "I wanted to help you and protect you...but I fucked up! I'm sorry! I'm sorry..." Izzy was becoming hysteric, gripping her own hair and wailing apologies.

Iris knelt by her friends side and held her, trying to stop her. "Stop, don't be sorry, Izzy. It isn't your fault." Iris was crying too, pressing her wet face into Izzy's shoulder.

Izzy kept talking, her words incoherent. She spoke about how much she wanted Iris to survive this, even if she herself didn't, and how hard she tried to make sure that happened. She figured she wasn't going to make it anyway, but she could be happy knowing Iris got away safely. "But I fucked up." She said again.

"Izzy..." Iris began, but stopped short and gasped quietly as she saw Peter and Paul emerging from the thicket of trees. They looked at the two girls and Peter smiled, while Paul did not.