Chapter 16- I Want You
The next few days went the same. Cabe would visit Leah in the morning on his way to Scorpion and then he would stop by for an hour or so after work, if he had the time. Leah enjoyed his visits. He was, after all, the only one visiting. It wasn't like she had friends.
Her days were boring. She tried to move around, just so her muscles wouldn't atrophy and because it was boring if she didn't. Leah had gotten to know her nurses very well, including the handsome, if not slightly obtuse, Nurse Henry Jones. In his late 20s, Henry had a brilliant, toothy, smile that he used on all of his patients to try to get them to smile.
Leah spent most of her time in bed, however, due to her broken leg and her healing throat. Doctor Whistler was insistent that Leah give the wound time to close. So she had to stay relatively still.
It was, needless to say, annoying.
Cabe had been kind and brought her a few movies she could watch on a laptop. He had terrible taste in movies though. At first, he had brought her several John Wayne westerns. She had to put a stop to that and asked him for better options, like The Matrix, John Wick, and The Mummy.
She was halfway through John Wick for the second time when someone knocked on her door. Leah paused her movie and looked up.
A brunette woman in a suit stood at her partially opened door.
"May I come in, Miss Hudson?" she asked.
Leah eyed her carefully. The woman was younger than Leah, probably, but not by much. She was gorgeous. Too gorgeous to be in a job that had her wear a boring suit.
"I haven't been a Miss since I was 18. It's Mrs. Or just call me Leah. Come in," she said, motioning the woman in.
"Oh, you're married?" she asked.
"Haven't been married since I was 27. But it keeps most of the creeps away," Leah explained with a small shrug.
The woman smiled. "I'm Director Adriana Molina of Homeland Security," she introduced herself, pulling her ID out of her pocket.
Leah felt herself grimace as she stared at the ID. "Oh." Her heart sank. Either she was about to be arrested or something had happened to Cabe. Neither was one she'd like to hear.
"Don't worry, Leah, I'm not here to arrest you," she said, trying to calm Leah's obvious fears.
"Well I am a hitman, so it's a reasonable expectation."
Molina shrugged slightly. "As far as I'm concerned, you saved one of my Agents from being killed. And you are helping to bring down some very bad men. That's not something I arrest people for."
Leah narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "So why are you here, Director?"
"I want to offer you a job."
Leah's jaw dropped slightly. "I'm sorry, what?"
"You are, from what I've heard, very good at things involving fighting and guns. But you also have morals, of a sort. I need people like that. People who don't want to kill innocent people. People who want to protect others. Agent Gallo speaks highly of you."
She snorted. "No offense, but Agent Gallo doesn't know much about me."
"What he knows he likes, Leah. And Agent Gallo's good opinion doesn't come easily. He is not bought. Only though good heart, I'd say, do you get Gallo's good opinion. So take it as you will, but he trusts you."
Looking away from Molina, Leah thought about what the woman had said. A job with Homeland Security? Could she do it?
Leah Cross, as she was known before her marriage, graduated from High School and went straight into the Police Academy to be a cop in Farmington Hills. It was a fairly boring assignment. It wasn't like Farmington was known for murder, but she still managed to get herself suspended just a few years later. Her temper made it hard for her to stomach people getting off, particular from crimes like rape or murder. From Farmington she moved to Nashville.
It took Leah only a year of hitting too many murder and rape suspects before Nashville let her go. She then ended up in Omaha, Nebraska. And she tried, she really did. She liked the cops around her and liked her Captain, but her temper got the better of her.
There was a good chance it would happen again with Homeland. Her temper wasn't any better than it was before. She was still angry about injustice.
Leah looked up at Molina. "What would I be doing?"
"If you pass training, you'll join a division that is tasked with some of theā¦dirtier aspects of the job. Sometimes Homeland is asked to care of certain individuals that cannot otherwise be handled. That's where your expertise would come in."
Get paid by the government to do what she was doing with the Irish? Leah considered her options.
"And what if I want a desk job?" Leah asked in a quiet voice.
Molina looked slightly surprised, but shook it off. "Then, if you pass training, it could be considered."
Leah closed her eyes for a moment, thinking on her life. She had never planned on being an assassin, on being a killer. All she ever wanted to do was protect people. Maybe she could do that with Homeland. Maybe she could find herself, the real Leah, in Homeland.
At best, it kept her out of prison.
At worst, she kept being the killer she was.
She opened her eyes again and looked at Molina. "It's going to be a while before I'm able to complete training."
Molina nodded. "A spot will be open to you once you complete you physical therapy."
Leah smiled. "I look forward to serving my country."
