Chapter Ten
"I wanna live, I wanna love. But it's a long hard road out of hell..."
- "Long Hard Road Out Of Hell" – Marilyn Manson
"This isn't right. This isn't fucking right. I did everything correctly. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck."
Jake stirred to an uneasy consciousness to the sound of Steve muttering to himself angrily. His whole body was on fire. Steve had injected him with the T-Virus strain that had infected his father in order to prepare his blood for transfusion. It was warring with the C-Virus that his body had already adapted to. Jake was in too much pain to be scared.
Jake wasn't the only one who was stirring. On the other side of the room, Claire lay in her sticky, congealing pool of blood, pretending to be dead. She could hear Steve cursing under his breath, knowing that he was working on his experiment, his creation in the large test tube. From her position, she couldn't see Jake Muller, but she'd seen Steve bring him in before she'd slammed her eyes shut so her rapist and potential murderer wouldn't see her eyes open.
"Shit!" Steve bellowed, slamming his hands against control terminal.
Jake saw another person move in the corner, sluggishly trying to pull their body along the floor. It was a short-haired woman, face half-covered in blood that he didn't know. He very subtly shook his head, eyes wide with alarm. He hoped that she could read the silent message of 'don't fucking move' all over his face.
"God DAMMIT!" Steve howled, his voice turning into something that was no longer human. It was the kind of noise that couldn't be found in nature. It was the kind of noise you would only hear in the deepest pits of Hell. The console began giving off an alarm that caused Jake to gasp despite himself. It was an ear-splitting noise that just seemed to scream 'you're fucked' over and over.
Steve looked over his shoulder at Jake, as if seeing him for the first time. Jake had never been so frozen in terror in his whole life. He'd always been brash and confident, and didn't know that people could have this level of fear in them. He wanted to look away from Steve's glare so damn badly, but he couldn't. He was paralyzed. He was trapped. His body burned and fought against the new virus inside him, and he could do absolutely nothing.
Steve stared at Jake for a long time, all his hard work just being flushed down the toilet. He then looked up at the dying contents of the water tank, and his once handsome face split into a fanged, monstrous grin. He began to quickly enter commands into the computer terminal with one hand, his nails clacking loudly against the keys. With the other hand, he yanked open a drawer and pulled out a surgical kit.
"We don't have much time." Steve jabbed Jake in the side of the neck with a syringe, and then took out a scalpel. "I'm glad that you like your hair shaved. Makes it easier for me."
Jake's mouth opened in a gasp when he felt the scalpel easily cut through his scalp. He tried to scream, but found that his body was rejecting his brain's commands. Steve must have injected him with Ketamine or some sort of muscle relaxant, because he was still very much aware of his surroundings. He could see that Claire and the other woman still remained still, thank fucking Christ. It was obvious that Claire had been raped and brutalized. But Chris was still here... Chris could still stop this... Sherry...
"I know what you're thinking," Steve murmured after he'd turned away. There was now a bone saw in his hand. "That you came here with Chris fucking Redfield. Like I give a damn. That's who all the BOWs are afraid of? Some broken-down wretch? If he's found Piers's body, and seen him dead all over again, he's probably already eaten a bullet. If not, I'll just rip his heart out and eat it." Jake heard the saw going, and saw blood spray, but couldn't do anything about it. "Maybe I'll keep him alive for you," Steve whispered, now talking to himself, ignoring Jake completely. "So you can prove your superiority over your humanity once and for all."
Jake didn't know what the fuck Steve was talking about, but when the Tyrant went over to the tank and began to drain it and remove the contents, bringing it into Jake's line of sight, he knew. If he could, he would have screamed and struggled and spewed profanities. He would have screamed for help and called Sherry's name.
"Awww, tears. That's so cute. I've never done brain surgery before, but how hard can it be?" Steve bent over, one hand still up above where Jake could see. His body wouldn't allow him to do anything but cry. Possibly his last act as Jake Muller would be to cry... fucking pathetic. Steve's face was suddenly very serious. "Don't worry. It may not be perfect at first, but you'll resurrect. And we'll tear this whole fucking world down, gene by gene, just like you promised."
Please don't do this, Jake tried to scream. But then everything vanished in a quick snap.
"What do you think we should do?" Sherry asked, looking over at their charge. They'd found a wheelchair for the poor man, who still sobbed to himself, and now they didn't know what to do with him. They couldn't bring him along as they tried to find and kill Steve because he was a liability in a fight, but they were highly uncomfortable with just leaving him alone.
"Fuck," Jill hissed, rubbing her face with her hands. "And both Chris and Jake are gone from the monitors. No sign of Piers, either."
"You really think he's alive...?"
"No. But..."
Sherry sighed, briefly leaning forward so she could press her forehead against Jill's shoulder to feel some sort of friendly, human connection. "I know. If we found out afterwards that he was here..."
"The logical answer would be that one of us would bring him up to the surface, and try to get some more BSAA troops down here, but I don't like the idea of separating even further. We might not find each other again. This place is even more of a goddamn fucking maze than any other Umbrella facility I've been in. And that's saying something..." Jill trailed off with a slightly frenzied, stressed laugh.
Sherry's big blue eyes filled with tears, thinking of all her friends separated, alone and vulnerable. "Jill, please don't fall apart. You need to be my rock here."
Jill pursed her lips, staring at the other woman for a few minutes as she gained her composure. "How many times did I say that to Chris in my life? I guess now I know what he felt like... there's freedom in losing it entirely."
"Can losing it wait until we get out of here? Then you can paint your face up like a clown and try to kill Batman all you want."
Jill couldn't help but laugh, and wiped a tear off Sherry's dirty cheek. "Deal. Except, maybe a different superhero," she said, standing. "I always thought of Chris as Batman and me as Robin."
"Really? I think you'd more be Batman."
"Chris is a lot more angsty, though. We should try to check the security cameras one more time before moving out."
Sherry nodded and sat down in front of the computer. Jill went over to their patient. She still didn't know his name, and he hadn't spoken at all. She didn't know if he could even speak anymore. The trauma he'd gone through may have been too severe for him to come back from sane. "Look, we're going to find a way out of here, okay? I know it seems like there's no way out, but there always is." Jill gently patted his knees. "Do you remember your name?"
His dark eyes were half open and staring off into some point in time or space that she'd never be able to reach. She jerked and jumped to her feet, gun immediately out and pointed at the door when she heard a noise that she grimly recognized after all her years dealing with BOWs. That screaming of pain, anger and confusion that no longer sounded quite human. And it sounded close. Too close.
"Find it on the monitor," Jill hissed to Sherry, moving as silently as she could. She looked over her shoulder when the man in the wheelchair let out a moan and his head raised, looking for the source of the noise.
Sherry let out a small peep when she heard gunfire, nearly jumping out of her chair. The wail that followed from whatever creature made that noise curdled her blood.
"St... Stepphhhanie," the man moaned as the creature screamed again following more gunfire. He rose out of the wheelchair more quickly than seemed possible for a man in his condition. It shocked Jill so much that he was able to run past her, out into the hallway.
"It's down near the elevator bay!" Sherry shouted, pulling out her own gun, running after the injured man, who was now screaming "STEPHANIE! STEPHANIE! STEPHANIEEEEEE!"
Jill shook her head and followed after Sherry. Her legs were longer, so she easily caught up to the younger woman, but the man they'd found was moving like a man possessed. Sherry was so intent on following him that Jill had to pull her back before she rounded a corner into God knows what. The gunfire came from one handgun. It sounded similar to her own Glock, and it caused Jill's heart to beat faster. She peeked her head out around the corner quickly, seeing a horrid female creature with a metal-encased head screaming as bullets entered her from beyond Jill's eyesight. She couldn't get a good shot at the thing because the injured man was standing right in front of her, arms raised up to her.
"Stephanie!?" he screeched, his voice cracking from lack of use. The gunfire from the other parallel hall stopped as the man now stood right in front of the woman. Stephanie, as he called her. "Stephie, it's me..." he murmured, touching the sides of her face.
She whimpered and growled, jerking away from the touch, but then moving towards it like a curious, but scared, animal. She seemed to calm, as if his voice reminded her of her humanity, buried deep beneath the torture and disease.
"Shit!" Jill hissed when she saw the female's shoulder jerk and pop in a way that could only be brought on by further mutation. Her diseased body was fighting against the gunshot wounds. "Get out of the way!" she shouted to the man. "She's not Stephanie anymore!"
"Stephie..." he whimpered pathetically, trying to wrap his arms around her as best he could. "You'll be okay. It's Jay. You'll be okay, sweetheart. You'll be okay. We'll fix you."
She wailed in agony as her limbs began to stretch out further, and mounds popped out from her back. In a fit of pain and confusion, she flung her arms out, her razor-like talons going right through the man's chest, poking out his back.
"Stephie..." he gurgled, still reaching for her mangled face.
She paused as she heard him say her name, and looked at him. She then wrenched her hands out from his torso, essentially ripping him vertically in two. She screamed and screamed, rising up to her knees. The screams sounded so pitiable and human. So monstrous and inhuman. Jill aimed her gun at the softness of the woman's belly and began to depress the trigger, but had to pull up at the last minute when a streak came from the parallel hallway. Her bullet went high and through the wall after ricocheting off an air duct cover.
"Chris!" Sherry cried as Chris jammed a knife into Stephanie's belly, just above her pelvis, and yanked upwards through all her guts and organs with more determination and force than either woman had seen him do anything in a long time. She began to move forward, but halted when another person came around the corner, gun pointed straight at them.
Sherry's eyes widened, and the gun fell from her hands when she saw Piers behind the other gun. His jaw also dropped in surprise, but when Stephanie made a screech that could have shattered glass, his focus was immediately back, and he put the gun back on her. Jill's Glock also held on her as the gore of her innards rained down in a sickening wave from within the torso length wound that Chris had made in her. He backed away, but still got half his body splattered in blackened, rotting body parts. Stephanie's last strength was used to reach one of her freakish arms towards the bisected body of Jay, and touch him with her claws, as if she remembered in the very last moment.
Chris looked down at their joined hands, her blood stinging like insect bites. This could have been him and Piers. This had been him and Piers. Chris had forgotten him, and in the last second, he remembered. Remembered when it was too late.
"It wasn't too late," Piers whispered, now standing right beside Chris. The older man hadn't even noticed his movement. Piers also looked down at their joined hands, knowing exactly what Chris was thinking, because he'd been thinking it himself. He reached down and squeezed Chris's hand as hard as he could with his bad one. He felt Chris squeeze back, but it was a dull, distant sensation. The nerves and tendons of his replacement arm still didn't feel like a part of him. Maybe they never would. They shared a look before Piers turned to face Jill and Sherry. He didn't know what to expect when he saw them. Jill looked guarded, and she nodded at him and grinned, but she was focused more on Chris. Sherry's face only held bewilderment and joy as she went to him.
The G-Virus in her blood made her aware of sickness within people, as if trying to recognize one of her own 'species'. It was that strange recognition that made her most afraid of herself – it was the dark lure that had brought Steve to where he was now, and it was always within her. Lurking. Threatening. She felt virus within Piers, but it was very faint. It wasn't the same feeling she got around these infected people. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged his thin body tight, a silent welcome back to the world and a thank you for helping to save her and Jake's life. This close, she felt that Piers was like her. The virus inside him was losing to his human DNA.
"Welcome back," she whispered into his ear, pulling away to look at his face. He was a bit of a mess physically, and his eyes burned with intensity that came from suffering. But there was determinism there too that was infectious.
"Thanks." He frowned. "I guess this means Claire, Jake, and Rebecca are still MIA, huh?"
"They're with Steve," Jill murmured, looking carefully at Chris, who was still staring down at the dead bodies, seemingly unaware of the gore coating him.
"He did this to her," Chris whispered, looking up at Jill. She didn't know how to interpret the look in his eyes. Most people would have thought that he'd be elated to be reunited with someone who was most likely his 'true love', but that was a lot for someone to process emotionally – that Piers was back, and that he'd suffered. Jill know how Chris took a lot of guilt on himself, so he was probably so emotionally out of control that he was unable to feel it all.
"We had some anti-BOW grenades, but they were taken away."
"I have some," Chris answered quietly. He looked over his shoulder at Sherry. "He wanted Jake all along."
Piers put his hands on Sherry's shoulders. "I think he found some parts of Wesker in that volcano and is trying to bring him back. Jake's got most of his DNA..."
"How do we find him?" Sherry asked, trying not to let her voice wobble. "We can't find his lab."
"We know where it is," Piers said. "The elevator moves to the side to get to the lower part of the lab. We crawled up through the second shaft to find you guys."
Jill started moving immediately towards the elevators. "I'm sick of this fucking place. Hopefully we're not too late."
Chris wiped his knife on his pants before sheathing it. "He's already on my shit list because of what he did to you," he said to Piers, holding his gaze for a few moments with both their eyes filled with so much emotion it couldn't be quantified. "And, there will be no place on earth he can hide if it's too late for Claire."
Rebecca pursed her lips, breathing as shallowly as she could. It was a war to try not to scream along with Jake, and she kept her eyes closed so Steve wouldn't see her looking, and so she wouldn't have to see. As a healer at heart, the sounds of his pain were more than she could bear. She also hated the idea that Claire was laying there, maybe dying, and Rebecca couldn't go to her. She needed to make sure Steve didn't kill her, because then there would be nobody to help Claire. She didn't want to admit that there was nothing she could do to help Jake, but with each scream and wet cut and each whir of the bone saw, he slipped further and further away from her.
Rebecca had to also come to a realization, in a pool of silent tears, that she couldn't feel her legs. She hadn't been able to feel them in a while, and she couldn't wiggle her toes, even when her brain screamed the commands to her feet. Even if she survived after Steve left, would she be able to fully help Claire? How would she drag her out of here if Claire was unconscious?
Jake's screams suddenly stopped, and the silence was actually worse than the noise. Did he die...? Or, was the outcome even worse? Death would be a blessing for the man in this situation. She then heard footsteps, and what sounded like a squeak.
"Damn stupid wheel," Steve muttered. "Maybe I should just use some of your blood to oil it, huh Claire? And don't think I don't know you're alive."
Rebecca strained her ears and heard the clacking of a keyboard, then the sudden, jarring buzz of an alarm. She knew that alarm. It was an alarm she heard in her nightmares. 'The self-destruct sequence has been activated. All employees, please evacuate immediately,' the computerized female voice warned in a maddeningly patient tone. She heard the squeaky wheel move away from her, towards the back of the lab. She used the chance to try and drag herself towards Claire. She was a small woman, but she was in shape, but her body felt like dead weight. But it didn't stop her. She dragged herself across the floor towards her friend.
She couldn't help but look up towards where Steve would be as she moved slowly across the floor. He was wheeling Jake into the elevator in reverse. Jake's head rolled and his eyes fluttered in what looked like involuntary reflexes. She gasped and jerked, not only because of a loud bang behind her and the sound of shouting and running footsteps, but because the noise caused Jake's head to jerk up in a semblance of consciousness, and she saw his eyes.
"Stop!" Jill shouted, immediately getting into a crouched position as their group rushed into the lab. She held her sights right between Steve's eyebrows.
Piers mirrored her position, finding that crouching helped with his gimpy arm. He just hoped that it wouldn't start to shake if he needed to make a kill shot. The idea of losing that ability was akin to losing his arm all over again. Chris stood between them, the tiny anti-BOW grenades in his hand. But he was frozen. He wasn't staring at Steve Burnside, but at Jake. And Jake was looking back at him through half-conscious, heavy lids. The irises burned like fire, yellow and orange and evil, under them. They burned right into Chris and paralyzed him. Wesker's eyes stared back at him through Jake's face.
"Oh, hi. You're alive," Steve smiled wolfishly at Piers. "I didn't really intend that..."
The way Steve grinned at Piers snapped Chris out of the temporary trance seeing Wesker's eyes again had put him under. Fuck Wesker. He was done having his heartbroken by a lie, by a false memory. Wesker was nothing compared to Piers, to Claire, to Jill and his friends. And he wouldn't let Steve hurt them anymore. He threw the handful of tiny grenades towards Steve as hard as he could. They didn't get really near him, but they hit the ground at different distances, releasing a puff of bluish green gas that seemed to expand when it reacted with the air in the room.
Steve let out a horrid, bird-like shriek as the gas filled the room, immediately toxic to the virus in his blood. His eyes began to burn and he pulled a gun from out of the back of his pants, firing into the cloud, towards where he sensed the humans were standing. He tried to get air, but each breath was like fire in his lungs, and made him cough with a force that nearly doubled him over.
The gas also made it hard for Jill and Piers to see, so they fired towards where Steve had been standing before the grenades went down. Sherry immediately ran towards Claire, her eyes welling up with tears. Not only for her dear friend, who laid broken and brutalized in a pool of her own blood, but also for Jake. She'd seen his eyes before the gas had blurred all their vision. She wished she could fire into that cloud and blow Steve's brains out, but she'd given her gun to Chris.
"She's still alive," Rebecca panted, dragging herself towards Claire and Sherry. "But neither of us will be walking out of here."
"None of you will!" Steve shouted angrily, his voice taking on a more inhuman growl as his infected blood tried to fight back against the gas. He fired his gun again, entering a code into the elevator's keypad as he turned the key to make it run. He felt a surge of angry victory as he heard a grunt from the other side of the gas.
Chris fell to one knee, the bullet grazing his left shoulder. He could hear the elevator's motor starting up over the gunfire and the sound of the self-destruct warning. He rolled across the floor on his other shoulder, knowing this was dangerous because it meant that Jill and Piers wouldn't be able to see him well, but they were losing their chance. The elevator was starting to close up, and Steve would get away with Jake before there would be a chance to save him.
Chris fired into the elevator as the doors slowly closed, one of his bullets hitting Steve in the side of the face. It blew the skin and muscle off his jaw, his body weak from the gas. He kept firing, another one going into Steve's upper chest. He tried to aim for Jake, to give him a headshot to put him out of his misery, but the doors closed.
"You now have ten minutes to reach minimum safe distance," the automated voice now warned.
"There's another wheelchair in the corner!" Rebecca shouted immediately. "The emergency generators would have been turned on once the self-destruct came on."
Sherry nodded to where Rebecca was gesturing and got the wheelchair, wheeling it over as quickly as possible.
Chris let out an angry, guilty sob as he banged against the elevator doors. Not only did Steve get away, but now Jake may have been gone forever. And it was his fault... he'd had the shot, and had hit Steve's jaw instead of between his eyes. If only he hadn't hesitated when he'd first seen those eyes... if only he hadn't been in the hospital, Claire would never be here... if only he'd never let Piers's hand out of his own in China... if only he'd remembered him...
"There's only one wheelchair," Sherry said loudly over the intercom. "Can you walk?"
"No. One of you can piggyback me, though. I can still shoot a gun."
"Here." Jill crouched beside Sherry. "We'll get her into the chair. Claire? Claire, can you hear me? It's Jill. Chris is here, too." Jill took off her shirt so she was just in her sports bra, and used the material to cover up Claire's exposed genitals and buttocks. It also absorbed blood as she and Sherry gently lifted her into the chair.
Claire moaned when she was put in a sitting position, pain shooting all through her.
"I'm sorry, angel. We're getting out of here, though."
"Chris...?" she mumbled, a dribble of bloody spittle stringing from her mouth.
"We'll get him," Piers whispered, going over to Chris who was still pressing his fists to the closed elevator.
"I had him..."
"Don't," Piers whispered, cupping the side of Chris's face and turning his head, forcing their gazes to meet. "You weakened him. You injured him." His voice broke when he saw all the sadness, helplessness and guilt in Chris's eyes. "We'll get him," he repeated. "We. Us."
"Chris is here," Jill whispered. "He came to save you. Like always."
"You now have eight minutes to reach minimum safe distance."
"Come on, girlie." Jill lay beside Rebecca, looping the other woman's arms around her neck. She then hoisted her up, wrapping Rebecca's dead legs around her waist, and getting a good grip after giving Rebecca her gun. "Just don't blow out my eardrum."
"Chris...?" Claire asked again, her voice wobbly from the pain.
"He's here," Sherry assured. "Chris!" she jerked her head. "Let's go."
Chris turned away from Piers sadly, silently. He stood behind Claire's wheelchair, gently putting his hands on her shoulders. He didn't know if he could look in her face right now, knowing that she was in this situation because of him. If only he hadn't let himself fall so far, fall so completely apart. He would have been here instead of her. She would be home, safe.
"Take point, Piers," Jill called.
"Here," Chris said, giving Sherry her gun back. "I'll take care of her."
Sherry nodded, seeing that Chris was holding on just by a thread. She ran ahead and caught up with Piers to make sure the hallway was clear to the elevator bay. "Clear!" she called loudly. "Hey, listen..." she said in a low whisper to Piers as they propped the elevator doors open. "Keep an eye on Chris, okay? Since you've been gone, he's lost the ability to cope with things like this..."
"I know," Piers interrupted. "He blames himself for this. I can see it."
"Just... be there for him, okay?"
"Always," Piers whispered fiercely, never meaning anything more than he'd meant that single word.
"Come on," Sherry urged, flapping her arms as if it would get everyone in the elevator faster.
"You now have seven minutes to reach minimum safe distance."
"Gee thanks, because we can't fucking count," Jill hissed. "Robot bitch."
"Let's just hope our vehicles are still there," Rebecca pointed out, keeping Jill's gun trained on the elevator doors. It would be just their luck if a swarm of infected waited for them on the way out.
Because of the emergency situation, the elevator moved faster than it would normally would, and they quickly reached the top level. Rebecca held tight around Jill's shoulders and pointed the gun straight at the seams between the elevator doors. What she didn't expect to be aiming at the was the barrel of another gun.
"Freeze!" Piers shouted, gun aimed right for the person's face. His eyebrows shot up when he saw a face that had haunted them in China – Ada Wong.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Chris asked sharply. Though everything had been cleared up about Ada's Clone, Carla, she still wasn't Chris's favorite person.
"Put the gun down or I'll put you down," Piers growled.
Ada only looked mildly surprised to see him, but did rear up her Beretta. "If you think that's the only weapon I have, you're nuts," she murmured in her silky, disarming voice. "But I'm here to save your asses. Hurry up." She jerked her head and stood aside so they could get out of the elevator.
"Why should we trust you?" Piers snarled. "Last time we did, you betrayed us."
"That wasn't me," Ada said patiently. "We only have about five minutes, so argue later."
"Come on," Chris murmured. If it meant saving Claire, he'd trust anyone. Even a duplicitous spy like Ada Wong.
"How'd you find us?" Jill asked, hitching Rebecca up farther on her back as they ran.
"I was keeping tabs on BSAA," Ada said over the intercom. "Things went to hell there, and I knew you were here, so I came to get you. Actually, I came to destroy Steve Burnside's samples of Wesker's remains." She looked at Claire, something crossing her eyes that few people ever saw in her – sympathy. "You'll have to carry her up here," Ada said as they reached the staircase that led up to the main facility, where they'd all entered this nightmare.
"What do you mean 'things went to hell'?" Rebecca asked, being jostled as Jill ran up the stairs. "Hey, that part's locked up!" she called to the Asian woman, who ran down the tunnel towards where she knew there was a rusted, locked grate.
"Spies have their ways," Ada called, voice echoing. "Hurry! I'll explain later."
"Why are we trusting her?!" Piers asked as he and Chris carried Claire up the stairs.
"Because she's not Carla, and she's risking her ass to get us out," Chris answered, panting because of Claire's weight and his lack of fitness. "My judgment is pretty shitty lately, but Claire needs a doctor."
"Faster, Chris!" Jill shouted from within the tunnel. "This way!"
Chris got Claire over his shoulder fireman style, and he and Piers ran down the tunnel, following sudden flare of headlights and the rev of a powerful engine. They saw a BSSA issue SUV, Ada already behind the wheel.
"I always like how they never tell you how far minimum safe distance actually is," Ada said as they all got in the car. Before they were even in their seats, she jammed her boot on the gas and spun the car around. Claire's unconscious form was thrown against Rebecca, who grabbed the other injured woman tight. Chris was nearly thrown on the floor and had to struggle to close the back passenger door as the SUV sped down the black tunnel.
"Where does this lead?" Sherry asked. She trusted Ada a little more than the rest because she trusted Leon's judgment, and he always assured that Ada wasn't all bad.
"To an old highway. I've contacted Leon, and he'll meet us near the border to Hungary. He'll be able to deal with all the border red channels to get you guys to a safe location."
"Why can't we go to BSAA?" Jill asked sharply. Because of the lack of seating, she was in the front with Sherry on her lap.
"There was an outbreak," Ada said, looking in the rearview mirror at Chris and Piers. She hadn't seen Chris Redfield in a long time, but he looked like complete shit. Of course though, she'd known about his troubles. Seeing Piers Nivans was a bit of a shock, but she'd seen so much other crap in her life that it was kind of hard to be horrified by anything anymore. "A planned outbreak, by the looks of it."
"Steve had moles there that did it...?" Jill surmised.
"That's my guess. I came to Edonia to get info on him, actually. I got caught up at the outbreak, so I'm guessing I missed him."
"He got away with Jake..." Sherry trailed off. "He infected him with Wesker's DNA."
"That's... bad."
"You've worked with Wesker in the past," Rebecca snapped. "Why would you think that was bad?"
"I've always worked for my own interests. And, that path led me to know... exactly what Albert Wesker was. It's bad, as you all well know."
"Steve was injured," Sherry pointed out, looking back at Chris. "You hit him, right?"
Chris had been staring out the window as the old highway whizzed past them. "Sheva...?"
"They're all dead," Ada said bluntly. "The BSAA neutralized the place. Nothing's moving there. I'm sorry."
"Chris..." Piers murmured, reaching for his Captain and lover's hand. He squeezed it tight.
Jill looked out the window the same silence that Chris had. She'd become good friends with Sheva and Josh after Africa, and this hurt. It fucking hurt that more people had to die because of these damn viruses.
"Claire needs a hospital," Chris murmured in a very dead, faraway voice.
"I know Leon will have a medical team." She gestured to the console with one gloved hand. "Sherry, see if you can reach him. It's the last number that I called."
Sherry found the phone and tried the number. "Leon...?" she asked when she got some sort of crackling response.
"...Sh...y...?"
"Leon, if you can hear me, Claire's really hurt. She needs a doctor."
Chris continued to stare out the window, Claire's hand in one of his, Piers's bad hand in the other. Two people irreversibly damaged because of him. Sheva and Josh, two people to add to his death toll. And he knew it wouldn't stop, not while Steve Burnside still existed in the world. It wouldn't stop, not while the evil of Albert Wesker's eyes still regarded the world. The thought left him feeling cold, numb, and helpless.
"Steve's actions are not your fault, Captain," Piers whispered against the side of Chris's face, so quietly that nobody else could hear it. He nuzzled his face into the crook of Chris's neck, his ribs hurting badly now that the adrenaline was starting to leave him.
Chris wished he could take comfort in Piers's words and his touch. He should have been able to, because against everything, the love of his life had returned and was beside him. He was breathing and alive and real. But, even that idea and the warmth of Piers's lips against the side of his neck, and his familiar lips pressing against his jugular pulse, couldn't warm Chris's chill.