A/N - Alrighty, I've decided to call chapters 1-20 Part I. The minutiae of the journey to Haven was dragging the story down, and I was getting bored. No one wants that. So, Part II picks up after the arrival at the secret facility. :) Eventually, I'll go back and revise Part I to make it prettier. But working on Part II is so much more fun!

Many of you faithful readers keep asking for Rain, when she'll return. And I'm not telling ;) heh. But, when she does return, it'll be fucking epic and worth the wait. I promise.

Happy Thanksgiving! This year, I'm grateful for excellent friends, near and far ... and very far away.

Part II:

All Roads Lead to Rome

Chapter 21

Hard Knocks

Anise lay on her bed, having awoken from another deep, dreamless sleep. She wondered why, after having been plagued with dreams of the Raccoon City survivors for weeks, she hadn't dreamed about them, or Rain, in over a month. Her last intense dream had been bloody and full of dying Umbrella goons before she had hopped on the back of a big ass Harley and roared into the sunrise. As she had looked over her shoulder to a small herd of undead following her, the dream had seemed to fade out, like an old black and white movie. It was the oddest feeling.

With the last of those dreams, that other feeling of being constantly watched had faded too. Suddenly being alone was another oddity in her life. After weeks of being looked to for all the answers, sleeping in chairs next to smelly survivors, and then coming to the stupidly cliché-named Haven, screwed with her head. The established Council and security force had taken over all of her responsibilities, and had given her back her privacy with a freaking suite of rooms to herself. That, and not constantly being on the lookout for the next zombie attack, she was still getting used to.

Anise scratched her head and examined the ceiling. The pattern of the rock above her head was starting to become familiar, though it still felt like waking up in a strange hotel most days. She sighed and rolled off the bed, deciding to spend her day exploring that tunnel she had found last week. Despite all of the wonderful amenities, like hot, running water, Anise felt like a prisoner again. Trapped underground with nowhere to go and no one to turn to.

Sick and tired of the Doc's, and the fucking Council's, demands that she stay within oppressive Haven and not go gallivanting about the infected countryside, looking for Rain and other survivors, Anise had become a rather cranky woman. And bored. A bored Anise was never a good thing. It led her to thinking too much. Thinking gave way to doing rather unintelligent things.

Stupid things like being prepared for the insane adventure she had just decided on. She took care of her morning needs, dressed, tied her hair up with a band, and checked her gear. Then, from her stash of goodies, she made herself a calorie-rich breakfast. Belly full, she slipped into her pack and left her suite.

Quickly. and as silently as possible, she slunk through Haven, avoiding people's eyes and ignoring the greetings and smiles thrown her way. Avoiding her friends had become almost as natural as avoiding the idiots lurking in every well-lit cavern. Idiots that were afraid of her, didn't understand the dead world outside Haven's protective walls, and had relegated Anise to a freak show. Just her favorite thing to be. She growled to herself and slipped past a group of people bickering. The people from her convoy had yet to ease into the existing Haven community.

It was another point that rankled Anise's nerves. Her group of survivors were little more than refugees with PTSD to the people of Haven. Hell, Haven hadn't even wanted to let them in since they weren't family to anyone on 'the list'. Anise had to fight for her entire convoy to be allowed in, once again threatening to leave if she did not get her way. It had gone down like a bad pill to the people in charge, the Council, as they allowed her 300 plus haggard, stinking, haunted survivors into their sparkly clean, massive, full of all the amenities, safe haven.

Once inside, the people of Haven had made sure that the survivors knew their places. Custodial jobs, kitchen duties, latrine cleaners, and other menial labors were the responsibilities dumped onto their heads. Loyal Morrison had been relegated to a peon. He was given guard duties over things like the pantry, along with his crew of sturdy soldiers and Buck. The convoy kids were always getting into fights with the locals' kids. Only Tanya and the lab geeks seemed to have truly been received with open arms and open minds. But even the lab geeks were separated by their experience of an apocalyptic world. All things that Anise wanted to avoid thinking about, helpless to change them as she was.

Ten minutes later, she stood at her destination. From her pocket, she pulled one of her latest acquisitions from the storage lockers she was not allowed in. She eyed the spool of fluorescent cord in her hand, and tossed it up thoughtfully. Her gaze shifted to the dark passageway in front of her. Someone was calling her name, and the voice echoed through the halls. She was late for her physical exam. Snorting disdainfully, Anise rolled her eyes. She was tired of the exams and never ending tests.

Once again stuck in the labs with dozens of new faces aching to probe at her insides had really started to rankle. Almost two months of Buck blatantly avoiding her, weeks on the road and weeks in Haven, was torture. Being treated like a cross between a war hero and a rabid dog was excruciating. Still no word from her family or Rain was, without a doubt, unthinkably horrible, and a great reason to do something mildly suicidal.

Shining dully in corridor's dim light, a metal anchor from someone's previous exploration stuck out from the wall. She regarded it silently before she shrugged and looped the cord through its eye and tied it off. After readjusting the light pack, with its water bladder and emergency supplies on her back, she turned on her headlamp. The slightly unhinged woman tromped down the dark tunnel alone. Her bright pink nylon cord trailed behind her.

Spelunking was scary as hell. It was dark and alien to Anise. Mostly it was cold and full of narrow limestone passages and damp, slippery surfaces. At some point she thought she left the limestone behind. The rocks around her were different. Taking a break to look at a stalactite, stalagmite, whatever the term was for the stake-like rock pointing down at her, an article she once read came to mind. Sensory deprivation and how it could affect the mind. Suddenly, the walls seemed a whole lot closer and the dark even more strange and frightening.

The silence of the caverns and tunnels terrified her in ways that zombies never could. But, she enjoyed the adrenaline rush it gave her. Bruises from slipping and falling were sprouting like daisies across her body. Most would probably be gone before morning. She glanced at her pink line leading out of the bleak tunnels and back to her bedroom. It faithfully pointed the way back, and she grunted, plopping down for a break. After filling her grumpy belly, she put her head on her pack and closed her eyes for a nap.

After blinking the sleep from her eyes, she felt the call of nature and emptied her bladder into a container she had brought with her. She did not know where these caves ended up, if they dumped into a pure water supply, or something of that nature. And she sure as hell did not want to slip from a puddle of her own urine. Giving the warm container a glare, she made sure it was tightly sealed before stuffing it back into her pack.

Her journey finally led her to an amazing visual treasure. A sizable cavern opened above her head and sparkled as her headlamp moved. Gold flecks, in what she guessed to be quartz and galena, shimmered in her vision. Her sense of vertigo disappeared gazing at the gorgeous sight. Some of the crystal specimens were many inches long, and she desperately wanted a closer look. Getting into the above cavern was currently impossible. It was too far for her to jump and nothing appeared stable enough to loop a rope around. Sweat dripped down her nose. She smiled in childish glee.

"Worth it." She told the sparkly goodness.

Her watch told her she had been gone half the day, and her stomach agreed with it. Anise cast one last yearning look into the twinkling alcove so very out of her reach. She sighed and tossed her almost empty spool of cord to her feet. There was always another time she could scamper down to these tunnels to escape. She began her trek back to the facility, thoughtfully sipping her water.

Back in Haven, she snuck past sentries and a few labcoats. She almost made it to her private chambers when Morrison stepped in her path. "Spice." He looked her up and down, and his nose wrinkled. "You stink."

"Thanks." She growled.

"Take this." He held out a walkie. "For the next time you run off. It's on my team's frequency. Only we'll hear it."

Anise waved it off. "Don't want it."

"If you don't take it, I'll post a guard on your ass and rotate patrols around the caverns."

The woman glared at the man. A couple of his team were sneaky enough to accomplish his threat. Her loss of privacy would be absolute. She snagged the radio from his hand and jammed it into a pocket. "Happy now?"

"I might be, if you warned me before you disappear into the caves again."

"Don't hold your breath," she snarled. "We done here?"

Morrison's eyes swept over her filthy figure again. "If you want to talk, you can come to me."

"Right."

The man seemed ready to say something else. He decided otherwise and shook his head. "Take care." Turning smartly, he left her alone.

The next trip she made into the caverns did not go as well.

Anise tied off a fluorescent green cord to the same bolt and followed the pink one down, hoping to see the gorgeous cavern again. Several hours into her journey, she misjudged a short jump, slipped, lost her footing, and went tumbling down another shaft. The ground disappeared from under her bouncing body, followed by an abrupt landing that knocked her out cold.

Waking up miserable and in pain, her suffering increased as she immediately discovered that her headlamp was shattered and useless. She frantically dug into her pouch for the one emergency glowstick she had packed. With shaking fingers, she snapped the bubble and shook it gave off a sickly green glow. When she tried to stand, she discovered, with a crazy amount of pain, that her left ankle would not hold her weight. She fell to her butt and tried rotating the screaming joint. Judging by the sick clicking noises and truckloads of pain, it was definitely broken. She cursed miserably.

The narrow shaft leading up would be impossible to climb with her busted ankle. Hauling herself up by hand was out of the question too, with those too smooth walls and the thin cord that could never hold her weight. Wandering aimlessly would get her lost and farther away from possible help. She was screwed.

Checking her watch told her she had been unconscious for about an hour. Her head was pounding and sticky blood matted the right side of her head. She bit off another curse and grudgingly pulled out Morrison's radio. Turning it on gave her a bitter taste in her mouth. Static responded to her hesitant call.

Probably too much fucking rock between her and rescue, she groused to herself. "Dammit. Stupid fucking ankle."

Laying her throbbing head back on the cool rock wall she wondered how long it would be until Morrison decided to hunt her down. Having only been gone a few hours, she shuddered. It would most likely be half a day before someone went looking for her and then it would take a few hours to get to her. That was if they followed the right color cord too. She had no idea how far away from the other one she had tumbled. At least she had the spool still attached to her pack.

Six hours crawled by slowly. Her ankle looked like a giant eggplant. She had eaten and drank and relieved herself and done everything possible to keep herself occupied. The darkness was closing in around her, and the silence had grown deafeningly loud.

Checking the radio became a relief, just to hear something besides her own breathing. Shadows flickered in her peripheral vision and the green glow became a nauseating, pulsing light. Cold sweat trickled down her back as she began to see movements in the thick shadows and hear noises that could not exist in the deep, dark caverns. Alternately, she prayed for and feared sleep. What if she missed Morrison's call? What if the glowstick failed while she slept? Waking up to complete darkness again would probably destroy her sanity.

The cool stone was stealing her body heat, making her shiver in her sweat damp clothes. She tried to retreat into the memory of a comfortable bed and a warm Latina body curled up beside her. It did not help. Instead, it was depressing her and reminding her of the Red Queen and the horrors of the Hive. Suddenly, she was very glad that the glowstick was not red.

Another four hours slogged by. Tears had worked their way down her face and dried, leaving her cheeks stiff and eyes sore. Her butt, shoulders, and lower back had begun to pulse in tune with her ankle and head. Cold had finally penetrated her bones, and she shivered constantly. Teeth chattered in her jaw, and the sound echoed awfully in her ears. She screamed at the top of her lungs until her breath ran out. The echoes took a while to fade away, but they did. And then it was quiet again. Fresh tears escaped her eyes.

"FUCK!" Shrieking made her throat burn and her head pound harder. She kept on until her voice grew hoarse and unusable. Switching to hammering her knife hilt into the rock wall sent tremors through her body straight to her ankle. Her hand convulsed and dropped the knife. The overwhelming pain confirmed that the bastard joint was indeed broken. Broken bones would take at least a week to heal. Anise would never survive that long, all alone in the dark with her cranked up metabolism.

She flopped on her side, her head landing on her pack and tried to cry. Tears would not come. Her glowing watch told her she had been trapped for 14 hours, which totaled 19 hours in the caverns. She had officially missed three meals. Someone would notice her missing meals. If she was lucky, Lt. Morrison would come after her rebellious ass soon. At least her glowstick was still going strong.

Jerking awake was painful as all hell. Her muscles had stiffened while sleeping on her hard bed, and the cold had kept her shivering uncontrollably. On top of that, her stomach clamored for food, and her mouth was sticky and dry. She had been alone for 23 hours. Most of those hours spent cold, in pain, and just fucking miserable in general. The glowstick was a barely visible glimmer of green.

One of her nightmares came back with a vengeance. Umbrella operatives had chased her and Rain through a burning city. Infected people had clawed at their bodies, tried to take chunks out of them. They had gotten separated when a mutated pack of Lickers had given chase. Anise was left to defend herself alone. Again.

Faceless zombies bearing the Umbrella logo carved into their chests started climbing out of the shadows. Half-eaten children followed on their heels. Shrieking painfully, she tried to claw backward, but she painfully bumped into the cold rock wall. Heart racing, she fiercely blinked away the images. The Red Queen's little girl face smiled cruelly as she drank from a delicate teacup. Anise swallowed and shivered in fear and cold.

Mouth and throat aching for water, Anise desperately pawed through her pack again to distract herself. She knew it was empty, yet she checked her water bladder again, hoping she had missed a drop. It was still depressingly empty. Her last protein bar laughed at her plight. Eating a dry food bar would only make her dehydration worse. Her sluggish mind wondered how long it would take for her hyped up metabolism to kill her. Normal people could only last a few days without water. Anise hadn't been normal in years.

Bottles of water began dancing around the cavern, taunting her with cheerful smiles and silly jingles. The fucking bastards even started singing her name.

No. Wait. Anise snatched the radio from the floor and turned the volume up.

"Spice? This is Morrison. Respond, damn you!"

"Mor-," she rasped. Her throat was tight and her vocal chords strained.

"Spice! You pain in the ass. You got hurt, didn't you?"

"Yea." Relief flushed out the lingering hallucinations and made her a little dizzy too. Her heart was pounding so hard it felt ready to climb out of her throat.

"I'm gonna yell. Let me know if you can hear my voice."

She waited for a silent count of 10. Nothing except her own breath reached her ears.

Grimacing, she radioed back. "No."

"Damn. What color string are you at the end of?" Morrison asked angrily.

Anise had to stop and think. She could not tell what the color was in the pathetic light she had left. Her muddled brain grasped at her memories. Pink was the pretty cave. "Green." She croaked out. Fuck, she had turned into a frog and no princesses were going to come along and kiss her anytime soon. Worst luck ever.

"We'll be there as soon as we can. How are you?"
"Shitty."

"Hang in there. I'll radio every 10 minutes."

"K." The radio was held to her chest. She refused to set it back on the floor.

Morrison was true to his word, according to Anise's glowing watchface. Every 10 minutes, he radioed to check on her; and every half hour, he said he tried hollering to see if she could hear him. Finally, after two hours, she heard the distant echo of the man's baritone. She shuddered in pleasure at the amazing sound. "Heard you."

"Just a little longer, Spice. You can do this," was his reassuring reply.

She swore she was going to kiss him the moment she saw his scruffy mug. The glowstick had ceased to be. Her only source of light was the miniscule glow from her watch. Another hour passed with Morrison's regular transmissions. She had begun hearing the echoes of boots and occasional voices. The rescue team was getting closer. Anise choked at the idea of seeing another face.

"Hey, we reached where the cords split off. You anywhere near that?"

"Fuck yes."

Only minutes later, the overpowering brightness of a flashlight bounced off the tunnel walls overhead. Adrenaline surged, igniting her tears again. After blinking repeatedly, her eyes gradually adjusted to the sudden light. She was finally able to gauge the terrible distance she had fallen. It had to be at least 30 feet. Anise was surprised that even she had survived that kind of uncontrolled fall onto hard stone. A face appeared at the top of the shaft. It was in shadow, so she relied on the voice to tell her it was Morrison looking down.

"Anise. Good to see your stubborn face."

She happily flipped him the bird, radioing back. "Sup."

"We've got enough rope, it'll just be a few minutes while we send down Fox. I'm sure you won't mind a woman tying you up."

Anise smiled cheekily at his humor. Fox was a very slim woman, originally from Togo, and she was a medic. Her extremely dark features were striking, and she rarely spoke to Anise, and only when the cranky woman showed up in the infirmary. Her lilting accent and gentle demeanor was the only pleasant thing about the infirmary. Anise didn't know much else about her. Fox had already been in Haven when she arrived. Why she was under Morrison's command was a mystery. Haven's guard Captain did not like to share. "Cool."

Fox was lowered down, and the woman efficiently slipped out of the makeshift harness. "What did you break?" Her smooth voice asked as she snapped a blue glowstick to life.

"Ankle and skull." Anise croaked out. Fox examined her briefly, then flicked off her blinding headlamp. Her almost black eyes glittered strangely in the blue light.

"Any other injuries?"

"My pride."

The other woman smiled and handed Anise a full canteen. "Careful. Small sips." She warned.

Anise nodded. She started by swishing water around her mouth for several seconds before swallowing and followed that by another mouthful and another.

A firm hand prevented her from taking yet another gulp. "I said, small sips."

Shrugging, Anise set the canteen down. She reveled in the feel of liquid in her mouth again.

"What's the situation, Fox?" Morrison's deep voice came across the radio.

"She's got a broken ankle and probably had a concussion. Dehydrated." Anise was taking another drink of water, ignoring the glare from Fox. "Stubborn as usual. She'll recover fine."

"Roger that. Get her ready to haul up."

"Yes, sir." Fox clipped Anise's walkie to her own belt and began slipping the rope harness around her bruised body.

"Careful. I'm delicate." Anise joked to cover the sharp pains from her ankle being moved, however gently.

The commando snorted at that. "Sure you are. Who the hell told you that?"

Her face fell. "Rain did."

Fox paused to look into Anise's melancholy eyes. Everyone knew who Rain was, and most everyone had a clue what Rain was to Anise. Haven's infamous celebrity was always a gossip topic. And Fox had once revealed she had worked with Rain for a short time under Umbrella's employment. "I'm sure you'll see her again. It would take a nuclear warhead to kill that woman."

"Actually, that didn't work." Her voice was surprisingly strong. Amazing what a little water and good thoughts could do.

The woman took the reply easily. "There, see? You'll be seeing your beau again. Now, I'm going to tighten these straps. It won't be pleasant, but it'll get you up and out of here."

"Thanks, Fox." And she really meant it. She clasped Fox's shoulder and squeezed lightly. "I needed that."

"You're welcome, Spice." Fox patted her hand before calling up to Morrison. "Ready to go, sir!"

The ropes tightened and began to haul Anise out of her personal hell.