You guys! Something amazing happened! Fan art from the lovely alicesoissons! I can now die happy. She also made a playlist you can listen to while reading! You can find this all on Tumblr under my username, ivachism. Go check it out and give her a round of applause! A link is on my profile.

Josie turned yet another corner, gasping for breath. She'd been running for so long now and yet not one exit to be seen. She slides to a stop when she comes across a dead end. Turning on her heel, she begins running once more, arms pumping and heart thundering in her ears.

Where is the damn exit?!

"Hey!"

This time she does fall, her chin bouncing off of the slick linoleum.

"Hey, are you alright?" a middle-aged man in a guard's uniform rushes down the hall to help her up.

Quickly utilizing his approach to her advantage, she stays down and groans, reaching up and gently holding her head. And when he reaches her and grabs her elbow to pull her up, she twists lithely, hooking her foot under his leg and sweeping him to the floor while simultaneously rising.

Pressing her knee into his throat, she bares her teeth and growls for him to be still. "Where is the exit?" she demands.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

Josie slaps him so hard that a thin dribble of red leaks from the corner of his lip. He stares up at her, eyes as wide as the moon. "The exit!" she barks.

"Y-you need a key card."

"And the door? Where is it?"

"S-s-s-"

"Spit it out!"

"South hall!"

She begins running her hands roughly down his body, searching every pocket.

"P-please don't hurt me," he whispers.

Ignoring him, she reaches into his pants pocket and grins victoriously when she withdraws the thin sliver of plastic.

She holds it up before his eyes and chirps, "Thank you!"

"You're fucking insane…"

Her smile turns vicious and she leans forward, her teeth bared. He leans back as far as he can, curling pitifully against the floor. Snapping her teeth shut with a hollow snap, she shoves him away and stands, tossing her hair behind her and continuing towards the southern halls.

A screech echoes behind her followed by the man's pitiful scream, cut short with a bloody gurgle.

A brief pang of regret fills her, but she grips the card tighter and can only think of her imminent escape.

For a moment, as she slides the card through the slot reader, a wretched wave of nausea curdles her stomach. What if it doesn't work? But then the most magnificent of sounds fills her ears- a cheery beep as the card is accepted.

Throwing the door open, she steps into a dark stairway and is helpless to stop her breathless laugh of joy.

"Jacs!" she shouts, turning around. Her hunter is rounding the corner, loping towards her with fresh blood still pouring from his chin. Sensing her haste, he doubles his speed and leaps past the door, perching onto the stairway's railing.

Letting the door slam shut behind her, she takes the stairs two at a time, her hunter following close behind.

Freedom is so near…

It takes another scan of the card, a cheery beep, and the shoving of a heavy iron door and then… and then…

The sunlight feels so magnificent that Josie comes to a complete stop, raising her head to the sky and closing her eyes in bliss. A gentle breeze stirs her hair and she fills her lungs deep, a smile quirking her lips unbidden.

A warmth presses against her thigh and she reflexively reaches down, running her fingers across the back of Jacs' neck as he too revels in the outside world.

How long had it been within their prison? Weeks? She hardly remembers.

An echo sounds and the brick beside her explodes into dust. Squealing, she drops to a crouch as Jacs hisses menacingly and presses into her side.

"We need to run," she whispers, a second shot just inches for her seeming to solidify her words.

Breaking into a sprint, she crosses the abandoned parking lot of the hospital in record time, dodging rusted cars and corpses of the undead, rotted and stinking beneath the sun. Bullets ping behind her, just barely missing her fleeing form.

Ahead, a chain link fence looms before the vast forest surrounding the perimeter. A hooded form goes sailing over it, whirling around to wait for her.

The effects of her captivity are apparent in the strain of her lungs, where once she could have run for hours without losing her breath. Her muscles complain, burning and screeching. Just a little bit further.

Leaping onto the chain-link fence, she grasps the links and begins to scale as fast as her trembling limbs will allow. Another bullet whizzes by, just inches from her ear. The shock of warm blood against her cheek lets her know she was hit, but the adrenaline pounding through her veins keeps her from feeling where exactly.

Finally reaching the top, she throws her leg over the side and falls the rest of the way down, crashing against the grass with an unforgiving thump.

Gasping for lost air, she crawls back to her feet and stumbles into the safe embrace of the forest.

A warm touch, a rasping purr, a gentle scent.

She shifts and rubs her eyes and squeals a giggle when something wet trails along her neck.

"Jacs," she mockingly chastises, blindly throwing her arms around the presence hovering above her.

His answering croon prompts her to finally open her eyes, the memories of the day before rushing back.

She'd run for miles upon miles, emerging from the forest and passing house after house despite her weak body begging to stop. Finally coming across a ragged drive-thru motel, she'd entered the first unlocked door she could find and threw herself down on the musty bed. They couldn't find her here, surely.

If those… people caught her, they'd surely execute her. She'd left behind so much blood, so much chaos…

An old woman in a pillbox hat glares from her memories and Josie flinches away, rubs her hands down her face.

A sharp pain in her ear makes her yelp and jerk her hand away. Jerking to her feet, she limps to the bathroom and rubs at the window until she can see a small patch of her face.

That bullet, the one she'd ignored. Her ear is nicked, a severe crescent missing from the lobe.

Josie hums numbly, lifting a hand then lowering it. The blood is already dry. No good it would do to mess with it now.

Trudging back to the bed where Jacs perches and watches her intently, she falls back into it gracelessly.

"Just when I thought the world was done throwing curveballs my way, it goes and rips off my ear," she mutters, glancing at her hunter. "But… we're free. We actually got out!" She laughs breathlessly, but her smile slowly fades.

He's staring down at her, golden eyes glinting beneath his hood. His usually flickering attention is no more, focused solely on her.

Memories of what he'd looked like, sequestered within his cell, throwing his body against the glass, howling for blood- it breaks her heart. What had they done to him? Why had they kept a live hunter in a survivor's refuge? It made zero sense to her, only stoked her fury.

If they'd caused him pain…

Realistically, she knows they had. Tremendous pain, judging by the heavy shadows laying under his pallid face. God, he looks as tired as she felt.

Lifting herself to a seated position, she pats her lap until Jacs scooches closer, warily glancing up at her gaze.

"Come on," she murmurs, holding out her arms.

When he's close enough, she wraps him in the biggest hug she is capable of, squeezing him for all she's worth.

"Never," she hisses into his ear, taking deep breaths of his woodsy scent and relishing in the inferno-like heat radiating from his broad form. "I'm never letting them take you from me again. Do you hear me, Jacs? Never."

He's tense in her hold, utterly unmoving.

Pulling back, she envelops his jaw in both her hands and shakes his head gently. "I promise," she says somberly, staring up at him. "I promise. Never again."

His glazed, exhausted eyes slowly close and he bows his head, leaning into her touch.

"There you go," she encourages, urging him to lay his head in her lap. "You must be exhausted. Have you slept?" She knows he'll never answer her, but it feels so natural to speak to him. "Time for you to relax for a change."

He wraps himself around her, hugging her midsection and burying his face into her soft belly.

And when she pushes back his hood and threads gentle fingers through his long black locks, his purr resumes in his chest, filling their dusty rooms with his sounds of contentment.

Humming softly, she kneads his scalp and untangles his hair, playing with the black-as-raven-wings strands.

This is nice, she thinks. This small taste of contentment. If only this could be their life- cuddling in bed without a worry in the world.

His breath is warm, soft puffs against her belly that make her shift restlessly.

"You're beautiful," she observes when the silence grows stale, rubbing softly at the back of his neck.

"You-" Josie abruptly stops when she feels something solid beneath her fingers. It feels… rectangular? The hell?

She leans forward, her hair falling forward to cover them both in a veil of privacy. Brushing his hair aside, she gasps softly and curses.

"God, Jacs," she cries.

The tracker. That fucker, Jason, had mentioned it earlier and she'd- stupid, stupid stupid!- she'd forgotten.

She can see it, just barely, resting beneath his skin. It's red, swollen and irritated, the skin around it clearly not accepting the foreign object. Shit, are they tracking them right now? Are they here?

Josie leaps to her feet, ignoring Jacs' disgruntled snort, and hurries to the window. Pressing against the wall, she just barely peels back one of the cheap plastic blinds and squints through it.

Nothing but an abandoned parking lot. Good, but they don't have long.

"Oh god oh god," she mutters under her breath as she rushes to the bathroom and begins rustling through the cabinets. She pushes aside toilet paper rolls and window cleaner and dust balls.

"Fuck!" she shouts, temper flaring. Jacs crouches in the doorway, watching her.

She needs to get that thing out of him. She needs something sharp… and fucking toilet paper and window cleaner aren't gonna cut it.

"Fuck," she snarls again, grabbing her hair and tearing at the locks to the point of agony.

The mirror judges her quietly. The blurry woman staring back at her is so ragged, so war-torn, so ravaged by this shit world. The mirror-girl smirks cruelly, her features slowly melting and growing old until a nurse in a pillbox is in her place, glaring at her.

"Fuck you, Nancy," Josie snarls. "Fuck you!"

Nancy grins nastily. "Better hide, there's a leaper around here. Better hide!"

"Shut up!"

"Better hide, better hide, better hide-" The old crone continues to sing the words until they're a raging shout in her head.

"Shut up!" Josie screams again, covering her ears.

"Better…" Nancy's features begin to melt off of her skull, dripping like wax from porcelain bone, her voice turning into a rumbling moan of a nightmarish creature. "…hide…"

Josie shudders, trembles, screams. One moment, she is holding her head. But in the next moment, her knuckles are torn open, blood leaking from ragged gashes. The familiar pang of glass itches her skin and she realizes the mirror is shattered into pieces.

"Oh…" she whispers, her hand trembling with pain.

Large shards surround her, glinting dangerously. What… what is wrong with her? Why does it feel like her mind has been fractured in the same way she'd fractured the mirror? Why-

"Oh!" she yelps as a flash of inspiration hits her, interrupting herself mid-thought. The haste of the moment is remembered. They don't have much time, and she'd wasted a lot of it conversing with Nancy… with herself?

Ignoring the pain in her hand and the nightmarish images of her ravaged mind, she grabs a washcloth and uses it to pick up a shard the size of her palm, the edge finer than the rest.

"Perfect." She turns and finds Jacs watching her intently. He's leaning back from her, his lips pressed tightly together. If he were a hound, she'd imagine his ears would be pressed flat to his head.

"Jacs," she murmurs, dropping to her knees and holding her arms out. "Come here."

He wavers, looking over his shoulder then back at her.

"I know, I'm scared too." Her hand wavers, trembles with pain as her head aches, but she ignores it. "Please, come."

He reluctantly stalks forward, shoulder rolling like a tiger's. When he's close enough, she urges him back into the position they were in earlier. Cradling his jaw, she makes him look at her.

Staring into his honeyed depths, she lowers her voice. "I know you don't understand me. What I'm about to do is for the best but it's going to hurt- a lot. I don't want to cause you pain but we need to do this. Don't… don't fucking bite me, ok?" Her voice dies to a whisper.

He blinks slowly, then drops his head back to her stomach.

"Ok," she breathes, composing herself. Shakily, she resumes the song she'd been humming earlier.

Pulling back his hair, she positions the shard of glass at the back of his neck and takes a deep breath.

In one smooth motion, she slices the skin.

Jacs jerks violently against her and she must hold him close to keep him from running. "Shh," she hushes him, "calm down now."

He's intent on rolling onto his stomach and leaning his head back, instead positioning his throat to her.

"No, I need the back of your neck," she scolds hastily, trying to turn him back around. But he's relentless, leaning his head back even further.

She has no hope of moving him, this large male of unnatural strength. She's but a mouse begging the lion to let her take his splinter out.

"Jacs," she whispers softly, dropping her shoulders, "please."

A long whine issues from his throat, sending a pang of the worst, prickliest guilt she'd ever endured through her chest.

Fighting sudden tears, she leans down and brushes her lips across her feral companion's throat, right against his jugular.

The sounds die in his throat and he slowly stills in her grip.

Sniffling against his warm skin, she brushes small kisses up the column of his throat, trailing to the edge of his jaw and the corner of his lips.

Blindly, she reaches behind him and feels along his neck until she finds her neat cut.

Closing her eyes, she bumps her nose against his then finally presses her lips against his. In the same movement, she reaches her fingers and feels the shock of metal buried in flesh.

He tears his face away, grunting in barely restrained pain and baring in teeth in a silent snarl. But before he goes back to struggling, she acts on pure instinct alone. Dropping her head back into his neck, she buries her teeth deep into the flesh there, in the same movement ripping the tracker from him.

Jacs' arms wrap around her and she prepares to be pushed away. But instead, he hauls her closer and purrs violently between his huffed breaths, as if trying to soothe her.

For a moment, all she can do is stay still. She feels… powerful, having him on his back and submitting to her. Him- an apex predator, hunter of her people, showing his belly to her, offering his throat to her.

His throat vibrates between her teeth and jumps as he swallows thickly. Oh. Gently, she peels her teeth from him and checks the damage. No blood, but it will certainly bruise.

Licking her lips mindlessly, she catches his golden gaze and pause. Would he be angry? Does he hate her now? Has she lost all trust that had hesitantly grown between them?

He blinks slowly then sinks back into her arms, turning and very gently biting her arm, not even denting the flesh- just enough pressure to let her know he was there. A forgiveness, perhaps? She can only pray for such.

One hand holding him still, she looks to the tiny, sinister metal object in the palm of her other hand. Crushing it, she lets it fall to the floor and smiles softly.

"Now let's get the hell out of here. And then we can sleep for… for a week, for a month!" she rambles, getting to her feet wearily.

There must be somewhere, somewhere that would be safe for them, where they could sleep without worry of man or undead.

It's out there, she's sure.

They just need to find it.

Please review! I absolutely love hearing your thoughts- and we are so close to 100!