Episode Four Point Two: Just Shut Your Pretty Mouth
It was with a powerful sense of self-satisfaction that Albert Wesker, Chief Executive Officer of Umbrella Incorporated, wealthy aristocrat and generally nasty piece of work, went about the rest of his day. After escorting his beloved to the chamber where she had spent the previous months in order to perform her ablutions and achieve a brief period of respite, he had done much the same, returning to his private chambers within his mansion's upper levels to obtain a suitable change of attire and wash away the gore that continued to stain his skin from their tryst. He had made assurances that the evening she spent within the white-walled cell located beneath his estate would be the last one, and that once he had made arrangements for her to assume control of his assets he would return and reintroduce her to the world that she had been denied for so many weeks. Had he any actual intention of keeping his word to her, then he would have begun to make those preparations immediately after sliding on his ebony suit jacket and placing his customary darkly-tinted sunglasses upon the bridge of his nose. Instead, with his face lifted by a cruel smirk fuelled by his own feeling of unadulterated victory, he returned to the catacomb of dungeons, striding purposefully towards a single room that was not the resting place of his object of fixation.
Expending no effort in deactivating the vault's intricately-designed security system, he opened the door and entered the chamber beyond, sealing the entrance behind him as he did so. This area was unlit save a single shaft of dirty yellow light at the far end that illuminated a single section of the rear wall. Pacing steadily, his hands clasped behind his back, he moved through the darkness in a manner that caused his footsteps to echo ominously from the stone walls as he approached. There was a rattle of chains as a silhouette picked out by the luminescence ahead struggled weakly against its shackles, its dread compelling it into movement as it heard him coming towards it. He moved to the periphery of the lit area, cruel eyes and coldly neutral features regarding the body of a young woman in her mid-twenties passively as she stood against the vertical surface behind her, held upright by the chains that were encircling her wrists. A mess of dark hair, damp with sweat and stained with blood, hung down, obscuring her face from his view, her eyes rooted upon the floor or clamped tightly shut so that she would not have to face the reality of her situation. Unfortunately, the blond was an impending doom that could not be avoided. Her clothing was stained and torn, and the bare flesh of her arms and throat was dirty with a film of grime that gave her pale skin an almost tanned gloss. He stepped forward into the corona of dim light, his captive visibly shrinking away from his presence but finding her escape blocked by the cold surface behind her. Soft, shallow sobs rose from the mop of unruly tresses that hid the bowed head before him.
"Hello Amanda," he greeted pleasantly, the young female cringing at his voice and the fact that it was addressing her. She had been in his captivity for a fortnight and she had seemed so dreadfully frail from the very beginning; individuals with such a lack of vitality were not his preferred company, and when compared with his coveted redhead she left so very much to be desired in spite of her debatable physical beauty. That Shakahnna had been with him for several months and had never once conceded to his wishes, only permitting him the slightest concession when she believed herself to be completely in control of the situation, in comparison to the mewling waif that he was currently addressing who had lost her will to fight almost immediately, made him wish to possess her all the more.
"I trust you are well, my dear," he continued, to which she did not answer, though she was slightly less shaken by his speech than she had been when he had first addressed her. She had been inconsolably self-piteous upon her arrival to his estate, unwilling to resist him but likewise averse to tell him what he wished to know. On the second day, Doctor Lovette had been kind enough to provide him with the compliance that he desired. That he had continued to torture her even after gaining the knowledge that he required might have been considered cruel by most, but her disloyalty as his former subordinate was not a matter that he wished to pass without some degree of retribution. Blistered skin marred areas of her arms and exposed abdomen where he had burned her, and thin tracks of blood ran across other areas of her flesh where he had left shallow incisions upon her person.
"Though I have enjoyed this brief reunion, I am afraid that it cannot be allowed to continue; this game has come to its conclusion and it is time that I demonstrated the truth of this matter to my beloved," he informed her, aware that the brunette knew of the individual to whom he was referring, "I have indulged her for long enough and it is time that she was made aware that it is not her place to decide the rules of our engagement."
She remained silent, continuing to sob quietly in spite of the fact that he had just alluded to her death and the emotional torture of her only remaining companion in the world. He tilted his head as though perplexed by this lack of forthcoming and reached forward with his right hand, moving it beneath the curtain of matted locks and gently taking hold of her lower jaw to lift her face. The hair fell aside as her head rose to bring her features up into the light, two tear-stained and watery eyes staring at him pleadingly, blood running from her nostrils and over the edge of her bottom lip. She was trembling against the flesh of his palm, the pale blue orbs filled with fear and horror and a longing to be as far away from here as possible, to never see his face again.
"Have you nothing to say, dear heart?" he queried, a smirk touching the corners of his mouth as he did so.
Even if she had wanted to say something, to cry out in her pain and sorrow, to curse him a thousand times over, to beg his forgiveness and sing out his praises in a desperate bid to secure her release, she was not capable of doing so with her slender, effeminate lips sewn shut. The steel thread criss-crossing over the thin line of her mouth held back the beautiful lilt of her voice, restraining the ordinarily dulcet tones that she used in speech and reducing her to mere sobs and hummed squeals of surprise and pain. Each puncture in the skin of her face had become bruised and swollen, blood oozing from them like pores seeping sweat, transforming her elegant and attractive countenance into a morbid mask of sallow, ashen horror. Her eyes shut and she let out a muted, shuddering moan. His lack of compassion was as profoundly monstrous as much as it was entirely in character.
"Then perhaps it is time that I reintroduced you to an old friend," he suggested, as a bead of sadness broke from the corner of her right eye and flowed across her filthy cheek to rest upon his finger as he continued to hold her head up, regarding her with the utmost cruelty.
-
Shakahnna awoke abruptly. Her eyes snapped open onto the white wall of the cell, still stained in places with bloody handprints and streaks of her own design. Around her she could feel the soft cotton of the bed sheets that came with the mattress and metal frame that had extended from the wall at Wesker's behest some weeks ago. As far as she was aware, it was the same chamber that she had fallen asleep in, but something felt undeniably wrong about it. She had woken so cleanly and quietly, it was almost as though her body had been alerted before her mind and had already prepared itself. There had been the sensation of movement, of someone within the chamber other than herself, but she couldn't decide whether she had imagined that or not. Nevertheless, she shuddered with a deep-rooted revulsion, as though someone had walked over her grave. Apart from that, however, and a slight dryness in her mouth, she was perfectly happy. Thoughts of the previous waking period came to her and she remembered the bargain she had struck with Wesker, the thought making her smile, before the reminiscence of what had succeeded it made her flush deeply. Once back in her room she had showered, singing loudly for the first time in a long while to express her content, before changing into her new clothing. The blond had really come through for her on that one; in a surprising turn he had furnished her with a brand new, tailored set of S.T.A.R.S fatigues, apparently no longer concerned with her allegiances as far as that group went. They were a better fit than her old uniform, expertly stitched by someone whom she hoped was not the executive himself, lest she lose all respect for him by learning that he was a seamstress. She had slept in the garments like they were pyjamas, though she had left her new boots, a pair of heavy, steel-reinforced, military-issue footwear, beside the bed.
She rocked up into a sitting position, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and winced as her back convulsed violently, reminding her of the torture she had endured. She could look back fondly on it and remember it as something she had quite enjoyed, but it didn't make the wounds hurt any less. Fortunately, the dressing that had been placed on the injuries was water tight and had stayed attached to her skin even after her shower. It hurt like a whore now she was aware of it, but it would heal, or at least scar, and she was capable of function while that occurred. Although, if her activities with her host the previous day had been anything to go by then she was more than capable of function even with her back bound against the ragged grooves lining its length. She smiled to herself, blushing again as she stooped to retrieve her new boots and pulled them on over her feet, lacing them up and stomping a couple of times to get a feel for them. They would likely be sore for a little while, but they were not that different from her old pair; they would wear in soon. With those secured she stood up and turned her attention to the sheets she had risen from, arranging them in as neat a manner as she could and scanning the chamber as was her custom for when she first awoke. There was no sign of her paramour, so she assumed that he was still busy making the arrangements to uphold his end of the agreement. She paused for a moment, however, when she became aware of the item sitting in the middle of the room beyond the foot of her bed.
Curiously, she moved from the side of her bunk and approached the detail of her surroundings that she could not remember being there before. She came to stand over it, staring down at it with a degree of bemusement. It appeared to be a cylindrical container, black and tied with a white ribbon that tied off on the top, keeping the lid firmly shut, a hat box if she were not mistaken. And attached to the box was a card that read, "A gift for how you enthral me". It was evidently for her, as that was exactly the kind of thing that her captor would have written upon a label that was intended for her to read, and it was in the flowing, measured italic that she imagined was the handwriting of an individual as pretentious as that man had the potential to be.
She tilted her head, biting her lower lip in trepidation, before kneeling down in front of the carton and taking the card from its upper surface, casually discarding it and pulling the ribbon loose. It came apart easily, falling down around the outside of the package and leaving the lid free for her to remove. She placed her hands to it and lifted it, that too coming away quickly and with little effort on her part, permitting her to set it aside and peruse the contents.
At first she was unsure as to what it was that she was looking at, seeing only a mess of what appeared to be dark hair that was stained and matted with dried blood much as her own had been on many occasions in the past. She frowned deeply, reaching in to take hold of the thing that was lurking at the bottom of the receptacle, taking hold of it around what appeared to be two curiously shaped handles, almost giving the impression that it were some kind of trophy. By this point she had realised that the object in her hands was a human's severed head and felt her mouth go dry at the realisation, but she was ill-prepared for the shock that registered when she had finally freed the decapitated cranium from the confines of its casket. Two glassy, staring orbs gazed at her in silent horror as her own face transmuted into a mask that reflected that very same emotion, Shakahnna Morgan coming face-to-face with Amanda Decker once again under the worst circumstances imaginable. Congealed blood dripped from the underside of the mutilated stump that was her neck and covered her mouth, which had been stitched shut, her lips having turned blue behind the thin metal thread, the kind that was used for surgical stitching. Beneath the fingertips of her left hand she could feel circular scars, familiar because she had a set just like them behind her own right ear, the lasting remnant of the torture given by Doctor Adrian Lovette. Breathing heavily and unable to speak, she set the grisly discovery back into its hiding place as gently as she could with hands that were trembling and unsteady. Then she pitched to her left and retched.
Her palms hit the floor with a slap, the impact stinging her skin, her body heaving forwards as she gagged involuntarily. Unfortunately, as she had eaten little recently, all that rose in her throat was acidic bile that ejected from her mouth in viscous, pellucid strings. She heaved in air, panting heavily as she reared back onto her knees and wiped her lips clean with the back of her hand, gasping out as her body was racked with loud, violent sobs. The realisation that her last remaining true friend had been killed struck her like a boot to the stomach, knocking the wind out of her and making her feel suddenly, desperately weak. She placed her trembling hands, still numb from the impact that had stung the flesh there, back to the floor and closed her eyes, breathing deeply and releasing each gasp as a shuddering tremor that shook her bulky frame in its entirety. Almost as though he had been waiting for the opportune moment to interject, she heard Wesker's voice from nearby.
"I was most surprised to learn that we possessed a mutual acquaintance in this young lady," he commented from his position, standing several yards away with his arms folded across his chest, the wall beside the large, metal bulkhead that sealed the entrance of her chamber just behind him. She hadn't heard him enter and she didn't much care how that could be possible.
"Why...?" she croaked out, shooting a glance at the box and its grisly contents before turning away in disgust and glaring up at him where he stood. There were a million questions that she wanted to ask, most beginning with that word, others beginning with "how", "when" and "where", wondering what circumstances had led them to this moment.
"I expect a greater degree of loyalty from my subordinates," he stated, almost casual in his assertion, "that she saw fit to betray my interests to S.T.A.R.S is an act that I am unwilling to forgive. She was quite eager to divulge information regarding your erstwhile colleagues also; it would appear that we have been similarly disappointed by her actions. Is this not justice?"
"She was trying to do the right thing," Shakahnna snapped, her throat burning and her eyes beginning to sting as angry tears welled up at their corners, "how can punishing someone for that be justice?"
He sneered a deeply superior sneer, as though his opinion of her could not be lower at that current moment. "I had believed that you above all else would understand why such a lack of devotion requires to be punished so severely," he told her, before lifting his right hand to adjust the integrity of the sunglasses upon the bridge of his nose, "perhaps I overestimated you."
She seethed silently, furious that he seemed to be taking this matter so entirely dispassionately while she was obviously suffering. Her hands balled into fists and her eyes narrowed, smooth pearls grinding together tightly as her jaw clenched, before she rose from her knees into a dead sprint, wanting to grab her tormentor and smash and rip and tear and kick and bite and punch him until he was shattered into tiny pieces, wanting to show him what her definition of justice really was. Unfortunately, before she was able to reach him he suddenly wasn't there anymore and she careened sideways into the wall, unable to stop herself due to her fervour. She slammed heavily into the surface and fell flat on her face, a warm, wet feeling appearing on her upper back where part of the dressing covering her wounds had come away from the sudden blow to her body. Struggling up to her feet once again, she looked around for him and instead located a hallway that had not been there previously, evidently having been opened by the blond, most likely as both an entrance when he had first appeared in the room and now an exit. It was not beyond his power to have sealed this door behind him if escape was truly his goal, but the redhead was not in any mood to ponder this fact, simply wanting to find him and make him pay.
She charged down the corridor, stopping herself with her hands when she was forced to make an abrupt left turn to follow the course of the white-walled passage, her body still tense with her rage, her every muscle still quivering with barely restrained fury. Ahead, the path came to an abrupt halt, a doorway leading into a second chamber on the right hand wall being the only option for her to take. Taking the entrance at a run, she was ill-prepared for the black-suited body that she slammed into immediately inside of it and spun wildly. The impact had felt awkward and the man she had been chasing did not seem as stoic as he usually did, and her confusion only grew when she slammed backwards into another, equally unstable form that seemed to give way behind her and leave her to slump backwards onto the floor, reaching the inevitable conclusion after already losing her footing from the moment she had first stumbled. Keeping her chin tucked in to her chest she avoided any potential concussion, though she was stunned to find herself looking up at a circle of ambiguous silhouettes hovering above her, only their basic shapes being illuminated by the lights overhead. Momentarily concerned that she had fallen into the middle of a group of soldiers, she set her hands on the floor on either side of her head and pushed off with her feet, curling her back and performing an almost perfect backward roll, coming to rest on one knee gently. When none of the figures around her made to attack her she paused, examining the closest one critically.
The first thing that she noticed about it was that it was not touching the ground, the boots enclosing its feet dangling several inches from the linoleum beneath it. Turning her eyes upwards, she found herself looking at what appeared to be a male clad in fatigues that bore a striking similarity to those that she was currently wearing. Its right arm was missing from the elbow down and its torso was riddled with puckered holes as though someone had impaled it repeatedly, though there was no sign of the implement that had caused those injuries. Its chest was split by what appeared to be a large, steel hook, the point of which was protruding through its shredded armour, while the other end emerging from its back was attached to a heavy chain that held it suspended from the ceiling. Two long-dead blue eyes stared down at her from a head that hung slack on a broken neck, the effect of which gave the impression that it was glaring down at her. She started backwards, suddenly aware of what it was that she was looking at. No longer blinded by her anger, she was now truly noticing her surroundings for the first time since entering the room. On top of that, she was now acknowledging what it was that Wesker had told her before she had chased him away. He had said that Amy had given him the information he wanted about S.T.A.R.S, and now the evidence for that was all around her.
The second cell was an expansive space, she could see that now, and as far as she could tell it had been devoted solely to the purpose of housing the corpses of the members of the group she had once belonged to. There were almost two hundred cadavers stored here, perhaps even more, giving the place a grisly, morbid atmosphere, trails and pools of blood staining the floor and walls all around her. Each of the bodies was hung aloft on one of the many snares that dangled from above, many wearing the familiar combat uniform, while others were clad in suits and secretarial garb, and yet more wore plain civilian attire. All of them had been heavily mutilated, all of them had obviously suffered before they had died and now they were congregated here, some of them little more than ragged pieces of meat and bone impaled on the points that held them aloft. On each corpse was stapled a plastic tag, some attached to fingers, others looped through zips on clothing but most having been punctured directly through skin somewhere on the body, transcribed with a name and rank that identified them as having once belonged to her former allies. Though her own cell had somewhat desensitised her to the scent of blood, the putrid smell here was overpowering, bringing back memories of the U.S.F members that Wesker had once left occupying her cell with her, and the bad old days when she had been out on the streets among the zombies, when that smell had once been normal for her. Had she not already done so, the nausea from that festering air alone would have made her vomit, and this was ignoring the very real fact that she was now almost certain that she was the only member of her team left. Her captor had once told her that the government officials who had supported their cause had been wiped out, and now the soldiers of that self-same cause were also dead. Most of the troops had probably died during her imprisonment, when he had been at his most eager to destroy them, but once he had located Amy it had led him to the Administrator's, the tacticians, the specialists and the devotees. Any who remained would be lost, alone, uncoordinated, simply waiting to be snuffed out once and for all. It was over.
She began to tremble, her body going numb once again, unable to comprehend the horror of what was being revealed to her. The only thought that occurred to her was to find the door and exit the chamber, to be as far away from this macabre revelation as possible. She wasn't even sure what to attempt after that; the gravity of her situation was finally beginning to settle in as she realised that not only was she imprisoned with no hope of escape, there would also be no one coming to find her. Anyone she might have considered an ally was dead, no one even knew that she was still alive or even existed on the outside. At the back of her mind was the frightening realisation that she had effectively been erased, just like so many of the people that currently surrounded her. She began to move, trying her best to circle around the hanging bodies and show them the respect that they deserved but quickly descending into a panic when she found herself unable to locate the entranceway she had used to enter. Swinging the dead, she ran frantically through the clinically-white dungeon, her desperation outweighing her grief as she fought past the rows and rows of slack figures. Expressionless faces with glazed eyes stared at her as she hurried past, the death masks of strangers seeming to melt away and change before her eyes into people she recognised, her parents, her sister, her fiancé, Captain Sean, Chris, Kane, Sage, Matt, Amy. They were all here, all dead, and it was clear that they blamed her. And with good reason; it was her fault after all.
She slammed face first into Wesker's chest, having missed it completely with her teary eyes screwed tightly shut to block out the accusing stares of her deceased loved ones. When she opened them again to look up at him, her sorrow was forgotten almost immediately, the anger she had felt reasserting itself now that its intended target had reappeared. Roaring with a force that made her throat sting, she lunged at him, smashing his shades with a punch that left shards of tinted glass embedded in her knuckles and in the skin around his monstrous right orb. She followed up, a second punch with her other hand crushing a rib or two in his chest and leaving purple mottling across her fingers where the impact bruised her instantly, before a third blow with her wounded fist did the same to the other side of his broad torso, the sliver of his broken lens slicing a gash along the back of her hand as it came loose. His hands came to encircle her wrists, bringing her arms up and away from him so that she could no longer deliver any more punches. She compensated by slamming her foot into his crotch as hard as she could, stamping on the toes of his own boot and delivering a kick to his kneecap that shattered the cartilage inside with a wet crunch. "You promised! You promised!" she screamed into his face.
"Enough!" he bellowed, wrenching her arms apart and thrusting his face forward toward hers in a manner that caused her to fall silent immediately in spite of herself. There had been an almost guttural tone to his usually composed voice that had put her in mind of a wild animal and the expression on his face was absolutely livid, although only for the briefest of moments. His usual neutrality asserted itself, reigning in the emotion that had manifested briefly in spite of it. "You know nothing about the world, my dear," he informed her, his fingers clamped so hard around her hands that they were leaving bruising upon the skin, though admittedly that might not have been the case had she not still been struggling even in her silence, "to use my resources in the pursuit of a just world would be but a waste. It is in man's own nature that no Utopia can ever last; they would reject it violently. We may only pursue power to meet our needs and leave others to their own ends. There can be no justice but that which we make for ourselves through our own actions."
"You promised," she said again, still squirming in his grip as she tried desperately to continue hammering her fists into his wide frame. She needed something to focus on in order to block out the considerable grief that she felt and this struggle, no matter how futile, at least meant that she needn't confront the truth of this situation for a little while.
"Their execution had already been carried out," he told her, as dispassionately as if he were simply informing her that it were raining outside, "it is beyond even my power to resurrect the dead, or at least, restore them to any semblance of what you could call life."
Shakahnna's blood ran cold at his second assertion, knowing full well what kind of "resurrection" the broad-shouldered man usually specialised in. He was correct, of course; the rebirth granted by the T-virus could hardly be called life in any real sense. "Does there be any of them left?" she queried, her face drawn and pale as she asked. There was little chance that the horrifically thorough Albert Wesker had missed any of her colleagues, but she had to at least hope he was only showing her this out of some twisted sense of duty to her, punishing the ones that he felt had wronged her and being entirely truthful about the plight of her former organisation. Perhaps he had stopped searching for them after she had made him promise and there remained a handful somewhere in the country. It was a vain hope, however, and one that he was quick to crush with a simple shake of his head.
"You must understand, my dear, that this situation has never been in your control, though you may take pleasure in believing otherwise," he said, pulling her close to him as she stood, unresisting, momentarily stunned by the sudden weight of everything she was being shown, "it is not beyond your power to salvage something from this debacle, however. Submit to me and I will ensure your safety; you may delight in punishing me for my transgressions against you as you see fit and never concern yourself with the world beyond these walls ever again."
Unable to prevent their proximity, she wanted so badly to tell him that there was nothing she wanted less than to be with him any longer, but the words caught in her throat, suppressed by the sobs that were rising from it with increasing frequency. She would rather have been anywhere else; she would rather have been dead. For the first time since arriving at the prison beneath his estate, suicide became a valid option. She would do anything to deny him, to prevent him from getting what he wanted after having done this. It had been the perfect solution when she had phrased it to him the day before; in hindsight she should have known that he would never permit her to set the terms for such a contract. He wanted things his way, always and without exception, even for her. And the worst part was that she was afraid he was now going to get it that way. What else could she really do but submit?
Her head fell back, two bright, emerald orbs transfixing him as he wrapped an arm around her upper back and stooped to press his lips to hers, blood running from the laceration beneath his eye and seeping into the kiss at the side of his mouth. She was unresponsive, having given in completely, the muscles of her face immobile but in a manner that was different to the enforced passivity he had used during their previous tryst. She was limp and contributed no movement of her own volition, a fact that made him break from her almost immediately, his brow furrowing in confusion. Her face was a mask of slack emptiness, her eyes possessing a glassy quality that gave the impression that she had vacated the space behind them. It was a similar expression to that which the treatment administered by Doctor Lovette had produced, and he realised that the rest of her form was in a comparable state of detachment from her wandering mind, her arms hanging at her sides while her legs were no longer supporting her weight, the entirety of her body supported by his arms around her. She had escaped him.
He growled in frustration, his muscles tensing sharply as he did so before they softened again, quick to reassert his control over his emotions lest he damage her in a fit of rage. He had cornered her, forced her to recognise the situation that she was in, given her the only choice that he wished her to opt for, and she had rejected him once again. It was doubtful that she could have entered an absent state of her own volition, but the timing of this sudden insensibility made him wonder if perhaps it had come about purely as a result of her spite for him. It was most vexing that this should happen when he had so perfectly orchestrated the final move to sap her of her remaining resistance.
He adjusted his grip upon her upper body and stooped to wrap his left arm under her knees, hefting her up and carrying her back to the cell which still composed her dwelling. For the first time that he could truly remember, Albert Wesker was unsure of what course of action to take.
-
The blond sociopath did little following the return of the young woman in his custody to her chambers. There was a brief flurry of activity as he returned the various fixtures of the redhead's room to their concealments within the walls of her cell, even going so far as to seal the door that led to the bathroom and remove the box containing the severed head of Miss Decker, so that it was the pristine and Spartan compartment he had once held her prisoner within, save for the bloody smears that she had used to decorate which he didn't care to expend any effort to remove. He lay her at the centre of the room and left her there, closing off the space that she occupied in the usual manner and moving swiftly to the observation room that he utilised to pass the time watching her. His musings on the matter of her catatonic episode prompted him to place a call to Doctor Lovette in order to question whether it had been some side effect of the treatment that she had undergone some months previously finally manifesting. Though the elderly gentleman could not say for certain, he agreed to take a hiatus from his work in order to attend the black-clad male's estate and examine her. With that done, he settled before the monitors that presented several angles across the white-walled prison and waited for several hours, pondering his next course of action. When she finally stirred, some considerable time after originally entering the comatose state, he returned there almost immediately and permitted himself access with a speed that belied his impatience. He found her standing where he had previously set her down with her back turned to him, seemingly ignoring the sound of his entrance.
"Shakahnna," he said flatly, her response to which was to turn her head to look at him over her shoulder. Her previous nature had reasserted itself and there was no sign of the absent state that had irked him so, though her face was pinched into a scowl of absolute hatred. Wordlessly, she turned away from him, refusing to answer.
"I would urge you not to test my patience, dear heart," he warned dangerously, registering some surprise when she then proceeded to stoop and deposit herself upon the floor, folding her legs beneath her and crossing her arms atop her chest, continuing to pay him an immense insult with her inattention. His jaw clenched tightly, before he resolved to solve this matter in as simple a manner as possible, simply walking around her so that he was directly in front of her. She glanced up at him, emerald eyes still narrowed, and then placed her hands upon the floor, rotating herself so that she was looking at the door where he had previously been standing. The muscles in his face tensed with his annoyance.
He uttered her name again as he reached down to take hold of her shoulder, only for her to swat his hand away violently. "Don't fucking touch me," she snarled, apparently unwilling to remain silent at this action. Though he had wanted a reaction from her, this was hardly much of a victory in that sense.
"You continue to resist me?" the towering male questioned, returning to his full height and continuing to glare down at her. She remained silent for a moment, the atmosphere heavy with their respective enmity for each other's behaviour.
"I'm gonna say this once," she informed him through the medium of addressing the room in general, her voice lacking the contempt that she had previously been exhibiting towards him and instead she delivered her statements with a blunt neutrality that would have been more at home coming from his own lips, "you can do what you want. Go ahead and make the world miserable, make everyone on it as sad and pathetic as you are, sit on a throne of shit and take comfort in the knowledge that even if everything is crap, you're still the king. Congratu-fucking-lations on that one. But as of this moment I'm not having anything more to do with you. You are no longer worth my effort. Keeping me here won't get you anything so you can either kill me or let me kill myself." She shot him a glance over her shoulder, her vibrant orbs still smouldering with her anger. "I figured releasing me wasn't an option, because heaven forbid you don't get everything completely your own way," she said, her tone now dripping with her revulsion, "so make your decision now and fuck off."
She returned to her previous silence, altering her position so that she was hugging her knees to her chest, and studied the details of the floor directly in front of her boots. Walls came up around her, shutting out the presence of her former paramour, ignoring him and anything he could do or say to her. She didn't care, didn't want anything else to do with him, just wanted him to go away. What he had done was inexcusable and completely unforgivable. She couldn't give him what he wanted knowing that. She had held out a slight hope that she could bring him round to her way of thinking, but he had proven himself completely irredeemable; when she actually thought about it, it occurred to her that it had always been that way. It seemed almost as though she had been deluding herself. All that remained was for her to deny him what he wanted until her dying breath. She yelped when a powerful hand seized a fistful of her flame-coloured hair, bringing her own fingers up to claw at the flesh that had seized the top of her head, before she was jerked upwards onto her feet, her legs kicking as she was actually lifted painfully into the air prior to being allowed to reassert her footing. It seemed that the final breath she had been musing upon was going to come sooner than she thought.
She struggled against his vice-like grip as it moved from her scalp to encompass her jaw, his left arm wrapping under her chin and holding her fast against his body behind her. Comparing his hold to that of a vice was admittedly cliché, but no less apt; it was a crushing, mechanical pressure without any remorse or weakness that held her so tightly that she cried out as she wondered if her skull was going to burst. "So be it," he growled, his right hand appearing in front of her clutching the handle of a long, steel blade, the sharpened edge of which was aimed directly at her face. Without the slightest moment of hesitation, he brought the knife towards her neck, apparently with the intent to slit her throat. Her arms rose to block the attack, the weapon biting into the flesh of her right wrist instead, severing tendons and arteries, blood bursting forth and streaming down her forearm and over her hand in a strong gush that was frighteningly quick. She screamed and clamped the wounded appendage to her stomach, the crimson liquid seeping into the simple fabric of the garment and quickly soaking her to the skin in her rapidly cooling life fluid.
Her free hand slammed into the elbow of the arm that was holding her head up so that her windpipe was exposed, trying desperately to coerce him into releasing her. He ignored her, though he kept to his earlier assertion that a soiled blade could not be allowed to touch the flesh of his beloved, even though she had effectively rejected him for the last time. He lifted the sharpened curve of the knife to his mouth and casually ran his tongue along the dirtied edge, the taste of her blood sweet and metallic within his mouth, before he brought the newly cleansed, razor sharp contour down to rest against her collarbone. "No!" she shrieked, her past fear that she would die without having made him pay reasserting itself. If he could kill her so easily then it was almost as though the struggle between them had been for nothing, like he would take nothing from what had happened, wouldn't even be affected by her death. She wanted to punish him; some punishment this was for him.
The motion across her throat was quick, the blade slicing cleanly into her neck in a spray of vermilion, before he released her immediately. Her scream became a gurgle as her legs buckled and she slammed to the floor beneath her, her trembling left hand clamping around her wounded neck as she convulsed uncontrollably against the linoleum, choking on her own blood as it seeped out of her and began to run away across the ground. Eyes wide and horrified, her legs twitched and jerked as she lay dying, the front of her top now completely stained red by the constant bleeding. Her strength was gradually ebbing away from her, and soon she could do nothing but lay still, her eyes gently fluttering closed as an encroaching darkness began to surround her.
"Consider this a parting of the ways, my love," Wesker said, removing a handkerchief from an inner pocket of his jacket and gently wiping the ensanguined tool with it before secreting both items in their place within the recesses of his suit, the sheet of cloth returning to its pouch, while the blade was slid back into the harness that rested just beneath his left arm. A choking sputter issued from her mouth as he circled her prone form and moved to the door. His decision made, there were now other matters that required his attention.