It was a dark, foggy dawn as a sleek black jet landed on the narrow cement landing strip, just outside the newest Umbrella building, a newly built skyscraper. The skyscraper wasn't an entirely hidden project, even if it was built in Ohio and into Carey Hill Summit, the building shadowed with pine and maple tree's growing around and out of the mountain. The jet came to a complete stop in a garage like unloading area. Several people from inside the building scurried out all decked out in uniform protocol, aside from one dark skinned woman, who was dolled up in a short red dress and dark heel's, her hair in a neat bun, and her make up applied slightly heaver then a normal person's. Just a step behind her was a lightly tanned man with dark brown hair and hazel eye's. Those two walked briskly, one with a slight spring in her step, to the stairs leading to the jet's only door. They stood silently at the bottom of the steps, waiting for their leader to open the door and make his way down to them. The woman shifted from foot to foot in anticipation.
"Jacquelyn," The man rebuked softly. "Calm down."
"Shut up, Daniel." She snapped, the venom in her words fell flat as the door slowly opened to reveal a tall, blond haired man wearing black leather, a polished pair of combat boots and a glossy pair of sunglasses. The man standing there, in front of several high up Umbrella employees, was non other the Albert Wesker. His face was as cool as an ice sculptor, his features just as chiseled. He began his descent down the rather short staircase.
"Mr. Wesker, it's so nice to have you back in the building." Jacquelyn twittered shamelessly, her eye's latched onto her boss's face. Wesker gave no sign of hearing what she said.
"Jacquelyn speaks for all all of us, sir." Daniel said side stepping in front of her. "I was afraid of making the wrong decisions in your absence."
"Are you telling me," Wesker had reached the final step, pivoting on the edge as if deciding whether or not the floor was worthy of supporting his weight. "That I left someone incompetent in charge of everything?"
"Why, no, sir, I only meant-" Daniel's breathing became slightly shallow and his knees became weak. "-I only meant that you make such brilliant decisions that any I make would falter in comparison."
"Commander Moore." Wesker said effortlessly. "Silence. I have a situation bigger then your idiocy to deal with."
"Anything we can help you with, sir?" Jacquelyn asked intently, her eye's glimmering with the mere hope of helping.
"There is something in my jet I want you to dispose of."
"Right away, sir!" She turned around and gestured to several soldiers to approach the jet. Wesker on the other hand whisked his way onto the floor and to the elevator across from the jet.
"S-sir?" A young cadet spoke up from a few feet behind Wesker. "A-are you s-s-sure?"
Wesker whipped around pulling a gun out of his black leather, calf length duster and shot the cadet in the head. "Did you question me."
Wesker turned around before the body fully hit the floor and began his path to the elevator. He had just about made it to the sanctuary of the rectangular enclosed space when Jacquelyn's voice echoed across the floor to him.
"Sir, it seam's to be breathing."
Wesker's blood froze in shock. It was still breathing? How could that be biologically possible? The DNA couldn't possibly-
"Sir? What do we do with...it?" Commander Moore asked hesitantly.
"My room is suitable, as I requested, am I correct?" Wesker asked his voice brisk, his blood warming up to the thought that was concocting in his mind.
"Of course, sir." Commander Moore replied, biting back his life threatening questions. He had learned hard lessons from his predecessors. You never question Albert Wesker.
"Then that should be suitable enough." Wesker replied, stepping into the elevator. "Put her there. I should like with her when she wakes."
"Right away, sir." Commander Moore saluted as the door's to the elevator began to close. He fought the twinge of pity in his heart. 'Poor thing.'
Inside the elevator Wesker grew very calm and his mind began to race. How could a normal human girl survive two of his viruses, at the same exact time. How is it that she is not a huge withering mass of fleshy, intestine like tentacles. How could this go wrong. How could she not die. Every question had no answer, and every question brought up another. It led in an endless cycle, always bringing his mind to the first question reworded. He pushed them to the back of his mind, where they promptly began to manifest, and set his skills and intelligence to the test.
"It seam's," He muttered to himself, amusement spiking his usually formal tone. "I have some tests to prepare for."
/~/~/~/
Back in New England, but far from Connecticut and it's zombie infested old Umbrella building's, Chris found himself surrounded by several comrades in a little underground facility in Vermont, after a rushed homecoming. Most of his comrades where newly trained survivors from recent outbreaks in Canada and some parts of the south west. Raccoon City was just a child's fifth birthday compared to mass destruction of L.A., but no matter how you cut the cake, Raccoon City had been a bigger part of the foundation then most fighting Umbrella would like to admit. Chris couldn't find it inside himself to explain to his comrades or his higher ups where Nicolette was just yet, no matter how worried he was about her survival there were two people who deserved to be informed about her predicament first. It killed Chris inside to be the barer of horrid news, but it was in the job description.
"Is Niki still outside?"
"I bet she's trying to make her wounds look like mere scratches and bruises, you know how...some people react."
"Where's Jill?" Chris asked desperately, interrupting someone's pointed question.
"She should be in her bunk." Chris turned his head to find the owner of the voice to find a shorter man with thinning hair and watery gray eye's. "Why? Is there some thing wrong?"
"I just need to talk to Jill." Chris brushed by everyone as fast as he could and hurried past scattered doors and offices. 'How am I going tell her? This will kill her.' Chris rushed down two flights of stairs, his boots thudded against the metal and his breath huffed out of his lungs. It was all he could do not to run as fast as he could the whole way to Jill's room, urgency pumping in his veins. He had to physically and mentally prevent himself from knocking the door down and storming in to her room. He knocked on the door, trying not to pound into it or leave a mark. "Jill? Are you in there?"
"Chris!" The door was thrown open and the first thing Chris saw was the long light brown hair and light gray blue eye's of Jill Valentine. His heart gave a little thrilling somersault before his fear for Nicolette was able to pin it back down.
"Hey, Jill." Jill stepped to the side and let Chris squeeze by into her room before shutting the door.
"Oh, Chris!" Jill turned around with a big smile on her face. She leaned forward and threw her arms around Chris's neck, holding him close. "Your back! Your both back safe and sound!"
"Uhm..." Chris couldn't find it in him to lift his arm's to hug her back, dispar had finally taken complete hold over him.
"Chr-Chris?" Jill moved away from him and actually looked at him. Her arm's dropped from his shoulders. "Chris, what's going on?"
"Jill," Chris breathed lowering his head for a moment. "I don't exactly know how to do this-"
"Chris, what happened?" Jill's voice became very soft.
"I'm-I'm trying to tell you, it's just, I don't know how-"
"Chris, where is Nicolette?"
"-to. It was a blur, we were right there, almost out of there and then he came out of no where and he...she..."
"CHRIS, WHAT HAPPENED?"
/~/~/~/
'Christopher.'
She was running. Running fast then she ever had before. Trying to find away out. Trying to get away from the withering pain inside her muscles. She couldn't see where she was going, there where no lights anywhere. Everything was black.
'Chris, are you okay?'
She couldn't find him, her partner. The one who got them into this whole mess. She couldn't help but feel a rush of terror that pounded in her veins.
'Did he get hurt by that old guy?'
Her side began to burn and her breath became shallow.
'Did he get hit by those needles too?'
She tripped over something in the dark and threw her hands in front of her face. Suddenly she jolted awake her mind buzzing, her heart pounding, and her forehead covered in a thin coat of sweat. Her eye's darted back and forth, taking in her surroundings. She found herself in a cream colored room, sitting in a tangled mess of sheets and covers, bathing in the pale skin of her legs in white and red cloth. The walls were bare of any decorations, and the floor was spotless. There was a long white desk with TV like computer screens mounted on it with papers spread out neatly in front of them and their keyboards.
"Where-where am I?" She whispered as a shudder ran down her spine.
"Finally. Your awake." She turned sharply to find a woman with dark colored skin, wearing a tight red dress, with her black hair tied up in a bun, sitting in a comfy looking armchair pointed in the direction of the bed.
"Who are you?" She pulled her legs from the tangled mess of white and red, curling up slightly.
"Well, little distraction," The woman glared openly at her. "Lets start with who you are first, shall we?"
"What?"
The woman sighed. "What's your name?"
"Nicolette."
"Full name." The woman said with a roll of her eye's. Nicolette glared at her.
'Does she think I'm stupid?'
"Nicolette Joyce Holiday." Nicolette forced out of her throat, her teeth clenched. "What's yours?"
"Jaquelyn Marie Taylor." The woman's smile reminded Nicolette of a crocodile. 'Is she mocking me?' "But, you may call me Miss Taylor. Now, tell me about your past."
"What are you, my shrink?" Nicolette snapped, her eye's flashing as she turned, full body in the position of the chair.
"No, just curious." Her smile grew wider. "How about your parents?"
"Why do I have the feeling your going to give me a prescription for some sort of drug after this?"
"Do you normally avoid topics you don't like?" Miss Taylor asked irritatedly.
"Who ever said I didn't like them?" Nicolette asked turning away from her interrogator. "I don't see why I should answer whatever you ask, when you can't answer what I ask."
"Okay. What would those be?"
"For starters, where the hell am I?"
"You are inside the secret umbrella corporation building." Miss Taylor's smile reappeared, and, if possible, less friendly then ever. This time her smile reminded Nicolette of a shark. "But to be more...precise, your in Albert Wesker's bedroom."
"Hold on," Nicolette stiffed and her stomach rolled it the tone the other woman had used on her Bosses name. As if she was caressing the name itself. "I'm in that sick old son of a bitches room?"
"Hold your-"
"Why yes, yes you are." Nicolette's head snapped up and focused on the figure in front of the door. Albert Wesker. He looked every bit the way he looked last night, minus the bloody hole's and stains in his clothing. Not a single hair out of place on his head. If she were any other mortal human woman her jaw would have dropped and she would have thrown herself at Wesker. But she wasn't, she was Nicolette Holiday and she never let any man have any power over her. "Your way with words has not changed."
"I see your comments are as unique as ever." She snapped.
"Tsk, tsk." Wesker smirked at her as she narrowed her eye's and glared at him. " I expected some sort of change in you."
"I'm human." Nicolette's glare hardened. "Mortals don't change very easily."
"Your survival last night contradicts that." Miss Taylor was still in her chair watching the exchange with an unreadable look on her face. "No mere mortal could have survived those vir-"
"Miss Taylor, you may leave now." Wesker's voice was coldly formal. Miss Taylor got to her feet, a sweet smile on her face. She walked slowly from the room, to Nicolette's amusement, attempting to get Wesker to watch her leave. But Wesker had kept his face focused in Nicolette's direction. She had to hold back a fit of laughter.
"Is something humorous to you." Wesker remarked darkly/
"What would make you think that?" Nicolette glanced down at her legs in the attempt to gain courage to ask her question, only to do a double take when she caught a glimpse of a silky pair of camisole shorts in the place of her ripped and bloody pair of jeans. "What-?" Her arms moved to cover her chest as she looked down to see what was covering her torso. It was a dark long sleeved formal shirt that cover majority of the shorts. "How the hell-?" Nicolette glanced up at Wesker who was standing in the middle of the room a smirk still on his face. "Were are my clothes?"
"I had no where else to keep you while some brief pre-tests were being conducted, and I couldn't have you contaminating anything." He moved to the side of the bed.
"How generous of you." Nicolette said sarcastically.
"They were going to be disposed of anyway." Wesker held his hand out to her. "Come."
"Not until I know how I came to be wearing this." She glared at his hand. "Even then you'll have to stop addressing me like a dog."
"A maid dressed you in the clothing to keep you from contaminating anything in this room." His voice was low and full of warning, almost as if he didn't like explaining anything to anyone.
'He'll have to explain more to be able to stick another needle in me. If I hated doctor visits so much, then scientist visits so have to be worse.'
Nicolette's eyebrows arched.
"Do not flatter yourself." Wesker leaned over the bed his eye's faintly glowing red and asserting his impatience. "Your nothing but a surprise experiment. Now, come with me. The tests are waiting."
Nicolette looked him directly in the red glowing parts of his glasses. "Fine." She placed her hand in his. "But your an asshole."
"Your attempt to insult me failed." Wesker said with an evil chuckle. He pulled her from the bed.
"I'll work on it." She said dryly with a roll of her eye's. Wesker walked in front of her, like an owner in front of his dog, using her arm like a leash. He led her to a door that was hidden from her view before. It was rather narrow and resembled a closet door. He opened the door and pulled her inside. The room was dimly lit and mostly empty of life, except for one moving figure, hidden by test tubes and large boards covered in strange formulas. That area was off in the darker corner of the room, in the center it looked more like a cross between a doctors and a dentists room. The chair resembled that of a dentists, the table next to it was covered in needles, knives, ivs, and other things you would find in a doctors office of in a lab that tested unauthorized experiments. Wesker yanked her forward by her arm and gestured at the chair.
"Have a seat." His tone gave no leeway to argument, but at the same time Nicolette's spirit suddenly came full into body, as if she had been hovering half way in, half way out.
"What happened to Chris?" She asked angrily, glaring at him, her light blue eye's fierce. Wesker turned his back on her, clenching his hand into a fist.
"Chris." He growled his back hunched over.
"Yes, my partner." Nicolette snapped, getting irritated at Wesker's strange reaction. "What happened to him?"
"I have no idea." Wesker's voice was intense and full of anger as he turned to her. His eye's were glowing bright red.
"You didn't kill him?" She asked her eye's focused on Wesker's as she asked him.
"One day." Wesker snarled. "One day I will. But of now, sit down."
"Do I have any choice?" Wesker's eye's flashed brighter. Nicolette sighed and slouched into the chair. "Don't expect me to be compliant and quiet."
"You've got your hands full over there, sir." A male voice echoed from the darkened corner. "Need any help?"
"Hold her down and duck tape her mouth."
"Pshh, like that would help." Nicolette rolled her eye's. The owner of the voice came out of the shadows. His appearance shocked Nicolette. How many scientists do you see with rich auburn hair and green blue eye's. "Who the hell are you?"
"My name is Steve Burnside." The scientist smiled at her as a faint pulsing red light glowed from under his shirt. "Who might you be?"
"A new experiment." Wesker muttered coldly.
"My name," Nicolette glared up at Wesker as she spoke. "Is Nicolette Holiday."
"It's nice to meet you, Miss Holiday." Steve's smile grew wider. "You remind me of someone...someone close to me-"
"Steve." Wesker snapped as he moved a black box on to the table. "Stop speaking with the experiment."
"Yes, sir." Steve immediately walked to Wesker's side, his hands eager to work. Wesker icily brushed him off and moved towards Nicolette with a dark red and metal object in his hands.
"What's that?" Nicolette snapped, her eye's slightly wider then before. The change did not pass Wesker by, and one side of his lips pulled up in a perfectly evil half smile.
"It is an old invention of mine."
"What the hell does it do?" Nicolette hid all her emotions behind a cold mask.
"You'll see soon enough." Wesker moved closer to her before she kicked out at him. "Steve, hold her down."
Steve rushed forward and strapped her arms down before holding her legs down. Nicolette withered back and forth, attempting to rip her limbs free and fight back. Wesker's smile mocked her cruelly as he leaned forward and unbuttoned two buttons from her shirt. He pressed some sort of activation on the devise and then pressed it on to her heaving chest. The devise was shaped like a spider, it's eight wire legs plunged into her peaches and cream colored skin. Nicolette fought to urge to scream aloud, but failed when one scrapped against one of her ribs. Steve winced at the heartbreaking sound. Wesker worked in unaffected silence. His closed the box and picked up an empty syringe. He observed the crease in her arm, pin pointing the vain, and stuck the needle into her skin. He filled it with her blood and then pulled it out, cleaning and covering the bleeding area. Her voice soon became infuriating for Wesker as he emptied the syringe into a vile.
"Silence." Wesker barely mumbled the word, but Nicolette's voice lost sound and her jaw snapped shut. "I can not concentrate with your irritating voice ringing in my ears."
"How long until you get the results back?" Steve asked watching Nicolette's blue eye's roll into the back of her head.
"An hour, possibly two." Wesker said shortly.
"She reminds me of the last time we did this." Steve muttered under his breath, completely sure that Wesker could hear him. "She reminds me of Jill Valentine. They both screamed."
"You live on your emotions." Wesker replied coldly. "Work on not relying on them. Think with your head, never your heart."
"It's hard to do when your human."
"We both know your not completely human."
"Yeah." Steve sighed. "I'll go work on that formula some more. Maybe I'll be able to crack it and find a way to remove the Veronica Virus and have it reproduce. Just as you ordered."
"Get to work then." Wesker snapped turning back to his work. "I have several more tests to run on her."
"Try not to completely bleed her dry." Steve called out. "You never know how useful she could end up being."
"What do you mean?"
"Isn't she-I mean wasn't she that guy, whats-his-face, oh! Chris Redfeild's partner?" Steve asked animatedly on his way back to his darkened little corner.
"Yes." Wesker answered curtly.
"Then, why not..."
/~/~/~/
"YOU LOST HER!" Jill roared at Chris, her glare where like daggers digging into Chris's skin. "HOW COULD YOU LOSE HER?"
"I'm so sor-"
"AND TO WESKER?" Jill shouted as tears pooled from her eye's. "TO WESKER! FOR ALL WE KNOW HE COULD BE TORTURING HER!"
"I tried to get her away but I-I-I failed." Chris hung his head and buried it in his hands from where he sat on the edge of her bed. "He overpowered us both."
"I SHOULD HAVE NEVER LET HER LEAVE HER ROOM! SHE'S ONLY A TEENAGER!"
"She's twenty." Chris muttered miserably.
"Just a child." Jill cried picking up a glass and threw it at the wall. "Just a baby."
"I didn't mean to lose your niece, Jill." Chris's voice grew thick with emotion. "It was the the last thing I ever wanted to happen."
"I'm going to kill that son of a bitch!" Jill snapped her eye's flashing as each tear fell. "He will rue the day he ever touched her."
/~/~/~/
Nicolette opened her eye's to find herself back in Wesker's room, curled up in the middle of his king sized bed.
"Oh, good, your awake!"
She jolted upright only to flop right back down on to the soft fluffy pillows with everything in her vision and her head spinning.
"Are you okay?" The gentle voice spoke again, closer this time.
"Wh-wh-what happened?" Nicolette slurred.
"You were tested on extensively today." The voice became clearer the more he talked.
"Mr Burnside?"
"Steve." He corrected. "Hungry?"
"You have food?" Nicolette tried to pull herself up into a sitting position, but failed and flopped back down on the bed.
"Yes. We have to keep you alive you know." Steve came into her vision smiling.
"Why bother?" She asked softly her eye's searching his. "Why do you even care? He'll just kill me anyway."
"I was put in charge of you." Steve pointedly side stepped the questions as he lifted her head and stacked pillows behind her before letting her lay back, elevated into a sitting position. "And I don't like having people die on my watch." Steve lifted a standing tray and placed it above her lap.
"Your concern touches me." Nicolette said in weak sarcasm.
"Are you always like this?" Steve asked looking her up and down.
Nicolette laughed weakly. "God, no. You just caught me on an off day."
"I hope that's a good thing." He smiled sadly at her.
"I've never had much of an off day before." She whispered, lifting a glass of water to her lips.
"Hmm." Steve watched her slowly eat. He didn't miss the way she poked every morsel on the plate, testing it. 'Who could blame her?' He thought to himself. 'I acted the same way.' Steve couldn't help absorbing her features. Even covered in healing finger shaped bruises they reminded him of someone. Someone important. But her blond hair and light blue eye's threw him off track. The name wouldn't come to him. Besides her nose didn't belong to the person he was trying to think of, it was too strait, it didn't curve a little upward at the end, and her eye's where slight larger. Her hair and eye color were all wrong, but she was still strikingly beautiful. Steve glanced away from her, hoping that she wouldn't accuse him of checking her out and then leading him into a strange explanation about his compare and contrasting her against someone else. He couldn't help but glance at her again. She reminded him of that other person, but not in the way he expected. 'She kinda annoys me. It's...weird.' Steve shook his head, that couldn't be true.
"What's wrong?" Nicolette had finally noticed that Steve had been looking at her face. "Do I look that bad?"
"No-what?" Steve snapped out of his inner conflict and looked at her in surprise. Nicolette climbed out of bed, pushing the tray out of her way, and made her way to a mirror on the wall. She looked in to it and let out a quick high pitched screech."What's wrong?"
"Look at me!" She whirled around and walked strait over to where Steve was standing. "Look at what that old man did to me! He bruised my face and my neck!"
"And your arms." Steve added before his commonsense kicked in. Nicolette looked down at her arms and pulled up the huge sleeves up before she gasped out loud.
"That old son of a fu-"
"Calm down!" Steve hissed rushing forward and covering her mouth with his hand. "He'll hear you."
"What?" Nicolette pulled away from Steve completely enraged but lowered her voice. "Does he have this whole place bugged?"
"In a way, yes he does."
"Ugh!" Nicolette spun around and threw herself on to the mattress. "I HATE this place!"
"It's not that bad."
"Are you kidding me?" Nicolette rolled over onto her back. "You don't have family and friends out there looking and waiting for you to come home, do you?"
"No." Steve whispered stiffly, glaring at out of the corner of his eye's.
"Then you don't understand." She sighed sadly. "My aunt is probably trying to kill Chris, my sister is going to be worried sick, and I can't even imagine someone having to tell them that...that...there's no hope for me. No reason to hang on."
"Well, you were caught by Wesker."
"Don't. Not now." Nicolette huffed. "I don't want to hear his name. Ever."
"Well, now." Steve thawed out a little and sat down on the edge of the bed. "That's going to be completely impossible."
"How?"
"So, your awake." Nicolette jolted up and Steve's head snapped to the side.
"Wesker! Sir!" Steve jumped to his feet and shuffled away from the bed. "I didn't expect you to come here. I thought you would still be running tests."
Wesker walked slowly to the middle of the room. "I heard a shriek." His voice was cold.
"It was nothing important." Steve replied quickly. "I just startled her."
"I'm sure." Wesker glanced at Nicolette who glared openly at him, causing a small hint of a smile to flicker across his lips. "You can not expect an untrained child not to act out."
"Old men shouldn't judge things they don't understand." Nicolette hissed, her eye's narrowed. "They never know how their going to end up dying."
Wesker chuckled darkly. "Is that a threat?"
"So your not as old as you look," Nicolette had a hint of a smile on her face, causing Steve to consecrated on her, his eye's narrowed and forehead scrunched, seeing what no one else could. "I half expected you to be deaf."
Wesker was suddenly in Steve's vacated spot on the side of the bed, leaning over her, his jaw clenched. "I would watch what you say if I were you."
"But, your not." She replied boldly. "And you don't control m-"
"Silence." Wesker growled. Nicolette felt all the noise and volume in her voice die out in the middle of her sentence. Wesker reached at her chest, causing her to lash out at him with her arms. "Stop." She froze, but glared ever fiercer at him. He flashed her a brief evil half smile and unbuttoned two on the buttons and examined the spider like devise that was practically fused into the skin and muscle in her chest. "Good, it's working nicely."
Nicolette looked down at what her enemy was examining on her chest in disgust. 'Is this why I can't fight back? Why I have to shut up every time he opens his self absorbed mouth?' She watched him in withering silence. 'It must be.' She was taken over by an obsessive urge to kick him square in the jaw. 'How dare he.'
"Hmmm, it is upsetting that I have to waste this on you." Wesker sneered moving away from her. "But, my tests are very important."
"That makes me feel, oh so special." Nicolette growled past her teeth.
"I thought I told you to be silent." Wesker's tone was arrogant, and slightly irritated.
"Well, she does have a little free will left." Wesker's head snapped to the side, angled directly at Steve. "It-it's the way you had me build it."
"I see." Wesker turned on his heels and walked towards the door. He paused and turned his head slightly to the side. "And, Nicolette," The girl nearly jumped out of her skin in surprise. She looked up and glared at his tall form, still fighting to move her limbs. "I must say, the devise becomes you."
He left, leaving Nicolette glaring at the door and Steve still standing near the wall, confused and, privately, a completely intimidated.
/~/~/~/
"When do we tell Roy?" Chris mumbled miserably into his hands. He was still sitting on Jill's bed, his face buried in his hands.
"We don't." Jill sighed, curled up in to a crumpled, sobbing heap next to Chris.
"Why not?" Chris lifted his head from his hands and looked over at Jill. His gaze softened as he gazed at her. "She deserves to know."
"We are not telling Royal, she'll lose her mind." She didn't look up at Chris, instead she curled up closer to the pillow.
"Nicolette is her sister-"
"Niki doesn't need Roy freaking out right now!" Jill snapped.
"Jill, I'm not sur-"
"Don't even try to tell me she's not alive." Jill glared up at Chris. "I know she is."
"Woman's intuition?"
"In a way.."
"What the hell does that mean?" Chris stood up and walked to the other side of the room.
"I...it's...Chris, you wouldn't be able to handle what it really was."
Chris leaned against the wall, his dark blue eye's focused on Jill's shaking form. He crossed his arms and narrowed his eye's. "Try me."
/~/~/~/
"So, I'm stuck in this room?" Nicolette was outraged as she pulled herself off the huge king sized bed. She walked over to Steve, who was standing by the door to the lab. "I can't leave at all?"
"Yeah." Steve glanced awkwardly at her and then the door. "But it's not like you have anywhere to go, do you?"
"Well, I..."
"Let me just tell you now, there is no way out of here. Your safer hiding in here and following the rules."
"I. Don't. Hide." She said with gridded teeth.
"Well, now you do." Steve replied turning the nob on the door. "Wesker ordered that you stay hear until he figure's out what to do with you."
"You mean the old man will kill me after he gets all his answers from his pathetic little tests." Nicolette rolled her eye's and fought the urge to destroy a piece of furniture or scream in frustration.
"Well," Steve sighed. "I see your a cup of sunshine."
"I'm not always like this, Stevie." Nicolette smiled briefly.
"Well, try to look more on that little bright side of yours, Niki." Steve smiled at her. "You never know what's going on in Wesker's head."
"Besides the thought, 'I'm amazing'." Nicolette laughed. The sound lifted a part of Steve's soul and erased his loneliness. They understood each other. At least, somewhat. He couldn't held but still feel annoyed by her, but she was the only other person here who had been ripped away from her life, like he had been from his.
"I'll come back to visit soon."
"Hey, your my appointed body guard, you have to come back." Nicolette reached forward and gave Steve a quick hug before backing away. "So, just...stay safe."
Steve laughed, the sound caused Nicolette to smile genuinely. "I'll try." Steve left feeling happy and slightly confused. 'Why is she being so nice to me?'
When the door closed behind Steve, Nicolette sighed and turned herself around. 'At least now if he turns out to be one of the bad guys he might feel slightly guilty if something horrid happens to me.' Nicolette lingered on that thought before shacking her head and walked over to the bed.
"It doesn't make much sense." She muttered to herself as she curled up under the sheets and covers. "I've slept for nearly two day's strait and I'm still sleepy."
She closed her eye's and quickly drifted off to sleep.
A few rooms over, Wesker sat in a cream colored armchair, reading the reports of the day. He glanced at the clock of his study every time he finished reading one of the packets, his glasses on the desk in front of him. He could feel his eye lids slowly becoming heavy. 'I will have to move that child from my room. She's been there for nearly three day's. It's disrupting my sleep.' Wesker smirked. 'Even a god has to sleep.' He leaned back in the chair and placed the resent packet, a report on the labs function, on his lap. He glanced at the clock, noting that it was ten PM. 'I'll just rest my eye's for a moment and then I'll have Steve take my experiment some where and keep her quiet for an hour or so.' His cat like eye's closed slowly and his body slowly began to relax. His breathing became deep, rhythmic, and soft. Wesker slipped off into his dreams.
Several hours later Wesker's eye's blinked open and glanced around himself. He jolted upright and glanced at the clock. The time was six AM. Wesker brushed the packet of his lap and on to the floor. He stood and briskly picked up his glasses, and put them on. He left the room, heading to his bedroom. He walked down the hallway passing by many Umbrella workers, who stayed close to the walls and refused to even look at him. He hid his amusement very well, but he couldn't help but turn his head and appeared to look at a nurse walking by. He nearly chuckled at the way she flinched into the wall. He reached the room and opened the door. Wesker looked around the room, a little disturbed by the silence. He walked over to the bed and found Nicolette curled up under the covers and the sheets, her arms where wrapped around the pillow, holding it close to her body, and she looked innocent, almost like an angel. Wesker watched her momentarily. 'It looks like she's in a deep sleep.' Wesker turned away and walked into the bathroom with a new, clean set of clothes.
Nicolette woke up to the sound of running water. She sleepily looked around the room, trying to make sense of what was happening. She slipped out of the bed and placed her feet on the soft carpet. She walked over to the bathroom door and placed her hand on the cold metal of the doorknob. She heard the water turn off as she turned the knob.
Wesker heard the door knob begin to turn, and whipped around. He reached for a clean white towel, thinking to himself that if it was that child he didn't need to give her a heart attack and kill her before he was done with his tests. And if it was Steve, well no need to make the lonely scientist think that Wesker could be his companion, in any way shape or form, besides it would show the mans inferiority compared to me.
She pushed the door open and gasped in shock. Standing in front of her, clothed in only a towel was Albert Wesker. She felt her eye's grow wide as she took him in. His skin was sleek and tan, his hair was messy and wet, his muscles were strong and relaxed, and his eye's where calm. She was frozen, looking at her enemy standing outside of a shower, with only a towel covering him.
"Ever heard of knocking?" Wesker's voice snapped her out of her momentary mental breakdown.
"Ever heard of locking a door?" She snapped back her eye's flashing away from him and then back to his face.
"See something you like?" Wesker growled.
"No, all I see is some old guy in a towel." She sniffed walking out of the room. Weaker's eye's narrowed and he slammed the door behind her. Nicolette flinched as the door slammed shut, then she walked wobbly to the desk covered in computers and sat in the seat next to it. She breathed deeply threw her nose to calm herself down. Wesker walked out within moments, his hair slicked back and fully dressed in his usual black on black color scheme.
"I do hope you enjoyed the show." Wesker said coldly, his glasses reflecting the lights on to the wall, his face was as cold and impenetrable as ever.
"Almost as much as watching Barney." She replied numbly.
"Children do tend to watch that, don't they?" Wesker turned on his heals and left the room abruptly, leaving Nicolette to sit alone in the room. She stood up and looked around herself.
"That is so not fair." She mumbled desperately to herself. "How can any man look like that?"
/~/~/~/
Nicolette's fingers wrapped around the cold metal of the door knob. She felt the tendons and muscle of her hand and arm turn and pull to open the door. She walked into the room but by the time she reached the sink she stopped dead in her tracks. She gasped loudly. She found herself standing in front of a tall tanned man, clothed in nothing but a towel that his hand was holding up. His abdomen looked hard and sleek with muscles and the skin still looked like it still had a thick coat of water on it. His chest was broad and shoulders looked strong enough to with hold any amount of weight. She couldn't stop herself from staring at his chest. She snapped out of her daze as someone cleared their throat. Her eye's snapped up to the man's face, taking in every curve and angle. She couldn't help the way her eye's kept trying to look into his.
"Ever heard of knocking?" Nicolette glanced up and met those cold cat like eye's. She shivered and tried to look away, but his eye's kept grabbing her attention.
"Ever heard of locking a door?" She replied, the comeback was weak to her own ears as her gaze lingered on the muscles of his chest.
"See something you like?" Wesker asked in a strange tone.
"I-I'm not-t sure at the moment." Nicolette stuttered, her eye's wide. Wesker moved around her and looked like he was about to leave the room before he shut the door and locked it. "Wh-what are you doing?"
"Just trying to get some privacy." Wesker turned around and smiled at her.
"Then, I'll just leave." Nicolette said gathering her courage and attempted to walk past Wesker and open the door to leave. Instead a surprisingly warm and wet hand covered her own hand and lifted it gently off the knob. Her head snapped to the side and she found herself face to face with him, his wet, messy blond hair hanging in front of his eye's. She was mesmerized by his gaze that she nearly lost herself inside his eye's. She snapped out of it and pulled her hand out of his grip and backed way.
"I can't allow you to leave." Wesker snarled walking slowly towards her. "You've seen to much."
"What do you mean?" Nicolette asked shakily as her back hit the cold marble wall. Wesker came closer, water still dripping from his messy hair. Nicolette felt a fluttering feeling in her abdomen. She wondered briefly in daze, if she was feeling fear. She didn't know how to react as Wesker stopped, his body an inch away from hers. She could feel his body heat radiating against her skin. His hot breath caressing the skin of her face and her lips.
"What do you think I mean." He breathed, his breath hit her and she closed her eye's momentarily. She opened them to see him put his hand on one side of the wall, closing her in more to the corner.
"You expect me to read your mind now?"
Wesker repositioned his head so that his lips were right next to her ear. He chuckled, his breath tickling the skin on her neck. "You amuse me, little Niki."
"Is that a complement?" She whispered as he moved back into his original position, his eye's burning into hers.
"Niki, Niki, Niki." Wesker growled, watching her intently. "It's the best your going to get."
"Thanks, I guess." She breathed, her heart pounding in her chest.
A chuckle escaped Wesker's chest as he moved closer to her. "You are very welcome."
"Do you have to be so close?" She asked as her body began shaking invisibly.
"Why? Are you scared of something?"
"What make's you think I'm scared?"
"Your a little girl, are you not?" Wesker replied his eye's dancing in the glimmering lights.
"I'm twenty." She said breathlessly.
"Age doesn't make you a woman." He whispered raising an eyebrow. "Did you think that age determines that?"
"Then what make's me a woman."
"Experience."
"Experience?" She repeated breathlessly, her hands moving to his chest, to attempt to get some breathing room. "What do you mean, experience?"
"Something," Wesker moved closer, crushing her hands in between both of their body's. "Like this."
"Wha-" Nicolette gasped as she felt something soft fall on her feet. Wesker's other hand was suddenly holding her, by her waist, against his body.
"You're going to enjoy this." Wesker growled. His breath was hot and heavy on her lips as his mouth came closer to hers. She felt the briefest touch before she was suddenly shaken viciously.
Nicolette bolted upright screaming and fighting her attacker blindly.
"Nicolette! Calm down!" The attacker cried, their tone was worried. "Nicolette! It's me! Steve!"
Nicolette's eye's snapped open and looked down at the person she had pinned down on the bed. His green blue eye's wide in surprise and a hint of fear, and his auburn hair in huge mess. Her body was heaving as she raggedly sucked air in to her lungs.
"Steve?" She forced the statement out of her mouth with a lot of will power and the little amount of breath she had left in her body before she began to breath raggedly again.
"Nicolette?" Steve looked at her, taking in her completely startled and freak out mood. "Can you get off me?"
"Wha-?" She looked down to find she was straddling Steve and had his hand pinned above his head. "Oh. So sorry."
She climbed off of Steve and collapsed on the other side of the bed.
"Are you okay?" Steve asked as he sat up and straitened himself out, fixing his lab coat.
"Fine." She huffed. 'I think.'
"Are you sure?" Steve angled himself so he could examine her. "You look like you've been threw hell?"
"Ugh!" Nicolette moaned as she flashed back to her dream.
"Nicolette-Niki?" Steve asked hesitantly. "Did you have a nightmare?"
"I-I...I'm not sure what it was." She whispered truthfully.
"Well, it must have been horrid. You weren't breathing, I thought that you were dead until I took your pulse." Steve looked her in the eye's and then dropped his gaze. "What was your dream about?"
"Uhh..." Nicolette racked her exhausted and distraught brain for an answer that was close to the truth with out tell him the idea of the dream entirely.
"Who was in it?" Steve asked, making her life right then a little easier.
"Wesker." She breathed.
"Oh, yeah." Steve shivered. "I've had those nightmares. He is a fucking scary guy."
"Yeah," Nicolette rolled her eye's at Steve. "I doubt you've had dream's like mine."
Steve glanced at her eye's again and then looked away. "It's possible, he has done a little more damage to you."
"Steve?" Nicolette asked, still trying to breath. "Steve, why don't you look me in the eye?"
"Um," Steve looked back at her. He looked like he was forcing himself to look directly at her eye's. "No reason."
"Steve." She said warningly. "Tell me, now."
"I-I...well, their just a little..." Steve looked down at his lap.
"Just what?" A rush of fear pulsed threw her veins.
"Just a...well..." Steve looked up at her again. "..their a little creepy."
"Creepy?" Nicolette jumped to her knees and scrambled off the bed. She nearly fell before she caught herself on the corner of the bed and shuffled blindly to the mirror in the wall.
"Just a little." Steve replied in alarm as he got to his feet and followed her.
"What the hell does tha-" Her word cut off as she looked into the mirror. Hidden behind tangled, dry, unwashed hair was a gleam of some unearthly color of blue. Her pale hand reached for her face and brushed the hair out of the way. She gasped. "Oh, dear God." The eye's in these sockets could not be hers. They looked nothing like her crystal blue eye's. The color and shade was all wrong. They were only several shads darker then the whites of her eye's. The ring separating the white from the color was completely black, along with the pupil. But that isn't what scared her. Down the center of her eye's, ring threw pupil to ring, a long slender black line. It took up a good portion of her pupil, and make her look like a cross between a cat and a human. "Wh-what happened to me?"
"Niki, breath-"
"WHAT HAPPENED TO MY EYE'S?" Nicolette turned away from the mirror and buried her face in to her hands, holding her tears back from her stinging eye's. 'My freaky eye's!' She sobbed in her head.
"It was the combination of the T virus and the Uroboros Virus." Steve said in a panicked rush, unsure about what to do but give her information. "They swirled together and clashed. Creating your eye's and new forms of cells in your body. Your eye's changed along with the cells."
"Why?" She asked sadly, her hands clenching into fists. She whirled around and punched the mirror, watching it shatter in a haze of red. "WHY?"
"It's just the way the viruses react in a body. They change the eye's. If your body suddenly changed into that of a cat you would need the eye's of a cat." Steve reached forward and pulled her hand out of the glass, glad that none of it had penetrated her skin.
"So I'm an animal now?" She growled as Steve inspected her fist more to be sure.
"No," Steve replied hesitantly. "Your an advanced breed of human, not even really human anymore."
"That's what that bitch had said before." Nicolette snarled her strange and unique eye's flashing.
"Bitch?" He whispered, raising an eyebrow. "What bitch?"
"Miss Taylor." She growled again.
"Ohhhh, that bitch." Steve replied with a smile. "Jacquelyn is all high and mighty because she's one of the few woman that work for Wesker. She's been getting knocked down a few pegs because you survived and Wesker pays more attention to you."
"Attention?" Nicolette laughed bitterly. "I'm a lab rat." She yanked at her shirt revealing the spider like devise. "He controls nearly everything I do, are you trying to tell me that she's envious of me?"
"I never said it made sense."
"It's sick!" She snapped. "And how she could be attracted to a-a-a monster like him is beyond me!"
"He-" Nicolette suddenly covered his mouth with her hand. Her eye's snapped to the door. She placed a finger on her lips with her free hand and removed her other from Steve's mouth. She silently walked to the door and yanked it open. Her eye's first found black dress shoes. She could feel rage and another distant puzzling emotion building up as she eye's traveled up the black pants and the tailored black shirt. When her eye's began to trace his face she could feel it bubbling under the surface. But when her eye's met his, it burst out from under her skin. Her eye's narrowed and her hand clenched into a fist and punched Wesker in the jaw, his face moving with the force of her punch.
"HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME, YOU SON OF A BITCH!" She glared at him, his head still facing the other direction. "I'M NOT SOME TEST WHORE! AND YOU CAN'T USE ME AS ONE!"
"Niki." Steve was standing in the room were she had left him with his mouth gaping open and his eye's wide in fear. "Don't."
"IF YOU WANT SOMEONE TO TEST ON, TRY YOURSELF NEXT TIME!" She continued to shout, ignoring Steve's warning. "YOUR NOTHING BUT A MONSTER!"
Wesker's head slowly turned back into a frontward position. His eye's glowed faintly under his glasses. His entire face was cold and emotionless, but nothing could stop Nicolette at that moment. She was ragging and full of fire. She was also somehow holding herself back from attacking Wesker again with a flurry of limbs.
"SILENCE!" Wekser snapped at her. Pain surged threw Nicolette's chest and she shirked breathlessly. She glared at him, gasping for breath.
"Make. Me." She hissed past gritted teeth.
"Your going to regret those words." Wesker snarled, grabbing her by the front of her shirt and pulling her close to his body, Nicolette reacted oddly to the close position. She tried to push herself away, but he had too good of a grip. She glared up at him with undisguised hate.
"Like I said," She breathed. "Make me."
"With pleasure." Wesker replied coldly. He threw her to the floor and watched her roll until her back hit a painful corner of the bed, he walked in, shutting the door behind him. Wesker rolled her over with the tip of his shoe and looked down at her face. A pretty face that was marred by hatred and pain. He knelled down and warped his glove covered fingers around her throat, lifting her up into the air. He then threw her into the wall close to the bathroom. Nicolette crashed to the ground with a cry of pain. She opened her eye's wincing at the pain in her side. She looked up to see Wesker looming over her. She narrowed her eye's and kicked out at him, hitting his knees from behind and causing him to lose his balance long enough for her to get to her feet and jump on to his back. She grabbed a fist full of his hair, wrapped around his waist with her legs, and had a hand on his throat. She was unsure about what she would do with the hand on his throat, would she actually be able to kill him if she had too? She didn't have much time to think about it, Wesker's hands were pulling at her limbs. Trying to untangle her from him.
"Your going to have to do much better then that." She whispered in his ear. Wesker gave a little shutter, as if trying to shake her off.
"As you wish." He growled, ripping her legs from his body and slammed her into a wall, backwards, to get her to loosen her hold on his throat and the fist full of his tangled and now mess hair. Nicolette was being crushed into the wall, she couldn't breath, she could feel her blood trying painfully to pulse in to her limbs and her head. She let go of her grips on Wesker, falling into a crumpled heap as he moved away. She lay there, gasping for breath, her vision was blurry but she could still make out black dress shoes only about two feet away. Nicolette struggled to get to herself up, to support herself as Wesker and Steve watched. Wesker's face was blank of any emotion what so ever, Steve on the other hand was freaking out. His hand were running threw his hair nervously, his left eye was twitching, and his worry and panic played on his face like one would pay checkers. Flickering across his face faster with every growing moment, blending so well together that no one would have been able to tell one emotion from the other.
Wesker walked over to her and placed his foot on her shoulder, flipping her over and pinning her down, his foot on her abdomen. "Are you done with your temper tantrum?"
"Really?" She coughed out an hysterical laugh. "That's all you've got? Your a real hypocrite, you know that right?"
"You have no idea when to keep your mouth shut, do you?" Wesker growled in irritation, he removed his foot and looked down at her, his expression completely unreadable.
"Christopher always said that was a major fault of mine." Nicolette almost smiled as Wesker's mouth twitched and his jaw tensed. She could feel the anger pulsing from his body. Wesker picked her up ruffly and held her up by the front of her shirt.
"Your lucky I need you alive." Wesker snarled his face inches from hers. He turned and threw her on to the bed. "Watch her." He ordered Steve as he left. Steve stood frozen, rooted in the same spot as he was when Nicolette had discovered her eye's. Nicolette lay on the bed staring at the ceiling, her entire body ached. Steve walked stiff legged over to the bed and collapse on it.
"You have a problem." He whispered. "You really don't know when to shut your big mouth."
"We all are imperfect, even the high and mighty hypocrite."
"That hypocrite just kicked your ass." He whispered back.
"I know." She admitted. "I'm only used to fighting humans or zombies, not some super genetic asshole."
"That's not-" Steve sighed and rolled over to look down at her slightly bruised face and skin. "Is there any point in arguing with you?"
"Not unless you want to waste your breath."
"Ugh." Steve rolled back on to his back. "Your going to get yourself killed."
"Who's the cup of sunshine now?" She asked coughing out another laugh.
"Who's suicidal now?"
"No one." Nicolette sat up and looked over at Steve. "I just don't like it when people act like they are better then others."
"You know it's not entirely his fault he's that way."
"Then who's fault is it?" She asked angrily.
"It's not my story to tell." Steve replied miserably. "Just try not to antagonize the poor guy so much."
"Poor guy?" Nicolette asked outraged. "He just beat the crap out of me!"
"You punched him in the face and called him a monster." Steve grimaced. "I would have lost it a bit too."
"A bit?" She snapped glaring into the corner of the wall. "He could have snapped my neck."
"Yeah, but he didn't."
"Fine. I'll give you that." She mumbled under her breath. "But I don't see why I should 'play nice'. He's still the villain."
"You read a lot of romantic fantasy, don't you?"
"I-" She glared down at Steve. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Only those type of people call bad guys villains."
"Are you done profiling me?" Nicolette asked rolling her eye's. "Because I feel like you were about to tell me something important."
Steve sighed and sat up on the bed, turning to lay against the pillows. "Are you sure you want to hear it? Because it's not some fairy tale story. There is no happy ending."
"If I didn't want to know, Steve," She replied simply moving closer to him. "I wouldn't have asked."
"Just..." Steve gulped and looked around nervously. "...just, don't ever let him know that I told you."
"I'll do my best." She vowed solemnly watching Steve's fearful face with a stab of compassion. "I promise. I never break my promises."
"Alright, just remember to listen to everything, not just what you want to hear." His voice lost all fear and became completely sober. "None of this is going to paint a pretty picture."
"I don't expect it to." She murmured, curling up with a pillow in her arms and watching Steve with her head resting on the pillow.
"Good." Steve took a deep breath. "I don't know were to start. Maybe with Oswald E. Spencer."
"Spencer?" The name brought up memory's from the catacombs of her mind. An old man in a wheelchair, always hooked up with some sort of tube and strange wires.
"Yeah, Oswald Spencer. He had been apart of the group that had created Umbrella." Steve's voice grew dark. "But Spencer was...a...a...the best way to put it was power hungry. He wanted something, an invention or an experiment that set him apart from the others, from everybody. That showed how superior he was. Something that made him a God. Back in the sixty's he began one experiment that caused the world we live in now. He started a project called the Wesker Children. He had the smartest, most athletic, basically the best of the best of the human genetics he could find mate and breed to create twelve children," Steve looked her in the eye's, his shadowed his sadness. "Spencer had each one of them injected with superior DNA and many viruses, trying to build the perfect solider. Only Wesker survived."
"Out of twelve, only one survived?" Nicolette asked in shock. "How-"
"The experiments were intense." Steve whispered. "And Wesker was raised on the site of the Umbrella corporation, trained to be a soldier. He was treated like an object, not a child. He was raised to believe that emotions and anything that was linked to the heart was weakness. Wesker was raised to avoid weakness."
"You mean-"
"All weakness." Steve shook his head. "He was meant to be a super soldier. When he was nineteen Wesker went to an Umbrella training facility, were he met William Birkin."
"William Birkin?" She whispered.
"Apparently he was the closest thing to a friend that Wesker ever had." He replied lost in the story. "This guy, Professor James Marcus I believe his name was, trusted both of them. He even told them about the research on the Progenator Virus. That was the virus before the T virus. Professor Marcus had them assassinate him."
"Why?"
"I don't know." Steve looked down at his lap and continued with the story. "Wesker went on to work for Umbrella and Spencer, pretending to be the perfect solider, while trying to expose Umbrella to the press. He tried doing that with Raccoon City. He was assigned head of S.T.A.R.S. and was sent to a mansion to retrieve information and kill any zombies in his path. Several others went with them."
"Who?"
"Joseph Frost, Brad Vickers, Barry Burton, Jill Valentine, and Chris Redfeild. Wesker was reported dead, killed by one of the experiments in the lab, but not before he was found out to be a double agent by Chris and Jill. Wesker on the other hand wasn't dead, he had just faked his death so no one could blame him for the leak of information about Umbrella to the media. Who would blame a dead guy? But due to the meddling of Redfeild and Valentine, Wesker could not get the information. While Wesker was away Spencer had Birkin assassinated so he could steal his virus, the G Virus. Wesker finds out and also wants the virus and sends in his spy, Ada Wong, both on the same day. Ada had succeeded in stealing the virus and gave it to Wesker. Wesker then set off to Rockfort island," Steve broke off for a moment and took a deep calming breath. "In search of Alexia Ashford, who possessed the Veronica Virus." Steve shivered a little and Nicolette moved closer to him worried. "Unexpectedly Chris Redfeild shows up again. He distracts Wesker long enough to kill Alexia before Wesker could get his hands on the Veronica virus." Steve looked off into the corner of the room before continuing. "But Wesker found someone who still had the Veronica virus and took him instead."
"Who was that?"
"A couple years later Wesker hears about a parasite called 'Los Plagas' that allows one person to control another persons actions. He then sends Ada in again, and again she succeeds." Steve grimaced and looked at Nicolette, his eye's full of sadness. "You remember Spencer, right?" She nodded, her eye's wide. "And you know that Wesker didn't know that his existence was an experiment, right?" Nicolette's eye's grew wider. "Well Wesker went to see the only father figure he had ever known. He never opened his heart to anyone as an adult, the only person that had ever know who Wesker is on the inside was Spencer. As a child he had told Spencer everything and Spencer had always shut him down, telling him that feelings are weaknesses. But even without any real feelings of any form from Spencer, Wesker still had a tie to him, and went to see him. While they were talking Spencer tells him that he was an experiment, the only one of twelve children that had survived the extensive testing. That Wesker had been manufactured, and that he, Spencer, thought he could be a God. Wesker, in complete rage, kills Spencer. Mere moments later Chris and Jill burst threw the door, guns up. In the end Jill had used her body to throw Wesker and herself out the window."
"Is that all?" Nicolette whispered, searching Steve's face.
"No, you see, this is the whole point." Steve sighed. " Wesker's life was someone's major fuck up after fuck up. It's just fucked up in general. His head is messed up, the only thing he knows is that there shouldn't be people like Spencer out there. If Spencer could be a God, then why not him? He wants to create a utopia, a place were nothing can go wrong, were everyone is superior and nothing bad ever happens like what happened to him. To whip out all the evils of the human race and create something that would use only the best traits. And when all this was done he is going to make himself a God. The first way he went about it was to take 'Los Plagus' and rid it of it problems, changing and fixing and approving it, turning it into Uroboros with the help of Excella Gionne. He injected her with Uroboros, to stall Chris and his new partner, Sheva Alomar, so that Wesker could launch the Uroboros on the unsuspecting world to create his utopia. It the end Chris and Sheva nearly killed him."
"And now he's working on something new." Nicolette guessed.
"That wasn't the point of me telling you his story." Steve said irritatedly with a roll of his eye's. "Just, stop antagonizing him."
"How am I-?" Nicolette stopped in the middle of her sentence and thought back over the past couple of days. Her eye's grew wider.
"Yeah, exactly. Just keep your insults down or don't talk at all." Steve advised looking her up and down. "You might be able to hang around as long as I have."
"Aren't you a scientist?" She asked. "You have a reason to stick around."
"And you could have on too. The dude may be fucking scary but he still needs people to do things for him."
"So you want me to play nice so I could be an errand girl?"
"No." Steve laughed. "You would be, sort of like a bodyguard."
"Great." She said sarcastically. "Just great."
/~/~/~/
"Try me."
Jill looked up at Chris, tears swimming in her light gray blue eye's. "You, wont understand." Chris continued to watch her threw his narrowed dark blue eye's. "Chris, I had no choice." She cried burring her head. "I just don't want you to hate me for something I did when I was younger." Chris continued to watcher. "Oh, Chris! You, you wont understand."
"Trust me." He whispered gently. "And tell me whats going on."
"It's complicated."
"I'll try and understand."
"It's a very long story."
"Jill," Chris shook his head sadly. "You should know by now that I have the time."
/~/~/~/
"Ugh." Nicolette grunted, pulling her self off the floor. "Could you not kick me there?"
"Hey! Your hands went for my eye's!" Steve protested breathlessly from were he stood, one had against the wall to hold him self up. "Your abdomen was the closest thing I could reach."
"Liar." She coughed getting to her feet. "I can't believe that I have to train with you."
"What does that mean?" Steve asked glancing at her.
"Just that for the first day or so you kicked my butt. Now you can barely lay a hand on me."
"It's been three weeks."
"I'm just surprised that he still wants me to train with you." She replied nudging Steve in the shoulder.
"No, your surprised he hasn't changed his mind and killed you." Steve laughed.
"True on both accounts." She said with a smile, grabbing a towel from the bench a few feet away and wiping the sweat from her forehead.
"Do you even understand why?" Steve asked collapsing on the bench, his chest heaving slightly as his red brown hair fell around his face and his exhausted blue green eye's sparkled faintly.
"Why, what?" Nicolette looked down at him and couldn't fight a small smile.
"Why he wants you around, even after all the tests."
"Oh," Nicolette shook her head, her long curly light blond hair caught up in a ponytail that swung from one side of her head to the other. "I just assumed that he had some things he could use me for."
"That's why a lot of us are still around." Steve pushed himself off the bench and looked directly in her eye's, which, as he spent more time around her, he began to look past them, looking at Nicolette. "Niki, he has to have any idea of a plan for you."
"Does he have one for you?"
"Hell yeah." Steve became serious immediately. "After I finish with my 'project' he'll most likely kill me."
What would be the point of that?" She asked outraged, trying to mask her worry over Steve. "Your the best scientist he has."
"It's just the way he is."
"He's really fu-"
"Niki!" Steve covered her mouth with his hand. "Remember what I told you? Don't."
"Hhm ferm mhhmh."
"What?" Steve asked, removing his hand from her face.
"He has major issues." She said glancing around the room.
"Yeah."
"I just want to get out of here, Steve." Nicolette whispered, her voice a little unstable. "I want to go back home. Back to my aunt and my sister. Back to the place that made me feel safe."
"I want to go home too, Niki." Steve replied sadly. Nicolette reached forward and wrapped her arms around Steve's neck, hugging him with their spider like devises clinking together.
"Your like the big brother sort of always wanted." Nicolette whispered in to his sweaty t-shirt.
"And your like the annoying little sister that I begged my parents to have." Steve whispered into her hair, smiling and hugging her back. "You have no idea how sane you've kept me over the past month."
"It was the only way I knew how to thank you for helping me keep my big mouth shut." Nicolette murmured, her tone soft. They stayed there, time frozen and completely shut out of the horrid world that had come to existence.
Then an intercom echoed in the room. "Miss Holiday, your wanted in the Experimental Lab." It was Daniel Moore, commander and second in command to Wesker. Nicolette sighed regrettably ans pulled away from Steve.
"Can't he wait?" She called out, knowing that it was pointless to question anything in the Umbrella Corporation. "I need to shower."
"It's a direct order, Miss Holiday. He wants you there right away." Commander Moore sounded a touch apologetic as he hung up the intercom.
"I'll right, tell his royal highness I'll be right there." She shouted.
"Niki." Steve tisked. "Remember to behave yourself...as best you can."
"Save your preaching, Stevie." She sighed rolling her eye's. "I want to live too much to let him kill me because of something I said that upset him. Besides, he doesn't deserve the honor of having my blood on his hands."
"That's, uh, comforting?"
"Good, I'll see you at dinner Stevie."
"Niki-"
"Dinner, Steve." She called over her shoulder as she ran out the door in a shortened pair of Steve's old, ratty jeans that she had cut in to about knee high shorts, held up by an old belt she had found laying around abandoned, and the same shirt that she had been wearing since she first woke up and found herself in Wesker's room, the very room she was still forced to occupy, to everyone's dismay. She ran past the door to her kidnappers room and skidded to a stop in front of a sleek, gray metal door. She pulled it open and slipped in to the cold room. 'Air conditioning is one thing, but freezing people is another.' She thought to herself as she began her descent into the room, walking by desks coated in papers and files, some even covered broke and bent lab materials. There was only one light on in the entire lab, it was in the farthest corner of the room. It shedding its light on a rather large table covered in papers and test tubes. A figure was sitting in his black leather revolving chair in front of the table, a clipboard and a pen in his hand.
"Wesker." She said walking up to the table and making some room, sweeping some papers into a pile in front of the blond haired man wearing the glasses and sat on the desk looking agitated. "I need to ask, do you have clones of that chair everywhere? Or do you have people drag it everywhere for you?"
"Do you always feel the need to ask pointless, and slightly infuriating questions?" Wesker asked coldly, glaring at her over his glasses as he moved his clipboard so she couldn't read anything on it.
"I'm infuriating already?" She asked in mock horror. "I learn to be more of a mindless servant."
"That's all I ask." Wesker replied frostily.
Nicolette rolled her eye's. "Is there a reason you pulled me out of training?" Wesker shifted in his chair and opened his mouth only to be cut off by Nicolette. "And please let it not be just because you wanted to compare notes on how to insult people."
"You need to learn not to interrupt me." His voice was calm, but Nicolette felt the a small shiver run involuntarily down her spine as his unspoken threat hung in the air. "As I was going to say, I have a test to run on you."
"Just, one?" She asked glancing at the clipboard in Wesker's gloved hands. "You only want to run one test?"
"That depends."
'Asshole.' Nicolette groaned inwardly. "Depends on what?"
"How well the test goes." A small grin tugged at the corner of his lips before he looked back down at his clipboard, still angled away from Nicolette.
"Great." Sarcasm drenched the single word.
"Whats wrong, Miss Holiday." Wesker stood up, his chair rolling out behind him. "Are you sick of my tests."
"Only the needles and the cold hands." She mumbled, glaring at up at him as he loomed over her, an inch or two out of kicking distance.
"No needles." Wesker replied, his determiner cold and distant.
"And the cold hands?" Wesker lifted one of his gloved hand. "Yeah, those get very cold."
"Stop complaining, your delaying the inevitable, and prolonging your time in here." Wesker snarled, his eye's briefly flashing red. "With that your forcing both of us to be here when there are important things to do and files to read."
Nicolette flinched back and sighed. "Fine. Just get it over with."
"Kind of you to see it my way." Wesker replied, his voice once again cold and distant. Nicolette looked down at her hand cut shorts and poked at a new little rip that Steve had caused earlier. She was lost in the memory of Steve tripping of his own feet accidentally when preparing to jump at her when she felt hot breath on her face. She felt an odd fluttery feeling in her stomach as she looked up. She hardly got her head half way up when she heard something being set down next to her with two soft clunks, and a pair of icy cold gloves grab her face. Then she felt as if she were dreaming, whether it was a nightmare or not, she didn't know, but she felt the hot breath disappeared and then strange soft lips press against hers. She felt her body go in to complete shock. Her mind went blank and her eye's began to glaze over. She could feel him breath calmly threw his nose and softly out of some of the cracks between their lips, the hot air bathing her lips, and entered her mouth. the fluttery feeling in her stomach grew into a cross between a physical and emotional pain of some sort. She could feel his lips, soft in texture, but ruffly pressed against her own, causing them to feel bruised. Then Wesker pulled away and released her from his grip to pick up the clipboard and the pen that sat beside her. He took notes as if nothing had happened. "Hmmm," He murmured to himself. "Interesting."
Wesker then turned and left the lab, his hand moving towards his chest. Outside in the hall his empty hand was on his chest, massaging the cloth, skin and muscle that lay on his chest, as if he were in pain. He chuckled to himself darkly as he pushed his inferior child like thoughts of weakness away. The test had showed that she was nothing to him but his pawn. 'Nothing.' He repeated to himself strictly.
Nicolette on the other hand sat on the table still, her eye's still wide, but no longer glazed. Her mind began to thaw out and random half coherent thoughts popped in and out. The only words her mind grasped was Ginny pig and dirty old man. She tried to flex her pinkie, or shake her foot, but she couldn't find the strength to. She continued to relive the entire moment, the moment that felt like hours to her, over and over in her mind, as if it were a punishment for trusting Wesker not to take advantage of her. She only moved when the door opened and Steve came running in, his eye's wide and full of worry. He lifted her off the table and put down, on her own to feet.
"Niki? Are you alright?" His green blue eye's searched her face, looking for any signs of harm that may have come to her. The only thing he caught were the bruises on her chin in the shape of fingers that were fading fast. "I've been so worried, you were gone so long."
Nicolette pulled herself away from Steve, stumbling briefly and then looking at him. "WERE WHERE YOU?" She shouted, turning on her heal and storming out of the room, her senses all finally returned to their normal functions. Steve stood there, looking after her, his expression bewildered.
"What did I miss?"
/~/~/~/
Chris was leaning against the wall. He had been there for half an hour, waiting for Jill to calm down, telling her that she could trust him with everything and anything. That there is no need to keep secrets or wounder how he was going to react to her news. Nothing could be worse then what was happening right now. He felt as if he had lost something more important then a partner and a friend out there. Nicolette had been so dear to him. Closer to him then anyone, she even reviled Jill and his sister Claire. But a different way. Other. Jill watched him, her emotions frayed and played out so much that the simplest thing could send her into ether a deep depression or a frenzy. She finally pulled herself into a sitting position, her arms wrapped around her legs as she tucked them close to her stomach. She took a deep breath.
"Chris?" His head snapped up and his dark blue eye's focused on her.
"Yes, Jill?" He croaked, his voice sounded painful and caused Jill to flinch.
"A-are you sure-e that-t you want to-o know?" She asked shakily, her gray blue eye's met his before she looked down again.
"Completely." His tone, no mater how painful it sounded, finalized the entire situation. Chris needed to know the truth, and she was going to give it to him.
"Chris, Nicolette's not my niece." Jill said bravely.
"Wha-" Chris nearly fell in shock. "What are you saying?"
"She's-"
"Jill, how is she not your niece?"
"Listen to me, Chris."
"Who did I lose out there?"
Jill's frayed nerves snapped. "CHRIS!" The man shut up and stared at her. "She's not my niece,"
Jill took a deep breath and caught Chris's gaze.
"She's my daughter."
Okay, the conversation between Chris and Jill spanned over several hours while Nicolette's world spanned over about a month, just so you know. XD Please, feed the zombies reviews before they come after you.