Authors note: I know I shouldn't update so quickly; I might spoil your appetite and then you'd all expect me to update this on a daily basis and I'm not sure I'd be able to keep up to speed with all that but I noticed a bit of discontent that there wasn't a lot of interaction between Claire and Wesker in the last chapter, so I decided to add this early to make it up to you all.
Part 3: You little Redfield.
Gosh it was awfully quiet in Wesker's SUV…
It had been roughly ten minutes since they'd taken off and not a word had been spoken between the two.
Feeling unbelievably awkward, Claire finally drummed up the courage to say:
"Let's put on a little music, shall we?" And turned on the car stereo.-
-Which was immediately turned off by Wesker, never removing his concentration from the road. He did smirk ever so slightly, though.
"Seven minutes…" He said with smug satisfaction. "You lasted seven minutes, Claire. Your dear brother barely even managed seven seconds." He turned and grinned at her, then refocused on the road and on being as emotionally deadened in appearance as possible. "Two minutes longer than Barry, fifteen less than Brad but Jill…." He smiled warmly again. "She never caved in…. A dangerous woman, that one. She knows and sees far more than people realize…" He chuckled. "Gathering up and processing information with those hard blue eyes of hers and then waiting for exactly the right moment to use the data to unlock all your secrets…" He laughed, the sound rich and deep, almost musical to Claire's ears. "Barry was right to call her 'the master of unlocking', the awkwardness of the moniker aside…"
"Who are these people?" Claire asked.
"They are the other members of S.T.A.R.S Alpha team and your brothers' new colleagues." Wesker explained. "Except for Officer Burton. He has yet to apply for the position despite recommending Chris, though I sense he greatly covets a role in S.T.A.R.S…." Wesker trailed off. "I wonder why he hasn't put forth an application…"
"Barry's 36." Explained Claire. "Chris told me that in the military, people years are like dog years and he probably thinks being in… 'S.T.A.R.S'…is a young man's game." She turned to Wesker with an understanding smile. "Basically he thinks he's too old for the job."
"Is that what you think, Claire?" Asked Wesker.
Claire shrugged her shoulders. "It's pretty old… I mean, he was older than my Dad when they were friends…. Barry's been in and out of military institutions his whole life so if Barry thinks he's too old then I guess he's too old."
Wesker chuckled and shook his head. "So Barry is much too long in the tooth, is he now?"
"Yeah, I guess."
Wesker turned to face her, utterly deadpan.
"I'm 36 too, Claire."
Claire's heart somehow managed to both sink into the pit of her stomach and leap into her throat at the exact same time. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment and she turned away from Wesker's glare, shaking her head, her short brown ponytail flicking back and forth furiously.
"Oh, geeze, I'm sorry! I mean, you don't look it! I mean you don't look like you're really so old." Somehow Claire found the capacity to become even more ruffled. "No! That's not what I mean! Not that you're 'so old'. I mean you're not old at all! They say you're as young as the man you feel and that…. That's an incredibly patronizing thing to say to someone, isn't it?" Finally she stopped talking and shrank in her seat, thoroughly humiliated.
"It's alright, Claire." Said Wesker once she was done, his attention returning to his driving. Of course, he had to pour on that sarcastic honeyed tone Claire would have to get used to if she was going to continue dealing with Albert Wesker... "After all, you're only 17 and a little girl like you… Well, it's only inevitable that you'd put your foot in your mouth from time to time. It's not your fault. It's just your age."
…Son… Of… A bitch…
Claire didn't reply. Wesker wanted her to reply but she bloody well wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.
After a short while, Wesker got the message that his childish game of baiting her wasn't working and so continued;
"At any rate, in regards to S.T.A.R.S Alpha team. I would very much like it if you made their acquaintance too, Claire Redfield."
"Why?" She asked, breaking her stubborn silence.
Wesker didn't respond.
"Fine, don't tell me. Don't tell me anything about you, even though you know everything about me…"
That statement stole Wesker's attention away from his driving for a moment.
"And what makes you think that I wonder, Claire?" He asked her.
"You called me 'Dear Heart'". Claire explained, crossing her arms in a hump. She still wasn't happy that he had called her that particular name. "Not 'sweet heart', 'Dear Heart'. That was my father's nickname for me and a little too specific for something you just said on accident. And only I and my brother know about that."
"Brilliant deduction, Claire." Wesker said, sounding impressed but again Claire couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. "Your brother told me all about his life when we had our little chat back in the R.P.D and what with you being in his life, he inevitably told me all about you, Claire." He smirked. "Tell me, how does that make you feel?" Wesker's voice became deliberately slow, each syllable drawn out and slick with suggestion. "Does it make you feel... vulnerable? Exposed?" He turned to face her, his lewd grin making her skin crawl. "Naked under my …scrutiny?"
Claire's first thought was 'ew, ew, ew, ew, ew.' Her fists gripped the legs of her pants extra tightly under Wesker's gaze but disgust and humiliation aside, Claire could see exactly what he was doing. He was baiting her again, trying to get her to attack her brother, attack him. It was a sneaky, slimy underhanded trick.
In the end, she just decided to say;
"Ew…"
Wesker burst out laughing "Eloquently put, my dear!" and continued to focus on driving.
He's done it now…
…. Because now, now it was her turn to make him feel uncomfortable.
"I wear contacts, you know." She began, because it was very much true.
Wesker didn't respond.
"Why don't you?" She continued.
"Because I choose not to." Was his reply.
"That's not an answer, Wesker." –
-"Well it's all the answer you'll be getting from me, Dear Heart." Wesker snapped.
"I told you to stop calling me that." Said Claire, refusing to shrink under his wrath. No, she wouldn't be doing that, not a second time.
"And I'm telling you to shut up!" He snapped at her. "God, if it wasn't for Birkin…" He muttered under his breath.
Claire knew that he wanted her to ask who Birkin was but that would be changing the subject, precisely what Wesker wanted her to do.
Instead she continued. "Do you want to know why I gasped when I saw your eyes?" Claire asked.
"No." Said Wesker.
"It's because I've seen them before." She went on. "I see them all the time, in fact."
"Please. Stop. Talking." Pleaded Wesker, his tone changing from a threatening one to one of genuine distress.
Claire, however, was relentless in her attack.
"I see them every day when I look in the mirror, Wesker. The loneliness, the fear, the desperate want to be saved, to be lo"-
Wesker braked heavily and they were both thrown forward in their seat, the safety belt being the only thing that stopped them from flying out through the glass of the windscreen. He may have yelled out something, something along the lines of 'don't ever say that word to me again' but the sound was barely audible over the scream of the tires.
When they came to a complete stop, someone said:
"Good grief Albert! Be more careful! I almost broke my neck back here!" It was the same muffled voice from earlier. Looking back into the passenger seats, Claire could see the mystery speaker wasn't in the car.
"Hello?" She asked, looking around the car in confusion.
"Hello." Replied the muffled male voice.
"Is someone… back there? I can't see you…. Where even are you?"
There was a 'thump-thump-thump' sound from the back of the SUV.
"That's me." He said. "I'm in here."
The penny dropped.
Claire span around and yelled at Wesker: "Is there… Is there a man in the boot of your car!?"
Wesker didn't reply. He was sitting stock still, head downcast, utterly devoid of any sign of life or emotion. Claire didn't have time to try and fix what she'd done to Wesker, not just yet anyway, what with there being a freakin' man in the boot of the car.
Claire snatched the keys out of the ignition, unbuckled her thoroughly abused seatbelt and jumped out of the car, not wasting time to crossly slam the car door behind her in an act of catharsis from Wesker's behavior. She ran around the car to the boot of the massive black vehicle and jingled the keys into the lock.
Finally the hood was popped.
A skinny man in a dirty lab coat with his body contorted into fetal position looked up at Claire from his place in the boot of Wesker's car. He was bleary eyed from the glow of the overhead street lamp and brought one hand to his face to screen his eyes.
"Oh my gosh are you alright?!" She bleated and took the man's sun-screening arm, helping to pull him up into a sitting position.
"Why yes, miss, I am perfectly fi- ow." Claire released him from her grasp as he suddenly spazamed and gripped the back of his neck, an apparent electric pang of agony shooting down his spine. "Well, not fine. Perhaps it would be more honest of me to admit to simply being not dead." He straightened with an expression on his unkempt and ever so slightly bearded face that betrayed just how sore all over he was after the emergency breaking procedure Wesker had decided to surprise his additional passenger with. "Yes, a little better than dead. I think that will suffice."
After he had dusted off his lab coat, the odd little man sprang spryly out of the boot of the SUV and offered his hand to the flabbergast girl before him. "I am Doctor William Birkin. It is a pleasure to meet you, Claire Redfield."
Claire took up his hand, still utterly stunned by the man's many apparent contradictions. He behaved remarkably put-together and utilized an oddly machine-like language but his clothes were unkempt, ratty and filthy as though he had been living in them for months. The same could be said of his grooming. His face was greasy and his hair, well, he could've had dirty blonde hair as a color or he could just actually have dirty blonde hair. Claire couldn't really tell.
"Uh… My name's Claire Redfield, what's yours?" She absent mindedly asked him, still shaking his hand.
"I know you are Claire Redfield. I literally just a moment ago demonstrated knowledge of your name, as well as having just told you my name." With an attempt at a polite smile, he started to pry her fingers off of his hand before she realized what he was doing and let him go. "You appear quite rattled by the situation. This is understandable. You see, I am a scientist. I spend a lot of my time studying virology and developing vaccines to treat viral infections. One such virus has particularly grasped my attention as of late and I have been working on it profusely, going so far as to neglect my health and prior engagements." The crazy man turned back to the car and half-closed the boot, making Wesker –or the back of Wesker's head, anyway- visible. "Mister Wesker was kind enough to forcibly remove me from my work in order to recuperate. I haven't slept in four days, you see."
"By locking you in the boot of his car?" Claire cried out in utter amazement. Wesker had kidnapped this man and dragged him all the way out here in the sticks but instead of being absolutely petrified, this 'William Birkin' seemed almost grateful to his abductor.
William turned and smiled back at her.
"It's not all that bad once you get used to it." He said pleasantly. "I've been in the boot of Wesker's car a great many times over the years. If I'd talk too much while he was driving or hit the wrong topic, in the boot I would go. If I rustled a bag of chips excessively or made vulgar slurping noises while consuming a Popsicle, in the boot I would go. If I burped or broke wind without informing him so he could pull over and let me out to do it, in the boot I would go. If I mentioned my wife or daughter outside of work or schooling, in the boot I would go."
"Holy shit…" Said Claire.
William almost giggled. "He can be pretty strict and bossy, but he's not all bad. I mean, this time he was even kind enough not to go off-road into the woods!"
"If he was any kind of a good man he wouldn't kidnap you and rough you up!" Claire yelled.
Maybe she had been wrong about Wesker being one of the good guys after all…
Grabbing Birkin by the arm and snatching up the car keys from the boots lock, Claire dragged the grinning lunatic up round the car and confronted Wesker on the driver's side.
He hadn't moved. Not an inch, not a twitch.
"Is this how you treat your friends you psycho?" Claire called down to him through the glass of the car door window.
Wesker still didn't respond.
"I ought to report you! This guy clearly isn't well in the head and you abuse him like this?!"
"I have in excess a genius level I.Q, you know." Said William, still having his boney wrist clung hold of by the fiery young girl.
She ignored him, instead choosing to pound her fist on the window right next to Wesker's head.
That got his attention.
Snapping his head to look at her, he said deliberately, intensely and with a dark and powerful vitriol to his words:
"Get. Back. In. the. boot, William."
"Your wish is my command!" He said cheerfully and moved to return-
-Only Claire wouldn't let him and pulled him back.
"Oh no you don't! You gotta learn to stand up to him!" She moved her attention back to Wesker. "You let him sit in the back like people, you hear me you lunatic!"
"You. Too. Claire."
"What?" She gasped, fright taking hold.
The SUV door popped and suddenly opened, along with the metal chink sound of the seatbelt being uncoupled. Claire staggered backwards and was halted from falling over entirely only by her continued grip on William as Wesker slowly and dangerously rose from his vehicle.
Wesker slammed the door behind him and approached Claire, slowly oh so painfully slowly. Claire could heart her heart pounding in her ears as he did so. He towered over her to such a degree and emanated with such concentrated power and rage that for a few raw, blistering adrenalin scoured nightmarish seconds she honestly didn't think he was Human.
"Army of evil spirits led by a great and merciless Tyrant king." Chris's written words suddenly snapped into the forefront of her mind.
…. …. ….
And they were bloody ridiculous.
Without warning, Claire let go of William and sprang away from Wesker, sprinting around to the other side of the SUV, dived in the open door and hit the lock on the driver side door. Wesker slammed into the car hard enough to make it rock as he tried to open the door before she locked it but he was too goddamn late.
Claire slammed the passenger door as Wesker ran around the front of the car and she hit the 'lock doors' button on the dashboard that thankfully was still working literally just as he tried the handle.
Wesker let out a snarl of irritation and pounded on the window.
"You open this door right now, you little…" Wesker thought up the most insulting name he could call her. "…You little Redfield!"
"Oh, sure let me just get the – fuck you Wesker!" And then she flipped him off.
Claire decided to make herself comfortable whilst Wesker continued with his frustrated snarling and tugging at the car door, causing the SUV to rock about rather comically. She propped her booted feet up on the dash.
"Get those off of there this instant!" Barked Wesker. Claire's response to Wesker's order was to viscously bicycle-kick the dashboard for a few seconds.
Wesker resumed his efforts with the car door. "You are behaving like a petulant, bratty little child!" Yelled. Wesker.
"That is because she is a child." Observed Birkin, who had slowly rounded the car and had come to stand by Wesker's side, arms folded across his chest. He tapped one long index finger to his chin. "What is she, like, seventeen?" he said, his tone slipping to the informal for just a second. "That's only seven years older than my Sherry. Do you remember what you were like at that age, Albert?" Birkin laughed to himself as he commenced down memory lane. "I believe that's round about the time you replummed the sprinkler systems of the grand yearly Umbrella-Raccoon executive soirée so that the liquefied cadavers being processed in the Waste Disposal Plant would rain down on them instead." Recalled Birkin. "I seem to recall you found hosing down Raccoon and Umbrella's elite with dead vagrants was hilarious."
"I don't like to talk about that, Bill. You know that." Said Wesker hurriedly and almost under his breath.
"You mean you did that, Wesker?" Asked Claire, sitting up straight quickly and gawking out at the two men excitedly. "Wow, Barry told us all about that! Apparently it was all over the news when he was a kid! They never did catch the culprit despite the five million dollar bounty!"
"Thank you for telling her that, William…" Wesker said sardonically to his apparent longtime friend before returning his attention to Claire. "Now are you going to open this door or not?"
"Not." Said Claire. Wesker prickled but then smirked evilly, his voiced becoming like dark, melted chocolate.
"Be a good girl and open this door for sweet old Uncle Albert, would you kindly, Dear Heart? If you do I'll let you sit on my lap… Maybe we'll even play horsey…"
Claire shrank away from the door in abject disgust.
"You are a real nasty piece of work Albert Wesker!" She yelled at him.
"Yeah, that was pretty nasty, Bert." Backed up William. Albert was about to ask William to keep his trap shut so he could continue to perhaps get Claire to open the door out of spite and attack him when she discovered the button on the car's dashboard that activated the tinted windows.
"Great, that's just great." Said Wesker, turning around, crossing his arms and leaning back onto the door. "She's going to make us stay out here 'till morning, I just know it." He snarled through gritted teeth. "Bloody girl is a real Redfield after all…" He sighed, then shivered in the cold. "It's freezing out here." He observed.
"The boot's still open." Birkin reminded him. "We could seek warmth in there."
Wesker answered him only with a hard glare.