Objective: Escape the hospital

"Wow, shocker," she growled, her eyes narrowing further as she swayed a little, and Mac reached out, slowly, and put a gentle finger under her chin. Her eyebrows bunched and then she swallowed convulsively, but she let him very gently tilt up her head, mindful of her throat, and get a better look at her eyes.

They weren't just dark with emotion. Her pupils were blown.

"I think you might have a concussion, Riles."

She rolled her eyes and then stumbled a little into him. The moment it registered she flinched away from him, and Mac released her chin but kept a firm hand on her arm as she tried to get her equilibrium back.

"...think'y'mighd be right," she muttered, and finally stopped holding herself to put a steadying hand on the wall. "Nod'like iss'gonna go 'way in five min'its, we godda go." Pulling her right arm away from him, she made her mostly steady way to the door, glancing both ways through the glass. She apparently saw nothing, because she turned the doorknob and then looked back at him. "Y'comin'?"

He opened his mouth, to offer her more time to recover, to just take a second, and maybe she saw it on his face, because she glanced down at the patients in the room, her expression impossible to decipher, and then she pulled open the door.

No additional 'monsters' were triggered, but the soundtrack clicked back on in his ear, low and ominous, and Mac was right on her heels as they stepped back into the hallway. Mac had ignored the other doors on his sprint through, knowing exactly where his objective was, and they looked surprisingly innocent. There were no dead bodies in this hallway, very little blood. Just the props that the patients had trashed trying to get into Riley's room.

Riley glanced around, then over at him. "Well?" she asked simply.

Right. Which way.

Mac pulled up the map on the phone, and Riley shuffled over as he zoomed into the East Wing. "We're here," and he indicated the correct hallway. "I came in from this hallway—" and of course the map didn't show the secret doorway. "There's a barricade there but it's got a hole burned through it we could probably crawl through." If he could find something to protect them from getting cut on the metal when they did it. "There's also—"

He stared at the map another second, then looked up, aligning himself with the direction. Once he had, he limped over to the door and peered through. Though it looked like every other exam room door in the hall, it was some kind of bridging room to the hallway next door, and clearly the path that Murdoc intended. Just in case it really was an option, Mac continued, back towards the way he'd originally come, and sure enough, as soon as he started rummaging for the key to the door, Murdoc buzzered him.

Oddly, the Pass button was still solid and available.

"Riley, do you have anything on you besides that uniform?"

The arm that was crossed over her chest again moved as she patted down the dress, then she shook her head once, wincing as it pulled at the clotting blood on her neck.

God, she looked like a zombie herself. Pale, dressed in a bloody and torn nurse's uniform, hair unkempt, limbs and forehead bruised, and from here her throat looked like it had been completely slit—

But it's not. She's alive. She's walking and talking and alive, and you have to keep her that way.

Whatever a Pass cost them now, it would undoubtedly be bad. Lock a door, start a fire—the possibilities were nearly endless. Mac walked back to the 'correct' door and Riley met him there, surprising him by taking his left wrist and turning his arm so she too could see the phone.

"Riley...I don't think you're allowed to—"

"Whud'iz'thad?"

Mac glanced, and he realized he hadn't yet tapped Cancel, so the crafting icon was still flashing a red X, and the Pass/Cancel menu was still up. He swallowed a sigh.

"Nothing. It's a—a way to get around the rules, and let me improvise, but it's not worth it." He tapped Cancel before she could touch anything, and the last thing he'd been viewing—the map—popped back up. Riley scowled at the device.

"How sure're you—"

"I'm sure," he cut her off, before Murdoc could. "He'd never let you use the phone to hack the system. If you try, we'll...regret it," he finished lamely, and Riley's eyes cut to his face.

All the fear was gone, replaced with determination and what looked like murderous levels of rage. "Mac—there are no rules."

"Riles—"

"I could 'ave us oudda 'ere 'n th'rdy sec'nds withat—"

"No." Mac heard the harshness in his own voice, and he grit his teeth and forced it to soften when he spoke again. "Riley, I'm sorry; I'm not going to give him an excuse."

"He can't hurt me 'nymore, Mac—"

"No, he can't electrocute you anymore," the blond agent argued. "He can still hurt us both. Look, it's almost over—it's gotta be. We just gotta keep playing along for a little while longer."

Riley looked like she wanted to argue, but Mac simply didn't let her. Instead, he threw open the door to the cut-through treatment room, standing back in the hallway a bit, but no traps were triggered, so he turned to look at her.

"Y'comin'?"

The field analyst gave him an acidic look for repeating her own question back at her, but she followed him anyway.

The treatment room, much like the hall, didn't look sinister at all. No bodies, no blood, not even a lot of destruction. But neither agent felt like they wanted to stick around, so they made a beeline for the next door. The window in this one was blacked out—Murdoc clearly wasn't through with them yet—so Mac made sure Riley stayed behind him, and then he pulled the door open a crack and peered out.

The door opened almost directly into a corner, so he couldn't see what lay beyond. Frowning, the blond man signaled to Riley to stay close behind him and stay quiet, and when she nodded, he eased the door open all the way and stepped out into the hall. After a couple feet, they turned ninety degrees to the left, and then Mac saw their next obstacle.

For about twenty feet in front of them, the whole floor was covered in broken glass vials—and pools of whatever substance they'd contained.

Mac felt his shoulders slump a tiny bit as Riley squeaked out a "whoa" around bruised vocal cords. Experimentally, without even looking back at Riley, he put some weight on his left leg and immediately shifted back, taking a deep breath to smother any noises of pain. He wasn't sure how long either leg was going to hold out—the left one was swollen in multiple places, obviously, but the right had taken somewhat of a beating, too, between the generator, the vent, and having to carry most of his weight since the catwalk incident.

This was going to suck. But, he had no other option; Riley didn't have shoes.

"Here, climb on," he said after another moment of hesitation to try and make sure the pain wasn't visible on his face as he crouched down.

"Um." Riley gave him a look.

"In case you forgot, Riles, you're not rocking any footwear," Mac reminded her, trying not to sound impatient and mostly succeeding. "So unless you want me to go back to those guys I knocked out and get you some shoes—"

"Gross. Fine." She grabbed his shoulders from behind and jumped up onto his back, where he looped an arm under each of her knees. He faltered just slightly, but kept his footing.

"You sure you can do this?" Riley whispered hoarsely.

"I'm good," he promised, genuinely unsure if he was lying or not. Riley nodded against his good shoulder, slipping her arms around his neck only tight enough to secure herself. Once he was sure she was ready, he started walking.

The added strain was excruciating, but Mac ground his teeth together and tried to take relatively steady steps. He was basically holding his breath by the time they were halfway there, trying to keep back any indication of the pain shooting through him. He actually thought they might make it—they were a mere three feet shy of the end when his strength failed him. His overworked right leg buckled, and his knee slammed hard into the glass.

"Mac!" Riley squeaked as he shouted in pain, feeling the glass rip through his pants and stab into his knee. The blond agent barely had the presence of mind to use his right hand to put her bare foot on the back of his calf before he brought it forward to steady himself on the clean floor just out of reach. He took a couple seconds to gather himself, tears welling up unbidden in his eyes before he pulled himself across the glass just a bit further and released Riley's left leg.

"Go," he ground out, unable to say anything else for the moment. Riley quickly maneuvered over him and stepped out onto the clean floor. Only then did Mac force his left knee to straighten and pull him upright, leaning heavily on the wall to his right for support. Then he crossed onto the clean—well, glass-free—tile where Riley stood, breathing quickly and leaning back against the wall.

"Omygod," Riley muttered, looking down at his right leg, and after swallowing hard, he followed her eyes.

His pant leg was wet from the knee down—the pants were black, so they couldn't necessarily see the blood—but where the material had torn, it was plain to see that he was cut badly. Mac shook his head.

"I'm good," he repeated, coughing into his arm and then reaching down and brushing off the glass caught on the material, carefully plucking out the few shards that were embedded. They had reached a part of the hallway that branched off; it continued on straight ahead but also went off to the right. Mac pulled up the map and motioned for Riley to join him.

"Alright, look—we're here," he zoomed in and pointed to a spot on the map, dismayed when he realized his hand was shaking. "The exit is here. It's another four turns to get there, and I don't know what's waiting for us, so I want you to memorize this, okay?"

"Why'would I 'ave to mem'rize it if I'm with you?" Riley frowned at him.

"We might have to run from something or someone; I'd rather we didn't have to communicate where we were headed if we do," Mac told her, meeting her eyes steadily. She stared back at him for a second before nodding, looking down at the screen attached to his arm, studying the route. Mac let out a slow, somewhat shaky breath. In reality, he simply wasn't sure he could make it the rest of the way to the door, and he needed to make sure that Riley could get out if he couldn't.

In fact...

"And here," he added, digging into his pocket and fumbling to pull out all the keys he'd gathered. He plucked the priest's key out from the mess and shoved the rest back into his pocket. "Do me a favor and hold onto this."

"Why?" Riley demanded suspiciously. Mac held up his still-reddened hands.

"I got some water on my hands in the escape room and something in it is making them numb," he explained. "I don't want to be fumbling with the key at the end of this."

Again, his companion hesitated, and he knew she must suspect what he was doing, but he kept his expression neutral, and eventually, she took the key from him and hung it around her neck—the costume she was wearing had no pockets, so she didn't have a choice.

"Thanks."

Riley simply gave him a look and continued studying the map on his arm. Mac felt a particularly painful twinge in his legs, and as he swallowed back a whimper, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the paper map.

"Here," he said, trying to steady his voice he unfolded it and flipped it to the correct page. He went for the pens he'd grabbed back at the start, but then remembered he'd lost them at some point. With a grimace, he realized that he didn't need a pen, and instead traced the route in the blood on his fingers. "Just so you don't have to rely on the phone."

Riley took it from him distastefully, but didn't protest. The blood wasn't overly wet—he didn't dip his finger in blood or anything—so she folded it up and tucked it into the top of her costume, securing it in place with one of the paper clips while Mac kept his face—and by extension, the camera in his glasses—pointed at the opposite wall.

"Ready?" she asked, and Mac took a breath and nodded. He carefully pushed off the wall, and then the two of them started making their way around the corner to the right, Mac no longer limping only because he couldn't limp on both legs at the same time.

They made it all of thirty feet before he started to feel it.

It was subtle at first. Like his knee not quite straightening like it was supposed to. Easily written off as the result of the cuts.

It wasn't until it nearly gave out on him that he realized it was more than that. He crashed into the wall with a grunt of pain.

"Mac?" Riley's concerned voice made him try to squash the terror that welled up in him, but it wasn't really working. "Wha's'wrong?"

He couldn't lie to her. Not now.

"The vials back in the hall," he panted out, desperately trying to contain his panic. "I think—I think they contained a paralytic, like the one I was dosed with in the warehouse or the one Jack ate. I can't...I can't move my knee. Riley, you've gotta go."

"Whad? No—"

"Riley, this could spread," Mac told her earnestly, meeting her eyes. "I'm dead weight; just go."

"Not happ'nin'," Riley refused stubbornly.

"Riley—" Mac was cut off by the sound of a door opening, followed by rushing footsteps, from the hallway with the glass. They turned to look and found that Knife Guy—sans knife, thank God—along with the two who'd found him after he tripped the trap in the patient's room took a left around that corner and stopped, staring at them.

"Riley, run," Mac growled under his breath. He didn't know how these guys got out, but it didn't matter; if they got their hands on her, they'd kill her.

"Well, what do we have, here?" Knife Guy chuckled, starting to slowly advance towards them.

"I am not jus' leavin' you 'ere," Riley hissed back.

"Riley, you need to go," Mac repeated, his eyes begging her to listen. "Please. Just go; I'll be fine."

"I knew you weren't the real deal," Knife Guy scoffed as Mac pushed himself off the wall and stood slightly in front of Riley, barely steady as his left leg trembled under his weight. The blond agent was certain the only thing keeping him upright was adrenaline at this point. "You were working with the demon all along."

Riley hadn't moved, so Mac pushed her back slightly with one hand, never taking his eyes off the approaching men, and hissed, "Go!"

"Now, you stay right there, girl," Knife Guy chuckled. "We'll deal with you once we're done with your friend."

They were maybe fifteen feet away when Mac registered the sound of more footsteps rushing towards them, from where the hallway branched off between them. The advancing men noticed it a bit after Mac did, and they turned to look just in time for Benny to come sprinting out and swing his toaster into the nearest guy's head. His victim ragdolled instantly, leaving just the lanky one and Knife Guy standing.

"Benny?" Mac blinked in surprise at the man, while everyone else seemed frozen in shock.

"'Sup, Casper," the patient—and Mac was pretty certain he was a patient, not an actor, now—shot him a smile. He had torn two strips of fabric and had used them to tie the stuffed otter to his chest in a sort of makeshift papoose. When he caught sight of Riley behind him, he jolted and grabbed the toaster, thrusting the undented side in her direction. Riley flinched back hard, but Benny didn't throw the kitchen appliance, and Mac put an arm out in front of her.

"It's okay," he said reassuringly, though who he was trying to soothe was unclear. "It's okay. Benny, this is my friend."

Riley looked at the toaster in confusion, blinking before looking back up at Benny. The patient was relaxing from his stance.

"Mrs. Casper," he gave her a respectful, if almost sad nod, but at that moment, the other two men snapped out of their trances.

"You son of a bitch!" the lanky one launched himself at Benny with surprising force, and Knife Guy sprang at Mac, tackling him to the floor. The blond agent's legs might have been useless, but his arms were more or less fine, and he got in several good punches before he finally looked up at Riley.

"Riles, go!"

The field analyst hesitated for just another minute, looking back and forth between him and Benny before she finally turned and ran in the direction of the exit.

Mac felt relief flood him, but it was quickly swapped for pain when Knife Guy nailed him in the ribs, prompting a coughing fit from his still-struggling lungs, and his attacker used the distraction to get to his feet and kick Mac in his swollen hip.

"You fuckin' piece of shit," Knife Guy seethed, kicking him again and again to emphasize the words. "You were supposed to help us! But you're a demon, too, aren't you, you fuckin' bastard!"

Mac tried to push himself up, but Knife Guy kicked out at his head, and the blond agent collapsed again with a shout. It was a glancing blow, thankfully, but it was enough to daze him. He rolled onto his back and was just in time to catch the patient's foot when he lifted it to stomp on his head, and Mac's arms strained with the effort to keep it at bay.

"I'm gonna send your pathetic demon ass back to hell you motherfucker," Knife Guy snarled through his teeth, and Mac stared up at him with wide eyes. He thought for sure he was done for, but then, out of nowhere, he briefly saw a toaster, swung by its cord, slam into the side of Knife Guy's head, knocking him back.

Mac stared, dumbfounded for a moment before he struggled to sit up. He watched as Benny went again to swing the toaster, but Knife Guy ducked and grabbed the cord, ripping it from Benny's hands and tossing it away.

"Hey!" Benny shouted, scowling in annoyance. "I need that!"

Knife Guy didn't reply; he simply charged the other patient, and Benny, taken by surprise, was plowed into the wall behind him, his head snapping back against the cinderblock with a sickening crack.

"Benny!" Mac's eyes were wide with concern and he struggled to his feet, leaning heavily on the wall for support. Now dazed, the large and imposing Benny was a much better match for Knife Guy, and as they began their intense struggle, Mac was horrified to realize that his unlikely friend might actually lose.

The blond agent had to do something. Looking around the hallway, his eyes fell on an IV stand, toppled over a few feet behind him, and he quickly shuffled over to it, stooping to pick it up and using it as a cane to make the return trip easier.

"Down!" he yelled once he was in range, and Benny ducked without hesitation as Mac swung the IV stand like a bat, hitting the side of Knife Guy's head. The stand was light and hollow, but adrenaline had given him enough strength to make the hit count, and Knife Guy stumbled and fell into the wall. Benny popped up from his crouch and landed a solid right hook that finally knocked out the man's lights, and that was when Mac realized that the lanky guy had had his head bashed in with the toaster. He did his best not to look.

"You okay?" the agent asked hesitantly.

"I'm fine, Casper," Benny assured him, one hand covering the back of his head while he walked over and picked up his abandoned toaster. Mac swallowed hard. He knew Benny had heard their attackers' rantings about him being a demon, and the file he'd read on the patient flitted through his mind. He couldn't outrun the man, so he had to make sure that toaster wasn't for him.

"Look, about what they said about...about me being a—"

"Oh, I know you're not a demon, Casper," Benny assured him, walking back over to him with the toaster under one arm, his free hand adjusting the stuffed otter on his chest.

"You...you do?" Mac blinked. He honestly hadn't expected that.

"Of course," Benny assured him like it was obvious. "You were able to look at the toaster and even pick it up, for one, and on top of that Seymour," he tickled the stuffed otter's belly with one finger, "let you carry him around for a while, too. Wouldn't be possible if you were a demon."

"Right," Mac agreed. "So...so we're good?"

"Absolutely," Benny promised. "You should go catch up with your friend."

"Yeah," the blond man nodded. "Yeah, I should...you gonna be okay here?"

"Always am," the patient chuckled. Mac gave a nervous laugh in reply, and started limping down the hall using the IV pole as a sort of cane, but Benny stopped him.

"Hey, Casper!"

Mac jumped, but stopped somewhat impatiently, his heart pounding. "Yeah?"

Benny looked at him sadly for a second. "You...you know you're gonna have to face facts eventually, right?"

"What facts?" Mac asked in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Benny's expression just seemed to get sadder, but after a few moments, he shook his head.

"Never mind," he said dismissively. "You'll get there on your own eventually. Be careful."

"Yeah," Mac said hesitantly. "Yeah, you too, Benny. See ya."

With this, he was allowed to hurriedly limp after Riley in peace.

Surprisingly, he managed to make it the last three turns unhindered, and the slightly bent IV pole was just starting to squeak complaints when he came around the last corner, the one he'd made both himself and Riley memorize—and discovered a blank concrete wall.

No windows. No doors. The form factor of the concrete was the same as everything else on the wall. The paint didn't even look new.

"What?" He didn't even realize it was out loud until it echoed in his earpiece, and then again, and again, each echo built into a chorus, like it was a character's voice in a video game, coming at the player through a dream.

"Riley!" he called, as loudly as he dared, and the same effect happened to it, in his ear. But there in the hallway, there was no reply.

Mac felt his stomach drop, and he quickly pulled up the map again, walking back his previous path.

It was all—correct. This was the hallway clearly marked as the Exit. And yet it clearly was not.

Mac stared blankly at the phone for a second, and then he started working what would have happened next. Riley would have come here, found the same dead end—and—

And then used the paper map he'd given her. Where he'd marked the path, what he'd thought was the same path—

Of course, the paper map could have been a plant, but that map had looked slightly different than the one in the phone. He'd chalked that up to form factor, one being more accurate than the other, but if not—

Mac shuffled as quickly as he was able back to the last intersection, scanning the walls at eyeball height. He'd long ago started ignoring smears of blood as just background, but there on the wall on his right, there was a very clearly daubed arrow. Still suspicious, Mac raised a shaking finger and dragged it through, and though he felt nothing, the blood was still soft enough to smudge.

Riley had figured it out, and marked the way.

He followed her directions, a straight arrow at the next intersection, and then another right, and Mac saw how the map had been modified. Murdoc had changed the electronic one to detour him just a couple narrow hallways too early, changed the rooms so he wouldn't know they were some kind of staff dorms. Just enough to slow him down, and if Benny hadn't stepped in, just enough to get him to corner himself with violent patients right on his ass.

Mac hurried as well as he could, turning a one-way corner that wasn't marked, and he nearly wept when he came to the glowing red exit sign. The door wasn't exactly marked "The Gates of Salvation" but the key he'd given Riley was still in the lock, the chain swinging gently, and Mac was already weak with relief as he pushed it open and stepped out into the open air.

All of that relief vanished instantly as soon as he looked, and he felt the color drain from his face.

There were bodies in the staff parking lot. Two of them.

One of them was wearing a nursing uniform.

"Riley!" As if his brain simply forgot about his injuries, the blond man sprinted across the cracked pavement, sliding to his knees beside her with a grunt of pain. She was half on her left side, eyes open and panting, and there was blood pooling rapidly on the warm concrete beneath her.

The object of her study was only a few feet away; the 'priest' was slumped against an outer wall. Knife Guy's boning knife lay near his limp hand, but Mac could see immediately that he was no longer a threat to either of them; he was dead.

"Riley, hey, look at me," he urged, and she managed it, but just. He didn't dare roll her into recovery position; the blood was coming from a wound beneath her, no telling if it had hit her spine. Her breaths were once again coming in gasps, but these were quick and shallow—respiratory distress from a sudden drop in blood pressure.

The phone on his arm buzzed, and Mac ignored it, slipping his mostly numb right hand beneath her. He knew he'd found the wound when she whimpered and her eyes rolled. She was losing a lot of blood, the priest must have gotten her deep, hit a major vessel, or maybe her kidney—

"I'm sorry Riley, I'm sorry but I gotta do this—" He slipped his other arm under her, checking for any spinal issues while he put pressure on the single wound he'd found, and that was when he saw the face of the phone still strapped to his forearm. He expected some sarcastic Objective: Don't Let Riley Die. To his legitimate surprise, there was a simple, big red button, flashing the label 'Phoenix'.

With his hands occupied, Mac tapped it with his nose. "Riley, hey, can you tell me what happened?"

"...s-stab-bed..." She gasped again as his searching fingers discovered just how deep that wound was. "C-c-cold—"

Hypovolemic shock.

"Mac?"

He barely registered that the voice was coming from the phone. "I'm here, Matty," he ground out, driving his fingers deeper in to the wound and hating how much pressure he had to use to fucking feel anything. Riley gave a shaky cry when Mac found a pulsing vessel and pinched it off. "I've got Riley, but she's—"

"I know," Matty cut him off. "We have visual through those glasses of yours; we've been following your progress. Murdoc gave us coordinates about ten minutes ago; I have a medevac on its way to you. We'll be meeting you at the hospital."

That was generous. He must have done it when the priest and his three guys got loose, expecting them to get cornered, not realizing Benny was going to charge in and interfere—

"What's the ETA on that medevac?" Mac tried not to sound panicked, but he knew he didn't quite succeed.

"Three minutes," Matty promised, trying to reassure him. "And I have a few teams on the ground headed your way to secure the rest of the building."

Good, because if another patient wandered out here, if he had to let go of that vessel—

Mac became aware of warmth soaking his slacks along his shins, warmer than the concrete, warm like the blood that was still dripping through his fingers. Like the sun on his back. They were out, they were out and she was dying in his hands.

"Hang on, Riley, don't go to sleep on me," he pleaded, but her rolling, glazed eyes were no longer fixed on anything, she was just barely conscious. Given the volume of the pool around them, the amount he was kneeling in, she'd lost almost three pints already. Her once-snow white uniform was at least half red.

The vessel wasn't pulsing against his fingers anymore.

Mac leaned over her, gently pressing into Riley's bruised and bleeding throat. Tachycardia was setting in as her heart struggled to pump with a third less blood than normal. It was fast and irregular, and her limbs and lips were paling as Mac watched.

"No," he told her, jostling her in an attempt to get her to open her eyes. "No, Riles, not now. They're coming, the helo's right here, you can hear it—listen—"

His internal clock was relentless; he experienced every second of those three minutes in dilated real time. Riley didn't open her eyes, didn't respond to the noise. Didn't respond when the motion in his peripheral vision stopped being the shadow of rotor blades and became two paramedics in their orange jumpsuits. It was a relatively small parking lot; the helo was close and there was no good way to communicate over the noise. Someone must have told them; maybe dispatch at Phoenix, because one of the guys came around to kneel next to Mac, eyes on him instead of the patient, and he gestured with a gloved hand.

Mac nodded, staying perfectly still while the two men angled Riley's body and he felt it, almost detachedly, as the paramedic inserted his fingers into the wound alongside Mac's, and pinched off the vessel just above where Mac was.

With his other hand, the medic gave Mac's shoulder a double tap—the Army signal for moving on, starting the next task, and Mac nodded to show that he understood, easing his hand away, trying not to tear the wound any more open than he already had. The other paramedic had just started fluids, before they even put her on the backboard.

A third man ran out to assist, and Mac staggered to his feet, waving him off and indicating Riley instead. He'd abandoned his IV stand and it took him a little while to make his way to the helicopter; he got there only a few strides ahead of the three man team surrounding Riley. The copilot was there to help haul him inside, and Mac stumbled over to the seat in the back, folding himself up to stay out of the way.

When he looked up to watch them loading Riley, the frame of the godforsaken glasses attracted his attention, and Mac ripped them off his face and flung them out into the parking lot. Within ten seconds Riley and the other medics were on board, and they were lifting off.

She coded four minutes into the flight.

Mac watched from his seat, helpless and useless as the medic at her shin lifted the bone drill away to allow defibrillation before setting it back into place, boring an entry point for intraosseous infusion because they couldn't get fluids into her fast enough any other way. He would have offered his own arm, his throat, anything if it could help, but he wasn't a suitable donor and there wasn't enough time to set up a transfusion even if he was.

They got her back after two shocks and a hit of adrenaline, and though Mac couldn't hear a damn thing, the spastic wobble on the monitor drew more than enough of a picture. As they were circling the helipad it looked like she was about to crash again, and when the skids touched down the medics worked like highly trained dancers, smoothly and efficiently transferring her off the helo without interrupting their work for a single second.

He didn't dare try to follow on his own, and it turned out they had no intention of letting him. As soon as they cleared the bay another pair of medics were hopping on to get him onto a gurney. He ended up in the roomy elevator with Riley for just a moment, enough for five bagged breaths, enough to see an involuntary tear shivering on her eyelashes as they worked on her, and then the elevator opened and she was rushed off.

Mac was not. He was taken two floors down and the moment he was rolled off the elevator he realized why.

Two Phoenix tac agents were waiting for him. He was wheeled into a patient room not far from where Agent Ramirez was still comatose.

After that Mac stopped really paying attention, falling into a kind of fugue state. Someone—maybe Simmons?—had already stopped by with assurances.

The hospital was secure. There were agents parked outside the OR. There were even more agents stationed in the hallway. Matty, Jack, and Bozer would be arriving soon. He was safe.

His words did absolutely nothing to make Mac feel better.

Simmons—or whoever it had been—had left once a doctor arrived to examine him. They were quick and efficient but as gentle as they could be. The stupid phone was finally removed from his arm, pulled carefully over his watch, which he was allowed to keep for the time being; the earwig—which had thankfully gone silent once he got into the helicopter—was plucked from his ear; and his hands, which were slowly regaining feeling, were washed, and it turned out that at least some of the blood had been his. The cuts on his knuckles were cleaned, but not covered; they would be doing an x-ray on it to see if he'd broken his hand. The cut on his chin was stitched up and covered. The scrapes on his chest were cleaned as well, and his pant legs were cut open to allow them to properly remove the glass from his right leg and examine his left knee and hip. He had a concussion, and the gash in the back of his head was stapled shut. It wasn't that big; it only needed three. His lungs were in pretty bad shape again, but nothing he couldn't come back from. By the time the doctor left, he'd gotten a tetanus booster and had an oxygen mask on his face, finally in a patient gown. They'd keep him overnight, but no more.

No dislocation. No major bleeding. He would need x-rays, of course—but he was fine, in the grand scheme of things.

It made Riley's current state all the harder to swallow.

He was unsure how long he waited there, coughing occasionally, before Bozer burst into the room.

"Oh my God, Mac, are you okay?" his roommate demanded, and despite himself, Mac felt himself crack a small smile as he reached up and pulled down his oxygen mask.

"I'm good, Boze," he promised, coughing a little. Then he sobered. "You hear any news on Riley?"

"Still in surgery," Bozer supplied. "They won't tell us much more. Matty and Jack are on their way up; I took the stairs."

At the mention of Jack, Mac's stomach lurched just slightly, and he put the mask back over his face. Bozer frowned in concern.

"Y'know, he really didn't seem mad, Mac," his best friend tried to reassure him.

"Looks can be deceiving," the blond agent replied grimly, his voice muffled by the mask. Bozer's frown deepened, and he opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment, the door opened, and Jack walked in, followed by Matty.

"Mac," Matty said quickly to stop Jack from speaking. "How are you feeling?"

"I'll be fine," Mac assured her, pulling his mask back down. "They ah...they find anything at that hospital yet?"

"Plenty," Matty scoffed. "But nothing groundbreaking yet. There's a lot to go through, though; I'm sure there's something there to find."

"And what about the patients?" Mac pressed.

"We found a handful of people who were hired actors," Webber explained, confirming what he already suspected. "I don't have a final head count yet, but so far we've found over fifty other people. A lot were homeless, but some were reported missing from psychiatric institutes."

"Let me guess," he sighed. "Benny was one of those?"

"Correct," Matty nodded. "He unfortunately didn't quite take to the agents as well as he took to you; he had to be sedated."

Mac frowned just slightly at that. He hoped the man who'd saved him was alright, but there was only so much he could do at the moment. He made a mental note to do some digging later.

"Did you find the guy who brought me to Murdoc?" Mac asked after a moment, certain that the car swap had been on camera.

"Yes," his boss assured him. "He explained everything. Even gave us the limo's plate."

"Unfortunately, the limo was found exactly where he last saw it," Jack chimed in acidically. Mac felt his stomach tighten at the rage he heard brewing in his partner's voice. "The bastard switched cars."

Of course he did.

"What happened once the guy left with his kids?" Bozer asked.

"I got in the limo and Murdoc was waiting for me," Mac explained, letting his head rest on the pillow behind him. He coughed a few times, grimacing at the pain of it, and took a few breaths from the oxygen mask before he continued. "He made me drug myself. Gave me something to drink and let me know it was a sedative, but made me drink it myself." He thought for a few seconds. "Except it wasn't drugged, was it?"

"No," Matty shook her head sympathetically. Mac hadn't had the opportunity to think much of it before, but drinking a sedative wouldn't have induced any effects as quickly as he'd felt them. "We processed the limo, and there was no trace of sedatives in the glass. We're not sure where he drugged you, only that it wasn't in the juice."

Mac just nodded. Honestly, what did he expect at that point? He was drugged well before he ever got in that limo. He could never actually say no; whether he drank that juice or not, he would've ended up exactly where he did.

It was the illusion of choice. Nothing more.

The blond man broke into another coughing fit, and Bozer had to step forward and pull the oxygen mask back up over his nose and mouth, concern lining his features.

"We'll let you rest up, Blondie," Matty spoke up once he was breathing normally again. "You can debrief tomorrow."

"No, Matty, I'm fi—"

"Nope," Webber cut him off. "You rest. We've got it from here. Riley is getting the care she needs, so you need to take care of yourself too."

Jack uttered a quiet scoff, and Mac bristled in response. Matty and Bozer glared at the other agent.

"Just rest up, man," Bozer chimed in, shooting him a smile. "You did your part. You got Riley out of there."

"We'll let you get some sleep," Matty rushed to add, heading for the door with Bozer right behind her. Jack stayed right where he was. "We'll let you know as soon as we hear anything about Riley."

Bozer stepped out into the hall, but didn't go far, and Matty turned back to glare at Jack.

"Dalton," she said sharply. "Let's let Mac rest."

It was an order and they knew it. Mac stared at his clearly-furious partner, his stomach twisting and churning unhappily, until the former Delta turned to follow the other two out into the hall.

However, when he got to the door, he pushed it closed and quickly shoved the nearby heavy recliner in front of it before anyone had the chance to open it again. Mac could see Bozer's face at the door's window, glaring furiously at Jack while it looked like he demanded the agent open the door. Jack ignored him, turning to Mac.

"Well, they really seem to want us to talk, Mac," he stated slowly, his voice nearly a growl. Mac felt a chill shoot down his spine. "So you know what? Let's fucking talk."

"Jack, I'm so sorry," Mac told him sincerely. His partner looked ready to fight, and honestly, Mac was ready to oblige, but before any of that, the apology had to be said, even if it wasn't accepted.

It wasn't.

"Sorry doesn't fucking cut it, Mac!" Jack snapped furiously. "You followed Murdoc's fucking rules and Riley is dying because of it!"

Mac pulled his mask down, fury flashing in his eyes. "You are the one who told me to go as soon as we got Murdoc's message! You told me to follow his rules!"

"No, I told you to get Riley out of there!" Jack shouted, veins popping out of his neck as he took a step towards him. "I didn't tell you to dance around like his goddamn puppet! You drank the damn juice, you followed his rules to the letter, hell, you even enforced those rules on Riley, and for what?! It didn't save her! Despite everything that's been going on between us, I trusted you to get her back in one piece and you failed!"

"And just what exactly would you have had me do?" Mac demanded, forcing back a cough and ignoring the sounds of the others trying to get into the room. "He would have hurt her if I went against him and you know it! We all know the fact that I got to Boze at the end of the last exam pisses him off—he wasn't going to let me get through on a technicality again! If I would've pushed him, Riley might not have made it until I got to her! As it is he changed the map because I cheated with the bomb—if not for me and Benny holding those guys off, she and I would have been cornered and neither one of us would have made it out of there!"

"Y'know what, I'm glad you brought up Benny, because what the fuck was that?!" Jack raged, taking yet another step towards him. "You stopped to save your little friend while Riley was getting stabbed in the parking lot! Riley was dying, and you were more concerned with some psycho you just met!"

"She's not dead, Jack, and she's not dying! Stop talking about her like she is!" Mac shot back, and was about to continue when his partner cut him off.

"You don't fucking know that!" the former Delta roared. Behind him, the others were having issues with the door; the top of the recliner was positioned right under the handle, preventing it from turning enough to release the latch. "And do not tell me how I can and can't talk about her! She's—they don't even have the bleeding under control yet! She was in this mess because of you! The absolute least you could have done was fight back! But no—you were his good little soldier, weren't you. Face it, Mac, Murdoc won and you fucking let him, just like you've let him win every time before! You had him one-on-one in that limo; if you'd had even half a spine, you would've taken him out right then! But no! You let him take you! You let him play his stupid games with you and you let him use Riley to do it!"

"Do you honestly think he wouldn't have had a contingency plan for if I tried anything like that?" Mac couldn't help the incredulity in his voice. "First off, I was already drugged long before I got in that limo, I just didn't know it; I never would have lasted long enough to do any significant damage. Second, even if I had, we had no idea where he was keeping her! It would have been all too easy for him to set something up that would kill her if he didn't check in—we never would have found her in time if I'd arrested him there!"

"See, that's your problem!" Jack took another step forward. He was looming over his partner, now, just a few feet away, hands balled into trembling fists at his sides. MacGyver's heart was racing. "You still think arresting him is the end game! How many times are we gonna have to go through that before you realize we're way past that point? If we lock that bastard up, he'll get out eventually, and we'll end up right back here! I'm not playing that game anymore!"

"If we kill him, we're just as bad as he is!"

"If we let him live, we're worse than he is! If he lives, he gets to keep ruining people's lives—and not just ours! Unless I'm the only one who remembers that nurse and her family that he killed, or Kyser, or hell, even Ramirez, now! So y'know what? Here's how this is gonna go. When it's our turn and he comes for me, I'm gonna do what you wouldn't, what you should've done a long time ago, what you've been—what you've always been—too weak to do! I'm gonna find that sick sonuvabitch and kill him once and for all."

"Jack, I can't let you do that—"

Mac was cut off as Jack jabbed a finger into his sore and bruised chest.

"I don't give a fuck what you have to say about it, MacGyver!" he snarled furiously. "That piece of shit is gonna die, and if you know what's good for you, you'll stay the fuck outta my way about it!"

Mac felt rage flare in his chest as he knocked the man's hand away. "Don't fucking touch me!"

Jack's rage matched his own, but Mac couldn't help but be genuinely surprised when his partner lunged at him. Whatever he was planning, though, he never got the chance; the agents outside had finally managed to wrestle the door open, and Simmons wrapped his arms around Jack's chest from behind and yanked him back, turning him the other direction, releasing him, and pushing him towards the door.

"That's enough!" the tac agent snapped, scowling at Jack and putting a hand on his chest when the man whipped around and moved towards him again. "Outside, Dalton! Now!"

"Simmons, if you don't get your hand off me right the fuck now—"

"I said now, Dalton!" Simmons shot right back, giving him a little shove that sent him stumbling back a couple steps. "Outside! Move!"

"Are you—"

"Don't make him say it again, Jack," Matty's icy voice chimed in from the hallway. Meanwhile, Bozer squeezed in around the recliner and bypassed Jack to get to Mac's bedside.

"You okay, man?" he asked quietly, his concerned eyes giving him a once-over. Mac nodded, aware that he was trembling slightly, and looked back over at Jack. His partner was staring Simmons down, but the tac agent wasn't budging. Eventually, Jack relented, shooting one final glare in Mac's direction before stalking out of the room. Simmons turned and shot him a sympathetic look, then pushed the recliner fully out of the way and stepped out in the hall, gently closing the door behind him.

"He didn't mean that," Bozer told him, trying to sound reassuring. "He didn't. He's just freaking out about Riley—that's all. You know he didn't mean it."

"Yes, he did," Mac responded, his voice rough from the yelling. "I know you're trying to make me feel better, Boze, but he did. You know he did."

Bozer didn't contradict him, his distress evident on his face. Mac took as deep of a breath as he could manage, coughing hard enough to make him wince. He swallowed back the lump in his throat, then looked over and forced a small smile.

"It's okay," he assured his best friend, the way Bozer often assured him that he was fine after waking up from a nightmare. Trying not to let him worry. "Really, it is; I saw this coming. I knew he'd blame me for this, whether I got her out of there or not."

"Mac—"

"It's fine," Mac interrupted, nodding slightly. "It really is. Listen, I really am tired; mind if I get some sleep?"

His best friend hesitated, clearly not believing his assurances for a moment, but he dipped his head anyway.

"Okay," he agreed quietly. "Okay; get some rest. I'll wake you when we hear something about Riley."

"Thanks," the blond man said sincerely, putting the oxygen mask back over his face and letting his eyes fall shut, telling himself that the tightness in his chest was because of his lungs. He heard Bozer linger for a second or two before he finally left the room.

And maybe it was the concussion, the stress, or the complete and total physical and mental exhaustion, but Mac was soon pulled mercifully into unconsciousness.


LOL whoops my bad, if you happened to see me upload the wrong chapter. I didn't realize I hadn't actually posted this part yet, despite it being edited and prepared in here. I'm not usually ahead of the game; I confused myself.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! Don't forget to leave a review, even if it's only to say "omg Alyssa you idiot lol"