The Road You Tread [Assassin's Creed III]

Sequence I - V

Careful fingers probed at the bloodstained skin surrounding a shallow, long cut. "Does this hurt?"

"Well, it ain't flowers and sunshine exactly."

Bonnie couldn't help but smile at the snappy remark.

"All right, Mr. Hickey. This has to be sewn but I'll have you patched up in no time at all so don't worry."

"I ain't worried 'bout nothin', Ma'am."

"Well, that's good for you," Bonnie grinned while gathering her tools. "That means we'll be able to see this through without any problems."

The man called Hickey huffed and leaned back in the chair, arms crossed over his chest. "Right."

For a while, Bonnie worked in utter silence since neither she nor her patient had anything to say.

Once her set was complete, she turned to wash of the blood and clean the wound. He endured it without so much as a hiss.

However, when she threaded the twine through the needle and turned to face him he flinched slightly.

Bonnie threw him a surprised look. "Are you afraid of needles?"

Scowling, Hickey held out his bleeding arm, a silent prompt for her to begin her work. "No. Just want to get it over with."

The silence settled upon them once more. Bonnie was already halfway through sewing the wound on his arm closed when he suddenly talked again, jerking her out of her concentration.

"You got yourself an awfully large basement, Ma'am. What are you doin' with so much space?"

Not once interrupting her work, Bonnie shrugged her shoulders.

"Not much, I suppose. I store a bit of my medicine down there, and use it work sometimes, but you're right. I have no real need for that much space."

"Hmm..." Caressing his chin with his free hand, Hickey considered this information for a moment, then spoke again.

"You know.. You could always rent it out."

Surprised by his words, Bonnie threw him a questioning glance. "Rent it out..? Well, I guess I could. But who would want a cold, dark cellar?"

It was a rhetorical question, yet - to her utter surprise - Hickey answered it nonetheless.

"I know someone who would. The... Company I work for could use it as a storage."

Bonnie mulled over his words while she finished sewing up his wound. Something about this man was off...

She sat back on her heels once she snipped off the excess thread with a muttered "I really need new scissors, these are blunt as hell." and sent him a calculating look.

"Why don't you just use the warehouses down at the docks?"

He tilted his head to the side, meeting her eyes unflinchingly. "Let's say down there they don't like our business and what we're doing."

Holding his gaze Bonnie considered what this new piece of information meant. The final conclusion she came to was one she didn't really like. Better to stay out of harm's way.

Turning around to clean her tools, she dumped them into a pot filled with water and declared in a voice that sounded way more confident that she felt, "Tempting, but no. I fear I'll have to decline your offer since I'd rather not have unfamiliar people wandering about my house."