You're Mine

That didn't go as planned...

Villanelle turns and walks from the ruins; a faint breeze blows stray hairs across her face as she systematically begins to take the Browning 25 apart and tosses the pieces as she goes. The sound of the metal hitting the stone rings in her ear; like the bullet. The one lodged in Eve's chest, the one causing her to bleed all over the white stone. She blinks a hard blink, a decisive blink, a blink of action. She follows a small path out of the ruins and her feet take her north-west; given that she has no time to process her next steps her feet simply know where they need to go. Her mind is a void; she smiles to herself, thinking back to Aaron as the life drained from his eyes; he was a void but so much worse than her...Right?

She feels in her pocket for the keys Konstantin had given her earlier, now realizing she had left them in the car. "Stupid," she says aloud. 'Stupid like you believed Eve was different!' She shakes her head and continues to walk, the ruins behind her now and a road coming into view. She has limited options right now, no money, no passport, no Konstantin... Her mind flashes to Eve, to her words.

"You want me to be a mess" "But I'm like you now"

"You're mine!" her own voice screams, and Villanelle stops walking, the sound echoing in her mind and seemingly out of it as well. She looks back, knowing that she's been walking for at least ten minutes. Long enough for Eve to have bled out from that type of gunshot wound. Eve would be lying in a large pool of blood, her beautiful hair, wet with blood, her eyes...cold and dead; her soul sucked right back into her. 'Why had Eve done that? Why did she not see how much I loved her? She killed for me, to save me, to be like me and that's how she acts? Is that how normal people act?'

***

Hugo tries to turn onto his side, but something is stopping him, his eyes flutter open and his vision is blurred. Head spinning and aching he begins to make sense for the hazy visuals, an EKG machine, a drip, uncomfortable bed, itchy blanket. Yup, hospital. "Try to lay still Hugo, you're going to break your stitches" a woman's voice sounds, and he turns to see Carolyn standing at the foot of his bed. Her face as always, unreadable, lips pursed in a thin line and her eyebrows raised as she takes in the sight of him. "What happened?" Hugo asks, his voice thick and tongue dry. Carolyn moves around the bed and pours a small amount of water into a paper cup for him and hands it to him. "You were shot, the doctors have removed the bullet, you lost a lot of blood, but we got you here in time." Carolyn says all of this in her usual tone, business-like, although nothing is every business-like in their line of work. "Eve?" he asks after placing the cup back on the bedside table and he notices something pass over Carolyn's face, dismay maybe? "No idea. She's chosen to stay in Rome." Carolyn walks back to the end of the bed and picks up her coat and shrugs it on. "You'll be here for another day or two, once the stitches are out you can travel home. I'll have someone collect you and fly with you. In the meantime, there's a lovely gentleman from Interpol outside your door and several armed guards wandering around the place. You should be quite safe for now." With that, she turns to leave, and Hugo feels his head swimming again. "Wait, Eve is still here? Don't tell me she went with her?" he says referring to Villanelle. "She chose her side," Carolyn says in a matter of fact way and gives Hugo a small smile before leaving the room and shutting the door behind her. Hugo reaches under the blanket and shifts the hospital gown up and sees the dark red and purple bruising around the wound which has been neatly stitched. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, trying to remember the face of the person who shot him. A man? He was tall, hairy, leather jacket, his face is a blur, but he had a distinct smell...sausage. He opens his eyes and looks around the room from some kind of entertainment to pass the time. "Hey? Do you think I can take a peek outside, maybe grab a quick smoke?" he yells hoping there is someone outside the door. He is met with the sound of a thump and the door opens quietly as a young nurse walks into the room and walks straight over to pick up his chart and looks over it. Her face is partially hidden by a surgical mask and her head is covered with a white cap. The white coat sits awkwardly on her fame like is too big for her and is spotted with blood. "It's not very hygienic of you to be in here with that blood-soaked thing on is it?" Hugo says and gives the nurse a wide grin. She puts the chart down and pulls the coat off and tosses it on to the chair by the window. "Is that better?" she says, the mask muffles her voice but there is a distinct accent and Hugo looks at her and sees familiarity in those hazel eyes. "Shit," he says as panic rushes through his body. "Don't scream!" she says, and, in a flash, she is next to him her right hand tightly around his throat pushing on his windpipe. She pulls the mask off and tosses it aside, her mouth slightly twisted, like she is enjoying the feeling of him squirming underneath her. She pushes just a bit harder and he whines at the pain and his eyes begin to water. "I'm not going to kill you. I just need you to cooperate. Do you think you can do that Hugo?" Villanelle's fingers twitch against him and she watches his hands scratching against hers to get some relief. She quickly twists and punches him in the stomach and he groans in pain. Her hand leaves his throat and he coughs hard as air beings flowing back into his lungs. He clutches his stomach and can feel warm, fresh blood seeping through his hospital gown. "You bitch, you broke my stitches," he says between coughs and Villanelle laughs. "I'm sure the girls will love the scar and your heroic story that will go with it," she says, and Hugo can't tell if she is making a joke or trying to offend him. "Right," he says before turning and reaching for the cup of water. Villanelle twitches and almost darts forward to stop him but realizes he is simply getting water. "Bit on edge, are we?" he says with an eyebrow raised but can't read her expression. "Did she let go with you? You know she was thinking about me the whole time" Villanelle says softly, and her hand absently runs across the fabric on her top, her stomach, the left side where Eve had stuck one of her own knives into her. "I'll bet she didn't even thank you," she says as she moves closer to him, "She just takes what she needs then tosses you aside" her voice changes, it's menacing and there is an edge to it that makes Hugo see the mask slip away. Not a physical mask, but that one she wore to pretend to be human, to be normal, to be like him, or Jess or Kenny. Her eyes are wide, but the pupils are so dilated it's unnerving to look at. "Where is Eve?" Hugo asks and watches her as she moves around to his side and flops down in the chair. "You know, I don't really have a lot of time to chat. The guard will be coming back in a few minutes and I'm tired, I don't really want to kill another overenthusiastic gym junkie." She laughs at this and the sound is somewhat psychotic and causes Hugo to shift in his bed; his eyes never leaving her. "I need your phone," She says, and this time Hugo laughs which irritates her and she stands from the chair and slaps him across the face. "This is no time for laughing Hugo. I need a phone and I need it now. So where is it?" He reaches up to his face and rubs the spot where he had just been hit. "you really think they left me a phone? Christ, I'm lucky they sent me to a hospital! This is MI6, not your fancy Russian operation, I'll be lucky to get back and still have a job" this information bothers Villanelle and she lets out a disapproving cluck. "Then I guess I have no use for you anymore," she says, and she reaches for the IV drip cord and pulls it from the bag with force, causing the saline solution to fly across the room. She quickly wraps the plastic tube around his neck as his hands try to stop her, but she is strong, stronger than he anticipated, and she manages to catch a break and punches him in the stomach harder this time and he lets out a long groan. She climbs on top of the bed and uses both hands to pull the tubing tight around his throat and watches his eyes being to bulge. His body squirms underneath her, trying to push her off but she does not budge. Villanelle leans in closer and watches the water run from his eyes and down his cheeks, they are bulging so much now she thinks they might pop but they don't and in two minutes she knows the blood flow has been cut off long enough to cause brain damage. His body stops twitching after another minute he is dead. The sound of air trying desperately to get in is soft and she leans closer to hear that final wheezing breath and watches his eyes go dark.