The strobe lights from the police cruiser units lit the tree line of Raccoon Forest and sometimes when Jill watched closely enough, she could see the flare of eyes from the local animals that peeked out from their hiding spots among the foliage.

Men and women of the R.P.D. homicide unit walked back and forth as they carried different portions of the necessary equipment for the scene. The R.C. coroner's unit was freshly parked near the curb of the house, and they would wait until the body inside was examined by Detective Edward before they could cart her off to the morgue.

She and Wesker had given thorough reports to the lieutenant, but the responding crews now waited for Detective Edward to arrive for what was considered his investigation. When he made it on scene ten minutes later, the detective made a straight line for where he saw the both of them standing.

The original caller, the owner of the house, was finally brought out of the home and placed into the back of a squad car for questioning at the station; the older man had been sobbing the whole time while he was led to the cruiser.

"Jill?" someone called her name for a second time.

Lifting her eyes from the forest line, Jill looked to see the Detective waiting for her to fill him in on her portion of the story.

Much like Wesker had done for her in White Pine, his gaze found hers and the strength behind his look gave her the jolt she needed to carefully relay what had occurred the moment she had separated from her captain.

"Why didn't he shoot you?" Detective Edward asked when she had finished. "If he had a gun the whole time?"

"Could be a few things," she said with her mind already having whirled through those details. "Killing a police officer would up the ante on the hunt for him and he's clearly not done. For my least favorite option, it's that he doesn't want me dead yet."

"The flowers, right. Have we made more progress on its meaning?" Detective Edward pressed on.

With a look of shame crossing her features, Jill opened her mouth and stopped herself from making excuses before the words could make it out.

Between her studies, classes, homework, and reviewing the case in the evenings with Wesker, she could only focus on portions of the case at a time. However, given the threatening nature made to her personally, she felt foolish for not having enough to produce.

All her previous notes on the case had been copied and sent over to the detective. She hadn't seen him since White Pine, and she hadn't been able to update with him since the morgue. Captain Wesker was the liaison for her department.

"Not yet," Captain Wesker was the one to answer. "That may become clearer when we get upstairs."

An unspoken emotion seemed to flitter through the three of them after Captain Wesker spoke. All of them lifted their heads toward the upstairs floor where the single lit window shined above.

Jill's brows were furrowing at the new information. What was up there that would make her captain say that? What had Wesker seen in the short amount of time that could possibly relate to the flowers she was sent or even her in general?

"C'mon," Detective Edward instructed with a tired voice. "Let's get this started. I'm glad you two are here for this. The sooner we can make connections now, the more information we'll have before the body is locked up by the coroner."

With Detective Edward leading, Wesker placed his hand on Jill's lower back once more and allowed her to walk in front of him. It was an action that was similar to when he had done it at the morgue on that first day, but there was something more covetous about it when his fingers curled over her hip.

Lieutenant Branagh had been professional as he took their statements, but Jill didn't miss the curiosity the older officer had as he looked back and forth between her and her superior when he had been holding her earlier.

Again, she should have been more concerned about her reputation, but the growing friendship and something more between her and Captain Wesker was getting hard to deny; war games were different with an audience.

"I detest forward displays from fleeting encounters." He'd said to her earlier in the day.

Maybe you're not so fleeting to him after all.

Jill frowned at the detective's back ahead of her; the inner voice in her head was annoyingly hopeful.

Her captain proved himself to be a somewhat solitary man. In her time in his home, no friends or family had dropped by, and his personal phone never rang. Not quite understanding his inner circle, Jill wondered how much he actually paid attention to sexual advances or what type of company he truly kept.

When the three of them reached the top of the steps, Jill paused in her tracks at the smell that hit her nose then. The rotting smells of the house had covered the scent before, but there was no denying it now.

Blood.

Involuntary memories involving smell were called the Proust Effect. The amygdala, and the hippocampus are the areas in the brain responsible for storing episodic memories for later access. Out of all the senses, smell was considered to be the strongest sense that could unlock the effect, and even as Jill paused at the top of the railing and recognized this, she couldn't stop the goosebumps that rose along her flesh.

Soldiers, police officers, firefighters, and paramedics all had the potential to encounter specific scenarios in which human tragedy could occur. Some of those professions had more potential than the others, but the fact remained the same.

The smell in the air was a combination that she would never forget.

Concrete, feces, urine, and the effervescence of gasoline with the blood created a smell that was unlike any other. One she had encountered in war only once.

For all of her previous bravado and training, Jill was struck with the urge to run all at once. It was only the hand still on her back that gave her the courage to move forward but even then, she was certain the captain had noted her few seconds of hesitation.

"Jesus," Detective Edward whispered ahead of her when he stepped around the last of the full plastic bags that cluttered the hall and into the last bedroom on the right side of the upstairs corridor.

He had walked into the room and looked toward the right with a grimace. From her position in the hall, Jill could see clumps of matted brown hair that lay on the ground beside the bedroom door. The clumps glistened from the beam of her flashlight and with a thick swallow, she stepped into the room with the detective.

Following the same pattern as the killer had previously, before her was a young woman that was fresh in death.

The other two bodies she had seen previously were somewhat different. Viewing them in the morgue had taken them out of their setting and created a detached view of their deaths. Marlene and Carla were ruined lives on a table with toe tags and although Jill would never want to have that partition in her mind, she found that she did either way.

Viewing the young girl before her now created a cavern in her chest and aside from the fear that the smell had created, a righteous anger rose up beside it.

Wesker had been correct, it was hard to encounter fear without acknowledging an anger alongside it.

"I have young girls dying in my city..." Wesker's previous words were echoing in her mind then.

He had warned her previously and along with it he had seemed detached when she didn't measure up in the scenarios. Now she understood—now she understood them both.

This is what Detective Edward and Captain Wesker had been dealing with for months now and Jill doubted it ever got any easier.

As she took in the details, Jill Valentine vowed to devote herself entirely to finding the man that had escaped. No matter what happened, she would see this through. To catch whomever had whispered so resolutely in her ear downstairs.

To punish the monster who had taken these girls from their lives and turned them into nameless bodies with tags.

Much like the second victim's body, Marlene, the girl before them now had been placed on her knees with her hands tied behind her back and set in front of a small sitting table. Scalped from the ears up, her bloody domed head glistened in the sparse light of the room. She was completely nude except for the golden liquid that had splashed along her chest, run down her torso, and pooled into her thighs.

Creak, creak

A swaying object hung above them from a man-made pulley system. Wood chips were clustered on the ground next to a tossed aside drill from where the murderer had left it after setting up. One end of the rope was tied in a noose around the girl's neck, and the counterbalance on the other end of the rope was a large sun tea jar with a spigot that was now closed.

The weighted side of the rope with the tea jar was what kept the girl's body in its current position while cuffs on her ankles and looped through a pipe in the wall kept her lower half from pulling forward.

Within the jar, the golden colored substance was half gone, and it caused just enough weighted slack in the noose's portion of the rope to allow the girl's body to hang forward over the table.

She had been suffocating while the jar's contents poured down onto her. They would need to wait for the coroner's notes, but Jill was certain from the ligature marks on her neck that she either died from strangulation or from drowning; the golden liquid still dripped from her mouth.

In her mind's eye, she saw the scene playing out. The jar's weight would have created the tension and it would have been enough to cut off her air and maybe even slightly lift her off her knees. The girl's eyes were closed in death, but Jill was willing to bet that she'd note the blown vessels of strain in the eyes if she examined them.

On the table before the girl, a mason jar sat in the center of the wood. The golden liquid had splashed back onto the glass, but Jill was more distracted by the red contents within the jar. When she stepped forward to take a closer look, Captain Wesker's hand shot out to touch her elbow. Glancing back at him, she noted the twin blue rubber gloves he held out, and she took and applied them quickly.

Without touching the table, she squatted low to look into the mason jar before her.

"A heart," she whispered out loud.

"Her own, I'm assuming," Detective Edward said above her. He stood behind the dead girl now, his eyes on her back.

When Jill rose to her feet once more and took a few steps to the side, she let out a small moan to see the fist sized hole in the woman's back. That's where all the blood on the floor was coming from.

Normally, during an autopsy, or during events such as open-heart surgery, doctors and morticians were required to perform what they called "cracking the chest".

The procedure required removing a portion of the sternum to get through the ribs and eventually to the heart. To go through the back end meant one would have to cut through vertebrae of the spine to remove the ribs to get to the heart. Not to mention how much muscle and cartilage that would be in the way of such an action.

Much like the golden substance on her front, blood covered and was still continuing to dry on the back of the nameless woman. Below, the red of her blood mixed with gold into the carpet.

Both Jill and Detective Edward stood at odd angles due to what else surrounded the woman on the ground below. The smell of gasoline had competed with blood and the other smells in the room, but it became clear why the gasoline had been present.

In a circle around the woman, gasoline had been carefully poured before it had been lit and promptly stomped out. The result had the burnt carpet creating a distinction of a black circle with red blood and gold substance highlighted within.

Captain Wesker stepped up beside Jill now, and when she saw him looking behind her and upwards, she turned carefully in her spot to take in the words that had been written on the wall behind them all.

THE BANE OF ALL MANKIND

"From her is the race of women and female kind,
of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who
live amongst mortal men to their great trouble,
no helpmates in hateful poverty, but only in wealth."

The words had been written in a sloppy hand in the red blood of the woman below it.

A little lower on the wall, there was a second message that appeared to be detached from the first; more direct:

You can't protect them, captain. You can't protect HER.

Remove the Aegis and…

The message was cut off from there. Where there should have possibly been a developed sentence, a streak of the blood smeared along the side.

"He was interrupted," Wesker said softly to them both.

When both Detective Edward and Jill turned back to the captain, he lifted the radio to his mouth.

"Branagh," Captain Wesker spoke into the device.

"Copy, Wesker," Marvin answered immediately.

"The red Ford truck, is it still on the street?" Wesker's eyes slid to Jill's as he spoke.

"Affirmative."

"Return to the truck and look toward the upstairs window. What do you see?" Wesker asked.

It took Marvin only about ten seconds to get into position outside, but it felt like an eternity to Jill while her mind whirled across the scene before them.

"Jesus Christ."

"Can you see the girl?" Wesker continued, ignoring the shock in the older man's voice.

The mic opened once more but it took Marvin a moment to speak, "…Affirmative, Wesker."

Wesker dropped his radio back on his belt before he glanced over at Detective Edward. "Guarantee your witness is going to tell you he saw the girl and the man through the window. Jill and I ordered dispatch to have the man wait beside his truck."

A pit opened in Jill's stomach at Wesker's hunch. If that were true…then had she not made the request, the caller may not have disrupted the murderer prior to their arrival and if he hadn't, they may have had the opportunity—

"Wipe that look off your face," Detective Edward ordered beside her.

Startling slightly, Jill glanced over at the pale detective and frowned.

"I can see it in your eyes," the tawny eyed man declared quietly before he glanced backwards at the message on the wall. "You can't change your orders. You did what should have been done; you protected the caller by making that request. Couldn't have known what he could see from that position if that was the case."

"Correct," Captain Wesker agreed beside her.

"He's talking to you, Albert," Detective Edward said then, not bothering with her superior's title or his surname. An intimate gesture but Jill had already gathered that Wesker seemed to tolerate Detective Edward better than anyone else aside from Lieutenant Branagh. "He's talking about you and…" Detective Edward's eyes were on Jill.

"Me?" Jill uttered between them both.

"So it would seem," Captain Wesker answered as he stared up at the wall.

The urgency in the way Captain Wesker had called her name when she had been in the basement made more sense now. He had read that bloody, fresh message, realized who was in the house with them, and understood how much more danger she was in down below.

What if it had been Captain Wesker that had gone down to the basement? Would the killer have shot him?

"Why the message to the captain and not you detective? And this message can't be about me. The murders were happening before I arrived. Why taunt the captain with this now?" Jill stepped away from the burned circle and stood on the furthest end of the room, taking in the rest of the details together.

"Where are you currently staying, Valentine?" Detective Edward asked instead of addressing the questions no one knew the answers to yet.

"With the captain…" she said before she trailed off.

"Right," the detective said, not taking his eyes off the wall. "But he left you flowers prior to your stay with him, so his focus was on you first. You're the right age, beautiful, and have displayed yourself as highly intelligent."

Detective Edward turned to meet her gaze and gave her an apologetic smile. "That's no longer a compliment given who's notice you've drawn, but it's the truth. You were targeted right after the chief made that press announcement."

Silent with her thoughts whirling once more, Jill turned her attention back toward her captain as she thought.

"What's an aegis?" Detective Edward continued as he stared at the message on the wall.

"A shield," Captain Wesker answered, holding the stare that Jill gave him now. His fingers were slowly rubbing against his thumb while he seemed to search her expression. "Or some form of protection that covers an area."

"Is that part of the theme here?" Detective Edward followed up, now joining the pair of them on the other side of the room as he too now surveyed the entire scene.

"I'm…not sure," she admitted with hesitance. "We should consider bringing in an outside authority on this; someone who's majored in mythology studies. I'm no longer certain I'm entirely enough to handle the clues in this."

"Probably for the best," Captain Wesker agreed. "You have enough to focus on, but you will remain on this case."

"Good call," Detective Edward added thoughtfully before he placed his hands on his hips and let out a bone-weary sigh. "You have a natural knack for crime scenes, Valentine."

Feeling overwhelmed with the night's events, the scene before her, and now the pressure of the ongoing killings, Jill didn't know what to say to that at the moment.

A vulnerable portion of her recognized how close this was all getting and suddenly the move to Wesker's house didn't seem too forward at all; she couldn't imagine being by herself given the newfound evil in the current room.

"Evil," she blurted out loud after her thoughts stuttered. "The bane of all mankind," she recited the portion of the quote on the wall while her eyes found it. With her hand touching Wesker's back as she passed, Jill looked again to the jar on the table.

"Pandora's box, the glass jar." Jill squatted down once more and tilted her head at the heart in the jar. "Of all things mortal's lack, hope alone in the soul stays back."

"Alright, see," Detective Edward muttered quietly behind her. "This is why she stays. Can't imagine some Harvard bastard managing this."

Captain Wesker made a humming sound in his throat and remained quiet while she worked.

"Hope in the soul," Jill continued, not letting their responses stop her. "But why the heart?...Why the heart?" She stood again as she repeated her thoughts and studied the golden liquid. "Paint, I'd guess. Like what coated the first victim's apple and the hair. Golden for the apple, golden for the hair, and golden for the jar—does it resemble hope? Did he intend to portray hope as the last thing to kill her? The hope that she could hold her breath long enough until the jar emptied?"

With her eyes moving from the jar to the woman in front of it, her heavy stare took in the lack of defensive wounds. Aside from the area in which the rope had tightened around her neck, Jill couldn't find one area on the body that had indicated a fight.

"She didn't fight either," Jill murmured with sorrow in her tone. "Why don't any of them fight?"

There was something she was missing, not only about the portion of Pandora's lore, but as a whole.

"But he killed her here." She stared into the face of the dead girl before her, and that anger flared in her chest for what was being done to them. "Marlene wasn't killed at the church; she was staged there. Carla's death was unknown due to the time the body spent in the sewer and the possibility of the wastewater washing away evidence." Jill lifted her head back to the two men behind her. "But this girl was killed here. That was a risk and—" she jerked her hand toward the wall. "He took time to leave a personalized message."

Something was here in front them that hadn't been as apparent before. More clues had been left that took time to recognize as a pattern. Whether the killer was getting impatient, or he simply wanted to communicate more to taunt them, Jill had the thought that he had almost displayed too much—they'd just need to be clever enough to spot it.

"Where are his tools?" she asked then, looking around at the cluttered mess that seemed to live naturally in the room.

"Plenty of places to hide things here unfortunately," Detective Edward said after a pause. "Mind if I talk with Brad about hazmat double timing it through this house? We'll need more hands than the standard crew?"

"I'll contact Vickers after we depart," Wesker agreed.

"Can I review the pictures with you after CSI gets in here and has the films developed?" Jill asked before she turned back to the two men behind her.

Instead of immediately answering, Detective Edward glanced over at Captain Wesker.

"Of course, Valentine," her captain drawled with his eyes still scanning the floor where the woman kneeled. "But your studies come first."

"Probably more of a formality at this point," Detective Edward muttered. When Wesker snapped his gaze over to him, the detective continued, "She's displayed more cunning than the academy could ever teach."

"Getting sloppy is the last thing this department needs," Captain Wesker metered out slowly. "The more she knows, the better equipped she is for what comes next."

"Right, right," Detective Edward said with a wave of his hand and ran his now gloveless hands through his short brown hair. "Just don't go anywhere alone for a while, Valentine. Let's meet up tomorrow morning. We need to talk about Marlene's father and what we uncovered about the incident you had with her father and his men in White Pine."

"Did you find something?" Jill asked as Detective Edward waved her out of the room first and clicked on his flashlight.

"What didn't I find?" Detective Edward grumbled behind her while their boots clattered on the dirty wooden stairs. "What I know is I'm working on a warrant for the mines those men worked at. The land is owned by some hotshots and I'm getting stiffed by their lawyers left and right. Explaining to the judge how the mines are related to a crime in a different township isn't easy."

"How are the mines involved?" Captain Wesker asked when he came off the stairs last.

"Not sure," Detective Edward admitted. "However, most of John Phillip's men all sang like songbirds but none of them would talk about the mines. We were able to tie the White Pine meth industry to these men, but they wouldn't talk about their jobs. Does that seem right to either of you?"

Phillips. Her name was Marlene Phillips. The initials were the same. Marlene Phillips and Marcia Pennington. Why the name change? Jill was half listening while her mind tackled the new information.

"We'll assist you if you want backup," Captain Wesker replied as they all rounded out the front door and into the fresh air of the night.

"It's appreciated," the detective said when he turned to both of them. He waved for the CSI crews to go in. "Captain tells me you also want to view the sewer where Carla was found." The dark eyes of the detective were back on her next.

"Want to make sure we didn't miss anything," Jill said, meeting his stare. "I've seen all crime scenes except hers."

"I submitted the request. I'll let you know when the authority gives me the go ahead…" he trailed off while he stared at Jill for a moment. "Of all crews to get this call tonight, it seems too fortuitous that it would be you two."

"Let's go," Captain Wesker said, ignoring the wonder in the detective's voice. The impatience he was known for was back in his tone.

Jill turned back for their squad car before Detective Edward called out, "Wesker, a moment?"

From his position beside her, Jill heard her superior give a quiet dispel of breath through his nose before she glanced over to see him walking back for the detective.

"Warm up the vehicle, Valentine," Wesker ordered. "This won't take long."

"Yes, sir," she said and continued away.

The distant calls of the officers still searching for evidence through the forest caught her eye as she walked up the dark street to their cruiser. Some of the lights were deeper in the forest, and other crews remained on the ridgeline.

With the keys gripped tightly in her hand, Jill stared hard into the darkness of the layered pine trees and once more lamented how the events had played out.

Wesker often appeared rigid in his authority, but Jill was beginning to understand why he remained particularly strict; he'd been correct.

Raccoon City couldn't afford to make mistakes in this case, and neither could she.

Detective Elliot Edward kept his eyes on the young woman as she headed off on her captain's order. Her shapely form nearly disappeared into the black of the night without the lights of the city to aid the streets.

The blonde man before him radiated impatience but there was always that air about him.

Elliot had known Doctor Albert Wesker for years now, and despite the prickly nature of the infamous man within the R.P.D., he was one of the only men Elliot found high enough in competence for brutal honesty.

"What is it?" Wesker asked with his uncovered blue eyes Elliot rarely got to see.

The captain seemed to have his sunglasses off now more than any other time Elliot had ever observed. The thought had the detective's attention trailing once more toward where Jill Valentine had departed before he refocused on Wesker.

"What are you doing with that girl?" Elliot used that blunt force of honesty as he turned toward the stern captain.

"Do you have concerns, detective?" Wesker countered in a tone that would shake loose most inexperienced men.

Men like Albert Wesker were hard to come by. Elliot had met only a few like him in his years as a cop and he would testify freely that Wesker was enough for a lifetime.

In 1992, when Elliot had transferred to the R.P.D., he had assisted in an FBI investigation involving a cartel trade that had been operating through the Michigan mountains. Part of the jurisdiction had fallen into the Arklay County Lines and therefore became his inherited problem when the other managing detective had retired.

The man they had brought into custody was placed in the precinct's tiny little interrogation room. Even as a younger and slightly less experienced detective, Elliot noted how the cartel's man hadn't fit the profile for the typical gangster.

The man that had sat in their interrogation room in 1992 had been too polished, too well-spoken, and in the span of a day, also had the right type of legal representation beside him. It had been Elliot's first time in the presence of such a character; the first time Elliot had watched a man smile in a declaration of malice.

Dangerous men didn't yell, they didn't threaten, and they didn't become visibly upset. Dangerous men like the cartel member in a small mountain town, and the former military doctor before him now spoke in even tones and found ways to break someone before they understood something inside had been cut.

Elliot cocked his head at his cohort of many years and placed his lure, "Listen, I get it. Beautiful and intelligent younger woman comes into town, and all while she's calling you sir she's also slamming through the academy and this investigation in ways that not even you or I could."

"Careful detective," Wesker let his smirk rise while he studied every moving portion of Elliot's face. "Whether the nights have been long or you're simply losing your tact, I care little for the reasons. State your concerns so that I may leave with my beautiful and intelligent younger partner." The words got sharper before the captain stepped closer.

"Valentine is probably some of the best talent that's been recruited in years," Elliot pushed on, abandoning the idea to incite the man before him. "I know your history, Albert, and I respect it. The fact that she brings this much out of you should be a sign for us all, but I can't help but be the one to warn you." Elliot stepped up closer so that they were only a foot apart. "Don't fuck this up."

"Valentine is an officer and a capable one at that." The captain's eyes narrowed slightly. "My officer, Elliot. Over the course of this investigation, you'll do me the favor of remembering that." Wesker turned away and back toward the road.

"This murderer wants her, Albert. That's two messages he's left about her," Elliot declared. "You need to protect her."

Captain Wesker didn't respond.

"The way she looks at you," Elliot called softly, and he watched when the stern man finally paused in his steps. "Men have killed to have that."

"I know," was the simple reply from the captain before he continued on toward the awaiting cruiser.

Bringing up a cigarette to his lips, the lighter briefly illuminated Elliot's worried visage before it disappeared to the darkness of the street.

"For her sake," Elliot said to himself as smoke leaked from his lips. "I really hope you do, captain."

The drive back to the station to retrieve their personal vehicles had been unusually quiet. Where Jill found herself enjoying comfortable silences with her captain in their recent days, there was something distinctly different about the quiet that blanketed the car now.

Much like the beginning portion of their drive back from White Pine a week ago, an element of cold anger had settled into the space where the words were absent.

Not wanting to push what felt like an instinct to remain quiet, Jill allowed the car ride to go uninterrupted. She flinched when Wesker slammed the patrol door a little more forcefully than he normally would have when they reached the station's parking garage.

"Unit 12 to Dispatch," she spoke quietly into the mic while she watched Wesker walk toward his Land Rover.

"Go ahead, Unit 12."

"Unit 12, Code 10-42." Unit out of Service.

"Copy, Unit 12, showing you out of service. Enjoy your night."

Twisting the keys from the ignition, Jill locked up the unit before she jogged toward Wesker's warming vehicle.

He rolled down the window at her approach and fixed her with his penetrating stare.

"You hungry, captain? My treat this time," she asked tentatively while she held his look.

She owed him enough for meals these days.

"No, Valentine," he answered crisply.

Touching her hand to the side of his driver's door, she considered the night's events and found she couldn't blame him if he was tapped out for the night.

"Sir," she licked her lips and found herself standing up a little straighter. "Aside from the obvious, did I do something wrong tonight?" Her thoughts fell to the conversation he had with the detective.

Another conversation she wasn't a part of.

"We'll review your evaluation tomorrow," he informed her with a delivered air of impatience. "However, my concerns lay more in the fraternization tonight."

With a hard blink, Jill shook her head and digested the words as quickly as she could. "I'll be more prompt with my words toward the detective, sir. He's a little hard to get rid of though."

"I know the feeling," Captain Wesker responded pointedly. "And the detective isn't who I'm referring to."

Her hand fell away from the door and the feeling of a stone dropping in her stomach had her sucking in a quiet breath.

"I understand." The hurt flew behind her eyes for just a moment and then it was gone. Tucked away with the rest of her that lay beneath the surface.

"Again, I don't think you do." The window rolled upwards, and Captain Wesker was backing out into the lot and out of the parking garage promptly.

Her lips wobbled for a moment before she bit them in anger. The keys cut into her palm while she squeezed them in her walk back toward the station door. She barely comprehended the few late night shift officers that greeted her as she walked through the hall and dropped the patrol keys off at the reception.

In her Forerunner, while she drove back to Wesker's home, she heard his earlier words cycling around over and over.

"You don't need to question yourself any longer. Not with me and not with who you are here."

The old leather of her steering wheel creaked from her tightening hands as she processed the emotion swirling through her now.

The lights weren't on when she came through Wesker's front door and closed it quietly behind her. Ignoring her desire to eat, the unwanted feeling of a guest that had stayed too long strummed through her while she took a quick shower and then quietly made her way back into her room.

The kitten, Whisker, yowled when she entered, and it was only the warm countenance of the small creature that kept her together when she laid her head on her pillow and squeezed the baby animal close.

Sleep was hard to come by while the images of her night played back and forth in her head.

They had found a third victim tonight and Jill didn't know if they were closer or further to catching her killer anymore. Despite the many violations to her beliefs in justice, she couldn't seem to stop replaying her captain's words in her head.

Whisker's purring rumbled at her neck, and she squeezed her eyes at the betrayal she felt—at those traitorous feelings she knew better than to ever let develop.

The coward's heart she had been trying to hide beat loudly in her chest and the desire to run was a well-trodden path.

Outside of her window, the wind howled through the forest, and it sounded like a building scream as Jill fell into terrible dreams.

Jolting awake, she reached for her gun sitting on the nightstand.

She didn't quite know why she had woken up. Whether it was a nightmare or a sound, her heart raced to the point that it threatened to beat out of her very chest.

Terror and dread speared through her body and the cold metal of the gun in her hand didn't seem to be enough for the foe that wasn't present in the moonlit atmosphere of her room.

Something scraped at the window across from the bed and she lifted the gun with her eyes widening.

The wind blew once more and the branch from the tree scraped again for her to see.

"Fuck," she whispered and lowered the gun back onto her nightstand.

The door to her bedroom was slightly ajar and Whisker was missing from the bed. Her legs wobbled when she stood, and the dread became tighter in her chest.

Just the wind. Be where you are.

Even the voice in her head sounded panicked and it did nothing to calm the breaths seizing in her chest.

A panic attack, she realized; something that hadn't happened since she was a child.

She made it as far as the couch in the living room before she dropped down into the comfy surface. The open atmosphere of the living room was better than the cloistered feeling of the room.

Something dug into her bare thigh, and she jumped to note the jacket that lay beneath her legs. Pulling Captain Wesker's jacket up, she plopped the garment onto her lap before a soft sound escaped her mouth.

A rolling shame that belonged to a younger version of her winced at the weakness that came from her throat. The urge to run, to move, to dispel the feeling overcame her but instead she lifted the jacket to her face and let the next muffled gasp of air betray the very strength she had worked on for years to protect herself from the nightmares, the doubts, and from people like…

The jacket was soft against her face while she took mental steps to slow her panicked breaths. The familiar smell of aftershave and leather filled her noise and she found herself focusing on it while the minutes ticked by.

When the worst of it had passed, she found herself unable to move—unable to return to the room in which she was provided. With her legs curling up into the couch, she lay on her side while she clutched the jacket to her face until her eyes felt heavy once more.

Her last thought was of finding somewhere else to stay while she reassessed her boundaries in the morning.

If the captain didn't want her to stay, she wouldn't find herself intruding further.

Something warm was touching her face sometime later and in the twilight hours of the morning, Jill reached for the warmth that was pushing against her cheek.

Expecting to find the kitten, she opened her eyes in a daze to view the faint squatting figure beside the couch.

A hand cradled the side of her face like her father used to.

"Why are you out here?" he asked.

"I'm afraid," she admitted groggily.

"Of what?" That wasn't her father though.

The jacket was still clenched tightly in her fingers; she hadn't let it go as she slept.

A thumb smoothed over her cheekbone when she didn't answer after a few beats.

"Did I wake you?" she asked the captain that came into better view when her eyes adjusted.

"No, Valentine," Wesker said softly before his hair fell into his eyes.

"I'm going to leave tomorrow." She shut her eyes when the thumb paused.

"No, you're not," he said with some emotion twanging in his voice that she hadn't heard before.

"You don't want me here." Anger was her safety from him.

From what he had offered and then dismissed.

"Why were you crying?" He didn't deny that statement.

"It doesn't matter," she said and pulled her face away from his hand.

She was fully awake now.

"Oh, it does, Valentine." His voice was sharper when his fingers gripped the material of his jacket from hands and gently pulled it away from her face. "Did this help?" He held up the jacket slightly.

"Yes," she admitted while allowing her wrathful gaze to lift back up into his eyes.

"Why?" he pressed and swallowed that wrath whole when he didn't flinch from it.

"Because you are the only safe thing in this city. Even if—" she started with her irritation rising before she cut herself off. "Never mind, I'm going to call Kevin tomorrow and I'll—"

He shifted forward and one arm curled under her knees before the other gripped her around the middle. Soon she was being lifted from the couch.

"What are you doing?" she uttered with her arms going around his neck reflexively.

"Seems you sleep better if you're near me," Wesker said simply as he walked them both down the hall toward his bedroom. "And I'm better than a jacket."

"This is fraternizing," she seethed at the hot and cold behavior of her captain.

"I'm aware," his deep voice rumbled her side that was pressed into his chest.

Jill sat up when he set her down on the familiar comfort of his bed. She could barely make out his form in the pitch-black atmosphere of his bedroom, but she felt it when the bed dipped beneath her.

"You all but told me to leave." Her tone was vicious when she rolled over on her side, facing away from him.

"Your observations are keen," he agreed with the continued odd note in his own voice.

Was he mocking her?

"I don't know what game you're playing," she raged before she rolled onto her back and onto her other side to face him in the dark. "But I'm not your toy—"

Warm fingers ghosted beneath the sheets and before Jill could finish her sentence, the fingers wrapped around her back and dug into the ribs that were pressed against the bed. In an easy slide, Jill found herself pressed against Wesker's front and it shut her up promptly when her palm met his bare chest in shock.

"I thought you liked our war games?" His breath puffed against her lips when that taunting drawl surrounded her in the darkness of his bedroom.

"What you said earlier, in the R.P.D. garage…" she spoke quietly now, as if it would make a difference to the hold he was starting to have on her. "If this—whatever this is, if it needs to stop then I'll—"

"It doesn't." Something about the darkness seemed to bring out a raw honesty in Wesker. His voice became softer. "Sleep next to me, Jill."

Her fingers spread out on the skin of his chest and slipped upwards to touch his collarbone.

It was an apology, not a direct one, but maybe the best she'd ever get.

When his hand lifted from its position on her back, it touched her cheek once more.

"Okay," she relented and pushed her face into his hand.

"Turn around," he ordered in a lower tone while his thumb traced down to her bottom lip.

Pulling her face back first, Jill did as instructed and turned back to her other side. When she began to scoot away from him, his warm palm scooped around beneath her button up nightshirt and it laid against her stomach before he pulled her back into his chest.

A whimper released from her mouth like it had when they had been on the mats.

If this was another level of sparring, she didn't think she'd win this as easily. When his hips met the back of her ass, it was all she could do to swallow the next sound in her throat.

"Go to sleep. We have a lot to do tomorrow," Wesker bid into her ear.

"Yes, sir," she automatically croaked.

"If you insist on calling me sir even in bed, neither one of us is ever going to get much sleep."

"War games," she retorted with a somewhat biting tone before she pushed herself back into his hips.

The hand at her stomach slid to her hip and when his fingers dug in harshly, she found herself arching her spine with a gasp. Behind her, he hummed into her ear when his fingers released and rubbed the spot on her hip that would most likely bruise.

The simple act found her chest rising faster, and Jill closed her mouth in an attempt to not let him hear how much she liked it when he was rough with her. Unconsciously, her thighs clamped together from the evidence of how she craved that violence from him—craved the approval from him.

Wesker's hand slid back over her stomach when her spine righted itself and the breathy laughter he bade into her ear let her know that he may have an idea of what it did.

Neither one of them spoke again as they lay there quietly beside one another. Captain Wesker's breathing seemed to even out after a while. His face gently shifted into the crook of her neck and panged all the way down to her heart.

Her captain seemed to be a man that thrived on control—she'd made that assessment early on about him. He was well prepared for most situations and the safety of who he was relied on the intelligence he utilized like a weapon, his calm demeanor that carried through in a crisis, and the absolute way he remained the dominant essence in every room.

And it made her feel safe—he made her feel safe.

Her hand covered the one Wesker held to her stomach, and she knew she had met the patient adversary to counter her pride and her wrath.

The very kind that could choose to destroy her.

It was said that wrath was the last thing in a man to grow old, but the hymns never spoke of when it was answered in the young.

In her mind, as she pressed her smaller body into the man behind her, Jill could see the chess pieces sliding across the board once more.

No matter how the game would be won, the king and pawn would go into the same box when it ended.

But still, she wanted to win.

Just once.

She was still in his arms when she woke in the morning.