Why should I trust a traitor?

Ivy University, Tall Oaks, 2013

Jill went back to the B&B to get ready for the banquet. Lord, she was insane. What was she doing here? When was the last time she'd just let go and did something like this? When? Ever? Never. Never really. Not in fifteen years anyway. It was insane.

She was not a kid anymore. What good could come out of what was happening here?

Her brain said, do you care? She didn't care. She liked him. And every aching minute of awesome that was him. If the night went off without a hitch, the rest of the world would finally get on board with what they'd been trying to do for years. Bioterror would be exposed, those responsible held accountable, and the battle made easier by the hands of the helpful finally reaching out to assist. Warriors like her and Kennedy and the rest might finally be able to just...live.

She dressed in a pretty and straightforward lacy white dress for the banquet. It was strapless and short, with a little brown belt around her narrow waist. She wore it with comfortable, faded, but beautiful turquoise detailed cowboy boots with a teal heel. She gathered up her hair in a loose but chic knot, leaving some curly pieces around her face, and added chunky turquoise earrings.

She was cute but still casual. The banquet was not, at all, a formal affair. The whole campus and town were invited. Security was tight, naturally, but it was a matter of clearing the checkpoints to get in. The campus of Ivy University was three deep with people. Bodies laughed and danced and partied. Balloons and booths, and excitement littered the quad with risers everywhere.

It was going to be a helluva night once things got rolling. No lie.

She crossed the campus, feeling the summer breeze tickle her face and listening to the distant rumble of thunder. She hoped it didn't rain. It would ruin the festivities. Or maybe not. Sometimes parties had a way of going on long after being crashed by an unwelcome guest.

Jill passed security with her badge and a fingerprint scan. She was cleared inside the administration building and headed toward the banquet hall. It was already littered with guests. She made nice. She shook hands and greeted and laughed.

Faces and jokes, and excitement were everywhere. She met the Dean, met other members of the D.S.O. She met multiple members of the Secret Service. One girl, Helena Harper, seemed a bit of a nervous wreck, but the word about her was that she was a bit squirrely anyway.

And there near the stage? Well, there was the only guy that mattered anyway. And he was standing beside the President of the United States. Jill moved forward, and he caught her eye and grinned, stepping forward to take her hand. He spun her in the circle of bodies around them and made her laugh.

"I said something beautiful. You look like my secret idea of a dirty cowgirl. How am I supposed to work when you look like this?"

"You don't think I look beautiful?"

And the director of the D.S.O took her face and turned it up to him. "If you were wearing a trash bag, you would be beautiful."

And he winked at her.

Ok, she mused, they were out of the closet now one way or the other. They were now an item in the eyes of her coworkers, his, and the most powerful man in the free world. Awesome. And a little scary.

Leon introduced her to the President or "Adam" as if she'd ever call him that. And they talked about viruses and dinner and the weather.

At one point, an agent came over and drew Leon away. He murmured and gestured, and the look on Leon's face went from amused and flirtatious toward Jill to concerned. He nodded, spoke back, and used his hands to indicate something. He turned back toward them.

"Adam, there's a security concern we need to address."

"Really?" The President set down the pig in the blanket he'd been noshing on.

"Potentially. And it could be nothing. But I'd like to have you escorted someplace safe until I'm sure."

"Of course." Four secret service agents came over to assist in the transfer. "Ms. Valentine."

"Mr. President, an absolute pleasure."

He was escorted away, and Jill turned her eyes to Leon. "Everything ok?"

"Maybe. There's been a threat made toward him."

"Real?"

"Don't know yet. I hate to leave you here."

"Hey. I'm fine. Go ahead. Do you want some help? I can get my guys to back you up here."

He watched her face. "Yeah. Actually yeah. It can't hurt. We're gonna sweep the grounds and the building. The threat level is assassination level. It's serious but unsubstantiated. So tell them to be careful."

"Ok. Give me a second, and I will go with you."

"Alright. Thanks."

"You bet. And are you kidding? This is the president, Leon. What else matters here?"

"Right."

They went together through the exciting banquet hall and out a side door. They were in the kitchens. He gave her his spare piece to use. She checked it, cleared it, and flipped the safety off. They started to clear the area looking for potential threats.

The kitchens were warm, with the ovens being fired up to help with the dinner. They were industrial and steel with plenty of high-end appliances. A check of freezers and lockers cleared the first area in a handful of moments.

"How credible is the threat?" Jill asked as they moved into the far hallway toward the back side of the building.

"It was brought to attention by his secret service staff. So credible. But why? And from where? It's fishy."

"Maybe it's idle."

"That too." They emerged into a staff entrance hallway littered with old pallets and various boxes of goods. Some were cargo crates, and some were simply empty food containers. Jill shifted her pistol as something skittered down the hallway.

It disappeared around the corner. She gestured, and Leon nodded, moving toward the retreating shape. They cleared the corner, one high, one low, and found a girl huddled in the corner, covering her face. Leon glanced at Jill, and she shrugged. The girl was trembling, hiding, and shaking. She was so scared that she was rocking while she crouched.

And she was bloody.

She was covered in blood.

Leon froze. Jill froze. And they heard it. They heard the screaming. It started soft, and they could almost, almost, almost pretend it wasn't real. But the din of noise and horror was soon so loud, ear-splitting, and the panic of mass pandemonium began. People were screaming in the banquet hall.

The girl before them lowered her hands…and she was missing a chunk of her face. Someone had taken a big bite and ripped it clear in a burst of flesh and blood. She was sobbing and bleeding everywhere. And then?

Then she jerked, gasped, bucked and moaned, and died.

She died with a wet gurgle in a mess on the bloody floor.

And Leon said, "No."

Just no. Just one word. One word whispered soft and in denial. One word that Jill echoed, shaking her head. And the body on the floor spastically shook and rose. Too fast. Scary fast. Freak of nature in the middle of a horrifying chase scene fast. She shot to her feet, screaming, and raced at them. Her eyes were red, bloodshot, and awful. Her face was bloody and still bleeding. She had just died! How had she turned so fast?!

Leon shot her in the face; no thinking. He shot her with a loud boom in the quiet hallway. The screaming outside in the banquet hall was punctured with the wails of the dying, the echoing howl of the damned as they turned. Jill whispered, "Leon...Leon…what is happening here?"

"I don't know. I don't know." He grabbed her arm with one of his hands. His tactical glove was scratchy. "Focus. Stay with me."

"I am. I am. I'm here."

"We need to get to Adam."

"Yes. Now."

"Follow me, Jill." And he ran for the far doors. "Stay together. Don't break formation. I don't need to tell you how to survive out there."

"No. I'm the last person you need to tell."

"Jesus Christ…how are we here again?"

She shook her head, "I don't know. Let's just pray it's not as bad as it sounds."

They burst into the banquet hall, and it wasn't as bad as it sounded. It was worse. It was chaos. People tried; they ran and fell, screaming as they were eaten alive where they went down. The place was already infested, and the few who survived ran screaming from the hall.

There weren't enough bullets in the world to stop them all.

They ran, ignoring when they could, shooting when they couldn't, not wasting ammo if they didn't have to. The stage was being torn down by the undead. Beautiful and shimmery balloons were splattered with blood in a horror movie tableau.

The staircase curved sharply, and they burst into the hallway at the top, running. They were running for the safe room where Leon had sent the president. They were running toward the only hope left.

The four secret service agents attached to him were dead. They were dead and undead alike. They attacked in a flurry of reaching hands and screaming faces. Leon shot the first one and Jill the second. The third got a handful of her hair, and Leon punched it square in the face. She shot it with the muzzle of her gun tucked up against its chin. It exploded blood and gore all over her pretty party dress.

When it lunged, Leon kicked the fourth one and dispatched it with a clean shot to the left eye. He stood there, breathing sharp and fast amongst the bodies of those who'd once been his friends. She grabbed his forearm. "Focus. Stay with me."

And she turned the command back on him to help him follow it.

He nodded and threw open the door to the safe room.

Adam was slumped at the desk.

"Mr. President!"

The face that raised wasn't him. Not anymore. Not physically or mentally, or mortally. The President of the United States was dead. He was undead. He was done for.

The assassination? It had gone off without a hitch, except for all the zombies screaming, snarling, and killing. But nothing was perfect. For the killer? An excellent diversion. Who would hunt for the second gunmen on the grassy knoll while fleeing for their lives?

The President was already rotting. He was decomposing so quickly that it was frightening. Jill said softly, "What strain is this? What is this?"

"Not T. Not like this. Not this fast. Fucking Christ."

"I'm so sorry, Leon."

The door to the other side opened, and Helena Harper stepped in. Leon yelled, "MOVE! HURRY!"

And the President lunged for her.

Jill raised her weapon, Helena screamed, and Leon shouted, "ADAM!" Before he put a bullet into the head of his lifelong friend.

Before he drilled the temple on the most powerful man in the western world, he watched it arc with blood. The body staggered and went down in a puddle of widening death. Leon lowered his gun and shook himself, putting a hand on his face.

Helena Harper whispered, "What have I done? What have I done!? What have I done!?"

Jill checked to be sure the President was dead. And stayed dead. She rose and moved back toward Leon. She spoke softly, "He's gone. He's done. Look at me."

He did, slowly. She grabbed his forearm. "No time for that. You hear me? No time for guilt or remorse. No now. Not yet. We have to find who did this. Quickly."

He nodded, rotating his arm to grab hers back and squeeze. He nodded and turned his attention to Helena. "What do you mean you did it? What did you do?"

"Agent Kennedy…I need to tell you things. Please. But I have to do it at Tall Oaks Cathedral. The answers? They're all there."

Leon tilted his head, "How do you know who I am?"

"Everyone knows who you are."

And Helena's phone went off. They were suddenly staring into the face of Ingrid Hunnigan. "Leon! Helena! You're alright!"

Jill was checking the room to be sure they were secure. The screaming was done. Whatever horror was happening, it was quiet for now.

"I need an update, quickly."

And Leon said, quietly, "I just shot the President."

"What!?"

Helena leaped into the conversation quickly, "It's my fault. He was protecting me. But the president had turned before we got here. What's happening?"

"The infection has spread to three miles beyond the campus, and it's still going. We don't know what it is. But we know you need to get out now!"

"How bad is the transmission?" Leon snapped on the armor of the agent quickly enough, Jill mused; there was a reason he was the best in the business.

"Right now?" There was a commotion behind her as she spoke, people rushing and yelling and moving, "90%."

"Fucking Christ."

"Find a way out and quickly."

Helena said, "Agent Kennedy has a tip on who's responsible. But we need to get to Tall Oaks Cathedral to check it out."

They locked eyes and held. Leon said quietly, "Yeah. I have a lead."

"Ok. Follow it down. But be quick about it. "

"We will."

Hunnigan signed off. Helena looked at the two of them standing there. "I can't explain it now. Not yet. I need you to see it to believe me. You have to see it. You have to go with me."

They looked at each other and then at Helena Harper with no other choice. She said, "Please. I swear. I'll explain everything when we get there. Please."

Tall Oaks, the best day ever, had just ended in the worst night in recent history.

Things would only get better, right? But things were about to get infinitely, continuously, and torturously worse.

The sounds of the fight were dead. Dead. Gone. Like the President was dead. He wouldn't hear the jokes of the most powerful man in the world anymore. He wouldn't watch him do the robot and fail miserably at it. He wouldn't sit beside him at a Fundraiser and listen to him wax nostalgic about being just a Colonel in the Army. He wouldn't sit across from at Christmas dinner and watch the pride on his face when one of his grandchildren did something extraordinary.

Because the POTUS, Adam, his lifelong friend, and confidant…was lying on the floor with a bullet in his left temple. He was lying in a pool of his widening…infected…blood. He was dead. And Leon Kennedy had been the person to pull the trigger.

Helena Harper was looking at them. She was pale and panicked and desperate. She was gesturing with her hands. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please. Agent Kennedy….Agent Valentine…I can show you. You need to know. I can show you. But we have to go now. Please. While there's still time."

She was right, of course. It was time to go. The smell of rot and copper was strong in the office. The President's dog tags beneath his collar had fallen free and were lying in the pool of blood beneath his garbled face. Leon crouched and grabbed them. He jerked, feeling the cool, wet metal in his fist. He fisted them in his bare palm, closing his eyes. The breath he drew was slow, harsh, and shuddering.

He had to get it together. He had to find his center. He was better than this, faster, stronger, and he'd been face to face with the madness so many times in his life. This was just another outbreak. This was just another burning city. It was just another mess that needed a hero. And he was alone, like always, to see it through.

He felt the air shift slightly, and a soft hand touched his shoulder. He opened his eyes. And two pairs of blue eyes caught, held, and locked. And it got, at that moment, easier to breathe because he wasn't alone.

Not this time.

This time?

She was here with him. And she'd survived it too. She'd stood in the blood and the fire and lived. Baptized in blood in Raccoon City, they'd been born there amongst the ashes of their shattered innocence. A girl and a boy had become warriors in the hollowed-out necropolis that had once been home for them. The horror, the betrayal, the loss…it peppered their future in death and regret. She'd picked up the sword to fight for justice, and he'd been blackmailed into serving to become a savior. But the same need to protect encircled them both. They wouldn't ever halt, wouldn't quit, and would not falter until the job was done. That was something else they shared.

Jill Valentine held his eyes over the body of his fallen friend, and it was a little easier to breathe. A little easier to rise. And a little easier to go on.

She said softly, "Ok?"

He turned his head and drew a steadying breath. She smiled so gently. "There's time for all of it, Leon. Time to grieve him and time to feel it. But it can't be now."

He nodded and rose. She slid their palms together to hold the President's dog tags between their hands. She squeezed, and he answered it, nodding again. "Thank you."

"Let's find out who did this," Jill avowed softly, "And end them."

Another nod, and they turned, facing the girl waiting for them. Leon said, gruffly and with a bit of hoarseness that made Jill hurt for him. "You better have some pretty good answers, Harper."

"I do. I do. Let's hurry. I'll show you."

She hurried out into the hallway ahead of them.

Leon moved to follow and instructed, "Stay close to me."

Touched at the concern, she smiled up at him. "Where else would I go?"

They moved into the hallway. Jill moved at his six, and they cleared the first office to the right. Jill tried to raise her team on her headset to no avail. He followed Hunnigan's instructions, and they moved through the hallway to the far side of the stairs.

They crossed slowly through the decimated banquet hall. Tables had been overturned, chairs knocked askew and littering the ground with the corpses that waited: bodies…bodies, and parts of bodies and blood. There were arms without hands and hands without fingers. There were heads and chunks of flesh and blood sprayed far and wide like someone had turned on a hose and just cut loose.

The stage was washed in it. Three dead girls piled atop each other and missing pieces of faces and throats. Helena Harper was making some kind of terrible keen in her throat.

Leon gave her a cold expression that worried Jill a little.

Jill, taking pity on her, touched her face. "Hey…hey hey."

The girl met her eyes. Helena would panic if they didn't get her to calm down. Admittedly, it was a horrible thing to see. For someone who'd never stood witness to it? It was a nightmare.

"Helena…look at me."

Helena turned that gaze to her while Leon stood guard, scanning the room for threats.

"This is fucking awful. It's bad. It doesn't get much worse. But you have to hold it together. You have to. Or you'll make a stupid move and die here. Do you understand? You have to be better than this."

Helena grabbed Jill's wrist and nodded, breathing fast and shallow. She gathered her resolve. "This is my fault."

Leon shook his head at her. "You keep saying that. You keep saying it. What does that even mean?"

Jill shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Not now. Now? Now we get off this campus. Take us to the cathedral, Helena. We can discuss the rest of it later."

Helena nodded and moved. She turned. They caught sight of movement, turned…and the lights flickered off. Lightning burst in the windows and accompanied an enormous peel of thunder that had Leon jumping a little.

Jill twitched her mouth with a smile and clicked on the light on her headset. He copied it, and so did Helena. Wryly, he met Jill's eyes. "Not a peep, Valentine."

She gave him a flat face in the low lighting.

At the far side of the room, they heard running feet. Glancing between each other, they moved after the noise. A man was dragging a woman toward the elevator there in the hallway. Leon lifted his gun at them.

Jill grabbed the barrel and shook her head.

The man paused, seeing them. He was coughing harshly. The woman he was helping was covered in blood. She listed severely as he half carried her. He called, "Come on! Hurry! We can get out through the garage."

Leon moved toward them with Helena and Jill in tow. They moved onto the elevator. The woman slumped against the man, breathing harshly. The man, small and squat in glasses, looked up at them.

"This is my daughter…Lisa. I'm Max. I'm the caretaker here. I…I saw you with the President. I heard about you. Please…she's hurt so badly. Can you help us?"

Leon and Jill held eyes above the head of the wounded girl. She was bitten. It was evident in how she slumped and the blood on her face and neck. How long? How long before she turned?

And the emergency lights in the elevator flickered off.

They were immersed in darkness.

There was a sound of heavy breathing. There was a sound of gasping. Max made a cry of disbelief.

"LISA! She's not breathing! LIIIIISA!"

The horror of that cry froze the blood. Leon whipped his light to the scene of it. And Max was screaming now. Screaming.

Helena let out a moan of fear. She huddled against the wall of the descending elevator.

Max's throat was ripped free in a burst of blood. He went down, gurgling and gasping. Lisa didn't stop. She leaped. Jill fired, and the shot went wild, smashing into the wall an inch from Helena.

Lisa launched at them like a wild thing. She leaped like a licker. She leaped as no zombie had ever leaped before. She caught Leon in a full-body tackle and threw him into the wall. He let her, listening to Helena crying out, listening to the death rattle of the dying man on the floor.

Lisa slammed him into the wall and threw him to the floor. She mounted him like a jockey on a racehorse and roared her hunger to the small enclosed space.

Lisa had wild, burning, desperate red eyes that stole his attention and teeth that snapped an inch from his face.

Jill yelled, "Kick her up!"

Leon turned his face, missed losing his nose, and kicked her up. Jill spun a kick at her, hit her mid-center, and tossed her into the wall. He was already rolling to one knee. He drove his combat knife up from the kneeling position. He put it in her chin, and it burst through her face and out the top of her head in a splatter of gore and brain matter.

He jerked the knife clean with a squelch and plop of tissue and blood. Lisa spilled to the floor atop her dead father. And the doors of the elevator opened with a ping. The parking garage was in view before them…for just a shining moment….before hell rushed in.

They lurched in by the half dozen. Suddenly, they were in the tiny elevator with six zombies, two corpses, and no hope. Leon spun a sweep kick from the floor and took them down in a rush. Helena blasted the face of one an inch from his shoulder. He drove his shoulder into the next in a tackle and shoved them clear of the elevator.

Jill picked off two more that tried to eat his arms while he did it. She drove up under the reaching arms of another and flipped it over her back, tossing it away. Her hands grabbed his jacket and jerked him clear of the lunging face of another.

He drove his knife into its eye and watched it jerk, flop, and fall.

Leon watched a survivor tumble, hitting the side of a police cruiser in the underground parking lot. He set off the alarm, and it echoed, echoed, ringing loud and obnoxious. The lowered gate at the far side of the parking lot was suddenly overrun with the dead.

Leon gestured to the security office at the far side, and they rushed toward it. He slid across the hood of a fallen car and missed losing his face to three zombies that raced hungrily at them. Helena hit the door first and burst inside; Jill covered him while he ran, and they slammed the door together, breathing shallow and fast.

Half-lit monitors showed various security points on the campus in the darkened room—the office where Adam lay in his blood. The garage behind them rapidly filled with undead. The campus courtyard was overrun with corpses and bloodied balloons. Both dorms were filled with corpses and zombies and blood. Two people held up signs in the men's dorm that said HELP US! HELP!

Behind them, zombies moved toward them. Leon shifted, "Let's go."

Jill grabbed his arm to stop him. "Leon…they're gone. We can't help them."

The zombies had reached them and were eating them alive on the screen.

Leon swallowed the regret and shifted his gaze to the cameras. "Let's get out through the courtyard. Hunnigan?"

On his headset, Hunnigan said, "There's a security gate that can be accessed on the far west side. Should lead you out to the street. Get off that campus, Leon. Hurry. It's getting worse by the minute."

Leon, Jill, and Helena moved to the opposite door and opened it into the stairwell. The silence was loud in it. They cleared as they moved, quiet and lost.

The stairs ended on the main floor of the administration building. The hallway was destroyed. It looked like mass hysteria had manifested in people fleeing and falling and blocking when they couldn't run anymore.

Doorways were overrun with overturned tables and boxes. The windows that lined the wall beside him reflected the rain that had started outside. It whipped with the wind through the cracked and jagged glass, offering a view of the tennis court below. Thunder rumbled again, ominously.

They moved toward the far hallway and met with debris blocking them. They were forced to turn into a lecture hall to cut across. The seating was a theater and went down a flight to the floor where the professor would offer his knowledge to the waiting pupils that once sat in the seats to listen.

Helena kicked an old can of Pepsi with one boot, and it rattled and rolled, plopping and plunking with a metallic clink down the rows of steps to the bottom. It alerted two of them, that rose from the floor and two seats surrounding them. They were slow now. Slow. T-Virus slow.

He studied them, watching how they moved.

They moaned and lumbered, shuffling forward. He shot the first one between the eyes and moved down the steps with his knife. A boot to the hip and a knife to the back of the skull dispatched the second. Jill picked off the third on the floor without missing a beat.

He said, for Helena's benefit, "Disable the brain. That's how you put them down."

Helena whispered, "I can't believe this is happening."

"Get over it," Leon answered harshly, "It's them or us. And they don't hesitate."

He moved through the far doors without another word. Helena made a slight sound of ascent. Jill patted her shoulder companionably. "He's upset. He shouldn't take it out on you."

Helena shrugged a little, "I deserve it. I do. He's right. I deserve it."

Why? There was time to find out. But it wasn't now.

Shaking her head, Jill followed Leon out into the hallway. She could hear him taking out some zombies that shambled in the foyer beside the door to the courtyard. When the last one collapsed, he stomped its rotting face into the ground. She saw him vibrate with it. He was so mad. It shimmered around him like a mist.

Jill caught his arm and held it. She said nothing. But his hand came up and covered hers, and he breathed a little easier again.

Nodding, he turned to the doors. "Clear and move, quickly. Clear and move. Don't linger and stay in a V. Nobody lone rangers, nobody panics…."

He looked at Helena pointedly.

She nodded, pale but determined.

"Let's move."

They pushed open the doors with Leon and Jill clearing as they swung into the courtyard. She picked off the first one that turned toward them. He took out another one. She realized he was a fucking crack shot. He put a clean round into its eyeball from a hundred yards. And he didn't even blink.

Impressed, she glanced at his face.

He glanced back at her as they moved. "What?"

"I heard that about you."

"What's that?"

"That you're the best there is with a pistol."

Leon shrugged a little. "Rumors. Stories. I'm no Chris Redfield. They say he never misses."

"He misses," Jill smiled a little, "But not when it matters. And humble looks good on you, Leon Kennedy. Sexy."

That he'd tease back concerned her, she could smell the failure on him like bad perfume. He hadn't failed anyone, but he took it like he had.

They shifted toward the gate and found it locked. Considering, Leon glanced back at the security building. He shook his head and cradled his hands.

Jill nodded, put her boot in them, and he tossed her up without flinching. She liked that. He was strong; he was an eagle-eyed shot; he was sexy and funny and honest enough to hurt about putting down a zombie that had once been his friend.

They should have had time to explore all of it. And there was no time. Not anymore.

Jill dropped to the other side of the gate and knelt. She pulled a few pins from her hair and went to town on the lock that dangled. Leon covered her while Helena covered the other side. The lock gave with a clink and a clatter of the chain falling. Jill pushed open the gate with a rusty squeal of hinges. Impressed, he eyed her.

"You're useful, Jill Valentine. I should keep you around."

"I have my moments."

"That master of unlocking."

Looking bored, she retorted. "Rumors. Stories."

"Humble looks good on you."

"Ditto, Kennedy. Let's get the fuck out of this mess."

Leon turned back to wait for Helena, and they moved down the far alley. They were halfway there when the sounds reached them. And they were surrounded.

Just like that.