She stood in the pouring rain, blinking against the drops as they hit her lashes. Swiping angrily at her eyes for betraying her by closing for even a millisecond. It only resulted in further blurring her vision and stealing yet another precious moment of her sight.

It doesn't end like this. It is not possible that it could end like this.

The woman in front of her lay gasping on the wet stones of the alley. Her eyes didn't blink in the rain, her eyes didn't steal from her the last visions of her life. They locked on the woman standing before her and conveyed only the inevitability of what was happening.

The gasping turned into a terrible shudder that seemed to send a tremor through the alley, then only stillness. Her eyes did not close, did not guard against the rain, and did not look away from death.

Riveted to the spot where she stood watching, a sudden numbness washed over her, saving her momentarily from the intense pain that was surely to come, silencing the scream that was building in her throat, deadening the impact as her knees dropped to the alley stones. And, finally, stopping her eyes from blinking in the rain.