Chapter Fourteen
Behold, this dreamer cometh...
Jill was having the dream again.
She'd die of embarrassment if Chris ever found out, but after Raccoon City she'd seen a shrink a few times. It had been hard to find one she could talk to openly; not many people knew the full extent of the Raccoon City disaster, and Jill would be damned before she'd be the one who leaked it. But eventually she found a middle aged lady she thought she could trust and talked to her exactly four times -- enough to know that no matter how good the woman was, she couldn't give Jill what she wanted.
Because Jill wanted to forget.
During the day she almost managed it, not banishing the incidents themselves, but the emotions, the fear, the helplessness, the betrayal. It was in her dreams they surfaced.
The shrink had told her many people managed to control their dreams. Every time Jill had this particular dream she tried. She always knew it was a dream, always knew, with a sickening sensation in her gut, what would happen next. But no matter how she tried, she could never make herself act any differently -- never change the outcome.
Maybe the outcome wasn't meant to be changed...
Her heart still drumming from the events outside, she paced the lushly carpeted mansion hallway. "What is this place, Wesker?" she demanded, just to hear her own voice, just to calm her raging nerves.
"Keep your eyes open," he replied, his flat, cool voice reassuring her rather than not. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure he was there and immediately felt ashamed -- she was a STARS officer, after all, and didn't need to depend on anyone but herself.
On the other hand, she didn't think anything in her training had mentioned creatures like she'd seen outside. God... was the entire Bravo team already dead? "What's taking Chris so long? We should have gone with him."
"I'll give the orders, thank you, Miss Valentine."
She flushed and turned to find him scrutinizing her. "I didn't mean to sound critical," she mumbled. "Sir. I'm just worried about him."
"Chris can take care of himself. Give him another minute or two. We'd have heard if something went wrong."
She nodded and resumed pacing the floor, fingers stroking the trigger of her gun -- safety off, fully loaded. She planned to shoot first and ask questions later.
As long as whatever she shot didn't turn out to be a teammate.
A sudden cry made her spin, drawing her weapon to shoulder height and aiming it at the door Chris had vanished through. But the cry hadn't been Chris's -- it was too high, too shrill, too inhuman. "Chris!" she cried nonetheless.
"Jill, no." Wesker snapped, holding her back. He edged towards the door, gesturing for her to take the other side.
Halfway there, another cry arrested them, this one coming from somewhere deep in the mansion. Jill spun and felt terror threatening to overwhelm her. She'd been in plenty of sticky situations before, but nothing like this -- this was insane, unreal, unbelievable. If she hadn't been the one living it, she'd have thought she was dreaming.
A dream a dream wake up Jill, it's just a dream, run run run...
"Wesker," she whispered, hating the tremor in her voice as she stood by the stairs, gun hanging indecisively from one finger, "what the hell is going on here?"
"Do you really want to know, Miss Valentine?"
Something in his voice alerted her, would have alerted her even if she hadn't played this scene out a thousand times, every detail, every second. She spun a moment too late as his hand closed over her wrist, wrenching it back, and she released a cry of her own as her weapon tumbled to the floor -- or would have if his leather clad hand didn't clamp over her mouth. He peered at her over his glasses, eyes flashing and menacing, a look she'd never seen there before, and she began to tremble. "Do you really want to know?" he whispered again. He released her jaw and stroked the side of her face. Too paralyzed to move or speak, Jill could only gape at him, her mind reeling as she struggled to come to terms with what was happening. "Do you really want to know, Jill?" he asked again, the beginnings of a mocking grin on the corners of his lips. "There now dear heart, don't look so frightened. This will be far easier for you than for Chris. I promise."
Chris... oh God, Chris... She opened her mouth to scream a fraction of a second too late. Something heavy struck the back of her head, and she slumped into his waiting arms.
-----
A dream a dream how do you wake up in a dream wake up with a knife a gun a cannon anything anything Jill wake up wake up wake up...
She blinked the room into focus. She was lying on a wooden bench in a grey concrete room, about ten feet square, very tall. The only break in the monotony of grey pavement -- besides the bench itself -- was a solid looking door with an opening three quarters of the way up.
Someone peered in through that opening.
Jill recoiled, instinctively groping for her weapon, wincing at the cruelty of his laughter. "Captain?" she gasped. "What's going on?"
"You're not that stupid, Miss Valentine. I know. I trained you, after all."
Her heart stuck in her throat, but still she clung fiercely to her trust, to her devotion to this man. "No."
"Yes. Oh, yes." He laughed again. "Years of planning, Jill, just waiting for this moment."
"Where am I?"
"A cell in the depths of the Umbrella facility. Don't look so frightened, dear heart. I told you. This will be much easier for you."
"What do you mean?"
His eyebrows went up. "Believe it or not, I've a soft spot where you're concerned, Jill. Oh yes," he added, cynically amused at the disgusted skepticism on her face. "After all, I handpicked you, hand-trained you. In a very real sense, you're mine. And I decided I'd prefer you not be eaten alive. I can collect all the data I need from your teammates. You, on the other hand, will be quite safe in this room -- until, that is, the facility self-destructs."
The blood drained from her face. "Wesker, no," she pleaded. "Throw me out there with whatever the others are facing. Give me a chance!"
"A chance to be eaten alive?"
The bluntness of the expression made her shudder, but she stood her ground. "Anything is better than sitting here waiting for death."
"You haven't seen what's out there, Miss Valentine."
"I got a pretty good glimpse of it outside."
"You think those beasts are the worst Umbrella has to offer?"
She sagged against the wall, closing her eyes. He wasn't going to let her go. She was trapped in this concrete tomb, trapped until it collapsed in on itself and on her.
"How much confidence do you have in Chris?"
Her eyes flew open. "I have every confidence in Chris Redfield."
"Then you've nothing to fear. There are only two possibilities: either Chris dies and I activate the self-destruct code, or he kills me and comes to fetch you." A mocking smile danced across his face. "Unless he leaves without you. But he would never do that, would he?"
Her face betrayed her answer. Of course Chris would never knowingly leave her, anymore than she would knowingly leave him. But if he thought her dead... or safe with Wesker... or...
Unable to help herself, she lunged for the door, slamming against it and fixing her face to the opening. Wesker didn't retreat a step, so that she could feel his breath on her cheek. "Go to hell."
"That's no way to speak to your commanding officer."
"Open this door," she seethed, "and I'll show you who's in command."
He only smiled. He turned his back and walked away, and she never saw him again.
Correction: she never saw him human again.
-----
Shifting in her sleep, Jill moaned softly. She had never told the others what happened between her and Wesker in the mansion, and they'd never asked, although once or twice Chris looked like he might. She couldn't tell him. It was too degrading, too...
It left her too vulnerable.
And now he was doing it again -- striking at their weak spots, tearing them to pieces. It wasn't enough for him to destroy their bodies, he had to take their minds, their spirits, their souls.
What had they ever done but serve him faithfully? Was this how Wesker responded to loyalty?
But she already knew the answer.
In her sleep she moaned again, softly, not waking Chris, who slept with one arm slung over her side.
It would never end.