Tapping her finger nervously on the steering wheel, Beth surveyed her surroundings carefully. She was parked in a deserted parking lot, waiting for Brian to return from the ATM. There was no sign of anyone else around them, but she had to be sure. She had to remove Brian completely from the equation before she could figure out what to do next, about this attacker.

She had seen inside her mind. When Beth had entered that room, she had been thrown immediately into the mind of this woman, and it was the most intense experience of her life. The charged emotions, the confusion were all pent up inside that woman, along with a burning hatred that Beth couldn't understand. But she understood that the hatred came from anger, and this anger would never die. It would never dissolve away, and leave Brian alone.

In the whirl of anger that flooded the woman's thoughts, there was one moment when everything had been perfectly clear. She had been standing in front of Kevin, the source of her hatred. It turned Beth's blood cold, to think that a woman could hate someone so much. It was obsessive, her every breath was directed at causing him pain. And she had him, right in front of her, bleeding and at her mercy.

And through the haze of hatred, through the burning of her anger, there suddenly stood before her, a fierce and determined man, of light hair and blue eyes. Courageous, as he was standing in front of her life's goal, protecting the man that fuelled her hate. She could see an emotion in his eyes, the emotion that was driving him, and it made her hate him, because he could feel, and she could not.

Beth shivered as she recalled the sudden shift of feeling. Hatred so strong and so real for one man, suddenly turned quickly to the other, because of jealousy. Brian felt love, and she couldn't. And for that, he would have to pay.

Suddenly, the courageous vision of determination that she had admired not seconds before was the source of her hate, and the victim of her new goal. She would kill all the emotion that he could feel. She was planning on killing his heart, finding new ways of making him suffer, so that moments of love such as she saw in his eyes, would cause him pain of remembering what he had.

This frightened Beth. The original connection had changed so drastically, that she was afraid of the consequences of the changes. The first time she had interfered, in order to try to stop the destruction of Brian's spirit, which she had felt happen, it had changed from the death of his cousin, to the death of Brian. And with her second interference, things were completely different, and she had no idea what was going to happen next.

All she knew was that this woman was hunting. She was hunting the city, searching for them, desperate to find a way to make her pain stop. The only way she knew to do that was to cause Brian pain. Kevin was safe. For now.

Until she needed another way to hurt Brian. That was what Beth feared. She could take Brian out of the equation, find him somewhere safe to be, while she tried to find out more about this woman, but for how long would this woman remain passive? There was a very good chance that she would go after his family, his friends.

"Okay, that's the last one. So where are you taking me?" Brian asked, as he climbed into the car.

"Out of the city. My parents had this cabin that about an hour away. I spent my summers there. It's ten minutes from some small town. No one will recognise you there," Beth promised.

"Beth, while I appreciate this and all, I don't like the idea of running. I don't want to hide from this…woman."

"You won't have to hide for long. She'll find you soon enough. But before she does, you have to be prepared, and calm and thinking properly. And you won't be able to do that unless you are well-rested, and have had some time to deal with this. Please trust me, Brian. This is for the best, and it'll only be for a few days," Beth explained, as she pulled out of the parking lot.

"You think she'll be able to find me?" Brian asked softly. Beth met his eyes, as she pulled the car over.

"Brian, she was able to get past whatever security your cousin had in his home. She followed you to your home, while you were surrounded by police officers. She's got resources, that can be the only explanation. I don't know what kind of connections this woman has, but I have a feeling we'll be seeing her really soon," Beth said carefully.

"Okay, that's it. I can't take this anymore. The more we talk about this chick in an ominous tone, calling her 'the woman', the more power she has over us. We need to give her a name, something that makes her seem less like the living incarnation of Satan," Brian declared. Beth was surprised by the way that he handled his fear. It didn't control him.

"Any suggestions?"

"Jessica. That's about the most common name in the world, and I hope that we are dealing with just a common psychotic, versus the living incarnation of Satan. Deal?" Brian asked, a slight glint of humour shinning in his eyes. They had, just minutes before, been dulled by the shock and fear that had begun to haunt him since the heart-wrenching second he had heard the glass break in Kevin's home.

"Okay, Jessica it is. Did you get what I asked for?" Beth asked, as she manoeuvred the car back into traffic.

"Yeah, I got it. Lucky for us that my computer was in the shop when this shit happened. I'm just really curious, though. Why do you need my laptop?" Brian asked, as his hands ran protectively over bag. It had the only remnants of his former life, his former home, in it. That and the clothing on his back. It connected him to times when life was normal, which had only been a few hours ago.

"We are going to find this wo….Jessica, that is. And the best way to do that, is the Internet."

"How? She's not going to have a web site detailing her plot to kill me, will she?" Brian asked, dubiously.

"Of course not, but I have a feeling that there will be something on the 'Net that can help us find her."

"You are the boss," Brian said.