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Chapter Ninety-Four
Point of View: Nick


It had all happened so fast.

One minute we'd been goofing off and the next we were standing there in front of a huge officer who knew Leon, who'd drawn his gun and had it aimed squarely at me. "Now we can play nice, or we can play rough," he'd said, "But either way, we're gonna play."

"Don't hurt Zoe," I pleaded, "She had nothing to do with any of it."

"I'll do what I want," he snapped.

Suddenly a smaller guy had come up at his side. "We're alight," he said.

"Good," the big guy smiled. His grin turned wicked as he turned to me. He leveled the gun. "And just to make sure you stay put..." he pulled the trigger and I danced over it as the bullet sailed toward my leg. It missed me and hit the handle of the drawer on the bottom of the stove and ricocheted off it. Zoe let out a shriek and I felt her drop behind me.

"No!" I shouted and turned around.

"Heh.. That worked out well, didn't it?" he laughed.

"Zoe," I whined, kneeling down next to her.

She was baring her teeth and growling under her breath, clutching the calve of her right leg, where the bullet had struck her. Blood was staining her jeans from the inside.

I was only vaguely aware when the two guys left.

I started to pick her up, "Don't," Zoe snapped, "It hurts. Don't. Call 9-1-1."

I nodded. I reached for my phone. It wasn't in my pocket. "Shit. Hold on a second." I ran out to the living room. Smoke was pouring though the house. "What the hell?" I muttered. I sniffed. Fire. My heart nearly stopped.

"Nick?!" Zoe called.

"I'm coming!" I yelled back. I grabbed my phone off the sofa and ran back towards the kitchen. "Zoe, there's a fire-" I called as I ran. Suddenly a cop grabbed me by the wrist. "Ouch!" I shouted as my body snapped back into him from the velocity of my running.

"Come on," he said.

"But Zoe-" I pulled toward the kitchen.

He shook his head, "Come on."

"No -- Zoe's---" And then there were three of them, all pulling me at once. "ZOE!" I shouted, struggling against them. They tugged and pulled and dragged me through the foyer and out the opened front door, my phone dropping to the floor in the urgency of my struggle. I had to get back to Zoe, there was no option. "WAIT!" I screamed as they pulled me down the stairs of my stoop to the lawn, "WAIT! MY FRIEND IS IN THERE STILL!"

They didn't seem to care, and soon I'd been marooned on the lawn, surrounded by a cluster of officers. "ZOE!!" I screamed, trying to pull away from the officers who held my arms roughly behind my back. I struggled against them, the band on my ankle vibrating and flashing like crazy. They clutched my elbows, forearms and wrists, like they were a mish-mash of human straight jackets. "ZOE!!! Please, I need to find my friend, please..." I begged them.

"They're working on it," a cop behind me said serenely. It's not your friend so you don't care, I thought bitterly. I continued to struggle, panic gripping every inch of my body.

Suddenly Kayla ran into me, her body shaking. I wanted to hug her, to kiss her, but I couldn't move. "What the hell happened?" she asked me.

"Go find out if Zoe's okay," I begged.

"Zoe? Zoe's here?" she asked, glancing around. "Where is she?"

"I don't know," I said, choking back a sob. "She's inside!"

Kayla's eyes filled to the brim with tears. "What happened, Nick?"

"Leon's friends."

Kayla's face was overflowing with tears. "I'm so glad you're alive," she sobbed.

"Please, Kayla, go find someone to get Zoe," I pleaded.

She scurried away and I focused on the house. I let my eyes roam across the stone and wood. The portion of the house that was my bathroom and storage-type rooms was getting it the worst at the moment, the garage already nothing but a smoldering mess. It was obviously engulfing the entire building, though. I could see the fire and smoke pressing against the windows in the living room and the kitchen and the upstairs guest bedroom. I knew it would only be moments before the smoke started pouring out the double french doors of my balcony in the bedroom, before it would burn my studio and all the reels of recording we had stored in that room. Including Kayla's demos.

Everything I owned was in there.

Zoe was in there.

I started fighting against the grip of the officers once more on that thought, bile rising in my throat. "Please, she's disabled," I begged, "He shot her in the leg. She needs help!"

As I was struggling like that, suddenly a fireman came out of the front door, smoke billowing behind him, his yellow jacket already tarnished with ashes, a face mask over his mouth and nose, carrying Zoe.

She was limp.

"ZOE!" I screamed, but she didn't move. The fireman ran past us, down the walkway to the drive, where an ambulance was waiting. EMTs swarmed around him, pushing a gurney towards him, meeting him halfway to the ambulance. I struggled with the officers, "Can we at least go over there, please?" I begged.

"Stop fighting or we will book you for resisting," snapped an agitated cop, who was obviously over stimulated by all the dramatic action going on around him.

"We got the clear to transport him," came another voice.

"Okay, let's go," said the first.

I felt the cold metal of handcuffs around my wrist and I was pulled toward the SUV cruiser that sat about halfway down the driveway, behind a fire truck.

AJ was standing awkwardly by his truck.

"AJ!" I screamed as I walked by, "AJ, find Kayla, tell her Zoe's in the ambulance. Please!" I begged. "Find out if Zoe's okay!"

AJ nodded, and ran to collect Kayla as the officers herded me to the cruiser and shoved me inside, forcing me to duck my head under the door jam and slamming the door behind me. I stared at the scene as they got into the front and started up the car, whooping the siren to move the paparazzi, whose flashbulbs were going wild at me through the window.

It wasn't until we were already most of the way down the block that I realized my luck had just taken a very... very... very bad change.

I was no longer on house arrest, seeing as how I no longer had a house.

I was on my way to the jailhouse.

Where Leon was.