"Leon! Get Ashley out of here!"

Leon didn't need Ada to ask him twice. Ashley's dazed state certainly didn't help in their escape, but she didn't offer any resistance, so Leon supposed it balanced out.

Saddler didn't seem to happy to let his prize go, of course, and the look on his face as he slowly advanced towards the pair spoke volumes about the amount of pain he intended to cause Leon when he caught him. His slow gait itself advertised just how certain of Leon's capture he was, and the agent guessed that it also served the purpose of letting the cult leader ruminate on just which of the many gruesome tortures he had at his disposal he wished to inflict on his foe when he was caught.

With this impetus in mind, Leon grabbed Ashley's wrist and pulled her towards the nearest door that didn't have a highly dangerous terrorist lord between it and him.

Leon was pretty sure he heard automatic weapons fire behind him (hopefully coming from Ada and not toward her) as he shouldered the door open and ran through. It wasn't heartening to hear the ricochets of the bullets off of what he assumed was Saddler's cloak, but Leon had to trust the woman in red to slow Saddler down.

Leon was hardly disappointed when a mass of barrels (presumably full of oil or some similarly flammable substance from the way they burned) crashed down in front of the doorway, blocking Saddler from Leon's view. Leon had to hand it to that woman, she might be a pain a good portion of the time, but she certainly did know how to get a job done. Leon allowed himself a small smile. It looked like things might actually be going well again.

"Ugh…"

Leon glanced at his side when he felt the tug on his arm. Ashley had slumped down onto her knees. His smile vanished instantly.

"Ashley? Are you hurt?"

No answer was spoken, but she shook her head.

"We need to get going. Those barrels aren't going to hold Saddler forever. Can you walk?"

Ashley's only answer was a sickly, wet cough.

"Ashley?"

More coughing. Leon noticed that she was beginning to cover the linoleum in front of her in blood.

"Ashley, are you okay?"

Leon dropped to his own knees and pulled his attache case from his back. He rummaged through it for a second and extracted a spray can and a bottle of pills. He knew he had to act fast or else Ashley might…

Something flew at his face and before he knew what had happened, Leon was on the floor.

"NO! Stay…away…"

Leon tried to identify the voice he heard speaking. He realized it was Ashley's.

"Ashley…?"

A violent cough, and vomiting. Both the floor and most of the front of Ashley's clothing was now covered in blood. This was bad. He dropped the first aid spray in one hand in favor of opening the plastic bottle full of red and white pills in the other. Leon sat up and shuffled towards the now violently retching girl.

"Ashley…take these. They'll slow down the parasite's…"

Ashley looked up. Her normally brown irises had been completely replaced with a crimson red. She wasn't coughing or vomiting any more. Leon reached forward with a pill in his hand, ready to give it to her, but as things turned out, he ended up dropping the pill onto the ground.

"Leon…I…I'm sorry."

Blood once more leaked from Ashley's body, this time, though, it chose her back as the exit. Following the blood, a large tentacle, roughly an inch and a half in diameter shot from her back, growing and growing until it was probably longer than Leon was tall.

Leon involuntarily thought of the last time he'd seen Luis alive, and shuddered. Suddenly, holding onto the pill in his right hand seemed a lot less important. Leon braced himself. There was no way he could possibly avoid something that long while on his knees.

How ironic. He was about to be killed by the very person he'd been sent to rescue. Leon supposed that were he not about to be run through, he would be laughing at the fickleness of fate.

However, the next bit of sensory input Leon received was not excruciating pain as his body was given a new orifice, but a loud crashing noise coming from straight before him as Ashley stood up and proceeded to tear through the rubble blocking the doorway. The fire didn't seem to bother her; in fact, all emotion seemed to have drained from her as she lashed at the barrels again and again with the tentacle.

Faced with the prospect of being hewn in two were he to approach, Leon could only watch in horror as his target dug through several feet of burning steel and walked through the hole she'd made…straight to Saddler on the other side.

All traces of his fearsome glare were gone by now, and a sadistic grin lit up the hooded man's face.

"Good girl. See Leon? See how easy it is if you simply…give in? See how happy your friend is. Show Leon your smile, Miss Graham."

The exaggerated grin that Ashley shot Leon made him want to contribute to the already sizable pool of blood and vomit on the floor. Saddler must have seen Leon's obvious discomfort, for he stretched out his hand, and with a sadistic chuckle, pointed it at Leon.

Leon felt something bite at the bones just beneath the skin of his back. Pain radiated from between his shoulder blades to every point in his body, turning his body into nothing more than a quivering mass of tortured muscles. Leon, already on his knees, felt himself lurch forward and mash his nose into the floor, adding a tiny bit to the indescribable torment that filled every inch of his body. Leon could barely even watch as Saddler walked further into the room, Ashley in tow, and up a ladder to a catwalk where Ada had been not two minutes ago (where she was now, Leon could care less, he only hoped she was doing better than he was right now).

"Hahahaha, Leon. I hope you'll excuse us now. Ashley and I have things we must do, now that she's had a bit of a change of heart. Perhaps when you have recovered from your delusions of victory and that pain, you would care to join us?"

Leon watched as the two infected figures on the catwalk began ambling towards a door leading to who knows where. He wished he could go after them, but whenever he tried to stand, a fresh wave of pain would burn through his nerves, knocking him down to his knees or his face again.

"N-no…You…you're not going to get away with this…"

Saddler paused for a moment and chuckled. Then he continued his walk for the door.

No…I'm not going to let him do this to me. Not a second time. He's not going to just walk away with her again.

Somehow, Leon felt his legs straighten beneath him. The pain intensified, but something within the young agent forced his legs to move forward. And again. And again. Within no time, Leon found himself halfway up the ladder, slowly gaining on Saddler and Ashley.

Saddler gave the former policeman a quizzical look as he stopped to watch his slow ascent, then let out another eerie chuckle. Leon was once again helpless to do anything but watch as Saddler lifted his robe a bit, revealing a purple-clad foot. He couldn't do anything but watch as that foot planted itself against the ladder and pushed.

For the second time in less than 30 seconds, Leon found himself sprawled out on the floor of the compound, this time with a steel ladder atop him. Leon felt blackness intruding on the edge of his vision, threatening to engulf him, when he heard that sadistic laugh one last time and then the creak of a door opening.

The next few seconds were a blur to Leon. The pain flooding his brain seemed to disappear for a brief second, then he heard a scream filled with rage, anguish, pain…and something else. He barely had enough time to identify the scream as his own before the pain returned, this time focused in two lines running down his back. He heard a sickening wet ripping noise, and then his vision turned into a mass of blurs.

The next thing he knew, he was on the catwalk next to Ashley, booted foot in the air, and Saddler was splayed out on the ground below.

Leon heard something that sounded suspiciously like his own voice let out a deafening roar, and then felt himself dive down from the catwalk at Saddler's prone form.