A/N:

Avogadro602: Eurgh, sorry for the delay in posting. I hurt all over thanks to some fun (and mandatory) athletic stuff that has kept me busy all weekend. So that's why this is a day late. Buut in other news, you guys reviewed! Thank you! :-D We're very happy to hear that you guys are liking it so far. And if you enjoyed getting an update mid-week, that could possibly happen again…

NeuroticBanana: Unlike Avogadro, I do not hurt all over because I wasn't doing 'mandatory' athletic stuff…because I'm a grown up and she's not. Just kidding! Do please enjoy this chapter, it kind of marks the beginning of the story really taking off in my opinion; it gets pretty fast from here on out. And, omg THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE REVIEWS, they made our day! Seriously, they did. We squealed like little girls when we saw reviews, so please keep us squealing like little girls and continue to review…we do so love them! As always, read and enjoy!

Disclaimer: We make no claims to own Resident Evil, so there.

Cover artwork is by LoneWolf117 from Deviantart.

Chapter 9:

Beneath the Surface

Felix had to be the worst person in creation to spend two hours locked in a car with. An awkward tension had settled over them about thirty seconds after they'd gotten in the car and persisted ever since. Leon would never have willingly chosen this course of action—his new partner gave him the creeps—but after an emergency mission assignment from Hunnigan this morning, he had no choice. Apparently, Panacea had gone completely dark overnight. One minute they were a functioning pharmaceutical company, and in the next everyone who worked there, even the head of the company, had become unreachable. With his experience on the case, Leon and Felix were sent to investigate and determine whether there was any association with Isaac's disappearance. Which led to his current predicament.

Leon briefly tore his eyes away from the road to glance at his unnaturally silent partner. Agent Jones stared straight ahead, stiff backed and blank faced. For the past hour Leon had been trying desperately to make small talk, and failing horribly. His first suggestion had been that they listen to music, which Felix had quickly declined, labeling it as an "unnecessary distraction". Then he'd tried to politely inquire about his history.

"It is not important to the mission," came Felix's logical answer.

What is this guy, Leon thought to himself, a robot? He laughed in an attempt to ease the tension, but it came out sounding fake and only made things worse. "It might not be directly related to the mission," Leon reasoned, "But building up trust between partners is important. I thought we could get to know each other a little."

"Emotional ties are a hindrance to our successful completion of the mission." Felix's cold grey eyes stared straight ahead. "This line of work is dangerous. Should something happen to one of us, trite attachments could inhibit our ability to meet the desired goals."

A crease formed on his brow. Felix did make a cold, unfeeling sort of sense, but a good relationship with your partner was essential. How could Felix argue against that? "That may be, but partners also have to rely on each other. I have to know I can depend on you in a firefight."

At this Felix turned his face toward Leon, his gaze uncomfortably piercing. "You can't rely on anyone in a firefight except yourself."

A decent amount of outrage bubbled up in Leon's chest. Excuse me? This was coming from his new partner? "Are you saying—"

Felix cut him off, his gaze still drilling into him. "All people have a price. You may have thought that you and your previous partners had some sort of unbreakable trust. Yet all bonds can be broken. Time and time again history has proven that loyalty is not earned, but bought. With the right tools even the strongest can be bent to another's will; manipulated into doing unspeakable things. In fact," the corner of his mouth twitched upward as if fighting a smile, "Wasn't it your previous partner, Ms. Harper, who was blackmailed into sabotaging the president's security?"

A chill ran through Leon's veins. He swallowed heavily. "She was trying to save her sister. It wasn't her fault."

"As I said before," Felix replied robotically and turned to face forward again, "Everyone has a price."

Leon didn't ask about Felix's personal life after that.

The more time Leon spent around his new partner the stranger he seemed. He carried himself with a cold calculation that implied maturity, and yet his skin was oddly smooth. Felix must have taken very good care of his face… or perhaps the man just never had enough expression to form wrinkles.

Leon cleared his throat, the agonizingly uncomfortable silence between them beginning to get to his head. "So what do you think about this weather we're having?" he asked in a last ditch effort to get Felix talking. The mixture of snow and rain they'd had earlier this week had brought on a dense, low hanging fog. It might've been a pitiful attempt, but Leon was getting pretty desperate at this point.

"It's fog," Felix said simply.

Nice way to state the obvious, Leon silently replied. He caught sight of the sign that marked their exit and breathed an internal sigh of relief. About damn time!

The parking lot of Panacea was full when they got there. Clearly, no one had left here with their own vehicle. Leon pulled into a space at the far end, away from the entrance. It was better to be safe than sorry; neither of them knew what was in there and this would ensure nothing happened to their only method of transportation. Leon turned off the car and stepped out, staring up at the large complex peeking out of the fog as he slammed the door shut. It looked… deserted.

"Well," Leon began with mild reluctance, "There's nothing left to do now but head on in."

"We should spend no longer than necessary in our search," Felix cautioned as they approached the tall glass doors, "There's no telling what danger we may find."

For once Leon agreed with him.

The lobby was completely empty. "Hello?" Leon called as they walked up to the receptionist's desk, "Anybody home?"

Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw Felix's eye twitch. "Do you expect a response?"

"Not really," Leon replied absently as he leaned over the desk, looking for any signs of what could have caused this sudden disappearance. "But if we did find someone around, they might be able to tell us what happened here." A flicker of red light caught his eye and he moved around to the other side of the desk. "Come look at this."

The light was coming from a small bulb on the underside of the desk. Leon crouched down to get a better look and Felix stepped in behind him. The bulb was flashing every few seconds with a bright and alarming red color. "Some sort of alarm has been triggered here." Leon stood and examined the top of the desk. An unfinished crossword puzzle sat on top of the keyboard as if dropped there in haste. One word was half-written, stopped in mid-letter. "And they left in a hurry."

Felix glanced up to the ceiling, eyeing the sprinkler system. "If there was a fire the sprinklers would have gone off."

Leon nodded, somber. "Yeah… and I get the feeling this is throughout the entire building, not just here. It's too quiet." Felix met his eyes with an alert stare. It was as close to an agreement as he was going to get. "Let's move on."

Panacea's main floor was brightly decorated. A cheery yellow patterned carpet covered the floors. Pictures of smiling families and happy childrenoccasionally littered the walls, obviously attempting to send the message of a "family friendly" pharmaceutical company. Of course given that the workers here had disappeared overnight, Leon wasn't sure he believed that.

They entered a hallway to the left of the front desk, poking their heads into offices as they went. In each one they found empty chairs behind abandoned desks. Leon noticed with a growing sense of alarm that every door they crossed was left ajar. Files had been left sitting wide open for the world to see. In the third office (usually inhabited by a "Margaret Taylor" if the name outside the door was correct) they'd found a computer still on. When Leon nudged the mouse it flared to life, revealing an unfinished e-mail. Margaret had been in the middle of an angry message complaining about how the Janitor never took out the trash in her room. The last line stopped midsentence and ended with gibberish, as if someone had suddenly pressed down on the entire keyboard at once. Margaret had been startled before she left.

By the time they had reached the end of the hallway, Leon's lips had pressed into a tight line. "Something scared these people pretty bad to make them just up and leave like this," he remarked as they rounded the corner.

"It is curious," Felix agreed, though his face remained untouched by the strangeness around him.

Leon's footsteps slowed as he caught sight of a large metal door ahead. "This is odd," he mumbled quietly. It was entirely different from the pale wood doors used by all the offices they'd come across so far. As they drew closer, the unusual details about it became even more obvious: not only was it made of a very heavy metal material, but it also had no knob. There was only a card reader and a key pad to the right of the door; it must've been electronically controlled. He pressed his ear against the cool metal, straining to hear something from the other side.

"Trying to open that door may be inadvisable," Felix cautioned behind him, ever the robot. "We have no idea what this room was used for. More information would be useful."

With his face turned away, Leon allowed himself to roll his eyes and continued to listen. "I know. That's why I'm trying to listen."

Again he strained his ears for a sound. "We also lack the means to open it," Felix piped up after another second, interrupting him.

Leon sighed and gave up, stepping away from the door. "I guess we'll just have to keep our eyes open." Felix gave a small nod and they started again in their search.

The hallway looped around, eventually meeting back up with the lobby. By the time they had walked all of it, they had still only found empty offices.

"An entire floor with no occupants or information," Felix commented softly and eyed Leon with a speculative gaze. "What do we do now, Agent Kennedy?" His words implied that Leon was the senior officer, but his face gave no hint of bending to any superiority other than his own. Paranoia wiggled in to the back of his brain. Had Felix been sent here to evaluate his performance?

He tried to shake off the feeling, focusing instead on the current situation. "This place has a basement right?" Leon caught sight of an elevator across the way and began marching toward it. "Companies like this always have more going on below ground." As he approached the doors though,he hesitated. This new partnership of his had been rocky to begin with, and the conversation on the ride over hadn't helped to alleviate any of Leon's concerns. Somehow being trapped underground with a man like Felix didn't sound very inviting.

As if able to sense his discomfort, Felix gestured forward with one hand. "After you."

Leon shoved his fears aside and stepped into the elevator. Felix followed, pressing the button to close the doors once inside. Questionable morality or not, Felix was the only help he had on this mission. The line of buttons inside presented them with three options: the lobby where they were currently at, the basement, and a sub-basement. Leon made a quick decision and pushed the button for the basement. The elevator jerked slightly and then began its descent, sending Leon's stomach into his throat.

Unlike the first floor, they hadn't bothered to decorate the basement. Grey linoleum stretched out down the hallway, lit by a cold light from the fixtures above. Easy to clean, he suspected. The no-nonsense white walls held no friendly pictures to soften the face of scientific research. Obviously they weren't concerned about appearances here. They'd stepped into where the real work was done.

The doors down this corridor were more spaced out than the first level had been, leading to large laboratory rooms rather than offices. The first was a few paces out of the elevator on their right. Felix stepped ahead of him and peaked through the small, vertical window built into the door. "Looks to be computers mostly," he said and stepped aside so that Leon could look.

Sure enough, he caught sight of the numerous blinking green lights peaking back at him from atop black benches. He tried the knob, only to find it locked. His lips pressed into a thin line. "Hmmm," he hummed to himself.

"Do we move forward, Agent Kennedy?" Felix asked passively.

"Yeah," Leon sighed, "This place seems pretty big. We better get a move on if we want to do a thorough search."

Felix's sharp eyes darted around the hallway. "We could cover more ground if we split up."

Leon shook his head. As much as Felix irritated him, searching this place alone was just asking for trouble. "No, we stick together. The safest approach when in the field is to always have someone to watch your back."

Felix nodded, but said nothing.

The next room was up the hallway a good ways, past a bathroom that Leon had poked his head into and found empty as they stepped by. A black void was the only thing visible through the small window. He tried the knob, almost hoping it would be locked. The blackness waiting for them on the other side only served as a reminder that they were indeed underground. There were no windows down here.

When the knob turned he took one cautious step inside, blindly feeling for a switch. At last he found one, and light suddenly flooded the room. He blinked as his eyes adjusted.

They were surrounded by a maze of very large machines. Some were the size of refrigerators and were nearly as tall as the ceiling, blocking him from getting a full view of the room. Others were shorter and had the mass of a small car, blocking his path as he weaved between counters and blinking lights. Leon had no idea what they all were used for, but he guessed they were expensive.

As they made their way further in, Leon began to realize that this room was bigger than he'd expected. He rounded a corner expecting to find the opposite wall, only to instead be met with more of the room—and more machines. The collective humming of electronics grew loud as they reached the center. He stopped to stare at an instrument in the middle of the room which he'd initially mistaken for a large pillar. It was a dark grey blob that was wider than he could reach and almost touched the ceiling. Buttons and switches covered its surface. Built into the instrument next to them was what looked like a microwave. A sign was taped to it with the words, "KEEP FLAMMABLES AWAY WHEN IN USE" written on it.

"Any idea what this thing is supposed to do?" He called out to Felix, but his voice was drowned out in the hum of the instruments. He tore his gaze from the machine and surveyed the room around him. A hodgepodge of machines blinked back at him, obstructing his view. "Felix?"

If his partner had heard him, he did not respond. Leon stepped around to the other side of the large instrument. "Felix?" he called again, louder this time.

An empty room filled with humming machinery was all that answered.

"Shit," he cursed to himself and marched towards the back of the room, weaving around obstacles as he went. Maybe he'd just gotten ahead… "Felix?" He shouted as he broke through the last of the machinery. When he finally saw the opposite wall, he cursed again.

This room had a back door.

Had Felix abandoned him? Had he left through this very door when Leon wasn't looking? Had something else come in? Leon spun around, angling his back to the nearest wall and searching the room. Bulky shapes;blinking lights. Electronics. Anything could be hiding in here. Was Felix lying dead behind one of these machines?

Leon swallowed and forced the pulse throbbing at his throat to calm. Felix had probably gotten lost in the maze of machinery and assumed Leon had gone ahead without him. Or he'd gone off ahead, tired of Leon's careful searching. Perhaps he was waiting for him in the hallway. Leon approached the door and cautiously stepped through into the unfamiliar hall.

…or perhaps not. The hallway stood empty, and he was left in an unfamiliar part of the building. Felix had disappeared without a trace, just like the people who used to work here…

A scratching sound from farther down the hallway caught his attention. He waited in a tense silence before the noise returned. Something… metal, maybe? It seemed to be coming from several doors down, in a darker part of the hall. The light above had burnt out, casting the area in darkness. Down here the shadows were hard to keep out.

With narrowed eyes, Leon unholstered his gun and stepped into the gloom. Several feet ahead, a lone halo of light shone out from behind a laboratory door. He crept towards it quietly and the scratching grew steadily louder. Pistol ready, he reached for the door and turned the handle with his free hand.

His gun was trained on the movement the moment he was inside. It took a moment for his brain to make sense of what he was seeing, but when it did he lowered his gun with a sigh. "Rats."

Beady little eyes stared back at him from iron cages. He gave the room a once over and shook his head before heading back to the hallway. Grumbling quietly to himself, he began walking back towards the room with the humming machinery. Maybe Felix was waiting for him in the other hallway. Too many real life nightmares had made him skittish. Really, there was no reason to—

A door closed behind him.

Leon whirled around, snapping his gun into position and squinting into the darkness. "Who's there?" he growled. Screw skittishness. His instincts were right, dammit.

A soft clicking noise echoed from the black void, followed by another. They fell into a steady rhythm, growing louder and louder until…

"Fancy meeting you here."

She emerged from the shadows like she'd been born in them, the dark black and crimson of her dress melting into the gloom. Only the paleness of her face and arms allowed him to make out her form.

Leon slowly lowered his gun. A wave of embarrassment flooded over him, followed by anger. "Ada?"

"Why do I feel you're not happy to see me?" She taunted, stepping into the light and allowing him to see the smirk on her face. "Something on your mind? Or perhaps…" she sashayed towards him, "…someone?"

The memory of her body, wet and naked and pressed against him, flashed through his mind. He scoffed at her and stepped away. "Don't think the same trick will work twice, Ada."

She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "What trick?"

"Just tell me what you're doing here," he growled, taking another step back. The more distance they had between them, the less likely she was going to be able to pull anything.

Her eyes ran over him, amused, before flickering away towards the lighted end of the hallway. "Strange isn't it that everyone in this compound just disappears all at once?"

Something ugly stirred in his chest that he couldn't put his finger on. Was that… anger? Betrayal? Doubt? "What's strange is that you just happen to be here at the same time," he snapped. "Did you have something to do with this? With these people disappearing?"

Ada's smile slipped from her face as her gaze jerked back to him. "No. I didn't." Her eyes fell closed, her face suddenly tired.

Leon's anger derailed, thrown off by the unusual reaction. He tried to hang on to it, tried to remind himself how he couldn't trust the woman and her shifty ways, but already it was falling from him like sand through his fingers. He sighed heavily. "Are you going to tell me why you're here or not?"

Her eyes cracked open. "How about I give you the grand tour instead?"

He stepped aside and gestured for her to pass. "Lead the way."


She led him down the hall toward the light end. "We're in the south wing of the first basement," she announced as they walked. "This is where they conducted the early test phases of their research."

Leon couldn't stop himself from watching the tail of her dress swish back and forth between her ankles. You wouldn't think that evening wear would be ideal clothing for a field mission, but Ada always managed it with style. "You've been through this whole place?"

She didn't look back at him. "Most of it. As far as I can tell, it's nearly empty."

"Nearly?" he asked.

"We're here, aren't we?" She paused a moment, then added in a repulsed voice, "And there's him, of course."

Leon's face twisted up in confusion. Him? "You're not talking about my partner, are you? Felix?"

Ada laughed softly with little humor. "Is that what he's calling himself now?"

He jogged up to walk beside her, interest piquing. "Wait, you know Felix? How?"

Her face was unamused, her lips a tight line. "We've had our fair share of encounters in the past." She turned her face to meet his gaze. "You certainly know how to pick dangerous friends."

Leon tensed. Had he been right about Felix after all? He opened his mouth to speak but Ada beat him to it.

"Don't worry," she assured with a dry smile, looking ahead, "If he'd wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already."

His eyes narrowed and he shook his head. If Felix had worked with Ada… "Are you telling me he's not an agent?"

She laughed again as they reached the intersection at the end of the hallway and came to a stop. Whether it was real or faked he couldn't tell. "Now I didn't say that, did I?" She didn't wait for him to respond before continuing, gesturing to the left with an outstretched arm. "To our left is the west wing of the first basement, where you and your friend first came down here." She pointed to the right. "And in the other direction, the east wing. It contains mostly offices of head scientists… and if you're feeling adventurous, a stairway that will take you to the restricted second basement."

"What about the elevator I came out of?" he asked, looking to the west. "Couldn't that take me to the lower level?"

"Using that elevator to go to the lowest level requires a retinal scan." She grinned when he snapped around to stare at her in surprise. "Didn't notice the lens hidden amongst the buttons, did you? They conceal it well."

The gears turned quickly in his head. "The elevator requires a retinal scan, but the stairway doesn't? It doesn't make much sense for them to lock one door but not the other."

She nodded. "That's why the stairway used to be locked with an electronic passcode."

"Used to be'?" He repeated.

"It seems that someone hacked into the keypad, and left the door wide open." She crossed her arms and turned to face him fully. "So Leon, which way will it be?"

Someone hacked into the keypad, huh? Felix couldn't have gotten that far ahead already, could he? Or was she referring to herself? He lifted his head and regarded her carefully. "You know Felix, right?" Her face tightened fractionally at the name, but she nodded. "Is there any reason he would want to go to the lowest level?"

"Hmmm," she hummed and sauntered up to the wall to lean against it, arms still crossed. "I can't say. The last time I had contact with him was quite some time ago. He could have any number of motivations now. But," she paused and met his gaze, "I am fairly certain that the key to finding out whatever happened here lies down there."

He glanced to the west. Could Felix be waiting for me just outside the room with the machinery? Was it an honest mix-up when we got separated in the midst of the loud hum of electronics? His eyes swiveled to the right. …or did he abandon me?

Ada tapped her fingers against the wall. "I'm waiting."

He sucked in a breath and slowly let it out. "The east."

Her smile widened as she stepped off the wall. "A daring choice." She winked at him before turning and starting forward. "I like your taste."

He felt himself flush lightly and shook it off, following behind her. His eyes pointedly avoided the tempting curve of her hips. "So how is it you know Felix again?" he called to her.

"We shared a common interest, once upon a time." He waited for her to say more, but she remained silent.

He rolled his eyes. How silly he'd been to expect a straight answer. This was Ada he was talking to. Ada, who'd died for him, and then come back to life just to rub it in his face. The woman who'd slipped into a bath with him, naked as the day she was born, only to step away and steal what she needed at the last second…and leave her panties behind. Yet despite all this there was a possibility that Felix, his icicle of a partner, knew her mysterious ways better than himself. He let out a dry chuckle as some of his earlier irritation returned. "Give him any souvenirs along the way?" he muttered just loud enough for her to hear.

At his words the steady clicking of her heels stopped. She threw her head back and laughed. "I take it you're enjoying my gift, then?" she teased, grinning at him.

As his frustration grew, he was determined not to see the rosy hue in her cheeks, the faint sparkle in her eyes. If she were any other woman, he might've thought she was actually innocently flirting with him.

He marched ahead, shaking his head and keeping his mouth shut before he said something he'd regret. He made it halfway down the hall, and then back tracked as a name on a door caught his eye.

"Well I'll be…"

'ISAAC REDFERN' was engraved in a plaque in the middle of the door. Forgetting his annoyance and with excitement building in his stomach, he tried the knob. Locked. "Dammit," he cursed and turned to Ada, who was hovering behind him and still smirking. "You wouldn't happen to be able to pick locks, would you?"

Her smile turned sly. "Don't have to." Two fingers slid into the v-neck of her dress and pulled out something shiny. "I have a key." She held it up for him to see as she slithered past.

Leon let out a short, disbelieving breath, unable to keep a hint of jealousy out of his voice. "Really? You keep it in your bra?"

Her smirk spread and she looked over her shoulder as the key slid home. "I had to keep it safe, didn't I?" The lock clicked and the door fell open at her touch. She stepped aside to let him pass. "It's all yours," she announced, tucking the key back into her dress. His eyes followed the movement, lips twitching into a frown.

"That's not a safe place from my experience," he grumbled quietly.

His quiet comment reached her ears and her brows shot up, lips parted in surprise. "I really got into your head this time," she commented. It was not a question.

He tried to stop the blush from rising to his face and failed. Damn, she made him feel like a teenager. "You're not in my head," he lied.

The smirk returned to her face and she leaned back against Isaac's office wall, arms crossed. "I wasn't talking about the one on your shoulders." Her eyes drifted down…

He pivoted on his heel and turned away. Work. He had work to do. He couldn't afford Ada's distractions. Smooth laughter mocked him from behind. He forcibly ignored it and focused on searching the office. Luckily for him, Ada kept any further comments to herself.

Isaac's office, while still cluttered, was cleaner than his apartment had been. A bookshelf sat in the corner, and in the center of the room a mahogany desk. Leon walked over to it, and after finding nothing useful on it tugged at a drawer. Upon opening it, he discovered a bound notebook labeled 'Isaac Redfern, 2014 Panacea Lab'. He vaguely remembered a high school biology course that made him make something like this. Apparently real researchers actually used this stuff. It could be interesting… He glanced up to Ada, who continued to silently smirk at him from the other end of the office. Whatever was in this notebook, she didn't seem very interested. She probably bribed her way in here when he first went missing. No she didn't, a voice in his head shot back, she has a key. He frowned down at the notebook and flipped it open.

For the most part, it appeared to be a pretty standard record of his activities and observations in the lab. Leon flipped to the last couple of pages. The last entry was dated two days before Isaac's last recorded correspondence.

The lab techs down on the sub-basement managed to get the laser on the sequencer misaligned again. Fixed it (since the rest of these morons don't know how) and conducted an impromptu check on the human trials.

Subjects appeared to show continued improvement of symptoms, though one is complaining of light sensitivity. Will have to check on the sequence of the delivery phage strain tomorrow. All disease causing sequences should have been removed by now.

A strange spattering sound brought his attention back to reality. A dark red dot was now in the center of the page. He stared at it in confusion.

"That's new," Ada whispered from over his shoulder, making him start at her close proximity. She must've moved when he wasn't looking.

Leon looked back to the notebook, tilting it in the light. "…It looks like blood," he whispered in confusion. The red spot began to run down the page. As they stared, a second red spot dropped onto the paper. They both looked up. A dark red stain had begun to form on the ceiling tiles.

They both stepped back, Leon instinctively putting a hand in front of Ada. "There's something above us," Ada murmured. Leon stared for a moment longer, then tore his gaze away to search around the room. Dark drips continued to fall from the ceiling.

"What we need is a stick."

It took them several minutes to find a janitorial closet. When they returned with a broom in hand, a small pool had formed. Leon stood on a chair and used the long handle to poke the ceiling tile aside. As soon as it moved, a red shower splattered the floor. He flinched back and waited for the dripping to return to its normal rate before pulling out a flashlight. Cautiously, he aimed the beam of light into the dark gap.

"It's coming from the first floor," he commented, watching the liquid seep through a small crack. He turned to look at Ada, mentally going over what he'd discovered of the layout so far. "Ada, do you know what room we're under?"

Her face grew distant for a moment. "It's…"

There was only one room he hadn't been able to get in upstairs. A heavy metal door flashed through his mind.

"…a panic room," she finished. A heavy silence descended on them.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

A thought struck Leon and he bent down, scanning the underside of Isaac's desk. Sure enough, a little red light was blinking. He stood slowly. "So these people… they went to the panic room." His eyes were drawn back up to the dripping ceiling. "And something killed them in there."

Ada hadn't looked away from the black, dripping hole now in the ceiling. "It would seem so."

He shook his head, a mixture of horror and disgust welling up in his throat. "But why?"

She slowly lowered her head to meet his gaze. "I don't know." Her face turned toward the door. "But I know where to find out."

She started toward the door and he followed, carefully side stepping the growing puddle of blood. "What I don't understand," he said as they left the room and started back down the hall, "Is where you fit in all this."

"There are some things you're better off not knowing," she answered cryptically and continued walking.

"Why are you even helping me?" he growled out in exacerbation. "We've met maybe half a dozen times. Whatever this is between us, we know next to nothing about each other."

Ahead of him she stopped walking. Her shoulders sagged fractionally—one blink and he would have missed it. He waited behind her, confused and transfixed by the subtle change.

"Ada?"

Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper. "I know everything about you, Leon."

He cleared his throat, finding it suddenly dry, and walked up beside her. "I don't understand."

When she turned her face to meet him, he half expected to find her smirking at him, taunting him in the way only she could. Insteadher dark eyes were mysteriously intense. She turned and stepped toward him, heels echoing as she walked. It was only when she was close enough for him to feel the heat from her skin that she stopped. "I know more about you than your own mother."

The way she was studying his face gave him goosebumps. There was knowledge in her eyes. She was everywhere, saw everything. He shook his head, fighting breathlessness. "What… what are you talking about?"

One hand reached up to trace his cheek with a feather light touch. He barely resisted the urge to lean into her fingers. Her brows drew together ever so slightly, her lips parted. "Leon…"

He managed to shake his head again and her hand fell back to her side. "Ada, you're not making any—"

There was a noise from the stairway beyond and they both flinched. Leon's head snapped back to look, but found nothing there. When he turned back, she was gone. Just like a ghost, he thought. He suppressed a shiver and ran a hand through his hair. Once again, he was left alone in the abandoned complex.

And the stairway ahead was waiting.

He half grunted, half chuckled before moving again.

"Figures."