So this is wrapping to a close in, like, a chapter or two, which means I get to start my next one! Except my poll is now TIED between Good People, and The Revenge of Atticus Moon (with iKidnapped Big Time Rush in a close third)! The summaries of the stories are on my profile. My poll will close FRIDAY, so get your votes in! If it still ends up being tied by the end of the week, I'll just do eenie-meenie. :) Don't worry- I will write all of them, so even if your favorite isn't the one I write next, it will be written someday!

Also- thanks so much for bringing me to 100 reviews on this fic, you guys! It means SO MUCH to me! You're all amazingly epic people and I love you. ^_^ This chapter is DEDICATED TO YOU!

Enjoy!

...

Logan had no idea what was happening. All he knew was one moment, he was sitting on his hands, watching David point the gun at Rick and watching Rick point the gun at James. Like a scene from a really good action movie—except this wasn't a movie. This was real. James could die, Carlos could die, he could die—and that wasn't even the half of it. He was sure he'd need therapy for years after this was over.

If this was ever over.

And then the doors burst open, glass spraying everywhere as cops flooded in. Someone grabbed him and pulled him away from Carlos, away from Rick and Max and George and David and—what was his name? Aidan? Logan didn't even realize that he was kicking and screaming, the pain from the bruises fading as he saw his friends growing smaller and smaller. He looked up, recognized the police officer holding him and dragging him back, and didn't care.

"My friends are in there!" he yelled, struggling to get free. "You can't just take me away! They're in there!"

He suddenly understood how Kendall must have felt when he'd been tossed out.

"Logan!" someone cried. "Logan!"

Logan let himself go numb as he heard his name. Ms. Knight scrambled past the yellow barrier to get to him, pressing both hands to the sides of his face to turn him this way and that. "Are you okay?" she demanded. "God, what did they do to you?"

"I'm fine, Ms. Knight," he mumbled, pushing her hands away. As she moved back a paramedic stepped forward. His routine check was something Logan would have usually paid attention to. But as he started to lead him to the ambulance, doors waiting open, all Logan could do was stare at the bank.

The bank his friends were still in.

…

Carlos was pretty sure he'd never been more scared in his life.

Not when he got the news that his father had been involved in a hit and run eight years ago, and had to stay in the hospital for a week.

Not when he and the guys were kidnapped by Hawk and almost missed their concert, which would've effectively shut down their entire career.

Not when… actually, he couldn't think of another time he was anywhere near as scared then as he was now. Because not only was there a gun pressed to his head, other guns pointed at his face, and a crazy man holding him close to his chest—but James was in the exact same situation.

Carlos didn't see much when he was grabbed, but from the smell—horrible burnt cigarettes and something else he couldn't identify—he guessed it was Max. As Max tightened his grip around Carlos' throat he couldn't help but cheer silently as one of the police officers grabbed Logan and pulled him away. Now all they needed was to be rescued as well—although that outcome was looking slimmer and slimmer by the second.

"Drop the guns!" Max yelled in his ear. Carlos winced as the smell and the sound overwhelmed his senses. The guy was just a walking ad for lung cancer.

Carlos kept his eyes straight ahead, trying to see past the barricade of police officers to see Logan, or Becky, or anything to keep his mind off of the negotiating going on between Rick and David and the cop who seemed to be the most in charge at the front of the wall of officers.

"Listen to them, Rick," David said. Carlos noticed James starting to slump out of the corner of his eye.

Almost involuntarily he pulled forward. "James," he muttered as Max yanked him back again. Another tug forward—and this time, Max growled a really bad word in Carlos' ear as he pulled him back.

But the officers had seen what he was doing. Rick paused in whatever speech was about to give, looking down in surprise as James went completely limp, suddenly dead weight in his hands.

"James!"

Carlos didn't even care anymore. He braced himself, but instead of lunging forward he shoved backwards, knocking Max off of his feet and slamming him, back-first, into the tile floor with him on top. The bank erupted into noise and movement. Hands grabbed at Carlos, but he pulled away, eyes on James as his friend disappeared from his view.

He didn't think. His only thought was to get to James, find out if he was still alive. Carlos' heart pounded like a bass drum against his chest as he crashed to his knees, scrambling along the floor avoiding many feet and people as they rushed each other.

Finally, though, he reached James. His friend's eyes were closed, his head lolled to one side. Carlos dove over him and stayed there, protecting James with his body in case anything bad happened.

The noise stopped. Everything came to a standstill. Carlos lifted his head to see why it seemed like the world had paused, looking straight into the barrel of the gun pointed at his face. He froze, staring, first at the gun and then at Rick behind it. The man's curly red hair was messed up and his chilling blue eyes looked even wilder as he looked from Carlos to the cops and back to Carlos again.

Police officers froze, too, not daring to move. Some still had their guns out, while others were forcing handcuffs on Max, George, that other man, Aidan. Carlos barely saw that, though. He suddenly couldn't breathe as he stared at Rick, trying to gauge what he would do.

"You," Rick seethed, shoving the gun further into Carlos' face.

Carlos said nothing. He turned around fully, slowly, standing up to face Rick.

"Rick," the lead cop, Henry O'Connell, warned. "Don't do anything stupid."

Rick didn't seem to hear him. He had clearly jumped off the deep end. Scowling fiercely at Carlos, he said, "If it weren't for you, none of this would've happened."

"Rick. Rick, leave them alone. You want someone to be mad at? Be mad at me?"

The robber turned his head slightly to glare at Henry O'Connell. "You're taking my brother," he growled. "You're taking my team. You're taking my life. It's only fair that I take this kid's life, now, isn't it?"

"No—"

It was too late. Rick ignored everything else, raising the gun so it rested two feet from Carlos' chest. Carlos closed his eyes.

The gunshot made him jump, but mostly because it didn't hurt. And he was still standing. And nothing had hit him. Carlos opened his eyes again just in time to see Rick, blue eyes bugging, fall towards him.

He couldn't help it—he screamed and jumped back, almost landing on James, as Rick crashed to the floor. Behind him, David let his gun clatter to the floor, raising his hands as the cops swarmed him.

"Carlos? Carlos Garcia, are you okay?"

Carlos knew that Henry O'Connell was talking to him, trying to get him to stand and go out to the ambulance and get checked out, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from Rick's body. The blood was spreading along the tile floor, almost reaching his sneakers. Automatically he drew his foot back, and the movement broke the trance as he looked up into the big man's eyes.

He smiled kindly. "We should get you home."

"James," Carlos said, turning around to kneel next to his friend. He watched him for a few seconds, surveying his chest. His head shot up fearfully to look at O'Connell. "He's not breathing."

"Let me see." O'Connell pushed two fingers into James' neck. He waited a beat, and then stood abruptly.

"I need a medic!" he called in his booming voice. Kneeling back down, he looked at Carlos and said, "Carlos, I need you to—"

"No," Carlos said stubbornly. "I'm not leaving James."

"You need to—"

"No!"

The two held glares. Carlos only pulled away to watch the paramedics as they knelt by James' side and began to perform CPR. His eyes stayed locked on James' face with every chest compression, every count, until finally James began to cough. Only then, when the paramedics loaded James up on a stretcher to take him out of the building, did Carlos stand.

"Just walk forward, Carlos," O'Connell murmured in his ear. "Don't stop. I'll be right there with you."

At first Carlos didn't understand what he was talking about. And then he stepped outside into the high noon sunlight, and was immediately blinded by the cameras. A cacophony of noises assaulted his ears—he couldn't even pick out the words. He stopped short, blinking with wide eyes as he tried to clear his vision.

A hand fell on his shoulder and nudged him forward gently. Carlos remembered O'Connell's request—keep walking, don't stop. He walked, not even sure where he was going until he could see the ambulance doors, James being lifted and loaded up inside.

"Carlos!" he heard as he started to join his friend. He turned around because he recognized that voice, and spotted Becky waving her arms behind the yellow caution tape line, where an even bigger crowd collected. Her mother stood behind her with one hand on her shoulder, looking at him with tight lips. He wasn't sure why she never spoke.

Carlos waved. The doors closed, cutting her off from his view. And Carlos sat down on the bench and watched as the paramedics tied a bandage on James' injured arm.

The rest of the ride flew by in a blur. He barely remembered getting out of the ambulance, getting checked out by a doctor—he had a minor concussion, and was requested to rest for the next day or so to get over it.

But as he opened the doors to the waiting room, he realized just how long of a day it had been. How long had they been stuck in that place? Almost three hours? It felt like longer.

"Carlos," Ms. Knight sighed, standing as she saw him enter. Katie stood with her, and behind her was Becky with her mother.

Carlos hugged them tightly. "I'm fine," he said.

"He has a minor concussion," the doctor corrected, raising an eyebrow. "He should be fine, but try not to do anything too strenuous." He almost added, Like get into another hostage situation, but he figured this family had had enough.

"Becky," Carlos said, raising his eyebrows at her, "you came to see me?"

She jumped up and looked shy. "If that's okay…"

"Of course it is," he said, grinning as he gave her a hug. "Is this your mother?"

"Yeah." Becky turned around and used her hands to sign something to her mother, to which her mother replied—all without using speech.

Carlos was surprised. He should've figured it, though—the way Becky seemed more mature than the usual nine-year-old, how her mother never spoke—her mother was deaf, and Becky was hearing. That made sense.

Becky turned to him sheepishly. "She says she sorry for leaving you back there."

"It's alright," Carlos said, shaking his head. "You guys were let go. It all turned out in the end."

"Hey guys."

Carlos turned around to see James waving sheepishly as the doctor led him out. "You okay?" he asked, surveying the bandage on his arm.

James shrugged it off. "Nothing special. I told you it was just a graze. Doctor said I could go home today."

"Well, at least now you can say you officially got shot," Katie remarked.

"Katie," her mother scolded. She turned to the doctor. "How are Logan and Kendall?"

"Logan Mitchell and Kendall Knight?" The nurse flipped through the papers on her clipboard and said, "I don't have them on here. I'll go see what I can find out though, how about that?"

"That would be great, thank you."

Ms. Knight sighed as she leaned back in her chair. Carlos sat down next to her, and James next to him. Reaching over to put his hand on Ms. Knight's hand, Carlos said, "They'll be fine, Mama Knight, don't worry."

She smiled at him, but it didn't reach her eyes.

Eyes… eyes like Rick's. Carlos gave an involuntary shudder and drew his hand away from hers. He placed them in his lap so he could fiddle with them, staring down hard at the ground and trying not to remember how dead Rick looked when he fell in front of him.

He had the feeling he wouldn't be forgetting those eyes anytime soon.