Shutting her eyes tight, she tried to block out the image and sounds, but her heartbeat had already begun to accelerate. Blair tried opening her eyes but they were wired shut as images of a dead bloodied body appeared and she was once again trapped: 

Blair was at an empty street late at night, running towards the body. 

Stopping only a few inches away from it, she slowly leaned down with her head up and her back straight to find Crespo’s neck completely shredded and his blood flowing out in large pools of red around him. 

She choked on a sob that escaped her, but she couldn’t pull her gaze away. 

His head was decapitated from his body that was facing front first to the ground, but she knew it was him based on the name tag on his police uniform. Falling to her knees, her surroundings blurred away as her ears filled with a piercing ringing that caused her body to freeze everywhere. Blood soaked her jeans and legs as she just gaped at the abomination--her eyes burning and her head bent down to her knees, with her hair soaking in the blood. 

She couldn’t move. 

Or yell. 

Or cry. 

“Blair!” Evans yelled but Blair didn’t hear him as he ran to get to the scene with Acacia  on his heels. Once they reached, they stopped in their tracks, gaping in horror. 

Acacia walked a few steps back and vomited her guts out. 

A few seconds had passed before Evans regained his senses and reached for his phone in his pocket with shaking hands to dial 911. 

However, far down the street hidden behind a wall at an alleyway, Blair noticed a movement. 

Evans must have noticed it too as he muttered, “Blair. Don’t,” his thumb hovering over the call button. 

Blair stood up, swatting Evans’s hand away and throwing him ten feet back away, his phone dropping from his grasp to the puddle of blood and landing hard on his back. She chased after the orc, her rage drowning out any logic or reasoning as she sped after the gigantic figure running away. 

“COME BACK HERE YOU FUCKING COWARD!” Blair shrieked as she caught up to him. 

Acacia, finished from her regurgitation and gasping for breath, helped an injured Evans up before Blair could get too far. 

“BLAIR, NO!” Evans kept yelling as he ran after her, Acacia right behind him, “BLAIR!”  

“Blair!” Ramy yelled and she snapped back to reality. 

Eyes roaming frantically everywhere, her heart beating incredibly fast with sweat coating her brows as she hyperventilated. The lights of the market momentarily blinding her, she raised her hand up to block them from her view as she tried to breathe past her wheezing and stumbled back lightly. The annoyed mumbles and complaints issued at her from behind were blurred as her ears filled with a piercing ringing. 

Her eyes squeezed shut before instinct took over her senses immediately. 

She opened her eyes before they roamed everywhere around her. Catching the potted plant on the counter first with the water spray next to it, Blair thought back to when Ramy had told her before that they were mint leaves. Somehow she managed to inhale the strong minty aroma of the leaves. Then, she looked at Ramy’s nose ring, thinking of all the times she teased him about it being fake when they used to hook up in the storage room.  

 Her heartbeat slowed down. 

A woman holding a bouquet of roses grasped her child’s hand, cut in line and passed her to pay. As they bumped against her she caught a whiff of the roses, her mind drifting to Acacia and her overpriced rose-vanilla perfume. A light clinking sound slithered its way through the ringing in her ears and Blair snapped her gaze to the dangling keychain on the zipper of the little girl’s pink backpack to find a creepy-looking circus monkey that was staring wide-eyed right at her. 

The ringing in her ears dulled to the light chatter of the customers in the supermarket, and Blair felt the air reach her lungs again.  Finally letting out a deep breath, she felt her heartbeat return to normal, and the ring of the cash register snapped her back to the present. 

She was at Fresco’s. 

Not Maiden Lane street. 

With a bunch of angry customers yelling behind her to hurry the fuck up you fucking psycho! 

Sighing loudly, Blair grudgingly stepped in front of the counter, the energy drinks and iced coffee slipping out from her shaky arms. She hated admitting that her old therapist Dr Kat was ever right, but those exercises she taught Blair back then sure came in handy when Acacia’s chamomile extracts didn’t. 

She met Ramy’s raised eyebrows as she mumbled, “With a pack of cigarettes.” 

Ramy kept his tattooed arms braced on the counter filled with last-minute sweets, candies, and gums, “Come on, Blair,” he sighed, tilting his head lightly causing a strand of his dark curly hair to fall on his head, “You said you would quit.” 

She stared right back and leaned her arms on the counter, “Not today, Ramy,” and as he grudgingly reached for her pack of choice, she denied, “And I never said I would quit.” 

He raised his thick black brows, “Yes, you did. You even threw the pack away and almost caused a fire in your apartment when you lit the garbage bin on fire,” he slammed the pack on the counter.

“I do not recall that happening,” Blair tilted her head and considered, “Was I drunk?” 

He nodded lightly, scanning the cans and pack making beeping noises in the background as he glared at her.  

“Then that’s why,” she replied, a small smirk playing at her lips as she dug out the cash from her jacket pocket, placing the dollars on the counter, “Keep the change.” 

“You know, someday you’ll want to get better,” Ramy scolded, putting her drinks into a small plastic bag.

Blair snorted as she picked the bag up and left before he could lecture her anymore.