72 Hours: A Ticking Time Bomb

{-CHAPTER FOUR-}

Damiano woke up..

It was only four in the morning. He was the only one awake. Thomas cried himself to sleep, Ethan went to sleep annoyed, but Victoria was still tossing and turning.

Maybe she's up. Damiano thought. He didn't want to go over to her, just in case she was still asleep.

Damiano decided to set his mind straight, he stepped outside to the balcony, looking out at the night sky. The city lights of Los Angeles lay below him as he stood leaning over the rail.

Damiano sighed.

"Couldn't sleep either?" Victoria came up behind him, startling him.

"Don't do that, Victoria. You know I don't like it when you..." Damiano was interrupted.

"I know, I know. You don't like it when I pop up out of nowhere." Victoria laughed slightly.

Both stared at each other in awkward silence, until Victoria said something.

"Still worried about Duncan?" Victoria asked, hands on her hips. Damiano looked to his feet, then back up at Victoria.

"Yeah... I'm just scared... What if they already killed him? What if we're next? What if...."

"What if the sky turned to fire and your nose fell off? Damiano, you need to calm down. He'll be fine. If you can't do anything, the proper authorities will. I promise you, Duncan will be fine." Victoria assured Damiano.

"You mean it? You promise?"

"I guarantee that whatever happens, it will be alright." Victoria said as she pulled Damiano into a hug.

That's when the alert rang on his phone.

"Breaking news, several Eurovision entrants, including winners like Netta Barzilai, and Duncan Laurence, have gone missing! Nobody knows who kidnapped them, where they are,  or what these mass kidnappers plan to do with them, but faces like John Lundvik, and Sergey Lazarev, to Michael Rice, and Victor Crone have gone off the grid! We hope to find them all soon, for the world might not be the same without them."

"Victoria..... It's not just Duncan..... These guys have kidnapped a lot of other ESC entrants!" Damiano cried out. Victoria looked at his phone and saw the alert. She nearly dropped dead.

"Wait.... If they've all been kidnapped too.... Then....." Victoria began to say. She couldn't finish what she was saying before she noticed Damiano was unconscious beside her on the balcony.

"DAMIANO!!!" She cried out. She saw no one around. She shook Damiano endlessly to wake him up.

"Get up! Please!!!" She cried out. Suddenly, she heard a swoosh from the balcony above theirs.

"WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO DAMIANO????" Victoria cried.

No reply.

Ethan and Thomas ran out to the balcony to see what had happened.

"SOMEONE KNOCKED HIM OUT COLD!" Victoria cried. Ethan rushed over to Damiano and picked him up. His unconscious body lay limp in Ethan's arms. Thomas trembled in fear.

"We have to get him somewhere safe! Who knows who did this and what they'll do later if they see him with us!" Ethan exclaimed. They all rushed back into the hotel room.

Ethan placed a warm cloth over Damiano's forehead and laid him on his bed to rest.

"Someone should stay awake and keep watch. You know, just in case the guys come back, or if Damiano gets up." Victoria suggested.

"I-I'll do it." Thomas volunteered. The others looked at him in confusion.

"Are you sure you can handle it?" Ethan asked. "Cause at any time you feel uncomfortable..."

"I got this!.... I wanna be by him..." Thomas admitted.

"Okay then. Night." Victoria said. Ethan nodded as he lifted the covers over his body. Both Ethan and Victoria fell asleep.

Thomas kept his promise. He stayed by Damiano the entire time.

"Don't worry, Damiano. I'll stay next to you until you wake up." He whispered. At one point, Damiano shuffled around a tiny bit in the bed, pushing some of his hair into his face. Thomas leaned in and moved the hair out from his closed eyes.

Suddenly, there were thumps on the door to the balcony. Two masked men burst into the room. Surprisingly, Ethan and Victoria heard nothing... But Thomas jumped off the bed next to Damiano out of fright.

The guys looked serious.

"We will leave here with what we want, and if we have to kill you to get it, well then so be it!" One guy said. Thomas just grabbed onto Damiano harder.

"No!" Thomas cried out. "If Damiano is what you want, then I'm not going to give him to you!"

"You made the wrong choice." The second man said, pointing a gun to Thomas' head "Prepare to die!"

The shot fired. Ethan and Victoria shot awake.

"OMG THOMAS!!!!" Victoria cried out. Ethan and Victoria ran for him.

He was alive, but barely.

"H-he's gonna get away..... He's got.... He's got Dam.... Damiano...." Then the light faded from his eyes.

Before Ethan could get to the window, the man with Damiano had vanished.

"DAMNIT!!!" Ethan cried. "They've killed Thomas, they've kidnapped Damiano! What are we gonna do???"

For the first time in awhile, they didn't know. Maneskin wasn't complete without Damiano and Thomas.

Maneskin will never be the same.