Ice's Girl

four

Ally's POV

We order our food and start talking about dresses. Rhonda wants her dresses to be purple and white, while Tessa wants greens, greys and white, and Velma and Grazie both want blues, greys and white. We finish our food and leave. I get back to Doc's and Tony's sitting at one of the tables with a weird look on his face.

"Tony?"

"Why's Ice scared of Riff," he asks me.

"What are you talking about?"

"Ice was coming up the stairs with a box, saw Riff sitting on the pinball machine and proceeded to walk back down the stairs."

I sit across from Tony and sigh. I explained the whole thing from start to finish.

"So, lemme get this straight," Tony says. "Riff wanted to fight the Sharks over territory and Bernardo said he didn't want to."

"Yep."

"And Riff thought Ice had told Bernardo about it, which he denied at first, but he told you he did."

"Yep."

"Riff's an ass."

"He sure is," I nod in agreement.

"Ice is downstairs if you wanna go check on him," he says.

I nod and head down to see Ice sleeping on Tony's bed. I sit down next to him and gently lay his head in my lap. I stroke his hair and he begins to stir.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty," I say.

"Hey," he says, rubbing his eyes.

"How you feeling?"

"Fine, I guess."

"Tony told me what happened," I tell him.

He stops my hand and sits up.

"What if we went somewhere?"

"What are you talking about, Ice?"

"We run away," he says.

I give him a soft smile.

"As much as I would love to do that, you know I can't," I tell him.

"Valentina wants you to take time off."

"And Gimbal's?"

"That part I don't know."

"Ally, you should come up here," Tony yells.

I run up the stairs and see a bloody Junior sitting at one of the tables.

"Junior, what happened," I ask.

"I'm about three blocks from here and the next thing I know, I'm jumped by Jets," he tells me.

I look over at Tony.

"Balkan, Tiger and Numbers got him," he says.

"Riff's taking his anger out on the Sharks," Ice says from the doorway.

"Ice, Junior, go downstairs. Riff's coming," Tony tells them.

"Get Junior cleaned up and have him leave out the back," I tell Ice.

They run downstairs and shut the door behind them. The Jets come in seconds later. I sit on the pinball machine and Tony's at the counter. Nobody says anything and BJ walks over to me.

"I'm scared, Als. I ain't never seen Riff like this," he whispers to me.

I pull him into a hug and run my fingers through his hair.

"What do you want, Riff," Tony asks.

"The spic," he says.

"He has a name," I retort.

"We saw him run in here," Balken says.

Valentina comes over to us.

"I saw what you did to that boy," she says.

"We was just messing with him," Tiger says.

"All of you need to leave right now."

Val doesn't usually get angry, but when she does I know to keep my distance.

Riff scoffs and motions for the guys to leave. After they leave, Tony and I go downstairs.

"Are they gone," Junior asks.

"Yes, Junior, they're gone," I tell him.

"What are we gonna do," Ice asks me.

"We're gonna take Junior home and he and Tino are gonna pack some things and come stay with my folks. After we drop them off, me, you and Tony are gonna head to Bernardo's place and have a talk with him," I say.

We leave out the back and head for Junior and Tino's house. When we get there, we explain to Tino what's happening.

"I'm home," I say, walking into my apartment.

"Honey, what's going on," Mom asks.

I explain the situation to my parents and they are more than understanding. They welcome Junior and Tino with open arms. We leave and head for Bernardo's place. Tony knocks on the door when we arrive and Bernardo answers

"Look, we don't wanna cause problems, but Junior got jumped," I tell him.

"By who?"

"Balkan, Numbers and Tiger."

"Where is he now?"

"Junior and Tino are both at my place," I say.

"We don't want you to respond to this by attacking the Jets," Tony says.