Grayson poked his head into Sherry's room, found the girls lying belly-down on the floor, Alexia's records spread out around them. Christina Aguilera danced on the TV to something about genies in bottles, but Sherry and Eva weren't paying attention to her. Veronica was in the room, too, cooing and crawling and drooling all over Alexia's things. The girls had tied her hair into a ponytail that sat atop her head like a tiny plume, and one of her socks was missing.
"Just wanted to say good night," he said to Sherry. "Mom says she misses you, and to put her records back when you're done listening to them." He looked at Veronica, and asked, "And why is she here? I put her to bed."
"She started crying, so I thought I'd let Ronnie hang out with us for a while," Sherry said, and grinned. She scooped the baby up, who began to kick and squirm in protest. "Ronnie, stop it," she chided, trying to keep the baby from tumbling out of her hands. "You have to go back to your room. Also, I have no idea where her sock went. She took it off and threw it somewhere."
"Sounds like my girl," Grayson said, taking the baby from Sherry, who kicked and wriggled in his hands like a pissed off cat. After a small struggle, he managed to pacify Veronica with her binky, and she snuggled into the crook of his arm, her pale eyes roaming the room in curiosity. Growing bored of the room, Veronica shifted her attention to her bare foot, wiggling her toes and giggling.
"Scott went to check on her, and she started crying. Maybe he woke her up?"
Grayson frowned. "Was he acting strange?"
"Kinda like he was out of it," Sherry said, and shrugged. "He's probably tired. What happened to his head anyway?"
Eva raised her head, looking at them. "He probably dinged it," she said, helpfully. "He's old. Old people fall and hurt themselves all the time. My grandma's like that."
Grayson looked at Eva, and something in the girl's gaze made him uncomfortable, reminded him of serial killers. Her eyes looked flat and glassy like a doll's. "Kinda callous to say," he said, cradling Veronica protectively. "That's your grandma."
Eva shrugged. "I was just saying," she said, and went back to studying the track-list on the back of a Cure album. "Hey, Sherry, this one looks pretty cool."
Stooping, Grayson whispered to Sherry, "If you need me, call me."
Sherry raised her eyebrow. "I'll be okay," she said, puzzled. "I'm just gonna be here in my room. Unless you wanna drive me and Eva to Blockbuster?" She flashed a winning smile.
"Not tonight," he said, and patted Sherry on the head. "Gotta keep an eye on dad."
She sighed, but nodded in understanding. "Okay, fine."
"Maybe tomorrow night."
"Fine," Sherry said. Then, "Can we rent a rated R movie?"
"No," Grayson said, and shut the door.
"Mom would let me!" he heard Sherry say, on the other side of the door.
"Because your mom treats ratings in the same way she treats the speed limit—as a suggestion. I, however, do not." His status as a cool dad officially revoked, Grayson carried Veronica, who was already beginning to doze off, back to her room. As soon as he laid her down in the crib, Veronica went out like a light. Grayson kissed the baby's forehead, pulling the knit white blanket over her and powering up her mobile: fluffy sheep and smiling clouds rotating to the faint tinkle of what might have been Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star. Then he slipped out of the room, gently closing the door behind him, and headed downstairs.
He'd call Alexia, Grayson decided, and see that she'd made it back to her hotel okay. The number was posted on the refrigerator, and he was halfway through dialing it when his dad entered the kitchen, wrapped in the folds of a dark cotton robe. He looked put upon and tired, and his head was bandaged.
"Be careful when you sleep tonight, kiddo," his dad said. When Grayson pressed him for some helpful elaboration ("Should I be watching for Freddy Krueger in my dreams, or something?" he asked, trying to lighten the mood. "Am I sleepwalk-murdering?"), his father said nothing, grabbing the milk from the fridge and pouring himself a glass.
"You're worrying me, dad."
"Good," his dad said, and sipped his milk. "Means you're not stupid." He licked the froth from his upper-lip. "But of course you're not stupid. You're her son."
"Did you mean 'your son'?" Grayson asked.
His father shrugged, then left the room with his milk, and a small plate of florentines he'd made that morning. Grayson hung the phone up and watched his father go, and when he had, he took it off the hook and dialed the hotel number again. It rang three times; Alexia picked up on the fourth.
"Grayson, what is it?" she asked, after he'd said his hellos. "I'm absolutely knackered, and was about to bloody turn in for the night."
"I love you, too. Dad's acting weird again," he told her.
"Is he banging his head on the bloody walls?"
"No, but he told me to be careful when I slept tonight."
Silence. Then Alexia asked, "Are you in some sort of danger?"
"I don't know." Grayson glanced over his shoulder at the door to the kitchen, then slipped out the back-door. The garden was walled in, and the sounds of the city drifted in on a cool breeze. He sat down on a stone bench outside his father's greenhouse which, presently, was brimming with vegetables: tomatoes, beans, peppers, lettuce. "Okay, I'm outside now," he told her. "Don't feel like I gotta gun at my back. I dunno, Lex. I've gotta bad feeling."
"You sure it isn't just indigestion?" she suggested, a halfhearted joke.
"I'm serious, Lex."
"All right, my apologies," Alexia said, a dismissive shrug in her tone. Grayson would have been offended if he hadn't already expected that sort of nonchalance from Alexia; it was just who she was: a cat embodied in a human. "I'm only going to be gone for one more day," she assured him, a clumsy attempt to smooth things over. "I'd leave tonight, but my hands are tied by this Capitol business."
"How's that going?"
"Good, I think?"
"You don't sound so sure," he pointed out.
"I'm not," she admitted, grudgingly.
"Makes you say that?"
"Simmons, mostly," she replied.
"He giving you problems, Lex?"
"Not yet," she said, and paused. "But I don't think he'll let me leave without having a word or two."
"You gonna be okay?"
"I'm always okay, darling," Alexia assured him, confident as always. "Simmons is just a little snag I need to unstick myself from, and I will."
"Just don't get too cocky," he said. "William got cocky. Look what happened to him."
She made a disgusted noise, and said, "Don't compare me to Birkin, please."
"I'm just saying, Lex. Umbrella's as dangerous as the feds."
"As endearing as your concern is, Grayson, I assure you I will come out of this smelling like a rose."
"You sound sure about that," he said.
"Of course I am," she replied. "Life is just a game of chess, my dear. Now, I really must sleep. Kisses, darling. I love you. If something happens, call me immediately."
That night, something did happen. He'd been sleeping, and woke to someone in his room. At first, Grayson thought it was Sherry, but then he remembered the things his father had said, and realized, his heart catching on his ribs, that a woman was in the room with him. Blonde, but not Alexia, and she wore a black suit. She was trying to ease Alfred's ring off his finger, but when she saw his eyes had opened, she nearly ripped it off at the joint, and would have succeeded if Grayson hadn't kicked her away, into the wall.
"I was hoping it would not come to this," the woman said, her eyes flashing. She pocketed the ring.
Before Grayson could get to his feet, something hot and wet slid through him, and when he looked down, he saw her arm buried in his chest, up to the elbow. He looked up at the woman, now nose-to-nose with him, her hand feeling around his insides. It was a vastly uncomfortable sensation: fingers questing through his guts, groping arteries and organs as if they were grocery-store fruits she was testing for ripeness.
Grayson shoved the woman away before her hand could close around his heart, stumbling back against the window, blood pouring unbidden from the fist-sized wound between his pectorals. His flesh started to knit back together, and the woman laughed.
"So it seems Origin was a success after all," she remarked. "It seems I was right to choose Scott." Then she shoved him through the window.
The glass shattered, and Grayson tumbled down through the air, watching the upstairs window pulling farther and farther away from him. Then a sudden impact, something sharp sliding into his back and nicking his spine: he'd landed on the wrought-iron fence, the paling jutting out from his belly like a miniature obelisk. The woman's pale face peered at him from the window, and then it retreated into the darkness of his room, and was gone.
Wesker found him. Grayson supposed he'd blacked out, because he didn't remember getting off the fence and climbing into Wesker's car. He was still wearing blood-stained boxers, and though the wound had healed, the blood had caked on his skin, unpleasant and sticky. Wesker looked, as always, completely unfazed by it all.
"What happened? Where's Sherry and Veronica? Dad?"
"So many questions," Wesker said, turning down Fortunate Son on his radio. "Safe," he said. "As for Scott, I don't know where he is. He was gone when I found you."
"What have you done with Sherry and Veronica?"
"They're at my apartment. You're welcome."
Grayson wasn't sure that gave him much relief, but it was something. At least they weren't dead, and that was ultimately all that mattered. "And you came back for me?"
"Yes," Wesker said. "Wouldn't do to have you wind up in a hospital, Grayson." He looked at him, the dashboard lights flowing across his sunglasses, and Grayson shuddered, uncomfortably reminded of himself. "They don't have a cure for your condition," Wesker said, evenly. "They would only have questions. Questions the feds would love to find answers to."
"So you just left me on the fence," he said.
"It was either that, or let Miranda take Sherry and Veronica. You could handle a little impalement, Grayson. Don't be stupid."
"That was Miranda," he said, somehow already knowing that.
"Yes."
Grayson nodded, watching others cars pass them, wondering if they could see him in the passenger seat: a shirtless man covered in blood. He hoped not; Wesker's windows were tinted. "Thanks," he said, finally. "For getting the kids."
"Of course," Wesker said.
Silence hung between them, and then Grayson asked, "How did you know to come to the house?"
"Alexia called me. She was worried about you. Said your last conversation left her uneasy."
"Good old Lex," Grayson said, smiling. Then, "Do you have any idea what happened to my dad, Wesker?"
"I'm afraid not. Likely went with Miranda," Wesker said, and shrugged. "She broke into Alexia's laboratory, the one behind the Veronica portrait—"
"Alexia has a secret lab at the house?"
"You didn't know?" Wesker chuckled, then said, "Yes, she was conducting research for The Connections in it. Thankfully, Alexia moved her research to NEST 3. Miranda left empty-handed."
"Miranda was Eva, wasn't she?"
"A peculiarity of her particular flavor of mutation," Wesker said. "Yes, she can change her appearance. Shape-shift. The mutamycete makes it possible."
"Mutamycete?"
"A type of fungus," he said.
"Great," Grayson said, and sighed, sagging against the cool leather upholstery. "Now we got super-fungi, in addition to super-viruses."
Wesker just smiled, and turned the radio back up. Hotel California played. Grayson closed his eyes and let the music wash over him.
Wesker's apartment building was one of those brand-new luxury high-rises they'd built in Alder Heights. As they walked into the lobby, all marble and glass and infinitely pristine, Grayson felt like a male escort who'd just committed a murder: half-naked, covered in the blood of his John or Jane. Thankfully, nobody was around to see him, and they made it to the elevator without incident.
Wesker punched UP on the button panel, and the lift lurched and ascended. The air, in the elevator, was chilly, and Grayson shivered. "I can't let the girls see me like this," he said, rubbing warmth into his arms. The tile was cold, bit the soles of his bare feet.
The metallic tang of Wesker's cologne filled the cramped lift, and it cut into his nostrils.
The elevator came to a smooth stop, and the two of them stepped into a hallway. Wesker's apartment was at the end of the corridor. Inside, it was like something out of a modern art gallery, all Scandinavian angles and glass and leather, and it smelled like a showroom, as if Wesker didn't actually live there, or ever had. It had a beautiful panoramic view of the Arklay City skyline, and Grayson found himself staring through the glass, mesmerized by the lights.
Wesker showed him to the bathroom. Grayson cleaned himself in the huge shower, watching the blood puddle around his feet and vanish down the drain. Wesker brought him a clean button-up shirt and jeans, which Grayson realized were his, and he dressed and padded out into the living-room. Sherry was playing with Veronica on the couch, and the baby cooed and giggled in her lap. When she saw him, Sherry's face lit up, and she scooped up Veronica and ran over.
"You're okay!" Sherry exclaimed. "Mr. Wesker said you were hurt, but he wouldn't tell me how badly."
Veronica squealed delightedly when she saw him, and Grayson took the baby and hugged her, and then he hugged Sherry.
"You won't be able to return to your house," Wesker said. He was sitting in a leather armchair, sipping scotch. A newscast, the volume turned low, played on the TV, showing police and a PABs unit, probably Jill's, outside of his home.
"I know," Grayson said.
"I'm sorry about everything, Grayson," Sherry said. "I didn't know Eva—"
"You have nothing to apologize for, Sherry," he said. "You couldn't have known. Nobody but a fucking cryptid-hunter could expect that kinda shit. Nobody."
"But now we can't go home because of me," Sherry said. "Because I told Eva where we lived. I let her in the house."
"It's not your fault," Grayson said.
"Alexia's going to be really mad at me," Sherry said.
"Let me worry about Alexia."
"I don't want her to send me away, Grayson."
"She won't, don't worry."