'Blood splatter, all over her shirt… arterial spray meaning that she couldn't have been more than two feet away…' Amanda wrote down on a notepad as she tried to put herself at the crime scene in a visual sense… before feeling the notepad being set aside along with the pen and her shoulders being rubbed. "That not gonna distract me for long…" She said, knowing it was Finn.
"You're gonna drive yourself crazy." Finn whispered.
"She was standing close, she had to have seen something besides the bullets." Amanda said, letting out a small grimace because of the tension in her right shoulder.
"Maybe so… but if you're all tense up and then exhausted, you can't go after it, can you?" Finn responded, lightly massaging her shoulders to release the tension a bit.
"You're right about that… damn, I feel like I did after crashing into the announcer's table at the 2014 Royal Rumble." Amanda replied quietly.
Downstairs, Bayley had just walked in when a gun was aimed at her and she screamed and her hands shot up, Ty lowering the weapon.
"Sorry." Both said simultaneously before hearing footsteps and looking at the staircase, seeing Finn and Amanda.
"Hey… wild so far?" Ty asked.
"No… and how the hell did you pick the lock?" Amanda asked, seeing that it was her Beretta 71 in Ty's hands.
"Stole this." Ty answered, revealing one of the lockpicks that Seth kept with him.
Amanda headed upstairs when she heard her phone ring, answering it.
"Hey…" Amanda said, knowing it was Seth and that the shooting was on the news which is how he found out.
"Hey… I'm sorry about Liara." Seth responded after a few seconds.
"No one's found out much yet. It just… it doesn't feel real, it hasn't fully hit yet." Amanda said, unaware that Finn had walked into the room… but when he glanced out the window, he dove over the bed and threw her to the floor, shielding her as bullets slammed into the wall.
"Mandy?!" Seth shouted through the phone.
When the gunfire stopped, Amanda grabbed the phone.
"We're okay…" Amanda manages to say as she and Finn sat up and she instinctively checked him over for wounds and found none.
Outside, Ty had aimed the gun just as the car took off and then ran back in and helped Bayley up to her feet.
"Damn it!" Bayley cursed, bolting upstairs and busting the door open as Ty followed her.
"Are they gone?" Amanda asked as she and Finn stood up.
"They've left skid marks in the road with how they peeled off." Ty answered.
"Fucking stay where you are, one of you call 911!" Seth said once he was on speakerphone, Bayley doing so.
When Dean and Roman had reached the apartment, they saw squad cars outside and looked at each other.
"You don't think that…" Roman started to ask, both feeling that sense of dread as they couldn't see Amanda… until Amanda, dressed in yoga pants and a hoodie, ran out to them, her and Dean hugging tightly.
"What happened, kiddo?" Dean asked after they let go.
"One minute, I was on the phone with Seth… the next, Finn and I were on the floor dodging the gunfire." Amanda answered shakily, Roman turning angry and Dean keeping his hands on Amanda's shoulders.
Another car pulled up and this time, Wayne, Val, JJ and Gin got out and ran over.
"When we get our hands on this cowardly fuck…" Wayne growled, Val nudging him.
"You're not the only ones who want him to pay!" Amanda said through gritted teeth, reaching over and relocating her right shoulder which made the others jump before she walked back in, her and Finn hugging and her tensing up slightly as he placed his hand on her shoulder and felt the unusual warmth of it where the socket was and looked at her. "Ain't no use in telling you I reset it myself, is there?" She asked.
"Not one bit." Finn answered, taking Amanda outside and to the Altima.
A while later…
Seth reached the ER, finding Val.
"Room up the hall… the impact of hitting the floor snapped her shoulder out of its socket." Val said.
"Anything broken, any muscles torn?!" Seth asked.
"Just dislocated it… she's gonna be sore for a few days." Val answered.
"Val… how long do you think these guys have been watching?" Seth asked after they sat down.
"A while… we're starting to think it's someone we did wrong, back in the day, when we'd not long started out. Someone who wasn't too bothered back then, but now that we're getting bigger, wants to make a lesson known." Val replied.
"Damn it!" Seth growled, slamming his fist against the nearby table and Val resting a hand on his back to calm him.
In the room, Amanda looked down at the sling her right arm was in before she felt Finn's right hand rest on her left arm.
"This beats a bullet… you saved my life back there, Finn." Amanda said quietly as she squeezed his hand, Finn looking at her. "Did you see who it was?" She asked.
"No, but I saw something either worse or better… there were two in the car, possibly another in the back." Finn said.
"Whoever they are… they've been watching long enough to know what we look like, our routines… hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they followed up out of the state and we didn't even realise it." Amanda responded as Ty walked in.
"We moved in not too long before your kidney injury… they could've been watching since that night…" Ty starts to explain.
11/7/14, Florida Hospital…
Ty and Liara looked up, both turning horrified when they saw a frighteningly pale Amanda being wheeled in on a stretcher and running over as the doctors had no choice but to keep Finn out of the room.
"I don't care, I need to be with-" Finn yelled.
"It'll do you justice later." Liara said, Finn not even having time to look at her properly before she'd climbed halfway up the wall, launched herself off of it and grabbed Finn's head, pulling him down to the floor where his head knocked it and rendered him out cold. "That… I hope I never do again." She said as she got up to her feet, rubbing her elbows where they'd scraped along the ground upon landing.
"What if they need him to give blood to her?!" Ty asked, pulling Finn up and shaking him awake. "What happened?! Konnor pushed her against the steel steps, was it too much force?!" He asked.
"She was okay when we got to the backstage area… and then she started feeling dizzy. She couldn't even stand…" Finn managed to say as the doctors were working on Amanda.
Liara looked down the hallway and back at the two.
"There's someone watching us…" Liara whispered, the guys noticing.
The doctors eventually let Finn into the room and a barely awake Amanda wrapped her small right hand around his larger left one.
"What's wrong? Is someone out there?" Amanda asked, Finn deciding to distract her.
"Just rest…" Finn whispered, lightly stroking her hair.
"They're gonna have to… cut me open, aren't they?" Amanda asked as tears ran down her face.
"Yeah… it's the left kidney." Finn responded, carefully hugging her so as to not move her too much.
"I nearly died once before… hell's gonna have to drag me kicking and screaming, Finn." Amanda whispered as they let go.
Time had passed before she was out of surgery, the left kidney stitched up and the blood being transfused into her but she was still out cold as Liara and Ty walked in.
"Are they gone?" Finn asked without looking away from Amanda.
"Bolted from the ER… how's she holding up? They tell you the extent of the damage?" Ty questioned.
Before either could say anything else, Amanda's sleepy hazel eyes opened and she looked around, trying to piece it all together in her groggy state… as she looked up into the hallway, she saw the others guarding the room.
"What happened, was someone..." Amanda started to ask, trailing off as trying to sit up wasn't easy and she cringed from the spasms of pain shooting through her lower back.
"You've just had your left kidney surgically repaired, settle down." Ty said as Finn lightly ran his fingers through Amanda's hair.
"Where the hell are Konnor and Viktor?" Liara asked quietly before seeing the two members of The Ascension and running to them.
"We're so sorry, it was an accident-" Konnor started to say, Liara trying to calm him.
"She's okay, they didn't have to remove it… when the hell did you…" Liara said, trailing off when she saw the black eye that Konnor had.
"John punched me." Konnor answered, leaving it at that…
Present time…
"Someone we wronged a long time ago… some things aren't easy to let go." Ty said after a few minutes.
"And they took her life over it and nearly took ours…" Amanda replied as she sat up a bit.
"We'll have to be careful which places we hide at… can you think of anywhere?" Ty questioned.
"My childhood home… but I don't want to put my parents in danger." Amanda answered as John ran in and the two hugged, Amanda only using her left arm.
"No, I know where… Val's childhood home has sat abandoned since her family left." Ty said after a few moments, as John and Amanda let go.
"It's just outside the city limits, right?" John asked.
"Little bit further into the countryside, but close enough… and far enough that no one else would be at risk if there ended up being another shooting." Ty answered.
"Out of the area…" Amanda said quietly.
After grabbing what they needed, everyone reached the house… and Val looked up, seeing Karl and Luke before looking at Finn.
"I called them from the phone in the ER." Finn admitted.
"And I'm glad he did." Karl said, loading a shotgun.
"Where in the hell did you find Wi-Fi routers in this area?" Ty asked.
"Just outside the area, actually… and…" Luke said, Val noticing that the furniture had been cleaned up and dusted off.
"Almost like I never left…" Val said quietly, looking around the living room.
"Home ain't always left behind." Karl replied, Val turning the Tv on and settling on one of the news stations.