Page 114 of Eyes in the Shadows

Eleanor

Minimizing the consequences

I scramble off the bed where I was sitting cross-legged in the middle while Mac tried to pace his hard-on away. I’m not 100% sure what the implications of what I just heard are, but I know that things have officially detoured from the plan we discussed. “So, Rossi isn’t going to the warehouse?” I ask.

“McCloskey was supposed to tell him where it was. Or the mayor. We didn’t figure he’d pull a power play—he seemed like such a yes-man to me. Mid-mission is never a good time for the reminder that people can surprise you.”

“Why did you need Rossi to go there?” I ask.

Mac grabs his keys off the dresser in front of the small TV. “It was just the fastest, cleanest way to understand Mayor Anderson’s involvement. It’s okay, there’s always another way. We’re still cleaning up this mess tonight.”

My hat and coat are the only items of clothing I’ve removed, so it’s not hard to be ready to leave. I start forcing my arms through the sleeves as I follow. “What do we do now?”

He moves towards the door. “We get you somewhere secure and I’m going to hopefully catch him at his safehouse—”

“I want to come with you.”

He turns his head to eye me, hand on the knob. “It’s better if we get you somewhere that you’ll be safe until it’s all over—”

“But time’s a factor, right? If Rossi leaves and you don’t know where he is, you lose him? I don’t want that to happen just because you felt like you had to keep me out of the action. I want to come. I’ll stay hidden, maybe in the back seat or something? Although maybe that will look suspicious… I’ll have to defer to you onthat—”

He cuts me off by reaching up and cupping my cheek. “Baby, it’s not that I don’t want you there, it’s that I don’t want you to have to see this—it’s not going to be like what you saw me do last time. It’s probably going to be gross.”

I cover his hand with mine. I appreciate his instinct to protect me, but I feel like I’ve come pretty far since that first terrifying night we met. It would also be nice to see it for myself, so when I invariably start having stress nightmares about Rossi, I’ll be able to console myself with the fact that I saw him die.

“I don’t know. I’m feeling kind of… extraordinary. I want to see how it ends.”

He grins at me. “All right. Let’s go.”

Mac leads me out the door after glancing up and down the hall to make sure it’s empty. We hurry towards the stairs, and I notice he’s got one hand tucked under the back of his jacket, likely positioned near a gun. It makes me feel immensely safer, all of the sudden, and it hits me that’s an unusual reaction for me around guns.

The stairwell is empty, so we descend the two flights and it puts us just around the corner from the main lobby. I realize my heart is racing from how hard I have to breathe to feel like I’m getting air. It’s like the two stories we just climbed were up, not down. But it’s probably a by-product of anxiety over how sneaky we must look, pressed against the wall as Mac peers into the lobby.

“There are cameras in the corners of the ceiling,” he says, pointing to some obelisk looking things above our heads. They don’t blend well, but I suppose they’re not really supposed to. “I don’t want them to have us on tape, leaving at the same time, just in case. I’ll head out the back door. After I go, wait a few seconds then go out the front. I’ll come around to pick you up. Got it?”

I nod solemnly.

From my position against the wall, I watch Mac stroll across the lobby, looking down at his phone and seeming like he hasn’t got a care in the world. I nearly sigh—I doubt I’ll manage to make it look quite that effortless, though I guess I could pretend to look at my phone too… As the door closes behind him and I start mentally counting to five, something flashes in the corner of my eye.

It’s Rossi.

My stomach drops.

I know from his face that he saw Mac. And he’s going after him… And from the way he’s reaching for his own back waistband, he’s got a gun, too.

Fuck! I freeze halfway between shooting forward and staggering back in shock. For a second, I’m paralyzed with fear for the man I love. I have to do something! Mac’s in danger, he didn’t see Rossi, doesn’t know he’s there…

Something Mac said earlier echoes in my head.

There’s no way to plan for everything. Sometimes you’ve gotta think on your feet and try to minimize the consequences.

And I know what I need to do.

I need to protect my Mac.

So, I walk forward into the lobby, right into a stand of pamphlets with local attractions. It topples to the floor loudly, sending papers flying. Rossi glances over his shoulder at the noise and does a double take as we lock eyes.

“Eleanor, what was that? What are you doing?”comes Mac’s frantic voice in my earpiece.

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