Title: Final Illuminations

Author: Malenkaya

Rating: R for violence and swearing

Summary: RE movie fanfiction. In this sequel to "Fading Away" and "Into the Light", Alice, Michael, Rain and J.D continue in their efforts to defeat Umbrella, finding along the way new allies, new enemies—and new hope for Matthew Addison.

Disclaimer: I'm feeling daring, so I'm not going to post one. So ha ha. If, strangely and ironically, I disappear from fanfiction (dot) net due to this heinous offence, I will be found under "TMonkey".

Feedback: Please! I live and breathe reviews! Flames, as long as they're explanatory, are fine.

Author's Notes:

Firstly, I'd like to thank the following for their wonderful reviews: DarkPrincessPyro99, XMaster, rain1657, sarahvspsycheotic, masked-in-your-shadows, Violet Eternity, Faded Writer, Kim Hughes and LiRa; I really appreciate it. Please keep reviewing:)

Chapter four—with (SPOILER) the addition of Matthew Addison (SPOILER)—will be updated on October 28th.

Chapter Three: Into the Darkness

It was four o'clock am.

The sky outside the window was pitch black; snow or not, it was early November already, and the days got darker every day.

It was fitting, in their situation.

It had been only slightly over a year ago now that they were down in the Hive, fighting an almost impossible battle against Umbrella and it's mutations.

That war would end today. That, too, was fitting.

Alice threw up again.

When she'd finally finished, she drew back shakily, drawing up against the cold porcelain of the dingy bathtub, pulling her knees to her chest.

She had been throwing up all morning. Everyone had been up at two, on her command, and now they were by the door, waiting for her—and she couldn't stop throwing up.

Something was wrong.

For weeks she'd been denying it, allotting her constant nausea to exhaustion, stress and worry—worry over Matt, the anti-virus, the success of this mission—everything.

Then she had realized it had all begun only after she'd left the Hive.

Something had happened to her down there, and she had no idea where to go, how to stop it—who to talk to.

For the first time since Matt had gone, Alice felt completely alone.

With shaking hands, she pushed her tangled hair back carefully, raising her chin just slightly to look in the mirror.

Bloodshot blue eyes stared back at her, framed by a ghostly white face and exhausted expression. Alice could already see where the stress of this war, of losing Matt, was taking effect—the tiny lines forming around her eyes and mouth, the emptiness in her eyes.

Everything depended on this mission—her survival depended on finding that anti-virus.

And she couldn't even stand.

She jumped when the knock resounded through the room, glancing towards the door as if whoever stood behind it could see her. "What?" she called, her voice strained, hoping it was J.D or Rain—anyone besides Alexei.

Demitrov was particularly observant, and already had learnt far more about her team than she was comfortable sharing with him.

To a certain degree, she trusted him. He hadn't given her any reasons to do so—on the contrary, he acted as suspicious as she assumed was humanly possible, keeping every single secret he could, lying to the group whenever he saw fit to do so, and isolating himself in a circle of conceit and superiority.

Despite that, Alice had always been a good judge of character—and while his arrogance might have been real, his actions showed he wanted Umbrella to fall just as much as they all did.

Either way, she didn't want Alexei finding out about her own issues—finding out anything that could destroy her credibility to lead.

"It's Rain." Alice could almost see the hesitant look on the brunette's face as she added, "Are you okay?"

Alice looked at her reflection again. Dull eyes. Tangled blond curls. White face.

She felt like she was going crazy.

"Yeah, Rain," she said finally, her voice tired but self-assured. "Yeah, I'm fine."

The assurance was echoed in her eyes, in her expression—she looked confident, and for a moment, she almost believed the lie.

Almost.

"Everyone's waiting," Rain continued outside the door.

Alice nodded. "Good," she said. "Tell them to be ready."

She heard only silence for a moment as Rain seemed to pause, hesitating; and then the thump of her footsteps, hard against the thin wood flooring as she walked back down the hallway.

She waited until it was silent, until she was sure she was alone again, before whispering, "This ends today."

And this time she believed it.

They had come a long way to get to this point, and ready or not—it was time.

xxxxx

James Anderson had never been a hero.

Sure, there'd been that one time three months ago, when something in him had finally snapped and he'd turned his back on Archangelo and—or so he'd thought, at the time—Umbrella.

And while the next two months had passed by in a whirlwind, as he'd disappeared from a previous lifetime and absorbed himself in another, he'd always been aware of the comfortable fact that for once in his life he was free—no longer immersed in the corruption Umbrella brought with it.

It didn't take long for all that to change.

Once they'd finally gotten in the car, that fateful day three months ago, Eliza Williamson had driven first to Washington, and then to sunny California, and during that entire timespan, she'd been utterly silent.

Lea had been silent as well, her small face speaking of grief far too adult for her to bear; but James had expected a series of questions from Eliza, none of which he'd be able to answer.

The next day she'd disappeared entirely—unable to deal with the situation, scared of Umbrella's retribution, or simply not caring about her niece's fate—and the girl's safety had been left up to him.

Him. James Anderson.

At first he'd been terrified to the point where he actually considered leaving Lea at some adoption agency or something.

But then he remember Rain Ocampo's expression, half threat and half plea, when she'd told him to keep Lea safe—and while some part of him had been afraid of her finding out, some other part of him had reached an epiphany.

He could handle this.

And so they'd moved all over the country, trying to evade Umbrella. With a trust fund James had never revealed to the corporation, him and Lea were living well, if not haphazardly, and after a month, Lea had finally opened up to the point where she could smile, and laugh again.

That was when Umbrella had finally tracked him down.

Thinking back on it now, James probably would have simply let them kill him if he'd been on his own. He still felt guilt for Matthew Addison's demise; for all the things Umbrella had done that he had ignorantly allowed.

But now he had Lea, and so he'd lied, blamed the entire mess on Archangelo.

Fortunately, they'd believed him.

Unfortunately, he was playing secretary again.

This time to Vincent Crawford.

Archangelo had scared him, but Crawford—Crawford terrified him. Where Archangelo had been conceited, smug, and stupid in that conceit, Crawford was cold and impenetrable. Where Archangelo had always had an arrogant, vaguely threatening smile, Crawford's expressions were empty, and his eyes were ice.

With barely exerting himself at all, Crawford saw everything.

Sometimes, James wondered if he was any safer here than he'd been before. When Demitrov had bought him for an escape route, James had thought it was a good idea; a little spare cash, and, even knowing nothing about the anti-virus, it would hurt Umbrella, hurt Archangelo, which James, even then, had never seen as a bad thing.

But Demitrov had bought him for life, and even now, James kept him informed.

Some days it was almost thrilling, betraying Crawford right in front of him and knowing the seemingly omnipotent man knew nothing about it.

Most days, he was just scared. Because someday, Crawford was going to find out, and Lea wasn't going to be safe anymore.

He just hoped Demitrov and the rest of them, Alice and everyone else that had been inside the Hive, knew what they were doing. That everything would work out, and this would all end today.

The phone rang, and he snapped to attention, reaching for it—

Only to be intercepted by Crawford, who had stepped into the front office momentarily. The Umbrella dictator's office was adjoined to his by heavy wooden doors, and normally, he stayed inside there, preferring to let James handle the more menial matters for Umbrella.

James smiled nervously. "Sorry, sir," he said instantly, returning to the paperwork on his desk, making a concentrated effort not to appear to be listening in.

Crawford ignored him completely, apparently completely absorbed in whatever the caller was telling him.

A couple of minutes passed, and when Crawford still didn't speak, aside from short comments of agreement and dissent, James began to relax, if only slightly, thinking about Lea's birthday party coming up next week as he continued.

If there was one thing good about his return to Umbrella, it was the stability it brought Lea. She'd entered kindergarten two weeks ago, and already had a collection of friends clamoring to attend her birthday party.

"Really? How interesting."

Crawford's comments—more than he'd said before, and in a cold, dark tone that chilled James—cut through his thoughts.

He placed his pen carefully onto his paper, peering up slightly, trying not to make it obvious.

He shouldn't have bothered.

Crawford was staring directly at him, the icy blue of his eyes cutting through him like glass.

"Thank you for informing me," he said, and hung up the phone.

Then he smiled at James, that cold, aphotic smile, and James understood that, somehow, things had just gone very, very wrong.

xxxxx

The forest they were in was beautiful.

Tall trees blocked out the sun only slightly, still allowing bright sunlight to shine through.

In mid-October, the leaves were breathtaking shades of orange-reds and brilliant golds, some scattered on the ground, others barely clinging to the branches they still hung from.

It was silent, peacefully so—

And yet, walking through here, Michael couldn't stop thinking about the Raccoon Forest incident.

Alice was leading them all, her golden hair striking with the sun shining down upon it; her stride was fast and confident, her posture prepared and assured, and Michael still worried about her.

Rain had refused to say anything after returning, but she hadn't had to. The worry she had always thought she was so efficient at hiding was clear on her face.

And Alice had appeared moments later, looking radiant with confidence—but she had never been good at hiding her emotion, and her blue eyes, while calm, were abysmally sad.

When Alice had left to visit Matt's grave the night before, Michael had been relieved—it had only seemed like a good sign.

Now he wasn't so sure. Part of him believed the only reason she was still doing this, was still even trying anymore, was because of what he'd told her only days ago.

And that had been a complete and utter lie.

Rain walked slightly behind her, J.D on one side, Demitrov on the other, none of them speaking.

There was something going on with Rain and Demitrov—what exactly, Michael couldn't say.

And while Matt and Alice had seemed perfection embodied together, both melding into each other in this bizarrely unique way, the air between Rain and Demitrov was charged and electric, almost a spark rather than the connection Matt and Alice had shared.

Nor was it as frivolous as the sweet, but ultimately useless attraction J.D and Olivia had shared down inside the Hive.

Michael wasn't sure what he thought of Alexei Demitrov. On a personal level… the man was impossible to read, and thus impossible to trust.

And yet, Alice appeared to trust him, even seemed to like him at times; and he trusted Alice.

Michael kicked at the leaves slightly as he walked, tightening his grip on the M-16 in his arms, tense despite the calm environment.

He only realized Rain had dropped back to walk next to him when the brunette voiced, her tone forcibly casual, "Reminds you of Raccoon, doesn't it?"

He couldn't help but smile slightly, nodding in response. "Yeah."

That led to thoughts of the town now—what it looked like, decimated and blown away.

The virus had been contained—too late to help his sister or mother.

"At least there aren't any fucking bears this time," Rain commented, almost optimistically, and they exchanged conspirational grins.

J.D had dropped back too, and added, "Or freezing rivers to wade through."

Rain nodded promptly. "That, too."

Michael grinned again—the memories weren't exactly happy ones, but memories all the same, and reliving them amongst themselves was somehow comforting.

He looked up ahead, half-expecting Alice to join in; but the blond was still ahead of them, distant and far away.

Demitrov, however, had looked back, his gaze slightly perturbed. "Bears?"

Rain grinned. "Alexei is afraid of bears," she informed them both. "It's a phobia."

Michael snickered, but J.D looked stuck between either triumph or annoyance, finally ending with a "Huh."

Demitrov glared at Rain, who stared back, coolly amused. "Funny, Ocampo. But no. What did the bear look like?"

"Well," Rain said, with exaggerated thoughtfulness. "Like a bear, Demitrov."

Demitrov sent her a look of pure exasperation, and, with a slight grin, Michael realized exactly how many times Rain had probably had that look directed at her before.

"Red eyes," J.D cut in, surprisingly. "Like one of the zombie Dobermans, almost, only… not."

"Eloquent," Rain said, grinning at him; but to everyone's surprise, Demitrov shook his head.

"Umbrella," he said shortly. "It was infected."

Even Rain was silent now, all three of them staring at him in mute surprise.

"I would assume you realized it wouldn't go into the river?" Demitrov continued, his eyes narrowed.

Michael nodded. "That's how we escaped," he clarified unnecessarily, waiting for him to finish.

"Umbrella's helicopters used to land there," Demitrov explained, and Michael's memory flashed back to a wide and open field, it's grass pushed back and flat. "After a few dozen employees got attacked, they realized the infection had spread throughout the forest's wildlife. So they added chemicals into the water to make it safe for them to travel through. A safe route, to some degree."

Michael furrowed his brow. "Why would Umbrella want to go through the forest?"

"It was the fastest way to the Spencer mansion, and they'd been tracking all of you—they let Hades loose to attack you while you were inside."

Demitrov's tone was bland, as if he'd been discussing the weather or something similarly banal, and J.D gaped at him. "How, exactly, would you know this?"

Demitrov shrugged, almost airily answering, "I was the one who signed the permission forms for the attack."

Michael suspected J.D, had he not been so completely shocked, would have attacked Demitrov at that point.

As it was, he just looked angry. Rain looked angry as well, but also confused, and almost—scared.

"Wait a minute—" Michael started.

But Demitrov had already pulled away, commenting, "Would you look at that, we're nearly there already."

They had reached the edge of the forest, and Alice was standing there, looking back at them, her expression equal parts annoyance, boredom, and complete detachment.

"Are you four done?" she asked coolly.

They all nodded, Rain dragging her eyes away from Demitrov to do so as well, and Michael shook what Demitrov had said out of his mind, forcing himself to focus on the present situation.

Their lives depended on it.

"Good," Alice said simply, and there was both concern and a sort of pride in her eyes as she looked them all over. "Everyone ready?"

More nods, all around—thankfully, J.D had no more comments about having to work with Demitrov.

"Good," Alice repeated, her voice still proud but crisp this time. "Let's go."

They split up, as their plan had dictated, Rain, J.D, and Demitrov sinking into the black shadows the early morning sun cast over the building as Alice and Michael hurried through the perimeter of the forest, making their way around to the front of the tall building.

It was huge, massive, sparkling white with plaster, marble and glass in the early sunrise; but like all buildings, it had a parking lot, and Michael and Alice slid in with no trouble, heading straight for the reconnaissance van in the back corner of the lot.

Made to look dull and dingy, the grey van housed Umbrella's outer security system, used in the event inner security failed; it was here, more so than ever, that they depended upon Demitrov's knowledge of Umbrella's security systems to get them through this.

On a regular basis, there would be no working security inside the van; it was a waste of money when there were so many other Umbrella bases outside the main corporation that could monitor the systems just as efficiently given the alert to do so.

However, setting up those outer systems took over an hour to do, and with Crawford here, and the whole corporation on high alert, Michael figured Umbrella wasn't going to be taking chances.

They both went around to either side of the back doors, Alice covering the left, Michael, the right.

She looked at him, raised her eyebrow questioningly—was he ready?

He didn't even think before he nodded.

She smiled, giving a short, sharp nod in return—

And then both yanked their doors open, pulling back for cover, waiting for the imminent gunfire—

But nothing happened.

On Alice's signal, they both crept into the open space, weapons at the ready, examining the van carefully—

And Michael breathed a sigh of relief.

It was empty.

They both clambered in, Alice slamming and locking the doors behind them while Michael dropped down in front of the computers, getting started.

There were countless wires here, tangled and messy, and Michael was glad he knew exactly what he was looking for; that Demitrov, somehow, had managed to come up with all the information.

Behind him, Alice slid the curtains covering the windows closed; by the time she came to stand behind him, he was plugging in the last few wires, the screens in front and around him filling with colored static.

"Can you get online?" Alice asked, her voice strained.

He nodded. "Should be able to," he said, confidently, and pushed in the last wire.

The screens flickered to life.

xxxxx

They were inside the building.

Crawford watched, still wearing his well-used expression of no expression at all, as he wiped his bloody hand on the silky cloth in his left hand.

He could hear the ragged breathing of James Anderson behind him, and had to smile in the slightest of sympathies.

Extracting the information from him had been harder than Crawford had thought it would be—he'd been impressed.

But sooner or later, the man had to break. Every man broke eventually, and for Anderson, it had been the mention of his daughter that acted as the closing argument.

Crawford recognized Alexei Demitrov in the trio, and was surprised despite himself; he'd received information the man had been disposed of already.

He frowned, lifting the bloodied knife from his desk and wiping that off too as he stared at the screen pensively.

These days, he couldn't trust anything his employees told him.

A slight bell alerted him to the outside, last-resort security system jacking into the mainframe, and he turned to smile at Anderson. "Right on time."

"Just like you said it'd be."

James Anderson looked like he wanted to spit at him, and Crawford was pleased at the man's resilience.

Sometimes, it was encouraging to know not everyone who worked for him was a complete weakling.

Even if they ended up working against him in the end.

"You said I could go," Anderson cut in, desperation leaking into the defiant tone. "If I told you. I told you."

Crawford shrugged. "Until I verify your information, you're not going anywhere," he said coldly.

Anderson looked like he was going to cry—probably thinking of his daughter—and Crawford smiled banally at him. "I keep my word, James. If your information works out, you're free to go."

Anderson didn't look relieved. If anything, he looked more terrified.

xxxxx

They had been walking through the corridors of Umbrella's massive capital for over fifteen minutes, wandering aimlessly through cold corridors studded with glass and marble he remembered all too well, before Alexei was forced to face the facts.

He wasn't here.

He had said he'd be here, and James Anderson wasn't fucking here.

"What's going on?"

Salinas, sounding both irritated and suspicious.

Alexei ignored him, turning around abruptly, and scanning down the remainder of the long, marble hallway for another option.

The door to the room they'd agreed to meet inside was locked, so that was already out of the question; and going back wasn't an option.

Cynically, he wanted to believe Anderson had just chickened out, had taken the kid Archangelo had stuck him with and left town.

But another side of him—the same one that realized when someone was lying to him, had betrayed him or was ready to, that same part that had kept him alive for so long—knew otherwise.

Somehow, something had gone wrong.

"Alexei?" Rain this time, her voice unsuspicious but edgy, and he turned on her.
"What?" he barked, anger and fear overtaking rationality. "Would you just back the fuck off, Ocampo?"

He immediately regretted the words at the look on Rain's face; she blanched, looking both angry and scared.

And while normally he wouldn't have given a fucking shit—not in this situation, where she should have known better than to press him—that look triggered something inside him, the slight vulnerability so uncommon in her expression.

Before he could bother trying to make it up somehow, J.D snapped. "Don't fucking talk to her that way, Demitrov."

Alexei rounded on him, apologies forgotten as he snarled, "Stay the fuck out of it, Salinas."

He was losing the slight grip he still had on his composure, and he struggled to regain it—

And then the alarms went off.

J.D's response cut out abruptly as red lights flashed on, illuminating their corridor; somewhere nearby, they could hear doors slamming, heaving footsteps and backed up instinctively, all three lifting their weapons readily.

He could feel Rain's and J.D's eyes on him, Rain's look one of wariness, Salinas one of open suspicion, and shook his head sharply.

"Abort the mission," he said shortly.

Failure wasn't in his vocabulary.

But whatever had been released into the corridors, there was no way three people with a few automatics was going to be able to take them out.

With Anderson's disappearance, they'd been fucked from the very beginning of this ill-begotten mission, and they were still fucked. The only option left was whether they lived or not, which, if they stayed here any longer, would be gone as well.

Failure had never been a choice, but inevitable.

And what the fucking hell had happened to Anderson?

"We should stay," J.D said suddenly, and they both turned to stare at him in mute condemnation.

He raised his hands defensively. "What? We've already come this far—"

"We might as well die?" Rain cut in sharply, glaring at him. "We're dealing with Umbrella, J.D, not just some stupid cops."

"I know that, Rain," he spat at her, and she looked taken aback. "I'm not the one who—"

"We don't have fucking time for this," Alexei snarled, raising his voice to be heard above the chaotic noise of the alarms. "We're leaving. That's not an option."

They both stared at him, looking weary and angry; and finally J.D nodded, and shoved his weapon back into it's holster—

And the guards, whose approach had been silenced under the chaos, stepped into the corridor.

xxxxx

They ran, racing through a minefield of gunfire coming from what felt like a squadron of at least ten Umbrella agents.

In all the time J.D had been fighting against Umbrella, he'd always figured men with guns were less scary compared to some of the mutations Umbrella had thrown at them over the last year.

But bullets could still kill, and he found himself running faster than he'd thought possible, hurtling down the hall like a linebacker.

Within a minute he became separated from Rain and Alexei; he kept running, unwilling to take the time to worry about it.

Instead, he focused his worry on finding an exit.

Something had gone way out of control in there. For the first time since he'd known the ex-Umbrella agent, Demitrov had seemed unprepared and unsure; lost, shouting at Rain, taking way too long to make the decision to abort the mission even after he'd figured out they were already screwed.

J.D had no clear idea of what had happened, but his bet was Demitrov had tried to make a deal with Umbrella and Umbrella had turned around and fucked him over.

And Rain was still with him.

Most of the guards had followed them, the few behind J.D already dropping back to reload, and he hoped, for Rain's sake, that Alexei knew where he was going.

J.D skipped past a staircase—if there was one thing he'd learnt working with Umbrella, it was that staircases generally just led to getting trapped further—and dodged past an overwhelming display of medals and plaques, his breath coming in quick, short gasps as he plowed through the first emergency door he saw.

Alarms went off as he stumbled out into the fresh air of the beautiful outdoors, continuing to run and slowing only when he'd reached the perimeter of the forest. Fighting to catch his breath, he jogged quickly through the trees, heading for the parking lot.

Every sound, every footfall, every gasping breath seemed to echo in the cool silence—he didn't think he'd been followed, but every sound magnified itself to the point where it sounded like an army was following him.

He slowed to a stop when he finally reached the parking lot, scanning it quickly. It was empty, and he began to slide through the trees, quietly inching out into the open plain of concrete—

And almost blew Michael's head off when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Fuck, man," J.D breathed, whirling on him, lowering his gun hastily. "Are you insane?"

Michael was pale, almost white, and J.D shut up instantly when he realized Alice was missing.

"What happened?" he asked hoarsely, when it became clear Michael wasn't going to offer any explanations.

Michael shook his head. "Umbrella," he said, his expression still one of shock as he continued. "J.D, they were there for Alice—they completely ignored me."

J.D just stared at him, feeling completely overwhelmed. Everything had fallen apart in a matter of minutes, and now Alice—the only hope they had of fixing things—was gone.

Michael must have come out of his stupor long enough to notice J.D's expression, because he said, "J.D, we'll get through this. We'll wait for Rain and Demitrov, and then we'll figure out what we're going to do."

J.D looked back at him, remembering, suddenly, that Michael and Alice had seen everything go down over the video cameras and asked carefully, "Where are they?"

Michael flashed him what was obviously supposed to be a relieving smile. "Demitrov and Rain were still together and heading for an exit last time I saw them."

J.D nodded distractedly, struck despite himself at the reversal of their roles—less than a month ago, it would have been him comforting a nervous, rookie Michael.

Things had changed. More than he had realized.

They were interrupted by Alexei, who slipped through the last branches separating them with barely a sound despite the fact he'd obviously been running.

Rain wasn't behind him. She wasn't anywhere close by, either, judging by the look of exhausted guilt written over Alexei's face.

J.D didn't bother waiting for an explanation. "Where the hell is Rain?" he demanded.

Alexei shoved his white blond hair back with a shaky hand; but his blue eyes, when he met J.D's, were still carefully blank. "She got hit."

A flash of panic shot through J.D and he voiced the unspoken comment. "And you just left her there?"

"I didn't have a fucking choice!" Alexei shouted in response. "They only way we were going to be able to rescue her is if I left her—"

He cut out abruptly, looking away, and J.D took the opportunity to let out a disgusted, "Right. It was completely selfless."

"You need my knowledge of Umbrella to get back in there," Alexei said, his tone laced with forced control.

"Well, that's just fucking great," J.D spat at him. "'Cause Alice is in there too."

"And we'll get them both out," Michael interjected, clearly sick of the argument already, and they both turned to look at him. "Demitrov, you made the right choice. We'll find them."

"If they're even still fucking alive," J.D muttered bitterly.

Alexei collapsed to the ground in an exhausted heap, clutching a bloody ankle, and J.D glared at him. Poor baby, he thought sarcastically, clamping his mouth shut to avoid saying it out loud.

To his surprise, Alexei looked up at him, his blue eyes uncomfortably intense as he spoke. "Rain is alive, J.D. I swear."

It was the first time Alexei had referred to him by his first name, and that, more than anything, cut off his angry response.

Looking at him, he realized suddenly that Alexei was falling apart, in the way only Alexei Demitrov knew how—his blue eyes were open and pained, that empty, icy blankness missing for once, and he looked exhausted, pale blond hair mussed over his head and face dirty.

Alexei hadn't made the right choice when he'd left Rain alone, but he'd made the only intelligent one under the circumstances.

And it was obvious, looking at him now, that he actually cared about her, wasn't just fucking around with her like J.D had assumed he would.

Whether he wanted to be or not, they were bonded now, in that common connection with Rain.

But he still hated Alexei for it.

J.D turned away, not wanting to say more and not trusting himself to keep his mouth shut.

The sun was high in the sky now, it's heat beating down upon all of them, it's brightness grotesque in the situation—J.D felt like it should be night, in the middle of a thunderstorm, or even a hurricane to match up to the events of the last few hours.

Because no matter how sunny it was, or how much time was left in the day, it didn't change anything.

Their mission had failed.

And Rain and Alice were still inside.