Before Jill could react, a tentacle burst through the floor, a spray of marble chips pelting her skin, and it wrapped around Chris's ankle, whipping him to the ground. He mashed his nose on the marble, blood gushing over his upper-lip, and then, scrabbling at the floor in an effort not to be pulled down, vanished through the hole like something sucked down a pipe.

It had happened in a span of seconds, and Jill found herself, alone and stunned, Alexia grinning like a knife an arm's length away.

"I'm not going to kill him yet," Alexia assured her, still smiling. "I have plans for you two." Slowly, like a vulture circling a carcass, Alexia paced around her, giggling, watching her with pale, evil eyes that gleamed with the sort of controlled insanity Jill had seen in the eyes of serial killers. "After I looked at your ID, I did some digging," Alexia continued, as if they were chatting about the weather. "Umbrella had an entire file on you and Mr. Redfield, as it turns out, Ms. Valentine. Two former S.T.A.R.S members will be excellent candidates for the preliminary phase of Veronica-Origin testing. You, especially. You have valuable antibodies, thanks to your inoculation against the T-Virus."

Jill watched Alexia in her periphery. Alexia stood several inches taller than her; she was, Jill guessed, at least six feet tall, or very close to six feet tall. "Yeah?" she said finally, doing her best to look and sound undaunted, even though Alexia scared the shit out of her, and she was worried about Chris.

"You've seen some shit," Alexia said, candidly. "The Spencer Estate. You were one of only five S.T.A.R.S members to escape." She paused, stopped walking. Up close, Alexia's face looked seamless and white, like a silicone mask stretched over an android skull. "Well," she continued, "I suppose only four now, yes? Brad Vickers died in Raccoon City. How did that feel, Jill? Being powerless to stop his death at the hands of Nemesis? I must admit, I'm surprised Nemesis was ever deployed; the project, in my humble opinion, had always been rather flawed."

"Fuck you," Jill replied, through her teeth.

Alexia ignored her. "How did Nemesis perform in combat, Jill?" she asked, amused. "Sate my curiosity. The files regarding the Nemesis Project are still under lock and key."

"If you don't step back now," Jill said, evenly, "I will pistol-whip your goddamn fucking skull in, bitch."

"Your dossier wasn't wrong. You've a violent, reckless streak. A by-product of the Spencer Mansion Incident." Alexia grinned with too-white, too-perfect teeth. "Losing all of your teammates must have been traumatizing," she said, and squeezed her shoulder, and Jill flinched, unconsciously, at her touch. "You were a tight-knit group," Alexia continued, the grin narrowing to a tight smirk. "Wesker sent regular reports to Umbrella about S.T.A.R.S. You became a headcase after the Spencer Incident, Jill. You saw psychiatrists, were put on medication. And then, after all of that, Irons suspended you from duty. Then Raccoon City happened."

Jill turned to Alexia, meeting her eyes, staring into the depths of them and seeing nothing there but ice. "Don't assume you know shit about me, you robot-looking cunt," she said, her tone hard. "I know things about Grayson you don't, and probably never will." She, of course, meant Annette; but Jill wasn't sure if she wanted to bring Annette up. As badly as Grayson had hurt her, Jill didn't want Alexia to harm him in retaliation. Jill already had too much blood on her hands—she still blamed herself for Brad's death, for Richard's and Forest's and Joseph's deaths, for not doing more to combat Umbrella when she'd had more time—and part of her, for whatever reason, still cared about Grayson, even after all of the shit he'd put her through.

For once, Alexia actually looked taken aback. "There isn't anything you know about Grayson that I don't already know," she said icily, narrowing her eyes. "We've known each other since we were both infants. You only knew him for, what, a few years?"

"You don't give a shit about him," Jill said, watching her, watching her hands—a cop habit. "He's just a toy to you. Something to play with. I know your kind, Ashford. You're a spoiled bitch who never grew up, and never will."

Alexia got in her face, the tips of their noses practically touching, and her eyes burned into Jill's like lasers. "Don't," she warned, her voice smoldering with anger, "assume you know shit about me, Valentine. I love him. I've loved him since I was a girl." There was conviction in her words, and that surprised Jill. But there was something else in Alexia's words that scared her: she spoke of Grayson in the same way people spoke of their prized possessions. "You will not sit here and tell me otherwise. You'd lost before you'd convinced yourself there was ever a competition." She leaned closer, her voice a harsh whisper. "You know what you were to Grayson?" Alexia asked, her eyes flashing, and she bared her teeth like a dog. "A wet hole, Valentine. Nothing more."

Jill didn't let it show that Alexia's words got under her skin. She smirked instead, thinking of Annette Birkin. "Yeah?" she said, and looked at Alexia. "You can have Grayson, Ashford. Don't worry. He'll cheat on you too, eventually."

Alexia stared as if she expected some kind of elaboration.

"Where's Chris?"

Then it was Alexia's turn to smirk, as if something had just dawned on her. "Redfield's your type?" she asked, raising a pale, manicured eyebrow. "I don't blame you. He's quite handsome. But he's not my Grayson. Perhaps, however, I'll experiment on Chris first. I could even use your antibodies to slow the degenerative effects of the Veronica-Origin virus."

Something in Jill snapped, and she screamed in rage, shoving Alexia against the newel and striking her across the face with the grip of her gun. Blood dripped from a gash across Alexia's cheek, then fizzed and flared into a fire, forcing Jill to spring back.

"So Chris is your Achilles' heel," Alexia said, wiping the blood from her face. "Good to know." She flung the blood at Jill, but she managed to maneuver out of the way just as it ignited with the speed of a matchstick to gasoline. Then something wrapped around her leg, nearly ripped it from her pelvis, and it hurled her to the floor, dragged her across the marble like a ragdoll.

Jill twisted, fired three times at the tentacle, and it released her with a groan of pain, retreating through the hole in the floor. She scrabbled to her feet, her leg aching where it joined her hip, and hobbled past Alexia, half limping, half sprinting up the staircase in an awkward lope-leap. She turned, fired two shots at Alexia.

Alexia climbed the steps, unhurried, sponging up the bullets, blooms of blood flowering across her chest until the entire front of her dress was sticky and glistening with blood. "How many times are you going to shoot me before you realize it's pointless, Ms. Valentine?" she asked. "They say the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again with no change to the outcome. And I'm the madwoman?" She laughed, and her laugh chilled Jill's blood, turned it to frazil ice in her veins. "I'm not Nemesis or the T-001. I'm a problem that gunfire can't solve, Ms. Valentine. Unfortunately for you."

"There's a seventeen-year-old who's dying because of you," Jill said, ducking behind a glass showcase displaying a row of dolls. Her heart pounded against her rib-cage with hummingbird speed. "You save him and let Chris go," she continued, swallowing the tightness in her throat, "then you can have me, Ashford."

"Proposing a trade?" Her voice was close, maybe a few feet away.

"Yeah," Jill said, wiping the sweat from her forehead. "Let Chris go free, cure Steve, and you can do whatever you want with me. I'll be your guinea pig."

No answer. Jill turned to lean out from her hiding place, came face to face with Alexia. "You may have yourself a deal," she said.

Before Jill could say anything, a tentacle curled around her ankle, yanked her over the balustrade, and then down into darkness.

Grayson was sitting in an overstuffed Chesterfield, in the middle of Chess for the Layman, when the door to the drawing room creaked open. He put down the book, took out his gun and laid it on his lap, looping his finger through the trigger.

Not Wesker. Alexia entered the room, the front of her dress soaked with so much blood that it no longer looked purple, but black. "Jesus fucking Christ," he said, and put his gun away, bolting from the couch and bounding over to her.

"I'm fine," she said. "Bullets don't work on me. They'd need a bloody anti-BOW weapon."

"Like hell you're okay," he said, stripping off her dress piece by piece, until she stood there naked, the front of her torso swiss-cheesed with bloody holes. Some had exit-wounds, some still had the bullets rattling around inside her. "Jesus, Lex," he exclaimed, unable to find any words, feeling the color drain from his face.

Grayson knew Alexia wasn't exactly human anymore, but seeing this really sharpened the resolution of that reality with such clarity that Grayson couldn't help but wonder if he was dreaming, that he was still on Rockfort or even in Raccoon City, sleeping off another bender. It was one of those moments where reality became so weird that it was questionable in its realness—like how he'd felt watching Crackhead Joe down at the Black Room preaching about the End Times with such conviction that Grayson had often found himself semi-convinced Joe was actually telling the truth.

"This," he said, aloud, "is a Crackhead Joe moment."

Alexia looked at him, confused. "What?"

"This drug addict used to come to the bar I worked at in Raccoon City. He'd preach these weird sermons, then piss on the bar."

"How does a drug addict relate in any way to this, Grayson?"

"Don't worry about it," he replied, shaking his head. "Let's get you cleaned up. You okay? It hurt?"

"Of course it bloody hurts," Alexia said, and sat down, wincing. "Just not enough to kill me."

"Your blood won't catch fire on me, right? Really don't wanna burn to death. Hear it's the worst way to go, next to drowning or dying in the cold."

"I'd never burn you, Grayson," she assured him, her lips grazing his in a light kiss. "Not on purpose," she added, smirking.

Grayson chuckled, then stood up and crossed the room, opening the cupboard. "Good thing dad kept first aid kits in every room," he remarked, pulling out the bulky white plastic box from behind a crumbling stack of magazines, and a box of spare light-bulbs. He sat down beside her on the Chesterfield, unlatched the box and flipped the lid open. The contents were old, but unopened and sterile, and he figured it didn't matter anyway; if Alexia could survive multiple shots to her center mass, where all her important organs were, he doubted some old isopropyl and gauze would do much to harm her.

"He always worried about us," she replied, turning her back to him. "You know," she continued, gathering her hair over her shoulder and looking at him in her periphery, "this is rather sweet of you, Grayson. Playing nurse. It's not necessary."

He rolled up the sleeves of his suit to his elbows, stared at the constellation of exit-wounds on her back, like blooms of crusting poppies, and said, "I disagree." Grayson unscrewed the bottle of isopropyl, doused his hands and rubbed the cold liquid into his skin, the medical tang of it stinging his nose. He peeled the plastic off a pair of disposable gloves and pulled them on. "This is pretty bad, Lex."

"It's unnecessary," she repeated. "I'll recover on my own."

"But probably slower, right?" Grayson peeled the sterile plastic off the medical forceps and cleaned them with the isopropyl.

Alexia sighed. "Lucky for you," she said, observing him over her shoulder, "I like being coddled on occasion."

"You like being coddled all of the damn time," he corrected. "Turn around, please."

Alexia turned around, her breasts splattered with sticky blood. "Gloves, Grayson? Seriously?" She giggled. "You don't need to be so cautious. The wounds won't become infected; the T-Veronica will kill the infection before it ever happens."

"Indulge me, please. You said you like being coddled," he reminded her, teasing the forceps into one of the wounds, feeling the flesh yield and shiver around it. "Anyway," he continued, "a good thing you don't get infections easily, because I'm not a trained doctor. The first aid course in the academy was pretty fucking basic, and I don't really know what I'm doing right now."

"Hard to believe you were a bloody copper," she said, grinning. "Do you happen to have a spare uniform anywhere? We could do some roleplay, once we're out of Antarctica and in our nice new home, and our nice big bedroom."

"Get serious, Lex," he said, focusing on his work. He felt the forceps grasp around something solid, and he extricated the shell with a squelch, dropping it into an ash-tray on the coffee-table. "Lucky these weren't hollow points. Anyway, might be pieces I can't reach if the bullet rattled around in you too much."

"You know that removing a bullet with forceps is generally a terrible idea, and can often lead to worse complications?" she said, giggling as if she found the fact that Grayson didn't know what he was doing genuinely funny. "But in a strange way, I find it adorable. You're so earnest, Grayson, and I love it when you pay attention to me."

"Only you would fucking say something like that," Grayson said conversationally, freeing a couple more shells from her flesh and dropping them into the ash-tray. "Normal people would've never let me attempt this in the first place."

"We're anything but normal, dear."

"Point," he agreed. "So what happened? Wesker?"

"If it had been Wesker, do you really think I'd be sitting here?"

"Good point. Jill?"

"How ever did you guess?"

"Saw her hit range-dummies in similar fashion. Did you kill her?"

"No," she said. "I have plans for her and Redfield. I'm keeping them somewhere secure, for the time being."

Grayson nodded.

"So," Alexia said, after a few moments of awkward silence had passed, "Crackhead Joe? What sort of life did you bloody lead while I was asleep, Grayson? Goodness."

"Black Room used to attract all sorts. Had this woman named Tanya would come in every Friday, hair permed like it was 1985. Always ordered an Alabama Slammer and talked about how she used to be a long-haul trucker until her back went and she had to go on disability. Anyway, long story short, one night she pissed off Crackhead Joe, who was a pretty frequent face at the Black Room, and he pissed on her jeans."

"Why was this man even allowed in the place?"

"He was kinda like our unofficial mascot, I guess. My boss Carl felt bad for him. Both of them were Vietnam guys, but Carl came out okay, whereas Crackhead Joe came out all sorts of fucked."

"I wish I'd gotten to spend time with you in Raccoon City," Alexia said, combing her fingers through the dark waves of his hair. "I missed quite a lot, it seemed."

"You didn't miss much," he lied, trying not to think about Annette, not now, and concentrating on his hands. "Only things that changed while you were gone was Raccoon City got worse. Drug problems were everywhere, property values were going down, and gang violence became a huge problem. Back when I was starting out in the RPD, I responded to a scene where a little girl was short in a turf-war between the Latin Kings and the Crips. She was dead before they could load her into the ambulance." Grayson paused, dropped another bullet into the ash-tray, then said, "Only people who had money were the guys working for Umbrella, and they basically lived in gated communities, away from the rest of the city. Not literally, but figuratively. Their own little bubble. In a way, the outbreak was poetic justice."

"Umbrella is my company," Alexia said. "And you're as much a part of it as any researcher, Grayson. Whether you want to admit it or not."

"I never said I wasn't," he pointed out, looking at her. "I'm no better than the researchers who were complicit in the creation of the T-Virus. I knew about Umbrella's shady side, but I kept my mouth shut and my head down, because I didn't want to rock the boat."

"You're blaming me for what happened in Raccoon City," she said flatly.

"Like you said," he said, "it's your company, Lex. You knew about the T-Virus and did nothing to expose the company to the public. You could have. Spencer trusted you."

She opened her mouth, closed it, knitting her eyebrows.

"But it wasn't just you," Grayson said, seeing, in his mind's eye, Annette, Alfred, William, his own father. "Other people were guilty, too. Me included. We all had a hand in what happened in Raccoon City. Maybe you can live with that, but I don't know if I can."

"Are you suicidal?" she asked seriously.

"I was, maybe sometimes still am. But no, that's not what I meant," Grayson said, and shook his head. He finished his work, peeled off the gloves. "Just that if something happens to me between now and later, it's karma coming back to bite me in the ass."

Alexia cupped his cheek; her palm felt like the bottom of a hot pan. "I won't let anything happen to you, Grayson," she said, gazing steadily and unblinkingly into his eyes, her thumb rubbing the space beneath his ear, where it joined the corner of his jaw. Her wounds, now that he'd removed the bullets, started to heal, the flesh and muscle slowly knitting together like some grotesque fabric. The wounds, where the bullets had gone through completely, had mended: smooth white flesh under a black crust of blood.

"You can't guarantee anything, Lex," he said.

She pressed her forehead to his, and her warm breath rolled over his skin. "This," she said, staring at him, "I will guarantee." Alexia slid her arms around him, pulling him into an embrace, and her skin felt feverish and hot all over. Her internal temperature must have been several degrees beyond what was considered fatal, Grayson decided; she was burning up, on fire. "We're going to get out of this place in one piece, once Wesker and the others have been dealt with. Then we're bloody holidaying in Italy, on the Amalfi Coast, and perhaps we'll shop around for a property to winter in when the Arklays are too cold."

He couldn't help but laugh. "You've really thought this all out," he said.

"That's what I do. I think, often too much," she said.

"But the Amalfi Coast?" he said, looking at her. "You'll burn alive in the sun, Lex. Like a vampire. You don't tan. You just boil."

"That's what sunscreen is for, my dear," she said, and kissed him, and her saliva burned his lips. "But," she continued, "we'll focus on the present for now."