My heart beating hard against my chest and I feel as though it will explode. Each sound magnified and I wait for her wishing, praying that she won’t come. I’m afraid of what they’ll do if she shows.

“Carmen,” her voice low, her breath ragged.

No please just…I can’t do this. She’s bleeding from a cut above her eye; it hurts me more than anything I have ever felt. The pain almost paralysing and I wish she hated me, that I had never meet her.

“No,” she climbs in like all the times before. She stumbles gasping out in pain, clutching her side. Without thought I am next to her my hand on her shoulder.

“It looks worse than it really is.” she looks at me with those emerald eyes that glow so bright that question everything.

“You can’t be here,” it breaks my heart just to say it. I can barely breathe when she looks at me like that. “You have to go.”

I have to do this for her; if she stays with me they’ll kill her. She stares off at that far away place that I dream of seeing. That faint metallic smell of blood and she smiles weakly turning to me.

“Why?” that heat coming from her, drifting over me drawing me into her. “I’m not going to leave you here… Carmen I…”

Her skin smooth, wet from the mixture of sweat and blood. She doesn’t move away when I touch it, the sticky soft feel of it and I want to kill them. I almost want laugh when a strand of her hair falls into her eyes. Her eyes that grows darker with each passing second, that become distant. Tucking the strand back behind her ear and that sting of tears threatening to fall.

Her lips impossibly soft, her breath washing over me. I want to kiss her, to make it all go away…I just want her. She won’t look at me, instead she stares at her shoes this strange look in her eyes. Please just take away all her pain, make her hate me.

“I love you,” I have to say it. “I always will…but if you don’t go they’ll kill you.”

“Let them…we can run, just me and you….” she stands closer and I want to hold her, kiss her… touch her one last time. “I can’t do this without you, I can’t live without you.”