AN I: This is a new story I'm working on. Despite the dramatic beginning, it will be a romance story. If this is something you are interested in reading, please review. Thank you so much for reading my work!

Prologue

I don't know how I got here.

There is blood on my hands, warm and pulsing through my shaking fingers. It's hot and sticky, a sharp jutting contrast between the cold concrete and biting night air. I shiver but I'm not cold. I don't feel anything except mind numbing, all consuming panic. My brain feels sluggish and low keening wails, broken only by my sharp breaths, seem to be the only sounds I can hear. I don't even recognize my own voice. Those guttural sobs and half spoken pleas….are those really me?

Maybe, how I got here isn't important anyway. Dammit, don't you die on my Cole Spencer! I press my hands tighter against his barely moving chest, trying to physically force the blood to stop pumping out from the jagged hole the bullet made only seconds earlier.

Has it really only been seconds?

It feels like forever, watching my best friend, the other half of my soul, fade away. And there is nothing I can do. No going back in time, there are no take backs or do overs. Just Cole and me, alone as we always seem to be, scrambling and scrapping for purchase against a world that would rather see us fall then help us to stand. He's so still, in the 13 years I have known him, Cole is never still. Restless, edgy, kinetic energy pulsing between sleek muscles bound by raw determination; but never still.

God dammit , don't you die on me Cole!

Vaguely I registered the lonely wail of sirens coming closer. That's good, help would come soon. I pushed harder on Cole's chest and willed his eyes to open. I selfishly needed the contact to ground me, to help me keep fighting, when all I wanted to do was to lie down beside him.

"If you're going to die, then I'm going to have to die too, only so I can kick your ass for leaving me alone," I yelled. Hear me Cole, please hear me…..you've never left me alone, don't start now…. The sirens were coming closer. "I'm scared Cole," I sob. "Please.." My voice leaves me as I wait in suspended agony for him to respond; a twitch, a blink of his cool gray eyes, anything.

Nothing.

My heart stutters in my chest, from the sheer depth of my pain and fear; knocking against my ribs, in short staccato bursts, as if it was trying to beat for us both. I hear tires screeching to a sudden stop, blanketed by the screaming siren. I don't bother to look behind me. It's either help or it isn't; what does it matter when my entire future is lying on the uneven ground precariously hanging to life by one small tattered thread.

"Miss, you need to move. Let me have a look so I can help him." There is an insistent hand on my shoulder and authoritative words in the air around me. Despite wishing for help, I find I can't bring myself to pull away from Cole. I'm suddenly terrified to let go. What if I let go…and then he dies?

"We don't leave each other," I say. There is another person pawing at me now, steadily moving between my field of vision and Cole, moving my clothes. The rough rushed examination would hurt if I could feel anything. The remaining paramedics are attending to Cole with a flurry of activity, code words calmly expressed with the fluidity of native speakers while he is poked, prodded, and strapped to a stretcher. Still my hand remains touching him; and it isn't until the female paramedic touches me again that I even realize I'm still holding on. The night smells heavy of blood and my stomach rolls in slow, sloshing circles.

"Miss, where are you hurt?" Her tone seemed anxiously professional.

"Not my blood," I manage to say. Cole is what is important; doesn't this stupid lady realize that? I feel light and heavy at the same time and when Cole's body sways before my eyes, I wonder if he is moving or if I am.

How did we get here?

"We need to move, this one's nearly bled out as it is." The paramedics were talking to each other, shifting Cole, touching me. I no longer had the strength to fight when they laid me down. I could see Cole, still had my fingers touching the hem of his shirt. There is a ringing in my ears dulling their frenzied words and the edges of my vision fuzzed in and out.

Until I saw his eyes slit open and find me.

"Cole," I breathed. Or at least I thought I did, I seemed to have lost the power of speech along with the control over my body.

"Miss, stay with me," I dimly heard. "Shit, we're losing her," shouted the lady who was trying to take me away from Cole.

Losing who, I wondered? How did we get here again?

Love you mouthed Cole, before his eyes rolled back, and the stretcher disappeared; presumably being loaded in the ambulance. I tried to tell him I loved him back, but my mouth was too wet, it wasn't working. How embarrassing, I thought, to be drooling all over oneself; even if I knew in my subconscious it wasn't drool, being too coppery and warm for something so innocuous as spit.

After that it grew very dark.

After that I stopped thinking at all.

Cole Spencer, I always knew you'd be the death of me.

AN II: Please review, I want to grow and improve and to do that I need your wisdom and advice….Please