With what seemed like just a short five minutes of racing out of the garage and weaving through the wintry streets trying to dodge both of the cars that had followed them and tried to shoot at them in the process, their backup finally came.
A black car swerved out right behind Isaac and Grace, giving them the chance to escape. In the rearview mirror, Isaac watched as the car shot out a rocket launcher, nailing one of their pursuers, but the other car managed to dodge out of the way and turn down another street.
"Great," Isaac muttered to himself as he studied the road hard in front of him. If he knew any better, the car would be coming out on top of them at any second. "Grace," he shouted over to her, all while gritting his teeth in concentration. "Get your gun ready. And when they appear, try to shoot their tires. Okay?"
Grace nodded as she cocked her gun, staring intently forward. Isaac had been looking forward too hard that he hadn't noticed the white car barrelling toward him from the side.
"Watch out!" Grace screamed, but by then it was too late. The white car clipped the back end of his car, making the car spiral out of control. Isaac did his best to take what little control of the car that he could, but he couldn't stop them from smashing into a metal guard rail, the car skidding to a stop halfway over the cliff.
"Isaac!" Grace shrieked again, the car perilously balancing back and forth between the cliffside and the road. If they made any sudden movements, they could fall to their deaths down into the freezing cold ocean water below. Oh no.
"Hold on, Gracie," Isaac said quietly as he slowly took off his seatbelt, doing his best to reorient himself. "I'm gonna try to climb to the back of the car to put more weight back there. Don't move a muscle."
The car creaked dangerously as Isaac started to move backwards, cautious foot by cautious foot. They could do this. They could get out of this. The wind certainly didn't help any. It hit the car in short wisps, causing the car to creak even more. Oh geez. One wrong move and they'd both plummet into the ocean.
Isaac's heart pounded furiously in his chest, his blood pumping in his ears as he got the car to remain steady by sitting in the back seat. "Okay, Gracie. It's your turn."
He watched as she slowly unbuckled her seat belt and cautiously made her way back toward him. He took her hand and helped her back with him before forcing the car's driver side door open. Curse this two-door sports car. Now they'd have to fit inside a small opening to get out. They could've already been out by now if it wasn't for that.
Isaac helped Grace out of the small opening first, and she had no choice but to hold onto the cliffside as she waited for him to climb out too. And that's when he saw the only thing that kept the car from falling over the side. The back of the wheel got jammed inside the guard rail. Oh boy, he needed to get out.
His eyes widened as the white car came racing toward them with an all too eager expression from the driver. The driver abandoned the car last second, rolling out onto the street, but the car still came with full force toward him.
Very quickly, Isaac jumped towards the cliff seconds before the other car barrelled into theirs, dislodging the wheel from the railing and plummeting toward the ocean. Isaac's hands slipped on the rocky edge, and he fell another ten feet and landed with a hard impact onto his back on a small ledge, lying there for a moment as he saw black dots skirting around his vision.
"Isaac!" Grace shouted, looking down at him fearfully. "Isaac! Tell me you're okay. Please tell me you're okay."
Using all of his strength, he tried to get up, but his head only managed to spin more, and he fell back against the hard, rocky ledge. Something felt wrong. Something felt definitely wrong. Through his bleary vision, he saw a head poke out over the cliffside, and if he wasn't mistaken, he could see a grin spread across the man's face as he pulled out a weapon. Isaac had never felt so defenseless.
Very weakly, Isaac somehow managed to reach for his gun and point it upwards, pulling the trigger a couple times because the first shot missed. The second bullet hit and the man pitched forward over the side and fell into the cold, choppy water below.
Isaac's arm went slack, his gun flying out of his hands. He couldn't hold onto it. He couldn't hold onto anything. His vision continued to ebb from dark to light as he fought for consciousness.
"Don't you dare die on me!" Grace's voice penetrated through the darkness. "Don't you dare die, Cooper, or I'll come down there and strangle you myself!"
He gravitated towards her words, trying to grab a hold of them, but her words felt slippery, especially as the darkness threatened to drag him under again. He could feel his body relaxing a little bit more as the seconds ticked by, his head falling limp to the side. It would be so easy to slip under. It would be so easy to just let go...
Isaac found himself getting lost in the darkness as it engulfed him. His lungs let out one last breath, and then he felt himself floating. He floated in a welcoming wave of cold water, sinking down slowly, slowly, slowly.
"Cooper!" Grace called again, and very faintly, he heard sliding rocks before something hard landed on him. That something proceeded to slap him hard across the face before shaking his shoulders. "Come on, wake up. Wake up!"
But as hard as he tried, he couldn't open his eyes. A blanket of darkness washed over him to the point where he couldn't hear anything, and he could hardly feel anything. He started slipping hard and fast.
After what felt like forever, or maybe just a couple seconds, he felt his lungs fill with air through an outside source, and only vaguely was he aware of a heavy weight pressing down on his chest again and again and again.
He wasn't aware of how much time passed by before he could feel his shoulders being shaken roughly again, beginning to bring him to.
"Get your lazy ass back to me!" Grace shouted, and Isaac gasped for air suddenly, his eyes flying open. Everything hurt. His head hurt. His back hurt. And gosh dang it, his ribs hurt. A lot.
Isaac tried to sit up, but his head spun relentlessly. Before he could fall backwards, Grace caught him and pulled him towards her, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.
"Thank goodness," Grace whispered, stroking his hair comfortingly. She sighed into his shoulder, and if Isaac didn't feel so out of it, he could have sworn that she just kissed his cheek. "I thought for sure I lost you there."
His stomach heaved very suddenly, and he turned his head just in time to puke over the side of the cliff. He felt absolutely horrible. Everything hurt, he felt incredibly dizzy, and he felt as if he could puke up a storm. After several long moments of a madly churning stomach, Isaac turned his head back to her.
"Sorry," he mumbled. "I really don't feel good."
"Well, duh. Your heart stopped. Probably from the trauma of the fall."
His stomach relentlessly heaved again, but this time nothing came up. "Oh, man. I've never remembered feeling this sick before."
Grace cupped the side of his face, looking at him with a worried expression. "Are you okay? Is anything broken?"
"You didn't give me chest compressions, did you?"
"Yeah..."
"Then my ribs are definitely broken. Yes." He sat with his back against the side of the cliff, trying to get his body rhythm back to normal. The longer he sat, the better he felt. Oh, man. This felt terrible. "Thanks for saving my life. Twice."
She pinched his side suddenly, not caring whether or not she hurt him. "Don't do anything stupid anymore. Going back to Hans' place was stupid. Letting me out of the car first before yourself was stupid. Don't do it anymore."
Isaac chuckled with his eyes closed and grinned, reaching out for Grace's hand which she gladly accepted. "Going to Hans' wasn't entirely stupid. I would never have found out about their plans to attack tomorrow. Plus..." He shifted a little, grimacing at the pain in his chest. "I placed several listening devices throughout his house, including that room where he almost killed me. We have a better chance at stopping this thing."
"We aren't doing anything. Will and I are. You're gonna stay home and rest. You freaking almost died for goodness sake. I really don't want that to happen. Please don't scare me like that again."'
"Why do you care so much?" Isaac grinned cockily as he opened his eyes a smidge, but this time she didn't take his bait. She didn't even seem to notice his cocky grin.
Her fingers trailed down his arm, absentmindedly caressing his skin. "Since you're too dense to figure it out yourself..." Grace teased. "Let's just say that you made it onto my 'I definitely like you a lot list'."
He grinned, his stomach tying in a knot, but the good kind of knot this time. Not the kind of knot that just wanted to puke up all over the place, but the kind of knot that made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.
"What about Will?" Isaac asked slowly, managing to find a little more of his bearings as his mind cleared a bit. "I thought you had the hots for him."
Grace snorted. "You're right about him being a boring cheese wheel, and I've only known him about a week. But we can talk about that later. We need to figure out how to get back up to the road. Can you stand up?"
Isaac attempted to get onto his feet but nearly scared Grace to death when he almost toppled over. She shrieked before grabbing him around the waist and slowly lowering him back to rest against the cliffside.
"Okay, scratch that. I'm calling Will." She dialed his number and talked to him for a couple minutes. "No we can't..." she paused to listen for a minute before answering. "Cooper's heart stopped. I gave him CPR... Yes, he's awake now but he can't stand up." He watched as she nodded, letting out a sigh of relief. "Okay, thank you so much." When she hung up, she took a seat beside him, both of them shoulder to shoulder. "Help is on its way. You gonna hold up?"
He nodded slowly. "Yeah. And I'm still gonna help tomorrow, just you wait."
"Yeah, yeah," Grace said with a wave of her hand. "Anyways, is this a bad time to tell you that I'm deathly afraid of heights?" Grace joked, sounding as if she could start hyperventilating at any moment.
Isaac chuckled and squeezed her fingers, loving the feeling of her sitting so close to him like this. Poor girl had to revive him and then suffer through a puking spell. He probably looked like a mess. "Well lucky for you, I'm not. We make a good team."
She smiled. "We definitely do make a great team."