Hunnigan took in a sharp breath and waited for the first prick of the needle. What she got was the feeling close to that of someone grabbing a handful of her skin and yanking it as hard as they could. She nearly sent her unhindered foot into Leon's face because of the pain. Her hands were wrapped around the edge of the counter, her knuckles flashing white from the hold.
Her head began to feel as though it were floating away.
"Breathe, Hunnigan. Before you pass out." Leon instructed her. She heeded his warning and let out the air she had been holding. Her head instantly began to pulse painfully. She groaned, whined and rocked her shoulders side-to-side, trying anything to forget the pain. "Stop wiggling."
"I can't help it!" She shouted at him, slapping her palm down on the countertop.
"Well, you did this to yourself."
"Oh shut up— OW!" This time she did hit him with her foot. It was more of a nudge than anything, he was too far out of her reach for her to deliver the blow she wanted.
"That is smart, kick the surgeon while he is operator on your leg—free of charge no less."
She let out a whine as he pulled on the two ends of the thread, her skin coming together in the middle. He quickly did a few knots in that stitch before moving on. Hunnigan noticed her fingers were growing numb and when she let go of the countertop, her hands were shaking violently.
"Great, I think I am going into shock." She muttered to herself.
"Don't." He grumbled as he rushed to finish off the second stitch. "Try to breathe normally. Talk to me."
"About what?!"
"Anything— work, family, whatever. About that back up plan of yours." She groaned as she felt her chest tightening. Her fingers went to the collar of her robe and she began trying to pull it off. "Hey, Hunnigan. Talk to me. Leave your shirt alone and talk."
"The plan is just a precaution."
"Uh huh. In case what happens?" He goaded her on.
"In case I fail. In case one of these assholes kill me before I can kill them. I have hired various people from all over the world."
"Mercenaries?"
"Yeah. Some are men and women I've worked with in the field before and have agreed to help me out, others are mercs that I've heard about in my research for the government."
"Hunnigan, these are bad people." He stopped for a moment and snipped the thread of a fourth stitch and began work on the next one. "How much are you paying them?"
"Everything. If I don't check in to my bank accounts every forty-eight hours, they will get a message, alerting them of my failure to respond. In that case, they will each get a unique PIN. Each PIN will be used to unlock half of their bounty along with the orders. Each one will get a set of targe—Shit!" She slammed her fist down as the last bit of her wound was closed off.
"Uh huh…?" Leon cut the thread and began dabbing the area in fresh alcohol.
"When my tracking program is sure that they are dead, they will be crossed of the list and the appropriate bounty will be delivered to the merc that was assigned that specific target."
"And what if they just walk away with the money? Or what if your targets offer more?" He dumped the supplies into the kitchen sink and wrapped her leg up in a clean towel.
"I won't really be around to know, will I?" She began to sit up and nearly fell off the counter. Leon grabbed her by the shoulders and picked her up again, this time carrying her to couch in the livingroom. He plopped her down carefully and took a seat in a near by chair, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.
For a long time, he just looked at her. She wasn't completely sure of his expression. He was now slightly fuzzy and for the first time she realized her glasses were missing from her face. Her eyes began to search the room, but she couldn't spot them.
"Can you go look in the bathroom for my glasses?"
"Yeah, in a minute."
"I'd kind of like to see you." Her tone was flat, irritated.
"That is why field agents usually need perfect vision, or have corrective surgery to obtain perfect vision."
Hunnigan let out an exasperated sigh, leaning back on a pile of pillows at the end of the couch and laying a hand over her face. She rubbed her fingers over her closed eyelids as he continued.
"You are not meant to be in the field, Hunnigan. You are going to get yourself killed."
"I'm kind of aware of that."
"Are you? Christ, Hunnigan, you had a bullet in your calve. You also have what looks uncannily like a bullet graze on your cheek." Her fingers moved from her eyes to her cheek. It had scabbed over. It was about three fingertips long, a fingertip wide. It followed the curve of her cheekbone, towards her left ear.
"He wasn't shooting at me, the gun just went off."
"One stupid, close-call if you ask me." He noted sternly. "Hunnigan, you have to stop this. You are worth too much to too many agents. What about all your other charges? How are they going to make it through this job without you?"
"They will get assigned to someone else."
"And what about me?" His tone had dropped, pain crept in his voice. She sat up a little, trying her best to make eye contact with him.
"You were a noted agent before you were assigned to me. You rarely even need me anymore."
"I wasn't just talking about in the field." He stood up and retreated into her bathroom. He wiped them off with a towel as he returned before handing them to her.
"Thank you." She slipped them on and the world came into focus. He took his seat again, this time leaning back in the chair a bit, though his body language was no more relaxed than it had been previously.
"Hun—Ingrid." She looked up at him at hearing her first name. He rarely every used it, perhaps four or five times in the fifteen years they had known each other. "Please, I am asking you as your friend, you have to let someone else handle them." She began to shake her head back and forth. "Yes. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you."
"I can't let them get away with this Leon. They took her from me. They stole her—" Her voice caught in her throat and tears burst from her. A choked cry escaped her. "They stole her from me! They kill Helena!" Her voice was a horse scream. Tears fell heavily over her cheeks, her slapped a hand against her chest. "I saw her. You weren't there! You didn't see what happened—what they did to her! They turned her into a monster! I tried to do EVERYTHING! The doctors cut away at her until she was almost NOTHING, LEON! NOTHING! She died holding me, I felt her stop breathing! I heard her heart STOP!" Hunnigan sat up and wrapped her arms around herself. She let out long wails as she rocked back and forth. Leon got up from the chair and knelt beside her, wrapping his arms around her. He rocked her, let her cry into his chest for what felt to her like hours. Until she couldn't scream anymore. Until she couldn't cry anymore. Until she was just producing heavy breathing, punctuated by silent, little sobs.
"I saw her. She kept apologizing to me like it was her fault, as if she had let me down." He pulled away from her, planting himself on the edge of her coffee table. He kept a single hand on her back, his palm making small circles. Comforting her int he only way he could while she stared at her hands. "She kept telling me she was sorry that we were never going to have our wedding. That her biggest regret was not getting to see me walk down the isle, not getting to put the ring on my finger."
Hunnigan rang her right index finger tip around the area where a wedding ring should have been. Her engagement ring was in her bedroom, sitting on the nightstand next to Helena's side of the bed, where Helena's outfit still lay.
"I don't know how to be here without her, Leon." Her voice was a shattered whisper.
"You don't need to know everything, genius." He gave her a weary smile. "You can be lost for a little while. It is ok." She sniffled a little, a yawn escaped her lips. "Come on, let's get you to bed. You need sleep to heal that wound."
Leon slipped an arm under her shoulders, lifting one of her arms over his shoulders and aided her to the bedroom. She hopped along on her good leg, then fell into the bed. Leon slipped a hand under the pile of the clothes.
"Leave them. I can't fall asleep without them on the bed." She said, rolling over and burying her face into the shirt.
"Alright." He nodded and righted himself. He pulled a blanket from the foot of the bed and laid it over her. "Get some sleep, Ingrid. I'll check on you tomorrow."
"Thank you, Leon." She called after him. He gave a wave over his shoulder and closed the door behind him. She heard the front door close not long after and she fell into a deep sleep.