Sam strummed along, enjoying the creative process of song writing and singing.  It was a song for her, a tribute for his beautiful, lost love of his life.  He picked up his pencil were he was scribbling the lyrics to the song when the words [I]'Brooklyn's Gone'[/I] were at the forefront of his mind and he remembered that old folk song, [I]'Delia's Gone'[/I].  The latter song was about a young murder victim, a little girl barely in her teens.  The song was ruined, at least for the moment as he considered whether the song or lyrics were close to the other song.  He couldn't have a song about Brooklyn having connotations of a cruel murder in his mind.  Then he heard her voice.

[I]"IT WASN'T AN ACCIDENT!"[/I] 

He felt very frightened, very quickly.  He heard, not audibly but clear in his mind Brooklyn's desperate scream.  She sounded so terrified, like she needed him, like she wanted him with her.  It was like a knitting needle boring into his brain, a sharp pain, like a whistle in the ear.

"B..b...bbrrooklyn?" he whispered, looking around the room.  He felt the walls close in around him and suddenly felt he was being watched.  Not by Brooklyn, but some malevolent force that was hurting her, torturing her.  He'd never, in all their years together heard that tone in her voice but there was no mistake, it was Brooklyn.

"Are...are you okay?" he said tentatively, his voice trembling.  He placed his guitar down and slowly walked to the kitchen, turning his shoulder to see if anyone really was there.  He drank a glass of water and drained it quickly, he thought he was coping, he really did.  The days were getting easier and better and now when he thought he could hold it together he was hearing voices in his head.

"I miss you," he said quietly.  

He knew his mind was playing tricks on him.  The song, he'd appropriated it from somewhere else at the back of his mind and now he was thinking that the accident wasn't an accident and was deliberate.  He wanted the bastard who did it caught but now, his mind was racing at a hundred miles an hour.  What if his mind was reacting to another perspective?  What if someone had actually [I] intended [/I] to hurt Brooklyn.  That was worse, far worse but he was unable to reconcile it.  There wasn't a single person in the world who wanted to hurt Brooklyn.  She had no enemies in the world and neither had he.  His mind was wrong, he'd imagined her voice.  It was an accident.

[hr]

[I] The man sat at the wheel of his pick-up truck, his head hunched over the steering wheel.  He drained his beer -  his tenth of the day and snarled,

"I'll get the bitch."

"I'll show her pain."

He'd waited over a decade for this moment.  He had lost so much.  A home. A wife and family.  She snooped and investigated to far.  She wouldn't let it lie.  She wouldn't drop it after all he promised her what would happen.  For that she would pay.  Brooklyn Jones would die.

He'd watched their movements, knew everything about her.  That fucking perfect family.  She hardly ever left the house but the years had taught him to be patient.  He waited.  

When opportunity knocks a man has to take it.  He'd saw her set off without a care in the world.  He was used to living in the shadows and not being noticed.  He shuffled quickly to his truck and kept his distance.  He knew where she was going - it was obvious.  He overtook her on the road, the snow falling heavily and speeded a mile down the road.  He turned the vehicle around and began to rev the engine.

He slipped through the gears quickly, accelerating faster and faster.  He knew there was only her on the road.  Faster, faster, faster.  A man's life depends on the decisions he makes and this was the point of no return.

"FUCK YOU!" he shouted as the bull bar smashed into the side of the small town car.  Out of the corner of his eyes he saw the car spin and he laughed.  "Fuck You." [/I]