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Grace skidded around a corner and stumbled, nearly careening into a gurney laying on its side against the wall. Her chest and shoulder screamed as she righted herself, blood splurting between the fingers of the hand she had pressed over the cut stretching up her chest.
Gotta go gotta go gotta go – her thoughts came staccato and disjointed, and she risked a glance back, seeing nothing but dark shadows swallowing the other end of the hall. Maybe he – maybe he gave up?
Her chest twisted with fear. Rain pounded on the windows as Grace ran past them, and her breath was shallow and ragged.
This fucking sucks, she thought idly, picking another hall at random to hurry down. It was identical to the others, all dark wood and polished tile and marble statues looming out of the shadows. The hallway sat in the eerie, still darkness of a power outage, tight and claustrophobic as a held breath, and piles of discarded medical equipment and spilled paper files were scattered randomly along the halls.
Heavy footsteps sounded from the way she had come and fresh panic tore through Grace. Her heart pounded on her ribs like it wanted to escape and her hand was slick with her own blood. She desperately shook a doorknob as she sped past a door and swore colourfully when it was locked, tears pricking at her eyes. The footsteps drew closer – heavy bootsteps as someone walked steadily after her, each step making her heart pound harder as her stomach twisted painfully.
Then, from the hallway she had just come from, a wet, horrible scream: “GRAAAAAACE!”
Grace’s heart leapt into her mouth then fell all the way to her feet, and fat, terrified tears poured down her cheeks. No, no, no, no, the thought repeated itself desperately, keeping tempo with her short, sharp inhales and exhales. Outside, the thunderstorm lashed at the windows like thousands of hands pounding at the windows.
Grace looked over her shoulder as lightning shot across the sky. It lit the hallway with cold light, sending shadows skittering in every direction and illuminating a tall figure in a long coat at its opposite end. Grace screamed, stumbling backwards and bursting into a dead sprint as thunder clapped loud enough to shake the hospital. She heard bootsteps behind her, each one as loud as the thunder, and she turned another corner, diving behind a small welcome desk.
The bootsteps sounded after her and Grace curled around herself, pressing her free hand to her mouth to try to muffle her breathing. Her heart was hammering so hard she was certain it could be heard, and each beat sent more blood over her fingers.
“Graaaaaaace…” The man sing-songed from the previous hall. Grace shuddered, and the knife slash he had given her on her chest burned with pain.
“Come out, little bird.” He continued. His voice was reedy and thin, garbled with whatever viral matter was leeching out of him.
Grace curled in on herself even more, well and truly in the throws of a panic attack. Heavy bootsteps picked back up, thumping closer with the easy, slow stride of a cat approaching a canary.
Calm down, calm down, you HAVE to calm down, Grace thought desperately. She inhaled deep and slow, and her exhale came out thin and reedy. She swallowed down a whine and the footsteps drew closer, accompanied by another flash of lightning and clap of thunder that made Grace jump and bang her shoulder into the welcome desk.
The man’s bootsteps were almost at the corner, and Grace pressed herself further into the welcome desk, breath shallow and short. Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic, don’tpanicdon’tpanicdon’tpanic –
There was another flash of lightning and Grace saw the toe of the man’s boot appear around the corner. Ice shot down her spine and her stomach flipped over itself, pure terror sending red-alert, all-systems-go panic blazing through her whole body.
Behind her, there was the quiet click of a door opening, and suddenly a hand was on her arm and hauling her backwards.
Grace opened her mouth to scream as someone dragged her into a small room, and a gloved hand slammed over her face, making her scream catch in her throat. Grace saw a flash of a long red coat and her body went entirely cold, then hot, then cold again, and her thrashing stilled. But no, it was a different woman, with dark hair brushing her shoulders and fine lines along the corners of her dark eyes. Her coat was a deep, rich red, expensively cut and trimmed perfectly for her. The coat’s owner slammed Grace’s back into the wall and kicked the door closed, and the doorframe dug painfully into her shoulderblade.
The gloved hand clasped over Grace’s mouth pressed harder and the woman’s other arm went against Grace’s chest, right over her slash. Grace’s vision whited out with pain and she gasped into the woman’s palm.
“Quiet!” The woman hissed, looking sideways at the closed door. There was a tight furrow between her brow and she stood perfectly still, listening for something. For a beat there was only Grace’s ragged breaths, muffled by the woman’s gloved hand, and then footsteps thundered down the hall, each one a minor earthquake. Grace’s eyes went wide with terror and she squirmed in the woman’s grasp, but the woman stood perfectly sill, eyes narrowed and focused on the door as she listened.
The bootsteps were outside the door, and Grace stopped fidgeting, going as still as an animal trying to play dead in the woman’s arms. The doorknob jiggled suddenly and Grace flinched, and was pressed harder into the wall for it. The woman had locked the door though and the man on the other side – the monster that had been pursuing Grace – simply walked away, his heavy footfalls receding further down the hall. There was another crash of thunder outside, muffled by the door, and a low whine of fear bubbled out of Grace before she could stop it. The pair stood in tense, heavy silence for a few beats, both straining to hear if the footsteps returned, but the only sound outside the door was the muffled rage of the thunderstorm.
Slowly, the woman’s eyes went back to Grace’s face, and she raised an eyebrow.
“Grace Ashcroft.” The woman’s voice was dry with annoyance, and Grace went very still. “You’ve gotten blood on my sleeve.”
She pulled away from Grace, holding up the offending sleeve. Grace stayed pressed to the wall and her shoulders crept up to her ears.
“W-who-”
“That’s none of your business.” The woman said, coolly, and Grace took a half-step sideways towards the door. The woman raised an eyebrow. “I don’t work for Gideon, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Oh – I – okay,” Grace stuttered. She swallowed thickly.
“And if you’d like to try your luck out there, be my guest.”
“N – no t – that’s ok – kay.”
Silence stretched between them. Grace’s mind screamed at her to leave, to get away, to find a window low enough to the ground that jumping out of it wouldn’t break her legs so badly she couldn’t run far away from the medical centre. Her gaze fell to the tiled floor and her chest tightened painfully, her throat thick with another wave of anxiety.
I want to go home, Grace thought very suddenly. Her cut ached in solidarity.
She took a deep breath and willed herself to be calm despite the growing pain on her chest. When she looked up, the woman was watching her, her expression perfectly smooth. She was pretty to an almost unfair degree, older than Grace, with fine age lines on her heart-shaped face. She stood with one hand on her hip and her shoulders relaxed, one knee bent delicately. Everything about her seemed rehearsed and practiced, Grace thought, like someone who would chameleon into any situation given the chance. But her eyes gave Grace pause. They were dark, with the starved-animal look of someone who had very little left to lose. Grace knew the look – she tried to blink it away every time she looked in the mirror.
The woman’s eyes slid to Grace’s chest. She gestured with her chin. “That looks like it hurts.”
Grace’s eyes fell to her shirt and the red that had soaked into it. The once-grey shirt had a large bloom of angry crimson at its collar, wet and dark in the middle and rust-brown on the edges. It was tacky on Grace’s skin, and the sight of it sent her stomach cartwheeling.
A gloved hand reached out and Grace shied away, but the woman merely tugged on the collar of Grace’s shirt. It came away from her skin with a worrying wet-sponge noise, and the cut underneath leaked a few more drops of blood.
“Oh.” Grace’s voice came out small and faraway to her own ears, and darkness suddenly appeared around the edges of her vision. Breathe, breathe, in, out, she reminded herself, but the breath she took in was shaky.
“Ouch.” The woman let Grace’s shirt stick itself back against the wound. “Not deep, but you should get stitches. Victor Gideon?”
Grace blinked and tried to pull in another breath. “W – who?”
“Did you fall on your own knife?”
“S – sorry?”
The woman studied Grace a for a beat, then tilted her head towards a stout, wheeled table against the far wall. It looked like a strange cross between a dentist’s chair and a gurney straight out of Frankenstein’s lab. “I can do stitches for you. Sit down.”
Panic exploded in Grace.
“N – n – no,” She stammered out, pressing herself back into the wall. Images of the room upside down and an IV in her elbow flashed through her mind, “ – no more g – gurneys!”
The woman looked at her curiously, head tilted a half-inch to one side like she was studying something. Her gaze went from Grace’s face down to the purpling bruise on her elbow and the raw skin of her wrists.
“This one doesn’t have restraints.” She said, finally. “It’s just a medical table that can tilt.”
But Grace firmly shook her head, and the woman exhaled slowly as though her patience had run out.
“I’m not giving you stitches while you’re standing up and shaking like a leaf. So either sit, or leave. I’m not here for you anyways.”
“W – what does that m – mean?”
“It means I have better things I could be doing, and this is just a favour to – ” the woman’s annoyed expression smoothed out, back to a rehearsed look of indifferent patience, “ – to someone else.”
At the back of her mind, Grace thought, I’m tired of people never telling me what’s going on. She made a face, irked. “Not a favour to me?”
The corner of the woman’s mouth twitched up. “I knew you had some claws somewhere. Now sit down, for fuck’s sake.”
The woman dragged the medical table away from the wall and began fiddling with a standing lamp, adjusting it over the table. Grace sat hesitantly, one leg hooked on the edge of the table in case she needed to leap up and start running. Seemingly satisfied with the mellow, warm light from the lamp, the woman had turned her back and was rummaging through drawers and cabinets, pulling out medical supplies and holding each item close to her face for careful inspection. She turned and tossed a small towel suddenly, and Grace fumbled to catch it.
“What’s your name?” Grace tried again. She pressed the towel to her chest, wincing at the pain the pressure caused.
“None of your business.”
“You know my name.”
“And I’m still not telling you mine.”
Grace gave the woman’s back a flat look.
“Are you a doctor?” Grace tried instead.
“No.” Came the reply, and Grace stared glumly at the woman’s back, images of all the terrible diseases one could get from back alley surgery jumping to her mind. “I’ve patched myself up more times than you could ever imagine, though.”
“Right.” Grace said, and the woman turned to give her another annoyed look that made Grace hastily look to her lap.
The woman rummaged through a large purse, pulling out a bottle of water. She cast a glance over her shoulder as she peeled off her leather gloves and uncapped the bottle.
“Advice isn’t usually free, but don’t drink the water here.” She said, using the water bottle to wash her hands. “It’s contaminated. Gideon got to the tanks.”
“O – oh.” Grace stammered, and the woman looked at her sharply. Grace straightened up on the table. “I haven’t d – drank anything. But that man he was – I don’t know? I woke up on a gurney and he was d – draining my blood.”
“Victor Gideon.” The woman said the name like it offended her.
“Sure.” Grace replied. Her chest ached, once, sharply, and she pressed the towel to it tighter, trying to still her anxiety. At the sink, the woman flicked water from her hands, then dried them on the side of her blouse.
“I have everything I need for stitches. You’re ready?” She asked, and Grace gave a small, slow nod.
Maybe this isn’t a good idea, Grace thought, watching the woman dump a packaged stitch-kit onto the medical table by her leg. I literally don’t know who she is. She might not even know how to do stitches!
“W – wait a second – ” Grace stuttered, and the woman arched a brow. “How do y – you know my n – name?”
“It was part of the briefing.”
“W – what – ”
The woman’s expression turned tiredly annoyed. “Listen. I know you have no reason to trust me. I wouldn’t trust me either.” Dark painted lips twitched up at some inner joke. “But if it’ll make you feel better-”
A handgun from a holster hidden by the woman’s coat was held out to Grace, who blinked at it in surprise. She took it gingerly from the woman – loaded, with the safety on, with an engraving of wings on its handle – then carefully placed it on the medical table by her leg.
“Feel better?”
“A little.” Grace admitted, and the woman let out a small, quiet huff of laughter.
The woman sat on the stool and elegantly crossed her legs. She used her chin to nod towards Grace’s chest. “Shirt first. I’m not working around it.”
Grace reached too quickly for the hem of her shirt and instantly regretted it. The constant, aching pain in her chest exploded when she moved her shoulder, sending fire ripping white-hot across her entire upper body. She groaned and hunched, blinking stars from her eyes and breathing deep until the pain subsided.
Fuck, Grace thought, and blinked blearily at the woman’s look of exasperation.
“Very well.” The woman said. She reached out, and Grace flinched when the woman’s hands brushed her collarbone, and received a small tch of annoyance for it. Her face warmed.
Her shirt had stuck itself back to the wound and the woman pried it up with surprising gentleness. Her eyes were narrowed with concentration and she sat very still, each movement practiced and steady. She helped Grace out of her bloodied shirt and left in only her sports bra, gooseflesh immediately broke out on her arms.
The woman had busied herself with ripping into the stitch-kit and setting up the needle and stitch thread, holding both close to her face and squinting as she carefully slid the thread through the needlehead. Grace laid down cautiously, the vinyl cushioning of the medical table so cold it burned her bare flesh. Her shoulders were tense and she inhaled and exhaled with careful slowness, willing herself to calm down.
The woman scooted her stool closer and Grace pressed herself into the medical table, suddenly very afraid. The light above haloed the woman eerily, casting her face into shadows and making her dark eyes look endless.
The woman reached out, then paused close enough that Grace could feel the warmth of her hands on her skin.
“This is going to hurt.” She said, voice surprisingly gentle. “There’s no painkillers to give you, and even if there were, I wouldn’t trust ingesting anything here.”
“Oh.” Grace said, and then cried out as the needle slid into her flesh.
“Quiet.” The woman instantly chided. Her dark eyes flicked to Grace’s face, and Grace swallowed down a whimper and looked to the ceiling.
“I – I’ve never g – gotten stitches before.”
“Lucky you, then.”
Grace whimpered again as her flesh tugged with a stitch, and the woman shushed her again.
This sucks, Grace thought, and wrapped a hand around the edge of the medical table, grip hard, and the vinyl cushioning’s edge eagerly bit into her palm.
For two stitches there was no sound except Grace’s uneven breathing. The pain of the needle sliding in and out of her flesh was strange and sharp, but without the threat of large, viral men with knives chasing her down dark hallways, exhaustion had begun to settle across Grace. A woman giving her stitches was less of a threat, and she took a slow, deep breath, trying to soothe the small, after-a-panic-attack shivers in her arms. Her anxiety still paced back and forth in her core like a caged tiger – dumb disorder, Grace thought, halfheartedly – but the flat-out panic was gone, and tiredness had sunk itself right into her bone marrow.
I can’t believe this is happening, she thought, miserably. The woman’s breath ghosted across her collarbone. I’m so stupid. I shouldn’t have agreed to go out in the field.
Grace very suddenly missed her office; the quiet murmur of coworkers and computers, her desk and her files, and she even yearned for an email or two. Her shoulder ached in sad solidarity. Her chest twisted, slow and painful, and the woman neatly started another stitch.
This could have all been avoided, the thought crept in slowly, prowling out of the dark at the back of her mind. If I was just better, if I was smarter and sharper and faster, this wouldn’t have happened.
Grace swallowed thickly, then flinched as the woman tugged on the thread.
“Halfway done.” The woman murmured.
It always comes back to that, doesn’t it, something whispered from the back of Grace’s mind. Her anxiety rolled over itself, and she took a shaky breath in.
Calm down, calm down, she told herself, and the thing whispered, No one to blame but yourself, Grace.
“I – I think this is all my fault.” The words fell out of Grace before she could stop them, and she felt her face flush, her eyes pricking with tears. She stared at the ceiling, but the woman’s stitching missed a beat, and Grace could feel her gaze slide to her face. She didn’t say anything and her stitching resumed, and Grace inhaled deep and slow, and her exhale came out thin and reedy.
Grace swallowed down tears but they came back up anyways, hot and angry, burning down her temples and into her hair.
“Am I hurting you?” The woman asked, in the tone of someone hoping for an easy answer.
“No.” Grace replied, and sniffled. “Well, yes, but th – that’s not why I’m crying.”
The woman hummed, and out of the corner of her eye, Grace saw dark hair sway as she tilted her head. She was watching Grace cry silently, eyeshadowed eyes narrowed, and her hands were warm and steady as she slowly started another stitch.
“Usually if someone gets kidnapped, the kidnapper is to blame.” She said, finally, and a sob choked out painfully from deep in Grace’s core. The woman’s hands stilled as a second sob ripped out after it, feeling like it took half Grace’s innards with it.
“I’m – I’m just so u – useless!” Grace’s voice came out wet and pitiful to her own ears. “If I w – was just better, none of this would have ever happened!”
“You need to hold still – ”
“I – I got myself kidnapped!” Images of the Wrenwood flashed through Grace’s mind. Gideon ambushing her, easy as a mouse wandering into a cat’s mouth, because she had been too occupied with a panic attack to check behind a door. She knew how to handle her anxiety disorder, and then had let it overtake her anyways. Grace hated herself a little more with each second, and her face was wet with tears, and the woman pressed a hand to Grace’s stomach, trying to make her hold still.
Then, the old thought, the painful thought, scrabbling its way up Grace’s throat. “I got my mom killed. If – if I had been smarter, and didn’t make so m – much noise, or have a panic attack – if I w – was more aware and d – didn’t answer the phone. If I had just done something, M – Mom would still be alive! T – this is a – ll my f – fault!”
It felt like the end of the world to say, and Grace cried openly, hating herself from deep in her core. It wasn’t a new thought, but it was one that still hurt all the same after eight long years. Silence stretched between the pair, punctuated by Grace’s small sobs. The last few hours had hurt too much, had simply been too much, and it was all falling out of her at once. Tears poured down her temples and stuck her hair to her face and her anxiety squirmed in her chest, making everything feel worse.
“If Gideon killed your mother, then it’s no one’s fault but Gideon’s.” The woman said simply, and tied off the thread. She had finished the last few stitches as Grace cried. “Blaming yourself won’t change that.”
Grace hiccuped and scrubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand. “But – ”
“But what?” There was a sharpness to the woman’s voice, and when Grace blearily looked at her, her brows were pinched, dark red lips pulled down in a frown. “You can choose to learn from what you think is a mistake, but at the end of the day, Gideon is to blame for his own actions. You can’t take responsibility when he’s the one who picked up the knife. You can only react accordingly and be better than those circumstances.”
The woman neatly snipped the thread with a pair of small scissors. “Don’t let Gideon change that. Don’t let him make you think you’re powerless, or that you can’t choose for yourself.”
Grace sniffled, and the woman held her gaze until she gave a small nod of understanding.
“I came here to find a sample of a virus called Elpis.” The woman said, wrapping her needle and thread into the towel Grace had earlier. “I was paid a lot of money to steal it. Get in, get out. I even knew you were going to be here before you did. Instead, I’m giving you stitches and hiding you from Gideon, because I can make my own decisions. I get that sample, I’m throwing it into the ocean.”
“W – why?”
“Because that’s worked well enough in the past.”
Grace swiped a hand over her tear-streaked face and let out a long sigh. She had hundreds more questions than the hundreds she had when she woke up upside down on a gurney. Exhaustion sat deep in her soul. She was woozy and lightheaded from pain and crying, but despite it, she felt lighter than she had in eight long years, like a towel that had been wrung and laid out to dry. A start, like finally changing the bandage on an old, open wound, but not something that had a chance to scar over yet.
The woman’s hand was warm when she touched Grace’s shoulder, and she gave a small nod. Grace sat up with the help of a hand ghosting over her back.
“S – sorry for freaking out…” She said, and looked at the floor, the cabinets, the gurney, the woman’s expensive boots. Embarrassment sat stickily in her chest.
“If it keeps your head in the game, I suppose.” The dryness had come back to the woman’s voice, but it lilted with amusement too. “Lift your arm, you need bandages over the stitches.”
Grace obeyed, grimacing as her locked shoulder burned with the effort. The bandages went on tightly and were tied off in silence, and the woman sat back, head tilted to the side as she studied her handiwork.
“It feels better.” Grace extended an olive branch, hopefully.
“No it doesn’t. It’s just stopped bleeding.”
“It’s nice to not be bleeding everywhere, then.”
The woman smirked and stood, heading back to the sink to wash Grace’s blood from her hands. Grace scrubbed her hands over her face again and breathed deep. It felt like she was finally breathing clear after a sickness, and her shoulders ached from the abrupt release of years of tension.
Be brave, Grace thought. I can do that. I’ve been doing that for a long time, even.
The woman dried her wet hands on the edge of her coat, then tugged her gloves back on.
“Why help me?” Grace asked, and reached for her bloodied, dirty shirt. She moved stiffly and slowly, remembering the pain of trying to take it off, but was able to slowly tug it over her head on her own.
“I already answered that.”
“I didn’t believe you.”
The woman hummed, but the corners of her mouth pulled up. “It doesn’t do me any good for you to collapse of blood loss in a hallway somewhere. Gideon would just catch you again, and that would be even worse than you dying of blood loss.”
Grace gave the woman a long look. She lined up facts in her mind – nameless, not hospital staff, not a random citizen, good medical knowledge, knew Grace as though she had been briefed, carrying a customized gun, and wearing really expensive boots – and tilted her head. Sweaty hair tickled her jaw and she nervously fiddled with the side seamed of her jeans.
“You’re a – a mercenary, or a h – hand for hire.” Grace said.
One dark brow arched upwards, amused. “Oh?”
Silence stretched between them.
“Who are you?” Grace asked again, and the woman smiled, surprisingly sweet and broad.
“I have a job for you.” The woman said instead, and reached into an inside pocket of her coat, pulling out a small, square envelope that she brandished at Grace with two fingers. It was thick, cream paper, sealed with a sticker of a cartoon bear, which seemed oddly out of place to Grace. There was no writing, but a perfect lipstick kiss was pressed to a corner of its front, in the same dark-blood shade of lipstick the woman was wearing.
It’s a love letter, Grace thought gleefully, worry over the nameless woman instantly replaced by the first happy thing to happen all day. Oh, this is so exciting!
“I need you to deliver this to Leon for me.” The woman tapped Grace’s nose with the envelope, then coolly slid it down the front of Grace’s shirt, directly into her sports bra so that its corner tugged at the gauzy bandages on her chest.
“Leon?” Grace asked, pulling it back out of her bra.
The corner of the woman’s mouth pulled up into a warm, off-centre smile, as though she was fighting against the expression and losing. “You’ll know him when you see him. Dark coat. Floppy hair. Handsome.”
“O – okay…?”
“If you trust me, you can trust him.” The woman said, and that old-joke smile ghosted across her lips again. “Give him the letter then stick by his side. He’ll make sure you’re okay.”
“Right. Find Leon, give him the letter, stay with him.” Grace repeated. She fiddled with the side seam on her jeans, then balled her hands into fists. “What if I d – don’t find him?”
“You will. He just arrived here a half hour ago. Head to the lower floors. Follow the carnage. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good.” The woman said, and then her hand was on Grace’s elbow, and she was being pulled up from the table and shoved startled out the door.
“See you around, Grace.” She purred, and Grace stumbled into the dark hallway as the door clicked shut behind her.
“Wait, hey - !” Grace spun and threw the door open. The room was empty, the opposite door swinging shut with just a flash of a dark red coat visible as it clicked close. The handgun was gone from where Grace had left it on the medical table, and so was the half-full water bottle from the counter.
Suddenly alone, Grace’s chest tightened. Her cut panged but she took a deep breath.
I can do this, she thought, and opened the door she had been shoved out, her knuckles white on the handle. She poked her head out cautiously, but the hallway was dark and still. The thunderstorm still shook the windows, but there weren’t any footsteps, no damp breathing, no strange men with knives.
Grace stepped out and let the door click shut quietly behind her. Thunder grumbled outside. She took another deep breath, and the worry in her chest wasn’t as bad as it had been.
I can do this, she thought again. Find Leon. Dark coat, floppy hair.
Grace straightened her shoulders, feeling her injured one pull. Lightning flashed outside and Grace set off, boots drowned out by another rumble of thunder, and she was soon swallowed up by the shadows at the end of the hall.
*****
Naturally, the horrors persisted.
Grace stood hunched at the waist, dragging in air in huge gasps and willing herself to calm down. Panic was clawing through her chest and her cut ached as her heart pounded at her rib cage, and the thought, I’m really grateful her stitches are so damn good, raced through her mind.
It had been a monster, huge and towering, with teeth the length of Grace’s forearm. It had taken one look at her and howled like it hated her, and the last ten minutes had been a blur of claws on hardwood and the hot, iron-heavy stench of roadkill. The creature now lay still on the ground, half of its head splattered up the wall and the other half soaking into its tattered, lacy dress.
“You okay?”
Grace jumped so badly she was certain her skeleton was making an attempt to leave her body. She even shrieked, and immediately pressed both hands over her mouth. She took several deep, ragged breaths, then turned to the man who had killed the monster.
“Y – yeah. Sorry. Thanks.” She said, and swiped the back of her hand over her sweaty face.
I hate this hospital, she thought, and took another deep breath, red-alert panic dropping down to a yellow-alert anxiety. I really, truly do.
“What was that thing?”
“A monster. I t – think?” Grace straightened up and swallowed thickly, finally turning to the man who was speaking.
She blinked at him. Dark coat, floppy hair. Handsome.
“Holy shit!” She burst out, and the man’s eyes narrowed. “You’re Leon!”
“My reputation proceeds me.” The man said, voice light, but his easy pose had gone still, and he held Grace’s excited look as though he was calculating if she was suddenly a threat.
Instead, Grace reached down into her sports bra and triumphantly pulled out the letter. “This is for you!”
“For me?” But he reached out, dark leather gloves stark against the cream envelope as Grace handed it to him. “From wh – “
He broke off when he saw the lipstick kiss, his whole body tensing, shoulders pausing as he didn’t even breathe. Grace looked at him curiously, nerves beginning to flutter again in her stomach.
What if that was a mistake, oh no, she thought, and her anxiety disorder scrabbled at her ribs, I don’t actually know that woman, what if she is a bad person? But she seemed so nice! She said he’s DSO, maybe she’s a bioterrorist, oh no, oh shit, fuck –
“Who gave this to you?” Leon’s voice was measured and even, but his gaze was smouldering, intense, sharp. Grace’s shoulders crept up towards her ears.
“I – um – a woman. Sh – she stitched up my c – cut. And a – asked me to give it t – t you.”
“Red dress?”
“Red c – coat.”
Leon let out a small huff of laughter. “Heels?”
“Um.” Grace replied, helpfully. “Small ones. O – on her boots.”
Leon’s huffed out a laugh again, sounding like an old, tired dog, and swiped up the cartoon bear sticker. There was a small note inside, in the same thick, cream paper as the envelope. He read it, then read it again, then read it a third time, then tucked the letter back into its envelope and vanished it into somewhere deep in his coat. He gave Grace a long look, then his face broke into a closed-lip smile, warm but slow, rusted through as though he wasn’t used to making the expression.
“W – what did it say?” Grace asked, wringing her hands together.
“That we’ve got a pair of eyes watching our backs for when we need it, Grace Ashcroft.” Leon’s voice came out overly even, and the corner of his mouth twitched as he fought himself on another smile.
“She told me to stick with you.” Grace blurted out, and her face warmed.
“Then it’s a good thing I swiped a key card off a corpse and know a way out. C’mon.” He gestured with his head to the hallway to their left and his floppy hair fell across his eyes. “Stay close. You’re going to have to be brave, it’s rough in here.”
Thunder rumbled somewhere outside, and the light above them flickered. Grace’s hand ghosted over her bandages, and she took a deep breath in.
“I can do that.” She said, and her smile was small but determined.