Chapter Thirty-Nine:

A/N: Since apparently there are rules that say I can't respond directly to reviews here, I guess I have to stop. So sad, I know. At least I can still make general statements! So, if anyone was surprised by the deaths of the last few chapters, you haven't seen anything yet...

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Tessa was silent as the large robotic creature wound its way through the dead city. Corners of buildings chipped off and fell to the crowded streets below. The mechanical feet of the spider-like mammoth crushed cars and dismembered bodies. They passed a window where a woman pounded on the glass as her undead husband snuck up from behind. The robot didn't stop.

She wasn't in literal shock, not like the other two women. Adette stared out of the visor, her unfocused eyes surveying the surrounding carnage. Rinoa stood on a raised platform, leaning on a railing and looking straight ahead without blinking. Tessa merely sat in a corner watching everyone else. Only Lon was moving, pushing buttons and pulling levers to steer.

"Are you ladies okay?" Lon asked, his slow Galbadian accent wafting through the small bridge. "I haven't heard you gals say anything."

That's because there's nothing to say, Tessa thought miserably. She pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them. It was still hard for her to believe the events that transpired just moments before. The blood on her hands would never wash off; she just knew it. The look on Holt's face before he plummeted to his death haunted her every time she closed her eyes. The pain in his eyes tore at her; shredded her heart. Even though he'd covered it with anger, Tessa had seen the same agony after their kisses. She had killed him.

"You're different," Rinoa said as she turned to Tessa. Adette adjusted her focus as well, settling her glazed-over eyes on the redhead. "What is it?"

"It's her eyes," Adette answered in the same dead tone as Rinoa. Tessa's eyes shuttled from one woman to the other, but she didn't say anything. However, Adette continued. "She has their eyes."

"Yes, she has their eyes. That's it."

"Yeah, well fuck you," Tessa barked angrily. She wasn't in the mood to be bothered about her eye colour. It was bad enough that she would catch the other survivors in the Residence staring at her. Oh, right, they're dead. We're it. We're all that's left.

She pulled at her clothes, soaked because of the storm that had been raging outside. Tessa hadn't noticed it when she shot Holt, but the rain she'd noticed after their fight hadn't let up.

Her bandaged hand was held to her damp chest, like she was trying to protect it from the other occupants. Rinoa's eyes were still concentrated on her, as were Adette's. Clearly, they didn't think the conversation to be over.

"What else do you want?" Tessa snapped bitterly. "What do you damn bitches want from me?"

"You're injured," Rinoa said as she raised her weapon and aimed it at Tessa's head. Tessa's eyes widened and she pulled her pistol from its holster and pointed it at Rinoa. Off to the side the she heard a shotgun being cocked and assumed it was Adette.

"Is that cause to die?" Tessa asked fearfully as she placed both hands on the gun to steady her grip.

"Were you bitten?" Rinoa asked. Tessa let her eyes momentarily flick over to Adette before bringing them back to Rinoa. Both girls were indeed aiming weapons, though only Rinoa's was at Tessa.

An eyebrow was raised out of confusion and Tessa scoffed. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"In the sewer, you said a bite caused the transformation. That's why my…" Rinoa stopped mid-sentence, unable to complete her thought.

"What's going on back there?" Lon yelled over the sound of shifting gears and steel rubbing against steel. "Ladies?"

No one answered him. Tessa moved until her back was pressed firmly against the rounded metal, trying to distance herself from Rinoa and Adette with their dead eyes and empty voices.

"Were you bitten?" Rinoa repeated calmly.

"Does it look like it?" Tessa yelled, wishing that the kind Rinoa she'd brushed off were there. "I wasn't bitten, you stupid bitch."

"Good," Rinoa said before lowering her weapon. Out of the corner of her eye, Tessa saw Adette follow suit. The redhead put the pistol back in its holster and buried her dirty face in her filthy hands, tears pouring down her face. She wondered why the world was falling apart around her, literally in addition to personally. "But I don't believe you."

She looked up and saw Rinoa's foot launch itself at her face. It hit her full on, knocking the redhead unconscious. It was a good thing Tessa was knocked out, because she wouldn't want to see what happened next.

---

Tessa awoke to a throbbing head and empty stomach. Her left eye fluttered open, but her right didn't. It was crusted over with dried blood, effectively sealed shut. When she tried to wipe the blood away, she found she couldn't. Both hands were tied behind her back, and her legs were tied together as well.

When she tried to yell for help, Tessa realized that her mouth was taped shut. Angrily, she thought, They fucking hog-tied me!

"She's moving!" someone yelled out of her line of sight. Tessa couldn't place the voice, but she discerned it as male. While struggling to get free, the redhead silently vowed revenge.

"Is she alive?" a woman, Rinoa, asked. If she had been to do so, Tessa would have spat in her face.

Two fingers were pressed against her bruised neck and the man said that she was. "Yeah, she's alive, but she's going to be pissed."

"Untire her. If she wee going to, she would have turned by now," Rinoa ordered. The man grabbed one end of the tape on Tessa's mouth and ripped it off. Even though her lips painfully stung, Tessa let loose with a string of obscenities.

"That hurt, you stupid bastard!" Tessa screamed. "If you don't untie me now, you will regret it. Hyne, who the hell tied me up? I'm going to kick some ass!"

Rinoa knelt in front of Tessa and spoke softly as the man cut her bonds. "Calm down. Lon and I, we had to be sure, be safe. You would've done the same thing."

"What in hell makes you think you know what I would've done?" Tessa growled as her hands came loose. She rubbed her sore wrist and scoffed. "You don't fucking know me."

"I have lived at Garden for well over a year, and people talk. It took awhile, but I finally realized who you were. You may be loud and crude, but you're incredibly bright. You know you would have done the same thing."

"Idiot," Tessa muttered, knowing full well that the raven-haired warrior was right. After the blood was scratched from her eye, she opened it and examined her surroundings.

Gone was the giant robot, with its cold metal and grinding movements. Now she found herself in a small room where two walls were covered in maps; one had a large window and a table of electrical equipment shoved against it; and the last had a weak-looking door. Behind her, Lon cut the last piece of rope around Tessa's ankles and quickly backed away. Tessa almost laughed at his fear of retribution.

Through the window, Tessa saw a bright, blue sky with nary a cloud. Under her body, the floor gently rocked back and forth.

"Where are we?" Tessa demanded. She scanned the room and realized that one of her companions was missing. "Where is Adette?"

Rinoa looked at Lon before answering Tessa. The look of absency, the vacant glaze that had covered her eyes in the Residence was gone. It was replaced with something Tessa didn't recognize, something that would've scared her if she had any idea.

"Adette is... on deck."

"So, we're on a boat then?" Tessa asked as she unsteadily stood up. Her legs were wobbly, but she stayed upright. Almost in tandem with the pounding of her head, Tessa's stomach growled for food.

"Obviously," Rinoa said indifferently before brushing past Tessa and standing by Lon. "We're going to sail back to Garden."

"Is it too late to care?" Tessa snapped as she opened the door and stepped onto the deck.

She slammed the door shut and marveled at the size of the ship. It looked to be about thirty metres long and twenty wide. If it had occured to her, she probably would have wondered how they got onto it without being attacked, but it didn't.

Sitting at the end of boat, leaning over a small railing that appeared to be more for show than actual protection, was Adette. With her back to tessa, all the redhead noticed was that she was rocking back and forth. Out of an unrealized sense of concern, Tessa walked to and sat beside the girl.

"Am I being stupid and optimistic," Tessa asked as she dangled her legs over the edge of the boat, "or are we finally safe?"

Adette was muttering and oblivious to what Tessa had said, so the medic leaned in to catch, "... going to kill you."

"Not this shit again," Tessa groaned, remembering Adette's actions on the train ride and, later, in the Residence. "No one is trying to kill me."

The words had no effect on Adette, she just continued to stare into the blue water and talk to herself. In the distance, Tessa heard Lon and Rinoa talking in the room with the radio. She shook her head and looked back to Adette.

She finally noticed that the girl was cradling something and that her shirt had bloodstains all over it, and not the black blood that poured from the Rots, either. This blood was red, human.

"Can I see your hand?" Tessa asked softly. Adette didn't respond, just continued to rock and mutter the same six words over and over.

Tessa carefully reached over and and pulled Adette's left hand out of its protective hold. The fingers extended outward without an utterance of pain, and the medic gasped.

Completely missing from the hand was the middle finger. The glistening of the wound indicated that it was fresh, less than a day old. The odd arrangement of the remaining bone fragments was odd as well and aroused Tessa's suspicion. They were cracked and splintered, far too rough for it to have been done by a knife or teeth. As she let the hand go, Tessa expected foul play had been involved, most likely some form of torture. After all, it had only been a day before when...

No! she thought angrily. He's dead now; I killed him at the Residence. There's nothing to worry about.

Swallowing a lump in her throat and undoing the top button of the filth-ridden uniform, Tessa struggled to breath as she reminisced about the events that had transpired. How Macone had snuck up from behind and knocked her out, tied her to a chair, and attempted to interrogate her, asking about her involvement with the Umbrella and Shinra corporations.

She had been completely amazed by the wild accusations he had made, including one about the redhead being some sort of spy sent to Galbadia City to try to assassinate the Prime Minister. There were bruises all around her neck from where he had choked her with the cord from a lamp. Unfortunately for him, the lawyer hadn't planned on Tessa wriggling an arm loose from one of her restraints and stabbing him with a letter opener that she had snatched off of a nearby desk. Before he died, Macone succeeded in striking Tessa with a large mirror, but she'd blocked it with her freed hand, cutting it.

As she fingered the bandage on her right hand soaked with blood, her own or someone else's she didn't know, Tessa shook her hair out of her eyes. Remembering where she was and what she was doing, Tessa asked, "what happened?"

"She was going to kill you. She was going to kill you."

Tessa stood up, realizing how futile it would be to press the issue further. It would be better to just clean and dress the wound. The young heroine walked away, leaving her broken companion at the edge of the boat. When she returned to the radio room, there was a heavy silence between Rinoa and Lon. They had obviously been talking about her.

"Is there a first-aid kit in here?"

Rinoa and Lon exchanged a glance very much like the one that had occurred when she asked about Adette. Something was going on that Tessa didn't know about. She didn't like it.

"Well?"

"Under there." Rinoa pointed to the table with the electrical equipment. "Why?"

"It's for Adette," Tessa answered before squatting and looking under the table. She resurfaced seconds later, first-aid kit in hand, and Tessa found herself alone with Lon. The Galbadian soldier was fidgetting, unsure of what to do with his hands.

"Wait!" Lon shouted as Tessa walked to the door. He injected himself between them. "You don't know what happened to your friend, do you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Your friend, Adette, she just snapped back in the X-ATM092. She knocked you out and cut off her own finger."

After thinking for a few seconds, she decided that she didn't buy it. Lon's story didn't make sense, but she played along to find out where he was going. "Okay, do you know why?"

"Umm..." Lon said. When he didn't answer, Tessa elbowed him in the face. Lon grabbed his nose as she ran past him. When she got out on the deck, she dropped her first-aid kit out of shock.

Rinoa stood over Adette and was shoving the younger girl's head down. Adette's neck was on the top of the railing and her face was blue. Yet, she seemed unwilling, or unable, to fight back.

"What the hell are you doing? Get off of her!" Tessa screamed as she charged the sorceress. Before Rinoa could react, they collided and sprawled across the deck. Being in better physical shape than her attacker, Rinoa was the first to get up.

"I thought I could trust you!" Rinoa screamed as she kicked Tessa in the stomach. "I thought we both could get out of this alive, but my father was right about you! You have to die too!"

Tessa had no idea what Rinoa what talking about. What would the Prime Minister of Galbadia know about a SeeD candidate he had never met? Unless it had to do with Macone's suspicions.

"I don't like to fight, much less kill, but this has to be done," Rinoa said as she pointed her right hand at Tessa's head. "A Thundaga spell should be enough to destroy your brain so that you don't come back."

Come back? But I thought that it took a bite to become a Rot, Tessa thought. Too weak to do anything to protect herself, her hunger and injuries finally getting the best of her, Tessa just looked in Rinoa's eyes and silently pleaded.

Then the sound of thunder shook the air and the girl lay dead.