It was a fight for his life.

Shay struggled as Donald kept tightening his grip around his throat while Jonathan tried to pull the knife out of his collarbone, and failing as the pain was too intense. Shay kept pounding into Donald's side, but the man would not release his deadly grip, and Shay found it hard to breathe as he struggled to break free.  His fingers traced along the floor, stumbling upon the broken shards of the tumbler that he'd smashed upon Donald's face, and once he found a long enough piece, he grabbed it tightly into his hand, digging into flesh as he drove it back swiftly towards where he thought Donald's face would be. The loud, deafening scream and the sudden slack grip was enough of a sign he made his mark, and he pushed himself away, wheezing as he struggled to breathe under a extremely depressed windpipe; if he wasn't going to bruise from it, he would have been shocked.

Wasting no time, Shay bull charged at Jonathan, and was rewarded with the burning pain of a bullet tearing through his shoulder, making his arm go immediately limp, but he still managed to shove the man aside as he made for the window. A follow upshot whistled by his ear, cracking the window in front of him into spiderweb-like cracks and Shay tossed himself into the window, landing in a pile of broken glass on the hard cobblestone sidewalk on his shot arm.

The bellow he let into the night was hellish.

Still, he knew he had to keep moving, and with his one good arm, forced himself to his feet and stumbled away from the restaurant as screams and shouts filled the air behind him. The chaos of the panicked crowds would buy him time, and the Adders wouldn't be able to hang around for long before the police arrived. He cursed the snow, which left foot impressions as he fled, along with the occasional drop of blood. Taking his chance, he slipped into a dark alleyway and found himself running out of steam. Half way down, he slipped, reaching out desperately to grab a trash bin that was in the way to stop himself. He felt his hand slip through, a jarring sensation as he was certain he was more than close enough to grab the rim and he found himself smashing his face off of the ground, and his vision was blocked by the trash bin, his elbow more than half way past the edge. 

In too much agony to do more than groan pitifully as his body tried to fight against passing out, his vision growing blurry, he heard running footsteps come up to the alleyway behind him.

"He must have gone this way! Come on, let's kill that Irish bastard and go!" he heard a man yell, he wasn't sure who. He closed his eyes, resigned. He would die here, he was certain of it. He could only hope that it was a quick bullet to the head. [I]God, Vera... I'm sorry. I tried. I fucking tried.[/I] he thought, his anguish bursting as he feared the worst and that she didn't get away. He never even stopped to turn to look back to see if she'd escaped, he just ran like a coward to save his own hide. What kind of man was he?

[I]A dead one.[/I] The words hit at once with a haunting finality. He'd felt this way in the war, but there was always a chance he'd get lucky and see a new day. Here, sprawled out in an alleyway bleeding out, there was no where to go, nowhere to...

"WHERE THE FUCK IS HE?" A voice boomed, distinctly Donald's. Shay turned over labourously to look up at the man, who couldn't have been more than five feet away. A large ragged chunk of flesh hung from his cheek, and he looked like he'd have no problem tearing a man limb from limb. Fear gripped his heart; Donald would not make it an easy death. He'd make him pay.

"There's blood and fucking flattened snow, and the trail just fucking ends! Where the fuck were you?" Donald exploded at Curtis, inches from his face. The man cowered against the wall. 

"I gave chase, I swear, I couldn't have been thirty paces behind him, boss-" Curtis blurted out, bewildered.

Donald's fist smashed into the brickwork beside Curtis' head, tearing the flesh on his knuckles. "You best find him or the girl, or you won't see the goddamn sunrise. Come on, let's go. I ain't in the mood to chat with the constabulary." Donald growled, stepping back through the alley, away from Shay. Moments later, he was alone.

The Irishman didn't have time to wonder how on Earth he wasn't spotted before his eyes grew too heavy to stay open and he slumped down, the snow floating gently down around him.