Alice opened her eyes and gasped for breath. Carlos, startled by the sudden movement, pulled his head back and removed his hands from her face. He was just about to kiss her as well! It didn't matter, he was going to have another chance some other day. But right now, Alice was awake!

Alice opened her eyes to see a very embarrassed looking Carlos sitting right beside her. Was he about to kiss me? She threw the thought out of her mind, the slight blush on her cheeks not going unnoticed by Carlos.

Deciding to break the awkward silence first, Carlos started to talk."You have no idea how great it is that you are back with us Alice. I thought that we were going to lose you." Carlos averted his eyes to the floor. He wasn't the usual type to show emotion so easily, but with Alice around it made him different. He was willing to show his more affectionate side with her.

Alice placed her right hand onto his hand and gently squeezed it as a form of comfort considering she couldn't exactly give him a hug. In reality it was rare for to even give a hug, yet she couldn't help but think that Carlos was an exception to that. "Well I'm back now and there isn't anything to worry about Carlos." Alice moved her hand from his hand and gently touched his cheek, forcing him to look up at her. Her dark blue eyes penetrating his brown eyes, showing that she understood him and that she would be there for him and the others. Alice was certainly a tough one.

"Sorry to ruin the moment but there certainly is something to worry about," Jill said while putting in a new clip of ammo into her trusty handgun. "Those zombies out there aren't going to exactly leave us alone and I'm not sure how long the barricade will hold."

"What zombies?" Alice asked, confusion clearly showing on her face.

"Well you missed a bit while you were out and on your death bed so to speak," Jill replied. "But it's good to have you back." Jill gave her signature smirk smile to Alice before leaving the room.

"Wait for me Jill." Alice replied feebly as she tried to get up from the table. The surge of pain from all her wounds reminded her that she wouldn't exactly be able to do much after all.

"Whoa. You aren't going to be doing anything at least for awhile Alice. Just lie back down and rest," Carlos informed her. "I will go out and help Jill. You stay put. We don't want those wounds bleeding again."

"I don't think I could move very far even if I tried," Alice responded. Carlos could see the disappointment in her eyes. He knew she hated to be useless in a time like this.

"Ok, well I've got to go and assist Jill with our next plan of action." But before he left Alice's side, he bent down and planted a small kiss on her cheek. He couldn't help it.

Alice was taken aback by the small kiss, but smirked a bit at his action and before he reached the door she said, "Is that really all you've got?"

Carlos abruptly stopped walking, clearly surprised at her response. He turned around with a sly smile on his face before residing back at her side once more. He bent down to whisper in her ear one simple thing. "No. That's not all I've got." Carlos kissed Alice once more but this time on the lips. His daring action caught her by surprise but she responded to his actions by deepening the kiss. Both of them wanted more but like all humans, they need to breath, so they reluctantly broke the very passionate kiss. Both of them with smiles on their flushed faces, ready for more.

"Oh get a room already," LJ exclaimed while leaning on the edge of the door frame and eyeing the two. "Good thing Angie isn't in her to see this."

"LJ when I am fully recovered I am going to—"

LJ interrupted the rest of what Alice was about to say and gave a quick response back. "Hey no worries, I ain't saying anything about what I just saw. If I did, I'd get my ass handed to me by both you and Carlos."

"Damn straight," Carlos answered back to him. He couldn't help but smile at LJ.

"Anyway, hurry and get over here, these zombies aren't exactly going to take a lunch break." With that said, LJ left the room to join Angie and Jill in the beaten up lounge of the clinic.

"You better go Carlos," Alice solemnly said to him. It was time to get back to business and her commanding voice reminded him of that.

"Just get better Alice," he quietly responded back, his gaze breaking away from hers as he turned to leave. Why he hadn't kissed Alice much earlier was all he could really think about.

"Angie, you can go and see Alice now," Jill said as Carlos approached the table. Angie nodded in response and left the room to go and watch over Alice.

"Carlos, we boarded up the front entrance as best we could with what was left here. I'll give that reinforced entrance another day before it succumbs to those things out there. So in the mean time, we need to figure out our next plan of action." Jill was in serious mode now, not that she usually wasn't.

"Alright, well first off, what did this place have to offer us in terms of supplies?" he asked her.

"A first aid kit, couple of hardware tools, and nothing else really. This place was wiped clean during the initial invasion I'm guessing," Jill replied.

Carlos couldn't help but look at a bulletin board across the room. Something stood out to him amongst the colorful papers pinned to the wall there. "And it looks like a map to go along with that stuff you found."

"A map?" she asked.

"Yea look right behind you Jill," he responded back while pointing at the bulletin board. LJ walked around to it and noticed what Carlos was talking about. He removed the advertisements and schedules covering the rest of the map before deciding to just rip it off the board. He placed it on the table they were seated at.

"Can't believe we didn't notice this before," Jill muttered. "It was right there next to the entrance."

"Well there was more stuff to be concerned about," LJ said matter-of-factly. And as if on cue, the moans of the zombies outside picked up again, reminding the three that they didn't have all the time in the world.

"Ok so we are right here," Jill said while playing her index finger on their supposed location on the map. "To the right we have the fire/police station, to the left is the gas station, in front of us is the general store along with some other now destroyed buildings, and in back of us is the community library with more weathered down homes accompanying it."

"And the only road going through here is the one we entered through," Carlos responded grimly.

"And our only exit is through the door we barricaded," LJ said. "Ya think we could make it to the police station place? I mean, it seems to be our best bet."

"Well you are actually right about something," Jill retorted to LJ, with which he responded with a glare.

"And they might have weapons leftover in that place if we are lucky. We don't exactly have much ammo left," Carlos informed as he looked at his own weapons.

"What the heck are you talking about? We have an entire bag of weap-"

"That are stuck in the Hummer that we used to get here Jill," Carlos said sternly. "We can't exactly walk over and get them without being munched on."

"Well the population used to be one hundred and Jill mowed down a couple of them motherfuckers earlier. Can't be that hard to get rid of them can it?" LJ said rather too confidently.

"If they weren't all waiting outside in one massive mob then maybe. Not to mention one of our more experienced team members is out of the fight," Jill replied. Jill was tired. The long day of unexpected events had been draining and they were all going without sleep. It didn't help knowing that the dilemma they got themselves into sounded impossible to get out of.

Carlos caught on to Jill. Her actions and look of defeat caused him to realize that they all needed rest at some point. And that rest wasn't going to be achieved until they got to a safer building. That being the police department.

He sighed and ran his hand through his dark hair before speaking once more. "I have a plan, but you aren't really going to like it," he said.

XXXXxxxxXXXX

Angie sat by Alice's side, fighting to keep her eyes open and stave off the sleepiness she felt. Alice managed to turn to look at Angie, knowing that a little girl like her needed some rest too.

"Why don't you go find some other place that is actually comfortable and get some rest? Don't worry about me, I'm safer than you think," Alice said to her. Though the way she said it didn't reassure Angie very much. Alice was good at masking her emotions and such, but she couldn't hide the pain that seemed to seep into her voice as she told Angie to get a couple of hours of sleep.

Angie couldn't really argue with Alice though. She was tired and sitting in the chair wasn't very comfortable. "They had a sofa in the lounge where the others were. I think I'll go there for an hour and close my eyes for a bit," she managed to say before letting out a soft yawn.

Alice gave her a weak smile to assure her it was alright. With Alice's reassurance, Angie shuffled out of the room to head to the lounge.

With no one watching anymore Alice let out a small gasp of pain. It felt like fire was creeping through her veins, moving out to the rest of her body. She was glad she was able to hide it so well from Carlos and Angie but now it was impossible for her to hide it anymore. It was the same pain she felt during Raccoon City as the T-virus swept through her system. Waves of pain and the feeling of something crawling through your flesh was the only way to really describe it. But it was worse than before because the virus was fully active and fighting to regenerate the parts of her that were so badly damaged.

XXXXxxxxXXXX

"No I won't allow it," Jill said in a husked tone as Angie entered the room.

"Allow what?" Angie asked, the three adults now gazing at her wondering why she came back to the lounge.

"Oh just nothing," Jill managed to tell her. "Something wrong Angie?" she managed to ask.

"No. I just wanted to take a quick nap," she replied back before heading to the green worn out sofa that used to be for the people whom had formerly worked at the clinic.

Not wanting Angie to hear her, Jill whispered to Carlos. "Is this our only option?" The look in Jill's eyes were pleading for some other solution but he couldn't think of anything else so he nodded his head that it was the only way to get out.

"We don't have a choice. We need a decoy to get all of you guys safely over there and I'm our best bet," he whispered back.

LJ gave him a solemn look. His joking demeanor long since gone after listening about the plan. "Are we going to tell Alice about this?" he asked Carlos.

"It's best that we don't," he replied back.


Sorry to have kept all my dedicated readers waiting. I had temporarily lost my muse for writing but I am back now with back to back chapters to make it up! I hope you are still enjoying my story.