Eliza just realized that she decreased scaling walls and sneaking around to avoid cameras. There was something wrong with that. But then again, there was also something wrong with her running on roofs and hacking into security cameras all the time.
She had time to do that at the start, when she was motivated in being all secretive, but when the load started getting heavier, she just pretended that she was going out for coffee or something. The use of elevator was getting more and more compulsory, even when she didn’t like it.
Instead, she had to control her aggression through other ways, and this came in the form of football with the boys.
They were bad at it. Louis was pretty decent though, so he was on the opposing team with Harry and Zayn. That meant she was stuck with Liam and Niall. Malcolm and John were going to end up as the goalkeeper for the evening. It was pretty cold out as well. They were pretty much used to it though, so it was only Eliza that was pretty much wrapped up.
She had a gun in her gym bag though. She didn’t want some nutter going around and attacking them again.
For some reason, she felt like something was going to happen again.
And it did.
The ball had strayed away and Louis retrieved it with John. They came back with their hands up and the ball running ahead of them. There were two men in ski masks, each of them holding a gun to their heads.
One of them indicated for them to all get down.
“You’re going to talk now or what?” Eliza said, pretty much pissed off by now. She just wanted to unmask these people and finish her contract. She sat down near her gym bag on the ground. She sat directly in front of it as she put her hands behind her and felt for her bag.
There were three other bodyguards and none of them had guns. This was terrific. She was one girl against two armed men that had firearms pointed at the brains of two people, one of them being a person she was paid to keep safe.
Brilliant.
The gun was small enough that she could conceal it in her really big sleeves. She hid her hands and waited for the next move.
“Why don’t you shut up?” one of the guys in the ski masks finally said. Guy 1.
“There’s a slight limp there. Did something happen to you?” she said conversationally, getting back on her feet.
The gun suddenly pointed in her direction. “Stop moving or you might start having a limp too.”
“Or you want the other leg?” she said, getting the angle that she needed to aim.
She went for a shot, but they saw the movement already and shot at her. Some bullets missed her, but one grazed her side. They shot at John’s ankle and Guy 2 had Louis’ neck in a chokehold.
“You move one more step forward and I shoot his hand off,” he said, pointing the gun at Louis.
“Amy,” Louis whimpered pleadingly. He looked scared and on the verge of tears.
They were dragging him off already. Eliza couldn’t take the risk. They didn’t look too stingy when it came to bullets. They had already shot at John and her. She managed to get a bullet on Guy 2’s arm, but it didn’t seem to do much damage. She wasn’t invincible. She was just human.
“I’m so sorry Louis,” she said, putting her hand down. “I’ll get you back, I promise.”
Louis started sobbing very hard, but he stopped struggling. He seemed to understand his fate. He was going to get taken away, but she was going to try to get him back. He couldn’t do anything that wouldn’t eventually jeopardize the others.
They disappeared in the darkness. Eliza didn’t want to follow, in case they might shoot again. This time, they would probably make sure that it would hit her head.
“Louis!” the boys started screaming and running toward the direction where Louis last disappeared. “Louis! Louis!”
Eliza signaled for the bodyguards to keep the boys back. They went to restrain them, but the boys were thrashing wildly and screaming.
Eliza took off the first layer of clothing she had and wrapped it around her waist to apply pressure on her bullet wound. She went into automatic mode. There was no point in worrying now. Louis had the tracker on him. She didn’t want to follow yet, because they would know something was up. People like that would know if they were being tailed. All she could do now was to make sure that everyone on her team was going to be fine.
“John,” she said, helping him up. He put his arm around her and started leaning on her so that he could get to the van. “Call Paul. Give me your jacket.”
They got to the van and she sat him there. She wrapped the jacket and applied pressure on the wound that he had. “Tell Paul to have another car taken here so that we can head onto the hospital and the boys can take this van back to the hotel.”
“Thanks Amy,” John said, looking pale but otherwise looking fine. “I’ll… I’ll wait for you here.”
She walked over to where the boys kept struggling. It was getting more difficult to ignore the pain at her side. She knew that she wasn’t supposed to move, but she had to make sure that the boys were back to safety.
“Lads!” she said, standing directly in front of them. She was taking deep breaths. “Listen to me!”
They looked up at her and their eyes flitted over to the bleeding.
“Shit, we need to get you to the hospital,” Zayn said, trying to remove himself from Preston’s hold.
“No. You need to get back to the hotel,” she said calmly. “I’m going to get Louis back. Trust me. I will. Remember what I told you guys before. Do what I say, right?”
They nodded and stopped struggling. They just looked defeated and sad.
“Okay Amy,” Harry said. He and Niall had tears in their eyes. “We’ll do what you want.”
“Get back to the hotel with Preston, Malcolm and Chaz. I’ll have John and Bruce with me here so we can go to the hospital together. Bruce, I’ll have to keep you with me in case something else happens. I’m not in shape to protect both of us. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine,” Bruce said, going over to her and helping her up. She looked very much in pain and was using all her effort to stay standing.
“Can we do anything to help?” Niall said.
“We need to keep warm, since we’re…losing blood,” she said, glancing at her own.
The boys removed their own extra layers of clothing and handed it to her. She gladly took them and wrapped two around her. “Bruce, will you hand the others to John? His injury is worse than mine. Get him down the van and seated on the grass until the car arrives.”
“We can’t leave you, Amy,” Niall said, looking very worried.
“You can and you will, because it’ll do more harm if you’re out in the open,” she said, holding onto her side to keep the pressure there. She hoped that this was going to be a wound that would only need one week to close. She couldn’t afford to be in a hospital for a week. She needed to get Louis back. “Get back now. I’ll see you when I’m better.”
“We can’t—“
“What did I say?” she yelled in irritation. The boys looked surprised at her outburst. They backed away a little. The cold was getting to everyone. “Go back to the hotel.”
“Let’s go,” Liam said, patting the boys on their backs and heading to the van. “Stay safe, Aims.”
She started to walk with them. Preston was helping her up. When they got near the van, she took her seat near John. She had retrieved her gun on the way back. Preston had carried her gym bag for her.
Eliza watched the boys get into the car with the bodyguards that she assigned to them. She looked down and went to find her phone.
“Paul?” she said, when he answered. “Did you get John’s message?”
“Jesus, yeah,” he said, sounding concerned. “Are you okay? I’m on the way already, with Steven.”
“Fine, we just really need to get to the hospital already.”
“I heard about Louis. What are we going to do about that?”
Paul didn’t seem to question why she had a gun on her in the first place. She didn’t doubt that John didn’t censor any part of the story. He probably knew that she wasn’t some normal person from PR. Paul just seemed to accept things for what they were and be glad that she was on their side.
“I’ll handle that when I get better. I can’t go for him with an injury. Report it to the police. I have a way to track him down though. I don’t think they’ll kill him…not yet anyway. They’ll want to make a show of it, just how they’ve made a show of it for the past few months.”
She just didn’t know how long they wanted the show to last.