Disclaimer: See previous chapter.

A/N: OK everyone, here it is. The second tragedy of the story. Brace yourselves. Also, this chapter is shorter, seeing as how I'm pushing curfew to write it.

Chapter Nineteen: Too Little, Too Late

Amanda got out of the elevator and ran through the lobby crying. Suddenly, a hand grabbed her, pulling her to a stop. She turned to see who it was, expecting to see Justin. She was surprised to see it was Peter.

"What are you doing?" Amanda asked, tears streaming down her face.

"Trying to stop you from doing something stupid," Peter said, pulling her close to him. "I was worried you'd run off and do something to hurt yourself."

Amanda layed her head down on Peter's shoulder and cried. She knew that he was right, that if she had gotten back to the apartment, that she probably would've tried to hurt herself. She was glad he had caught her.

They were too busy holding each other to notice the man in the black outfit walk through the door, holding a gun. The man took deliberate aim and fired one shot. "Finished the job," he muttered. "Hope the boss is happy."

Amanda and Peter heard the shot. Amanda blanched visibly, then looked down at the side of her shirt. There was blood on it where the bullet had entered her body. Amanda looked Peter in the eye, then collapsed to the floor, bleeding. Peter yelled for the desk clerk to call an ambulance. When he was sure she had, he took out his cell phone and made a call of his own. When he had finished, he took Amanda in his arms and tried to comfort her and keep her awake long enough for the ambulance to arrive.

A few moments later, Woody answered his cell phone. What he heard nearly killed him. He listened to the speaker, then hung up his phone and strode towards the elevator. When the others asked what had happened, he told them the unthinkable:

Amanda had only made it as far as the lobby before she had been shot.

"Peter," Amanda whispered. She was awake enough to realize that she was lying on the ground, in a growing pool of her own blood, and that Peter was beside her, holding something on her side with one hand and her hand in his other.

"Don't try to talk, OK?" he said.

"What the hell happened?" she asked weakly. She heard a commotion nearby, and turned her head enough to see a man dressed in black on the ground, a police officer standing above him. "Was I shot?"

Peter nodded and said, "Yeah. There's an ambulance on its way, and your dad's coming downstairs."

Amanda's eyes went wide. "Is everyone coming with him?"

"I think they might, if he told them where he was going," Peter said. "Why?"

"I don't want my niece and nephews seeing their aunt this way," Amanda said, gasping with pain. "I want them to stay upstairs."

"I'm sure they won't let them see."

Amanda felt something soft against the side where she had been shot. "What are you using to catch the blood?" she asked.

"The top part of my uniform," Peter said with a small grin. "Don't worry, I had something on under it…"

"Right now, that's the least of my worries," Amanda said, chuckling slightly, then wincing with the pain. "Damn, this hurts."

"I'll bet it does," Peter said. "Just try to stay awake, OK? I need you to concentrate on staying awake." He squeezed Amanda's hand and looked into her eyes, now brimming with tears from the pain.

"I'm dying, aren't I?" she asked with fear in her voice. "I'm gonna die here in the lobby…."

"You're not gonna die, you hear me?" Peter told her, as scared as she was. "I'm not gonna let you die here Amanda." There was a sudden clatter, and Peter saw-out of the corner of his eye-Woody, Jordan, Justin, Nigel, and Devon emerge from the elevator.

Justin turned white when he exited the elevator. His younger sister-the sister he had just caused to run to the lobby-was now lying on the floor of the lobby in her boyfriend's arms, bleeding from a gunshot wound. His first instinct was to get sick on the spot, but his first instinct never kicked in. He ran to his sister's side and kneeled there.

"Hey," he said quietly. Amanda turned her head to face him and attempted a smile.

"Hey yourself," she whispered. "Sorry about what happened up there. Shouldn'tve bitched at you like that."

"I'm the one that should be sorry," Justin said. "It was my fault. I shouldn'tve said that about your mom. Look, the ambulance should be coming soon, just hold on, OK?"

"I'm trying," Amanda said. "Don't worry about me, OK?"

"I'll try not to," Justin said. "But that'll be after you're fine again." He made sure she was in good hands before walking to the nearest bathroom, where his first instinct finally kicked in.

Amanda gasped again. The pain was getting to be too much at times. She was trying not to show it, for Peter's sake, but it was getting to be too hard.

"It hurts," she whimpered, squeezing Peter's hand. "It really really hurts."

"It's gonna be OK, Amanda," Peter said, trying hard to stop the tears that had begun to flow a few minutes before. "Just hold on, OK? Keep holding on. If not for your father, or your family, for me, OK?" A sudden noise caused them to turn their heads.

"What was that?" Amanda asked. She felt herself growing weaker, and needed to know what the noise was.

"Sirens," Peter answered. "The ambulance is here. You're gonna make it, I promise."

Amanda nodded, then looked past Peter and towards her father, who was talking to some other cops on the scene. She was scared to leave them all. She had a feeling she was dying, but didn't want to believe it.

Amanda looked towards the doors and saw the EMTs entering and coming towards her. She turned her head to look at Peter and said, "I did my best. Must've been too little, too late."

She saw Peter lean down towards her and felt him kiss her before everything went black.