Eye of the tiger

After Nick pulled out the gun and pointed it towards Paris, a quick-minded soldier shot Nick before he was able to pull the trigger. As the medical keepers lifted a wounded unconscious Nick up on another floating medical capsule, Zandra went hysterical.

''Nick! Nick!'' Zandra cried as she leaned over Nick's body. His eyes were closed and his skin pale as a ghost.

''Is he dead?! No! No!'' She cried as the keepers brought the capsule onto the same ship as Jack and she struggled to keep close to Nick. Oliver grabbed Zandra and pulled her back.

''No, I want to stay with him. He needs me!'' She cried hysterically and tried to fight her way back to Nick's side.

''Come on, you'll need to come with me.'' Oliver said, trying to calm her down.

''NICK!'' Zandra screamed as Oliver dragged her onto one of their ships. Paris let out a deep sigh and ran a hand through his hair. The young man that shot Nick walked over to him.

''I'm sorry General.'' He said and looked down into the ground. Paris looked at him and shook his head, placing a hand on top of his shoulders.

''You did the right thing. You saved my life, thank you.'' Paris said. The young man looked back at him.

''What about General Caudillo?'' He asked.

''She knows that you did what you're supposed to do. Don't worry about her, I'll take care of it. Well done.'' Paris said and patted his back before going over to Amazonia and Tulio.

''I'm going to the hospital, you can contact Chel and tell her that I'm fine? I'll give her the details later.'' Paris asked. Tulio nodded as he squeezed Amazonia closer to him. Paris planted a kiss onto Amazonia's head.

''He will never hurt you again, I promise you!'' He whispered to her. Tulio glared at his brother-in-law angrily.

''Yeah, because you been doing such a job on that before.'' He spat angrily. Paris and Tulio glared at each other for a few seconds in silence before Paris left.

''Let's get you home,'' Tulio said to his wife and planted a kiss onto her forehead.

Paris ran inside the hospital and up to the second floor where the waiting area was. He saw Zandra curled up whimpering in a chair with Oliver sitting next to her.

''Zan, are you okay?'' He ran over and kneeled down before her. Zandra looked at him with red puffy eyes.

''Leave me alone Paris.'' She whispered in exhaustion and sighed.

''He's going to make it, I know he is.'' Paris replied her and stroke her forearms.

''You don't care! You want to see him dead.'' She spat at him. Paris sighed. Alright, she had a point. Paris couldn't really care less if Nick lived or not, as long as he didn't walk around the streets as a free man and had suffered for the crimes he had committed.

Paris looked over at Oliver and nodded for him to follow him. The two of them walked away from Zandra slightly.

''What's going on?'' Paris asked. Oliver sighed.

''Nick is in surgery, we don't know how he's doing.'' He said.

''Jack is stable, they got the bleeding to stop and he should be fine. He's still unconscious though and no one is allowed to visit him at the moment.'' Oliver added. Paris sighed in relief and pulled his hair slightly.

Breanna had been laying onto the couch curled up in a ball for what felt like days, but is was only about an hour or two. Hope laid peacefully sleeping onto the blanket that was laying over her. Fiona sat by the kitchen table staring at her phone, waiting for it to ring. And eventually it did.

''Musa?'' Fiona said as she had thrown herself onto the phone. She gave a sigh of relief by the news that Amazonia and Tulio was alright.

''Nick was shot?'' She gasped.

''What? The hospital? What for?'' She asked as her voice dropped slightly, then the colour of her skin faded away.

''Okay, thanks for calling. I'll talk to you later.'' She ended the call and looked over at Breanna and sighed deeply. Breanna watched her, hoping to hear that Jack was fine. But from Fiona's facial expression, she figured he wasn't.

An hour later, Paris, Oliver and Zandra was still in the hospital. There was still no news about Nick, but Jack was allowed to have visitors soon even if himself was still unconscious.

Zandra sat whimpering quietly into her chair with Oliver sitting next to her stroking her shoulder softly.

''What's going on in there?'' Zandra sniffled.

''I don't know. I'm sure they are doing everything they can.'' Oliver replied her.

''Nick is a fighter, you know that.'' Paris said, but he barely got to finish his sentence before Zandra gasped and flew up from her seat.

''Oh my god!'' She cried as two nurses came pushing onto a bed with a Nick, still under the anaesthesia, with multiply tubs and needles connected to him.

''It's okay.'' Oliver wrapped his arm around Zandra.

''Nick.'' Zandra whimpered and reached out her hand to touch Nick's shoulder as he was being rolled past her into the recovery room. After seeing Nick like this, she couldn't seem to get another sound out of her mouth, she just stood there looking at him with her chin hanging to the floor.

Even Paris had to admit that it was difficult to see him in this state, he looked so weak and pitiful, never had he seen Nick like this before. It was hard to believe that this same man was keeping him and Amazonia prisoner a little over a few hour ago. After the nurses came a older man in a white rob.

''How is he?'' Paris asked the doctor.

''He's stable. He's fine under the circumstances. We'll have to wait until he wakes up.'' The man replied.

''What does that mean? Is he going to survive? What's all of the tubs and machines there for?'' Zandra rambled with thousands of questions swirling around in her head.

''He's been through a lot, his body needs help to recover. It's completely normal. We'll let you know the minute he wakes up, you should go home and get some rest.'' The doctor told her with a weak smile. Zandra looked like she was going to punch him.

''No, I'm staying here.'' She spat angrily.

''Me too, I need to see Jack.'' Paris added.

''General, you need to get some rest. Come on, let's take you back home to the ranch.'' Oliver said and looked down at Zandra.

''He's going to think that I abandoned him.'' Zandra started to whimper again.

''You need to rest, you're going to feel much better after a few hours of sleep.'' Oliver said again. Zandra looked up at him for a second before sighing.

''Okay, you'll contact me the minute he wakes up? I don't care if it's in the middle of the night.'' Zandra asked.

The doctor nodded with a smile before going inside Nick's recovery room and closed the door behind him. Zandra took a step towards it and placed her palms onto the door.

Paris stirred in his sleep and he woke up and found himself into one of the rooms at the hospital. He looked around and saw Jack, laying on a bed still unconscious.

Paris yawned and rubbed his eyes and sat up straight into his chair. He sat there in silence, looking at Jack for another twenty minutes until Jack started to moan in his sleep and opened his eyes slowly.

''Hey, you're in the hospital. How are you feeling? Are you in pain?'' Paris asked. Jack moan and nodded his head, still slightly disorientated.

''Do you remember what happened?'' Paris said. Jack looked at him and thought for a second.

''Nick.'' Jack said and tried to sit up, but Paris pushed him back down.

''Nick was shot, he had surgery. He's in recovering now.'' Paris told him. Jack groaned in pain again, but he couldn't quite put his finger on where it was hurting, all he knew was that it hurt like hell!

''Did someone else get hurt? What happened?'' He mumbled. Paris could feel that lump in his stomach growing bigger and soon he thought it was going to burst.

''Jack, there is something I need to tell you.'' He said sadly and looked down onto his feet. Jack turned around to look at him, and something told him that he was not going to like this.

''Something happened in that shed, something that is going to be hard for you to hear.'' Paris began.

''Amazonia! If that son of a bitch did anything to her I swear I'm going to...'' Jack hissed angrily, but he was interrupted by Paris again.

''She's fine! Well, not fine but she's unharmed.'' He said and Jack calmed down slightly. Then the fear that something had happened to Breanna entered his mind, but Paris still didn't know anything about him and her so it couldn't be that. Could it?

''Nick... Nick was about to swing his sword at me... and then you...'' Paris said, but had to stop and catch his breath. How could you even give someone these kind of news?

''You leaped in front of me... and the sword... it hit you.'' He finished. Jack sat there and didn't make any sense of what Paris was trying to tell him. Paris took a deep breath.

''He cut off your hand.'' He blurted out. Jack laughed at first, but then he soon realized that it wasn't a joke. He could finally locate the pain and he was about to pull out his arm from under the cover, but Paris stopped him.

''Don't look at it, not yet!'' He said.

''I want to see it! Paris, I need to see it.'' Jack said, on the verge of tears. Paris looked at the face of his best friend for a second, before letting Jack reveal his arm that missed his hand. You couldn't really see it because of all the bandages, but there was no doubt that there was no longer a hand on the end of that arm.

Then Jack lost it. The tears couldn't be stopped and he screamed the loudest his lungs could. How was he ever going to fight again? Hold a sword? Gun? Ride his horse? Hold both of Breanna's hands in his? Paris did the only thing he could think of, embraced him and cried with him. It should have been him who took that cutting.

The hospital had contacted Zandra that Nick had woken up and that he was lucky to be alive, but that he was going to be perfectly fine.

She had hurried the fast as she could to the hospital and was about to rush in into the room that he was recovering in, but when she reached the door she suddenly braced herself. She got a feeling that he wouldn't be so happy to see her. But she soon plucked up the courage and peaked inside the room.

Looking slightly better than he had the last time she had seen him, Nick laid inside his bed with his face towards the windows. His blonde golden hair were lit up by the sun and his grey eyes opened to see who his visitor was.

''What are you doing here?'' He said in a harsh tone. Zandra walked closer to the bed and placed a hand onto Nick's blanked covered legs.

''We need to talk.'' She replied him.

Nick didn't bother to answer her, instead he turned his head away from her.

''I want to understand.'' She added, making Nick turn back to look at her as he frowned his eyebrows.

''Understand what?'' He asked.

''Why you did what you have done, there has to be an explanation.'' She said and sat down onto the chair next to the bed.

''I know that you're not a bad person.'' Zandra knew that he was a gentle person, and she knew that something was bothering him, something that might have been a traumatic experience.

''I'm a bad person.'' He said with gritted teeth.

''No, you're not.'' Zandra placed her small palms on top of his larger ones. Nick just starred back at her.

''I'm your sister. I'm going to stand by your side, even if nobody else is.'' She said as she took a hold of his hand and squeezed it lightly. A smile grew across Nick's lips. A real smile, not one of his usual smirks. He smiled as he squeezed Zandra's hand back.

A few hours later after he had made sure that Amazonia was fine, well as fine as she could be during the todays events, Tulio snuck out of that palace and made his way to the hospital.

''Nick Roberts.'' He said as he had walked over the waiting-room desk.''

''I'm sorry, but Mr Roberts is not allowed to receive any visitors.'' The receptionist told him while still looking at her paper work. Tulio cleared his throat to get her attention and he did.

''You highness?'' She said nervously.

''Nick Roberts.'' Tulio said again and this time he manged to get the room number. Room 666, He didn't know if he was going to laugh of cry,

When he finally reached the room, he walked inside without knocking and slammed the door behind him. Nick laid onto the bed asleep but he woke up when the door slammed.

''How you can sleep peacefully is a mystery to me.'' Tulio said coldly. Nick pushed himself up slightly so that he sat more straight.

''I thought that you would stop by sooner or later.'' Nick said, with no sarcasm or anything. Just... friendly.

''I'm here to collect. I rather you owe me that after everything you have done to me and the woman I love.'' Tulio said in spite. Nick nodded in agreement.

''I guess you're right, after all it's not you or Amazonia I'm after. Not anyone in your family really, It's that parasite that just married your sister.'' Nick said in disgust.

''I had to lie to keep Paris away from Chel, and I would do it again. Because even if I hate your guts, at least your not blind when it comes to him.'' Tulio said and walked over to the side of Nick's bed.

''You think that I'm the bad guy? But I would never do what he did!'' Nick hissed angrily.

''What did he do that was so horrible? Why do you hate him so much?'' Tulio asked and leaned over the bed slightly. Nick's grey eyes burned with rage and hatred, Tulio could see it.

''All you need to know is that you have to keep a close eyes of that sister of yours. She doesn't know it, but she married the devil.'' Nick said. Tulio frowned his eyebrows.

''What happened?'' Tulio asked again, dying to find out. This seemed to be even bigger than he first thought. What could possibly be worse than everything that Nick had done? Nick was about to say something but they were interrupted when the doctor entered the room and Tulio was forced to leave, despite his attempts to stay.

Amazonia seemed to have calmed down slightly and there was no sign of her getting off track again as she did a couple of weeks ago since the meeting with her mother. Which was great, a situation like this could have easily trigged something.

She sat together with Riven and Musa into the kitchen drinking a cup of tea. They tried to talk about anything else than Nick, everything they could think about, the new baby, upcoming celebrations, Riven and Musa's anniversary as a married couple. But they were soon interrupted when a guard opened the door to let someone in. Zandra.

''I'm sorry to interrupt.'' She said and gently rubbed her palms against each other nervously. Amazonia, Riven and Musa looked over at Zandra.

''I need to talk to Amazonia. Alone.'' She added. Riven and Musa turned their heads to look at Amazonia who stood frowning her eyebrows, but soon nodded her head.

Oooooh, so it was Nick that got shot? What will happen to him now?

What is it that Zandra wants to talk to Amazonia about? Will Tulio be able to find out what really happened all those years about between Nick and Paris.

Next, Fiona runs into a someone, again. Zandra tries to bargain for Nick's life, a familiar face might return to Eldorado. Who?