The Ice Prince

Chapter 23

Dedicated to everyone who's voted and commented so far. Especially people who totally want to sue me after the previous cliffhanger and who would probably hate-mail if I killed Ash in this chapter. I'm bracing myself...

I didn't realise I'd been shot, till I pulled myself in through the trapdoor and dragged the two of them up the stairs into the throng of dancing people. I felt no pain, just a slight numbness in my head. I pushed Carver under the bar weakly, and told him that I'd give him the pills soon, if he behaved. Hayley's expression had me look at my torso, where my t-shirt was sticking to my body, and I was bleeding copiously.

"Sh*t!" I swore. Just then, the gangsters found their way into Jerry's, and I did the only thing I could think of. I pulled Hayley close, and started dancing. The wetness that was my blood soon soaked into my other t-shirt, the one she wore, but I held her close. Because if I let her go, I was going to collapse, and that would definitely pull their attention to me. They were looking for a girl with an African-American boy who was shot. They'd mistaken me for Carver.

They didn't even spare a glance at the dancing people, and went straight to the counter, to Arnold Wood.

"Where is Dragon?" one of them asked. He did a remarkable job of acting unafraid.

I felt Hayley stiffen in my arms. We managed to keep dancing, surrounded by the herd of bodies that swayed to the beat.

"I don't know any Dragon." He said. The gangsters looked angry, but they believed him.

"Did you see a white girl running away from here with a dark boy?" the same man asked.

I would never stop owing to Arnold freakin' Wood for what he did just then. Because he just said, "If you mean the couple that just went out, then yes, I saw them. The girl even told me to keep the change." He flashed a hundred at the two men. Now that was the most freaking believable lie I'd ever heard, and especially so since he'd just made it up.

Hayley relaxed and grinned, and I could see the love and gratitude she felt towards Arnold Wood for saving our *sses from those men.

"Where'd they go?" the other gangster asked roughly, in his Brazilian accent, and the two were told to go down the road.

I was feeling faint, and the Glock I'd replaced into the back of my jeans was weighing me down. I'd lost a lot of blood, although Hayley had tried to contain in between us. "Dr.... Beauchamp..." I managed to whisper in her ear. She understood, as her eyes widened.

Quickly, she whipped out my phone, and pressed the call-button thrice. "Dr. Beauchamp, Ashton Prince is shot, please come immediately to Jerry's." she said. I cursed in my mind.

"Aly...na...heart..." I tried, as she pushed me against a wall, in an effort to stop me from collapsing before the crowd.

"I think we may have Alyna Prince's heart." She said into the phone, and I knew that I could give up now. I could sink under the darkness which had been trying to suck me in for so long.

"I love you... Fireball..." I managed, just before I let go of my senses.