Before the wounded doctor had a chance to register what was happening, Wesker had caught her by the scruff of her neck, holding the girl on her tiptoes. She cried out and tried desperately to curl back into a ball, clutching her stomach frantically, but her captor would have none of it, shaking her violently until she complied and loosened her tenseness, the palms of her hands still spread flat across the bleeding area as she gasped and yelped at the sensation of stretching out again.
Shak do something...help me! Please! she pleaded silently, too scared to voice her thoughts.
The bespectacled scientist closed her eyes and tried to brace herself for whatever was coming, sobbing under her breath.
-
Wesker raised a quizzical eyebrow at the redhead as he slammed his fist into Claudia's torn abdomen and her frantic screaming began to rip through the auditorium once more.
That should do the trick...
Shakahnna paid no heed to the world around her. When no reply came from the person who had seemed oddly familiar, she looked around, her eyes drinking in the features but unable to actually see anything, or process the information at all. There was nothing really in this place but it was quiet. And for some reason that felt strangely comforting. At the back of her mind there was a tiny cry, something yelping out for help. Whether it was internally her sanity screaming out or the cries of the doctor it was impossible to tell. A small part of her brain demanded that she spring into action but the positive schizophrenia that had developed earlier in her life made it impossible. Her delusions were so great that she was almost completely cut off from the outside world. No pain registered and certainly not any plea for help.
Sitting down on the floor, she trailed one long nail through a pile of bloody vomit, tracing lines and patterns in it, the chunky liquid rolling from her finger as she attempted to write her name but not quite being able to remember what it was and being content to just continue with her aimless amblings.
Wesker glared angrily at the shell of a woman from whom he could provoke no reaction, one eyebrow still raised in a curious mixture of annoyance and amusement. He cast a glance at Claudia, whose screams were dying into frantic whimpers and sneered coldly.
With a gesture as though he were slowly and deliberately dropping something very disgusting to him, he let the doctor fall once more. She landed hard on her feet before toppling over and curling up again on her side, grateful for the marginal relief of just being able to lie on the floor and whimper.
The flaxen-headed bioweapon strode slowly, deliberately, walking the length of the amphitheatre until he was so far from the doctor's blurred and cracked line of vision that for the briefest of moments she thought he might have actually got bored and left.
Not so.
He reappeared within the minute, a large black briefcase dangling idly from his pale fingers, a teasing smile on his face as he opened the pack. The rest of the bag's contents were not visible, but he procured a single syringe. And Claudia could only imagine what was in it. She watched through her blood spattered lenses as he bent over her with monstrous tenderness, but the minute he touched her at all, her body began to flail and kick out wildly, the needle breaking off in her skin before he had the chance to inject the contents. Throwing it to one side, he retrieved another and repeated the same action, tossing the broken implement to the floor with barely concealed frustration.
Claudia bit back tears, and in spite of herself felt a grim smile playing about her lips. Wherever Shak was, Wesker couldn't touch her there. She was safe in her own world, and it was a small victory, but somehow, it was a shared one.
Until she realised that Wesker's attention was no longer on Shak. "Is there something you would care to share?" he frowned.
"She beat you," Claudia replied simply, looking him levelly in the eyes.
There was a flash of motion, and Wesker had her by a fistful of her hair, forcing her to struggle on her tiptoes as the pull threatened to lift her much higher. With one brutal, fluid motion, he threw her to the floor in front of Shakahnna, and she landed with a scream.
Her eyes darted wildly towards the redhead, looking for all the world like a child at play, lost in her own world of make believe. But this was not what drew her desperate attention. With trembling fingers, she darted forward and snatched the desert eagle from its holster. Jamming the barrel in her mouth, she locked eyes with Wesker, before squeezing them shut. Two icy tears rolled down her cheeks as she pulled the trigger.
Click.
Nothing happened. She pulled it again. And again, frantically. But the gun was empty. It had been her last shot to escape, and it was empty.
"How very droll…" he observed.
"A masterpiece of comic timing," she agreed, in a bitter whisper. She reached for the second gun, but found Wesker's foot crushing her fingers. "You said if I did what you said, I could choose how I died," she gasped, "What more could you possibly want?"
"Now that's not strictly true," he replied, "I said you could choose whether you died slowly or quickly."
"Then let me go quickly!" she screamed, trying to wrench her hand out from under his boot.
"Surely you don't want to die without first having confessed?"
"Confessed?" Her pupils dilated and her skin took on a grey pallor. "No."
He handed her the syringe and she clutched it in her free hand, staring at it as though it burned. "This is a more concentrated form of the pills our beloved STARS captain was taking. So you can try to inject it into yourself, but all that will ensure will be that you are psychosis free for the remainder of the evening."
"I'm not doing it, Wesker."
"But Miss Graham, I thought your choice was a quick death?"
"Not at that price." She let the syringe slide gently to the floor.
What do I have left to lose?
"You are condemning Shakahnna to unspeakable acts if you will not assist," he warned her.
"But she won't be able to feel it. And even if I cooperate, I don't believe for one second that will change how you act, because we've been playing that game all night," she replied sadly.
"You and I have some differences of opinion, Claudia. You see, I suspect that your definition of "slow" is one that ends this evening. Whereas I would consider that to be relatively swift. A more fitting definition of the word would be days…weeks…perhaps even years. A truly talented executioner can take their victim on the slow path to demise one torturous inch at a time…"
With every single word that spilled from her lips, fresh tears spilled from her red raw eyes. She took the needle up again in trembling hands, and tried to tell herself this was for the best, that Shak wouldn't want her to be suffering either.
"Hey, come on," she said gently, choking back sobs, "I'm gonna give you a shot, you have to let me, ok?"
Instantly, at the sound of a friendly and reassuring voice, a voice that was vaguely familiar, Shakahnna relaxed, the tension leaving her body. She extended one arm compliantly.
Claudia's bottom lip began to tremble.
She trusts you.
"No!" The auburn haired girl threw the syringe to the floor, and the contents shattered on the ground. She couldn't do it, couldn't betray someone she cared about so deeply. "I won't do it!"
"You bring these things on yourself, don't you?" Wesker remarked idly, although his brows furrowed enough to show his irritation. He slapped her relatively lightly across the face with the tips of his fingers, and the fact that she whimpered and went careering across the floor annoyed him. He strode over to where she lay, and knelt beside her, removing her spectacles, folding them and putting them in his pocket. She barely registered the action as, taking one heavy boot, he planted the sole roughly into her face, forcing her cheek against the ground. "This is your last chance to reconsider, Dr Graham."
She couldn't answer him, she couldn't open her mouth, but even if she had been able to, she had no intention of telling him what he wanted to hear. He dragged the sole of his boot down her face, one side burning from the friction of the rubber, and the other from the carpet, as her whole body shook. She could feel her teeth trapped between the two, and in a horrible moment of clarity realised that if he pushed any harder her jaw might crack. He lifted his foot and she cried out in relief, but he merely delivered a callous kick to the bottom of her heels, sending an unbearably painful jar all the way up her legs. His lips were pale, a hue to match his lack of arousal, his actions utterly unemotional, utterly callous.
And he was bored. This was taking too long.
He gave a parting kick to her stomach, causing the wounds to tear further. As she wailed and clung to her injuries for dear life, pulling her knees towards her chest, he took one of the discarded vials in his fist, grabbing Shakahnna's lower jaw with his other hand and forcing her mouth open. Crushing it in his grip, the liquid seeped through his fingers into her mouth.
"Spit it out!" Claudia screamed, but it was too late. She had already swallowed it.
"It's a shame," Wesker began, "That she couldn't see the one act that would confirm that the undeserved affection she has for you is reciprocated. I'm sure it would have some bearing on the decision she will have to make when she awakens."
And all at once, Claudia understood her part in all of this, the reason she was here, the reason he had kept her alive and conscious. "You're going to make me tell her?!" It was too cruel to both of them, even for Wesker. "That's it, isn't it? I tell her that I work…worked…for Umbrella, and she kills me?" Claudia had always been brought up with the idea that if there was a riddle, you solved it. But as she began to hyperventilate, she realised that this was proving to be a disadvantage, because she really, really didn't want to know this. But ignorance, much like innocence lost, is something you can never reclaim. "I'd rather die by your hand than hers," she wept.
"Time will tell if you get your wish," he remarked snidely, despite the fact that they both knew what the outcome to this would be. "So tell me, how do you think she'll do it? I recall at the beginning of the meeting she said she would shoot you out of respect. Do you think after all this time has elapsed, after such a bond has grown, that she will adhere to the same protocol…?"
"Shut up!" His words were like poison, worming their way into her head.
He did not. "…and the death of her colleague…what do you think she'll make of that?"
Pierce…
Claudia had all but forgotten. It had been the first human life she had taken, and it had not crossed her mind until now. "Shut up…" she whispered tearfully, a cold feeling closing in her stomach.
Shakahnna stirred in her sleep, mumbling to herself a little, as coherency gradually dawned, staying for now just marginally out of reach.
"She won't believe you," Claudia hissed.
"You're right," he conceded, and for a moment she thought she was off the hook, until he continued. "But she'll believe you."
"I won't tell her."
"How will you be able to look her in the eye and lie to her?"
At this she fell silent. Perhaps it was the power of Wesker's suggestion, perhaps her own conscience, but she knew he was right.
"If you knew you only had one night to live, what would you do with that night?" he prompted.
"Put things right," she blurted out. "I want to make things right. Can't I make everything ok?"
"So I can rely on your cooperation then?"
She barely managed a nod as she began to weep hysterically once more. Through pain and fear her nerves were utterly frayed, and she would have agreed to anything if she thought it might bring her the tiniest bit of comfort.
"Now, Miss Graham, that wasn't so hard now, was it?" It was the feigned gentleness which broke her down. It was shameful that she would do almost anything for a kind word at this stage. Even from him. "Now, my Shakahnna will be awake soon. Do not make a nuisance of yourself. The shadows are a place infinitely more becoming for you." He handed her back her spectacles and she fumbled with them for a moment, before half-crawling, half dragging herself behind some chairs, where she curled up and cried as quietly as possible. She wondered when her world had gone so crazy that it was sweet relief simply to lie still and concentrate on the burning pain that tore through her torso.
There was a loud groan from Shakahnna, and Wesker was at her side in an instant.
"What are you doing here?" she mumbled, half asleep, "I've got work soon…" The redhead groped about for something sharp, "Don't wake me up…" she paused, "Unless you're here so I can get laid, in which case you can stay."
"Perhaps…" He kept his voice, as ever, teasingly neutral. It was obvious that she had regressed to her past, to a stage when it was still safe for him to be there.
On all fours she reached up and pulled him towards her, running her claws across the side of his cheek and turning his gaze away from her. "Don't look at me," she said playfully. "Goosey goosey gander…" she chided, pulling him in for a long slow kiss.
And yet it was unusual. She opened her eyes.
Hang on…
His hair was a mess. His suit was not immaculate, as was his custom.
Her face was sore and her clothes were ripped. Good night last night? No, something more.
There was no gun under her pillow.
There was no pillow.
She was in a theatre.
"Urgh!" Everything flooded back in one sickening rush, and she kicked him full force in the stomach, scrambling backwards on her hands and hauling herself to her feet.
"YOU FUCK, WESKER, YOU ABSOLUTE FUCK!" she was screaming in his face.
"Something not to your liking, Captain?" he enquired innocently, as though for all the world he genuinely could not see what the problem was.
"I'M NOT A FUCKING CAPTAIN ANY MORE! YOU KILLED MY TEAM! MY WHOLE FUCKING TEAM!" her voice was starting to rasp, but she continued to bellow. In one swift, desperate motion, she held her claws to her own throat, pressing them so that blood was already seeping from the tenderised skin.
"Promise me you don't hurt Claudia any more," she spat, green eyes blazing. "And none of that funny shit you pulled earlier. You don't directly or indirectly lay another finger on her."
There was a pause and she dug the claws in deeper.
"You're quick," she told him, "But you're just not that quick. So you give me your word," she grinned maddeningly, "Or else I'll be smiling at you from a different mouth."
"Why Miss Taylor, you offend me. Of course you have my word." And he could make that promise securely, because he knew he wouldn't have to lay another hand on the younger girl.
And at his words she removed her claws immediately. Forcing Wesker to agree to anything was a minefield, and now she had what she wanted even Shak wasn't going to make things worse by being wide.
"How dare you?" she demanded of him quietly. "Why do you keep doing this?"
"Because I can," he responded, dangerously calm. The boredom of eternity was a perilous sin.
He made a lunge for her, eager to satiate his bloodlust, and at first she did not appear to move, but at the last moment she slid down, thrusting her leg in front of his. Despite her short legs, there had never been a time when she had not successfully executed a scissors move, but while she had the strength in her legs to twist him over, her broken hands would not support her body weight, and they both tumbled to an undignified heap on the floor. Wesker gritted his teeth. She had let him down, and so she would be punished. He drove his knee into her ribs and there was a sickening crack as he abandoned restraint and went straight for broken bones. Shakahnna let out a howl of pain, which faded off into a wheeze as her eyes began to water and her vision swam for a moment. She tried to push him off, but he was in no mood to yield, and she was in no state to fight properly. He simply grabbed her wrist and squeezed.
"Going…home now," she choked.
She was not going anywhere, and Wesker emphasised the point by twisting her arm backwards and snapping it. The clear, clean break of bone rang out through the auditorium.
"Jesus!" Claudia squeezed her eyes closed and tried to block out the sickening sound which still echoed in her head.
He's losing it. He's properly fucking losing control. He's going to kill her.
Wesker threw a look over his shoulder at Claudia, as if to remind her that he was still aware of her presence, before simply staring at Shak, drinking in the sight of her battered and broken form. It was, he reflected, simply exquisite.
Without detracting his view from Shakahnna, he rose to his feet. He gave a slight nod of his head to summon Claudia, and it took the younger girl a full few minutes to realise that he was waiting for her. Her stomach gave a sickening lurch as she staggered over, bent almost double.
"Come, Shakahnna, won't you take a closer look at the young lady for whom you have suffered so much...? he purred.
With a seductive glint in his burning eyes, Wesker bit down on his own lower lip slowly, deliberately, teasingly. Blood flowed from the self inflicted wound, the overspill running from the corners of his pale mouth, adding to his monstrously carnal appearance, a flash of a smirk crossing his face.
He bent down slowly so that Claudia was at eye level with him, he let his gaze slip away from Shakahnna, his eyes immediately flashing red with disgust as he sneered at the trembling scientist for a few interminable moments before spitting full in her face. She whimpered as a spray of crimson showered her ashen features, blood mixing with the tears that trickled mutely down her cheeks.
"Does this elicit any memories in that sweet, psychotic head of yours, Miss Taylor?" he taunted.
She struggled to sit up, trying to brace herself against the stage, and Wesker offered her a hand in a gentlemanly manner which was all the more sinister for being completely genuine. She looked at him with scorn and raised herself of her own painful accord.
"I advise you, Miss Taylor, for your own safety, you may wish to pay attention…" he began but was interrupted as Claudia staggered forward.
"Shak, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry!" she babbled, distressed beyond coherence, "Please, I'm so sorry, it's my fault and I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"
And suddenly something clicked in Shakahnna's memory. The redhead tilted her head to one side, her customary gesture when something puzzled her. "Do I…know you from somewhere?" she asked slowly. "No…I do know you from somewhere…"
"Don't make me do this," Claudia breathed, her voice little more than a whisper, "There must be some other way, there must be…"
"Ignoring a direct question," Wesker rebuked softly, "Daniel would be ashamed of your manners."
A shared memory was evoked. Clinical white hallways, strong smell of antiseptic, the sound of a neck breaking, and a body slumping to the ground. Frantic footsteps thundering along the corridor, unheeded by the child whose cheerful humming echoed in the corridor. Then the sound of a cup smashing, tea spilling onto the ground as two girls, one covered from head to toe in blood, and the other impossibly young, collided in the middle of what was a prison to one, and home to the other.
Orders demanding release, authoritarian and begging all at once. The frantic fumbling of a scared child, the sound of a keycard going through a reader, a grateful rambling of thanks quickly fading off into the background, the breeze of air as he made his way onto the scene. His face had not seemed any different, but anger radiated off him in waves, the promise of repercussions, and the screaming of Umbrella employees drowning out the shrill, frightened sobs of the child in the corridor.
"Oh no…no no no no…" Shak began to shake her head.
Claudia took a deep breath and hung her head, "I work for Umbrella," she mumbled.
Tears began to spring to Shakahnna's eyes, which gave way to quiet, heartrending sobs. One arm dangled uselessly as the other covered her face and she repeated denials over and over again. "It's him, he's making you say this."
"I wish he was," Claudia replied sadly, too utterly ashamed to even cry as she reached into her pocket and handed the redhead her identification. "But it's true. I always have." Her voice cracked, "It was me, in the labs. I let you out."
Shak didn't have anything to say. There was nothing she could say, nothing she could do save cry louder. A thin smile spread across Wesker's face.
Her grief intensifying, her sobs whispering gently in his ear, his tight little smirk began to widen into a thin lipped smile which crept across his face uncontrollably at the sight of Shakahnna broken at last, until eventually he was grinning wickedly. Never in his whole life had he felt more exhilarated, more satisfied than that blissful moment when he...
...won.
And yet it was a tainted victory. She was not crying for him, not weeping because of some vile action he had laid against her, but because of little Claudia. How ironic that, after facing down against every sadistic mind game he could throw at her, every iron clad blow he loosed upon her body, it was something so small and pathetic as this little girl that would be her undoing.
He turned to the ashen doctor, whose mouth was wide open in horror and smiled courteously, feeling a wave of pure satisfaction from the redheads growing anger, "I really must thank you, dear Claudia. I assure you, the pleasure has been all mine..." he released her from his grip, "But I don't believe your company is required any longer."
He arched an eyebrow at Shakahnna, "In light of these events," he began, "I have a proposition for you. Despite my severe disappoint, and taking into consideration the fact that you are frankly an embarrassment, the fact remains that I am still in requirement of your company. And so, on to business. Here's the little traitor you suffered so much for..."
Claudia sank limply to her knees in front of Shakahnna, her chest constricted with the sheer force of her grief and remorse. She was covered in dirt and caked in blood, a pale and trembling wreck of a girl, her head bowed miserably, droplets of tears falling at the redhead's feet. She wanted to apologise, to finally get off her chest the fact that so many people were dead because of her, that she had made so many mistakes, that she deserved this and that she would give anything to take it all back, but she was too disgusted with herself to say anything save, "You can kill me."
She had to kill her. Claudia worked for Umbrella. It was the rules. They were the bad guys. And she felt so angry with her for doing this. All this time she'd been lying. And Shak didn't want to let personal feeling interfere. She only ever killed those who were guilty, and she was so angry. But even before the question had time to form itself, she knew why Claudia had did it. And for a moment, she thought she might hate her. How could she not? After everything they had gone through, they were the only ones left.
"How could you do this?" she demanded. "You're all fucking sick, every single fucking one of you." The internal debate raged over whether she should kill the doctor. She rounded on Wesker. "You knew she was Umbrella, and you never said!"
Wesker pursed his lips. "It slipped my mind," he said nonchalantly. "But Miss Taylor, the matter at hand…"
It would be so much easier, Shak reflected, if she couldn't tell that Claudia felt bad. And she must have been really punished when she let Shak out. No amount of self-imposed ignorance made that conclusion avoidable. If she'd let anyone else out, she might have gotten away with it, but not Shak. And thus it lead her to here. Her only friend was an Umbrella worker, but what came first? The fact that she was a friend, or the fact that she was an Umbrella worker? She looked from Claudia's harrowingly miserable face to Wesker's impatient one, and the answer was clear. If Wesker wanted her to kill Claudia, then she wouldn't do it. Wesker never had her best interests at heart, and given a straight up choice between the two, she knew who she would side with. And even if she was angry, she knew Claudia had done the same, had sided with her over Wesker.
"GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, before dissolving into coughs and splutters as she retched up blood. "I don't want to look at you. You disgust me, you're just Umbrella scum."
Claudia flinched with every word, but she did not move. Shak moved to plan B. If shouting did not work, you just needed to shout louder. "Are you fucking stupid?!" she yelled, "Look at the fucking mess you've got us into! I'm gonna fucking DIE here, and you did this. You're poison! How many more are dead, Claudia?"
"So go on and fucking KILL me then!" she sobbed, holding as still as possible and waiting for the blow.
Shakahnna shoved her backwards, "Do you like pain or something? Get OUT of here. The last thing I need is to throw up, and you're making me sick."
Claudia looked up at Wesker, terrified and confused. "Can I go?"
He ignored her, his rage fixated on Captain Taylor.
She met his stare levelly. "She's nothing."
Wesker's nostrils flared, "You are playing a dangerous game," he warned her.
"If she was so important, you'd have killed her yourself."
"As you wish," he shrugged, but she interrupted him.
"Even more important than your promise to me?" she asked in an infuriating, coy voice.
Up until that moment, he had been under the misconception that she had wanted to watch as he killed Claudia, and had been more than happy to oblige. "Then perhaps you would grant me amnesty from that promise?" he enquired.
"No."
He ground his teeth together and looked at her, not with a smirk, not with any superior retorts upon his crimson smeared lips, but with a simple, naked anger and desire for destruction as he launched himself at her beaten figure violently, sending her flying to the ground as he straddled her, punching her over and over again, the raw power still present behind his blows, but the smooth, flawless technique dissipating as he gave in to an animalistic rage, a hatred that could only be evoked by someone he considered as close to an equal as he'd ever find.
She tried to evade the locomotive that charged for her, but her attempt at a roll may have as well been like holding up a flimsy sheet to stop a raging bull. He brutally pinned her beneath his hulking form, her legs useless as they were held completely immobile. His weight atop her brought back memories of happier times which made the experience all the more twisted as she desperately tried to escape, arching her back, pushing forward on her shoulder. The pain was enough to bring tears back to her eyes.
She shielded herself with one arm, the blows powerfully smashing through her defences, for every blow that did not reach her face or toros caused just as much damage to the comparatively streamline muscles. The defensive tactics gave her no chance for a plan of attack but his blows were less precise than normal.
Claudia's sobs rang out over the blows, her hysteria growing louder and louder, until Shak could discern them through her own pain. With her unbroken arm, the redhead delicately snuck one hand away, giving the young girl the A-okay gesture, and hoping she would be intelligent enough to figure out what it meant and what motives she had, that her anger had been a front to convince Wesker that she didn't care, that she was indifferent to whether Claudia lived or died.
And for her part, Claudia noted the gesture and closed her eyes in silent gratitude that, if she wasn't forgiven, at least she wasn't hated. But still, she wouldn't leave. There was nothing for her outside of the theatre, and her survival would mean nothing if she left her best friend, only friend, to die. So if they were going out, they would go out together.
In a blaze of glory… She smiled sadly, but the moment was short lived as Wesker's assault grew more vicious.
"I don't like this game" Shakahnna spoke bubbles as blood left from her mouth, deliberately trying to protect her head and face, through instinct rather than anything else. The pain now was unbearable, beyond what she was able to enjoy.
There was a mania dancing in the flames of his irises that was absolute and out of control. "Tell me when it hurts, lover..." he spat before placing one vice like grip around her unbroken wrist, his other hand slipping round her elbow joint. Her skin felt so warm beneath his icy touch, his hands already drenched in her blood. How he longed to feel her as cold as him...to quell the breathing that taunted him mercilessly with every mocking rise and fall of that broken ribcage. He wrenched her forearm, breaking the strong bone as though it was utterly fragile, twisting cruelly until a shard of white began to break through the purple blotches on her skin, blood and bone drinking in the cool air of the theatre where they should have remained beneath their bruised wrappings.
He discarded the now useless limb callously and leaned in to hiss in her torn ear, raking his nails down her cheek, tearing paths of flesh as though it was paper, his hand moving down to her neck, clawing at the canvas work of physical trauma he had painted there. "You will reconsider."
There was a sizzling agony, a blinding pain like no other yet familiar to the young woman, the crunching of bone as it splintered and tore from the inside outwards, five fingers completely useless. It seemed so surreal. The pain coupled with terror was absolute.
Doesn't be's wanting to be helpless. Don't take that away from me.
Her tongue was pressed to the roof of her mouth, a reflex gesture to stop her biting through it. Her teeth snapped at the fingers which gouged at her skin, biting into his flesh, locking her jaw and tasting iron liquid pour into her mouth and the crunch of something below her teeth. But even so, there were no words in Shakahnna vocabulary to describe the film of pain which had engulfed her body as she swallowed down the vomit which had risen in her throat.
"Stop it..." Claudia whispered groggily, "Please stop it...I can't watch this...it's all my fault don't do this to her..."
Wesker could hear her, his eyes flashing for a fleeting split second in the frail girl's direction, "Oh..." he growled by way of reply as he grabbed Shakahnna by the hair and punched her in the ribcage, "...but I am merely collecting a debt that is owed to me." He pulled her red locks roughly, his grip so tight that the hairs began to rip away slowly from the skin.
With a strangled cry the youngest member of the unhappy trio pulled herself to her knees, her hair falling limply in her face, tears streaking over the imprint from Wesker's boot, cutting their way through bruised blood, dirt and dust.
Get up Claudia...you have to do something...get up...if she can do it so can you...
The flaxen haired tyrant narrowed his eyes, ignoring the scientist. She struggled so desperately now, how apt that, just like everything else the mousy little girl had done in her short life, she would once again fail miserably. Her tiny, whispered sobs reached his ears and he no longer felt annoyance, no longer felt contempt, having long passed that stage of reason.
He could only feel his satisfaction growing, drinking in human misery from whatever source he could. He considered ripping the fragile Dr Graham to pieces in front of the redhead, just because he could, but another lingering look at his girl's battered face and he simply could not drag himself away from the source of his torment.
Nothing mattered any more, all his carefully planned mind games cast aside as he loomed over her with but one intention surging through his body; to squeeze every last drop of pain out of what was left of Shakahnna Taylor.
Knocking her to the ground again, laughing derisively as with a simple wave of his monstrously huge hand he undid the action that had caused her so much agony.
He brought one impossibly heavy foot down upon her left kneecap, feeling bone crunch under his boot. Instantly he was kneeling beside her, stroking her brow with a brief flash of tender cruelty before his hand moved down to her right leg. Placing both hands gently on either side of the joint, he let his grip tighten...ever so slowly...
When he was squeezing so hard that his pale hands were a twisted tourniquet upon her one intact limb, he met her eyes and smiled coldly, as he began to bend the leg in the opposite direction that it should have gone, feeling the bone and cartilage crunch and splinter, watching her knee swell with blood and fluid as he forced the joint to bend in on itself, pulling her shins towards her thighs slowly.
Claudia screamed.
The skin at the crook of her leg began to tear under the duress, and he smiled as he felt he kneecap completely dislocated with a sickening pop that send a thrill of pure pleasure through his seething body. Bone snapped and twisted in directions that made them squeal against each other in protest, a sound not dissimilar to nails on a blackboard, a sound that made him grit his teeth in satisfaction, shards of white beginning to poke out teasingly from all sides of the now devastated joint.
With one final wrench, one last crunching protest, he jerked her calf upwards, smiling in amusement at the site of the leg bending in completely the wrong direction, it's movements utterly grotesque.
It never gets old...
He caressed her swollen cheek lightly, his fingertips cool against her burning skin, and smiled gently, as Dr Graham began to vomit uncontrollably all over the floor in horror.
Pressing her lids firmly shut so she did not need to see what was happening, Shakahnna tried to suppress her moans and screams, with coughs that resulted in more viscous red fluid dripping out from between her teeth which pressed firmly together.
"CLAUDIA!" Noises of terror rang out through the theatre, despite the wish to suppress it. The call was supposed to be a warning instead it was merely the vocalization of the hurt both inside and out. A husk of a person lay on the floor, she was not crying any longer but tears streamed from her eyes, not visible due to the mass of other foreign substances which coated her face.
Hurts so much. Let it stop
God it hurts so much
The redhead did the only thing she had left, she turned her face away from Wesker's touch.
At the sound of her own name, the distraught child broke down into painful sobs, as she choked up the last of the bile in her throat.
"Shak!" her voice was shrill and panicked, echoing in her own ears brittly, sounding as though it was cracking and shattering under the pressure of her sickening guilt as she flinched with every new torture Wesker rained down upon the redhead. "Shak it's okay...everything'll be fine..." her words were dry and hollow and desperate, "...hang on...I'll help...I'll do something...I promise...I will..."
I saved her once. I can do it again. I can. I can.
She began to tug frantically on Wesker's sleeve, trying to pull his arm away from Shak. Without looking round he simply shoved her backwards firmly, smiling a bloody gash of a leer at his former lover, as he stroked her face gently, "You have so much potential...and yet you insist on squandering it all away on a pathetic little wretch of a girl...a girl who betrayed you, who stands for everything you despise...thanks to Dr Graham so many people have died...your team are destroyed and so many more people are going to die now that I have Lancaster's virus..." he smirked, "...don't you want some form of revenge?"
Please don't take me away…
No one could take this kind of force and survive, and she could feel herself slowly slipping. His eyes burned down into hers, terrified green saucers filled with hurt and despair, scared to die and too terrified to live.
"NO!" Claudia screamed over and over again, "I WON'T LEAVE YOU I WON'T!"
Despite all her medical knowledge, all her scientific coldness, little Claudia still clung pathetically to the belief that her blind loyalty would pull them through, or at least pull Shak through.
There were no tears now, no whimpering and sobbing, just blank horror that overtook her petite frame and crushed it so forcefully that she could not breath.
"SHAK I'M SORRY PLEASE...PLEASE DON'T DIE..." her words desperate, searching through every resource she had available to her and finding nothing, nothing but helplessness and despair, screaming out over and over again because it was the only thing she could do and she had to do something.
Shak did something. She spat in Wesker's face.
Wesker slipped his hands about her throat in rage and began to squeeze slowly, pressing his lips to hers in a brutal kiss which prevented her from drawing any breath.
Shakahnna's eyes were wide and full of disgust and loathing but she could not break away. She was grateful for the sweet mercy of paralysis as it meant she could barely feel his rough groping. Her chest moved in tiny hitches as a million tiny pins pricked over her body and the light hair stood on end. Unable to move her neck to the side, the girl wished that she could have turned to Claudia one last time and screamed out for her forgiveness, tell her she loved her friend, tell her things would be okay but when she tried no sound emanated from her lips. The brutal crushing hold slowly squeezed all the oxygen from her body, blood vessels bursting in her irises as her vision was washed in a ghastly shade of red. At thirty years of age, the woman looked as those she had been through centuries of torment. The nails that kept the brutal grip on her neck continued gradually becoming tighter, decreasing in size, even as she still was wrapped in a lover tryst. His violent passion slowly sucked the life from the red haired girl. Her lungs were on fire, screaming and protesting at the lack of air they so desperately craved. But there was no sign of the monster letting up, releasing his hold on her.
I am gonna make it alright but not right now.
A last coherent though manifested itself as the hope and confidence the girl had kept her whole life. The bittersweet sentiment nothing she would ever likely to be able to achieve and were her eyes not bulging, she would weep for the doctor.
The young woman would never make her thirty first birthday. She pressed her eyes shut hard, wanting to avoid allowing the monster the satisfaction of seeing the horror she felt as her body flayed around, her mind beginning to leave the temple where it had always been, the burning in her chest subsiding as she could feel no more pain.
Shakahnna Taylor's heart finally lost it's battle for survival and stopped, the young officer's body stopped kicking and was still.
And for the first time in a century of existence, Wesker was lost.
"That was satisfying," he lied through his teeth. Claudia's eyes were as wide as saucers as she stared in sickened disbelief for a few moments.
"NO!" a strangled scream tore from Claudia's lungs, all the sickness and disbelieving grief of that moment leaving her body in that one horrified sound that tore through the auditorium and echoed off the walls as time stopped and nothing remained save for that one single cry of absolute anguish.
Then everything flooded back, and she was crawling as fast as her body could carry her to the fallen redhead, hyperventilating and stumbling until she was kneeling beside her.
"Shak?" her voice was completely desperate, "Shak can you hear me? Shak Shak Shak Shakahnna, please, please wake up don't do this, you can't do this you have to wake up..." her shaking fingers feeling for a pulse where there was nothing but cold, torn skin.
"Shak you have to wake up...please..." Claudia begged, her chest tightening, "Shak I need you...I need you please...I'm sorry, I'll be good I promise I'm sorry don't be dead...I won't ever run off again I promise won't get us into trouble anymore...I'll make it right I promise I'll make the cure I'll be good I promise I will just please wake up don't do this...c'mon you can't...you have to move you have to breath...come on BREATHE FUCKING BREATHE WON'T YOU? For me...for pepe...you have to wake up...you have to...please I'm sorry just don't die..."
She wrapped her arms around the dead girl's neck and began to sob into her lifeless shoulder, her words wholly unintelligible now.
No no no there has to be something it can't end here, it can't! There must be a way, there must be there...
Taking the girl's broken nose between her thumb and forefinger she tilted her head back and covered her mouth with her own, forcing air into dead lungs...
"Come on come on come on...this will work this has to work..."
Pressing the heel of her hand to a broken ribcage, she pushed down frantically with all the strength she had left in her weak arms.
Wesker raised his arm and slapped her roughly away, sending her flying backwards. "Don't touch what doesn't belong to you," he said expressionlessly.
Leaning down with a tenderness he had never previously afforded, he picked up Shakahnna's lifeless body, her broken limbs dangling in his arms.
"You can't go!" Claudia screamed, "You can't just leave me here! I'm not supposed to be alive, you've got to kill me!"
"Doctor Graham," he pointed out, "It would be a mercy to end your life now. And since you have cost me the life of my beloved, I feel no compassion for you."
"You killed her!" she sobbed, the words causing the realisation to sink in through the shock.
"You are just as guilty, if not more," he told her. "She came here to save you. It was you she stayed for when any sane individual would have ran. And you wouldn't even honour her last request. She wished to spare you viewing the inevitable, and so self centred were your desires, you couldn't even do that."
There was nothing she could say in reply, save for whisper, "But you should have killed me."
"Perhaps at a later date," he offered. "You need time to think about what you have done. And if I am not mistaken, there are some government officials who will be more than happy to provide that time."
"What do you mean…?" she began, looking round as the door began to open.
When she looked back, he was gone.
