LEO
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23/01/2003
Panay, The Philippines
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"Are you ever going to say anything else?" I groan, resting my head on the table. I don't know how the fuck Nova has coped with this guy all week.

"Not unless you offer my freedom." He speaks confidently, looking up from where he's chained against the wall.

"You're not making my job any easier, Abe," I grumble, he lets out a small chuckle.

"Because I'm not on your side. I'll tell you a thing, on one condition," he offers with a shrug.

"Depends on how valuable the information is, and what the condition is." I mutter, raising my head up and off the table.

"Very important. If I give this information, you give a 'place to sleep that isn't a wall," he says quietly.

That's the only condition? What the fuck?

"Consider it done," I roll my shoulders, leaning forward in anticipation.

"I'm only saying 'cause the girl has fed me." He says nonchalantly, my jaw immediately clenching.

"Nova? What does this have to do with Nova?" I snap, my nails already digging into my palms.

"The blonde man."

My heart starts racing, I can feel the sweat droplets beginning to form themselves around my hairline, an awful feeling of dread looming over me.

"Jed? What about him?" I urge.

No answer. Abe simply stares at me.

"What about him, Goddamnit?!" I hiss.

"He's the one working with us. I think he took her out to kill her."

My word comes to a standstill for a moment, veers around me, and I wait for Abe to tell me he's lying. To tell me that my best buddy here is not actually the insider. And to tell me that he hasn't actually lured Nova out to kill her.

Abe looks completely serious, and the adrenaline immediately kicks in. My blood runs cold. The fucking protector instinct kicks in.

No.

I'm out of my chair in half a second, knocking it over in the process. I have never sprinted out of a room so fucking fast in my life. My heart is pounding harder than ever before.

Not her. Not Nova. Not Nova.

Throwing myself back out into the open base, I grab the nearest gun I find lying around, loading it up. North spots me and jogs over as I'm pulling on my gear rapidly. "Hendrix? Wh--"

"—It's Jed. He's the fucking insider, Abe just admitted it. He's fucking took Nova out to kill her off!" I'm yelling at the top of my lungs, immediately sprinting towards the gates before North can even process what in the goddamn hell I've just told him.

Tara must have overheard my shouting, since she affirmatively grabs her gun and follows suit; rallying up some other members of the group as they all follow out after me.

"Split up!" I command, everyone immediately conforming as we disperse into smaller groups. Tara has come with me, she hasn't spoken a single word and her eyes are plastered wide open; probably since she's still in immense shock.

I think we all are.

—

I don't know how fucking long we've been sprinting, but every ounce of adrenaline pumping through my body is keeping me going. We dart through the trees, looking for absolutely any sign of them. I pull my radio up to my mouth and speak urgently.

"Come on, Nova! Answer Goddamnit!" I seethe into the comms, the static silence haunting me.

"There!" Tara suddenly screeches, aiming her gun. That's when I see a flash of blonde hair weaving through the trees, seemingly making a run for it.

I didn't think I could run any faster, but I seem to fly off with ten times more speed as Jed comes into my line of vision.

I immediately raise up my pistol and manage to take a few shots, one hitting the back of his knee. He yells out in pain and crumples to the floor, I waste absolutely no time and yank him up by his collar.

"You bastard! Tell me where she is or I'll blow your fucking head off!" I bellow, wrapping my hands around his neck warningly.

"Looks like I'm a dead man anyway." He spits up into my face.

"For every second you don't tell me where she is, I'll fucking shred the answer out of you," I seethe, whipping out my knife and placing it right in the centre of his torso. "Start talking or I'll fucking gut you."

The sheer rage pouring through me, I can't even fucking comprehend. I've never, ever behaved with more fury than right now.

He doesn't talk on command, so I immediately press my knife into the surface of his skin, dragging it down. He starts screaming in pain like a fucking pussy.

"Okay! Fine, just stop. About a mile southwest from here!" He cries out, bastard can't handle the pain. I'd do a whole lot more to him if I had time.

But I don't.

Despite the fact I want to slice him into ribbons, I immediately stand up and take off again.

"Tara! Watch over him, radio the others to meet you!" I yell over my shoulder, yanking the old compass out of a pocket in my vest.

I adjust into the Southwest direction, my heels practically have sparks flying out from behind them.

"Nova? Nova!" I start yelling out her name hopelessly.

She might already be fucking dead.

My eyes dart around every single area I'm passing, until I see a figure slumped near the roots of an old tree. I dive in the direction, cupping her limp head with both hands and lifting it up so I can look at her.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She looks dead.

"Nova? Nova, come on. Wake up!" I tap her cheek with urgency, seeing if she's responsive at all. I frantically look around, checking if there's any indication what might have happened to her.

She's completely ashen, her skin tainted by an unearthly shade of blue. I support her head with one hand as the other presses her neck desperately; praying to feel that gentle, rhythmic thump of a pulse.

Oh thank God.

It's barely there, but it's still faintly beating, and that's enough for me to grasp onto the tiny slither of hope. I lean in towards her face, praying to feel that slight, soft exhale from her lips.

She's not fucking breathing.

I immediately pull her away from the tree, gently but urgently laying her on her back. I'm shaking like a madman; my quivering hands find her chin and tilt it back slightly, a desperate attempt to open her airways.

I catch a glimpse of streaks down her face. Dried water. Dried tears. Claw marks on the ground, mud buried under her nails. Dirt around her mouth, like she had her hands inside of it.

She must've figured it out when it was too late. She must've been fucking terrified.

And whatever he did to her, I'll fucking kill Jed Nolan slowly for this.

I link my hands over the centre of her chest. I try and think back to the time Rosa gave us an emergency first aid session for this type of thing.

Thirty compressions.

For each compression I administer, more severe feelings of dread dawn over me. What if she actually dies here? What if she just doesn't fucking wake up?

"Come on, Nova. Come on. . ." I mutter in between pumping on her chest. I don't even fucking realise that there's tears brimming in my eyes.

I never thought I'd cry over Nova Shields.

After thirty intense compressions, I open up her mouth and press my lips down, blowing in two forceful breaths before returning back to the compressions. I can't stop murmuring the whole time, begging for her to wake up.

This is now the third fucking cycle.

"Nova, please! Come on. You aren't fucking dying like this, alright?!" I yell desperately before blowing the two breaths into her mouth.

Just as I'm about to pull away and repeat the compressions, a sharp, choked breath rushes between her lips. Then another. And then, her eyes crack open half an inch.

Relief floods me, shooting through my blood. Thank fuck. "Nova. Nova. Nova." I chant her name quietly, sliding my hand behind her neck to raise her slightly. Her eyes are entirely unfocused and panicked, and she can't seem to reach a breath. As though an invisible string is strangling her.

Nausea rips through me, something in my heart wrenching from seeing her like this. Seeing her fiery spirit blown out. She doesn't have a clue what's happening. She looks so damn vulnerable and lost.

She looks so fucking scared.

I press my forehead to hers, cupping my hand in the back of her dampened hair in an attempt of reassurance. "Nova. Nova. It's me, it's Leo. I've got you. And I'm getting you out of here."

Her chest lifts and she heaves up nothing but air, and then hazy eyes latch on to mine. "Leo." Her voice is barely more than a strained, tiny whisper. A plea. But it's enough to give me hope.

"Yeah. Yeah. It's me, Nova." I slide an arm beneath her back, my other under her knees. "I've got you. I've got you. You're safe now."

My blood runs cold as she lets out a small groan, before her eyes tip back into her head and she loses consciousness. Fuck. Fuck.

"No. No, dammit. Stay with me, Nova." I beg as calmly as possible, despite the way I'm frantically clicking on my radio. I catch a glimpse of something discarded on the floor, and recognise it as her cherished Smith and Wesson.

I make a quick mental note that I'll come back and get it for her whilst she's recovering. Because she will be okay.

I scoop her up, and for a second it feels like she's going to wake up again, but instead her head just rolls into the crook of my neck. I adjust my hold around her, I might have gotten her breathing, but that doesn't mean she's out of the woods.

"Does anyone copy?!" I yell now, praying the radio picks up my plea.

"Leo, I copy! What's going on?" To my utter relief, Tara's voice crackles through the comms.

"I've got her. She's unconscious, someone go back to base and prepare the fucking medics now!" I demand, hearing Tara's quick 'copy' before she cuts off the radio on her end.

I sprint back through my footprints from earlier, mapping out my path. I don't loosen my grip on her for a second, attempting to keep her head propped against my shoulder so her airways remain open.

Finally, I see the familiar barbed fences of our base. The gates are already open, and all five medics are prepared with a gurney for our arrival.

As soon as I dash into base, I don't waste a second in laying her down on the gurney as they whisk her off towards the med-bay. It doesn't stop me from sprinting alongside them.

The minute they've got her in the med-bay, they're working rapidly. Rosa sticks a tube right down her throat, Elijah already has a needle pressed into the front of her arm, drawing blood.

"Did you see what happened at all? Anything suspicious near her?" Rosa asks me urgently, to which I just shrug helplessly.

"No, she doesn't have a single visible injury on her." I mumble, but Rosa already seems to have figured out a good idea about what's happened to her. She picks up one of Nova's hands, noticing how her fingernails are completely blue; as well as her lips.

"Molly, get me the Naloxone!" She yells urgently. Molly, I'm assuming who is a medic from the Eagles, immediately runs to a shelf and grabs a small bottle out.

What the fuck is Naloxone?

Rosa doesn't hesitate to stick a needle through the top of the bottle, drawing some of the substance out before injecting it slowly into one of Nova's veins.

"What happened to her? Do you have any idea?" I ask, backing into the corner of the room helplessly.

"There isn't a single scratch on her body, like you said. The blue tinge tells us that it could be related to an overdose of some sort, most likely an opioid." Elijah explains calmly.

"Will she be alright?" I question quietly. Elijah looks hesitant on his answer before nodding a little.

"She should be. You managed to get her breathing again, and she still has a pulse. We just need to wait and see how she responds to the Naloxone, a reversing agent for overdoses." He informs me. I can tell he's trying to help me understand the whole situation a little more clearly without freaking me the fuck out.

My mind suddenly wanders back to Jed, my fists balling at my sides until the whites of my knuckles come to surface.

Without another word, I storm out of the room with only one fucking intention.

—

"Where is he?!" I demand, Martin Shelley immediately answering.

"We've put him in the other room in C, he's detained and supervised."

The second I get my answer, I stride over to building C; swinging open the door and heading right into the only other room.

Jed is chained down against a table. For some reason, he has a bandage wrapped around his leg from where I shot him. The fucker doesn't deserve first aid.

North is watching over him, a furious expression lingering in his cold eyes.

"You fucking son of a bitch!" I immediately lose my shit, lunging straight at him and hooking his jaw. He grimaces, going to retaliate but having his hands restricted by the chains.

"You bastard. You're lucky I didn't just blow your fucking brains out there and then!" I seethe at him, ready to fuck him right up until North stops me.

"He's our best way to more information, Leo." He sighs. He's clearly shocked about this whole situation, I think everybody is.

Jed is the last person I would have expected this from.

"How long have you been plotting this for?" I growl, fury dominating my tone.

"Since I joined," he remarks nonchalantly, as though he's already accepted the fact he's not fucking getting out of this.

"Why?" I mutter, coldness in my voice.

I can't act like it doesn't hurt, now knowing it was him all along. He was somebody I considered one of my closest allies, somebody I confided in.

He's been playing us like puppets, guiding the strings in his murderous hands.

"Revenge." He shrugs. His nonchalance is really fucking pissing me off, he hasn't a damn inch of remorse.

"Revenge? What fucking revenge?" I seethe at him. North just remains completely silent.

"The North Carolina drug bust in '96, when you all seized that cocaine and killed off two head dealers after a gunfight. I was in that fucking house, I watched you all kill my brother." He hisses.

Reece Nolan?

Nolan. Fuck.

It all falls into place as I look up at him furiously, "because your brother was a fucking bad man. He'd killed so many people, Jed. We were bound to track him down."

"He was still my brother." He seethes, making me shake my head in frustration.

I actually don't give a fuck about his reasons, there's only one thing on my mind.

"Why Nova?"

He just rolls his eyes as though he literally can't care less, "because she was getting too damn close to weeding me out."

"What did you use on her." I don't question, I demand.

"Fentanyl." He mumbles.

"If she doesn't recover, you best believe I'll fucking rip you to shreds. I'll tear you apart limb by fucking limb, Nolan." I hiss at him, slamming one of my fists against the table.

He just glances away, avoiding my gaze.

"Why Atashih? Have you been involved with the fucking hostages?"

He nods slightly, "yeah. I used sources from the internet, eventually tracked down their group. Turns' out they had a vendetta against you all from issues in the past."

He's so fucking indifferent to all of this, I want to just lean across and slit his fucking throat.

I need to calm down before I do anything else, so I stand up and screech my chair back under the table, fists still shaking.

"I'm going to check on her." I mutter, striding right out of the room.

—

"Any idea yet on if she will be okay?" Tara sighs, sitting at the side of Nova's bed with me.

"She should be. She's responding well to the Naloxone we've administered, it's probably just still working through her system. Might be a little while before she wakes up." Elijah says, calmly as ever,

"you did a really good job of getting her breathing again, Leo. If you hadn't, she would have, well, died." He continues, looking down slightly.

I'm fucking surprised that I managed to get her breathing again.

I sigh and shrug my shoulders, looking back at her. She looks nothing like her usual fiery spirit. The usual, tanned glow of her skin is subsided, replaced by a blueish hint.

She's just completely motionless. It's unnerving.

"I can't believe it was him all along," Tara murmurs, the heartbreak evident in her voice.

She had obviously fallen for the Jed she thought she knew.

"I know you thought a lot of him, Tara. I'm sorry." I mumble, glimpsing over at her.

"We all did. Nobody saw this coming." She sighs, glancing back down at Nova before up at me again.

"I've never witnessed someone run as fast as you did today, Leo." She says quietly, raising her eyebrows slightly in curiosity.

"I just didn't want him to kill her, she's a teammate," I shrug.

It's not true at all.

I didn't want him to kill her because it's Nova specifically.

I have no idea what is going through my head.

Tara gives me a suspicious glance before dropping the subject, gazing back down at Nova.

"I'm going to go and get us some food," she says softly after a few seconds, standing up from the bedside and exiting the room without another word.

I just continue to stare down at Nova. I can't not.

As soon as I see her eye twitch, I'm so fucking glad I didn't look away.

"Nova? Can you hear me?" I speak quietly. It takes her a few seconds before she lets out a long groan, and I heave out a sigh I didn't know I'd been holding.

Her eyelids eventually start to flutter, blinking open after a few seconds and revealing her once vibrant green eyes.

"I'm alive?" Is the first thing she mumbles. Elijah starts moving about near her side, checking her vitals.

"Yeah, you are. I saved your sorry ass, remember?" I force a grin, despite the fact I feel like I could punch a hole through the fucking wall and decapitate Jed right after.

She definitely doesn't remember. I don't even think she's recognised it's me at this point, since she's just gazing at the ceiling.

"Jed-" she instantly starts until I shake my head.

"-Is being dealt with. We've got him detained." I interrupt, reassuring her. She eventually turns her head sideways and manages to lock her gaze on me.

"Why did you come after me?" She mutters, almost incoherently. I chuckle slightly, glancing away.

"You may be a severe thorn in my side at times, but that doesn't mean I want anything to happen to you." I reply softly, looking back down at her.

"I knew you cared a teeny little bit," she mumbles, a surprisingly playful element to her raspy voice.

"Don't get ahead of yourself," I sigh, shaking my head. She gives a weakened half-smile and glimpses away, back to staring at the ceiling.

I can't help the small grin tugging at the corners of my lips.

She's not ahead of herself at all. For some reason, I care a whole lot more about her than I would ever care to admit.