041 [VIDEO
[The camera, fixed in the ceiling, looks down on one of the hospital's isolation rooms. By the edge of a crumpled bed stands a man more usually seen in scrubs than the hospital gown he has on now. Two sets of restraints seem to be keeping him there: one linking his leg with the foot of the bed, and one cuffing his wrists together
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He looks like hell, unsurprisingly, and she can't help but wince at the damage he's done to himself. She tries to steady herself with a deep breath and leans in to use the intercom, voice wavering a little.]
Now you'll have to account for his recovery time.
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[He tilts his head and gives her an equally tilted smile, nothing but bitter pleasure in her distress; a smile edged with teeth.]
Everyone assumes he's not disposable. If you take the interest in his welfare you're pretending you do, you might want to worry about what happens if that's not the case.
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She hopes.]
You're going to a lot of effort to take him with you, if you don't need him.
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I want out. Whether he comes or not is optional, but for the good of his health it might be better if he does.
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Leave him here and I won't try to stop you from going.
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[She's not stupid, half the time she's not even particularly brave, and there's no reason to take whatever this is at its word. So far as she knows there's no reason it couldn't take her body in lieu of Chase's, and that doesn't accomplish anything.]
That's the only offer I'm making, and I doubt you'll get that much leeway from anyone else.
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[That's frustration speaking, though it masks it as mocking amusement. e turns to examining his broken hand, swollen and flushed with blood. It's a nasty compound fracture: hard to work as a doctor without good hands, especially the complex work Chase is skilled at.]
People like him. Unlike you, some of them even admit it. More than that, people here trust him -- apparently it's a side effect of your profession. Sooner or later someone's going to come in and help me out.
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People like Chase. But you make it clearer every second that you're not him, and it's not like you've treated him very well. The only concern we have, people who care for him, is how to get rid of you.
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[It's lips twist between a grin and a grimace, curling the broken hand in the opposite palm without showing any sign of feeling the pain that must be throbbing through that arm.]
You realise I have a hostage in here. Two hundred and six bones in the human body: breaking one per hour would take too long. How about every quarter?
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[Maybe it derives some satisfaction from this sadism. Every bruise, every scratch, every fracture is a wager she doesn't want to make; but it's not as though she can give in. She's fairly sure Chase wouldn't want her to, if he had a say in the situation. Either way, letting him go would be sacrificing their only hard-won chance to fix this.]
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[It hammers a fist down on the arm of the bet to punctuate it's point. No more breakages, but it can't be helping the damage he's already taken.]
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[At worst, after all, if it comes to that, there are always ways. Trades. Deals, and of the four of them here two have gotten away without making them when they ought to have had to.
Cameron is always prepared for the worst. Sometimes it's a useful habit.]
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[It shrugs, sure of itself as the one with the better chips to bargain with.]
Or I'll see out the boredom by taking him apart.
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[It's an uninformed but accurate word choice. She looks as though she's going to add something but stops, turning slightly away and fumbling for her phone. Whatever she sees is interesting enough that she spares him one brief glance, the screen of her phone hidden behind a curled hand, and walks away.]
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[It's yelled at her retreating back, and if he'd been left with anything in the room but a sheetless bed it would have followed his voice to crash against the glass by now.]
You're really going to walk away now? Willing to take the blame for what you come back to? [But she's gone, and he's left muttering under someone else's breath.] Or I could make it another episode of show and tell. Enough bleeding hearts in the city if hers has run dry...
[It looks up at the corner of the room and settles in, arms folded, to wait for the recording light to flicker back on.]
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