Somewhen during his brief mental panic at finding himself in the middle of a starting war between Mama Fran and Don Fella, Betty the Nurse had come by to bring him dinner. Indeed, when Leo cast a look outside his window, the sky had taken a dark blue and orange color, signalling a nearing sunset. 

 

Hospital dinner was, like always, not anything to write home about. Leo eyed the mush the way some people looked at stains on the bottom of their shoe. Betty the Nurse noticed and rounded on him with a scowl.

 

"Either you eat up or it's a night of sleeping on an empty stomach," she said, with a haughty little sniff. Grumbling, Leo picked up a plastic fork. Betty the Nurse puttered around the room, checking off things on her checkboard. "Here's your things, sweetie." She put a bundle of folded clothes at the foot of his bed.

 

"You've got a half hour," she told Rafik and left promptly, her work there done. 

 

"Is there something on my face?" Leo asked, Rafik having grown silent. His big almond-shaped brown eyes had been fixed on him while Leo took vicious stabs with a plastic fork at the hospital salad.

 

"You don't…" He gestured vaguely at Leo, who was busy trying to identify what those weird cubes on his plate were. "Well, you don't look scared."

 

"Why would I be?" Were those carrots? Leo hoped those were carrots. 

 

Rafik shrugged, looking distinctly boyish with his sleeveless down vest and punk rock t-shirt. "Most people shit their pants when meeting an assassin."

 

"Assassin? Apprentice with shit aim, more like," Leo automatically responded but then paused as the words filtered to his brain. He put his fork down and turned his head. "You can't be this stupid."

 

Did the kid really not know who he'd hit? Everyone with a finger in the underworld pie knew who Leo was. He'd killed last term's Mayor after all.

 

Rafik furrowed his brows. "What's that supposed to mean, sir?" He sounded annoyed.

 

That was how Leo knew the kid wasn't who he said he was. Either he was the world's best poker face—or worse, was one of those folks who liked to play cat and mouse with the truth—or he'd lied.

 

"You should be finishing your damn job, kid," Leo said casually. "You know what happens to the fools who fail Don Fella. " He stabbed a tomato slice with unusual force, to emphasize his point. 

 

Rafik was starting to look uneasy. His adam's apple bobbed up and down as he gulped. "S-si-"

 

"Leave the poor kid alone, Tiger." Ada Strange walked in through the open door. She was a tall woman, made taller by the black pumps and the checkered suit she preferred to wear, with teased hair and mocha skin. "He's on my payroll."

 

She set her leather bag on the floor by the door. Her police badge, which she always kept attached to her belt, flashed as the hard light of the room flickered off of it.

 

"I'm an actor!" The kid said jovially. 

 

"He's still a student," Ada added.

 

"It's only a matter of time before I get cast!"

 

Not with your skin color you won't. But Leo kept that fact to himself. Mariposa City was like any other city in the Republic of Kalideer, in that the rich white men sat at the top of the metaphorical food chain and anyone that didn't look like they belonged to their group stayed firmly under their heel. Outliers who wanted a place at the top had to turn to the Famiglias for help. You could do anything with their support, become anyone. That was how most outliers and non-desirables climbed up—with blood money.

 

What was the saying again? Shake hands with the Devil and wake up chained to a rack.

 

The kid leaned forward again. "I've been meaning to ask." He gestured to Leo's hands. "What's with the gloves?"

 

Leo stilled. 

 

Ada Strange inhaled sharply. Rafik shifted nervously, having realized he'd committed a blunder—even if the why eluded him. Yet he didn't dare speak. No one did. The only sounds that could be heard were those of the hallway where Betsy the Nurse was still doing her rounds and outside the window. You could've cut the tension in the room with a butter knife, it was so thick.

 

Finally, Leo moved again, slowly set the platter on the nightstand. Ada gave an inaudible sigh of relief and Rafik had started to relax, smiling nervously before Leo said: "You have twenty seconds to get out of my sight."

 

There was nothing aggressive about the way he said it, no sharpness or angry inflection. He was still in the same position the kid had found him in, sat upright leaning against the raised part of the bed, legs spread out beneath the pale yellow coverlet. He was looking at Rafik with a nonchalant expression, all square clean-shaved jaw and thick dark eyebrows from his Italian heritage.

 

To all appearances a mildly handsome man telling his visitor to leave.

 

Except for the plastic fork clutched in his gloved hand.

 

Rafik blanched.

 

Ada attempted to make light of the situation. "C'mon, Tiger, you won't kill a kid." But she rested her hand on the gun at her hip that had been hidden by her vest. Classic cop pose. Leo didn't even have to glance her way to know she'd done it.

 

"Not usually, no. Fifteen."

 

The kid looked like he didn't know whether to be embarrassed or deadly afraid. Though he was rapidly leaning towards the latter. "I'm sorry, sir. She promised me a twenty."

 

"Ten."

 

Rafik yelped and scrambled towards the door. Ada closed it behind him.

 

Leo glared, "How much of it was a lie?"

 

"Only the person delivering it."

 

Leo levelled Ada with a stare for a few moments. Normally, that look had anyone that tried to challenge him backing off within seconds, but he should have known it wouldn’t faze her. She wasn’t just anybody. Ada Strange was relentless and determined and Leo's eternal pain in the ass. But Ada Strange was not a liar. 

 

And her eyes were the warm coffee brown he remembered.

 

He finally sighed, breaking eye contact. He leaned back against the pillows propped behind him. "What do you want?"

 

"I already got it. Proof that you didn't know about the attempt on a particular man's life, or about Don Fella's suspicious fidgeting."

 

Leo shot her a look that said, "You better explain." It earned him a roll of her eyes, but she did take the seat Rafik had just vacated and continued.

 

"Something's happened. I don't know what, nobody knows, but we're all going to feel the consequences, Tiger." She glanced pointedly at where his leg was under the sheet. "Some of us already have. Things are going to change around here."

 

He snorted. "Things don't change in this city." It was basically an universal law. The Famiglias ruled from the shadows while the politicians trampled around during the day and all sorts of nonsensical celebrities danced around like monkeys to keep the general public occupied. It had always been so, since the Southern Village at the Eastern Border became Mariposa City and it will be so until someone sensible wiped this city off the fucking map. Things didn't change.

 

"They will. In fact, they've already changed." She lowered her voice. "Anything's possible with Xalamol-C."

 

Blood. Blood everywhere. An excruciating pain that left him gasping, grasping for anything to make it stop. Someone screaming. Always screaming. Stop, please stop-

 

He blinked and was back in the white one person's room in Saint Coyore's Hospital that smelled of hand sanitizer, carrots and rubbing alcohol.

 

"Huh." Leo pushed back his blankets and swung his legs over the side of the bed, the opposite side where she wasn't sitting. Ada had twitchy fingers far too close to her gun and he didn't fancy getting whacked so soon after surgery. He stood up—silently grateful that the hospital garb was modest enough to cover him from collarbone to his knees—stretching and cracking his back, careful to stay close to either the wall or the bed, should his leg give out beneath him. 

 

"Who do you want dead?" He asked.

 

"This really isn't the time for your jokes!" She snapped.

 

"I never joke about murder." He leaned against the windowpane, looking at the parking in front of the hospital. Visitors hours would soon be over, there were already people leaving, in cars or on foot. Leo knew the fortunate and the clever among them would be hurrying to their homes, eager to be off the streets—or at the very least in a trusted neighborhood—before nightfall.

 

Mariposan nights were not safe, not even for monsters. 

 

And while Leo wasn't fortunate, he was clever. He started stripping out of his hospital gown.

 

Ada yelped behind him, "What are you doing?"

 

"Getting ready. Pass me my clothes, will you?" He grabbed the bundle she tossed him and examined the articles. A short-sleeved button down shirt, black slacks and white socks. He nodded, satisfied. See, this was why Betty the Nurse was the Nurse. She was the only nurse he knew, the only one that mattered.

 

"Getting ready for where? They just dug out a bullet out of you."

 

"Only my leg. I can still do my job." He grunted, ducking down to look underneath the bed, mindful to not pull at the fresh stitches on his leg, and sure enough, Oxford shoes awaited him there, shined and polished just the way he liked. Inside the Oxfords were two packets of prescribed pain meds. 

 

Betty the Nurse deserved a fucking raise.

 

He dressed and made for the door, limping. Ada Strange followed, picking up her bag. The hallways were crowded, visitor hours were over and everyone not part of the hospital staff or staying the night was making their way to the front doors.

 

Ada Strange sidled up to him and leaned close. She was a half head taller than him in her heels. "You didn't answer my question," she whispered. Her breath tickled his ear.

 

Leo allowed himself a small grin. "Why, Miss Ada," he said, stepping through the front hospital doors into the open parking, bathed in the orange and yellow lights of the setting sun and street lanterns, "I'm going home."

 

Ada Strange scowled. She was very pretty.