Summary: Alternate ending. Chaos ensues following an assassination attempt at the homecoming ball. Will everyone make it out alive or will everything change for Eva, Gideon and Cordonia?
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters or the dialogue. They are owned by Pixelberry. I’m just borrowing them 🙂 the only characters I own are the ones created by me 🙂
“Drake!” she shouted. The impact of the bullet sent Drake staggering back, crashing into her and sending them both down to the floor. He looked up at her as she cradled him in her arms, struggling to breathe as the blood soaked his shirt.
“You’re okay, Drake. You’re okay.” she said as tears streamed down her face.
The chaos carried on around them. She saw Bastien tackle the assassin that had shot Drake. Gideon was surrounded by his security forces. She saw him duck under a knife and then flip an assassin over his shoulder. She was on her own, at least for now and it was up to her to help Drake.
Looking back at him she fumbled with his jacket, trying to find where the bullet had hit as she desperately tried to stop the bleeding. Her hands were covered in Drake’s blood.
“Thompson…” Drake started to say. He reached up and cupped her cheek as he turned her head towards his. “I love you Thompson”. “Don’t you do that, don’t say your good-byes. Not yet, do you understand me? You’re going to be fine” she told him.
From across the ballroom she heard Gideon shout “Guards, get Duchess Eva out of here now!”
Bastien and another guard she knew as Antonio ran up to her and Drake. Bastien started to take Drake’s jacket and shirt off to locate where the bullet had hit and stop Drake bleeding out.
“Thompson, if I make it out of here, I want to marry you” Drake told her. “Don’t say that, Drake. You’ll be fine. I’d marry you right now if I could”. Drake chuckled, then winced, as he handed her a box. “Take this. It was my grandmother’s. I want you to have it even if the worst should happen. Now go, get yourself safe” he said. “Don’t be ridiculous Drake. I’m not leaving you. I love you. We’ll make it through this. We will make it down that aisle” she told him.
“Duchess Eva, you need to go with Antonio. You’re not safe here” Bastien said as he continued to apply pressure to Drake’s wound. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going anywhere Bastien. Drake took a bullet for me and I’m not leaving until I know he’s alright” she replied. “Go, Eva. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you as you refused to leave my side” Drake insisted. She shook her head. “I’m staying here, with you”.
Bastien cast a glance over her shoulder and gave a nod to Antonio who in one swift motion grabbed her arm and made his way across the ballroom with her. “No, let me go!” she demanded. “Antonio, let me go. I swear you better let me go now. I already said I wasn’t leaving” she continued. “With all due respect, Your Grace, Bastien is correct. It’s not safe for you here. Bastien will take care of Drake until the paramedics arrive” he replied. She kept trying to get free, to get back to Drake but Antonio just tightened his grip on her arm every time she tried. She gave up trying to get free and looked back at Drake, watching helplessly as Bastien worked on him. Drake turned his head to look at her as she was escorted towards the servants entrance, away from the danger in the ballroom. “I love you” she mouthed. “I love you. Always and forever” he mouthed back. Just before they reached the servants entrance, she saw Gideon being escorted out of the room by his security team. Arriving at a car, an armed guard assisted her into the backseat. Once she was safely secured the guard conferred with Antonio briefly. She didn’t want to leave the palace, knowing Drake was in there, also wondering what had happened to Hana, Maxwell and Bertrand but there was no way she could get out of the car and back into the palace before a guard stopped her.
“Your Grace, once you get to the safe house please go straight inside and stay there until someone comes to retrieve you to bring you back to the palace” Antonio says, breaking her out of her thoughts. She nodded, unable to say anything and before she knew it, the guard had jumped into the front seat, started the engine and drove away from the palace with explicit instructions to get her to one of the safe houses in Cordonia. Once they arrived, he exited the vehicle, leaving it running as he rushed to her side. Opening the door for her, he offered his hand to help her out. She sat in the car unable to move as the shock of the attack threatened to overwhelm her. “Your Grace?” she heard. Accepting his hand, she stepped out of the vehicle and he ushered her safely inside the small cabin, which was nestled in amongst a dense group of trees, before he drove off, back to the palace to offer additional assistance. The emergency lights came on as soon as she entered. She finds a light switch on the wall next to the main door and flips it. Nothing happens. “Huh, the generator must be broken” she thinks to herself. She wasn’t going to attempt to get the main lights to work as she had no idea how to fix them and it wasn’t safe for her to wander the woods to try and find the generator. She’d wait till morning when hopefully someone had an idea of what they were doing and where to locate the generator to try and turn the main power back on. After all, two heads were better than one, she thought to herself.
Looking around the safe house she saw a worn down sofa and two doors leading off to different rooms. Heading to the room at the back, she opened the door and took a brief look inside. Returning back to the living room, she sat down on the sofa and worried about the attack at the palace. She prayed her friends were alright but mostly she prayed that Drake would be alright. She had only just found him and didn’t want to lose him. She looked down at her hands and her dress and saw Drake’s blood staining them. Before she put the ring on he had given her, she headed into the kitchen to wash his blood from her hands. There was nothing she could do about her dress. Returning from the kitchen once her hands were clean she sat back down, placed Drake’s ring on her ring finger and settled in to wait for morning, hoping everyone she loves is alright.