I Wish

Save Yourself

I am ready to scream. Whether out of fear or anger or frustration, I can't say, but I have had enough. All I needed was for Mac to trust me. Except he didn't, and now I am lying on the ground with a gun pointed at me. I am so furious at him, but I need to get out of this mess.

Miguel is glaring at the black sedan that was across the alley.

I desperately hope that they will leave, but it seems unlikely. Miguel cocks his gun when the car makes no move to leave. I roll away, scraping myself up a little bit in the process. Miguel is still staring down the car even as he fires which gives me a chance to move out of the way. When he doesn't hear my reaction to being shot, he turns to where I was laying.

By this time, I'm behind him. I wrap my arms around his neck to choke him, but he flails around trying to break away. I am thankful that he had dropped his gun, but that fades when he makes contact with my head. I wince a bit, but don't loosen my grip. Not long after that, he passes out.

I set him down on the ground and confiscated his gun before storming towards the car.

"What in the world were you thinking?" I thundered as Jack rolls down the window.

Jack flinches, but Mac defends him from the passenger seat, "It was my idea, Izzy. You know I just want you to be safe."

"I would have been safe!" I explode, "I had been doing perfectly fine, and everything was going according to plan. Then you showed up and I almost get shot? Yeah, Mac, real safe."

The sky opens up above us, and I am glad for the rain. It disguises the tears that I can't stop from falling.

Suddenly I feel searing pain in my leg before I hear an echoing boom. I might have thought that it was thunder, but I knew what it truly was as I fell to the ground, bleeding.

I try my best to keep myself from blacking out, but I'm in a lot of pain. I am vaguely aware of Jack returning fire and Mac calling an ambulance. It's getting harder for me to concentrate, though. I hear Mac calling my name. Even as everything starts to go fuzzy, I see Mac drop to the ground. I can't hear anything, and my vision is practically gone, but I force out a sentence: I wish we will make it out of this alive. I mean this physical situation, but I am also thinking of this mess that Mac and I have created.

"Come on, Princess. We need you for this, and you should know by now that Jack Dalton needs nothing and nobody," a voice drawls from beside me.

A second voice joins in, "That's a lie. You need me."

I almost jump out of my skin. The second voice is low and husky, and I can tell that he is exhausted and trying not to cry. I start to become aware of my surroundings even with my eyes closed: someone on my left holding my hand and someone on my right running their fingers through my hair. I squeeze my left hand to hear a girl gasp and squeeze back. I slowly blink myself awake, and the room seems to be holding its breath.

"Izzy, you're okay. It's alright," Riley tells me.

She lays her head beside me on the bed with a smile. I smile too as I scan the room. My eyes land on Mac who has his arm in a sling. My brain pieces everything together bit by bit. The pain. The bangs. Mac falling to the ground.

"He shot you too, huh?" I croak.

"Yeah, he did. I'm sorry for tailing you. I only wanted you to have someone watching your back."

I keep my breathing steady even as I try to bite back my tirade about how I could have handled it myself. Instead I wait until everyone leaves before lashing out.

"Mac, what were you thinking? I get that you don't trust me to be able to take care of myself just because I don't have the same training that the rest of you have, but I had everything under control. You watched the other missions from surrounding security cameras. Yes, I know what the plan was. I do actually work at the Phoenix Foundation, remember? I'm not helpless."

"Izzy, all I have ever wanted was to protect you. Since the day I met you I knew that I was always going to have your back, and I would never let anything bad happen to you. Especially after everything that you had gone through with your family situation. I made the choices that I did just to make the world safer for you. That was my purpose. That was how I got myself out of bed each and every day. You asked what I was thinking? I wasn't, not clearly anyway. I was jealous and I just wanted you to stay out of danger. I was thinking that I would never let anyone hurt you because I love you. Elizabeth Greyson I am in love with you!"

I freeze. Seven words tumble out of my mouth involuntarily and almost inaudibly, "I'm in love with you too, Mac."

His blue eyes widen enough for me to make out the different rings that circled his pupils, each a different shade of blue.

"Izzy," he breathes.

"Mac," I whisper back.

We sit there in silence just smiling at each other. We are both giddy from the joy of being alive.

Finally, I speak again, "Hey, Mac, why didn't you just save yourself?"

"Izzy I just told you how much I want you to be safe."

"Blue Eyes, I don't ever want you to put yourself in danger because of me. If I'm gone I want you to save yourself. Do you understand?"

He shakes his head slowly in disbelief.