Damn Straight, Your Highness

Chapter 15 - Bullet Wounds and Engagement Parties

I clutched my shoulder aggressively, my vision blurring in front of me as the gravel grazed against my feet sending pangs of pain up my legs. 

I didn't know where to go, I didn't even know where I was in this city. I just had to keep running, they would be after me soon enough. I wasn't even sure what they intended to do to me. 

The street was dully lit, illuminated in broken shreds of yellow from the street lights. I still had my gun tightly gripped in my other hand, fear of losing it and being unarmed if they were to find me again. They weren't going to find me again. I couldn't let them.

My bare feet hit the ground, continuing to run as far away possible from the warehouse. My ears ring out loudly in my head as the firing of a gun kept replaying in my head. Clearly, there was a bullet in my shoulder, a bullet fired from Cole's gun. But I didn't have the mental capacity to fully understand what had happened back there.

All I knew was that I had too much blood on my hands for me to deal with, and I had to get help fast. 

My stomach twisted in pain with every step I took, the full effects of sharp glass only beginning to come into play now. 

I haphazardly glanced around my surroundings, as my head pounded and my heart furiously beat inside of my chest, threatening to explode. 

To my right on the other side of the street was complex of run down apartment buildings with the letterbox shattered into pieces across the entry driveway. They looked almost abandoned, but still showed signs of live with laundry hanging off balconies through out the blocks.

In front of me my eyes caught sight of the flickering lights coming from a 24 hour corner store, that sat silently on the intersection of streets I had never seen before. I froze for a moment, trying to pry a visual map from my memory about these streets that could help me find my way home. 

But I knew I had never been here, and if I had, it would've only been for a second, not long enough or me to remember anything relevant at all. 

My eyes flicker down to the gun still clutched into my hands. My knuckles were white from the cool night air and from my tight grip.

My lungs tighten. I felt sick. Nauseous. And like I could burst into tears. I was losing blood, how much I wasn't sure, but there was no way to wipe off the blood from my stained hands, like an illogical attempt to wipe of everything that has happened this night. 

The world twisted in my vision, like the wind blew over everything in my blurry view as I could feel my head begin to spin out of control. 

Not here. Not yet Anna.

A small green light begins to flicker on my wrist, slow and consistent at first, then picks up the pace, flashing rapidly in my vision. 

I was loosing my consciousness, internally trying my hardest to fight from passing out but I knew it was a battle I was never going to win. 

A car swooshes past me then I hear the loud sound of screeching tires, as I feel my legs give way and my back smash against the pavement into darkness. 

***********

I thought the noises were in my dreams. Until I realised the quiet whispering of voices that was faintly making its way to my ears was not apart of a dream, but very much so real.

My fingers graze over a soft cotton I haven't felt in a long time, sending little waves of shock through my fingertips.

1500 thread count Egyptian Cotton. 

The same stuff my mother had our entire house upholstered with. 

I wriggle my feet lightly, trying to release the stiffness that was restricting my body as my eyes flicker open.