PROLOGUE: UTOPIA

"The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past."

― Lois Lowry, The Giver

Need.

It bled red and black. It blistered on the skin and charred the bone. It churned and burned and bestowed the kiss of constant pain.

Pain.

It all hurt. It all hindered. It all left hope abandoned in the sheer magnitude of malicious regret.

It rolled now. It raped across the conscious mind until only a husk remained. It hollowed out the flesh and evicted the soul.

Greed.

It ate around the edges of the world and left it used and forsaken. It felt like arrows and eternal damnation. It felt like…him.

It was his mouth. It was his eyes. It was his hands – his fingers on her, in her, around her. Around her. Teeth and touch and tempting promise.

"Wait…" She breathed it. She BIRTHED it. This encompassing need for him.

Lust.

She wallowed in it. It burst from her mouth on a gasp as he filled her husk with him.

His hands on her. His mouth on her. His fingers IN her. IN her. He was IN her.

"Oh god…" She gasped it. She grasped it. She opened for it.

She thrilled over the want of it. She killed over the taste of it. She died over the absence of it.

"Please…" She moaned it. She owned it. She begged for it.

It was her utopia. He was her utopia. He was hers.

She swallowed the taste of him. Shimmer – she did it for him now. Shimmered. She'd waited so long for him. They longed. They lasted. They languished.

His fingers IN her. His hands ON her. His grip AROUND her.

Around…she gasped. She bowed.

She fought.

Fear.

It was black and raw. It was big and rich. It was all around them.

She fought. She grabbed. He held on. He wouldn't let go. She tumbled. She stumbled. His body…holding on.

"No…" She grunted it. She mimicked the emotion of herself. A pantomime of who she was without him. Of who she'd be when he was…done.

Death.

It bloomed. It blackened. And he offered it to her now. Faust- awaiting his bargain with the devil. Dante – traversing the nine circles of hell. Brave?

Forsaken. Forbidden. It denied even as it declared for her. She slipped down to her knees.

He kept on holding on. Around her.

Love.

It was the thing that would kill her…and force her into the abyss while she clung to the man who destroyed her.

Three Weeks Prior

Terragrigia – 2003

USSTRATCOM CENTRAL DIVISION HEADQUARTERS – HEIDENBURG BUILDING

The wheels of fate are a random thing. As they turn, they take down any who stand in their way. They are merciless, often cruel, and exacting. They can be turned, given the right instruction, and often times fought against, given the right warrior, but little can be done to divert the inevitable inception of ones greatest destination.

For one such tired soul, fate had been turning those wheels over the top of him, like a jackknifing sixteen wheeler full of piss and shit and gasoline, for about as long as he could remember. The last time they'd turned toward something pleasant? He couldn't even remember.

The putrescent quagmire of his inevitable self imposed isolation was often the only thing that could be relied upon on any given day. Well that…and debriefings. There were always debriefings. And there were always pale faced fuckers with no idea of how to wield a gun let alone survive a mission telling him how he could better do his job.

This particular day was no different. It was just another set of blank faced bureaucrats drumming their fingers and judging him. His arm was draped over the back of the empty chair beside him. Where was the person who'd sat there? Probably outside being drawn and quartered after failing the interrogation.

He didn't fail interrogations. He also, mostly, didn't give a shit if he did either. So, in a way, it made him bulletproof.

"So, what you're telling me…is that you left Jack Krauser on the ground alive?" The nasally whine of another corporate vampire waiting for him to trip up so they could suck his blood and turn him into one of them damned alongside of them.

He sighed, "Yeah. He was alive when I left him there. He was alive and laughing. That was thing about Jack. He liked to laugh. He had a terrible fucking joke about a pickle and princess and a blowjob. I can't remember the specifics of it right this second…but give me a minute."

The room was practically BREATHING around him. He could see all their snide, bored, smug faces watching him. It was never just one person during a debriefing. It was a panel. It was a "conglomerate of his superiors gathered together to evaluate and address any concerns related to proper completion of mission protocol."

It was judge and jury in this goddamn sterile room.

One of their closed down expressions lifted a brow at his sardonic wit. It was, often times, underappreciated. Clearly.

Leon Kennedy was rolling a paperweight in his hand while they studied him. He felt picked apart. He felt x-rayed. He felt like a specimen in a lab. Leon Kennedy: Lab Rat. Because he was. This job he'd been roped into was a shit show. It was run by powers so ugly and dark that it made you dirtier just from being in the same room with them. They "power" behind the President was sinister and so corrupt that he couldn't figure out how they were any better than the dying Umbrella Corporation they'd just finished destroying.

Umbrella, under an indefinite suspension of business decree, had died where it was already exsanguinating. The mess they'd found surrounding Hidalgo had closed the lid on the coffin for the former pharmaceutical giant. Coordinating intel from a raid in Russia had put the final nail in it.

He'd done the fucking job they'd blackmailed him into. Umbrella was finished. He fully expected to be given his walking papers so he could get back to his LIFE.

But they weren't giving him his walking papers. Why would they? They'd spent so much time and money training him. He'd been pushed, prodded, poked and tortured. Taught to take a hit, to break a man, to fight while he was dying. He'd survived like a starving thing in the wilderness for ten days with nothing but a pocket knife and his wits.

He'd killed a man to save himself and stood bathed in his blood in the dying sun. He'd been thrown into training like a kid tossed into the deep end of a shark infested pool and told to swim. FIGHT – yelled the man in white. FIGHT OR DIE.

They'd come against him: the wet behind the ears rookie cop. They'd come up against him like they'd kill him. One by one. It was fucking Mortal Kombat. It was him and THE CAGE and the blood. And the rookie cop had died in the heat while the sweat and blood soaked his skin and birthed the weapon they'd trained him to become.

He'd spun on the floor of that filthy fucking jungle like a machine. He'd hacked and slashed and stabbed and survived. He'd come out of the jungle someone else. So, he'd survive Raccoon City. But he hadn't really. Because what hadn't died there had died in the dirty jungle shortly after.

What was left?

The Executioner.

The Iceman.

The Nemesis.

It was always amusing when he heard it whispered amongst the bioterror community. It never failed to make him chuckle. Umbrella had conceived the Nemesis to be an unstoppable monster. Someone had stomped the shit out of it. Celewrly, it was stoppable.

It was often joked that Umbrella had birthed two of them in Raccoon City. The one that had died there at the hands of someone brilliant. And the one that had risen after its fall. Unfortunately for Umbrella, he didn't have an off switch. He had doggedly, determinedly and unrelentingly pursued their demise like the thing they'd programmed to destroy the S.T.A.R.S. that had foiled them.

So he was the Nemesis to those in quiet corners that found his unflagging determination and skill to be inhuman. And it served him in never failing a mission. It also made him invaluable to those puppet masters which he served.

He'd been hoping to be finally, finally, finally able to walk out and find what he was supposed to be after vengeance went cold and he could breathe again.

They weren't giving him his walking papers. They were interrogating him. He'd done this before. He'd sat in that room while they hammered at him.

How did you survive Raccoon City?! WHO WAS WITH YOU!? What do you know!?

He'd given them nothing then. He'd protected Claire. He'd protected Sherry. He'd been a scared kid then. He wasn't that kid anymore. They were wasting their time trying to scare the shit out of him. He'd had the undead try to eat his face. He'd had a man try to carve out his nuts with a piece of glass. He'd stood face to face with things so horrible that he couldn't sleep at night without a light on.

What good does the light do? His mind queried. No good. Nada. It was utterly and completely psychosomatic. He knew that. But it kept the dark away…at least in theory.

They grilled him. They drilled him with questions. They tried to trip him up on what happened. He stuck to his guns, told the truth, and they couldn't do shit to him. They had Manuela. They had everything he knew. Jack Krauser was dead. So they weren't getting anything out of him.

What was left here?

They finally cut him loose after nearly three hours. They told him to sit by his phone. Be ready for orders, Agent Kennedy.

He stepped out of the sparkling glass skyscraper with his middle finger lifted over his shoulder in farewell. As if he'd sit by his fucking phone and wait for orders. He was in the only aquapolis in the world. He was, literally, in a floating city.

He was taking a minute to do whatever the hell he wanted.

His handsome face was offset with perfectly coifed blonde hair in a shaggy swing around his jaw and beautiful blue eyes the color of graying winter skies. They were currently hidden by the polarized Oakley sunglasses perched on his slightly crooked aquiline nose.

The body suited the face. It was nicely muscled and fit. The striation of it showed in heavy biceps and long, taut forearms. Beneath the shirt, the show was better. It was washboard abs and corrugated muscle from back to breastbone. The open collar of his shirt suggested that the chest beneath its pale countenance was something to see as well with honed pectorals and the smoothness that came with youth and hardcore conditioning.

On his left forearm, at the bend of his elbow, a tiny tattoo showed. It was the latin word memorari in tiny scrawl. It was a reminder to never forget and always be vigilant.

The floating aquapolis was all foamy waves and sky. It was shiny solar panels that powered the isolated world of it and all the beauty that pervaded. The streets were lined with hurrying bodies and looped up the long terrain to little houses that never had to worry about where their power came from. The sun and the salty sea were all it needed to survive.

It was a modern marvel and had taken greater than a decade to construct. Living was limited and consisted mostly of staff for the various government buildings that encompassed the island. Proper permits and petitions had been needed to gain access to available housing. Now it was flush with people and burgeoning life.

Leon padded into the open air bar adjacent to sprawling miles of beach. It was too cool for too many bodies to brave the waves but a few steadfast and stalwart surfers remained in the tossing foam to take on the waves. The beach bar was tiki island chic. It was all pastels and light wood.

The bartender was pretty, young, and tanned in all the right ways. She smiled at him as he claimed a stool. "Heya, handsome. You lookin' for something in particular?"

"Three fingers of Stoli; neat."

The bartender winked at him. He considered her and watched her ass as she moved to extract liquor and pour. A good uncomplicated fuck could be just what he needed. Isn't that what a typical guy in his mid-twenties would do on a sunny day? Pick up a pretty girl and get fucked?

He flirted with her. It was easy enough. He'd always been good at flirting and she was so interested she was practically throwing herself over the bar to mount him where he sat. She said something to make him laugh and he turned a little when a cool breeze tried to blow the napkin with her phone number out of his hands.

Leon grabbed for it, watching it loop and swirl and turn in the wind, and it slid over the cobblestone streets to come to a stop by a bench. He paid for the drink and hurried over to get it. The napkin wiggled and slipped away again, blowing down the street.

He turned back to just get her number again and she was gone. There was a big bearded guy in her place. He most certainly did NOT want his number on a napkin so, instead, Leon hurried after the one that would get him laid.

The napkin made a curly que of whipping in the wind and fell into the fountain in the middle of the town square. It was a bubbling, bustling and beautiful set of mermaids intertwined around an arcing rock. They spilled pretty glistening water from a couple of happily held seashells. They, apparently, didn't care about the damage they were doing to his love life by soaking the napkin that had his booty call written on it.

The face of the FBC building shone down on the fountain. Leon considered it, watching the people that came and went in their suits and ties. He wondered if there was a single one of them worth five minutes of his time.

His luck was for shit lately. He couldn't catch a break. He needed a vacation, a ten minute fuck with a willing woman, and a leprechaun with a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow holding a four leaf clover and a rabbits foot to change his luck. He was a MAGNET for bad luck. Nothing good EVER happened to him.

It was on just such an auspicious moment that everything he thought he knew changed.

He was trying to fish the ruined napkin from the foamy water beneath the secretly judging mermaids when a voice queried, "It can't really by all that important, can it?"

In his defense, he was pretty hard up. But maybe it looked worse than it was. He was clinging to a mermaid with a stick angled into the water, half hanging over the bubbling depths of the water. His tongue was stuck between his teeth as he extended his arm as far as it would go to barely reach the napkin with the tip of the stick. He probably looked pretty stupid. With a roll of his eyes, he realized his face was pressed against the groin of the mermaid he clasped in one arm to keep him from face planting into the fountain.

So, it definitely looked worse than it was.

Amused, Leon quipped, "Depends on how you look at it, I guess."

"Well…it looks like you have your face in a mermaids twat."

Yep. It looked worse than it was.

He finally watched the napkin slip under the edge of a wave of water and disintegrate. Well, he thought with a sigh, so much for his Friday night.

He let go of the mermaid, turned toward the curious voice…and came face to face with a siren. So, he wasn't entirely sure that was better. She wore a simple suit with a pencil skirt and basic pumps. The suit was pinstriped and blue. It was paired with a camisole in lacy white. Her hair was all kinds of curly and dark around her shoulders. The face was plump pink lips and dark sunglasses. It was smooth pale skin and a lifted brow.

The body beneath the ugly suit was, however, not basic. It was slim with big enough tits to make the fourteen year old boy inside the twenty five year old man excited and curvy hips made for holding hands. But it was the legs. In those ugly, cheap pumps – they were killer. Ten feet of leg and pretty, heart shaped ass.

Gorgeous.

He said, "Do mermaids have twats? I've always been curious how mermaids reproduce actually. They appear to be missing pieces. You think they mate like people? Or like fish?"

It would have been ok. Probaly would have been ok. But then? He grinned.

That was it, thought Jill Valentine, that was the attraction. It wasn't the ass…which was…ridiculously perfect in those jeans. It was the grin. It looked just a little sheepish, just a little boyish, and just a little adorable.

So, Jill intoned, drolly, "Exactly how do fish mate?"

And now he looked a little embarrassed. He was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most adorable thing she'd ever seen. Did he realize that he stood out amongst the suited monkeys around him like a swan surrounded by chickens? One: he wasn't even bothering to a wear a suit. He was dressed in a three quarter sleeved collared Armani shirt in good eggplant purple, a bold choice that said he had style ingrained in his bones, and a sexy little vest in rich brown leather. The shoulder holster that complimented it held a very big, very shiny Desert Eagle Magnum. The collar of the shirt was left open, the cuffs of the shirt loose, the Diesel jeans he wore over steel toed boots were deconstructed and complimented a look that walked a line between business and dressy. He wore a thigh holster with a side piece and little Oakley sunglasses in polarized orange. Two: he radiated carefully leashed energy like a living thing.

And that adorable little guy quipped, "Dogfish style? You think you can "porca an orca"?" And he did air quotes. He punned..and he did air quotes. And he looked like something you kidnapped, kept in your basement, and raped on a daily basis to try to conceive countless babies off of.

Jill blinked at him.

And then she grinned. How could she not? She was here as an envoy for the BSAA. She was so bored it was insane. And then…here was this guy fishing in the fountain. And her day now looked infinitely better.

But he didn't stop. He added, "We don't need to talk about what kind of mating the hammerhead likes…objectively."

"Oh, you're a funny little thing aren't you?" She tilted her head looking at him.

"So, I've heard. It tends to be less appreciated then it should."

"You might also be the dumbest person, I've ever met. Sharks and whales aren't fish. So, your alliteration is for shit…clearly."

Oh, that sexy little grin of his. It was something.

He moved toward her and she didn't back away…which pleased them both. He was aware, entirely, that she wasn't really alone standing there. She had a couple suits with her that lingered back a few feet looking a little unsure.

He ignored them completely. Firstly, he didn't give a shit if she had bodyguards around her by the dozen because he was still going to try to touch her. And secondly, he could beat the shit out of every one of the suits behind her. That was arrogance. Yes, it was. It was also training. He knew he could. It was that simple.

He invaded the hell out of her personal space. And the closer he got? The bigger her grin. Cocky little guy, she liked him. It was written all over her face. When he was about two feet away, one of the agents with her moved like he'd intercede.

And Mr. Cocky said, "You think he realizes that he'll never get here in time?"

Jill kept on grinning, "He wouldn't need to. I don't need him to stop you if I wanted to."

Interesting. She was wrong. Leon knew that too looking at her. She was wrong about that. He could take her down too. But the confidence of her statement had him pausing to study her. Maybe he was wrong here. Maybe he was reading her wrong. Maybe she wasn't just some suit.

He stopped looking at her like she was something to eat and started looking at her like she was something that wanted to kill him. The minute he did, he saw what he'd been missing. She had a piece in that narrow suit. It was an inner pants holster that put it at the small of her back under the ugly jacket she wore. There was the slightest lump in the skirt on her right thigh that said she had a knife waiting there. It would be easy enough for her to get it. The slit in the skirt was primed for access.

A hand could slip right up under that slit and grab that weapon…or move three inches to the right and over the heat of her.

Leon stopped walking. And now he tilted his head.

Curious. She was right in one hand. He hadn't seen her as a threat. What was interesting was that he still didn't. She was strapped, she was in good physical shape, she was clearly muscled beneath the suit in a way that said training. And he was too busy thinking about her panties to worry about the knife on her thigh.

It was kinda degrading. Leon Kennedy: defeated by his dumb stick.

She tilted her head, watching him. "Do I have food on my face?"

He grinned, amused, and put out his hand. "I don't know that it would matter if you did. It's a helluva face. I'd probably offer to lick the food off it."

Oh, she liked him. A lot. She grinned, "You had me thinking the same thing."

Taking a chance, he closed the distance and she didn't retreat. She actually offered her hand back to him. They shook hands, "I'm Leon Kennedy."

In that split second the question was answered for him on whether or not she was in the bioterror game. She knew him. It flashed across that gorgeous countenance. She knew his name.

He liked the surprise on her face and the interest. He liked the face and the body that went with it. She spoke again, and he liked the brains too.

"Well somebody left out pieces of the reports I read on you." She put one hand on her hip, shaking her head. And she actually laughed a little.

"How so?"

"It said you were practically a genius," She smirked at him a little, "And yet there you were fishing in the fountain for a napkin…with a stick. When you could have just stepped in the two inches of water in those waterproof boots you're wearing and…bent over to get it."

He blinked. He glanced over his shoulder. And he was kinda embarrassed.

Because she was fucking right.

Humbled, intrigued, and a little sheepish, he drawled, "Yessss. BUT then we wouldn't have met. So, I can't be sorry for being…somewhat dumb. I am, however, incredibly savvy when not thinking out of my ass."

Yep. She liked him.

"It mentioned you were one of the most adaptable agents ever trained. You tested higher than anyone in a decade on situational response and ingenuity."

He knew where this was going. So he just laughed and waited for it.

"Annnnnd yet you were clinging to a mermaid like a girl afraid to get wet instead of just standing…five inches to the right and reaching AROUND the mermaid to get the napkin beneath her."

Yep. He liked her a lot. When was the last time a woman had bothered to give him shit?

"I like doing things the hard way…clearly."

Since he was grinning at her, she went on, "It also said you have a photographic memory."

"That part is true."

"Is it?" She tilted her head, "Then why did you need the napkin? You should have memorized whatever was on it the second you looked at it."

Intrigued, he shifted a little closer to her. Her eyebrows winged up at the nerve of it. But she didn't step back.

"Truth?" He leaned a little down like he was going to tell her a secret.

Jill had a second to step away and then she figured, fuck it, and waited for it.

He put his mouth next to her ear and whispered, "I didn't even look at it. I wasn't interested in the girl who wrote her number on it. I was just looking for an easy lay."

Yep. She liked him. He just threw it out there like it was nothing. It was a pretty shitty thing to admit. And he just lobbed it at her like a grenade.

Jill turned her face and he was right there. She leaned a little toward him and whispered back, "Wanna know a secret?"

He looked at her mouth. "Yep."

"Maybe she was...but I'm not." She smiled at him so very sweetly and said, "So maybe you wanna tone it down a notch or two."

Yep. He liked her. Amused, he laughed and backed up a step.

Jill studied him in the fading sunlight. He was fucking gorgeous. She couldn't see the eyes behind those glasses but she was betting they lived up to the face. But his body language was all kinds of cocky good humor. Usually she detested that kind of thing. On him? It worked like a charm.

She laughed a little and mused, "Well clearly it didn't mention that you're a walking wet dream. Claire said you were handsome. Handsome. What a stupid word. She was just fucking with me, obviously."

Interesting. She didn't just know his name. She didn't just know his file. She knew who he was. Claire. He missed her face. He should call her when he had a minute. They'd become best friends in Raccoon. Now they were both so damn busy they couldn't even find time for a phone call.

But if she knew Claire. Then she wasn't just in the bioterror game. She was from Raccoon City. And the number of survivors from there were so small that they shouldn't have been strangers. In fact, he'd met them all by this point…but one.

This woman? This was Jill Valentine. It couldn't be anyone else.

Leon chuckled, flattered. And she shifted which allowed him to glimpse the top of one lacy thigh high. It went right into his dick and lodged there. Amused, he laughed again, "You must be Jill Valentine."

"So, they tell me."

"How about you ditch these suits, come with me, and I'll show you how dogfish mate."

Oh, he was something. She laughed, delighted. "You mean a bunch of wiggling and flopping? I could just stick my finger in an electrical socket if I was looking for that. It would probably last longer and wouldn't be nearly as messy."

Unoffended, unflappable, he laughed again. "True story there. But the electrical socket won't call you afterward."

Jill tilted her head, "You would?"

"Of course. I'm a gentlemen. I'm also shy though. So, I'd probably just call you, breathe heavy, potentially scare you into thinking you have a stalker…chicken out and then hang up without saying a word. So, there's your Friday night. Bad sex, awkward phone calls, and potential personal discomfort. What'd ya say? Wanna go out with me?"

Interested, Jill studied him. The reports left out lots of things, it seemed. It left out the fact that he probably had the most fabulous ass she'd seen on a secret service agent…ever. It left out the fact that he was ungodly, ridiculously, hilarious. Chris had the best sense of humor she'd ever encountered on a man. They'd ribbed each other since the dawn of time like two frat buddies. But this guy, Kennedy, he had a dorky sense of humor that charmed even as it disarmed and made you want to tickle him to see if he looked as cute as you thought he would when he giggled.

So, she said, "Yep." And watched it bloom on that handsome face like a flower in the sun.

Leon had never been so happy to have lost a booty call in his life. Thank god, he thought, that napkin had blown away in the breeze. Jill tilted her head back again, "You have to let go of my hand though, Leon Kennedy. Or we can't go out."

Well, shit. He didn't just let go, that slippery little shit, he turned and kissed it before he let it go. And he dropped those sunglasses to wink at her. Jill laughed, shaking her head. "Does that shit actually work on girls?"

"Oh, it's got a ninety percent success rate." He stepped into line beside her as they crossed the square together. "You don't think I'm charming?"

Laughing, Jill glanced up at him. "Oh, you're charming. And the flirting is pretty evident. I can see how some simpering little thing would be charmed out of her panties by the winking and the kissing and the long, long looks that you throw around."

Jesus, he liked her. There were no games here. This girl just laid it out there. "Yeah?"

"Oh, sure. You know what you're doing. But don't kid yourself. It's not your methods, exactly, that get the girls wet for it." He opened the door to the bar they came to and Jill had to duck under his arm to go inside. She brushed against him as she moved and it made her shake her head and smile again. He knew what he was doing. No lie there.

"No?" They moved to a little table and claimed a couple seats. The inside of the bar was smoky, dark, and lit by television screens showing sports. He sat, threw an ankle over his knee and draped an arm on the table casually. Jill, in the suit, sat more regally.

"No. It's the face. It doesn't hurt that you have a kinda naïve charm that makes you seem like a little boy that doesn't know how he looks. But it's the face." She took off her sunglasses and set them on the table.

He did the same as they ordered a couple drinks and finally looked at each other.