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She got to her feet and booked it down the hall. Chunks of wood and drywall spit at her face as Tom’s bullet flew over her head and punctured the wall behind her.

It took her a good full minute or so to maneuver through the mansion to the front door. She purposely knocked over some victorian styled wall chairs and tipped over a century old grandfather clock on her way out. More obstacles for Tom equalled more time.

Something on the ground caught her attention as she opened the door. It was a book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. That was the book Mother would read to her every night at her bedside as a kid. She didn’t know why it was just laying there and she didn’t know why she picked it up, but she did.

She heard Tom blurt out something that sounded like: come back, I’m so sorry, before she slammed the door behind her.

Hitting the cold, wet, midnight air felt like getting shrink-wrapped in ice and thrown into a coffin full of little needless.

Despite how superficial it sounded, Tom, throwing up on her shoes and legs was the worst way to leave her life at the mansion. She could take a few broken bones and couple bloody noses, like a good girl should, but looking down at her ruined high heels as she ran was just sickening, just wrong, like a bad ending to a movie that you feel gross after the credits. If she wasn’t planning on already running away that night, her ruined heels would probably have been just enough to push her to leave.

Molly and Mandy would be proud.

Down the long stretch of pavement she went. When she got to the end of the driveway she snuck through a secret door in the black steel gates. A loud clang of a bullet ricocheted off the fence just feet away from her. She screamed and almost slipped off a rocky ledge but caught herself on a tree. The metal hummed from the bullet as she slammed the door shut and took off into the night.

It was all downhill from Tom’s house either way you went. She ran and ran and ran and ran; cutting through neighbor’s yards, avoiding the streets as much as she could in fear of seeing those beaming Ferrari Maranello headlights of his. She knew he would come after her. Maybe not tonight, but he would.

She knew that no matter how much he hated her, he needed her. He wasn't alone when she was there. Not to mention it was like a knife to his Jupiter sized ego if he let her get away with something like this, that’s just the way he worked. But she knew that the biggest reason he would come after her was for something else---her song-voice.

She could build bombs, hack complex computers, plan elaborate schemes to bring forth justice; but her greatest talent and biggest secret of all was something that was quite practically useless and honestly only good for one thing: pacifying her godfather. Not even Molly and Mandy, the gossip queens knew that she had an amazing voice.

Once when Tom was sober, he told her that her voice was the only thing that could make him cry, and he couldn’t live without crying. Crying, he said, was the only thing that let him sleep.

Some nights he played the piano and she would sang. He told her she sang like an angel, that she would be a big star one day. He told her she was given to him to heal him, to help him be a good person again. Then he would say how much she sounded like her mother, and how much she looked like her. Then he’d start ranting about her mother in a way that would make Fidelity sick. Later he would fall asleep on the couch and that was that.

Those days were over, she thought, and good riddance to all of them.

She tried her hardest to keep any lyrics from creeping into her head as she ran. She could think of a hundred songs that would go nicely with her situation. There were so many of them stored up in her brain amongst the mathematical formulas and chemical bonding equations. But as soon as they surfaced she nipped them in the bud because she knew that that was what he would want right now, he would want her to sing. Especially anything that had to do with hope, love, or forgiveness. That’s what he would want to hear the most of.

It’s funny, how in your darkest moments, the songs designed to uplift and inspire you only set you off worse. Its like a stranger telling you that everything is going to be okay, just after you’ve told them your horrible, terrible, laughable life story. It’s a nice gesture on the surface, but really, you just want to call them a liar and punch them in the face because you know it wont be. You know they are just saying that to be nice and shut you up. Songs like that ironically had no substance for her, at least not right now.

She ran for the better part of the night, only stopping a few times to to cry her guts out and prevent her lungs from exploding.

She threw up the first time she stopped to catch her breath. The second time only gag sounds and bad tasting air came out.

She was wearing a silky red shirt with a wide cut collar that showed the top of one of her shoulders. She had on a pair of Acne Kex Fade skinny jeans with decorative tears in them and a thin white belt with studs lined on it; in short, not the best attire for running, especially in this weather.

‘A hot mess’ most likely wouldn’t be the best term to use to describe her at that moment, but it fit. A high fashion icicle covered in blood on a runway full of tragedy in heels with a genius mind and a dark vendetta would be probably a better one.

Death started to enter Fidelity’s mind. She had always wondered how she would go. Freezing wasn’t one of the top five ways on her list, that was for sure. Rescuing someone from a speeding train or at some sort of protest sounded a lot more interesting; doing something, standing for something, meaning something. Running away from home and dying because it’s cold just sounded a tad bit anti-climatic.

Then the singing came. Despite how hard she tried to hold it back, it came. She couldn’t stop the lyrics from coming out anymore, it was just what she did. It was the only thing that made her feel like she mattered.




Come what may and never go home.

What ever will be, will be.

Come what may and look back no more.

What comes is a mystery to me.




The words of the old gospel song came out of her mouth in the form of quick breaths that bounced off her tongue with the thumping of her footsteps.

If she were to die young, she would want it to mean something. She would want it to impact the heartless and those who were blind to her pain. She had not mattered to anyone for a long time and if it was going to take death to get someone to care, well, she wasn’t quite there yet. Not while Tom was still alive anyway, and definitely not wearing this outfit.

She had to get somewhere warm and safe, and she had to get there quickly. She wouldn’t want to go breaking into any houses, it wouldn’t work, the’ve got alarms up the whazoo. She could probably dismantle them or rig -them up so they go off extremely quietly, but that could take a while and with out the proper tools it could take all night. Fidelity didn’t have all night.

She couldn’t go ringing doorbells, begging for a room, because no one in this neighborhood would help a runaway. They were all heartless rich snobs like Tom. If anything, they would turn her back in and expect a hefty tip.

There weren’t any hotels near by either. The only thing that she knew of was a dirty old gas station that was open twenty-four seven. She’d have to trek it for a few more miles. Could she make it? Maybe, hopefully, probably not. She was just glad that her boots had the two inch heels instead of the usual three. Three inches would just be unbearable.

When she saw the gas station sign finally popping around the corner it felt like seeing the pearly gates of heaven. For a moment she wondered if it was, then she reminded herself that her chances of going to heaven were almost as slim as getting an apology from Tom.

Then, she tripped. Fidelity didn’t usually trip but when she did, it was usually pretty bad.

The book she was carrying flew out of her hands and landed next to a gas pump.

She tumbled over in the parking lot next to the fuel pump, landing face down into a puddle of something that wasn’t water. She slid a good part of a yard and came to a messy halt.

How embarrassing, she thought.

Somewhere deep down inside she felt like laughing, but the pain and exhaustion were doing their best to keep her sane. Her legs had completely given out and her head had given its all. Every little bit of her had given its everything. She couldn’t cry anymore and she couldn’t scream for help, not that she would want to. She had become numb all over; through and through to the core of her little damaged song filled heart.

She looked up at the gas station doors. A giant word burned red in the black window.

CLOSED.

When someone hits the peaks of their emotional and physical staminas, their mind goes blank, and they tend to see stars. Its not death but its somewhat of a preview. Fidelity was traveling at light speed.

The same way your arm wakes you up in the middle of the night with a dull pain because you’ve been sleeping on it, completely numb, the nerves tingling inside it; that was Fidelity’s whole body. She had become so much the definition of emptiness in all its aspects it was uncanny. It would seem to the uncaring passerby, that she couldn’t be anything less than dead. But as sad and pathetic as this scene looked, she was still breathing. This couldn’t get any worse, she thought to herself. And like a joke from the heavens it started to down poor. Now she couldn’t hold back the laughter and searched her brain for a song to fit this moment. Nothing sick enough came to mind. Then, as if it was God saying sorry, she heard a screeching sound of large tires and metal axels come rolling in.

A new wave of energy over took her as she lifter her head. A reserve battery kicked on she didn’t know she had. It was a bus headed out of the city, making its last pick up at the bus stop across the street.

With every ounce of life, with every shaking limb, she pulled herself to her knees, then to her feet. She stumbled backward then caught herself. This was probably what it felt like to be as drunk as Tom, but with all the pain and a different kind of hang over waiting for her the next morning.

She ran over, picked up the book and boarded he bus.

Seven passengers lifted their faces in ultimate curiosity as she climbed in. Their expressions were hilariously indescribable.

If she wasn’t so out of it, she probably would have laughed at them.

Yes there is hand print of blood on my neck.’

Yes I’m half naked and covered in mud.’

‘Thank you.’

She didn’t have any cash to pay the over weight driver with the dropped jaw so she gave him her Datejust Special Edition Rolex off her wrist and sat in the first seat she could find.

She looked down at the book.

“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” she read to herself.

Fidelity looked at her reflection of the bus window, then back down at the book.

She smiled.

It was the kind of smile a cancer patient gives someone when they come to drop off a get well card.

For some reason, she had a feeling that Mother somehow put that book there, she didn’t know how, but she knew she did. And thanks to Mother, Fidelity knew exactly where she needed to go now.

It had been nine years, so he probably wouldn’t be living at the orphanage any more, but at least it would be a start.

She made her mother a promise that if she got out of this one alive, she would go to a shooter’s range and get some hard core gun handling lessons.

Cold

Beautiful

Talented.

Dirty.

With just a shred of hope, and horribly dressed for the occasion, she laid her head back, held the book to her chest, and passed out.