And so, she was off.

The Starrstruck world tour rolled out with steady momentum after that first touch and go performance, with sold out show after sold out show, and Desiree's confidence and ability only continuing to grow along the way.

They hopped from city to city, from Las Vegas to Houston, New Orleans to Miami and Orlando, Atlanta, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Louisville, spanning the entire country in a mere matter of days. The next couple of shows would take place in New York, after which they would fly back to the west coast and hit a couple of stops there, before taking things outside the country to some shows in Asia- she was strangely huge in Japan, much to her surprise and, she had to admit, her gratification.

Every second of the experience was invigorating for her, and she felt as though she kept learning more and more about herself and her skills with every stop they made.

Things with Julian the security guard, meanwhile, progressed slowly but surely.

Although, progressed wasn't exactly the right term for it...

Nothing actually changed between the two of them, for these first several weeks on end, at any rate. They were still flirtatious, and became unmistakably flustered around one another. It should have been obvious, or at least it was to any outside observer, that the two of them felt something toward one another. They would always stand around before her shows got started, talking and laughing outside Desiree's dressing room, making clear but unspoken advances, and leaving one another just enough room for doubt that things didn't really have the chance to progress.

Julian, for his part, felt as though it wouldn't be appropriate for him to make a move. As much as he liked Desiree, and as much as she liked him in return (or at least, as much as she seemed to let on to liking him,) he felt like asking her out would be like stepping dangerously outside of his own station. Besides, where the hell was his broke ass going to take a multimillionaire pop star on a date and have the least hope at all of impressing her? And then there was the matter of security- obviously he worked in the field, but he was pretty sure that being out on a date with the girl he was charged with protecting qualified him as being “off the clock.”

And so, any kind of date the two of them went on would have to be supervised by Desiree's own private secret service, largely stripping the evening of any potential it may have otherwise had for anything resembling romance.

For Desiree's part, it wasn't so much a matter of social complexity as it was one of complete shyness. Oddly enough, her runaway success hadn't brought with it the inflated sense of ego one might normally have expected with such a development. She was still the modest, unassuming girl she'd always been, never too sure of herself even when the world seemed to validate her to the fullest extent.

Hey, she thought, that could be an idea for a song- the divide she felt between outward success and inward confidence. She had to imagine that was something a lot of girls, and women went through.

She would have to explore that possibility, and see what became of it.

Right now, though, she tried to tell herself that there was still time. The two of them were traveling around the world together, after all, and the opportunities to express their true feelings for one another would surely be abundant.

Until then they just had to bide their time, not lose hope, and hope that the right moment would present itself.

When it did finally present itself, however, that opportunity took a form that neither of them might have expected- and one that would change both of their lives forever...

_____

Up to that point, everything in the evening had been going, for the most part, as normal.

They were in New York, getting ready for what they all thought would be an incredible show. Desiree was back stage, participating in a VIP meet and greet with a few lucky fans- lucky, in this case, meant rich, and rich, to her, meant insufferable. But, she grinned and bore it all the same, doing her best to smile graciously at them, signing whatever they happened to foist at her, answering their questions about fame and the limelight.

Her keyboardist, Jason, was with her as well- he wasn't in quite as high demand as she, but there was more than a significant portion of her fan base who shared a collective crush on him. She supposed, in his way, he was decent looking, but she'd never really felt any sort of attraction to him in that regard. He was tall, slender, dark haired, had a bit of a reserved nature- though you might not suspect as much whenever he was jamming out on his synthesizer onstage. She could certainly see the appeal he might have had to the right kind of girl, she supposed. But she'd known him for so long by this point- they'd known each other since high school, before her rapid rise to fame- that he was almost more like a brother to her than anyone she should feel that way about.

It was the same with Shade, who happened to be the only member of the trio not present for the event tonight.

It wasn't as though he couldn't have been... And looking back on the night Desiree wished to God she would have forced him to participate, made him come along and suffer through it like the rest of them.

He was only a few hundred feet away, shut in his dressing room down the hallway. She had tried to persuade him to come along, as had Jason- in his case, it was more out of annoyance than anything. “If I have to deal with this BS then you should too...” (They both loved Desiree and her music, but could generally due without her rabid, teenybopper fan base, much less being forced to interact with them for any extended period.)

“No thanks,” Shade had said flippantly. “You two go ahead and enjoy the Mickey Mouse Fan Club. I'm going to stay behind for a while and get... Mentally prepared...”

He'd twirled a drumstick in his hand at this, and Desiree could clearly recognize the presence of innuendo in his voice.

It wasn't an innuendo that she liked, either...

Shade had been doing a lot more “mental preparation” ever since Desiree had made it to the big time, and she'd always done her best to turn a blind eye to it. She knew that Jason likely had a much clearer idea of what Shade's “mental preparation” entailed (i.e., which substances were entailed,), and she probably could have found out from him had she genuinely wanted to. But, from her perspective, it was probably better to keep a barrier of plausible deniability about the situation. As long as it didn't interfere with his duties in the band, it really wasn't any of her business what he did, she thought.

But deep down she worried about the situation, quite a bit more than she generally liked to let on.

It wasn't that she was a judgmental person. Her philosophy was to live and let live, to the extent that it was possible. But she'd been around enough bored rich kids to be aware of the problems that substance abuse could bring about, the depths to which a person could fall when flirting so unreservedly with danger.

She feared that, one day, Shade's “mental preparation” would eventually lead to tragedy, and again, in retrospect, she hated herself for not doing more to tell him as much. To plead with him to quit and get sober, or at least ease up on whatever the hell he was using, in hopes of preserving his life and well-being.

She hadn't, of course, and for the rest of her life she would be left wondering whether it might have changed the outcome of that night.

It wouldn't, probably, if she was being realistic.

For one thing, he probably wouldn't have listened to her. Would have told her to screw off- on less mild terms, of course- and to mind her own damn business, let him live his own life and he would let her live hers.

Even if she had managed to get through that thick, shaved head of his, though, there was really no guarantee that it would have changed a thing about any of it. He might just as easily have found some other lame excuse not to participate in the night's events, or simply said he hadn't wanted to do it.

But maybe, she offered as a counterargument, he would have been at least the slightest bit more clear-headed about the situation. Maybe, she thought, his reaction times would have been quicker. Maybe he wouldn't have acted rashly (as she was positive he must have done, because that was simply Shade's nature, and especially so whenever he happened to be on something or another.)

Maybe... Maybe... Maybe...

A million possible maybes would all be there to torture her afterward, each one as meaningless as the last.

She knew it wasn't really her fault. Knew that nothing she might have done could have prevented the tragedy that struck, and that even if one or two individual factors had been changed, it was entirely likely that the events in question would have unfolded unchanged, set in stone and impossible to divert.

She would have the entirety of the rest of her life to speculate about such things, and indeed, she would do just that.

Right now, however, such thoughts were about as far from her mind as possible, and she had no reason to suspect the imminent crashing of her world down around her.

Right now, she was surrounded by her adoring, ravenous fans and- although their wealthy presumptuousness did annoy her more than a little- she found that she couldn't help but find all their attention gratifying. It made her feel wanted, important, to know that she was impacting so many young people's lives in such a direct and meaningful way with her music, encouraging young girls to take pride in themselves and reach for their dreams- a lesson she herself might have benefitted greatly from at their age, she now thought.

Plus, whenever the fans got a bit too obnoxious or demanding for her, there was her would-be lover Julian, standing across the room, looking over at her and monitoring the scene as per his duties. The two would frequently exchange glances, Julian sometimes rolling his eyes at her whenever a fan would do something especially geeky or awkward. Desiree would have to do everything in her power to avoid cracking up with laughter, trying to avoid letting on to the flock around her just how insufferable they were.

It wasn't their fault they'd been raised so horribly...

In any case, any time Julian was in even relative proximity to her, it was hard to focus on much of anything else at all. Her heart felt light, as did her entire being, and she thought that if she wasn't careful she might just be prone to drifting up toward the ceiling, and dissipating in the air around her with bliss.

Neither she, nor anyone else around her that evening, was even remotely aware of the man in the ski mask, making his way stealthily back stage, creeping down the hallway like a phantom in the direction of the event.

He kept to the shadows, making his footsteps as quiet as he could as he drifted along through space. His breath was heavy, his heart pumping like mad in his chest.

God, what the hell was he doing? What the hell was he thinking?

He felt like a tightrope walker in the middle of a performance, having made his way halfway out across the line and suddenly being hit with the treachery of his situation, unable either to continue on or return to the point from which he'd embarked.

Fuck... Fuck... Fuck! he swore at himself internally, had he lost his goddamn mind? Even if by some unholy miracle he managed to get to the point where he wanted to be, there was no reason to suspect he would be able to make it out with his goal achieved.

Well... There was almost no reason, anyway...

Yet at the same time, maybe there was a reason to suspect as much, even if it was only the tiniest, slightest little sliver of a reason.

And the reason, it seemed, was that he'd made it this far, hadn't he?

Hell, that seemed like an awfully damn good reason in his book...

If he was hoping for miracles, then that frankly seemed as though it largely qualified as one in his book.

Think about it, he told himself. He'd gotten back stage, in a ski mask, with a weapon on hand, without anyone intervening up to the present point in time. Hell, he'd actually had to stop and second guess whether he was really at the right venue- was this really the Desiree Starr concert with somewhere in the vicinity of fifty-thousand fans in attendance, and not some up-and-coming nobody whose name you'd never heard of, whose security people couldn't be bothered to keep an eye out for creeps like him, and keep them from doing what he was about to do?

He speculated about the reasons in his mind- maybe no one thought someone could be so bold, or foolish, as to even make such an attempt. Or, maybe everyone was watching all the wrong places, and he'd managed to twist and worm his way back here by stealth and intelligence, going everywhere they weren't, and throwing them off his trail in the process.

Whatever he'd done up to now, he knew he needed to keep it up if he wanted to have a hope in hell of succeeding. He couldn't let his very real anxieties get the better of him, or let his courage drain away now that he was already so far into this.

Okay... Calm down... You can do this, he told himself, and oddly enough it was the same kind of thought process that Desiree had employed during the night of her first performance on the tour, easing herself back from the brink of implosion.

He wasn't going to screw this up...

He wasn't going to falter now that he was suspended up here in the air like this. He was going to make it to the other end of the tight rope, moving in the same way which he'd done up until now- not allowing himself to panic and freak out, or speed up and lose his balance, plummeting to a grisly death so many dozens of feet below him.

He would get to the other side. He would do what he'd come here to do. He would cross back over with as much calm as he'd had the first time, and no one at all would be the least bit wiser about. Then, finally, he would get the hell out of here, and reap the benefits of his level-headed collectedness.

He took a deep breath, and then smiled.

Thoughts of the future he was building for himself, rather than the present terror of danger, helped compel him onward, and mitigated, to at least some extent, the distraction of his fear.

He went on, certain he could handle this, as long as he controlled himself and didn't lose his cool.

Several more steps along the hall, and he could now see the doors of the dressing rooms coming into view.

Then- a sudden flash of movement.

With a spike of anxiety, he ducked back behind a curtain, gripping the fabric like the hem of his mother's dress, holding his breath so as not to make a sound.

His heart thudded in his temples.

A man had emerged from around a corner, one hand pressed to an earpiece, the other wrapped around a clipboard, which he studied intensely as he made his way forward.

His throat constricted. His knees felt weak again.

Every muscle in his body tensed, and he slid his hand into his pocket, wrapping his fingers tightly around the hilt of the knife, readying to draw it in a heartbeat if the circumstances dictated it necessary.

The man, however, was oblivious.

Totally absorbed, utterly immersed in the conversation at hand as well as whatever was written down on the clipboard, he walked right past the point where the criminal was hidden in shadows and the flowing fabric of the curtains, proceeding all the way down along the hallway, and then turning another corner, leaving him just as abruptly as he'd arrived.

His grip eased around the curtain, and he gasped with relief.

Damn it, that was close...

Thank God these showbiz airheads didn't know their asses from a hole in the ground, and couldn't be bothered to pay the least bit of attention to their surroundings.

Taking a quick look around him to make sure there would be no more surprise appearances from any unwanted interlopers, the man then locked his sights on the door of the first dressing room, bound and determined that he would make it there this time, with no further diversions.

He took a single step out from the sanctuary of the curtains, then raced across the hallway, seemingly abandoned, and rushed into the door jamb of that first room, flattening himself against the door enough so that, hopefully, no one would notice him if they happened to suddenly round a corner.

Another deep breath.

He looked down.

There was light bleeding out from a slender crack beneath the door, hopefully indicating that the room in question was occupied.

He bit his lip. Looked back over his shoulder to make sure that the coast was still clear, then turned back to the door.

He weighed his options.

He could burst in, startling the occupant within, and doing what he needed to do before they had time to realize what was going on.

Or, he could open the door slowly, and first have a look inside.

This carried with it a couple of risks- the occupant may notice him approaching and have time to react, and he would be forced to stand longer in the hallway like some sitting duck, remaining visible for longer than he wished for anyone to see.

Nevertheless, this seemed the more viable option.

This whole operation had been carried out with careful precision up to this point, succeeding as well as it had because of his level-headedness, and his avoidance of sudden, explosive movements.

It was best, he decided, that he keep it that way.

He wrapped a hand around the doorknob, holding his breath.

He twisted.

To his relief, it was unlocked.

He pushed carefully forward, the door creaking open a mere fraction of an inch.

He pushed his masked face against the crack, peering in with a single eye.

It was tough to see much of anything at first, but at the very least there were no signs of movement.

He pushed a bit further.

Still nothing.

He stepped inside, and closed the door quietly behind him.

The room was, by all appearances, completely empty.

Nevertheless, he held his knife aloft, ready to use it should the circumstances necessitate him doing so. He paced slowly across the floor, looking about for any signs of- well, signs of anything really. Just on the off chance someone could be lurking in the closet, or were else simply not immediately visible to him.

There were very few places for anyone to hide in here, however, and he soon saw past his paranoia and included, inevitably, that the room was genuinely abandoned.

He let out a deep sigh, one of simultaneous relief and disappointment.

He slumped down on the chair in front of the mirror, thinking that, although he wished he'd found who he was looking for in here, he was at the very least grateful for an opportunity to rest and recharge, to have a few brief minutes during which he wasn't forced to sneak around stealthily and remain totally on edge to preserve his safety.

He closed his eyes for a moment as though in meditation- he knew he couldn't get too relaxed, but it felt good to catch his breath.

When he opened his eyes again, a masked face was staring back at him in the mirror.

His masked face.

It sent a shiver along his spine.

God, he thought, how the hell had he gotten to this point?

How had he allowed himself to be driven here?

It felt surreal, like he was operating inside of a dream or something.

But no...

He shook his head.

He couldn't get remorseful about it now.

He had to keep going, and see this through no matter what the cost.

He tilted his head down, and his eyes fell to a few photographs standing tilted against the mirror.

He reached forward and picked up one of them, then brought it to his face.

There was Desiree Starr, the attractive young woman with her flowing brunette hair, her piercing green eyes beaming at the camera, a beautiful smile spanning across her lips. She was standing with someone he recognized, but whose name he couldn't place. It was some pop star or another, some douchebag from a boyband or something he'd seen on the covers of the tabloids at the grocery store.

He was far from being up on the music of today. It was all pretty much crap, although he had to admit that Desiree could at least carry a tune compared to the rest of her peers.

He placed the photo back down, and stood up from his chair, slightly invigorated by the knowledge that this was, in fact, the venue he was looking for- there had been no real signs of who was in attendance here since he'd made his way into the building and, though bizarre, the paranoia that he might have broken into the wrong place had continued to linger up until now.

He stood up from the chair, aching to finish this and have it over with. He made his way to the door, placed his hand upon the knob, then froze- the sound of female voices, making their way toward him, talking and laughing, about what he couldn't clearly perceive.

Fuck!

He stepped away from the door, suddenly certain that the two of them were coming straight for the dressing room despite a total lack of evidence to indicate as much.

They were getting closer, and he looked down at his feet, suddenly thinking that their silhouette must be visible against the light beneath the door.

He ducked into the corner as quickly as he could, his knife drawn- his thought was that if anyone came in, he could spring out before they had a chance to notice and silence them efficiently enough from his present position.

But, alas, he saw the shadow of footsteps moving by under the door, and they continued on without showing any signs of stopping.

The voices receded.

His muscles eased.

He counted in his head, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, giving the women enough time to clear the vicinity before emerging.

Then he stepped back into the hall, looked around, and made his way over to the door of the next dressing room, a few mere feet away.

So great was his relief at his continued elusiveness, and so certain did he now feel that this room would be just as empty as the first, he slipped inside without the precursory care of before, not bothering to make sure it was unoccupied, and closing the door before he even had a chance to think about it.

Another sigh, hoping that this would all be over soon.

But then, after a moment, he sensed that something wasn't quite right.

He sensed a presence... A fellow occupant there in the room with him.

His stomach lurched.

He turned, very slowly, dreading whatever it was he might find.

And that's when he saw him.

Shade. The drummer.

His eyes wide, his stupid mouth hanging slightly agape.

The two of them stood there, gazing at one another, neither seeming quite sure what to make of this. It would almost have been funny, under very different circumstances than the ones that now transpired.

“Um...” he said, and found himself suddenly thinking it would have been better if he hadn't worn this damn ski mask to carry out the operation. It concealed his identity, sure, but it also announced his intentions vividly to everyone around him. At least if he'd come in without it, he could pretend that this intrusion was a mistake, he was just someone who'd gotten lost, and had ended up back here by mistake.

Shade continued to gape at him, and it occurred to him that his eyes were dilated- the idiot was high, and perhaps, he thought hopefully, he believed him to be nothing more than a hallucination. A trippy side effect of whatever the hell he was on.

He would try to go with that, and see where it led him.

He stepped back slowly, moving toward the door, as though if he moved slowly enough he might wipe away his presence from the drummer's addled memory.

This was not the case, however.

Proving himself far more lucid than he'd perceived, Shade leapt for a nearby phone, smashing his finger against the buttons, and already yelling, “Help, please someone-” before the call had even been picked up.

He lunged forward, and smashed into Shade with the heft of his weight. He slammed him to the floor of the dressing room, knocking down a chair in the process. The corded phone dangled over the edge of the table, swinging through the air, and he could hear the voice on the receiver beckoning, asking what it was Shade wanted.

He grabbed the phone, and slammed it down against the receiver before Shade could call for help.

But then he turned, and saw that Shade was making his way for the door- he'd wormed out from beneath his weight in those fleeting seconds, without him even noticing.

He lunged forward after him, but Shade's hand was already on the doorknob, pulling the door to the hall open wide.

“No! Fuck, fuck, no!”

He leapt, closing the distance between the two of them, and managed to grab Shade by the ankle as his body came down. The drummer's world was pulled out from under him, his body collapsing forward like a timbered tree. His head hit the door, which then slammed back shut, and he hit the ground hard, knocking out a tooth, which spiraled across the floor with a bloody red stream spurting out in its wake.

For God's sake! It wasn't supposed to go like this... It just wasn't!

He had to think fast in order to divert catastrophe...

He... He would tie him up!

Yeah, that's what he would do...

Stuff a rag in his mouth and tie him to his chair, keep him from alerting anyone to his presence until he'd managed to make his escape.

It might work... It might actually work!

Except it wouldn't.

Shade, the son of a bitch, was writhing like a fiend beneath him, struggling to get back up and escape.

“Help! Somebody!”

“No! No! Shut the hell up!”

He didn't want to hurt this little bastard, yet every little thing Shade did was compelling him more and more to do so, making it necessary that he do just that.

He crammed a gloved hand against Shade's face, cupping it over his mouth and holding it there tight. Shade's muffled voice continued to come through at a lower volume, and his attacker looked down crazily into those dilated eyes of his, trying to drill the point into his thick skull.

“I said shut the hell up! I don't want to have to fucking hurt you!”

Despite his tooth having just been knocked out, and his mouth likely being in terrible pain, Shade was undeterred as he opened his jaws wide, then brought them crushing down around his attacker's hand, squeezing them like a vice, and leaving him howling with pain.

“GAHHHHHHH!”

What happened next wasn't something he did consciously.

It took place completely out of reflex- a response to pain that he had zero control over, but whose consequences cast this whole operation into a whole new level of seriousness.

His free arm seemed to function independently of him as it pulled out the knife, lifted it up into the air, and zoomed down in a vicious arc, right for the center of Shade's heaving chest. He was actually shocked as he felt the blade sinking in, ripping through flesh and muscle, the hot spurts of blood bubbling out, spilling onto his clothes.

What the hell had he just done?

His eyes wide, he lifted his weight up from off of his victim, his entire body shaking.

Shade's eyes were wider than ever, unblinking, but he wasn't dead yet. Instead he was in shock, his mind still struggling to catch up with what had been done to his body, unable even to begin to process the horror of it.

His attacker felt sick, and actually felt tears beginning to dampen the eye holes of his mask.

It wasn't supposed to go like this... This wasn't supposed to have happened...

Shade's jaw worked through the air, and little sounds piped out from between his lips, like he was trying to form words, but had lost the ability to do so.

Looking down at the wound in his chest, his attacker knew there was no way he was going to survive... All he had left were the throes of death, which would be both painful and, quite possibly, very noisy.

It was better to spare him the agony of those final moments, and better for him to avoid the sound of his dying, which might attract highly unwanted attention to the scene of the crime.

Very slowly, he brought his knife forward again, genuine remorse in his eyes as he looked down into Shade's dying face. He almost, almost found himself saying “I'm sorry” before finishing him off.

But then he second-guessed himself...

No... He could show no remorse.

If he humanized him, he might not be able to bring himself to do what needed to be done, much less make a run for it once the act had been completed.

He needed to be relentless... Unmerciful...

He needed to place his own survival, his own escape, beyond any and all other factors...

He narrowed his eyes, turning this from an act of necessity into an act of sheer hatred.

He lifted the knife once again, and sliced, cutting a neat line across the center of Shade's neck.

_____

Desiree hadn't heart a single moment of any of it, not a single sound- nor had anyone.

Now, though, she did hear the swelling of the crowd beyond the stage, chanting for her, “Desiree, Desiree, Desiree!”

A glance at the clock then confirmed for her what she already knew- it was almost showtime.

“Desiree, you better get things wrapped up in there, we're about ready to start here very shortly.”

She nodded, as though the speaker on the other hand could somehow perceive her doing so. Across the room, Julian took note of the gesture, and their eyes met. She gestured to him to come over, and he crossed the room obediently.

“Hey, we're about to get started here in a few minutes. Do you think you could run and get Shade for me? Assuming he isn't high as a kite at the moment...”

“I dunno, that seems like a pretty big assumption to make,” Julian said with that typically beautiful grin of his. Desiree laughed, and he turned to go. “Sure, I'll go get him.”

She looked after him with lust in her eyes as he made his way to the door, unable to avoid watching his beautiful ass as it shifted from side to side in his jeans.

It was so beautiful that it almost made a girl want to cry...

Just then, however, Desiree looked back and saw that several of her adolescent fans were just as interested in Julian's ass as she was, the sight of it almost as much of an attraction as Desiree herself to their female teenage minds. She felt a hot wave of jealousy swelling inside her, and the contempt she'd been feeling toward these spoiled kids finally congealed completely in her chest.

“Alright,” she said, forcing a smile that was bizarrely convincing, “I'm afraid we're going to have to wrap things up now, I'm about to go on stage. It was so lovely meeting all of you!”

Who would have thought those acting classes she'd taken in high school might one day have paid off so handsomely for her?

Julian, meanwhile, made his way down the hallway as instructed, not anticipating in the least the events that were about to unfold.

He walked up to the door of Jason and Shade's dressing room, then rapped a “shave and a haircut, two bits” knock against the door.

“Ground Control to Major Tom,” he called in, “Desiree told me to come and get you, you're on in like five minutes.”

He waited for a moment, anticipating a response. There was none.

He was more irritated than worried at first- this was not atypical behavior for Shade. In spite of his proficient drumming and his key contributions to Desiree's performances, he often had the tendencies of a slacker, and it wasn't always the easiest thing in the world to try and get him motivated.

“Ay! Shade! We need to get a move on!”

He knocked again, this time more forcefully.

Still no answer.

Was he even in there?

“Shade, let's go!' he said a third time, twisting the doorknob, and intending to push his way inside.

The door, however, remained resolutely in place.

“What the hell?”

He pushed again, but it refused to budge.

He furrowed his brow.

He placed an ear against the door, listening for any signs of his presence.

Was he even in there, or had he run off someplace right before the show was about to start?

It was then that Julian's eyes fell downward, and he saw something that made his heart skip a beat.

A pool of red liquid oozed its way slowly from beneath the door, expanding nearly to the tips of his shoes before he managed to make sense of it in his mind.

“No... Oh no...” he stammered, reeling with fright. He stepped back, and slammed his body hard against the door, trying his damnedest to bust it in.

“Come on! Come on!” he grunted, striking it repeatedly, to no avail. He stopped, his shoulder aching, the door refusing to budge an inch.

Then he turned his head.

Dozens of feet away, way down at the opposite end of the hallway, a figure stood. He was watching him intently, peering through a ski mask, clearly with a vested interest in the proceedings underway.

Julian didn't think. Didn't hesitate for a moment.

He simply reacted, going off like some volatile chemical mixture.

“HEY!” he boomed, bolting toward the man.

The killer was off.

He shoved through the stage door where he'd been standing emerging into the outside world and disappearing from view.

Julian thundered down the hall at top speed, spanning the distance in a matter of seconds, though it felt in his desperation and urgency as though it took somewhere in the vicinity of hours.

He stumbled out into the dim light of the late evening, the sunlight still lingering in the sky, and the neon lights of buildings taking on the role of illumination. A few passersby gave him an odd look as he stood there, his eyes scanning the surrounding, and he disregarded them in search of his foe.

There appeared to be no sign of him anywhere, the task of locating him not made any easier by the dying light of the evening.

Only after about twenty seconds did it occur to him that, once he'd made it outside, the man would likely have removed his mask in order to appear less suspicious. Once he'd made this observation, he focused in almost immediately on a man in the distance, almost two blocks away at this point, whose body type seemed equivalent to that of the man he'd seen fleeing through the stage door.

He looked around in all directions, making sure that he wouldn't be passing up a better lead in pursuit of this particular suspect, then strode his way toward the man as quickly as he could without being conspicuous about it.

Several blocks passed, and Julian grew more and more confident that this was his guy the closer in he came. He was looking around nervously, but slyly. It was subtle enough that no one would likely notice had they not been looking for it, but obvious enough that to Julian it was unmistakable. His head tilted left and right, his eyes sometimes looking back over his shoulder, checking his surroundings. He had on a dark hoodie- probably black, though he couldn't tell for certain in the dim light, as well as a baseball cap of some kind and sunglasses.

As if these collective details weren't evidence enough, Julian at last came in close enough to catch sight of blood spattered across the back of the hoodie.

That was all the proof he needed...

But now, how to get close without him taking notice?

He dipped and dove among the crowd of New Yorkers, totally oblivious to the game of cat and mouse taking place between the two of them. Any time the man's head would turn, Julian would quickly slip behind the tallest or fattest person in his vicinity, or behind the wares of some street vendor, many of whom cursed him out before he continued his way along.

“Come on... Come on...” he muttered under his breath, growing more and more nervous as he drew near, certain that at any moment the man would catch sight of him and bolt for it.

He didn't seem to be, though...

He was getting closer and closer, closing in from his right side. He gripped the pistol he carried with him in his pocket, hoping against hope that he didn't need to use it. The area he was in was so crowded, so flooded with people, that having to fire a gun could result in tragedy. It all hinged on how the man reacted upon his approach, and how effectively he would be able to get near him without being subjected to violence.

He was almost there now... Almost there...

And the man saw him.

He shot through the crowd like a bat out of hell, bumping people out of his way and racing down the street.

Julian broke into a run, more carefully weaving through the crowded street and trying not to hit anyone, all while keeping the man in his sights and trying to keep him from getting too far out of range.

“Damn it!” he yelled, unable to navigate the crowd, and finally he had to run out into the street, needing a clear path if he had a hope in hell of staying caught up. Cars honked at him as he raced down the road, taxis frequently missing him by a fraction of an inch as he moved, but his determination so great that it seemed little more than incidental to him, of no real genuine concern.

He needed to catch this man... Needed to stop him before he got away completely, which could reasonably happen at any moment.

And then, for a brief instant, he thought he'd done just that.

“No... No!” he said, looking around, unable to figure out what had become of him, in the instant it had taken for him to run past a lamp post.

But then he found him again, his cap just disappearing down the entrance to the subway.

Julian snarled, and plunged down after him, taking the stares two at a time in pursuit, lucky he didn't break his neck with each rough landing.

He got to the base of the stairs just in time to see the man shoving an older woman out of the way to the ground, to shouts of profanity from the crowd around her. Several people rushed to help her up, and the man proceeded to hop the turn-style onto the subway platform, holding an arm up over his face, Julian assumed, to avoid it being recorded on the subway's closed circuit cameras.

Julian rushed after him, careful not to shove anyone as the man had done- he nevertheless received a similar hail of insults, as though by chasing the man who'd knocked the old woman down, he was somehow just as responsible for her fall.

A police officer came up to him as he was leaping over the turn-style, telling him to hold it. Julian wasn't about to stop though, and by the time the officer had attempted to pass through the turn-style without paying, got stuck, tried similarly to hop over it, failed, and finally swiped his metro card to get through properly, both men were completely out of sight.

The killer ran along the platform as fast as he could, and despite his determination to bring the bastard to justice, Julian wondered just how the hell he was managing to go so long without stopping to rest, given how badly his arms and legs and lungs now hurt.

He supposed the drive for survival could make one capable of rather incredible feats, under the right circumstances...

Down here, the thinner crowds of bystanders made a concerted effort to stay clear from the path of the chase. Whenever the two men came into their proximity, they suddenly all cleared to either side of the platform, reminding Julian weirdly of Moses parting the Red Sea.

Julian had a brief spark of an idea that was gone almost as soon as it had come. He'd thought about pulling out his pistol and shooting the killer in the leg, given how much clearer his shot would be down here, and how less likely it would be that he might hit someone.

Less likely- but not impossible...

Looking around at the faces of frightened children and feeble elders all around him, he knew that he still couldn't take the risk.

At any rate, he realized with mild excitement, the killer was slowing down now, just a little bit, the exertion of his escape finally getting to him.

The only problem was, that same exhaustion was now beginning to overtake Julian himself...

“Get... Back... Here!” he wheezed, colors flashing before his eyes, sweat blinding him.

He was closing in though, getting closer and closer, and now- oh God!

He was close enough to reach out and touch the man, and he attempted to do just that.

He flung his hand through the air, grabbing the back of his hoodie, trying his damnedest to pull him back.

“Hold it! Right there!” he panted, but the man didn't stop.

Instead, he leapt through the air, his body careening from the subway platform and through the metal doors of a train as they eased their way shut- he almost didn't even make it in.

Julian had no chance of getting in after him, but couldn't immediately slow down from the momentum he'd built up. His leg fell over the edge of the platform, and he could feel himself lurching toward the train as it began to pull forward, the perfect recipe for death. He saw his life flash before his eyes in that fraction of an instant, certain that this was the end, but felt the hand of someone grabbing his own jacket, yanking him back down, and pulling him back onto the platform.

He collapsed, tumbling down onto his ass and panting like a dog with exhaustion, his eyes wide with terror.

“You alright buddy?” asked the man, a heavy-set, middle-aged New Yorker, a Good Samaritan in the right place at the right time. Julian struggled to even breathe, much less provide him with any kind of coherent answer, but at last he managed to choke out, with great effort, “Yeah... Yeah, thanks...”

In the distance he saw the police storming forward in his direction, and the sight filled him up with exhaustion, rather than fear.

He'd let him get away.

He'd been so close, had the man in the reach of his fingertips, and he'd let him get away.

He closed his eyes, and wished in that instant that he could just disappear into sleep, not looking for the very long night of questioning that he had in store ahead of him.