Dying in Your Arms Tonight - Chapter Five

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I stumbled over my feet and went crashing back against a storage rack, arms flying. I hit the floor in a sitting position and my head slammed into a shelft. I hollared out in pain when I felt something rip up through my leg from the bottom up. I looked down and saw a thin piece of copper cord pipe sticking out of my left thigh a couple inches. I started painfully lifting my leg off it when the guy pressed down on my knee with his foot.

"Ah! Joey! Help!" I heard voices shouting outside coming from the main area, but I wasn't sure if they were coming from Joey or not.

I didn't have anymore time to react, the giant reached down and bent the top of the pipe over, preventing me from pulling it out of my leg. He reached above me and grabbed some rope. He tied it around my chest and made me scream out in pain when he tightened it directly over my bullet wound. He reached down and began uncoiling the pipe so I could stand up.

He made a loop on the other end of the rope and lifted me off the ground a foot so he could hang me from a hook. He pulled a small dusty lamp out of an open box and set it on a stack of empty crates before plugging it in. It didn't give off much light, but it was better than sitting..or hanging rather, in the dark.

He brushed his hands off on his pants and then came at me again. I remember being met in the stomach by his fist once before my world faded to black.

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"You guys, it's one in the morning, Joey said they'd be home by midnight," Rachel said, checking her watch as she refilled the bowl of popcorn. They had all decided to have a movie night at Monica's when they heard that Joey and Chandler were going out for the night.

"Relax, they probably hooked up," Phoebe said, giving a light laugh, but stopped when she saw the look that Monica was shooting her. "I didn't mean hooked up with girls, I meant..oh forget it, there's nothing else any respectable human being would hook up with."

"But come on, they never stay out this late. What's Chandler's cell number?" Rachel asked, getting up and grabbing the phone out of it's cradle.

"Rach, come on, they're fine," Ross said.

"What if they got hammered and need somebody to come get them? You know what those two are like when they drink."

Ross pulled a piece of paper with Chandler's number on it out of his wallet and handed it to Rachel, knowing that she wouldn't give up until she knew they were ok.

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Ringing. Where was it coming from? It painfully brought me out of my oblivion and back into the poorly lit storage room. The small lamp cast gloomy shadows all around the room and made reality seem like a dream. I wished I was dreaming.

More ringing. Where? My phone! It handin'g been damaged in the fight. I could barely reach down into my pocket without aggrivating the pipe that was still protruding from my thigh. I pulled it out with two fingers and looked at the ID. HOME. I hadn't changed it back to MONICA'S yet, it hadn't even occured to me until now, she hadn't called me at all.

I hit the TALK button and pressed the phone to my ear.

"Hello?" I asked weakly, grunting in pain.

"Chandler? Are you ok? You sound different."

"Oh my God, Rach, it's so good to hear your voice."

"Chandler, what's wrong?" She asked and I could hear the others in the background asking her questions.

"God, Rach, these guys..they got in a fight with this one guy..and they have guns..they shot me, they shot me, Rach!" I squeaked out and cried in pain as I dangled back and forth on the rope.

"Chandler, where are you?" She asked sternly.

"At that one club, I can't remember the name, but you can't come here, Rach, it's not safe! There's cops here, they aren't doing anything though. Joey's still out there. I don't want to die, I don't want to die, Rach!" I cried, painfully aware of the fact that I sounded like a child and was most likely delirious by now. So much stress, so much fear, so much pain, I was ready to snap.

"Chandler, you're breaking up, I can barely hear you."

I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at the battery icon. There were no bars. It didn't help that I was surrounded by bricks, stressing the signal far too much for it to hold out.

"Rachel!" I called frantically. No reply. "Rachel!" Nothing.

I threw the phone to the floor in anger and swore at the tiny shards of plastic and metal.

The pain from all my rushed movements of the past few minutes caught up with me and a wave of pain washed over me. My body temp rose even more as the paniced idea that I could die hit me.

I ran my hand over the bullet wound in my left shoulder, wincing when my finger diped in the whole a little bit. The pain was starting to spread across and settle into the left side of my chest.

My hand hit the rope and I looked down at it, searching for a way to get it off me. No such luck. The knot was in the back and there was no way I would be able to reach it.

My mind wandered to Joey. Was he still alive? Was he ok? Surely I would have heard any gun shots fired.

Monica. I missed her so much. I wondered what she was thinking now. Rachel had no doubt told her what I had said. Were they on their way here? I hoped they weren't. I didn't want them anywhere near here. They were safe at home, together.

I wished I wasn't alone, that I had somebody to talk to. I was so lonely in here. I was afraid of falling asleep. Afraid that if I did, I might not wake up again.

Exhaustion swept over me and I had nothing left to fight it off.

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"Chandler? Are you there?" Racheld asked into the phone, pulling it away from her ear and giving it a strange look.

"What? What happened? What did he say?" Phoebe asked.

"That was so weird. He said that there are guys there with guns. They took over the club and they shot him."

"You don't think that really happened, do you?" Monica asked, her frist words since the argument of calling him arose.

"No. He's probably drunk. You know what he gets like when he's drunk," Ross said, quickly turning his attention back to the movie.

"Ross, I know you're mad at him for what you think he did, but he's still your friend. I'm going down there, "Phoebe said, pushing herself off the floor and heading for the door.

"Hey, wait up!" Rachel said, getting up and following her.

Ross and Monica gave each other a look before reluctantly following behind.

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to be continued...

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God! I really suck at getting reviews up! Even when I promise too! I'm so sorry about that guys. But school is out next thursday and I've been really busy with finals and stuff. Then I went out with my friends last night when I was planning on typing the rest of this chapter up and getting it up on the site, so sorry! I'm not gonna make any more promises right now because I know I'll probably break them. Thank you so much for all of the reviews though! Also, I didn't have time to check this chapter for mistakes, so oops if there are any.

Thanks for reading, please review!