"This is Agent Mccree. He is going to ask you a few questions." Dr. Angela gestured to the man before turning and addressing him.
"Don't do anything to upset her." Allegra felt the need to roll her eyes, but glared at the man in the cowboy hat instead.
"Tell me about Talon." He asked in his southern drawl. She would have crossed her arms, but they were still chained to the bed.
"They are less my problem then they are yours. They will be coming to collect me." She grit her teeth, anger coating her words.
"They always come to collect me."
"You don't have to worry about them tracking you. The collar is sitting at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean." Angela spoke up from the corner of the room. Allegra's head snapped in her direction and her eyes grew wide.
"What?"
"I've removed the collar." Angela told her calmly. Allegra felt her head go fuzzy, so many thoughts were racing through it. She pulled her arm up quickly, breaking the cuffs chain, to bring her hand to her neck. There was no hard metal ridge, just the softness of gauze wrapped around her neck. Jesse and Angela had both tensed when she broke free, but didn't make a move to stop her.
"Removing it should have killed me." Allegra's voice was soft, hope making the angry edge from her voice disappear.
"I am a better doctor than they were scientists." Angela smiled, obviously proud of her abilities.
"It was tapped directly to your spinal column, so there are nerves that needed repairing after I removed it. I recommend not trying to walk until they heal completely. And there was some scarring. I'm sorry, but I couldn't do anything about that." Allegra no longer cared about the other people in the room. She no longer cared about being stuck here on this bed, the questions the cowboy was trying to ask her, or the doctor trying to find why she had suddenly stopped reacting. Allegra was too wrapped up in her own mind; the feel of the soft neck under her hand that she hadn't felt in a long time, and the fact that Talon wasn't coming for her. She was finally free.
She wasn't free. She had been moved from the medical room into a cell as soon as Dr. Angela had decided her nerves weren't damaged. It was a nice little room, with a bed and a table and a bathroom, but it was still a cell. And there were guards. Agents who would stand just out of sight and never say anything. Allegra ground her jaw, anger making her tense. The cowboy was back, as well as a man who simply introduced himself as 76. They wouldn't come inside the cell, just sat in chairs outside the thick plexiglass wall.
"Tell me about Talon." Jesse asked her again. Allegra gave a nasty smirk.
"What do you want to know?" She replied simply. Both men seemed surprised, as if unsure she would actually cooperate.
"As much as you can tell us." Jesse leaned back in his chair.
"It won't be much." Allegra admitted.
"They don't exactly share a lot of information with an unwilling tool."
"And how are we sure that what little information you share is accurate?" 76 asked. Allegra walked right up to the glass, bracing herself with her hands as she leaned forward to stare at the two men.
"Because I hate them. I want to watch them fall and burn."
"Is that why you asked Overwatch for help?" Jesse asked. She punched the glass, enjoying the quake it gave at the force and snarled at him, showing fang.
"I didn't ask for help!" She turned, growling low in her throat.
"I asked to be stopped. I didn't want to go from one organization's prisoner to another's. It's not my fault Overwatch is incompetent and fucked up something so simple." Running a hand across her throat, she looked back.
"I don't know where the base is, or any tactical information. When they need me, it's usually as a last resort. I get tranqed, when I wake up I'm where I need to be. I do my thing and then get tranqed again. Like I said, they aren't willing to share information with me."
"What sort of jobs do they have you do?" 76 asked, arms crossed over his chest.
"I clean up messes. I take care of things that are considered 'high priority'." Allegra answered with a bored tone. These questions were stupid and predictable, and she was tired of answering them already.
"Why only high priority missions?" 76 asked, clearly as done with this interrogation as she was.
"You don't fire a nuke at a housefly." She shot over her shoulder before closing herself off in the privacy of the bathroom.
The next day was the same, as was the next day and the next, they would question her and she would tell them the same things.
"They never told me."
"I don't have that information."
"I don't know."
She was tired of repeating herself, choosing instead to lock herself in the bathroom or to feign sleep and ignore everyone altogether. Angela would come to visit, ask her how her health was doing. Allegra also ignored the doctor, but the woman didn't let it bother her, talking to fill the void. Allegra hated it. She didn't want the kindness, the false niceness. She was their prisoner, something she was used to, but she no longer wore the collar. She was growing restless, she wanted out.
Angela was checking her neck when 76 and Jesse showed up. The doctor placed a small bandage on the back of her neck and stepped out of the cell. Allegra rubbed the scars, an unconscious act at this point, one that was quickly turning into a habit.
"Aren't you tired of all the same answers?" She sighed.
"We're not asking about Talon today, we're asking about you." 76 barked at her. Angela gave him a disapproving glance, but stayed to listen. Allegra growled under her breath.
"Why did you want to be stopped? Why ask Overwatch?" She leaned back against the glass wall.
"I was under the assumption the Overwatch was capable of stopping me." She taunted.
"We did." 76 sneered. Allegra rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Why did you want to be stopped?" Jesse asked again.
"I was tired."
"Of what?" He tried to get her to continue.
"Get bored of killing people?" 76 asked.
"Jack!" Angela was shocked. Anger caused goosebumps across her skin, heat coming off her body in waves. She turned to glare at the older man, eyes pitch black. They wanted her to talk, fine. She was going to talk.
"I was tired of being forced to do vile things!
I was tired of them using me and my powers to slaughter innocent people!
I was tired of being held prisoner because of what I am! Every! Day! Every day for the last 15 years I was locked away, kept in a cell so much like this one." Her anger dripped off every word as she stared right into the man's eyes.
"I was tired of fighting with them every time they demanded I kill for them. Tell me, Jack!" She spit out his name.
"Do you know how much pain your body can take before you break down, before you would literally do anything to make it stop. Because I do. I found out every time they took me out of my little cell, and each person I killed was because I wasn't stronger. Because they broke me down." She pushed away from the glass in disgust.
"I was tired of being broken." She stalked to the bathroom, slamming the door shut.
Angela gave a little gasp, looking sick to her stomach.
"What did she mean?" Jack asked.
"The obedience collar?" Jesse questioned. Angela nodded.
"The collar was an older model, almost ancient. The scaring on her neck would collaborate her story; she's been wearing it for more than a decade. With it attacked directly into her spinal column it would sent out electric pulses to stimulate the pain sensors. If she didn't act according to orders, they would simply have to push a button and her whole body would experience pain without actual physical harm." She shook her head sadly.
"I can't believe Talon would stoop to such a level."
"Can't you?" Jack gritted his jaw.
"I think maybe I should take over the questions now." Jesse spoke up.
"I don't think she'll talk to you no more, after this." Angela agreed with Jesse, and Jack grimaced, but left with her. Jesse leaned back in his chair and decided to wait.
He had to wait for several hours before she finally came back out. She was actually surprised to see him. He had a cigar between his lips, unlit.
"Got a light?" He asked, and smirked at his own joke. She glared, not appreciating his humor.
"You don't mind though, do you?" He asked, pulling out a lighter. She didn't answer but he lit it anyway.
"I never properly introduced myself. The name's Jesse McCree. And yours?"
"Why are you still here?" She growled.
"You've started your story, I'm figured I'll stick around to hear the rest."
"I'm done talking." She set on her bed, ignoring him.
"That's okay Red, I'll keep you company anyway." Allegra looked at him in confusion.
"Red?" Jesse smiled, cigar between his teeth.
"Yeah, got to call you somethin', and your hair is awfully red." She brought a hand to the top of her head almost self consciously, and scowled.
"Don't call me that."
"Then tell me your name." She huffed an annoyed breath, but kept quiet. After a time Jesse spoke.
"I was 12 when I got dragged into a local gang." Jesse admitted, blowing out a smoke ring.
"I did what I had to to fit in; to survive. Did a lot of bad things. Hurt a lot of innocent people." Allegra watched him from the corner of her eye, but didn't say anything. Jesse just sit there and told her stories about his past, and she listened silently.
"How old were you when they took you?" He asked, stubbing out the last of his cigar on the bottom of his boot. She looked at her hands in her lap.
"I was 14."
"They came to my town and the next thing I knew I was in one of their reform clinics. They tried to reform me, brainwash me to share their values, to become an emotionless weapon. Maybe I was young enough they thought the teachings would take. When I didn't… they fitted me with a collar a year later."
"Got a whole lot of anger stored in you then, don'tcha." She growled at him.
"Go away. I didn't tell you so we could be all friendly. You have your information, now leave me alone." He nodded and went to leave.
"Mccree." He turned back to see her with a hand pressed against the glass, watching him.
"I want to leave."
"I know you do." He shrugged, not sure how to continue.
"I'm free from Talon, you know I won't return to them. And I've been here long enough. I want to leave."
"It's not up to me."
"Then you tell whoever it is up to that they either let me go or they fix a busted up cell. Because I'm getting out of here."
"I'll see what I can do." He promised.
"Anywhere in Europe is fine, you can just drop me off the next time you take out that pretty plane of yours." She called after his retreating form. He chuckled to himself with a shake of his head.
Two days later Jack and Angela dropped Allegra off in a quaint village in Denmark, in a field large enough to land the carrier. There was no announcement, no goodbyes. The few agents who even knew Allegra had even been on base didn't know what happened to her. She was just there one day and gone the next. Months past without anyone bothering to think about her. Then they got a call.