Spinning around, she stared at Andrew, who stood there with an evil grin covering his face. Standing, ignoring the pain shooting through her body, step by step, she walked towards him.
“Well, I see you have thought this all through and know who you actually belong to now,” he mused.
She never replied. She needed the gun from him. He was going to pay from shooting Dominic, and she was getting them the both out of there.
She eyed the gun hanging in his hand as she knelt in front of him. She was only going to do what she had to escape, a distraction. She needed enough time to grab the gun and flee.
His hands moved to his pants again. Not just one, both. The gun was right there in front of her. She lifted her hands and laid them over his, tracing over each finger gently.
“You are learning, sweet girl.” It was nothing like the name Dom had given her, and it did nothing to her.
She moved to stand. His hand shot out and stopped her, and she peered up at him. “I want to kiss you, Sir.” She didn’t want to do such a thing, but if she wanted what she did, she would.
He let her go. Her hand still on his, she stood and leaned in towards him. Watching as his eyes closed, she lifted her knee and slammed it up and into his balls, pulling the gun away from his hand as he dropped to the floor, groaning and holding himself.
“You stupid bitch, you are going to pay for that,” he gritted out.
She moved back to where Dom’s still form was. She sat at his knees. His skin was ashen, and blood dripped from the wound in his chest from the shot. His face and body were bruising badly now. Lifting her hand up she tried to feel for a pulse again, anything to let her know he was fine, but still nothing. Completely nothing. She watched his chest, but it sat unmoving.
“Dom, please wake up, you can’t leave me here, alone,” she sobbed.
Her hands moved down his body, pulling out the daggers still in his leg. He never once flinched as she removed them. She needed to be close to him. Climbing up onto his lap, she wrapped herself around him, waiting for any sign that he was going to come out of this.
Minutes went by as they sat there. She heard loud noises coming from the hall, but never once turned in the direction of the door.
She heard groaning coming from across the room, and then there was a hand on her, pulling her away from Dom.
“Let go of me!” she screamed, still holding onto Dom.
“He’s dead and you can’t do anything to bring him back, sweetheart. The easiest thing you can do right now is remove yourself from him willingly, because you aren’t going to like how I do it, Chantal,” Andrew hissed out.
“Never. You can go to fucking hell for all I care!” she yelled.
He raised his fist as the door to the room blasted open and several men in black clothing stormed the room, guns raised. She pulled herself from Andrew’s grip and huddled as far into Dom as she could.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I was you,” someone warned.
There was something about the voice that she recognized. Four men stood, guns pointing at Andrew, as one walked over towards her. Standing in front of her, they lifted the mask from their face. “Nate,” she cried.
He knelt I front of her. “Are you alright, Chan?” he asked, rubbing her bare leg.
“No, Dominic’s been shot and he won’t wake up, Nate,” she sobbed.
He lifted a walkie-talkie from his shoulder and spoke into it. “I need all of you in here, make sure you have Jason with you.”
“On it,” came the reply.
More men moved into the room. Jason was beside her quickly.
“Jas.”
“Come on darling, I need to have a look at him.” He lifted her off of him and handed her over to Joey. He sat down with her, holding her tight, as Jason removed the restraints from Dom. His body flopped as they laid him on the ground and Jason went to work.
Her body shook as she cried, watching Jason check his vital signs. “Nate, we need an ambulance here, stat!” Jason yelled towards him.
Several other men moved from Andrew and worked with Jason. People were yelling around her, but no words came through, as she couldn’t think straight with everything going on.
Someone handed Joey a blanket and he covered her body with it. She didn’t hear the paramedic’s sirens outside or know when they walked in; all she remembered was one of them calling “clear” as they used a defibrillator attempting to start his heart. Several times. She watched as they kept trying.
“Clear!” someone yelled. Everyone in the room was silent, besides both the paramedics.
“We need to move him out now, I have a pulse but it is weak, it keeps coming and going,” one yelled.
She could not move as they lifted his lifeless body onto a gurney and as one of them sat on top of him doing compressions. The three of them moved out of the room quickly, she didn’t even have enough time to get up and go with them.
She struggled to get off of Joey’s lap, but he held on tight. “I need to go with him, Joey.”
“No. You need to be looked at by the other paramedics outside, and then we will meet them at the hospital.”
“I can’t lose him, Joey. He’s my life...my world...my everything. He can’t die; he promised he would never leave me!” she cried out.
“I know, sweetheart. They will do everything in their power to save him. Have faith, baby.”
“I don’t think I have enough of that in me, Joey. If I lose him, it’s going to kill me inside. There will be nothing left inside of me but this empty person. A lifeless carcass. I will have nothing to live for if he is gone from my life.”
“Baby, we are all here for the both of you. Come on, let’s go get you checked out and take you up to the hospital.”
Joey stood with her in his arms as they made their way outside. They approached the other ambulance waiting outside as the other was closing its doors.
“Clear, we need to move now, we are losing him. He’s losing too much blood.” She watched before the doors closed as Dom’s body jolted up from the shock of the defibrillator and collapsed back down.
“Noooo!” she screamed, falling out of Joey’s arms to the ground as the ambulance pulled away from them.
“Chantal, get in the ambulance,” Joey urged as he tugged her towards it. Her life was ending there right in front of her eyes. He was gone, and there wasn't anything anyone could do to save him. Her heart broke completely. She felt it actually shatter into a million pieces inside of her chest as the other ambulance sped away from them, sirens screaming into the night.
She sat there in Joey’s tight embrace. This was the end of her life. She had lost the love of her life, watched him get shot by some loser and couldn’t do a damn thing about it. She hated that she sat there unmoving, and couldn’t help the one person that held her heart in the palm of his hand, and now she would be completely lost without him here.
––––––––
S
kylar sobbed as she watched her best friend scream into the dark night. She could not believe what was happening around her outside.
Nate came running towards the truck and jumped in, and without putting on his seatbelt, he pulled quickly away from the old house.
“Nate.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he yelled as he slammed his fists against the steering wheel.
She slid over towards him, wrapping her arms around him. His body shook. She looked up; his eyes were filled with tears. Her own tears fell seeing his.
“What happened in there, Nate?” she choked out around her tears.
“We found them both. Chantal was on Dominic’s lap when we arrived in there. There was a guy in there but we detained him, quickly. Dom didn’t look that great. He was shot, and beaten up pretty badly; I think I’m going to lose my best friend, Sky.”
“Baby, he is a fighter, you know that,” she told him.
“You didn’t see him in there, Sky. It broke my heart seeing Chantal on him like that. He wasn’t moving, and the paramedics were losing him as we came out,” he cried.
She sat there holding onto him, as they both cried together. “How is Chantal?” she asked. She felt bad not asking about her as soon as he was in the truck.
Not letting go of her, he replied, “She was in a bad way too, baby, but Dominic was worse off. She’ll pull through, as long as Dominic does, so will she. I felt bad seeing her fall to the ground and screaming for him. It was gut-wrenching to watch, it was the same as when I saw you after Lucas.”
“Nate, look at me. That is never going to happen again, ok? Dom will pull through this, I know he will.”
“Shit, I hope so, baby. He’s my bro. I can’t lose him, I just can’t.”
“I know. I love you so much, Nate.”
“And I love you too, baby, you have no fucking idea how much I do.”
Nothing more was said as they sped down the road heading for the hospital. She was praying with everything she had that Dominic would pull through. She didn’t want to lose him either; for the friendship they had between them, and for both Nate and Chantal. It would break them both completely if he didn’t make it. He meant too much to a lot of people here, and he needed to make it through.
******
C
hantal lay there as the doctors worked around her. She was asked questions about what happened: where she was hurt, if she felt this or that, how much pain she was in. But the only thing she could think of was...absolutely nothing. Empty. She never answered anyone, not even Joey when he stood there holding her hand asking her things. She just wanted to know if Dominic was ok, that was it.
The door to her room flew open and Skylar made her way in with Nate right behind her. She didn’t say a word to her, she just sobbed as Skylar wrapped her arms around her battered body. Nowhere on her body hurt more than what her heart was going through right then.
“I’m here, Chan.”
Everyone else in the room had left, leaving Skylar, Nate, Joey, and her alone. Joey still had a grip on her hand and Nate sat in the spare chair in the room at the end of the bed. His head fell into his hands; his body shook from sobs that echoed through the large room. Her heart broke further, seeing him cry over what had happened to his best friend, to the love of her life.
She couldn’t voice what she wanted to say.
“Chan, are you alright?” Skylar asked between sobs.
No words came out. The door to her room was open, and shouts from somewhere on the floor she was on made their way into her room. Feet stomped the floor as people were running from one end to the other. She didn’t know what the commotion had been about, but she did not want to think anymore.
A doctor walked in moments later. “Chantal Winters?”
“Yes.”
“I’m so sorry to tell you this, but Mr. Grayson didn’t make it. He lost a large amount of blood at the scene.”
“No. He can’t be, he told me he would never leave me!” she screamed. She sat up quickly and moved to the side of the bed ready to get up.
“Miss Winters, you can’t leave your bed,” the doctor said.
Nate stood from his chair and walked out of the room, slamming his fist through the wall as he left.
“I want to see him, I need to see him,” she bellowed.
The doctor moved towards the bed, and pushed the buzzer for the nurses’ station.
“Miss Winters. I need you to calm down. Your will make your injuries worse than what they are now, if you leave this bed.”
“I don’t fucking care. Let me go and see him,” she sobbed.
A nurse came running in. “I need to sedate her,” he said as he held her down.
“Please, just let me see him.”
Skylar sobbed as she stood near the side of the bed, watching.
The nurse came back, handing over a syringe to the doctor. He injected it into the drip already in her arm. “You need to rest and get better. When you wake up and you are calm, I will take you to him.”
Whatever they gave her knocked her out within minutes. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, all she wanted to do was see Dominic one last time and tell him she loved him. That she was going to miss not having him around, teasing her, ordering her to do things that she once hated but now loved. The look he used to give her when she pissed him off. She was never going to see that one look that turned her on straight away, ever again.
******
S
kylar watched as Chantal lay there, sleeping peaceful for the moment.
“Is she going to be alright, doctor?”
“She will be. She needs to let her body heal from the impact that it had tonight.”
“How long will she be like this?”
“At least five hours. A nurse will keep a close eye on her; you should go and find your friend that left. He didn’t look too good, and I’m sorry about My Grayson.”
“I will, thank you. Joey, will you be alright here?”
“Yeah, Nate needs you, Sky. I’ll stay with her.”
Nodding, she left the room, looking for him. She went down to the hall, glancing around, but didn’t see him anywhere. Walking up to the lift, she waited until it arrived on the floor she was on. Once she was in, it took far too long to get to the ground floor.
When the doors dinged and opened, she stepped out and turned left for the cafeteria. That was the first place she guessed that he would have headed.
She found him out the front of the hospital, walking back and forth on the phone. She had walked up and down the cafeteria, and a nurse that was sitting in there asked if she was lost. She explained what had happened and what Nate looked like, that is how she ended up out front.
She stopped close to where he was. He was whispering to someone over the phone, possible passing on the news about Dominic. When he finally hung the phone up, he just stood there staring at the ground in front of him. Neither of them moved. Seconds, even minutes went by with no words said between them.
“I can’t believe he is gone,” Nate finally said.
“I’m so sorry, babe.”
******
H
e walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her as tightly as he could. They cried together, standing right there out the front of the hospital, over their dear friend.
He heard someone running along the cement floor outside and calling out Nate’s name. Both of their heads shot up, and they saw Joey was running towards them.