Danger Zone

By Divamercury

Sorry I've been gone so long, but life's been evil. I just now got a chance to post this, although it's been taking up space on my laptop for a while. Hope you like it, because it took me a long time to fix this up the way I wanted it. Please read and review!

Chapter 17

I curled up into a little ball, pulling my knees to my chest and resting my head on them. My heart was pounding and I found myself trying not to cry from both relief and fear. I would have given anything to have Ian sitting next to me at that moment. He always gave me strength. But when I needed him he was God-knows-where, possibly dead or wounded. I tried not to think about that. The look on his face in my dreamThat was always what he looked like when he was protecting me. I saw a version of it in the exercise room of his refugewhen? Today? It couldn't still be today. Too much time had passedI felt years older when only hours had gone by.

"Pez?" Mac asked gently.

I realized that I hadn't yet spokenI had just lapsed off into La-La-Land.

"I'm all right. I just had a bone-chilling nightmare but otherwise I'm just fine."

Mac looked at me dubiously and said, "Well, anyway, Willie went out and got us some food, so if you're hungry, it's about 6:00. Thought you might want something."

I smiled weakly. "Thanks. Sorry about the space-out back there. That dream really messed me up. What scared me was" I trailed off. "What scared me was the fact that it could actually happen , and that's the last thing I want."

"I had a vision a little while ago. It was almost like a dream but I know it was real. Do you know some woman named Raven Cole?"

"Yeah, I know her. Why?" I asked warily. I wasn't really looking forward to finding out where this was going.

"She showed up in my vision and she was lecturing me. I don't think she likes me, and I don't particularly like her. She had this awful attitude and was treating me like I was a child. This Raven was throwing accusations around like they were boomerangs and was acting like she's the only one who wants to help you out."

"Well, she's a powerful ally, but I thought she was in a coma."

"She said she had been until recently. We were meeting in her old hospital room, but she was already out of there and was up and about. She said she was coming to see you tomorrow."

"Why? I'm not her best friend or anything."

"She said that she was coming to help you."

I blinked several times in rapid succession. Major déjà vu washed over me.

–flashback–

* "I'm here to help you, Sara." *

–flash forward–

"Okaywell, that's nice. Any hints as to what she's going to do?"

Mac shrugged. "She was just lecturing me and she mentioned saving Ian."

"What, she wants you to save him? I have every intention of doing that myself."

"Raven wants to help you do that, but I can't let you go, Pez. You might get killed."

I snorted with derision. "And what about Ian? If you think I'm just going to leave him there when I can do something to help him, Mac, then you're greatly mistaken."

"Pez, I have to take your safety into consideration and this just won't work. You need to stay here."

I had finally had enough.

"Mac, you're a wonderful friend and I appreciate what you're trying to do for me. Really, I do. But I put my life on the line every single day, and I'm okay with that. It's just slightly ridiculous to think that I'll go out of my way to stay out of trouble when I've never bothered to before. I'm sick and tired of running away; that's all I've been doing for as far back as I can remember for the pastI don't know how long. I've been running and running and I have yet to go anywhere," I said, curling back up into my ball.

Mac didn't reply. I doubt that anything could really have followed that little soliloquy.

"I wish that everyone would stop trying to protect me because of this stupid thing!" I said after a few moments of silence, angrily brandishing the Witchblade. "You, Will, Gabe, and hell, even Ian, are acting like mother hens and I'm scared to death that Ian's going to get killed because of me, either by the Bulls or someone else after it. He seems too damn willing to jump in front of a bullet for me, and all because of this stupid bracelet."

"I'm sorry about being so overprotective, Pez, it's just thaton several occasions throughout time, I have been the reason that you were condemned to something terrible, once or twice death, because I didn't understand the signs. I just don't want that to happen again."

"It won't. Trust me. I can take care of myself and I'm pretty sure everything will be fine. But I am going to save Ian and that's that. Now, come on. My mind's made up and you can't change it, so let's go get some food. I'm starved."

* * *

The hours that I was stuck in the warehouse crawled by. The muscles in my arms and legs were beginning to ache from being chained up for so long. The constant taunting from Dante that implied that Sara had no desire to come "rescue" me, and the mindless chatter of the cops guarding me was grating on my nerves. Apparently it was raining outside and the droplets of water were drumming on the roof of the warehouse in a maddeningly loud fashion. The situation was enough to drive anyone crazy.

Sara should be here soon; I just hope she'll be relatively careful. I didn't go to so much trouble to get myself captured so she could find those tormenting her to set it up for her to get herself killed in the process.'

It wouldn't be difficult to get out of the White Bulls' little warehouse. I could get out of the chains and take one of the cops by surprise without much trouble, securing a weapon, and then escape would be simple. But that wasn't why I was there.

I knew that somewhere amidst all of that technology that the Associates had at their disposal was a device capable of tracking phone calls. Dante was relatively dangerous, I'd admit, but a genius he was not; only a fool would have placed a call like that. I knew that Sara was just waiting for the rest of her information to fall into place and there would be nothing in existence that would be able to stop her once she was on a roll. The Witchblade would be in place on her forearm, ready to do some damage, and that "ten feet tall and bulletproof" attitude she had would show though the gleam in her eyes when she burst through that door. Then I would actually make an effort to get out of my chair and it would only be a matter of time before the White Bulls went down.