"Ivana!" Cha-Cha cried, rushing into the room and kneeling down in the small puddle of blood on the floor. Frantically checking for a pulse, she had to wait a few seconds before detecting a very light beat against her fringers. She hoped it was just her imaginataion, and scrambled to the phone to call 9-1-1.
"Hello?" The operator asked in the same serious tone shared by all telephone operators, police or no.
"My friend's been shot!" The young drag queen squeaked into the phone.
"Where are you?" The same operator asked.
"Edward Lane building... Avenue A, room 43, fourth floor." Cha-cha was doing an awful job of seeming calm."
"Thank yuo for calling. We'll send an ambulance right over." The line went dead.
"Oh, Ivana...who could've done this to you?" Cha-cha asked her unconcious friend, taking hold of her hand.
It was cold.
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AFter the ambulance had loaded up and driven away Ivana, Cha-cha was left in her friend's apartment to be questioned by one of the detectives who'd come to the scene.
"What was the name of your friend?" The officer, whose last name the blonde dancer had gathered was Fonatana, asked.
"Stop talking about her like she's already dead!" The still near-hysterical drag queen sniffled.
"Sorry. What is the name of your friend?"
"Ivana M- Wait." She racked her brain, trying to remember Ivana's given name. "Ivan Petrovski."
"What were you doing when you found her...uh...him?" Fontana obviously was none too comfortable in this situation.
"She'd left the club early." Cha-cha started. "She said she wasn't feeling too good. She was pretty pale, too. I was bored and...I wanted to talk to her." Cha-cha covered her face with the tissue she ws holding, crying again.
"Sorry." She said softly. "I'm just worried about her..."
"I...uh...understand." Fontana stated nervously.
"Yo, Fontana!" The other detective, Falco, held up a plastic baggie. "I think we got something here." Inside the baggie was a small amout of white powder.
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"Please...can't you just tell me what's going on?" Cha-cha begged the doctor.
"I told you already, miss! All I can tell you is that she's in a coma from bloos loss. I can't relese any more information for the next three days!" Said the nurse, who was getting annoyed.
"Cha-Cha, baby, maybe I should take you home. You need sleep." Rusty cooed, holding lightly onto her younger friend's forearm.
"No...sorry, Rusty. Thanks, but I really just want to be alone. Okay?"
Rusty looked skeptical.
"If you're sure." She said finally. "But when you get home, come see me if you need anything. I'm right upstairs." She gave Cha-Cha a comforting smile and a tight hug for comfort.
"Thanks, I will." She watched rusty leave and soon found herself wandering into Ivana's hospital room.
Rusty had always been like a mother for Cha-Cha. Amazing Grace, the loudmouth, uppity queen of the group, was more like a big sister than in any biological family. Ivana, though, was more than that. She was Cha-Cha's best friend and confidante above all, always patiently listening to her complaints with an occassional interjection of criticism or agreement. Without her, already, Cha-Cha was lost. Her feelings, sitting in that uncomfortable metal chair next to what was liable to become her best friend's deathbed, were those of dispair.
"Who's your friend?" Asked the person in the other hospital bed in the room. Cha-Cha jumped. She'd hardly noticed that there had been another bed in the room, much less that there was a person in it.
"What?" The drag queen turned around in her seat to face the guy behing her, not bothering to wipe the streaked makeup off her face.
"What happened?"
Cha-Cha hestitated.
"Ivana...she got shot. She's in a coma. I'm not sure she's gonna make it...just, when I found her last night, she barely had a pulse..." She bit her lip again as the tears started to flow again.
"Rough." The man said, his chocolate-brown eyes reflecting the sympathy he felt. "Do you need to talk about it?"
"Actually..." The young queen wiped her eyes on the short sleeve of her blouse, leaving a dark mascara stain. "I'd rather talk about anything else."
The guy laughed, and she couldn't help but laugh with him.
"I hear you." He smiled at her. Cha-cha turned her chair towards him so she wouldn't have to turn to speak to him.
"What about you? What happened to you?" The bleached blonde inquired.
"Shot in the line of duty." He said officially, making quotes in the air with his fingers, gently, so he wouldn't pull out the I.V. in his arm. "And they have me on so many painkillers right now that I can hardly feel myself from the shoulders down." He chuckled.
"In the line of duty? What do you do?" She asked.
"Homocide Detective." He shrugged. "Green...Detective Ed Green."
"LIke James Bond?" Cha-cha smiled.
"Yeah, kinda like that." Ed grinned. "Some murder suspect shot me about a week ago. One of those wifebeaters, you know." Cha-Cha nodded.
"Yeah, all too well." She shook her head. "I'm Cha-Cha."
When she held out her hand limply to him out of habit, he bent over and kissed it jokingly.
Cha-Cha knew this was the beginning of something.