Part Two: The Bitch in the Red Dress

A turning of the tables.

A start of an obsession.

A double edged sword the kills as it cleaves.

Rojo Muerte, Spain - 2004

He staggered into the underground room and nearly went to his knees. Ada hurried after him, concerned he'd pushed himself too far. The loss of the pilot had broken something in him, she was sure of that. He was losing to the thing inside of him, badly.

She wasn't sure how much time he had, but that goddamn girl he was trying to save was costing him his life. She wasn't sure how to get rid of the girl without fucking up all the plans she had in place, but she'd like to. His heroism would be the death of him.

He stammered out a response when she asked him if he was alright. Her hand touched his arm above the elbow pad he wore. He trembled and covered her hand with his. A rare moment of weakness. It made her more worried than anything.

And then? He just...stopped. He rose to his full height and stopped shaking. Impressed with his resolve, she cautioned, "We need to get that thing out of you."

He turned toward her. There was something on his face that should have alarmed her, but she was too busy watching his eyes skim over her face. She had another moment of stupid that seemed to crop up around him.

She didn't think he'd hurt her. In fact, he looked like he might kiss her instead. Her head tilted back for it, curious how it would feel with that fever on him, and his hands grabbed her throat so hard it made her head burst with alarms.

The pretty blue of his eyes went blood shot and red, his hands squeezed hard and relentless, and he lifted her right off the ground by two inches as he tried to choke her to death. The panic hit the survival, her hand grabbed for the thin bladed knife at her thigh, her vision went red and white and she jabbed him hard in the left outer thigh. He grunted and her knee came up to hit him square in the balls.

That worked like a charm.

He dropped her and grabbed for his junk, tumbling to one knee. Ada had a moment of inner reflection as she realized she hadn't stabbed him in the goddamn heart. Why?

She needed him alive. It was that simple...wasn't it?

As he rolled to his feet, she backed away, afraid of him for the first time since she'd met him. A curious feeling. He wasn't just Leon now, he was Leon...and a parasite that wanted blood. He was the most capable creature on two legs, cursed with a monster that wanted death.

A dangerous, dangerous, dangerous man.

As he lifted a hand to her, she told him, "Stop chasing that girl and get that thing out of you. Every second you wait, it's hatching more inside of you. The next time, I won't just knee you in the balls...I'll put this knife in your throat."

Leon shook his head, stumbling, "I can't...I can't. I won't leave her to die."

"...fool. I can't help you anymore. You'll get us both killed. I won't sit around and wait for you to turn."

She left him in the room. She heard him call after her. She didn't look back.

But she didn't know why she didn't just end him now, before he could turn into the thing they were fighting. It was the first time she was afraid that he might not make it out alive.

And the first time she realized it mattered to her if he didn't.

It nearly cost her her life protecting him, but he made it. When the clock ticked to zero, he even gave up the sample like it was nothing. They both realized he could have fought her for it. They both knew he might have won.

They both knew he'd never hurt her.

It was a painful truth between them - she couldn't kill him and he couldn't hurt her. Stalemate. Checkmate. Damnit.

So he offered it to her in a way that made her almost want to let him keep it. Softly, she wondered, "...why?"

And he answered, "I saved the girl...make sure that wasn't in vain."

He trusted her. Somehow, after all of it, he trusted her to do the right thing. He was such a fucking boy scout under that hardening shell. Damn him - she didn't want to respect him.

Annoyed, Ada considered what it would cost to pull the plug on him. If she cut him loose, he'd be dead in a week with how he operated. Smart didn't make him savvy. He'd do the right thing and get himself a bullet between the eyes.

If she backed away to spare herself, she'd have wasted all the time she'd spent cultivating him. She couldn't let a little burst of conscious regarding his life sway her about her purpose here. Whatever she felt about him, he was a means to an end, and when the time came - she'd use him like any other weapon.

As she leaned on the wall of her safe house over looking Madrid, she let the cool air swirl around her belly. The bra she wore was simple and red. It showed the scars of her survival in Raccoon above it. He'd saved her goddamn life there as well. They both knew it. She'd fallen to her death with a bullet in her shoulder, true, but the wound of her leg would have been the death of her without him.

She had to keep the reins on this game or she'd find herself the horse instead of the rider. She didn't do well on the bottom.

There was a click of her lock releasing on her door. Her gun was on him as he stepped inside -unarmed, unconcerned, undeterred. He looked tired, bruised, and still had flecks of dried blood over his face and neck. The shirt he wore was grimey with sweat and filth. The vest was gone, lost likely to the last shock rod he'd had shoved against it on that island.

As he closed the door behind him, Ada instructed, "Go back the way you came, Leon, or I'll finish what Saddler started."

He shook his head as he turned to face her. "No, you won't."

Damn him.

She laughed, angry that he was right, angry that he knew he was right. "The sample is gone. You're wasting your time here."

"...I didn't come for the fucking sample."

He looked so mad. No, not mad...not exactly. What? She'd betrayed him on that island, but not really. He'd expected her to. He knew she would. He also knew he'd get that sample back. He'd stuck a tracker on it. He knew where it was. He had a team in place to intercept it. It was in transition from one place to another. It was on a chopper over the Baltic. Knowing the "where" was almost as important as getting the damn thing back.

Curious, she wondered, "How'd you find me?"

He didn't answer. He'd reached striking distance. It was time to shoot him or get rid of the gun. She couldn't bring herself to lower it, but she couldn't bring herself to fire it either. It was useless.

The barrel brushed his chest. His hand snaked out to grip the back of her neck, and she realized what he was there for. Her eyes flared. Her lips curled. She laughed, soft and taunting, "...you find me to fuck me?"

She let the gun drop as he drug her in. She let him do that too. She liked it. She liked that he was hooked enough on her to stalk her. She liked it a great deal.

She had him. He was hers. She'd pushed him just far enough to make him track her. A victory, on the eve of her feeling like maybe, just maybe, she'd pushed them both too far. No. She'd stuck her claws in him and infected him.

She was the parasite in him after all.

His mouth brushed over hers. His lips tasted coppery. She murmured, against his mouth, "...you stink."

And he thrust his tongue into her.

Oh, it was a rough kiss. It left her breathless. It was possessive and angry. It raped when it might have worshiped. His other hand curled around her throat. It was the second time that night he'd tried to choke her.

It was the first time he did it with his tongue instead of his hands.

Her back hit the dresser with a clatter as he forced her backward. She had no choice but to let him as her butt hit the surface and slid across it. She opened her thighs to let him in. He tilted her face back to kiss her so hard it made her jaw ache.

Ada's hands grabbed for his face to hold on. The hand around the back of her neck went down and right into her panties. She made a grab for it, gasping, "...wait-"

And he plunged two fingers into her. She bowed. She gasped. She scrambled her hands into his dirty shirt as he fingered her fast and hard. He was so crude, dirty, he grunted against her mouth, "...I'm tired of waiting."

Her head swirled. Part want, part deviousness...if she let him have her, really have her, would it bind him to her forever? Would it make him her slave? Or would it create an emotional link that was best avoided?

The want of her kept him chasing. The need of it kept him running. He was pushing faster, harder, further...to spite her or fuck her or figure her out. If she gave him all of her, let him use her and cum in her and claim her, he'd stop. He'd lose interest. It was what men did.

She needed him desperate, not sated. She gripped gripped his wrist to pull his hand free and his thumb found her swollen clit. Ada panicked, humped toward the relentless glide of his thumb in spite of herself, and protested, gasping, "-damnit-don't."

Don't? What? It didn't matter. He flattened one hand on her collarbone to hold her against the mirror and finished her off. She grabbed his wrist to thrust his fingers into her harder, made him laugh, and came humping against his hand. The orgasm had teeth. It ripped her apart as she shouted into his plunging mouth.

That was fine. It was ok. Her body needed the release. On the heels of what had happened, it felt good to give up that much.

His fingering hand left her quivering body to grip her panties and what? Rip them off her?

She put a foot into his belly and pushed him away, shaking. "...no."

He actually made a grab for her again and she gripped the knife on his thigh, jerked it free, and put the point against his wounded throat. He froze, nostrils flared like a bull, as she told him, "I said no. Don't make me say it again, Leon. I'm not a woman you force. Back off."

"...no? You just soaked my hand."

"Biological response. Happens when you stimulate the clitoris. You took anatomy, right?"

His jaw flexed. Angry. He was so angry. Why? That she resisted him? Did he think she'd cum, roll over, and let him fuck her like a dog? Her thighs were twitching, sure, but she could still kill him in the aftermath of her powerful release.

There wasn't a man alive good enough to fuck her into submission.

He stepped into the knife point and it drew blood in a smooth red line. She tilted her head like a curious dog, "Worth dying for? Just to fuck me? I'm not that good, Mr. Kennedy, and neither are you."

"We both know exactly how good you are. What's the problem, Ada? Can't enjoy it if you're not on top?"

He pressed against the blade and made her nostrils flare like a hunter scenting that blood. He wasn't wrong. She was the dominant bed partner. It's just the way she worked. She could, and had, given over to a man in her time to let him mount her, but those days were long gone. She didn't lay placidly beneath a thrusting dick and wait for an orgasm.

And she didn't give over just because a man put his hand in her pants.

Softly, she warned, "You're playing dangerously close to your own death here, Leon. I said back off. I won't say it again."

The knife spilled red blood down to pool in the hollow of his throat. It was a good moment. It was a hard truth. She'd created her own monster here in a way. She'd played with him enough that he was, almost, to the breaking point. He was almost ready to fight her to claim her.

Oh, she liked that. She liked it. He'd hurt himself to have her. But he surprised her and returned, "We both know if I wanted to, I could take you. Whatever game you're playing, Ada, I can play too. Maybe from now on it'll be you looking over your shoulder for me. Maybe the next time you want to jerk me around and use me, I'll give you the fucking you keep begging for."

Her eyes flared wide with amusement, "Do I? Am I begging you now? I said no."

He laughed too, dark, angry, and his hand went right between her legs to rub her over her wet panties. She didn't stab him, but she didn't pull the knife away either as he remarked, "Yeah...you always get wet when you don't want it?"

She'd liked the baby version of him. Sweet, soft, determined and noble. She was almost entranced with the grown one. He was so many shades of something she couldn't peg. A warrior, a wounded soul, a desperate dog on the leash of a powerful master. She wanted to see how far he'd go before he burned out and faded away.

Whose leash was he on? Simmons? Or hers?

So she told him, "You sound like a rapist. It's a huge turn off. I don't have any interest in being your cum dump because you nearly got yourself killed being a fucking idiot. You can touch me again when you stop being such a goddamn hero. Until then? Get your fucking hand off me."

His teeth flashed and he taunted, "You wave a red flag in the face of the bull, Ada, eventually he runs you down."

Her mouth curved up into a sly smile, "You can run me down when earn it, Leon. Right now? You're not even close."

They stared each other down until he finally jerked his hand off her and stepped away. She tossed his knife onto the floor and watched it spin. She didn't even move from the dresser, she stayed there - legs splayed, damp red panties on full display- and watched him pace like a caged tiger.

The anger on him was palpable. He gnashed his teeth and spat, "Always your way, Ada...you bitch."

He turned toward the door, stalking toward it. She called after him, "My way is the only way, Leon. When you understand that, you'll stop fighting me so hard...don't forget your knife."

He tossed an angry look over his shoulder, "Keep it. Consider it a consolation prize."

Ada considered him as he jerked open the door, "Did you show up here just to fuck me?"

He laughed, gathering himself by the door, "No. I showed up here to let you know I can play games too. The next time we meet, Ada, you better hope you know what the rules are."

"...you think you're winning?" She sounded so amused.

He shrugged and returned, "You so sure you won't lose?"

Wolfishly grinning, she taunted, "...and yet who showed up here like a desperate stalker in the middle of the night? Ask yourself whose game this is, Leon, and how much longer you think you can play it."

"...fuck you, Ada. Fuck you."

"...I'll let you know when you can. Until then...see ya, handsome."

With a curse, he snapped the door shut behind him.

Shit. He was the most dangerous game she'd ever played. However it ended, it was going to burn them both alive to play it. The thing about it? She was aroused. Fucking with him, fighting against him, drawing his blood and watching him resist the urge to take her against her will...it turned her own. Part of that was power, part of it was years of being at the bottom of a profession where she was anyone's meat that wanted her and rising to the top to be the best.

She wasn't going to give herself to any man who touch her anymore. Those days were done. But for a moment, a single moment, she'd been tempted to lay back on that dresser and let him.

A dangerous, dangerous, delicious game. How did it end?

She licked her lips, laughed softly, and slid her hand into her panties to finish what he'd started.

Dorchestor, Idaho- 2005

He could watch her tits bouncing in the window beside the couch. Face down, ass up, she moaned and thrust back on him while the television tossed light and shadows around them. His fingers curled into her dark hair to pull her head back. He put his teeth to her neck to suck.

She screamed and took it, pistoning her body like a race horse, as he fucked her so hard it knocked his teeth together.

She had big, lush, centerfold tits. His hands gathered them up to hold them and let them overtake his hands while he hammered her. She mewled on all fours like a cat in heat as he destroyed her. His thumb hooked into her slick asshole with a pop of sound, she bucked like he'd pressed fire into her bowels, and his hand slapped her ass to spur her on. She loved it. She slapped so hard back on him she nearly threw him off.

She came wet and loud, making a sound like a gasping sob. He jerked out, tugged off the rubber, and decorated her back in pearly ropes of cum. Done. Porno flick fucking in the dark while Jay Leno made jokes on the t.v. beyond them.

Saturday night success after a mission.

Uselessly empty.

He wasn't sure what he was craving here, but it wasn't this girl. It wasn't this moment. It wasn't any of this.

As she lay on the carpet, panting, he rose to go into the kitchen pour himself a whiskey.

Sweaty, bored, he leaned on the counter sipping the spicy liquid as she rose from the floor to move toward him. She was all hips and tits, she had a body that would probably go to fat in a few years but was lush and wanton now. She belonged on a stripper pole, not in a SWAT uniform.

Angela curled against his front with her curly dark hair around her gorgeous face. "...shit. They weren't kidding."

Leon arched a brow at her and she added, "Best fucking guy in the business."

He laughed, smacked her ass, and headed out of the kitchen. She was good in bed. She was entertaining. Pretty, just uninhibited enough to fuck like a whore, and eager to please him. He'd had a moment in Hardvardville when he thought about trying to get Claire into bed...but the truth was he respected her too much to do it. Worse yet? He respected her brother too much as well. Claire would want love, and he wasn't in a place to give it to her.

Angela had come on like a woman with a mission. She'd lost her brother, grieved like any self hating narcissist, and used sex to hide her emotional baggage. He got it - hell it was his modus operandi - and he used her the way she used him, without mercy.

The heavy scent of marijuana had him standing in the bathroom watching her smoke a joint in his living room. He almost joined her, but the goddamn tests with the government were so sporadic. His luck, he'd toke up, get pissed, and lose his clearance.

Better to avoid that particular vice in favor of a long career.

He showered. She joined him. He fucked her against against the wall while she creamed.

She left while he slept. Which was fine. He had no plans to see her again anyway.

As he stood in the mirror studying his face, his finger slid against the small scar near the hollow of this throat, and he knew what he was missing. Damn her. She was in his head, she was on his skin - he couldn't get her off.

He just wasn't sure when he'd stopped wanting to.

Mincoxit Mining Camp -Adjacent -2005

He was on a chopper to San Trope the following morning anyway. The long week that followed was nothing but dead bodies and disease. He was eyeball deep in a clean up regarding a T-Virus spill in neighboring villages when the nightmares started.

He'd gone a week after Spain without them, but whatever was left in him from the plagas seemed determined to haunt him. So he awoke shouting and fighting against ghosts that had no name. It pissed him off. It made him angry and desolate and raw.

He took missions to break up his descent into whatever quagmire of neuroses was going to be his cross to bear after surviving. A school filled with children turned into zombies. A blood bath of bodies and backpacks and barrettes in once blonde hair turned pink with death.

He traded intel with a snitch of his regarding the backers for The Organization - Ada's outfit. The sneaky subdivision of the former dregs of Umbrella. The whispers regarding Wesker's attempt to rebirth the dismantled giant were wide spread.

He found himself on the wrong end of a raid on a potential hiding place in the Sudan. He lost most of the men they'd sent to assist him. It was a trap, an ugly one, he led them in and watched them fall. The virus in that compound was something he couldn't understand, hadn't seen, and didn't know how to fight.

It made you hallucinate, it left you confused and lost. His men turned on each other when they couldn't escape the affects. They murdered each other in cold blood. They panicked and killed what they saw as monsters and ghosts and things that made no sense.

The gas was blue. The air was cold suddenly as if winter had settled in the desert. He found himself staggering into the dark to hide in a corner while the world ran with blood and bullets around him.

Infected. He was infected. Not like the plagas, this was something that was merciless. It had him the moment it touched him. Everywhere he turned, he saw the enemy. He fought in the pit to save that girl. The one that was real? Wasn't real? What was real?

A man with a hook for a hand grabbed for his face. Leon swung his gun up and it was knocked from his hands. The hookman flashed in, the hookman flashed out, the hookman sank that hook into his sternum, impaled him, and lifted him off the ground while the blood pooled beneath his dangling feet.

It laughed in his face while he grunted and twitched like a gutted pig.

And he died smelling the coppery stench of his own blood.

Mincoxit Mining Camp -Adjacent -2005

She stood over him. She had that moment where she had to decide if he was worth saving. She had a moment to realize she'd save him until she had what she wanted and could finally let him go.

She'd stood over Jack Krauser while he tried to crawl and he'd spat, "...what is this?! For that pretty faced pansy you keep chasing?"

Ada had leaned down beside his bloody ear and confessed, "Yes. You tried to kill him once in Columbia and his goddamn chivalry got him tortured. I told you - I don't like people who play with my toys...and you almost broke him. I don't like to share, Jack, and I don't take kindly to cleaning up messes made by idiots. You were dead the first time you drew a drop of his blood."

Gagging, gurgling, Jack had laughed darkly, "...bitches...even the ones with balls are still pussies. You go ahead and get revenge for your piece of ass, princess, maybe next time you can climb that tower on all his pretty hair to save him."

Ada had pressed her stiletto into his flayed back while he cursed and grunted in pain. "It's not about feelings, Jack, it's about possession. Until I'm done with him, he's mine. And you don't get to touch what's mine without losing a hand. In this case...we'll start with an arm."

He was still screaming when she severed that arm he'd been so proud of. He was still screaming when she left him without his balls on that rooftop. He stopped screaming when the bomb went off.

She doubted Leon would appreciate the poetic justice of it, really. He was still a good man under the rapidly thickening layer of jaded loss that coated him. Torture wasn't in his wheelhouse. He didn't kill for sport or revenge. She didn't either, but Jack Krauser was a man who used his balls and his dick to make women nothing. She made sure it was his balls that went first and made sure he died a crying mess instead of a man.

It was personal, and she was usually so careful to avoid that. She usually made sure to not make her job personal, but she kept picturing the face of Leon on those security cameras while he'd recovered in Columbia. Torture tended to make monsters out of men, or mire them in misery until they were no longer functional.

Leon had recovered, but he'd never been the same. She admitted to herself that she'd punished Jack for taking that shine off him. She'd always enjoyed the purity of the light inside of Leon before he'd lost it in that jungle. The flicker of hope was still inside of him, she knew that, but it would never burn as bright again.

That kind of death was immeasurable. She wanted it punished to the fullest extent. She'd done it in a way he'd never know.

But he was hers now - for better or worse- to protect and propel into the place where she needed him. Until the day came that she could let him go, she had to keep him going. She had to keep him alive. She had to keep him fighting.

They asked her where to take him. Should they take him back to his people? Should they leave him at a hospital in Beijing?

For better or for worse, it was up to her to fix him. So she looked at the man in the mask and told him, "...no. Take him to Kyoto. Give him to a man named Itsuki. He'll know what to do with him."

Just like that - he was about to be welcomed into a part of her life that she'd never opened to anyone. She was praying the decision didn't come back to bite them both in the ass. Itsuki would care for him, she didn't need to follow.

But she settled her affairs with the mission she was on...and she arrived in Japan three days after him anyway.

It was time to see how far she'd go to make sure Leon Kennedy lived.