Crown of Sins - Chaelisa

-Chapter Forty Two-

*Lisa's POV*

I was moving as fast as my tired fucking body would let me anyway. No coffee needed-adrenaline and fear somehow make a better combination than any amount of caffeine this side of poisoning.

Since I got to my car, every second has gone by too fast. The fact that I can't just blink and transport where I need to be has never been so frustrating before. I spend the last few minutes tugging at my own hair in frustration.

"Come on," I say to no one as the neon lights finally come into view.

But I know, the moment my feet hit pavement, that it can only be a really bad sign as the volume of the typically throbbing music goes quiet enough after just a few steps from my SUV that I can't hear it any more from outside.

That's when my run turns into a full-out sprint toward Rosie's club.

And as my hand shoves the door open, a piercing sound pushes me even harder to get to her. Even though I've never heard her make a sound like that, there's no question in my mind that it's Roseanne screaming.

Not the good kind of screams either. There's pain in that sound, ear-splitting agony that causes my heart to stutter in terror.

When I'm inside the door, Rosie's lungs still going strong, I barely have enough time to find her where I already know she'll be before the world explodes.

It will take two more steps and a leap to get to her, but gunshots start ringing around the club like we somehow moved into a warzone without me realizing until right now.

The sounds come from every direction, one bang after another, but I don't actually see the results. It's almost like a soundtrack is playing rather than bullets flying. And then I don't care to understand.

I see nothing though, nothing other than Rosie's face. There isn't a single thought that goes through my head in the time before I can make it to her. I can't fit anything but her into my head. Not of my own safety-or lack thereof. Not of what I should be doing instead of what I am.

Not about whoever's sitting across from her. Though, in a normal frame of mind I'd probably have recognized him anyway, since I had expected someone to be here. But I can't remember at the moment.

Rosie's eyes widen as I jump over the bar to stand between her and everything else. Even though she'd been looking in my direction I don't think she actually saw me until right now.

"NO," Rosie screams as she uses one arm to slam a fist into my shoulder.

I wasn't expecting either reaction, and the combination left me off-balance enough for her to actually knock me over with her force. Or maybe with her will. Or both. I don't know. It doesn't matter how, it's the why she's doing it.

After all this, for Rosie to be pissed about my showing up, it's probably the last time she can throw salt into my wounds without my walking away.

Only then, when she starts to fall on top of me in slow motion, after I've already started landing onto the floor does it make sense. The world slows as I take in what's happening all around us.

The gunshots start making real impacts finally. Sounds explode over us, louder than anything yet. And it hits me, like Rosie landing on my chest.

The bullets, the guns, everything was real even before now. But in my blocking out of everything else I think I might have missed that originally everyone in the club-literally everyone other than Rosie, her attacker, and me-were shooting straight up and not actually toward anyone. Yet.

And then I came charging over, and Rosie saved me. She didn't need my saving. I don't know if she ever has.

As I look up to her, trying to work around what I'd thought and all, I don't know something comes flying above us, turning the world back onto regular speed, no longer stretched out so I can keep over-thinking.

A head, or what used to be a head moments ago, explodes as gunfire comes from the stage and all corners of the room at once. Where we'd just been standing.

Gore hits the mirrors behind the bar at the same time as bullets do. And glass, glass covered in blood, blood by itself, and bits of I-don't-even-want-to-know-what rain down on us.

We're shielded from the danger-Rosie still protectively covering as much of me as she can-but not the after-effects. Then almost all gunfire stops, leaving one last bullet to come from somewhere around the area of stage center.

Rosie's hand start roaming all over me, checking for damage I think. Not that she's focused on her own, not even the hand that I'm very sure is broken from the weird angle it's dangling. When she finds none, her eyes narrow at me.