"Is it too much to ask for you to keep your mouth shut?" Bax huffed under his breath, leading me back toward the house with his hand on the small of my back. I shot him a look but didn't give him the satisfaction of responding.

"All you had to do was stay away, but you were too caught up in all your little fantasies to listen." he grumbled. "I don't know what the hell it is that you chicks see in us, but it always ends up killing you in the end."

I bowed my head, feeling Bax's grip tighten on my arm as we stepped back into the house. I waited until we slowed to a stop to peer up and over at Craig.

He wasn't at all as I pictured him; tall, dark hair, and a sadistic smile. The thing I had gotten right was how much the drugs had aged him. He still wore a boyish smile and had a youthful look in and around his eyes, but the wrinkles that lined his face, the scars, made it appear years older.

"Hello." he saluted me with a laugh. "Aren't you going to introduce me, Bax? I thought we were all friends here."

Bax met his bosses eyes. "She's nobody, man. Just let me drive her home."

"Who is she, Baxter?" Craig repeated, a slight edge to his tone.

My eyes wandered the room, falling a couple smoking on the couch and a girl doing the same opposite of them on a chair.

There wasn't any sign of Damon.

"She's just a junkie, Craig. Doesn't know where she is." it was shocking how fast Bax came up with a believable lie.

Craig closed the distance between us and outstretched his hand in an attempt to touch my face. I jerked back, slamming into the wall hard.

"Isn't she a little young for you, Bax?" Craig questioned, clearly entertained by my rejection of him.

Baxter snorted. "I'm twenty-four, not a huge age difference. You know how it is, don't you. The younger the better."

Craig didn't appear to take in the younger boy's words, but kept his eyes trained on me.

"Go then, kid." Craig muttered. "Get her out of here before we shoot him."

Bax relaxed against me, his grip loosening on my arm. He started to pull me back toward the door, but I dug my feet into the ground. "Damon!"

The man from the mall, Luka, had Damon's hands tied behind his back. Damon's face was smeared with so much blood he was hardly recognizable.

"You!" Luka hissed through his teeth, then turned to his boss. "That's her, Craig."

Bax grabbed my arm roughly and forced me behind him, looking back and forth between the three men before us. Damon's dilated blue eyes met mine, but there wasn't any sort of familiarity in them. He looked as if he had no idea who I was.

"Baxter, hand the girl over. I won't hurt her." Craig spoke softly, a smirk slowly creeping its way across his face.

"I'm sorry, Craig, I can't do that. She didn't do-" before he could defend his actions any further, another man tore him away, leaving me in the open a few feet in front of Craig.

I started to back away, but he caught my shoulder and shoved me back against the wall before I could. "Where the hell do you think your going, little girl?"

I gasped for air, my nails digging to the hand cupped around my throat.

"I knew the kid here was stupid." he gestured toward Damon. "But I didn't think anyone in their right mind would come after the little shit. What the fuck is wrong with you, girl? Willing to risk your life for a pathetic boy?"

"You're a-" I choked, not able to get anything else out.

Craig dropped his hand from my throat, pinning me against the wall with one arm, digging through his pocket with his other hand. He pulled a pocket knife, the blade glistening inches from my throat.

"How much do you know?" he hissed through his teeth, a muscle in his clenched jaw twitching.

"I don't know anything." I lied, breathless. He pushed the knife deeper into me, lips curving into a grin.

"Let's try this again, sweetie." he separated my legs with his knee, edging closer. "How much do you know?"

I tried to lift my knee, but he only laughed and dropped the arm pinning me so his hand was tugging on the bottom of my shirt. "I don't think that's a good idea, little girl. Why don't you just tell me how much you know and this will all be over with?"

"You'll kill me either way." I snapped, "Why should it matter if I say something or not?"

He contemplated my words for a few minutes before responding. "A true statement, I guess. I could play around with you first though. Let-"

I headbutted him as his hand slipped under my shirt. I cried out when I felt the knife slit the surface of my throat.

"You little-" he reconsidered his words, then pressed the blade against my throat. "All this for that kid. The shit we do for love."

I squeezed my eyes shut, squirming one last time. I expected a sharp pain in my throat, or possibly my chest, but that wasn't what came. The sound of a gun being shot off shook the house, sending the rest of the people inside fleeing out the door screaming. My eyes went to Damon immediately, thinking by some miracle he was conscious and aware again. He was only staring ahead of him in horror, no sign of a gun anywhere. My eyes slowly drifted to Bax, his finger still hovering over the trigger of his gun as he stared straight ahead at Luka.

"Let the kid go." Bax said. "Or you'll end up just like him."

Luka shoved Damon forward, darting out the back door without as much as a peek over his shoulder to see if anyone was following. Damon staggered a few steps before collapsing against me.

"My heart-" he started, taking my hand and resting it on his chest, directly over his heart. It was racing, far beyond a normal speed. I stared, the adrenaline rushing through me clouding my thoughts.

"Get out of here and get him to a hospital." Bax shoved the gun in the space between his bare skin and pants, hoisting Damon's arm over his shoulder. "You need to go before the cops get here."

I helped the boys to my car outside, tears starting to blur my vision as I watched Bax stuff Damon into the passenger's seat of my car. He slammed the door shut and ran around so he was leaning in through my window.

"Craig gave him a large enough dose to give him an overdose. You need to get to the hospital as soon as possible." he explained, lifting his head so he was looking over the car and at the flashing lights rushing down the street.

"Bax." I grabbed at his hand before he could pull away.

He ducked back into the car with a curious look. "Yeah?"

I held back my tears, squeezing his hand gently. "Thank you."

With a curt nod, he touched my cheek softly before moving back and slapping the hood of the car. "Get out of here!"

My hands trembled as I fiddled with my keys, eventually finding the right one and starting the car. Damon was groaning softly against the window, his hand falling on top of mine on the clutch. I pulled away from the house with a look over my shoulder, catching Bax nodding as if he could see my questioning expression through my tinted windows.

Damon's breathing began to grow ragged as he spoke. "You know, this is the first time I've been close to dying and it isn't your fault."

A laugh escaped me. "I wouldn't say that."

"I'm going to die." he whispered. "I mean, I always knew there was a chance I would being involved with all that shit. But this is it, I'm really dying."

"Damon." I shook my head, hearing a car horn blare behind me as I cut them off to get to the turn lane. The red corvette behind me pulled around and laid on their horn again for emphasis. I fought the urge to flip them off and breathed out shakily.

"I took your diary so I'd have a reason to talk to you." he confessed. "I wanted to pretend I could live a normal, happy life. You seemed like the first step toward that."

"Why? I'm not that special, Damon. I'm like every other girl, average." I thought about my comment. "Please don't go into some long speech on how you always believed I was extraordinarily beautiful."

"I didn't. Not until I met you, Micky." his voice started to slur. "Then I realized just how amazing you were when you weren't almost getting me killed."

I smiled a little, throwing a look his way as I pulled into the hospital parking lot. "Thanks."

His blue half open blue eyes narrowed, "You're an extraordinarily beautiful person, McKenzie."

It was seconds after the words left his mouth that his entire body started to grow rigid. I pulled into the emergency lane and threw myself out of the car, my sudden appearance sending nurses rushing out the door.

"What's going on?" one asked.

"Drug overdose. He's having some kind of seizure, I think."

One nurse rushed back inside while the two men picked Damon up out of the car.

They had Damon out of my car and in the building before anything else could be said. I collapsed against the side of my car once the realization of everything set in and my adrenaline faded. I screamed, slowly lowering myself to the ground, until my lugs gave out. 

***AN***

*Unedited*

Hope you guys enjoyed! 

What do you think of Bax? Why do you think he saved her and got them out of the there before the cops showed? And what about Damon? Do you think he'll die or will they be able to save him?

Let me know what you guys thought/think!

~ChasingMadness24