Empty

A Beretta .9mm is a nice gun, if you insist on buying American. It can hold fourteen bullets, fifteen if you're animal enough to carry one in the chamber.

The thought makes me smile, just a little.

I can barely hold on to the aforementioned Beretta, because my hands are candy-coated with my own blood. If I can manage to live for a few more minutes, it will dry to a sticky gel-like substance, gluing my hand to the gun in a...

...a death grip.

I shake my head, and even that small movement causes the dim corridor around me to swim in streamers of color. I can't tell if the nausea is from a concussion or from what I'm about to do.

I feel bad.

I feel bad, and it shocks me, because...I never feel bad about anything.

But I feel bad now, and it's not just because I'm bleeding from about three separate wounds. Bleeding a lot. It's a toss-up as to whether or not I'm even going to make it to my destination.

I frown a little, and it's not from the pain. Now is a hell of a time to be growing a conscience. If I feel bad about this, then it's only logical that I'll start to feel bad about all the other things I've done. There are a few.

One of them is still riding in my pocket, in the form of a picture, a little worse for wear after sloshing about in the sewers. His name, it is...it was...John. It doesn't matter anymore, he's dead and doesn't care. He's just one of them now. That body, that I could own for an hour, in some stage of decomposition, the skin sloughing off the bone...

That's actually in my top five ways not to go out. Being eaten alive is first, I think.

If I have any luck left, I'll bleed to death long before any of those things happens. But I'm not naive. I know I'm not getting out of here alive. The question isn't whether or not I'm going to die tonight, just how and when exactly it's going to be. I think I knew it when I came here, when I told him all I'd do was slow him down. Part of me must have seen the great black axe slowly rising into the air above my head.

It's justice, anyway.

I'm close now, close enough to hear the crackle of his radio as it drifts between channels. That girl. He's kept up contact with that girl. It's almost funny to hear them talk over the radios--they sound like a couple of vigilantes. They're both...

I want to think "idiots", but all I can come up with is "the same".

That's it. They're the same, both honest, both good. It's going to get them both killed. I consider telling him that, but I probably won't get the chance.

I've run out of time, but I'm not ready to go through with it yet. I hate myself for doing this.

He's a nice guy, and I used him, like I used all the others. His face ought to be fading from my mind now, like the others. Why should this time be any different?

Because he helped me. Because he cared. And not because he loved me and not because he wanted to sleep with me and not because he was getting paid for it, but simply because he is a good man.

A phrase whispers somewhere in my mind. Made in Heaven...

I smirk. Well, we all know where the bad girls go.

It's time. I can't delay the inevitable any longer. I just want to tell myself one more time that I'm not a monster--that I do care about him. Even though I'm doing this to him.

I almost chuckle at the thought. Sometimes it isn't a virus that makes you a monster. Sometimes it's just what you will and will not do.

I've seen monsters. Not the same ones he sees, but monsters just the same. Evil wears many faces, none so dangerous as the face of righteousness. He's about to learn that the hard way as I raise my gun.

I'm not scared. Not angry. When I came here, I was this...

Now...I'm...

...I'm empty.

A Beretta .9mm is a good gun, if you insist on buying American. It can hold fourteen bullets, fifteen if you're animal enough to carry one in the chamber.

I aim mine right between his crystal blue eyes. There are no bullets in the magazine.

Author's Note:

I am a militant Claire/Leon fan (and there is a story behind that. *^_^*) as can be proven by my previous RE fics (mmm...Leon) but I decided Ada was cool enough to have her own fic, even if we don't get along. She told me this story at work, in the last hour of my shift. She offered me a cigarette; I declined (I don't smoke), I was wearing knee boots, she was in spike heels, and we got this down in that last hour.

Please review! By the way, Cloudy, if you see this, thanks SO much for being my prereader as always, and thanks for introducing me to the workings of the Beretta. Spiders beware! *giggle*