She didn't even have to flirt. No real manipulation this time, nor distractions, nor bargaining. Just a lie, plain and sincere, and perhaps something in her bloodshot eyes had spoken a truth her words did not.
They showed her to Leon’s room.
He looks so strangely small in the bed, a black and blue body surrounded by machines and whiteness, lines and tubes snaking across and around and into him like some delicate mutation that has no cure but time.
The monitors beep. Leon inclines his head.
“Thought you'd be halfway to Argentina by now,” he rasps. The eye that isn't swollen shut is a sliver. Must have been her heels clicking on linoleum that tipped him off.
“Flight was delayed.” Ada lies again, and steps closer. She reaches into her coat and produces a syringe. “Antiviral. As a precaution. Wouldn't be the first time you've gotten infected from passive exposure.”
“Thought you wanted to sell that?”
“What I want with it is exactly what I’m doing.” She seeks his IV port and guides the blue fluid to his veins. The heart monitor responds with a blip.
Leon ceases the effort of keeping his semi-good eye open. “Doctors won't be happy some hot lady just wandered in off the street and dosed me with a mystery drug.”
“I'm sure the DSO will come pick you up soon enough and be unhappy with me for entirely different reasons.”
“Where will you be when that happens?”
There's an old chair with a time-ruched vinyl seat for visitors pushed against the wall. Ada pulls it closer. “Halfway to Argentina.” She sits.
“How quickly can you get halfway to Argentina?"
“Oh, fifteen minutes or so.” She reaches out to stroke his hair. Mousy silk flopped over a livid bruise.
The split in Leon's lower lip stretches. “Best set an alarm then so you don't run late.”
“That's okay. You hear that beeping? Only alarm I need to pay attention to.”
He doesn't reply. Her presence is permission to rest.
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