The Soldier

like a clockwork

Tessa lost count of how many days she was here already.

Helen looked her over sometimes, checking the monitor beside her bed and giving her wound a quick look, before making sure she drank something and left afterwards.

Then she slept. When she woke up again, Tony was already sitting beside her bed, putting away the bonds around her wrist to let her eat something and go to the bathroom.

Then she slept again. And then Helen came back again and the whole circle started over. She lost count how often already.

„Your wound is healing pretty fast, Tessa. Does it still hurt a lot?", Helen asked, looking at the monitor beside her bed and Tessa only shook her head.

She was getting painkillers whenever she asked for them, but she really did not feel any pain anymore, at least not something she could not bear without sedative.

Besides, she wanted to be awake as long as possible. She needed to figure out a way to get out of here soon.

Yesterday she managed to snatch one of Helen's needles when she wasn't looking. Maybe she could use it to escape the next time Tony put away her bonds. A little hope, but she took everything she got from that nowadays.

„Do you have headaches? Or feel dizzy? What about your stomach, does it still hurt when you touch it?", Helen asked further, now looking at her.

Tessa could not keep herself from snorting humourlessly, because why should she know if it still hurt when someone touched it? She could barely move her hands, because she was tied to her bed. Helen's raised eyebrows demanded an answer though and Tessa shook her head again.

„No to all of it?", Helen asked, and Tessa nodded, before clearing her throat.

„I don't know if it hurts when someone touches it, I... can't touch it.", she added, helplessly trying to raise her hands to touch it.

„When you go to the bathroom the next time, try it, okay?" Helen said, writing something down on her clipboard, not sparing Tessa another glance.

„Okay.", Tessa said, looking up at the ceiling, while Helen was about to leave the room.

She looked at her another time, before smiling somehow threatheningly and friendly at the same time. How was she able to do that?

„Is there something else you want to tell me, Tessa? Maybe... about a needle?", Helen asked, all melodic voice and looking at Tessa's hands and the place where she hid the needle in the mattrass.

She picked it up, taking it back and Tessa felt like screaming at her or crying for a second, immediately getting control over herself.

„I don't know anything about this.", Tessa immediately said, trying to cough in order to prevent the beeping monitor from giving away her quickening pulse.

Her stomach protested and she stopped. This had no sense anyway, she was busted. They would kill her for trying to escape. To hell with everything.

Helen looked at the monitor, than at Tessa and smirked.

„Sure.", she said, getting outside.

'Awesome. That's it, I guess.', she thought to herself. 'Might as well enjoy my last hours on earth and sleep a bit.'

She was too tired to worry about her uncaring attitude towards death right now. If it was her time to go, it was her time to go. There wasn't a lot she would leave behind anyway.

If she was silent and tried to disregard the noises of the monitor beside her bed she could hear voices outside of her room almost all the time.

Tessa could not understand what they were saying, and usually there were different voices but after some time, she recognized Helen's and Tony's, and Pepper's.