< Ashton

(Ashton's P.O.V.)

A loud banging woke both of us up. Without even realising it, tired, we had fallen asleep. Dread settled in my heart at the obnoxious sound. "This time, you don't try to act hero," I warned her as she jolted awake, wincing from the pain of having moved so suddenly.

"Anastasia? You in there?" the voice caught me off guard. That wasn't Ace's voice . . .

"Cameron?" she yelled, instantly gasping, having forgotten about her injured state.

"You okay?" I whispered worriedly. The door opened and Cameron zoned in on us, huddled together in the corner.

"Wha—" He pointed at us questioningly. I looked at Anastasia, only now remembering our close proximity.

A faint rush of red covered her cheeks and ears. "I was cold," she muttered defensively.

I shifted my eyes to Cameron and watched as he kneeled before her. He was about to touch her when I spoke up, "Careful, she's hurt."

His brows instantly furrowed at my words, and his eyes finally seemed to catch attention of the said injuries.

"What did he do?" he growled as he carefully reached to untie her hands and then mine.

Slowly, she pulled away from me but the pain flashed all across her face. I waited for her to stand up before doing so myself, but almost as soon as she had stood, she fell back down. I caught her before she could hit the floor. "How bad are you hurt?" I had forgotten about Emma's precious little kick in her stomach, it only made sense why it was painful for her to stand.

Cameron caught the sight of Anastasia's bloody palm and pulled out his handkerchief, tying it over the injury. "He's gonna pay," he seethed promisingly.

I had no doubt he would. The way he said it and how his eyes narrowed with hate, I bet he was already thinking about the worst ways to torture Ace.

"You—" He closed in on me— "stay with her and both of you get out of here, she knows the way."

"Non posso semplicemente andarmene!" she protested.

"Well, you can't fight either. How did he even-I saw him in the hall, without a single scratch on his face. You better have an explanation for why he’s still living."

"I—" she started but a loud gunshot cut her off. Our heads snapped towards the direction of the voice.

Cameron pulled out a gun and handed it over to Anastasia. "Get out. Look for the chance, we'll try to clear the hallway for you."

"Bu—" she started to protest again but he was already walking out of the door."Why does nobody listen to me?" she huffed, clutching my hand before making a pathetic attempt to drag me with her.

I mentally face palmed at her stubbornness in insisting that she was fine. She could barely stand. What even gave her the impression that she was allowed to boss around and drag me? "Hold up." I rolled my eyes at her and pulled her back as politely as I could. Was it really that hard for her to admit she was in pain?

I lifted her hand and wrapped it around my neck, supporting her from her injured side. "I'm fine," she insisted but the small relaxation at not having to stand on her own was all too visible.

"Of course you are," I brushed her off.

"I—"

"Don't make me carry you all by myself," I warned her.

She blushed again. I averted my eyes from her in an instant. This was going to take some getting used to. Anastasia Rossett blushing was not a healthy sight, especially when we were stuck in a very serious situation.

With slow steps, we got out of the room. The gun shots were unmistakably audible now.

"Go low, keep to the walls."

"You know we're going to have to go down the stairway right? Being seen is unavoidable," I chutted.

"Why don't you show a little faith in me?"

"Why do I need to remind you again and again that you're injured? And need I even start on how absolutely shitty your 'grab-the-attention' plan was?" I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. She made a sound that was halfway a snort turned into a wince.

We kept to the walls, away from the balustrade.

"Fermare!" someone shouted behind us.

Even before I properly turned around, I felt Anastasia slip out of my hold and a bullet had already drilled a hole in the dead center of the man's head. I stared with my mouth agape, struck with bewilderment and turned back to Anastasia. She was now leaning on the wall for support, her hold tight on the gun with her non-injured hand.

"How . . . ?" I shifted my eyes back and forth between her and the body. The man had been near to the end of the corridor and we were almost near the stairway. How did she possibly . . . ?

"Practice. Been doing this since I was eleven," she shrugged it off and clutched my hand again, pulling a little so that I let her lean on me again as we walked to the near end of the stairway.

I followed her robotically, still dazed. She pushed us behind the pillar right next to where the stairway started, moving just enough to sneak a glance at the hall. I didn't take my eyes off of her. Her words echoed in my mind. The image of an eleven year old Anastasia practising targets flashed in front of my eyes.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to her. I didn't think she heard, she kept her eyes down to the hall.

I turned just enough to see that the chaos was ensuing down there. The dried blood that had marked the floor was now hidden beneath the fresh pools of crimson. It was impossible to have a proper look at any of the bodies that had fallen. By now, my ears had gone numb to the persisting sound of gunshots.

But somehow, that was still not what had my attention. My attention was on that image of eleven year old Anastasia, practicing her targets and under training to rise as an assassin rather than playing and being silly like every other child of her age group.

I turned back to look at her. My breath hitched as my eyes fell straight on her piercing blue ones. She looked at me as if she was trying to figure something out, or as if she were staring right into my soul. I realised, with my heart very noticeably skipping a beat, that this was the first time I had actually looked into her eyes. Not some sneaky glances, but had actually held her gaze.

I must've forgotten to breathe, she certainly noticed. "It's okay, breathe."

"Huh?" I inhaled deeply, snapping out of my daze and once again looked away from her, instead focusing my sight down the hall, anywhere that was not drenched in blood.

"We're going to be fine. You can breathe," she clarified.

I almost chuckled at her assumption. How wrong she was about my lack of breath. Oblivious as ever of her own effect on others.

"And you don't need to feel sorry for me. I'm proud of who I am as a person now. Everything, the good or the bad, adds up to it."

So she had heard.

"What the—" Her face paled a little.

I followed her line of sight and my blood ran cold. What was he doing here?

"Oh god." She raised her gun. For a minute I thought she was aiming at him, but then I realised that someone was sneaking up on him.

She was too far. However good she was, it was too far. She wouldn't be able to get him.

"Theo!" I yelled impulsively before I could think it through and ran out of the cover.

"Ashton!" Anastasia grasped my hand but I snatched it away from her, running down to him like an idiot.

"Theo! Behind you!"

Everything happened so fast then. I felt something in my arm go numb as my steps faltered. I looked at it to see something red had started to soak my sleeve. I frowned at it.

"Ashton!" the scream terrified me and I looked back at Anastasia. Horror settled on her face and she gaped at me as if I had just been shot.

Then the burn came. All of a sudden, without any slow warning. An agonisingly burning sensation of something slicing my skin took over and all I could feel was an intensely hot pain as I clutched my arm, pain that grew more and more with each passing second.

I looked for Theo, someone shot the person who had been catching onto him. Looking around a little led me to Xavier Rossett. Xavier Rossett had saved him. And then he aimed at my shooter. At Enzo. Oh, wasn't that boy eager to be the cause of all my suffering here. Another movement grabbed my attention and I zoomed in on Emma.

No . . . no . . . no . . . "Emma!"

"Anastasia, no!" Theo screamed with terror. Emma pulled the trigger exactly when Xavier did. Exactly when someone pulled a trigger at her. Xavier dropped dead and so did she. Utter and complete silence filled the air.

My eyes found Anastasia again. She had come right behind me, holding herself up with force. Her hands still in the air, holding the gun that had shot the bullet responsible for Emma. Her silence, her hands hanging still, her unblinking eyes gravely terrified me.

"Ana . . . "

She didn't even acknowledge me. She just moved past me, robotically as if she had gone blank. Tears pricked her eyes as she kept looking at Xavier's dead form in disbelief, making a complete new level of terror settle in me. I worried about her injuries as she walked on her own, but it was as if she didn't even feel them anymore. My own pain forgotten, my eyes caught Theo.

Oh no . . . oh god no.

In one swift movement, he pulled the gun from the hands of the man that had dropped next to him. His body was visibly shaking as his eyes found Emma's dead form.

"Theo," I hissed, frozen in my place. What was he thinking? He looked at Anastasia, his hands shaking with their grasp on the weapon. I realised what could possibly have been going on his mind, and I sure as hell hoped I was wrong.

"Theo, no!" I whispered as quietly as I could, not wanting to grab any wrong attention. Everyone was frozen in their place.

Ace, I caught slowly sneaking out with a smirk as he had seen what Theo was about to do. I could only imagine the wrath that would follow if he didn't stop.

"Theo," I hissed again. A look of determination took over his features and he forced the shaking to stop. I looked away from him, it was like no one was even aware that he was here.

He took a few steps towards the back so that he was now standing right in front of the exit, right in Anastasia's line of sight. Her eyes remained fixated at Xavier's dead form, even when Theo aimed at her.

I had to do something. How was I supposed to choose between them? The minute anyone realised, he would be drilled with multiple bullets. If I didn't do anything, he would make the biggest mistake of life. And Ana . . .

I took a deep breath and before I knew the words were flowing out of my mouth, loud and clear. "Theo don't pull the trigger!"

But that's exactly what he did.

Whenever I saw any sort of action movies, I always thought that how they showed everything, from the trigger being pulled to the person being shot, in slow motion, was just for the dramatic effect.

Except things really do happen like that. Everything slows down and you still at the pull of the trigger. Then it's a race between forcing yourself to register the situation, then yelling at your mind to act on it and the bullet hitting its target. All you can think of is to yell the person's name and hope that somehow that would save them. That somehow the bullet would change its course or somehow the person would move faster than the bullet and won't be standing in it's way anymore.

But it doesn't happen.

By the time your head finishes with the turning and the yelling, the bullet's already got them. You watch them fall to the ground as the blood starts to pool out, and you watch with horror as the reality finally strikes you like lightning, all at once.

But the bullet is laughing at your slow head.

It's laughing between everything from the painful gasps of the victim and the tears trickling down their face to the blood surrounding them.

And when your body decides that it's time to start working, all you can do is run to the pool of blood.

And hope it's not too late just yet.

Hope for them to hold on.

All I could do . . . was hope for her to hold on.

🥀

Flashing through my memory
The emptiness I hide
Losing all desire
Losing all but pride
The bridges all are burning
Nothing left to see
The world now stands in ruin
Come sweet tragedy

–Sweet Tragedy
(Cemetary)

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• 'Non posso semplicemente andarmene!' means 'I can't just leave!'

• 'Fermare!' means 'Stop!'
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(WORD COUNT: 2200)

QUESTION OF THE CHAPTER:
What would you have done if you were in Theo's place?