Runaway - Chapter 1
Rain hammered the bus station roof like impatient fingers. A girl sat beneath the awning, soaked, shoulders curled inward as if trying to hide inside herself. Her backpack was clutched tight against her chest. Every few seconds she checked over her shoulder with quick, furtive glances she hoped no one would notice.
Anthony, who was sitting beside her, noticed anyway. He didn’t mean to. He kept his earbuds in, hood pulled low, pretending to scroll through something on his phone, but her fear was loud. It vibrated through the air between them. She looked about the same age as him—seventeen—pale beneath the harsh station lights, her light brown hair hanging in wet strands around a face sharpened by fear. Her green eyes—bright, startled, impossible to miss—kept darting toward the street as if she expected someone to appear.
When she suddenly stood, fast enough that her bench squeaked, he looked up. Her ticket slipped from her pocket and fluttered onto the metal slats. She didn’t see it. She was already speed-walking away. He blinked, glanced at the ticket… and then at her disappearing figure. He grabbed it and jogged after her.
“Hey—wait! You dropped this!”
His voice carried harder than he intended, sharp against the wet pavement.
She didn’t turn.
She ran.
***
Mary rounded the corner too fast and collided with two men smoking outside a convenience store. Her backpack swung behind her, nearly yanked away as she stumbled. One man caught her arm.
“Where you runnin’, sweetheart?”
She tried to pull back, breath caught in her throat.
“Please—let go—”
The second man grinned and reached for her backpack straps.
“Nah, stay a minute. Keep us company.”
His fingers curled around the nylon. She jerked, but the other man’s grip only tightened. Rain blurred her vision. Then a voice cut through it.
***
“HEY!”
All three turned.
Anthony stood under the downpour, his hood dripping, fist clenched around her yellow bus ticket. Water ran down his face in streams.
“Let her go.”
The men looked him over, amused.
“What are you gonna do, kid?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t hesitate, either.
He moved like someone who had done this a thousand times—without fear, without thinking, without the faintest flicker of doubt. Not trained, not polished, just raw instinct sharpened by repetition. He shoved the first man so hard he smacked the wall and slid halfway down it. The second man swung wildly; Anthony ducked and came back up with a brutal, practiced punch across the jaw. The cigarette flew, hitting the wet ground in a sputter.
The girl froze, stunned. The men staggered back, cursing.
“Crazy kid!”
But they wanted no part of him. They backed into the alley and disappeared.
***
He stood in the rain, chest rising and falling, water dripping from his soaked hoodie. His knuckles were starting to redden, covered in old bruises layered under fresh ones. He turned to Mary slowly, trying to soften his expression.
She swallowed, trembling.
“…Why did you follow me?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
The question caught him off guard. He blinked, then glanced down at his hand. He held out the ticket. She hesitated before taking it, her eyes drawn to his hand. His skin was warm-toned, and the back of his hand was marked with small, sharp tattoos: a knife inked down his index finger, a tiny skull tucked near the base of his thumb, a simple cross etched into the space between two fingers. They should’ve terrified her. They didn’t.
Maybe it was his eyes.
They were kind—soft in a way that didn’t match the bruises on his knuckles or the violence he’d unleashed seconds earlier. He looked like someone who’d done hard things in hard places… yet still somehow carried gentleness with him.
“You dropped this,” he said quietly.
She stared at the bent paper in his palm. Then at him. Then back again. Her breath wavered, a tear sliding down her cheek and disappearing into the rain before it even fell.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He shrugged, awkward but warm, his shoulders lifting in a shy gesture at odds with the violence he’d just unleashed.
“You okay?” he asked gently.
She hesitated and looked toward the alley, and then at the poster taped to a lamppost. Her own face was pictured beneath the words MISSING.
“Yeah…” she said softly, quickly turning away from the poster.
“Well… let me walk you back,” he said. “Just so you make it onto that bus.”
She studied him—the storm-drenched hoodie, the fearless eyes, the practiced bruises on his hands. For a second, she felt the faintest flicker of safety. She nodded, and together they walked back toward the station.
“I’m Anthony, by the way.”
She hesitated for a moment.
“I’m Mary,” she said, her voice softer than she expected.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, smiling.
The rain slowed to a fine mist as they approached the shelter. She tightened her grip on the ticket. For the first time all night, she didn’t feel hunted. She felt accompanied. Just as the thought settled in her chest, the hiss of brakes reached her ears. Mary looked up to see her bus pulling away from the curb, doors already shut. Panic flared. She broke into a run, splashing through puddles, waving the ticket in the air.
“Wait!” she shouted.
But the driver never looked back. The bus picked up speed, taillights smearing red through the mist, and by the time she reached the edge of the sidewalk, it was already gone.
